Private Cloud Ezine Vol3 Final

8/4/2019 Private Cloud Ezine Vol3 Final

1/20

PRIVATECLOUDe-zine

Strategies for buildinga private cloud

VO

L.

1

|

N0.

3|

AUGUST

2011

In this issue:

q TRENDS IN CLOUD COMPUTINGBy SearchCloudComputing.com Staff

q I.T. WITHOUT BORDERS

By Bob Plankers

q TOOLS TO UNLOCK THE POTENTIALOF A PRIVATE CLOUDBy Bill Claybrook


2/20

THE DISRUPTION OF cloud models

makes IT departments understand-

ably uneasy. Technology managers

can be a cautious bunch. Whats

more, aversion to change can pro-

tect your data centerand yourjobfrom sudden demise. Many IT

professionals just want to keep the

trains running rather than introduce

unproven technologies and wreak

havoc.

In IT Without Borders, Bob

Plankers considers this IT inertia as

well as the legitimate technology

concerns that fuel it. He also offers

advice on how IT departments canaddress networking, security and

application concerns in the cloud

without resorting to the traditional

siloed IT approach. Plankers encour-

ages IT to rethink assumptions.

Sage advice: Nearly 40% of 450-

plus respondents to a recent

TechTarget survey, for example, say

that cloud computing is introducingnew IT roles.

But IT change is only part of the

equation. Cloud technology has to

advance as well. As a result, many

data centers havent yet introduced

the true automation, monitoring and

service catalogs that characterize a

cloud environment. Instead, they

have highly virtualized data centers

that are still stuck in private clouds

waiting room.

In Tools to Unlock a Private

Clouds Potential, Bill Claybrooksurveys the maturity of available

tools in terms of key cloud capabili-

ties and considers cost and interop-

erability. But, as Claybrook acknowl-

edges, many of these tools remain

untested in production environ-

ments. Many tools are still too new

to have even garnered real-life cus-

tomers that can attest to their

virtues or downsides.Still, if cloud computing hasnt

moved beyond 1.0, the next several

months may be telling. If last years

flurry of August announcements is

any indication, cloud vendors are

likely aiming to release new versions

and tools with abandon. Last years

virtualization confab, VMworld, fea-

tured a dizzying array of legitimateand trumped-up cloud announce-

ments, so stay tuned.I

LAUREN HORWITZ

Senior Managing Editor,

Data Center and Virtualization

Media Group, TechTarget Inc.

P RI VAT E C LOU D E -Z IN E VOL . 1 , N O. 3 2

HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

1 EDITORS LETTER

PRIVATE CLOUDS

WAITING ROOM

E
http://searchvmworld2011.com/http://searchvmworld2011.com/


3/20

CloudOne on One

GETTING NIMBLE

IN THE CLOUD

Generally released in April 2011, Nim-

bula Director offers tools for enterpris-

es to create private cloud systems in

their own data centers as well as to

service providers to build public cloud

services. The technology provides cus-tomers with an Infrastructure as a

Service offering that is modeled on

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2),

which makes sense given that Nimbu-

las founders hail from EC2.

Reza Malekzadehthe former

marketing director at VMware Inc. and

now the VP of marketing at Nimbula

Inc.discussed how the technologyworks and where it stands out in an

increasingly crowded marketplace.

What is Nimbula Director?

Think of it like Amazon EC2 behind

a firewall: that is, having a private

cloud solution on your own infra-

structure. Within an organization,users can access a private cloud

infrastructure and create self-ser-

vice, self-provisioned virtual

machines. In addition to using their

own infrastructure, users can run

workloads on external clouds.

Intuit runs its TurboTax software,

on private infrastructure; that soft-

ware is central to its business. But

the company has specialized needsas well. Once a year, they rely on

Amazon for testing; its a periodic

need. That is the kind of use case we

P RI VAT E CLOU D E -Z IN E VO L. 1 , N O. 3 3

HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

1 TRENDS IN CLOUD COMPUTING

TRENDSin cloud computing

T

This isnot a black-

and-white world.People will choosethe best platform

for a givenapp.

Reza Malekzadeh,VP of marketing at Nimbula


4/20

envision for Nimbula Director.

How does Nimbula Director

fit into the marketplace?

Part of our vision is that this is not ablack-and-white world. Youre going

to have coexistence, where people

will choose the best platform for a

given app. They will keep their hard-

core, monolithic IT systems that

require fault tolerance on premises.

Those applications will continue to

run the way they run today: by ITand in-house.

But as they look to deploy new

apps that are scale-out architec-

P RI VAT E C LO UD E -Z IN E VO L. 1 , N O. 3 4

HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

A SPOTLIGHT ON NIMBULAS PRIVATE CLOUD

ARLINGTON, VA.-BASED Bioinformatics Inc. is a biomedical company that focuses on

computational genomics. Researchers in various departments need to run compu-

tation-intensive, demanding nucleotide sequencing analyses.

Multiple departments share a single supercomputer that is administrated by

central IT. Each department also has its own set of compute resources for smaller-

scale simulations. Running a large computation involves scheduling jobs with an

IT administrator and painstakingly specifying how the computation environment

needs to be set up and then waiting for the next slot to become available.

But with Nimbula Director, the company can move all compute resources into

a multi-tenant, private cloud, creating a shared resource pool from the supercom-

puter and the local departmental compute resources. These resources are thenavailable to users via an application programming interface, Web-based console

and command line interface in a self-service manner.

I Self-service provisioning. Instead of submitting work to a queue for processing

and relying on a systems administrator for setup and configuration, users can

configure, maintain and upload virtual machine images and launch instances of

their computation in a self-service fashion.

I Improved utilization. Sharing resources among multiple tenants can improve

utilization rates because resources are no longer left idle.

I Automating infrastructure management.Nimbula Director's automated man-

agement of cloud services and self-organizing architecture dynamically manages

failover of Nimbula components without human intervention.

I Computational suitability to parallelism. Genomic computations are well

suited to scale out, as computational load can be sensibly divided and spun off

to different virtual machines.

1 TRENDS IN CLOUD COMPUTINGT


5/20

tures and more tolerant of failure,

these applications are more suited

to a public or a private cloud archi-

tecture. We have customers, for

example, that use their infrastruc-ture for scientific computing, which

requires a lot of data crunching.

When they need extra capacity for a

week, they use public cloud services

instead of having to buy additional

hardware for that short period.

By contrast, their Oracle database

or Exchange Server runs internally

on traditional systems and architec-ture, but they use private and public

cloud architectures for new Web 2.0

architectures or data-crunching

applications that run during peak

times during the week.

How does Nimbula Director differ

from other cloud technologies?

A lot of systems are evolutions of

previously existing technologies and

provide layers of automation and

orchestration on top of existing

stacks. But with these technologies,you carry forward a lot of the deci-

sions previously made with that

architecture.

Nimbula Director was built from

scratch and doesnt have any bag-

gage to carry forward.

If you want to add capacity, our

system automatically detects your

hardware and does so automatical-ly. When you plug in physically to a

new server, the server does a pixie

boot. We will detect the boot and

install the software.

Nimbula Director doesnt have a

single point of failure. Replication or

failover mechanisms reside in all

management services in a distrib-


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

THE YEAR OF THE CLOUD?

More than 70% of respondents have budget for cloud projects in 2011.

72%Yes

SOURCE: CLOUD COMPUTING 2011ADOPTION SURVEY, TECHTARGET INC.,MARCH 2011; N=118 I.T. MANAGERS

17%No

11%Dont know

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I



6/20

CARE AND FEEDING REQUIRED

Nearly 70% of respondents spend a considerable amount of time

on the care and feeding of their private cloud.

SOURCE: CLOUD COMPUTING 2011 ADOPTIONSURVEY,TECHTARGET INC., MARCH 2011; N=154 I.T. MANAGERS

35% 34%

25%

6%

uted control plane.

Permissions are also different to

allow for better self-service. Users

can give permission and access to

their own content, so IT is thereforeno longer in the way on that path to

delegating access.

Then theres networking. In a tra-

ditional world, IT departments have

to deal with IP tables, firewalls, and

that can become overwhelming with

a scalable infrastructure with hun-

dreds or thousands of machines.

With Nimbula Director, applicationscan instead be assigned to network

security groups and have security

policy enforced independently of the

underlying network topology.

Third, theres pricing. We want

our pricing to reflect the more flex-

ible cloud model. So, for example,

if you install the software and useonly a certain number of cores, you

pay for that. If you burst to more,

were not going to penalize you.

At the end of the year, you pay for

excess capacity used. If you install

the software and use only half the

cores, we charge you only for that,

whereas competitors might charge

you for 500 if you use only 250. Ifyou use 300 on a consistent basis,

you pay for the extra 50.

BY LAUREN HORWITZ


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

uA considerable

amount. We bought

new hardware and

some tools to help

with automation

and management,

but the interface is

homegrown

uAll. Starting with

core technologies

such as virtualiza-

tion; we are devel-

oping our own cloud

platform and inter-

face

uSome. We bought a

pretty comprehen-

sive solution, but

we're implementing

it ourselves

uNone



7/20

Click here to learn more

Your business wants a Cloud.

You want your sanity.

Tame your Virtualization Monster andunleash the Cloud with Abiquo

Secure multi-tenant system, no user training required

Maximize operational eciency with single pane of glassinfrastructure Management

Business policies ensure compliance is automatically enforced
http://www2.abiquo.com/l/5702/2011-08-01/TDIM/5702/33022/Abiquo_1.8_datasheet.pdfhttp://www2.abiquo.com/l/5702/2011-08-01/TDIM/5702/33022/Abiquo_1.8_datasheet.pdfhttp://www2.abiquo.com/l/5702/2011-08-01/TDIM/5702/33022/Abiquo_1.8_datasheet.pdf


8/20

AS COMPANIES SEEK faster, better and

cheaper IT resources, hybrid clouds

seem like a natural fit.With hybrid clouds, IT can shift

workloads between internal data

centers and a commercial public

cloud provider environment during

peak periods. As a result, compa-

nies can adjust to new demands

without paying for always-on IT. For

growing businesses with variable

needs, cloud computing can reduce

costs while boosting project flexibili-ty and time to market.

But cloud computing still raises IT

hackles. Managers worry that

clouds violate traditional depart-

mental domains and practices, and

organizational inertia can run deep.

A cloud also imposes new demands

on IT infrastructure, from networks

to servers, and can strain the rela-tionships between their respective

teams. And cloud pricing and licens-

ing continue to pose serious chal-

lenges that further entrench divi-

sions and cut into cost savings.

Still, cloud computing has begun

to gain traction in corners of the

enterprise. So how can departments

bogged down by inertia take the

next step? They can start by consid-ering some of the factors that block

many cloud implementations,

including their own long-standing

silos.

NETWORKING CONSIDERATIONS

Cloud computing offers IT far

greater flexibility in how it delivers

services. When a new project cropsup or a workloads demands shift

suddenly, IT departments can move

the work to a commercial provider

or move resources internally until

the peak period elapses.

But that flexibility can also pose

networking challenges. By moving

applications off-site, companies

need good network connectivitybetween a data center site and a

public cloud provider so that users

dont experience performance

degradation. Good connectivity

comes in two forms: necessary

bandwidth and low latency.

Most businesses have sufficient

P RI VAT E C LO UD E -Z IN E VOL . 1 , N O. 3 8

HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

1 I .T. WITHOUT BORDERS

I.T. WITHOUT BORDERSCloud computing has changed the way IT resources aredesigned and managed. Siloed IT departments have to adjusttheir business-as-usual approach.BY BOB PLANKERS


9/20

network connections to support

email, Web browsing and general

company communication. Adding

traffic to the connection between an

external cloud provider and a com-pany requires planning to protect

the application or the original uses

of the network connection.

A typical data center network

particularly one with gigabit net-workshas a lot of bandwidth and

low latency. IT managers can also

monitor internal network equipment

usage to diagnose problems. But

when you move an application off-

site to a cloud provider, it is no

longer part of your data center net-

work. To access the application,

your network traffic must take alonger route across smaller network

links and links with greater latency.

My PC, for example, uses three

network segments, or hops, to

reach my companys HR application

and has a network latency of 0.3

milliseconds. Moving that applica-

tion to a commercial cloud provider

creates additional delay of about 20

milliseconds to a server in a com-

mercial cloud. It travels across net-

work segments of unknown size andthat cannot be monitored by inter-

nal IT staff. Some applications suffer

greatly when network latency is

introduced, especially if parts of an

applicationsuch as a database

are in-house and parts are in a com-

mercial cloud.

In addition, most commercial

cloud environments charge for net-work use. Charges of 10 cents or 15

cents per gigabyte of traffic arent

exorbitant. But charges start to add

up, especially when most organiza-

tions take their own fast network

speeds and flat-rate pricing for

granted. When you consider back-

ups for your cloud-based apps and

data refreshes, new deployments

and other day-to-day operationswith your applications, you may

spend money in unanticipated ways.

SECURITY

Security always needs to be part of

a cloud implementation plan. Pri-

vate cloud challenges are similar to

those in existing virtualization proj-ects, though, so most enterprises

shouldnt be surprised by the

requirements. But hybrid and public

cloud models change security

measures somewhat.

Private clouds can draw on your

IT groups traditional security mod-

PRIVATE CLOUD E-ZINE VOL. 1, NO. 3 9

HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

1 I.T. WITHOUT BORDERS

SOME APPLICATIONSSUFFER GREATLY WHENNETWORK LATENCYIS INTRODUCED,ESPECIALLY IF PARTSOF AN APPLICATIONARE IN-HOUSE ANDPARTS ARE IN ACOMMERCIAL CLOUD.


10/20

els, using classic network segmen-

tation techniques, such as virtual

local area networks, firewalling, and

intrusion detection and prevention

systems. Newer cloud technologies,such as VMware Inc.s vCloud

Director, propose new ways of

implementing firewalling and net-

work isolation. While they aim toimprove an IT staffs efficiency,

these new techniques can run afoul

of existing security and networking

practices that establish policies,

procedures and methodologies for

securing environments. Getting

these teams involved early in the

process of developing a cloud is key

for proper adoption.Hybrid clouds present particular

data access challenges. In response,

some cloud deployments adopt fair-

ly paranoid stances toward com-

mercial clouds. They generally

assume that you cannot trust the

security of the network between an

internal data center and a commer-

cial cloud host, nor can you trust the

security of the network between

two virtual machines in a commer-

cial cloud. They also often assumethat you cannot trust the security of

a clouds underlying storage or stor-

age network.

There are solutions to these prob-

lems, which are sometimes included

in a cloud product or underlying vir-

tualization technology. VMware, for

example, offers virtual private net-

working capabilities as part of itsvShield suite of products. The

VMsafe application programming

interface and other products, such

as VMware vShield or Altor Net-

works virtual security suite, can

achieve virtual firewalling. But all

these products add cost, staff train-

ing, and support time to a hybrid or

public cloud deployment. So you

need to consider whether you havepersonally identifiable information

or just data that is crucial to your

business, such as a customer list.

Different kinds of data dictate

greater or lesser degrees of security.

LEGACY APPLICATIONS

AND NEW FRAMEWORKSEnterprises are built on legacy appli-

cations. These applications assume

a traditional operating system, such

as Microsoft Windows, running on a

traditional server. The challenges of

moving legacy applications to a pri-

vate cloud are often the same as


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS


39%The number of respondents who

say that cloud computing has begun

to introduce new IT roles and titles,

such as the cloud architect.

SOURCE: "CLOUD COMPUTING 2011 ADOPTION SURVEY,"

TECHTARGET INC., MARCH 2011; N=459 I.T. MANAGERS


11/20

those in traditional virtualization

projects, including performance

problems and trouble migrating

highly customized applications. New

cloud-based approaches such asVMwares SpringSource offer radi-

cally different models for designing

applications, but they also change

how applications are deployed and

supported.

New application-based clouds

improve developers lives consider-

ably. They aim to mask the com-

plexities of OSes and networkingfrom application developers, enabling

them to write software that can be

deployed internally. Google App

Engine and VMware vFabric are

good examples. But while masking

these complexities enables applica-

tions to work and scale in cloud

environments, system administra-

tors lives, in turn, can get more

complex. How do these applicationsget backed up? How are they moni-

tored? How are they secured? Envi-

ronments such as VMware vFabric

tc Server are delivered as appliances,

whose black boxlike nature foils

traditional attempts to manage them.

DEPARTMENTAL SILOSCloud projects also disrupt

entrenched departmental silos and

functions. Because a cloud makes

resources more dynamic and can

strain performance and data securi-

ty, siloed IT teams are often forced

to come together to manage the

system as a whole.

But in many cases, one depart-

ments efforts to enhance a cloud

deployment can undermine the

work of another. Network profes-sionals, for example, spend a lot

of time worrying about how data

moves around the data center. They

size switch interconnections just

right for workloads. They configure

routers and firewalls to maximize

efficiency. They tweak everything

and monitor it thoroughly. And then

system administrators come alongand break all these assumptions

with live migration, hundreds of

guests per host, trunked network

ports and other virtualization tac-

tics. To boot, the systems guys now

work with technologies that have

traditionally been the domain of

networking, such as firewalling,

intrusion detection and prevention

systems, and network segmentationand design.

Storage professionals share some

of these challenges. Their traditional

usage model for a storage area net-

work is disrupted. Storage arrays

choke under all the seemingly ran-

dom I/O from cloud hosts. Security

models for networks, storage and

applications all need revision, too.Change and configuration manage-

ment becomes taxing. Even system

administratorsoften cited as the

cause of all this chaosare thrown

into the mix, as separate depart-

ments that previously ran their own

servers are forced together into a


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS



12/20

single cloud mandated by manage-

ment.

Change is difficult, and the transi-

tion to a cloud causes great anxiety

as we rethink traditional IT. Thereare solutions to these problems,

though. When it comes down to it,

storage, networking, systems and

security teams have to communi-

cate about requirements and con-

cerns. They also have to move at a

comfortable pace for everyone that

allows problems to be identified and

resolved before they become over-whelming. Rather than being seen

as a time sink, a cloud deployment

offers an opportunity to rethink

existing practices and fix the broken

processes that IT has endured for

years.

LICENSE FEES, SUPPORT, INTE-

GRATION AND CHARGEBACK

In addition to the disruptive nature

of cloud technologies, cloud licens-

ing adds complexity. Increasingly

complex systems that need tweak-

ing, troubleshooting and monitoring

threaten to eat into cloud cost sav-

ings through lost staff time.

Private clouds are composed of

layers of software, from commonvirtualization technology at the bot-

tom, management layers in the mid-

dle, and user interfaces on the top.

Each layer needs a different tool,

and with each tool comes a license

fee and a yearly support cost. Each

tool also requires staff time to install

as well as ongoing time to support

the tool with patches and upgrades.

Additionally, integration work is

often needed for user access via

corporate Active Directory or LDAPinstances or between financial sys-

tems and cloud chargeback and

reporting products.

A private clouds chargeback-

based billing system is also daunt-

ing, where IT charges individual

departments for IT usage. Like a

monthly phone bill, chargeback

involves variable-rate charges thatcan catch departments unaware or

prompt user resistance.

Even choosing an accounting

method can be problematic. Do

you charge based on resources

consumed, or do you charge a flat

fee? Flat fees are nice for budget

estimations, but they may not be

fair, where small virtual servers sub-

sidize large ones. If you chargebased on resource consumption,

you have to track resource con-

sumption as well, which adds com-

plexity and staff monitoring tasks.

Charging based on resource con-

sumption can also invite political

battles. Tracking CPU usage can be

particularly contentious because its

highly variable. When a departmentreceives a bill for CPU usage, it may

challenge why it has to pay for IT

tasks, such as server patching, that

were previously free. Too much

focus on the costs charged back can

also prompt those being billed to

optimize the amount spent, which


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS



13/20

ADDITIONAL RESOURCESNetwork Considerations in Cloud Computing

For many cloud-based applications, network performance will become the key to

cloud computing performance.

Preparing for a Hybrid Cloud Move

If youre considering a move to the cloud, how can you ensure adequate bandwidth,

low latency and secure access to servers and data?

Weighing the Cloud Computing Standards Dilemma

Today, VMwares Open Virtualization Format is one of the only available cloud com-

puting standards. But on its own, it hardly solves the cloud interoperability issue.

The Politics of Chargeback

The problem with private cloud chargeback isnt technology; its politics. Most or-

ganizations simply arent prepared for this shift in charging internally for services. I

usually undermines the efficiency of

the entire cloud environment. As a

result, many chargeback systems

take simpler approaches, imple-

menting a base charge plus RAMand disk allocations.

INEVITABLE CHANGE

For most organizations, designing

and managing a private cloud is a

tectonic shift in existing IT opera-

tions. All layers of the data center

stack require retooling to ensuresolid network, storage, and applica-

tion performance, secure data

exchange, and flexibility in a cloud

environment.

Changes can be welcome, though,

as cloud designers rethink old

processes and methods. Cloud com-

puting affects everyone in IT. So

now, more than ever, cloud archi-

tects need to communicate andwork actively with network, security,

and systems counterparts on design,

support and processes. These inter-

connected technologies and prac-

tices require an interconnected plan.

Only in breaking down internal

borders can companies truly cope

with these technology shifts and

and begin to focus on strategic busi-ness goals. I

Bob Plankers is a virtualization and cloud

architect at a major Midwestern university.

He is also the author ofThe Lone Sysadmin blog.


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Network-considerations-in-cloud-computinghttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Network-considerations-in-cloud-computinghttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Preparing-for-a-hybrid-cloud-movehttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/feature/Weighing-the-cloud-computing-standards-dilemmahttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/1361856/Price-politics-working-against-VMware-vCenter-Chargebackhttp://lonesysadmin.net/http://lonesysadmin.net/http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Network-considerations-in-cloud-computinghttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Preparing-for-a-hybrid-cloud-movehttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/feature/Weighing-the-cloud-computing-standards-dilemmahttp://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/news/1361856/Price-politics-working-against-VMware-vCenter-Chargebackhttp://lonesysadmin.net/


14/20

AS ENTERPRISES CONSIDER private

clouds, they can get easily derailed

by deciding which management tools

best suit their environments. Private

clouds need tools to automate and

orchestrate tasks, monitor servers,

and call up services from a catalog.

But today, some private clouds

are being created without thesecapabilities. Without them, youve

likely got a highly virtualized data

center, not a private cloud. To get to

the next level, enterprises need to

carefully consider cloud manage-

ment tool choices as well as cost,

compatibility and other factors spe-

cific to an organizations data center

environment.But finding a mature-enough tool

that suits a data centers needs

and at the right price pointcan be

difficult. Cloud management tools

are still a developing market. So lets

survey some private cloud comput-

ing tools on the market that can

bring automation, orchestration,

monitoring and service catalogs

to a cloud implementation.

ENABLING ORCHESTRATION

AND AUTOMATION

While the terms automation and

orchestration are often used inter-changeably, there is a subtle differ-

ence between the two. Automation

is generally associated with a single

task, whereas orchestration is asso-

ciated with a workflow process for

several tasks.

To better understand the impor-

tance of automation in a private

cloud, lets compare traditional datacenter server provisioning with vir-

tual server provisioning in a virtual-

ized environment. Server virtualiza-

tion can reduce server provisioning

time, but not installation time. IT

staff members use labor-intensive

management tools and manual


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

2 TOOLS TO UNLOCK A PRIVATE CLOUDS POTENTIAL

TOOLS TO UNLOCK

A PRIVATE CLOUDSPOTENTIALTrue private clouds need tools to automate and orchestratetasks, monitor servers, and enable users to call up services.BY BILL CLAYBROOK


15/20


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS


scripts to control and manage a data

center infrastructure. But they wont

be able to keep pace with the con-

tinuous stream of configuration

changes associated with a privateclouds dynamic provisioning and

virtual machine (VM) movement.

Nor can they maintain access and

security changes. This is why

process automation becomes so

important in a private cloud.

Orchestration is also key. It coor-

dinates and manages servers, stor-

age, security and networks to deliverservices to users. Residing between

cloud services and a cloud infra-

structure, orchestration is based on

policies that define relationships

among users, servers, storage, secu-

rity and networks. Policies are auto-

matically translated in real time into

device configurations that dynami-

cally provision whichever resources

are necessary. The orchestrationtool for the hypervisor management

system, for example, communicates

CPU and memory requirements for

virtual server provisioning.

All these functionsallocating

CPU for a virtual server; allocating

storage; setting up routers, firewalls

or switches to support the newly

provisioned virtual serverare auto-mated. The orchestration function

coordinates all the automated con-

figuration changes throughout all

systems and hardware; it is a single

point of control. Without automa-

tion and orchestration tools, IT has

to manually re-provision and opti-

mize resources to reflect even the

smallest changes in an environment.

Automation and orchestration,

however, wont solve all your prob-

lems. They may help you makeinfrastructure changes more rapidly,

but these changes have to be re-

corded nearly simultaneously so

that the orchestration function has

the up-to-date configuration data

needed to make decisions, such as

allocating CPU and storage. The

rapidity of change stemming from

automation and self-service in pri-vate cloud environments requires a

more efficient approach to configu-

ration management and change man-

agement: processes that live inside

an IT organization. Configuration

management databases (CMDBs)

can record these changes in real time.

AUTOMATION AND

ORCHESTRATION TOOLS

LineSider Technologies Inc. (which

was acquired by Cisco Systems Inc.)

and CA Technologies are two of sev-

eral companies that offer automa-

tion tools.

LineSider OverDrive focuses on

networks and automates nework

services provisioning and deploy-ment in cloud environments. When

resources are moved or changed,

policy-driven OverDrive modifies

and changes the underlying network

infrastructure. OverDrive sits be-

tween an LDAP directory, a hypervi-

sor manager and device controllers.


16/20

It manages routing and virtual pri-

vate networks (VPNs), switching

and VLANs, and firewalls and their

access control lists.

The CA Automation Suite forData Centers includes CA Server

Automation, CA Virtual Automa-

tion, CA Process Automation and

CA Configuration Automation. The

technology automates server provi-

sioning, processes and configuration

management. It provides support

for Windows, Red Hat Enterprise

Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX, Hyper-V

and VMware Inc.s ESX.

There are other automation tools,

such as IBMs Tivoli Service Automa-

tion Manager and Hewlett-Packard

Co.s Cloud Service Automation

offering. Of these tools and many

others, LineSider OverDrive best

approximates what an automation

tool should be.

MONITORING PRIVATE

CLOUD PERFORMANCE

Monitoring ensures that applications

meet performance targets and helps

answer questions such as these:

I

What is the response timefrom storage devices?

I What is the performance

of an application?

I How is my compute and

storage bandwidth being used?

Virtualization, however, has added

a layer of abstraction to traditional

monitoring; we can no longer meas-

ure performance by looking only at

physical devices. With network vir-

tualization, network operations

teams have struggled to look past

the abstraction and identify events

at the physical level. New perform-

ance monitoring tools provide

insight into the infrastructure for

physical and virtual elements, allow-

ing operations staff to make betterdecisions about how to configure

and allocate workloads in virtual

environments.

If you look at the evolution of

ITfrom mainframes with shared

resources to client/server with dedi-

cated resources and now back to

shared resources with low-cost

hardwaresystems behave differ-ently. We have dependencies in vir-

tualized environments that did not

exist in the client/server architec-

ture. With no clear lines of depend-

encies, the way we monitor and

manage is changing. Interactions

have grown more complex than


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS


VIRTUALIZATION HASCOMPLICATED TRADI-TIONAL MONITORING;WE CAN NO LONGERMEASURE PERFORM-ANCE BY LOOKING ONLYAT PHYSICAL DEVICES.


17/20

those in the client/server world.

So how do application perform-

ance tools work? They monitor

memory utilization, CPU utilization

and performance metrics. The appli-cation is associated with the guest

operating systems; the guest OS is

associated with the hypervisor run-

ning on a physical server. The asso-

ciations continue with a network

port to the storage resources. Moni-

toring provides the linkage all the

way through the infrastructure to

the application.SolarWinds has one of the most

complete sets of monitoring tools

on the market. It provides monitor-

ing for network, storage, application,

server and virtualization perform-

ance management. This set of tools

monitors the cloud stack from top to

bottom through the devices them-

selves.

SolarWinds Hyper9 Virtualiza-tion Manager provides visibility into

the health of CPUs, memory and

networks in a virtual environment.

It allows guest virtual servers to be

mapped from the application down

to the data stores. If, for example,

you add a fourth virtual server and

suffer a sudden performance drop,

you can trace the problem to diskresources, the I/O resources being

used and the host that the servers

run on. There is potential to quickly

identify bottlenecks and make

immediate changes.

AccelOps monitoring tools cap-

ture and analyze information about

the network infrastructure. IT staff

can use AccelOps to access status,

events, trends and configuration

data about networks, network

devices, systems, applications andvirtual environments. You can also

set up alerts on performance or

memory allocation problems. And

if you want to investigate a security

issue, AccelOps offers a recap of

recent changes to a virtual server.

AccelOps deployment involves

installing the AccelOps application

as a VM on a VMware ESX platform.Nimsoft provides monitoring

software for private clouds. The

software tools monitor servers, net-

work devices, databases and appli-

cations, along with virtualized envi-

ronments such as ESX, vSphere,

Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix Sys-

tems Inc.s XenServer. Nimsoft works

with cloud providers such as Rack-

space, Amazon.com, Salesforce.comand Google; it also integrates with

CMDBs and service desks.

SERVICE CATALOGS IN THE CLOUD

Service catalogs are now core to

cloud computing. A service catalog

contains a list of automated services

that are available via a self-serviceportal. It demonstrates service avail-

ability and triggers steps to provi-

sion many types of enterprise serv-

ices. A service catalog is typically a

front-end Web-based listing of serv-

ices, products and pricing delivered

by the back-office IT infrastructure.


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS



18/20

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Cloud Services Beg for Nimbler Management

Cloud management tools are in demand as IT shops look to cloud computing

services to handle virtual machines, server management and automation.

Using CMDBs and Service Catalogs to Build Private Clouds

Clouds rapidity of change require a more efficient approach to configuration

management and change management. IT organizations have turned to tools like

service catalogs and configuration management databases to improve efficiency.

Private Cloud IT Automation Vendors Brush Up Their Wares

IT organizations starting new projects or buying new gear expect cloud features. I

To receive the full benefits of cloud,

users must be able to request the

services they need and IT must be

able to respond to those requests

quickly. A service catalog allowsusers to serve themselves by choos-

ing from a menu of cloud service

offerings. IT organizations that

implement private clouds should

provide a service catalog to estab-

lish standards, provide users with

convenient online access to cloud

services and help orchestrate

automation of services.Part of the service catalog design

challenge is to ensure that the cata-

log is well integrated with the nec-

essary components required for a

seamless workflow: service desk,

CMDBs and provisioning and

change management tools.

Along with other companies,

NewScale provides service catalog

software; RequestCenter provides

users with an easy-to-use service

catalog. HP has introduced the HP

Service Manager Service Catalog

that is integrated with several HPproducts. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Man-

agement includes a policy-driven

service catalog, and CA Oblicore

Guarantee provides the capability

to create service catalogs.

TIPS TO ENHANCE

A PRIVATE CLOUDToday, too many so-called private

clouds are being created without

automation, sufficient monitoring or

service catalogs. These implemen-

tations will have difficulty realizing

all the benefits of cloud computing.

Big and small companies supply

tools for each of these important

functions. Some, such as LineSider


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS

http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/2240034087/Cloud-services-beg-for-nimbler-managementhttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Using-CMDBs-and-service-catalogs-to-build-private-cloudshttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/1380574/Private-cloud-IT-automation-vendors-brush-up-their-wareshttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/2240034087/Cloud-services-beg-for-nimbler-managementhttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Using-CMDBs-and-service-catalogs-to-build-private-cloudshttp://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/news/1380574/Private-cloud-IT-automation-vendors-brush-up-their-wares


19/20

and Oblicore, have been acquired by

larger companies like Cisco Systems

and CA Technologies, respectively,

and integrated with other products

to form more complete cloud man-agement suites. Most of these tools

are so new and untested in produc-

tion environments that you should

talk to vendors reference cus-

tomers. If vendors dont have refer-

ence customers to offer, beware.

Using tools from acquired compa-

nies may lock you in to the larger

companies that purchased them.This is a frequent problem with

acquisitions: One companys man-

agement tools get buried within a

larger set of products and are no

longer sold separately.

Monitoring tools are most likely

to be insufficient in virtual environ-

ments. And data centers often try to

use whatever monitoring tools they

had in their traditional environment.But these tools wont provide suffi-

cient, if any, monitoring of traffic

between virtual components. Local

communication between virtual

servers can go largely unmonitored;

traffic that runs through a virtual

switch is practically invisible be-

cause it never hits wire. To ensure

the optimal private cloud experi-ence, virtual traffic between VMs

needs to be monitored. I

Bill Claybrook is an analyst with more than 30

years of experience in the computer industry.

He is now president of New River Marketing

Research in Concord, Mass.


HOME

EDITORS LETTER

TRENDS

I.T. WITHOUT

BORDERS

PRIVATE

CLOUD TOOLS


Jo Maitland

Executive Editor

Steve Cimino

Site Editor

Lauren Horwitz

Michelle Boisvert

Senior Managing Editors

Jeannette Beltran

Eugene Demaitre

Martha Moore

Associate Managing Editors

Linda KouryDirector of Online Design

Cathleen Gagne

Editorial Director

Marc Laplante

Publisher

TechTarget Inc.

275 Grove StreetNewton, MA 02466

www.techtarget.com

2011 TechTarget Inc. No part of this publication maybe transmitted or reproduced in any form or by any meanswithout written permission from the publisher. For permis-

sions or reprint information, please contact Scott Kelly,Director of Product Management, Data Center Media,

TechTarget ([email protected] ).
http://newrivermarketingresearch.com/http://newrivermarketingresearch.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://newrivermarketingresearch.com/http://newrivermarketingresearch.com/mailto:[email protected]


20/20

RESOURCES FROM OUR SPONSOR

See ad page 7

MSP - Abiquo Making a Splash in the Hosting World

About Abiquo:

Abiquo represents the next generation of Cloud management solutions. Designed to meet

strategic objectives, rather than as a temporary tactical fix, it is built to realize our vision of

virtualized infrastructure management. Based on open standards, Abiquo allows organizations

of all sizes to dramatically improve business agility, mitigate risk, and reduce costs.
http://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1309960440_407.htmlhttp://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1309960440_407.htmlhttp://www.abiquo.com/

Documents

Private Cloud Ezine Vol3 Final