The ABC of Private Cloud

7/30/2019 The ABC of Private Cloud

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Whitepaper

The ABC ofPrivate Clouds

A viable option or another cloud gimmick?

Although many organizations have adopted the cloud and are reaping thebenefits of a cloud computing platform, there are still concerns with thehandling of sensitive information on a public cloud platform. For such

organizations an alternate option is available, and it means having their ownprivate cloud.

The IT Landscape today has found its nirvana in the concept of the cloud.Cloud Computing has moved from a concept to a reality. It has followed theoriginal concept of providing convenient on demand resources andconsolidation across IT workloads in enterprise-wide (Private) or World-wide(Public) deployments. The CIO today is harnessing the concept of on demand

IT for his workloads and balancing the same on a consolidated platform. Thebroad form of cloud has followed the NIST definition since inception:

"Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand networkaccess to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisionedand released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction"

Traditionally IT systems have been built on initial predicted sizing supported bymature forms of capturing data and sizing right from an ERP system to Mailing

system. These inputs formed the basis for investing in the capex for the ITLandscape under design, investing into workload spikes during peak usages.The CIO was increasingly forced to adopt known and mature technologies in


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the form of Compute, Storage andapplication stacks and increasingly payingpremiums for the projected loads as wellas saddled with non-performinginventories. This led to a widening gap inthe business needs and the way ITresponded to their need as depictedbelow:

The mould was broken with the advent ofopen source technologies and adoption ofthese technologies by the IT world, basedon collaboration as a central theme. Theseled to the birth of the concept of cloud,which disrupted the traditional way ofpredicting and stocking to just in timeavailability for the compute elementsinitially. Today this has grown from IAAS(infrastructure as a service) to PAAS(Platform as a Service) and moving to

SAAS (Software as a Service).

As clouds were formed, they were eitherlabeled as Private (Enterprise-wide) orPublic (world-wide) with the single largestdifferentiator being the securitycomponent. This slowed the adoption ofcloud in the security conscious enterprisedomain and led to deployment of privateclouds in the traditional method of CAPEX

investments for projected work-loads andonce again the CIO's being saddled withextra compute capacity than the average

usage. This led to them losing their agilityand response to the business needs forvaried unpredictable surges and need ofthe hour.

CtrlS intends to bring the concept ofscalable private clouds to the CIO, whichwould help him address requirements asbrought out by the following statements:

Imagine a scenario where yourorganization could rapidly access andanalyze information and makedecisions?

Innovate and launch new businesscapabilities faster?

Scale business operations up or downas needed?

Tap into new information and expertise- both inside the company and in themarketplace - on demand?

And do all this while safeguardingsensitive information and otherbusiness assets?

Private cloud offers you this and muchmore adding up to genuine businessagility.

What is a 'Private Cloud' anyway?

The private cloud offers an opportunity toa business enterprise to create a

virtualized IT architecture on its own termswith the internet as a backbone forfacilitation. The applications reside on the

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Growing Gap


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organization's hardware, within its networkalong with the data. The IT infrastructure isdistributed across the enterprise LANs andWANs. A private cloud offers the samebenefits as that of a public cloud - costreduction, asset utilization, informationavailability, rapid deployment of newservices, and business agility - sans thesecurity risks. In the future as the needmay be, a private cloud can also serve asa gateway to the public cloud, enabling abusiness to make use of the growing array

of services available on a public cloud,while keeping business-critical informationsystems 'inside' the private cloud.

IDC, a premier IT research firm, viewsprivate cloud computing as maturization ofthe evolution of the IT datacenter, andsees virtualization as the necessarystepping stone to the private cloudenvironment. While public cloudcomputing raises issues of reliability, data

security, system protection, complianceand governance, none of these concernsare as prominent with the private cloud.

The main benefits of having a private cloudinfrastructure are as follows:

Control

A private cloud infrastructure provides anorganization with total control of the cloudservices. An in-house informationtechnology (IT) department will be able tohandle every aspect of the administration.

Location

A private cloud is located in a nearbyfacility, making it practical for the IT teamto go on-site and resolve problems andissues as they arise.

Security

The organization with a private cloud hasthe flexibility and freedom to establish itsown security policies i.e., the organizationdecides on the level of security for eacharea of the cloud platform.

Hosted Private CloudHosted private cloud is another form ofprivate cloud where the infrastructure is

hosted at the provider's location ratherthan at the organization's own premises.In a hosted private cloud, physicalinfrastructure is provisioned anddedicated to a single customer thatensures no sharing of data, applications,user credentials, or other sensitiveinformation. This dedicated infrastructure

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is secured in state of the art datacentersand is often locked within a cage, furtherlimiting physical access to a select fewindividuals. Hosted private clouds have allthe benefits of shared clouds that aretypically associated with cloud computing.Hosted private clouds also have manyadditional benefits, mostly in the areas ofenhanced security, privacy, control, andconfigurability.

The building blocks of a Private Cloud

Infrastructure Automation, Virtualization,and Service Management are fundamentalbuilding blocks for Private Cloud.

IT Automation

Automation of even complex processesfor deployment and management allowsnetwork-accessible IT components(servers, applications, storage, networks,etc.) to be rapidly deployed andrepurposed, as required.

Virtualization

The flexibility and agility of a well-managed virtual system eliminates theroadblocks of the 'racking and stacking'physical systems, providing the basis forrapid elasticity and resource pooling.

Cloud Service Management

By providing a set of business focused

and policy-driven services, this deliversthe on-demand self-service andmeasurement that rounds out the essentialcharacteristics of a private cloud.

A critical and indispensible component ofa private cloud is the Service Catalog,providing a menu of standard cloudservice offerings and a self-service'storefront' for IT. The Service Catalogprovides visibility into IT's offerings for the

enterprise - what services are beingoffered, what costs are associated with agiven service level, and the ability to

provision that service or retire it asneeded.

Key elements of a Private Cloud infrastructureThe key elements of a private cloudinclude the following:

Self-service portals: access to a Web-based system that enables on-demandconsumption of IT services;

Policy-based controls: rules, policiesand other mechanisms that govern the

terms and conditions of IT resourceconsumption;

Standardized hardware: servers andother hardware resources that are underthe centralized control of the IT supplychain and lifecycle;

Automated deployment andmaintenance: software and othermanagement tools that eliminatemanual administration as well as reducecost and variability of IT resource

maintenance; Targeted independence: the ability to

move services dynamically betweeninternal and external deploymentenvironments based on price,performance or policy; and

Elasticity: the ability to provision, de-provision, and scale resources up anddown on demand.

Another key element of a private cloud isautomating server management andmaintenance - as well as management ofother resources, including networks, andstorage.

Cloud characteristics and advantagesThe resources in a cloud have threeessential characteristics:

Pooled

All the resources in the cloud areorganized and managed as a commonshared pool. Pooling usually begins with


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servers and storage and then come dataand applications. Common methods forstructuring, connecting, and accessing theresources are used for pooling.

Virtualized

All the resources in the pool are packagedin electronic 'shipping containers.' Eachcontains not only the resource itself, butalso the business rules governing itsaccess, use, and management.

NetworkedAll these modular resources are accessibleover a network using standard interfaces.In more technical terms, they are availableas "Web services."

Cloud computing changes the way inwhich the technology resources areconsumed by the business. As the activityin a cloud is measured and metered,customers who avail of cloud-based

services are charged on a pay-per-usebasis. This gives enhanced visibility to thecustomer as they can measure their actual

usage levels and thus can understand howmuch they have been charged. Throughthe cloud resources can be made availableon an on-demand model, often via selfprovisioning as per the customer'srequirements. The cloud enables well-defined services, simple interfaces, andautomated provisioning so that thecustomers can find and use services ontheir own or with minimal intervention andassistance from IT staff.

With a private cloud, one can change theunit of consumption itself. Instead ofconsuming and being charged for basictechnology resources (e.g., servers, CPUcycles, gigabytes of storage, andbandwidth), business people andprocesses can consume relevant andeasy-to-understand business services(e.g., business transactions, e-mail, andinformation analyses).

Cost and Cost StructureThis includes not only direct costreduction, but also cost avoidance and

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Benefits of the cloud approach


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improving cost structure. Through

consolidation of hardware andvirtualization of the digital assets,organizations can reduce their short termcosts. This leads to an overall reduction of40% in data center costs, including a 30percent reduction in power consumptionand cooling costs. Virtualization enablesorganizations to resize the data centercloser to average capacity. Accordinglywhen the need arises, resources can be

automatically channeled to the mostimportant business activities.

By pooling and centrally managing assets,a private cloud delivers economies ofscale, better resource utilization,reductions in capital outlay, ongoingoperational efficiencies, and theconversion of fixed costs to variable.

Business performance and agility

Private cloud can enable all technology-dependent business processes of anorganization to operate more efficiently,with faster cycle time and at a lower cost.

Benefits include:

Expanded access to information andapplications

Rapid scaling of business operations upand down

Rapid business innovation Rapid deployment of new business

capabilities Expanded coordination and

collaboration Better compliance, security, and

continuity

IT performance and agility

With a private cloud, IT can collaborateand innovate better, develop and deployapplications faster, and provisiontechnology and services more efficientlyand flexibly. The work mix changesdramatically. Less time and effort arespent for commodity activities in the datacenter as the virtualized environment is

more automated and dynamically self-adjusting, thus, increasing the amount oftime and effort needed for businessinnovation and improvement projects. Inaddition to meeting individual businessneeds as they arise, IT is much better ableto look across the computing environmentand optimize its performance and cost onbehalf of the business at large.

The roadmap to the Private CloudA private cloud helps an organization toorganize and manage the technologybetter. Before embarking on this journeycarefully evaluate what you want toachieve through a Private Cloud, is it:

Consolidating servers, storage,networks, and other technologyresources

Virtualizing technology resources,

including information and applications Organizing and provisioning IT offerings

as business services Structuring and managing IT as a

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Private Clouds vs. Public Clouds

THE distinction between public andprivate clouds is based on whetherthe IT resources are shared betweenmany distinct organizations (a publiccloud) or dedicated to a singleorganization (a private cloud). Privateclouds can be external to yourcompany's data center, such asAmazon's Virtual Private Cloudservice, which securely walls off asection of its public cloudinfrastructure for a unique customer.Compared with traditional virtualizeddata centers, both private and publicclouds benefit from automatedmanagement (to save on manuallabor) and homogenous hardware (forlower cost and more flexibility).


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shared services organization Automating technology resource and

security management Building standard interfaces with

compatible service providers Making effective use of selected public

cloud services

A private cloud roadmap can be themeans of integrating all the abovementioned activities and enhancing theirbusiness benefits.

Private cloud represents a moreproductive way for technology services tobe provided, consumed, and managed.For example, technology assets may bedefined and packaged differently, throughmethods like metadata management andvirtualization. IT's work may be structuredand provisioned differently, as a catalog ofbusiness services. Business people mayconsume many services differently, using

a self-service browser interface, and payfor them differently, if a pay-by-usemethod is implemented for selectedservices. And IT and the business canmanage the technology environment andits services differently, with greatertransparency into business performanceand value.

Key issues to be looked at before starting your

journey to Private CloudFollowing considerations must beevaluated before embarking on a journeyto the private cloud:

Review IT infrastructure complexity

Organizations can derive the value of ITfrom three basic factors. These are:

the business specific applications anddata that are used to run their

operation; the business process improvements

that can be implemented moreeffectively through using IT; and

the information and insights that can begained from the data the organisationretains.

IT infrastructure of most organisations isunnecessarily complex. This is because of

many varied business decisions takenover the years, with little thought given totheir effect impact on the organization'soverall IT infrastructure. Complexity of IT

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The Private Cloud Model

The following elements comprise aprivate cloud computing, orInfrastructure as a Service, model.

Virtualization

By virtualizing physical resources,then placing a management layer ontop, applications, servers and otherresources can be dynamically moved,managed and offered up to end users.

Multi-tenancy

Multiple end users share the sameresources (hardware, applications,etc.). Multi-tenancy enables thecentralization of infrastructure whereresources can be priced at lower cost.

Self-service

Customers can request and provisioncloud resources as they need them.

Automation

Automated processes ensure timelyservice delivery to customers.

Dynamic, on-demand scalability

Computing resources can bedynamically increased or decreasedbased on user demand.

Chargeback modelUsers' resource consumption ismeasured and billed for by the ITdepartment.


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infrastructure leads to deployment of avast amount of internal resources andincreased costs whilst delivering very littlereal business benefit. What more, it limitsperformance, scalability and particularlyagility, reducing the ability to implementchange quickly to meet the changingbusiness requirements. All these issuescan be addressed through cloudcomputing.

It has been observed that organisations

that optimize their infrastructure throughconcepts such as resource pooling,virtualization and dynamic provisioningcan improve operational performance andrealize significant savings. By optimizingtheir infrastructure, they can then easilycreate a private cloud. A private cloudoffers flexible capacity, together withscalability, flexibility and resilience, andcan provide applications to userswherever they are. The use of private

cloud, rather than public cloud, enablesorganisations to maintain a higher level ofcontrol and conserve their existinginvestment and develop support andmanagement skills. In future, should theneed arise to move to an external serviceprovider, they can do so without anyhassles.

Application delivery

The ubiquity of the Internet has led tocloud computing. Internet provides thestandard interface for cloud: the browser.Not all applications yet run natively in abrowser but most are heading that way.Studies indicate that every mainstreamcommercial application can be publishedto a Web portal and accessed through abrowser. Except where specific devicedrivers are required that negate theapplication being ported to a cloud

service, applications can be centrallystreamed from datacenters.

Flexibility, delivered through desktop and

application virtualization will help anorganisation meet several other keyobjectives that include application andservice standardization; central controland management of desktop; simplifiedand cheaper licensing; and mostimportantly the capability to deliverlocation independent flexible working.

Need for internal IT control

Effective use of any form of cloud requiresthat all the 'traditional' IT disciplines as

defined by ITIL and other best practiceframeworks should ideally be automated.If these are not already in place cloudcomputing will not provide the shortcut todelivering them. However, mostorganisations already have most of therequired elements, which may just need tobe re-architected or enhanced for cloud.These include:

On-demand self-service: This can be

provided through standard web portals,with packaged and streamedapplications, services and completedesktops published through the portal.Access to these is linked to userauthentication mechanisms that definewhich users will have access to what allapplications and services. New userscan be set up directly from the portalwith appropriate security capabilities,

and new services can be published andaccessed on demand. Resource pooling: Most organizations

have already implemented virtualizationor are in the process of doing so.Virtualization provides the capability ofresource pooling for servers, storage,desktops and more recently networks.

Rapid elasticity: This is one of the keycapabilities of virtualization; additionalresources can be added quickly and

easily as per specific needs. With aprivate or hybrid cloud servicing adefined set of users this is less of anissue.

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Measured Service: If organisationshave effective Capacity Managementand Service Level Management in placethen two of the most importantrequirements for moving to privatecloud and eventually providerindependent cloud are already met.

Service level

One of the primary benefits of the privatecloud is cost effective delivery of highquality and guaranteed service levels that

usually meet the requirements of anorganisation. The first step in this directionis a review of the organization's businessand IT alignment. This review is necessaryto ensure that the organisation hasaccurately defined the service levels itrequires for the key operational processesthat IT supports, and has a fullunderstanding of the cost, performanceand availability implications of therequested service levels.

The second step is to ensure that bestpractice frameworks such asITIL/ISO20000 for IT Service Delivery,ISO27000 for Information Security and BCIbest practice for Business Continuity arerefined and optimized to suit therequirements of your organisation.

Thirdly, private cloud infrastructure is by

definition a fully resilient, virtualizedenvironment that allows applications andservices to be dynamically reassigned. Ifproperly designed, implemented andmanaged, downtime from hardwarefailures should be non-existent.

Information security

For a private cloud every aspect can beaudited against ISO27000 or PCI DSSbest practice information security

standards. Effective security processescan be embedded into the portal and theplatform. One of the key advantages ofusing a private cloud to deliver a

virtualized desktop environment is that nodata ever leaves the datacenter unless theorganization's security policy specificallyallows mapping of local drives, USBmemory sticks or other external storage.Also, on private cloud, the existing userdirectory infrastructure can be reusedwhereas most public cloud servicesrequire this to be recreated from scratch.

Resilience and disaster recovery

Resilient hardware and disaster recovery

processes should be an embedded and afundamental part of the private cloud. Thekey elements to making failover fast, costeffective and efficient are virtualization ofall elements and standardization.Virtualization makes automated, scriptedfailover and full service recovery betweendatacenters achievable in minutes,potentially seconds.

Effectively private cloud provides

datacenter clustering. Standardizationensures that each datacenter is identical,allowing active/active and active/standbydatacenter operation, with the addedbenefit that the organization can replicateits entire datacenter to any organisationthat offers comparable facilities, savingthe investment cost and managementoverhead of running a separate disasterrecovery environment.

How to get to private cloudThe steps most organisations will need toundertake to get to an initially private orhybrid clouds, and potentially public cloudin future, are as follows:

Understand what services yourbusiness requires from your IT function.Define your Service Catalogue basedon this.

Review the required service levelsneeded for each of the defined services,include resilience and data security.

Define and agree the services you want

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to provide internally and those that can

be hosted or provided by a third party. Measure the current resources you

require to deliver the internally providedservices to the require service levels.

Review your current infrastructure andlook for all opportunities to simplify,rationalize and standardize what yousupport and how you manage it.

Virtualize every element you have notalready done so where it is technically

and commercially appropriate to do so;this includes desktops. Implement a common user portal where

all users access all services whetherprovided internally or by a third party.

Refine and improve your operationalprocesses to take advantage of the newenvironment.

Implement suitable internal chargingmechanisms so all users/departmentscan understand the costs of the

services they are using. Review cost of internal service

provision against what commercial

cloud providers can offer for the same

level of service. Monitor every service provided whether

in house delivered or externally toensure it meets agreed service levels.

A unique offer from CtrlS: the on-demandPrivate CloudAlthough organizations are excited aboutusing cloud technologies to bring in ITspend efficiency in the organization, they

are still apprehensive about data securitywhen migrating to the public cloud, butwhile Private clouds are really secure, theyare also expensive. CtrlS offers a solutionthat cuts mid-way.

With CtrlS's on-demand Private cloudframework, organizations can now availthe benefits of a Private Cloud and alsoscale up and down as per need as you canin a Public Cloud solution. The costs too

are scaled down without any significantadditional CAPEX or OPEX, making it anideal solution for organizations who want

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Key business drivers of Private Cloud


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the Private Cloud, yet also have theflexibility of scale and at costs that aredefinitely not prohibitive.

On-demand Private Cloud is a never-see-before concept and an extremelyinnovative framework that will bring cloudcomputing solutions close toorganizations. It is also the ideal solutionfor small and mid-sized organizations whoare eagerly considering a cloud solution,but with robust security features, provision

to scale up or down and with costs that fitwell into their budgets. On-demandPrivate Cloud offers the best of bothPublic and Private Clouds.

CtrlS believes that this is an opportunityfor efficiency improvement, cost

reduction, business agility, and customersatisfaction that no IT organization shouldpass up.

About CtrlS Datacenters LimitedWith over 20,000 racks planned acrossIndia, CtrlS is the country's first and onlycertified Tier 4 datacenter and is offeringcutting-edge DR solutions to over a 100large enterprises across verticals. CtrlShas invested a lot of time and effort increating a fault tolerant datacenter which

can guarantee an uptime of 99.995%, thehighest in datacenter industry. To knowmore about On-Demand Private Cloud,and our Cloud Computing solutions sendus an email to [email protected] or visitwww.CtrlS.in

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www.ctrls.inPlease feel free to send your feedback/suggestions to [email protected]

This document is for informational purpose only. Ctrls makes no warranties, expressed or implied in this document. Copyright 2010 CtrlS Datacenters Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The ABC of Private Cloud