Moving To The Cloud: The Last Easy Decision
March 1, 2011 1 Comment
By now, you’ve read all the analyst reports, news articles, press releases, and blogger ramblings regarding the benefits of cloud computing. Begrudgingly, you understand that although Cloud Computing began as a marketing fad, the technology behind it is real and is here to stay.
Perhaps you are dabbling in virtualization while considering upgrading your aging networking and storage equipment. You wonder about the risks associated with moving aggressively toward this new type of infrastructure while considering migrating entire services to Application Cloud providers such as Service-now, Salesforce, or Microsoft’s new Cloud offerings.
Privately, you worry about the demands and pressures placed on your current IT staff. If Cloud computing is going to work then you must find a way to tear down the silos that have existed for decades. A successful transition will require not only a well thought out plan but the flawless execution of said plan.
Finally, you wonder what role Amazon EC2, Rackspace, AT&T, Verizon, SAVVIS, and others will play in your future. Costs are one thing, security and reliability is another. After all, even Google struggles to provide the vaunted 5 9’s of reliability. Even if you find the perfect provider, will they remain independent or fall victim to the inevitable consolidation of the industry?
Weighing all the risks, you decide to build a private cloud first while eyeing the benefits of a hybrid or public cloud architecture. Confidently, you call in your IT Directors or Managers and instruct them to provide you with a detailed cost analysis of building your new architecture.
Unfortunately, the easy part is over; where do you begin? Do you start with picking a server or compute vendor or a storage vendor? Do you call in your trusted networking vendor to understand what they have to offer? Do you exit your comfort zone and call one of these newer vendors with cloud ready equipment?
The server team loves HP and is pushing Matrix, but you’ve read a lot about Cisco UCS, Dell Datacenter/Cloud Solutions, and IBM’s new Blade offerings. The storage team loves EMC, but you’re intrigued by HP’s purchase of 3Par and Dell’s purchase of Compellent, not to mention NetApp. Your storage networking team is loyal to Brocade, but if you purchase Cisco UCS then why not implement the Nexus and MDS? Your networking team is partial to Cisco and are all certified Cisco engineers, but you wonder if Brocade, Juniper, or upstarts like Aristra are the way to go? Unified fabric or Qfabric? Fibre channel, ISSCI, or fiber channel over Ethernet? What about the impacts of multi-hop fiber channel over Ethernet? Is it time to upgrade your power, cooling, cabling, racks, too?
Next come even tougher questions regarding the software vendors. Do you choose Microsoft, VMware, Citrix, Red Hat, or Oracle, as your virtualization vendor? Are your current software vendors certified on these platforms? You’ve been reading about Vblocks, could this help or does it force you into purchasing Cisco, EMC, and VMware? What about open source alternatives?
Finally, how do Openstack, Eucalyptus, and Nimbula fit into this equation? What’s Dell UEC or Opscode’s Chef? What do you do for backup and disaster recovery? How are you going to manage and monitor this? Can you really get a single pane of glass? Can anyone really handle the dynamic nature of a Cloud where everything from networking to storage to servers to applications are all virtualized? What about security?
Yes, Cloud computing is as revolutionary and as disruptive as you have been reading. However, never underestimate the complexity or magnitude of the decisions you must make to implement this marvelous architecture. In the end, the easiest decision you will make is to move to the Cloud.
This article caught my eye due to the title. Relating “Moving to the Cloud” and “Easy” in the same breadth just feels a little too, ah, simple.
However, I will agree with the author that making the decision to adopt cloud computing and implementing a private cloud computing environment at Intel IT has delivered a tremendous value to Intel’s business and looking back, was a smart decision that will benefit Intel’s business for years to come. The journey and decision was not easy and the implementation was not straight forward.
Terminology & Strategy. There is a lot of hype and new terminology around cloud computing and I would advise IT organizations and business leaders to fully understand the terminology. We spent much time defining terms and level setting on capability needs for our business. Utimately we chose a definition of cloud based on the National Institute of Standards and Technology, then we spent time identifying and justifying the financial benefits of cloud (through virtualization) and setting goals for agility (as measured by service provisioning time).
Automation: One of the biggest key learnings we had is that while virtualization was able to drive efficiency, automation of our IT business processes was critical in delivering the agility we desired – we are currently at 3 hours for new services through an on-demand self-service consumption model. To achieve this, we had to modify the business process because if you automate a bad business process, you only get more inefficiency.
Today, as a result of a methodical well-planned out approach to cloud computing, the Intel IT organization has saved Intel millions in IT costs and drove dramatic business efficiencies through reduced service provisioning time (from 90 days to 3 hours). So while the decision was not easy, the benefits are clear and compelling.
For more on Intel IT’s cloud journey, best practices and lessons learned visit us on http://www.intel.com/IT
Intel IT cloud implementation: http://intel.ly/g0G3fG
Intel IT private cloud self service model: http://intel.ly/gZ8SMe
Chris