Jumpstart Staging and Collaborative Testing Of Business Workflows via Cloud-based VMs

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openBench Labs

Analysis:

Author: Jack Fegreus, Ph.D.Managing DirectoropenBench Labs

http://www.openBench.comDecember 20, 2010

Jumpstart Staging and Collaborative TestingOf Business Workflows via Cloud-based VMs

Analysis:

Jack Fegreus is Managing Director of openBench Labs and consults throughRidgetop Research. He also contributes to InfoStor, Virtual Strategy Magazine,and Open Magazine, and serves as CTO of Strategic Communications.Previously he was Editor in Chief of Open Magazine, Data Storage, BackOfficeCTO, Client/Server Today, and Digital Review. Jack also served as a consultantto Demax Software and was IT Director at Riley Stoker Corp. Jack holds a Ph.D.in Mathematics and worked on the application of computers to symbolic logic.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 04Moving Virtualization from Machines to Workflows

Cloud-based Test Scenario 06Virtualization of Virtual Environments

From Workflow Problem to Cloud Prototype

Simplified Cloud Provisioning

Fostering Collaboration 10Building IT Credibility

Keeping Client Interaction on Track

Customer Value 12The Zen of Capability and Credibility

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Table of Contents

MOVING VIRTUALIZATION FROM MACHINES TO WORKFLOWS

In the midst of global economic turmoil, data centers now face tight budgets andstaffing pressures at a time when solutions to improve IT efficiency are at an all timehigh in complexity. To raise the efficiency of IT operations, the consensus among CIOs isthat virtualization of systems and storage in a Virtual Operating Environment (VOE) isthe magic bullet for hitting higher resource utilization and lower management costs. Thescope of this consensus is so broad that Symantec’s 2010 State of the Data Center reportpegs 83 percent of 1,780 IT sites—representing a full range of small- to large-enterprises—were in some stage of working with server virtualization.

An important benefit of aVOE is the ability to let ITadministrators work with alimited number of abstract devicepools rather than multipleinstances of proprietary devices.Nonetheless, virtualized systemsand storage introduce multiplelevels of logical abstraction andresource redirection, whichobscures and complicatesimportant IT operations.

For savvy CIOs with internalconstituencies, as well as CTOs,integrators, and consultantsserving external constituencies,CloudShare provides a cloud-based extended VMwareenvironment to build and sharesophisticated IT solutions forcomplex application-driven ITenvironments. UsingCloudShare’s unique ability tovirtualize an entire workflow of

Executive Summary

Executive Summary

“What distinguishes the CloudShare user experience from that oftypical cloud-based VMware environments is CloudShare’s

ability to virtualize an independent copy of an entire workflow—VMs,storage, networking, and preinstalled software—and present it with aneasy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface.”

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OPENBENCH LABS TEST BRIEFING: CloudShare Enterprise: VM Workflow Development Platform

1) Rapidly Provision Virtual Environments: CloudShare supports a templatelibrary of virtual machines complete with Windows and Linux operatingsystems and common applications such as SQL Server, SharePoint 2010,Oracle, Active Directory, and MS Office, to enable the provisioning of workingVMs in a matter of minutes.

2) Virtualize Entire Environments: CloudShare’s application management layerfeatures a hierarchy of virtualized infrastructure constructs that extend tovirtual prototypes, which consist of virtual machines, storage, networks, andinstalled software and are virtualized as an atomic element for snapshots.

3) Generate Multiple Virtual Environments: CloudShare builds an environmenton demand for each user by assigning the snapshot of a prototype a timepackage for operating the environment and access rights for the objects inthe prototype based on user identity.

4) Easy to use Drag-and-Drop Integration: By leveraging RDP protocolsupport, CloudShare provides developers with a drag-and-drop interfacebetween their desktop PC and the VMs in their working environment.

5) Share Virtual Environments via the Web without Agents: Automatedemails to clients allow developers to send invitations to access virtualenvironments via the web and share files.

6) Track and Analyze Response to Invitations and Usage: Advanced analyticstrack and differentiate guests from multiple partners while tracking sessionevents and time on line.

VMs and the software running on those VMs, IT developers can rapidly createprototypes of complex business solutions.

More importantly, the next wave of virtualization projects will see a shift in the focus ofIT from opportunistic consolidation projects to the complex application-centric issues ofcritical business processes. New virtualization projects will involve multiple virtualmachines (VMs) and must meet rigorous Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for processavailability and continuity. IT projects of this scope raise significant issues with respect toprovisioning hardware and software for the pre-production environment. In addition, ITproviders must be able to demonstrate that a solution is able to support a businessprocess to a level that is acceptable to line of business executives.

Using CloudShare, IT providers are able to collaborate with customers, partners, andcolleagues in a way that goes well beyond point-and-show presentations thatcharacterize standard webinars. CloudShare provides users with true hands-oninteraction with a dedicated production-class instance of a complete IT environment.

What distinguishes the CloudShare user experience from that of typical cloud-basedVMware environments is CloudShare’s ability to virtualize an independent copy of anentire workflow—VMs, storage, networking, and preinstalled software—and present itwith an easy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface. Virtualized on demand workflows alsoboost development capabilities by allowing software teams to freeze entire workflows totrack subtle integration problems that can degrade a process workflow without actuallyintroducing a traceable error. As a result, any IT-provider can now lay a foundation for arock-solid excellence by delivering over the web robust, agent-less solutions for pre-production tasks such as development, testing, QA, staging, and back-end trainingsessions.

Furthermore, CloudShare provides IT providers with client marketing options andsales tools that are as powerful as the development tools. With the growing adoption ofIT Service Management (ITSM) paradigms, including SLAs, even CIOs now have to sellthe credibility of IT internally to line of business executives. As a result, IT providerswith internal, as well as external constituencies can benefit from the use of CloudShareeven if they are not developing VM-based services.

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Executive Summary

VIRTUALIZATION OF VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Key drivers of the next wave ofvirtualization projects for mission-criticalapplications are the growing concerns ofline of business executives over businesscontinuity in a competitive 24x7economic environment. The challenge forIT is to assuage the business continuityfears of corporate executives withinbudget constraints that exclude costlydisaster recovery components, such asfault-tolerant servers, redundant hardwareand software, and standby networkbandwidth.

The cost-effective solution for businesscontinuity that IT is now embracing is anextended VOE for mission criticalapplications. Using a hierarchy ofworkloads as fundamental buildingblocks, IT can respond in minutes tochanges in business processing via theautomatic provisioning and moving ofVMs. This is a game changer for the oldperception of IT as being a cost centerand not a business enabler.

Nonetheless, moving beyond simple stand-alone VM solutions into the world ofcomplex business workloads increases the complexity of provisioning and prototyping.Using CloudShare, however, IT can focus entirely on the construct of a workload, whichhas a natural affinity to a CloudShare environment and a business service.

FROM WORKFLOW PROBLEM TO CLOUD PROTOTYPE

Large complex workflows are especially problematic for in-house IT groups. Theissue for them is the freeing up sufficient resources to provision a full environment fortesting and evaluation. Using the CloudShare environment construct, the only resource

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Cloud-based Test Scenario

Cloud-based Test Scenario

“To test the ability to stage a second-generation proof of conceptVOE that demonstrates the ability to deploy and collaborate about

a business continuity SLA, we used CloudShare to create a prototypecloud platform with five VMs: four servers and one desktop.”

needed for testing and development is a desktop PC with a high-speed connection to theinternet.

To test the ability to stage a second-generation proof of concept VOE thatdemonstrates the ability to deploy and collaborate about a business continuity SLA, weused CloudShare to create a prototype cloud platform with five VMs: four servers andone desktop. Three servers ran 32-bit Windows Server 2008, the fourth ran 64-bitWindows Server 2008 R2, and the desktop VM ran Windows XP Pro. In addition, weinstalled Active Directory 2008, DNS, IIS 2008, and Exchange 2010 on the servers. Wealso installed up.time 5 server resource monitoring to track performance, resource usage,and SLA compliance. On the desktop VM, we ran MS Office 2010 and Acrobat X.

To simplify theconfiguration of VOEprototypes, CloudShare hasagreements with variousvendors to provide developerswith VM templates thatinclude an operating systemand important businesssystems. As a result,developers using CloudSharedon’t have to purchase andinstall operating systems andapplications.

There is a library oftemplates for VMs thatinclude a pre-installed versionof Windows or Linux, as welltemplates that include

common Windows server and desktop applications, such as MS Office, SharePoint 2010,MS SQL and Oracle. In addition CloudShare is adding applications from other vendors,including SAP.

For our test environment, we were able to utilize a VM with Windows Server andActive Directory configured for use a Primary Domain Controller. In addition, ourWindows XP Pro client desktop system had MS Office 2010 pre-installed.

SIMPLIFIED CLOUD PROVISIONING

More importantly for prototype development, CloudShare provides a robust drag-and-drop environment that supports file sharing between the PCs or workstations used byIT professionals and the VMs that they are accessing. In particular, access to a VM usingthe Windows RDP client is simplified through the CloudShare environments display,which identifies all VMs in the prototype and their configurations.

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Cloud-based Test Scenario

OS AND SOFTWARE TEMPLATES

IT professionals can select from numerous OS and applications software provided byCloudShare to jumpstart the building of prototypes without having to provision software or theappropriate licenses. Using the new CloudShare ProPlus edition, which is geared toward ITdevelopers, choices are made by picking from a software carousel.

Both the internal andexternal addresses are providedfor each VM. Using theexternal address, a connectioncan be made using the RDPclient on a Windows system ora connection can be madedirectly using a web browser.This later method can also beset for RDP and file sharing. Inaddition, a VPN can beconfigured to enhanceconnectivity between on sitesystems and the cloudenvironment.

Using both access methods,we configured IIS 2008,Exchange 2010 and up.time 5on three Windows servers. Forour SLA proof-of-conceptdemonstration, we utilized ourVM running up.time 5 tocreate monitoring services foreach virtual server in ourprototype. We also definedavailability and performanceService Level Objectives for ourSLA. These objectives weredependent on both our ADcontroller and the VM running

Exchange 2010.

With our proof-of-concept test designed to demonstrate the use of our software andVMs in a client’s production environment, we made the desktop VM the centralreporting device within our VoE. As a result, we were able to simplify our client’sexperience by allowing them to view and manipulate all critical software from thedesktop VM. In addition, we set up the desktop VM to display project documentationwhen a user logged in.

With each client enjoying a private instance of the test environment, each client couldinteract with the proof-of-concept demonstration in a completely isolated sandboxenvironment. Every invitee client was free to engage or adjust any settings without regardto any other guest user. For our test demonstration, this was critical for the integrity ofthe user experience with regard to both the functionality and the performance of our

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Cloud-based Test Scenario

ENVIRONMENT VIRTUALIZATION

For each user, a unique environment is created on demand from a snapshot of a prototype,which consists of VMs, storage, networks, and installed software. A CloudShare environmentadds a run time component and refines the prototype by defining access specificationsincluding automatic logins. In addition, the environment provides a view list for VM access.

workflow.

In particular we had chosento build a demo of a serviceresource monitoring applicationthat was designed to provide anIT operations group with theability to both monitor anddefine an SLA for businessprocesses. Such a demonstrationwould not be meaningful withoutfull isolation of each user’senvironment.

VM TRANSACTION PERFORMANCE

From the desktop VM in our CloudShare environment, we accessed the up.timesoftware, which was running on a Windows 2008 R2 server, via the up.time web portal.We then assessed the performance of our VM running Exchange 2010 while it ran theJetStress benchmark. With a single virtual drive for the OS, the Exchange logs, and themailbox database, our VM server was still able to process close to 700 transactions persecond during the database maintenance phase of JetStress.

Cloud-based Test Scenario

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BUILDING IT CREDIBILITY

While CloudShareprovides an exceptionaldevelopmentenvironment, its mostimportant valueproposition stems from itsservice managementcapabilities. CloudShare isnot simply about creatingan easy-to-usedevelopment environmentto build and stagecomplex VM workflows:CloudShare is aboutcollaboration and buildingcredibility in both thesolution and the solutionprovider. To set the stagefor these functions,CloudShare utilizes a web-based managementdashboard along the lines

of Salesforce.com.

The dashboard serves to integrate the interactions of two hierarchies: The technicalcharacteristics of the VM workflows, and the personal characteristics of teams of usersand developers. Like all management dashboards, the CloudShare GUI presents differentUI pages with different data to users based on the user’s hierarchical permissions.

What makes the CloudShare dashboard unique is the integration of user and timebased permission levels, which occurs when CloudShare delivers a working environmentto a user based on the snapshot of a prototype. As a result, CloudShare can use a singlesnapshot of a prototype to deliver one environment that has a two-year life cycle withdomain administrator level access privileges and another enviroment that has a life cycleof only 15 minutes with end-user access privileges. What’s more, users with a high

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Fostering Collaboration

Fostering Collaboration

“CloudShare is not simply about creating an easy-to-usedevelopment environment to build and stage complex VM

workflows: CloudShare is about collaboration and building credibility inboth the solution and the solution provider.”

CLOUDSHARE DASHBOARD

The enterprise version of CloudShare has numerous tools for consultants, integrators andcommercial software vendors. In this version there is an elaborate collaboration model that runs thegamut of direct clients, partners, and their clients. Through the enterprise CloudShare interface, veryfine-grained client usage data can be analyzed in both CloudShare and Salesforce.com.

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enough privilege level in CloudShare can change life cycle and access settings on the fly.

KEEPING CLIENT INTERACTION ON TRACK

User interaction beginswhen an invitation is sent toa new prospective user toaccess a CloudShareenvironment. Invitations canbe sent to a true end user ora vendor partner. For largevendors, CloudShareprovides the capability tocompare and track theactivities of users broughtinto an environment bypartners.

Once an invitee acceptsan invitation and logs intothe defined environment,that person becomes a userwithin CloudShare.CloudShare will then trackthe user’s activities within theenvironment. ITprofessionals can useCloudShare’s activity modelto track IT staff progress onpre-production activities,such as development, testing,and QA. What’s more, just asIT vendors can estimate thelikelihood that an inviteduser will buy a product fromthat person’s activity pattern,IT professionals can use theCloudShare statistics toidentify potential internal

end-user support issues, such as those created when line of business users do not spendsufficient time training with a new software environment.

Fostering Collaboration

RESOURCE CLASSIFICATION

User interaction begins with an invitation to use a CloudShare environment. Invitations canbe sent to end users or vendor partners. Once an invitee accepts an invitation, that personbecomes a user and CloudShare starts fine-grain tracking of all activity with respect to anenvironment. IT vendors use this data to analyze top sales prospects and compare the effortsof partners. In house IT professionals can use the collected data to track IT staff progress onpre-production activities, such as development and QA.

THE ZEN OF CAPABILITY AND CREDIBILITY

Current IT surveys consistently show that over 80 percent of IT sites are in somestage of system virtualization. Most have successfully gone through the first stage ofvirtualization, which focuses on the consolidation of systems running workloads notdeemed critical for business process support. The next wave of virtualization, however, isset to target important business processes in order to leverage the performance andstructural resilience that at VOE provides.

This shift brings greater pressure onIT to provision and test multiple VMs insupport of complex workflows. As aresult, IT will have to provision projectswith sufficient physical and softwareresources required to support businessprocess applications that run onmultiple VMs and involve multiplesoftware licenses.

For internal IT departments, theprocess of developing a proof-of-concept project, which will have to betested and the accepted by end-userorganizations is little different from theprocess followed by IT vendors in thevirtualization space. As a result, in-house IT groups can garner many of thesame advantages the CloudShare VOEplatform offers professional developers.

In particular, the ability to significantly jumpstart the process of configuring a testbed with multiple VMs running the appropriate base software is a universal necessity forany IT organization. More importantly, CloudShare provides a number of subtle benefitsthat are quite sophisticated and can provide substantial savings in development time.One of the most important of these features comes in the ability to utilize the centralconstruct of prototype virtualization, which treats all systems and resources in aworkflow as a single object.

Customer Value

Customer Value

“By utilizing snapshots of workflow prototypes, initiated when a keychange is introduced on any VM, IT can freeze entire configurations

of multiple VMs and return on demand to any past configuation in minutesin order to simplify the debugging of complex business workflows.”

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CLOUDSHARE FEATURE BENEFITS1) Rapid Prototyping with Fully Configured VM Templates:

CloudShare provides VM templates with a Windows or Linux OSinstalled and many also include popular server software, such asSharePoint 2010 and Exchange for rapid configuration.

2) Access Multiple Versions of a Virtual Environment in Minutes:IT professionals can create snapshots of entire workflow prototypesand lanch an on demand virtual environment in minutes based onthe choice of a prototype snapshot.

2) Drag-and-Drop Prototype Configuration: IT professionals canleverage RDP protocol support in CloudShare to drag-and-drop filesbetween their desktop PC and VMs in their working environment.

4) Share Virtual Environments via the Web: Invite users to access apersonal independent instance of an environment for pre-productionactivities conducted by IT staff such as development, testing, and QA.

5) Track and Analyze Invitation Responses: Via a managementdashboard, apply advanced analytics on user activity that can beintegrated with Salesforce.com and other CRM software.

To allow vendors to offer multiple clients access to their own copy of a virtualenvironment, CloudShare applies the construct of a snapshot to all of the systems thatunderpin a virtual environment. Each user launches a fresh copy of the environmentbased on snapshot of a prototype. When developing a complex system to support abusiness process, small changes to programs running on separate VMs can cascade onthe entire system making debugging a very complex process.

By utilizing snapshots of workflow prototypes, initiated when a key change isintroduced on any VM, IT can freeze entire configurations of multiple VMs and laterreturn on demand to any past configuration in minutes in order to simplify the debuggingof a complex business workflow. Attempting to replicate this capability by restoringindividual VMs in sequence can easily deteriorate into a massively complex task.

In-house IT professionals can also benefit from the collaboration and client trackingcapabilities that CloudShare offers professional developers by using the user-activitymodel to track the progress of IT staff in pre-production activities, such as development,testing, and QA. IT professionals can also keep much closer track of end-userparticipation in system acceptance and training projects conducted before releasing anew complex system into production. As a result, CloudShare can provide IT with anumber of cost avoidance benefits, by flagging insufficient testing and preparation.

Customer Value

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