OperatingHybrid InfrastructureCreating Operating Environments that Span Clouds and Physical Infrastructures

Rob Hirschfeld, CEORackN Data Center Automation for Hybrid Infrastructure Exchanges

Hybrid is an overloaded term!

Multiple Hybrid Dimensions:

● Different Vendors● Different Platforms● Different APIs● Different DevOps Tools● Different Operating Systems

We’re talking about using infrastructure in change tolerant way.

The only predictable thing about infrastructure is that is will change. Hybrid acknowledges that you will be using old and new and new new.

Hybrid Infrastructure is the new normal

TWO THIRDS OF ENTERPRISESHAVE HYBRID IT

(IDC)

And Infrastructure choice is increasing

and many

others...

and many

others...

AWS

GCE Azure RackSpace

and many

others...

“Bare Metal”

On average, large enterprises are using about two dozen cloud services from nine providers (Gartner)

VMware OpenStack OpenStack

Public

Private

Tools do not manage Hybrid IT - not just cloud, but ALL Infrastructure

Cross-Platform Orchestration (aka Hybrid DevOps) fills gaps left by current ops tools

and many

others...

and many

others...

AWS

GCE Azure RackSpace

and many

others...

“Bare Metal”VMware OpenStack OpenStack

“Why is it so hard to scale up this infrastructure?”

“We need clawback our apps from AWS”

“Data locality means I need data centers all over the world”

“I need to consolidate data centers. How do I simplify management too?”

So…. we need a single API!

No.

No single API or Platform wins.

Infrastructures have unique requirements

Platforms

WorkloadCloud, Physical & NetworkPhysical Infrastructures

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Application W

orkloads“Bare Metal”

Ops need to create a system-wide control fabric by composing lots of individual actions in sequence

Orchestration

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To Vendors:AWS Drives Operational Patterns

AWS Azure

GCE

IBM

RAXDO

Amazon is so dominant in infrastructure that their patterns (API and Implementation) must be factored into any operational discussion. Even if it is a physical only deployment.

Our hybrid DevOps objective is simple: We need multi-infrastructure Amazon equivalence for ops automation.

This trend will accelerate an AWS competitor work to reduce switching friction off AWS. It is easier to recruit cloud users from AWS than IT Ops.

To Enterprise IT:AWS is disruptivebut not only choiceWhile AWS dominates the market, individual companies have a much more mixed infrastructure. They are starting from existing workloads.

There are many factors for IT in infrastructure vendor choice including relationships, control and cost.

When, mono-infrastructure is dead then portability becomes critical.

AWS still sets the operations standard and that ultimately influences back into internal IT.

AWS

Azure

IBM

PrivateCloud?

InternalIT

What makesHybrid hard?

Beneficial Diversity.

It may not be pretty, but working Ops is not wrongThere are many ways to run infrastructure. Just because it’s different (or last generation) does mean that it’s wrong.

Burning down your data center is not an effective option.

Most operators would happily migrate to new tools if it was less disruptive. The alternative is to create more operational silos.

Operations drives Infrastructure

Software

Hardware

Ops

When I worked for Dell, we thought we could sell Scale Cloud and Big Data by just bundling them with some servers.

Scale platforms have very high operational requirements and require automation.

This is especially true because the platforms have sub-six month release cycles.

Selling hardware or software without and operational story will frustrate customers.

Data Center Ops

APP

Hybrid Needs Composable Parts

Deployments are always composed of a lot of moving parts. They are both integrated both vertically and horizontally (not shown). So incremental changes will dstrupt the whole stack.

Everything is always changing.

Robust deployments must be build with composable modules so that they can be fault tolerant and resilient to change.

It is very expensive to add composition afterwards!

Mgmt Tools

Logical Net

Operating System

Infrastructure

Provisioning

APP

Mgmt Tools

Logical Net

Operating System

Infra-structure

Provision-ing

DC Ops

Fragile Mono-Integration

InterchangeableComposition

Mgmt Tools

Logical Net

Operating System

Infra-Structure

as a Service

In Summary:● Hybrid Infrastructure is new normal● Amazon is the Ops benchmark● Embrace operations automation● Invest in making it composable

My blog http://RobHirschfeld.com@zehicle on Twitter