Jeff Jaffe’s Blog

Final in a series about Novell’s comprehensive approach to cloud computing.

Reprise

In The Cloud, we identified five cloud infrastructure priorities:

• Connect
• Secure
• Manage
• Develop
• Collaborate

We’ve elaborated about Connect, Develop, Secure, and Collaborating in the Cloud, and here we complete the discussion.

Choice

A key value provided by cloud computing is choice.

• Customer choice to obtain capacity. Historically, users received capacity for tasks via dedicated physical servers. With virtualization the focus shifted to optimizing performance by consolidating workloads. While this improves data center efficiency it does not necessarily optimize for an individual user. Going forward, users will have many methods of executing workloads:
  • Physical server
  • Integrated into a physical appliance
  • Virtualized
  • A virtual appliance that is deployed in an enterprise or in a cloud.
  • Directly in the cloud

  For the last—there are numerous models to executing workloads in the cloud ranging from Software as a Service, to running an application in the cloud (with the cloud providing Infrastructure as a Service), to hybrids—such as an application running within an enterprise—leveraging cloud resources (such as storage or processing) for a piece of the application.

• Agility. Classically, when users need capacity they go through their company’s procurement cycle. Even if the user has budget they rarely get capacity on demand. They go through the company’s procurement or allocation cycles to get capacity ordered or assigned. There is greater agility to get resources if they can be procured on-demand from the cloud.

• Scale. For applications with a disparity between peak resource needs and average needs there is a challenge to determine how much capacity to allocate. Procuring for the peak is expensive—procuring for the average does not provide adequate capacity for peak times. Cloud resources—whether available as part of a private cloud within an enterprise (that allows sharing of resources within the enterprise)—or available through public vendors allows for dynamic scale. Scale has value at different points in the lifecycle. On the one hand, it is useful for applications being tested or trialed as it can provide resource for a limited amount of time. But it is also useful for production applications where capacity needs can be quite dynamic.

Management

When one considers the choices available, and the dynamic range of application needs—it is challenging for an enterprise to have a comprehensive approach to manage their “owned” resources in conjunction with cloud resources. How does an enterprise decide whether to use a physical or virtual server; to allocate based on peak or average case; to optimize for latency or utilization; to use an appliance; to use a public cloud? This optimization has always been a challenge but has gotten more challenging with virtualization and cloud computing. Add to that different policies that customers have about where to assign their workloads, heterogeneity in underlying platform technologies, and the diversity in cloud computing models—you have an area of considerable confusion for customers and opportunity for a vendor.

Challenges of management of resources in a cloud environment are not limited to enterprises that are interfacing to the cloud. There is an analogous challenge for cloud providers to effectively manage their resources and to guide their users to effectively leverage cloud resources.

A Living Laboratory

Cloud management is a multi-faceted challenge. An enterprise deals with a multiplicity of cloud models and integrates with enterprise management. Companies that are providing services require tailored management solutions. We are in a period of great ferment, all of the models are changing and underlying assumptions are being tested.

The best way to learn about cloud management is to develop solutions in conjunction with a leading provider of IT services. An IT service provider is both an enterprise as well as a provider of services to other enterprises. This is why I mentioned in “Progress on Systems Management and the Service Driven Data Center” that our partnership with ACS—providing technology for the ACS Management Platform—is key. Specifically, to repeat from three months ago:

• The partnership allows us to explore advanced management features in a demanding environment. This includes workload management, automation, and virtualization. We instantiate these ideas in a fully integrated fashion.
• The partnership allows us to explore emerging operating environments. Not only are physical and virtual deployments of relevance but we have also included cloud computing as a focus area.
• To address critical security needs, identity management and security solutions will be prominently featured.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Identity, Security and Systems Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.