The Journey to the Cloud

How to get there from here? So you are considering, planning, mapping, or contemplating moving your IT infrastructure to a cloud-based model. You have heard much about it from vendors, trade publications, even the popular media, but have you broken it down into its lowest common dominators?

There are four basic milestones. Each of these have to be reached before you can move to the next phase, so planning for each phase is important.

Tier 0: The beginning

First, let’s assume that your IT stack is a traditional setup with multiple vendors’ servers, storage, and networking. In this infrastructure, an application like SAP/Oracle would have its own dedicated resources. The database and applications would all sit on a physical server with dedicated physical storage and, usually, semi-dedicated (zoned) networking. The database administrator would be limited to those resources. Adding resources would involve scheduled downtime. The standard setup also creates operation silos and bottlenecks in administration and information flow.

Tier 1: Virtualization

The first step is virtualization. You must virtualize the foundations of your environment before you can start providing services. There are three basic building blocks of any given infrastructure: Servers, storage, and networking.

Take storage as an example. If you are an average IT shop, you have at least three storage vendors and, usually, a combination of two different technologies such as SAN and NAS. This provides you with very little flexibility. Virtualization of storage, on the other hand, is a key feature: You can monitor, manage, and distribute storage according to its properties, not according to its vendor or type.

Let’s say you need very fast disk for a new production database. In legacy infrastructures, that disk would exist inside a single vendor’s disk array. However, if virtualized, the disk could exist across multiple vendors’ storage — even in different cities.

Servers are now virtualized with products like VMware and ZEN. This blurs the lines between physical resources and the actual places where applications live and, unfortunately, creates a point at which more complexity could choke an organization. This physical vs. virtual relationship must be proactively managed to avoid further complicating the IT infrastructure.

If you do not have a solid virtualization layer, moving to the next phase of the cloud model is very hard to do. This is how you create that layer:

? Storage virtualization “pools” physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device regardless of device type or vendor. It is managed from a central console.

? Server virtualization “masks” or “hides” server resources from server users. Server resources include the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems. A server administrator uses a software application to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments. Virtual environments are sometimes called virtual private servers, but they are also known as guests, instances, containers, or emulations.

? Network virtualization is a method of combining available resources by splitting up available network bandwidth into channels. Each channel is independent from the others, and each can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular server or device in real time.

Tier 2: Private Cloud

With a good virtualization foundation, a private cloud is the next step. A private cloud is a type of cloud computing that delivers advantages similar to traditional infrastructures, including scalability and self-service, but through a single customer architecture. Unlike public clouds that deliver services to multiple organizations, a private cloud is dedicated to a single organization. In other words, the cloud belongs to only a single customer and none of its resources are shared with anyone else.

In a private cloud, “Anything-as-a-Service,” or XaaS, is provided by virtual server hosts, storage, networking, and applications. As requirements increase, the infrastructure can be configured dynamically to match exactly what is needed. Resources are pulled from the “pool” that contains servers, storage, and networking, and then applied to an environment that matches the requirements needed.

Applications-as-a-Service (AaaS) is a great example. If a development team wants a copy of the production environment so they can test new code, your administrators can automatically clone the resource types you have in production and set them aside for testing. The same types of servers, storage, and even load can be configured. Your administrators can even scale it back so that it uses tier 2 instead of tier 1 resources, and saves high-end resources for the production environment.

As you see, private clouds provide a vast improvement in operating efficiency and standardization because administrators can set the rules and create automated templates to guide the creation of new environments. This new infrastructure also enables administrators to start offering IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) to other groups inside their own company. For example, in the past, Database Administrators (DBAs) who needed a new instance of DB2 usually would ask for the maximum of everything they might need. However, you and the DBA both knew they were asking for WAY too much power. In this new cloud environment, everything has a cost that is related to the precise services needed. Therefore, if a DBA wants Tier 1 servers and storage, it will cost US $XXX. The same configuration with Tier 2 servers and storage, will only cost US $X. This money will come out of the DBA’s budget. As a result, database administrators will ask for what they need, not what they want.

This new cloud infrastructure turns the traditional IT environment into a cost recovery center where resources are used to their full potential and provide services to those applications and systems that need it most.

Tier 3: Hybrid Cloud

Once you have the private cloud model in place, you should consider transitioning to a hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud will stretch the IT infrastructure you have in your private cloud into the public domain. You can take want you do in your private cloud and extend the reach into public clouds like Azure and Google. You will be able to diversify your IT infrastructure and have some of your servers, applications, and load sitting in a public cloud.

“Bubble servers” (interconnected VMs) are a great example of how this works. Let’s say a bank has a hybrid model in place. When the load on its online banking system becomes too high for the infrastructure, the hybrid connection to the public cloud will enable them to automatically create new virtual systems there to handle the temporary load. This flexibility is key. There are no dedicated systems sitting around waiting to be used; instead, you can use the rented resources of the hybrid cloud.

So why would you want to move from a public cloud to a hybrid cloud? Here are the top three reasons:

? Use Both Public and Private Clouds: By intermixing private and public cloud infrastructures, companies are able to leverage the best of what each has to offer. The hybrid model permits businesses to rely on the cost-effective public cloud for non-sensitive operations, and use the private cloud for critical, sensitive operations. Moreover, companies can use the public cloud as needed with applications that already exist in the data center, along with private cloud assets. This makes for a more flexible IT environment.

? Enhanced Agility: Rather than pigeon-holing a company into one model or another, a hybrid cloud provides it the agility needed to move seamlessly between the two clouds. The hybrid cloud has emerged as a new, disruptive, powerful, and economical way to deliver IT services instead of the traditional hardware- and premises-bound model.

? Overall Cost Savings: You will not have to rip-and-replace your legacy technology. Instead, a hybrid cloud model will enable you to bridge the gap between old and new systems while providing significant CAPEX and OPEX savings. What’s more, with this type of model, companies can enjoy seamless scaling by allocating resources for immediate projects at a much lower cost.

Tier 3.5: IT-as-a-Service

This could be the next way you do business. IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) is a technology-delivery method that treats Information Technology (IT) as a commodity, providing enterprises with exactly the amount of hardware, software, and support they need for an agreed-on fee. In this context, IT encompasses all of the technologies for creating, storing, exchanging, and using business data.

ITaaS requires minimal upfront IT investments. Instead, regular, predictable expenses provide financial transparency. It also is very scalable because it can use a mix of private, public, and hybrid technologies to provide “always on” solutions.

Here is an example: Imagine that you are a dentist, and you take up to 10 high-resolution images of each patient’s teeth once a year. Let’s say you have 500 total patients; that’s a total of 5,000 images. If each image is 50 MB, that is a total of 250,000 MB (0.24 TB) a year. But that quickly jumps to 2.4 TB in just 10 years. What’s more, you have to store all those images and files for the life of each patient.

But you have an idea for a brand-new business model. You create an offering that keeps all these images in a public dentist cloud, then you sell the service to all the dentists so they need very little IT in their offices. Since your service keeps the files for the life of each patient, dentists will not need an on-site administrator. Now you have created a solution to all dentists’ problem: how to store all that data in the most convenient manner.

How do I get there from here?

First, you break the vendor chains and virtualize your environment so that you can start using your IT infrastructure in a more dynamic manner. Second, you start to use a virtual foundation to build internal processes for the automatic and dynamic use of resources that match the requirements of each project, regardless of the underlying vendor or technology. Finally, you look to existing public cloud technology to give you the flexibility to expand and contract as needed. With these items put in place, you can then look to the future and develop a business that will enable you, and your customers to grow your businesses.

What’s more, you can create your cloud the way you want as long as you follow these easy-to-understand, high-level steps. There may be difficulties along the way, but the journey to the cloud model does not have to be shrouded in mystery.

Originally posted: https://hweblog.com/the-journey-to-the-cloud