1 16387 HP 20 Cloud System 20Matrix Managing 20at 20a 20Higher 20Level

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Spotlight

Jonathan Eunice

17 June 2011

HP CloudSystem Matrix:Managing at a Higher Level

The effort to make IT “more manageable” has been going on for decades. The

tools, techniques, and strategies introduced over the years have helped us scale

from when we could count our computers on our fingers to today, where we count

them by the thousands, if not hundred-thousands. But it’s a constant race. As IT’s

economic and social importance ratchets up every year, so do the scale points and

service levels required. We have to keep upping the bar.

One of the key problems over the years is that manageability has been thought of,

designed, and acquired as an add-on. We buy and deploy tools to monitor and

coordinate. But they’re installed after the fact, rather than ”part of the system.”

For years, it’s been clear that to make systems fundamentally more manageable,

you have to build manageability in from the get-go. It’s also been clear that no

amount of hardware sensing or firmware updating is enough. We must move to a

higher level of management—one focused on business applications and delivered

service levels, and on the processes that IT and business users participate in.

That’s where HP’s CloudSystem Matrix comes in. Matrix

builds on HP’s BladeSystem, storage, and supporting

management tools, but combines them in a service-oriented,

shared-infrastructure way that changes the nature of IT

management. Rather than “BladeSystem plus some

management tools,” CloudSystem Matrix is a coordinatedsystem for setting up pools of modular resources and

flexibly deploying IT services across those pools. Matrix

provides a higher level of abstraction—one in which IT

services are first-class citizens, and which is specifically

designed to avoid “some assembly required.”

Infrastructure by the Pound

The history of IT has been a long march from roll-your-own to buy-not-build.

Most enterprises would today no more build their own systems than they’d

perform do-it-yourself dentistry. Even aerospace, finance, and telecommunications—industries once famous for idiosyncratic homebrews have long since recognized

the economic virtues of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions. Beyond

“building less,” there’s a major trend toward “assemble and configure less.” Every

system used to ship in numerous boxes; local admins would then unpack,

assemble, load software onto, cable up, connect the storage and test the system—a

substantial on-site labor cost and delay. One-at-a-time, slow, labor-intensive

processes are no longer tenable.

Copyright © 2011 Illuminata, Inc.



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CloudSystem Matrix is the next stage of ready-to-

run. It combines HP’s BladeSystem servers, storage,

networking, and management software into a

single packaged infrastructure or infrastructure as a

service offering. 1We say “offering” not “product”

because it’s not just the gear. It’s also the supply

chain, mode of purchase, factory configuration,management software stack, testing/qualification as

a whole, and on-site installation services. You could

potentially buy any Matrix component in the

conventional way—well, except for the fancy

CloudSystem rack bezel. But that would miss the

point: escaping the old buy-it-piecemeal, assemble-

it-yourself approach so that you get the full ready-

to-run infrastructure in one fell swoop.

Five years ago, Matrix would have been interesting

to only a handful of businesses. At the time, most

companies were simply not ready. But in an era

characterized by a move to virtualization, cloud

computing, and the shared service model, Matrix

fits right in. Many IT departments would now be

quite happy to buy datacenters “by the pound.”

Businesses most want their applications run, their

services served, and their cost, risk, and service

level objectives met. Every year, companies are less

obsessive about minutely controlling the precise

details of how those things are accomplished. IT

now wants and needs to be the architects andenablers of business services, not computer

engineers per se. Matrix’s virtualized, network-

optimized, wire-once, highly-managed, automated,

scale-out architecture needed isn’t just a specialty

requirement any more—it’s how and where IT

wants to run more and more of its workloads.

Many organizations are considering cloud

computing to further increase flexibility and

efficiency. CloudSystem Matrix is a solid

foundation for private clouds. CloudSystem

Enterprise goes even further, creating a full-scaleprivate or hybrid cloud solution that orchestrates

services across a broad set of resource pools.

1 CloudSystem Matrix evolved from BladeSystemMatrix, which HP launched in early 2009. It addsenhanced application provisioning and monitoring,becoming the entry-level offering in the CloudSystem

portfolio.

The Right Stuff

It’s nice to say “you don’t have to worry” about

what’s inside, but of course IT professionals will.

That’s been their job, after all. But, like buying a

car, you don’t need to select individual nuts, bolts,

and pieces so much as arrive at a level of trust that

what’s inside is going to be right, then make

reasonable selections among the available options.

Matrix makes this easy. It’s based on HP’s popular

BladeSystem modular infrastructure, including its

Virtual Connect (networking), Thermal Logic

(power and thermal efficiency), Insight

Management (systems management), and Cloud

Service Automation for Matrix (basic provisioning)

innovations. Matrix can also be upgraded to

CloudSystem Enterprise, which adds HP’s full

Cloud Service Automation software (for fullapplication provisioning) and other components to

power full-scale private and hybrid cloud

environments. HP Integrity servers running

HP-UX can also be used to provide extra resiliency

and security for mission-critical cloud workloads.

CloudSystem integrates directly with HP Storage

and HP Networking. Take for instance HP’s 3PAR

Utility Storage platform, known for its multi-

tenant storage, thin storage, and automated tiering.

3PAR supports automated reporting andmanagement through the same CloudSystem

service catalog used by server administrators. A

common approach to resource pool management

reduces the time required to provision IT services.

Moreover, all these parts are thoroughly integrated

and overseen by a single organization. Top-notch

vertical integration contributes directly to a ‘no

worries’ outcome.

Manage the Service

To substantially improve IT’s manageability, we

have to think in terms of IT services and service

levels, not the individual components used. This

isn’t to say that managing IT components is wrong

—indeed, until computer systems are made of fairy

dust, some of that will always be required. But

there are so many component-level concerns—

especially when you branch out from servers to



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include virtualization, storage, networking,

security, availability, and so on—that if you start

with the components, you’ll be working to get

those under perfect management essentially

forever. There won’t ever be a moment when you

think “we’ve done enough here—let’s move on to

monitor and manage higher level services.”2

If you want to have the discussion about business

services and service levels, you have to start there.

You have to think about service lifecycles—how

services are deployed or provisioned, how they’re

orchestrated, and how they’re measured. Ideally,

those service-oriented approaches won’t be just talk

—they will be reflected directly in the management

tools, policies, and procedures that you put in place.

That’s the approach taken by HP’s CloudSystem

Matrix. It inherits all of HP’s standard component-level management features and tools, but services

are the crux of its management. Service templates

are the fundamental way workloads managed in a

Matrix deployment. The goal is to identify and

state the requirements up front, then let automated

mechanisms handle moment-to-moment operation.

That’s a big change from the status quo in many

shops. But moving to automation is why Matrix is

an engine for IT services, not just another rack of

equipment. You can fire up applications by hand if

you like, but ideally you shift into a servicesmanagement mindset and let Matrix fire them up

for you. Matrix is a services engine.

Services-Led IT

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no

one thinks of changing himself.” – Leo Tolstoy

Now comes the harder part: Changing ourselves.

We easily think about changing the technologies

we use. It’s harder to change the way we work. But

there’s no point in buying a services engine like

CloudSystem unless you’ll operate your workloads

in a services-led way—no more than you’d buy an

airplane if you don’t intend to fly.

The good news is, many organizations have already

begun the shift. ITIL and IT service management (ITSM) have

2 Forty-someodd years of computing proves this.

been working their way into IT thinking and

practice for about 15 years. It’s a gradual shift, but

it’s been in the works for some time. As IT has

scaled, and as businesses have had to deal with

more regulation, the need for appropriate “meta

structures” and governance has been increasingly

clear. Management by policy, complex eventprocessing (CEP), and the last five years’ drive

toward virtualization are further supporting

elements in IT’s service-oriented maturation.

Virtualization, while “just” an enabling technology,

is perhaps the strongest driver. It has led IT

professionals to think of flexible infrastructure and

high-level workload containers as a normal part of

their day. They’ve also come think in more general,

architect-level ways about the entire IT estate. So

while the lowest-level trend pushing services-led ITalong, virtualization also the most broad-based.

Organizing the Services

This is probably not the place for a full rundown on

ITSM, but the concept of service descriptions and a

service catalog bears noting. Instead of “executable

files” and “scripts,” the primary executable in a

CloudSystem is a service.

Services are descriptions of business applications

and their associated requirements for servers,storage, LANs, SANs, and other infrastructure

elements. Descriptions can be built from scratch by

a local IT architect using a “Visio-like” drag and

drop interface, but many will be customizations of

templates provided by HP and partners. They

might also come through Cloud Maps for

CloudSystem Matrix, an HP resource that helps

customers create their own service catalog through

step by step guides including modifiable templates,

workload sizers, installation scripts and workflows.

Cloud Maps help Matrix customers provisioninfrastructure and deploy applications more

quickly, and in a repeatable fashion.

Each service description portrays a “desired state”

of the running application components and the

environment in which they need to run. Once

defined, services are registered in a “service

catalog”—a library of available services.



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When a service is desired, the Matrix Operating

Environment provisions the required resources and

orchestrates application startup. The dozen or so

steps that used to be done manually are all

automated. Within minutes, a complete application

can be up and running, serving customers.

CloudSystem Matrix continues to orchestrate theservice over its entire lifetime, including scaling

scaling up or down the allocated resources,

depending on business policy and current user load.

When a service is no longer needed, its components

will be gracefully shut down, and all its resources

returned to Matrix’s pool of free resources.

Crisply defining services before they are run means

IT professionals are not necessarily needed to run

them. Matrix provides a self-service portal through

which authorized3 consumers—test and quality

assurance engineers, for example, or application

owners in the business units—can initiate services

themselves. Services also have associated “costs,”

for enterprises that wish to pay-for-use or charge-

back systems for their internal clients.

Upgrading to CloudSystem Matrix

When starting with a new style of management,

there are good reasons to start from scratch with

new infrastructure. It’s fresh, up-to-date, and well-

configured for the new approach. We see this invirtualization all the time. While it’s possible to add

virtualization software to existing gear, many

decide their existing equipment—especially if it’s

already a few years old—doesn’t have the optimal

CPU horsepower, memory capacity, I/O resources,

or power/thermal efficiency. They’d have to

3 Permissions can be assigned to individuals or roles.

undertake substantial updates, at any rate, and that

may not be worth it. So they buy new equipment

as their virtualization workhorse, then move

workloads to that ‘next generation’ infrastructure.

But not everyone wants or needs to start from

scratch. Those with existing BladeSystems canupgrade them in-place. HP CloudSystem Matrix

Conversion Services is three-step process. HP

inventories the customer’s existing BladeSystem

assets; then plans an upgrade of hardware,

firmware, and software components required to

meet Matrix standards. Finally, HP performs the

conversion. BladeSystem is in effect rebuilt on-site

into full CloudSystem deployments. The decision

to buy new or upgrade in place becomes a local one.

All the benefits of the ‘out of the box’ Matrix can

be had by leveraging existing investments.

Conclusion

We want IT to be easier, more automated, less

labor-intensive, less expensive, more reliable, and

more flexible. It’s a long list! If we’re serious about

such thorough-going improvements, we have to

think about IT infrastructure in a systematic,

holistic way—how we source it, how we use it, how

we manage it. It takes a full lifecycle approach, not

just a tweak here and there.

That’s what CloudSystem Matrix does. It re-thinks

the process by which IT resources are acquired and

allocated. It takes a very different view of

management—not one focused on the bit and nits,

but on the things businesses really care about: IT

services and service levels. It shifts responsibility

for the infrastructure from the customer to HP.

What’s “beneath the hood” is laudable, but once

that’s established, the ideal is to no longer talk

about those pieces. IT services are where it’s at.

Not everyone is ready for Matrix’s level of

integration—not everyone has moved from IT’s

traditional fiddling with nuts and bolts toward a

higher-level focus on services, resources, processes,

and efficiency. But for those who are ready to shift

toward the fundamentally more sustainable

service-oriented, shared services approach,

CloudSystem Matrix is a great way forward.

4AA3-3847ENW

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1 16387 HP 20 Cloud System 20Matrix Managing 20at 20a 20Higher 20Level