Cloud Computing & DCIM

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Cloud Computing & DCIM by: Shekhar Dasgupta, Founder GreenField Software Private Limited

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Definitions

Cloud Computing: Gartner defines it as a style of computing in which scalable & elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered using Internet technologies.

Scalability and elasticity are not the same thing. Scalability lets you plan in advance and adapt your IT systems accordingly, whereas Elasticity provides you the resources to handle emergencies.

DCIM is a system that collects and manages information about a datacenter’s assets, resource use and operational status. This information is then analyzed and delivered in ways that help managers meet business objectives, service goals and optimize the datacenter’s performance.

- Andrew Donoghue (Analyst, Eco-Efficient IT), 451 Research

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Cloud Computing – Why do we need it?

More and more companies are moving to a cloud infrastructure because of the massive potential for cost savings and easy manageability.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”.

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Cloud Delivery Models

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Equipment used to support

operations, such as storage, hardware, servers and networking components, is outsourced to a cloud provider.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) Provision and deployment of enterprise-wide software applications is outsourced to a third party who owns both the hardware and the software applications and the responsibility of maintaining them.

Software as a Service (SaaS) Customer facing applications are hosted and maintained by a cloud provider, and are made available to end-users over the Internet or a computer network.

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Cloud Deployment Models

Public clouds exist outside of the end user’s firewall where a cloud provider makes resources like software or data storage available over the Internet e.g. Amazon Web Services and Windows Azure.

Private clouds can exist within the client’s firewall or could be a private space dedicated to the client company within the cloud provider’s own data centers.

Hybrid clouds are an amalgamation of the above two types of cloud where a business hosts some of its servers on its own premises and the two clouds work seamlessly together.

Community clouds are shared by several organizations that have shared concerns such as security requirements and compliance considerations.

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Cloud Computing – Characteristics

According to NIST, the five fundamental characteristics of cloud computing are

• On-demand self-service

• Broad network access

• Resource pooling

• Rapid elasticity

• Measured service

A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service provider.

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Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and workstations).

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The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, and network bandwidth.

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Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly outward and inward commensurate with demand. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.

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Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.

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Elasticity – The Main Attraction of Cloud

The PROBLEM - Over-provisioning

Traditional on-site data centers are designed to handle peaks in demand. Typically only 15% of this capacity is used during other times resulting in unused capacity and inefficient use of costly resources. In most cases, businesses cannot afford to do away with over-provisioning altogether and the total cost of ownership (TOC) of the data center is very high.

The SOLUTION - Elasticity

Shifting some or all of their data and applications to the cloud gives businesses the ability to handle sudden, unanticipated and extraordinary loads. Cloud providers have the extra capacity to handle these peaks in usage and users only pay for what they use and the total spending on IT goes down.

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How is it done?

Orchestration refers to combining

multiple and distinct automated tasks into a single workflow and provides centralized management across systems and networks including multiple devices, applications, solutions and entire data centers.

It even takes care of the financial aspect of managing your IT infrastructure including, billing, metering and power consumption.

The Data Centric Framework Management (DMF) approach to cloud orchestration aims to maintain a conceptually centralized data repository of all the resources being managed including computational, storage and network devices.

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Where does DCIM comes in?

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)

DCIM gives businesses a unified and enhanced management interface across multiple data centers whether on-site or on the cloud.

It assists with load balancing and on-demand provisioning of both physical and virtual resources and provides for broad platform compatibility across your entire IT infrastructure.

DCIM could act as a cloud agent or cloud brokering software to allow businesses to provision “elastic” resources across cloud providers and to make optimal choices for deriving the least Cost of Application Delivery.

The Next Gen DCIM will be the Cloud platform to enable Massive Scalability & High Availability WITHOUT OVER-PROVISIONING.

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Questions?

GreenField Software is pioneering the Next Gen DCIM for Tomorrow’s Software Defined Data Centers

Email: [email protected]

Visit us on the web at www.greenfieldsoft.com

http://www.greenfieldsoft.com/

Documents

Cloud Computing & DCIM