Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

In order to gain complete control over their cloud

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

environment, many organizations are shelling out for the benefits of in-house cloud elasticity. However it can be difficult to grasp the basics of private cloud computing. This expert e-guide from SearchCloudComputing.com explains three tips that are useful for moving to a private cloud model. Learn what key considerations to make and get answers to common questions on private cloud computing. Three tips for moving forward with private cloud
By Joseph Foran, Contributor No matter how well-documented, understood or contractually defined a public cloud service might be, the technologies that power them are, as of right now, known only to the provider. How machines are deployed in the cloud, the means by which backups are performed and the process by which provisioning occurs; all are shielded from the typical enterprise consumer of public clouds. Situations like these, especially when sensitive data is involved, are one of the many reasons that private clouds continue to garner enterprise interest. In order to gain complete control over their cloud environment, many organizations are shelling out for the benefits of in-house cloud elasticity. For those of you who've wrapped your heads around the basics of cloud computing and the early stages of private cloud construction, here are some intermediate-level tips on private cloud adoption and implementation. Consider the existing virtual infrastructure Any company seeking private cloud should consider its existing infrastructure before moving forward. If a company has already made significant virtualization inroads, it makes sense to favor the same platform for cloud. This will allow the least amount of soft-money to be invested into the project, especially when it comes to familiarizing IT staff.

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Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

It also allows for synergies in using existing hard-cost infrastructure components. If a company has invested heavily in virtualization, with the necessary network and storage systems already in place, migrating those systems to a brand new environment (or worse, re-tasking the existing environment) makes little sense when compared to expansion. Gone are the days of consultants adding a new tray of raw disk to a storage area network and installing licenses for storage management, at least for those companies taking advantage of modern storage architecture. This isn't to say that making cloud decisions are a snap. IT shops using VMware will still have to think about how vCloud interoperates with their existing vSphere environment. Companies using Amazon today, and looking to do some testing "off-the-credit-card" using Eucalyptus, still need to think about how their Walrus Storage should be configured. The key, however, is to understand that the private cloud is an evolution, not a revolution. Many people compare virtualization to mainframe technology because they have some similar elements -- shared resources being the largest similarity. There is a bit of debate on how deep those similarities go, but the point is that there is an evolutionary process that occurs in technology design and the cloud is the next step in this evolutionary path. Private cloud scalability and elasticity Cloud's elasticity is well-suited to virtualization, which makes it crucial to properly manage the flexibility of your private cloud environment. Having too few physical hosts available, too few resources on those hosts, too little storage or not enough bandwidth will stifle performance. Conversely, leaving an army of servers powered on does not help energy costs, and only invites the inevitable specter of MTBF issues on idle hardware components. Network and storage resources dedicated to a system that doesn't need them are a waste, plain and simple, and just as much of a risk as having too few resources. Any cloud computing design must include a successful scaling review as a key milestone. What's more, these subsystems are elemental to existing virtualization systems.

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

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Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

There is a plethora of information on scaling storage and network resources, as well as server resources, to meet the needs of virtualization. For example, in a Citrix Systems XenDesktop design (a decidedly non-cloud use case but valuable here for demonstration), a conservative estimate is that six to nine desktops can live on each core of a system. Using that estimate, a six-core quad processor system should support 144-216 users. With 1 GB of RAM per user for Vista, and 2 GB or RAM for Windows 7, that's an awful lot of memory. Even with a 50% share rate, which is considered high, that's still 144-216 GB of RAM for Windows 7 per server. Why the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) reference? Many cloud deployments are simple Web and app servers that use similar specifications for systems per core, share a similar percentage of memory and are meant to be highly dense like VDI. Scaling to 100 Web servers on a large server is easier than scaling up 50 Web servers on a woefully underpowered system. Also, many storage designs implement deduplication at the virtualization layer, allowing for shared storage resources as the guest operating systems use the same block-level storage from a "golden image," similar to XenDesktop's VDI offering. Keep your private cloud managed Management is also similar to virtualization, in that hosts and guests are monitored from a higher level and acted against based on pre-set rules. The key differentiator is that while the rules in virtualization are often invoked to ensure uptime (VMotion, LiveMigrate, etc.), the rules in private clouds are invoked to ensure that service-level agreements (SLAs) are met. It is in management where elasticity and resources meet to produce a true private cloud: scaling those virtual systems across physical systems, contracting and expanding based on demand, and ensuring the health and stability across the entire cloud stack. Private clouds from commercial vendors often have this well covered. VMware leads the pack with its Operations Manager offering and the Hyperic software that was acquired in the SpringSource buyout. Citrix and Microsoft are hurrying to catch up with their respective systems, as well. Open source tools are good but not as robust; Eucalyptus in particular can be managed

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

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Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

via its own management product (available in the commercial version) or several open source tools. None of these have the raw depth of VMware's combined offerings, but they will get the job done. Regardless of the technical merits of a private cloud, if management tools don't measure up, the offering runs the risk of under-delivering or outright failing in its mission to provide the elasticity of the public cloud without the risks. When designing a private cloud, take these lessons -- along with a lot of technical information -- into consideration. Due diligence and understanding when to choose cloud and when to hold back are the keys to the private cloud kingdom.

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

Answers for the private cloud curious

By Steve Cimino, Site Editor Few things intrigue a forward-thinking IT department more than private cloud. No more jam-packed server rooms, fewer performance bottlenecks; the improved economics and enhanced practicality promised by the cloud computing revolution. That's the idea, anyway. But of course, there is a gulf between the concept and what's real. Enterprises must contend with legacy gear, so shifting today's server-based applications to a new platform requires a huge level of development and expensive man hours. Even if it's a secure, more trustworthy option than public cloud, many organizations would still safely dub private cloud as "on the horizon." If you are planning for a private cloud, make sure to ask a lot of fundamental questions. What is private cloud? Who uses it? What will I get in return, and what is the risk? You need these answers, even if you're already equipped with some variation of an in-house cloud.

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Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

What is private cloud, and who wants it? A common question is "What's the difference between virtualization and private cloud?" The simple answer is that private clouds feature metered usage, chargeback and on-demand self-service, all of which take it a step beyond the common virtualized server. Moving from virtualization to private cloud, however, is a logical progression for those intrigued by cloud computing. Who exactly is intrigued by cloud, at least enough to allocate precious IT budget towards it, remains to be seen. In an October 2010 TechTarget survey, nearly two-thirds of few small and medium businesses that responded said "no thanks" when asked about their private cloud ambitions. But a more recent survey noted that 60% of respondents claimed to have at least a partial private cloud infrastructure in place. In actuality, it's probably a combination of the two: Few organizations are ready to adopt a private cloud, but many have something they like to call "private cloud" in their data centers. What are the major private cloud risks? While private cloud can be enticing, there are still roadblocks. Sometimes it's money. How many organizations will drop a quarter of a million dollars for a private cloud system? Even if private cloud can cut IT spending , that's a huge up-front investment at a time when IT spending remains low. Some concerns are focused on IT. Organizations have noted that application delivery in the cloud can be technically difficult. Merging cloud and in-house processes is rarely simple, and some work is necessary to enable the kind of automation and orchestration features that make private cloud something special. IT shops will probably need to turn to cloud-oriented third-party tools. Will private offerings rule the cloud computing market? Some say that the real future is in the hybrid cloud. Want all the benefits of public and private cloud, combined in an extremely scalable, flexible model? Hybrid may be for you, and some are already available for use in the real world. But it's also a lot of work to monitor the flow of data between two

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

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Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

different cloud systems, especially since hybrid clouds are still immature. Unless you have a really good reason to choose hybrid cloud, it can be a difficult decision to justify. Until hybrid cloud technology advances, IT managers will continue to look to private cloud. And the big IT vendors know this, with many of them already presenting private cloud as their primary cloud offering. Dell is selling do-ityourself in-house clouds, IBM has its Tivoli software with VMware capabilities and CSC will install and integrate VCE through its BizCloud offering. As cloud computing technology progresses, it's important for IT managers to assess where they reside on a scale from "one" to "private cloud." Some CIOs think that private cloud's a fad, going as far as to say "if you wait long enough, what's out will be back in again." Others continue to voice the same old spiel about security risks. That may be what it really comes down to: How risk averse is your enterprise? Are they willing to dive headfirst into a new technology in the hope of reaping its benefits, or would they prefer to play it safe and wait out this initial surge of cloud intrigue? Either way, make sure you understand what you're getting into. If you're ready to shell out for the latest and greatest, prepare to build the private cloud of your dreams. If you've already got a private cloud, see if it's time to take it to the next level. And if you're still waiting, make certain that your cloud strategy is in tip-top shape. Researching the market and choosing the best pieces for your private offering will pay dividends when you begin crafting a cloud computing architecture.

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

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Expert tips for moving forward with private cloud

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Three tips for moving forward with private cloud Answers for the private cloud curious

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