SERVICE CATALOG STRATEGIES FOR VBLOCK INFRASTRUCTURE PLATFORMS

Transcription

1 SERVICE CATALOG STRATEGIES FOR VBLOCK INFRASTRUCTURE PLATFORMS IaaS COE January VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 1

2 Table of Contents Executive Summary... 3 The Challenge... 3 The Solution... 4 Scope of This Paper... 4 Audience... 4 Terminology... 5 What is a Service Catalog?... 6 Attributes of a Service Catalog... 7 How to Create a Service Catalog... 9 Inventory and Categorize New and Existing IT Services Identify Optimization Opportunities with Vblock Technologies Standardize the Service Descriptions Develop Associated Workflows Design Presentation and Navigation Interface Lifecycle of a Service Catalog Benefits of Creating a Service Catalog on Vblock Infrastructure Platforms Case Study ACME Quality Products Inventory and Categorize New and Existing IT Services Identify Optimization Opportunities with Vblock Technologies Standardize the Service Descriptions Develop Associated Workflows Design Presentation and Navigation Interface Conclusion Next Steps References VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 2

3 Executive Summary Businesses large and small are moving rapidly to leverage the economic and environmental advantages of computing in the cloud. However, to take full advantage of the many benefits that cloud computing offers greater operational efficiency, greater resource availability, better quality of resources, reduced costs requires more than just moving to a virtualized converged infrastructure. Converged infrastructure enables IT organizations to centralize the management of IT resources, consolidate systems, increase resource utilization rates, and lower costs. To maximize the increased efficiencies associated with the converged infrastructure, IT must adopt processes, tools, and organizational structures to offer IT as a Service. Offering standardized services to users through use of an intuitive service catalog is the starting point for IT as it sets out to realize this new operating model. Eighty percent of system failures are a direct result of misadministration and poor configuration. A significant part of making IT infrastructure more resilient will be to reduce the chance for human error through high levels of automation... Neil MacDonald, VP & Gartner Fellow The service catalog is the central source of information about the services offered by IT to the business, and is fundamental to the successful transformation of an IT organization or service provider from the traditional method of delivering IT capabilities to delivering IT as a Service. The Challenge In a traditional data center environment, IT is typically separated into silos of capabilities such as network, server, and storage. Although this traditional operating model allows for specialization and focus within the silos, it also propagates inefficiencies in IT operations, which affects the business as well as IT itself. The traditional model of IT service provisioning and delivery often leads to: Decreased efficiency delivering IT services serially across silos transferring a service request from one subject matter expert to another until the request is complete increases the time needed to deliver the service. Lack of standardization of services and solutions can affect the delivery schedule and reduce operational efficiency since IT personnel must customize each service request individually. Increased cost building and delivering customized services and systems is a significant cost to the business due to hardware capital expenditures, software licenses, the personnel required to interface with the business, and the technical experts who engineer, build, and maintain the services and systems. Inconsistent quality allowing users to provision customized and unique solutions increases the likelihood for errors and the subsequent need for rework. These errors can result in unstable and underperforming systems, the potential for a security exposure, and user downtime and dissatisfaction. Errors also require time to resolve appropriately, increase the cost to the business, and place IT operational efficiency at risk VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 3

4 IT organizations need to create and implement business-focused rather than technology-focused delivery and support methods. These new methods must contain or reduce overall costs and provide faster and more efficient provisioning of services. As a result, IT will gain greater operational efficiency by freeing IT staff to work on strategic activities. The Solution A strategy that includes identifying, categorizing, and optimizing new and existing IT capabilities into standardized services that are both business-focused and valued transforms the IT service model from the traditional model of separate silos of capabilities to a streamlined delivery of solutions. A service catalog provides the mechanism to centralize and present these standardized services. Standardizing services and solutions and presenting them to users in an intuitive, easy to understand service catalog helps reduce costs and facilitates budgeting and forecasting activities. Standardized configurations that have been tested and validated ensure the consistency and accuracy of the solutions delivered by IT to the business and the user. In addition, by combining and standardizing the needed components and associated support into a single service offering, IT can sometimes even provision an entire solution at once, saving valuable time and cost. Discussed in this paper are: Purpose of a service catalog Attributes of a service catalog How to create a service catalog Service catalog lifecycle A case study that illustrates the design decisions inherent in creating a service catalog Scope of This Paper Outlined in this paper is a strategy for creating and implementing a service catalog. It provides a framework and steps for creating a service catalog including a case study that illustrates the thought processes and decisionmaking involved. Reading this paper will provide the information necessary to plan a strategy for creating a business-focused service catalog as the foundation for providing IT as a Service. Audience CIOs, Infrastructure and Operations VPs, Directors, and Managers, and any technical management responsible for defining IT strategy will benefit from reading this paper. Sales engineers, field consultants, professional services, IT managers, infrastructure architects, partner engineers, and customers may also find the content useful when creating a service catalog VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 4

5 Terminology The following table contains terms used throughout this paper. Term Cloud Computing Converged Infrastructure IT as a Service ITIL Service Catalog Definition Cloud computing is an evolving term used to describe a new model of computing whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on-demand, as with the electricity grid. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, and utility computing. A converged infrastructure packages multiple IT components into a single, optimized computing solution. Components of a converged infrastructure solution include servers, data storage devices, virtualization, networking equipment, and software for IT infrastructure management, automation, and orchestration. IT as a Service (ITaaS) refers to a method by which an IT organization or service provider delivers well-defined services delineated at a clear business interface, usually to multiple consumers and/or different business units. Delivering services in this manner, as opposed to operating as pure infrastructure administrators, allows an IT organization to increase underlying resource utilization and reduce associated operational costs. It also enables IT to offer pay-per-use business consumption. The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL ) is a set of concepts and practices for Information Technology Services Management (ITSM), IT development, and IT operations. ITIL is the most widely adopted approach for IT Service Management in the world. It provides a practical, no-nonsense framework for identifying, planning, delivering, and supporting IT services to the business. The service catalog provides a central source of information on the IT service offerings delivered to the business by the provider organization, ensuring that business areas can view an accurate, consistent picture of the IT services available, their details, and status VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 5

6 What is a Service Catalog? A service catalog is a vehicle that IT uses to articulate all its available services and solutions to its user community. The service catalog abstracts the technology to make the presenting, requesting, and provisioning of standardized services faster, more transparent, and of consistent quality. The driving goal behind IT is to provide value to the business, and the service catalog is its showcase. The service catalog demonstrates value to users by linking IT capabilities to business requirements by way of standardized service offerings (Figure 1). By implementing and utilizing a robust, standardized service catalog, IT brings the business and services together efficiently while enabling reduction in the underlying operating expenses. Figure 1. Relationship between IT, the Service Catalog, and the Business As an everyday example of this concept, consider a restaurant s menu. The menu is the vehicle by which a restaurant presents its offerings to its customers. In doing so, it does not offer its customers an unlimited number of dishes nor does it ask them to choose the ingredients that will make up the dish. Rather, it offers its customers a limited and standardized set of menu items that have been carefully pre-defined based on the expertise and skill of the chef and staff, and on the market that the restaurant is trying to satisfy. The resulting menu allows for a simple selection by the customer, and, equally importantly, provides the restaurant a means to manage its operations efficiently while providing consistently high-quality dishes. By defining exactly what is presented to its customers, the restaurant can make sure it has the proper raw ingredients available, can obtain these ingredients from the best sources, and can employ the right number of chefs and staff. The service catalog provides these same benefits to an IT organization. By presenting a carefully selected and standardized set of services in its service catalog, IT is able to achieve a number of operational and user-facing benefits. In particular, it will be able to optimize its infrastructure and personnel requirements, and better forecast 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 6

7 future operating and capital expenditures. At the same time, the delivery of consistent services to users will improve quality, delivery times, customer satisfaction, and ultimately the value of IT. Attributes of a Service Catalog Clarity, completeness, and usefulness are important criteria when describing service offerings in the service catalog. Equally important is using the parlance of the business to describe service offerings unambiguously. As a best practice, the following attributes should be included for each service offering entry. Attribute Service Name Description Description Users should easily understand what a service offering is by its Service Name. IT and the business should collaborate and agree on Service Names before publication of the service catalog to avoid misunderstandings, confusion, and ordering mistakes. Categorizing services also helps avoid confusion, and is a best practice in the case of larger, more complex organizations. The Description tells users what the service is and what value the service provides. The Description should be clear, concise, and complete, using simple and appropriate language. For example, compare the following two descriptions. Description 1 Corporate approved Silver Package virtual desktop installed and configured with the latest Office productivity suite of applications. You and your manager will receive login instructions via after creation and initial configuration of your virtual desktop. After you successfully log in, configuration of the virtual desktop will automatically complete. Description 2 Image of MS ver w/4gb RAM, 30GB HDD, needed binaries and apps installed and configured to 90%. Final 10% after successful Kerberos authentication. Description 1 is preferable to description 2 given its use of common sense business terms as opposed to technical jargon. Features and Options The Features and Options attribute describes the technical components of the solution. Technical components will change as IT and the business evolve the services over time. For example, the business may decide to retire Windows XP and make Windows 7 the standard virtual desktop operating system. If limited customization of a service were allowed, the different options would be listed here for selection VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 7

8 Attribute Service and Support Expectations Description The Service and Support Expectations attribute clearly communicates the quality of service and support provided with the service to ensure the user s expectations will be met. The level of service is dependent on the type of solution and the agreed upon level of support that IT will provide to the business. For example, standard virtual desktop service may be Monday through Friday during normal business hours with a 4-hour response time, while a hosted, mission-critical, and public facing Web server may have continuous monitoring with 24-hour technical support. These service and support parameters may or may not equate to formal Service Level Agreements (SLAs) depending on agreements between IT and the business for each solution. Approval Requirements Price Service catalog requests still require the appropriate approvals even in the case where a self-service request interface exists. During the planning and implementation of the service catalog, the established approval processes are integrated to provide streamlined and accountable processing of requests. For example, low-end, basic, non-customized virtual desktop requests may progress with only notification (passive approval) to the requestor s direct supervisor. Requests for high-end configurations, such as servers, might require a formal (active) approval workflow before being processed. Depending on fiscal policy, the service catalog entry may need to accommodate multiple approval levels. Every service request has a cost associated with it even if this information is not visible to the user. The value of IT to the business as well as any costs associated with nonstandard features or options should be taken into consideration when determining the final price of providing a service or solution. Transparency of the price for each service allows the business to be knowledgeable and accountable for the costs incurred and better able to utilize this information for planning and budgeting purposes. Visibility to the price associated with virtual services and solutions helps eliminate the perception that virtual services are free. In addition, presenting the price of the resources required for each virtual instance allows comparison with a physical solution to determine return on investment. Provisioning Timeframe Clear expectations on the timing of service delivery are paramount. The timeframe must be realistic and be attainable for IT. For example, if the selected configuration requires three levels of approval, reasonable time for the approvals must be included. A provisioning timeframe of one day would not be feasible if management is allowed three business days to review and approve the request VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 8

9 How to Create a Service Catalog One of the first and most important steps in the move to operating as a service-oriented business is to implement a usable service catalog. While the service catalog is not a new concept, embarking on the development of a modern service catalog can be a daunting task as the creation of appropriate service offerings for this new environment is new for most companies. One common approach is to make use of a logical top down methodology that can extend and build on a traditional service catalog, if one exists, but is also focused on business and user requirements. Figure 2 illustrates this top down process. Figure 2. Creating a Service Catalog 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 9

10 Inventory and Categorize New and Existing IT Services The first step in creating a service catalog is to inventory and categorize service offerings that can be delivered in a standard manner and can be offered to users through an easy to understand and use interface. For example, a high-level categorization of existing services may result in creating categories such as User Computing, Connectivity, Communications, and Server Infrastructure (Figure 3). These high-level categories function as buckets that organize and contain the services and solutions offered to users. As services and solutions are categorized, different classes of service (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) may also become apparent. Figure 3. Sample Categories and Service Offerings Identify Optimization Opportunities with Vblock Technologies Not only does a high-level categorization of services help form the structure of the service catalog, it can also help to identify opportunities to optimize services and solutions with Vblock technologies. For example, a high-level categorization of Vblock technologies reveals Vblock Infrastructure Platforms could easily provide a variety of standardized solutions such as a Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) that would provide consistency and manageability for common user environments. Standardize the Service Descriptions After identifying, categorizing, and optimizing service offerings with Vblock technologies, it is important to make sure they are named and described clearly and completely so that both IT and the business share the same understanding of what will be delivered. As it is likely that IT and the business have different names for the same service, it is important they agree on naming conventions to prevent confusion and misunderstanding. This collaboration between IT and business should result in agreed upon names and descriptions for each service offering in the service catalog VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 10

11 Develop Associated Workflows Once IT and the business agree on names and descriptions for each service offering, the technology, processes, and procedures for delivering, using, and maintaining the service catalog are developed, reviewed, and put in place. Although the process may initially consist of creating a simple work ticket that captures details of the service offering from the service catalog, the requirement is to ensure consistency and accuracy of each service and solution delivered. Design Presentation and Navigation Interface In addition to the information presented to the user about the services and solutions, the usability of the service catalog is an important consideration. Implementation of a service catalog may take the form of a Web portal, a Microsoft SharePoint portal, an Excel file, or any number of commercially available products. In any case, the service catalog must minimally be: Easy to understand and use Consistent in form and function Supported by IT Able to provide metric and reporting data Finding and selecting services should be simple, not complex. Presenting choices in a progressive flow helps guide the user in a controlled manner rather than overwhelming him or her with a myriad of choices that may be incompatible. Sequenced selections help maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload. This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required for the user to select the services they need. Figure 4 illustrates how the user navigates the service catalog. Each step in this flow takes the user closer to a solution that will meet his or her business need without having to make one or more telephone calls, wait for a service desk operator to answer, describe the service they want, wait while the operator writes the service request, and so on. The process and the outcome are predictable. At the end, the user knows what they will get and when they will get it. Figure 4. Navigating the Service Catalog 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 11

12 Lifecycle of a Service Catalog Business drivers and technology are ever changing, and services and solutions cannot remain static. To optimize efficiency, ensure quality, and maintain value, IT must continually measure, evaluate, and improve the service catalog. The service catalog lifecycle describes the life of the service catalog from planning and creating service offerings to align with the business strategy, through the design and delivery of the service catalog, to its ongoing operation and continual improvement. To provide solutions to ever-changing business and user needs and optimize IT operational efficiency, IT must continually: Create service offerings develop consistent, standardized service offerings that provide value to the business and the user and enhance IT operational efficiency. Present services make service offerings accessible to users in a simple, intuitive interface with names and descriptions that clearly indicate the value provided. Report on services provide measurements and reports that include the metrics most useful to IT and the business for evaluating service offerings and developing billing models. Maintain services add, adapt, and retire service offerings as needed. Maintain clear communication channels with the business to ensure service offerings continue to meet evolving and changing business needs and priorities. Figure 5. Service Catalog Lifecycle 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 12

13 Benefits of Creating a Service Catalog on Vblock Infrastructure Platforms Vblock Infrastructure Platforms integrate best-of-breed compute, network, storage, virtualization, and management technologies from VMware, Cisco, and EMC. The unique nature of the Vblock Infrastructure Platform presents new opportunities for IT to improve on traditional delivery methods for the services offered to internal and external users. A service catalog can help to maximize the benefits of the Vblock converged infrastructure and better align IT with the needs of the business. By combining and standardizing the needed components and associated support into a single service offering, users can choose and then IT can provision an entire solution at once, saving valuable time, reducing cost, and improving quality. The service catalog provides many important benefits to the business and users including: Reduces complexity clear, unambiguous descriptions in the service catalog provide a layer of abstraction that reduces complexity by hiding the details and exposing only the essential features of the service or solution. Facilitates consistent and predictable outcomes standardized service deliverables help IT to eliminate customized and fragmented accidental architectures and move toward integrated, optimized technologies that lower risk, increase efficiency, and produce consistent and predictable outcomes. Enhances business agility and responsiveness standardized services and solutions facilitate fast deployment and the ability to quickly respond to changing priorities on a wide scale. Enables IT as a Service basing service offerings on solutions to business and user needs rather than the underlying technologies helps IT to align services with business functions and to operate IT as a Service. Reduces cost standardization of services and solutions helps to eliminate the misuse and waste of resources associated with configuration errors, which reduces the overall costs of IT service delivery and support VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 13

14 Case Study ACME Quality Products Consider the fictional company ACME makers and distributers of personal propulsion products such as jetpacks and giant slingshots. After years of inefficiency, poor quality, and increasing operating costs, ACME decided to renovate its prior generation data center through the purchase of a Vblock system. ACME also recognized that a thorough review and update of its practices and procedures was long overdue. In the case of ACME, our fictional company, the business and IT needed to address two main issues standardizing computing services to increase both user satisfaction and IT operational efficiency and making the user community aware of the available services. Inventory and Categorize New and Existing IT Services ACME started by reviewing and analyzing the overall listing of services provided by IT. These services covered all aspects of technological solutions ranging from new client computers to server provisioning. ACME then categorized the services into four major categories (User Computing, Connectivity, Communications, and Server Infrastructure). The high-level categorization resulted in logical groupings of services and solutions for presentation in their service catalog (Figure 6). Figure 6. ACME Categories 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 14

15 Identify Optimization Opportunities with Vblock Technologies To achieve their goal of increased efficiencies through standardization of services, the ACME IT organization and representatives of the business met extensively to discuss which services and solutions delivered by Vblock technologies should be included in the service catalog. ACME decided to utilize the technologies provided by the new Vblock system to replace its aging desktop environment with a Virtual Desktop Interface solution for each of its user communities: Corporate, Engineering, and Sales. Figure 7 shows the service offerings that ACME decided to offer users. Figure 7. Final ACME Service Catalog Offerings 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 15

16 Standardize the Service Descriptions IT and the business agreed that three levels of configuration (Bronze, Silver, and Gold) for each VDI service offering was sufficient to satisfy the majority of user needs. IT and the business then collaborated on choosing service names and descriptions that their users would easily understand. Figure 8 illustrates the three VDI solution packages offered to the Corporate User community. Figure 8. ACME Corporate User Virtual Desktop Interface Packages Develop Associated Workflows Although the ultimate goal of ACME is the back-end automation of the entire provisioning process, the initial service catalog solution acted as a front end capturing pertinent information to create work tickets and populate the existing problem ticketing system. Work tickets were then automatically assigned to the correct queues for resolution. This standardization of the service request and provisioning process increased efficiency and accuracy while reducing costs VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 16

17 Design Presentation and Navigation Interface Before publishing their service catalog, ACME visualized the provisioning flow illustrated in Figure 9. In this visualization, the user: 1. Selects the appropriate category from a list of categories. 2. Browses through the different offerings, and then selects the most appropriate. 3. Selects a package or specific configuration of the service or solution. 4. Confirms the details of the service offering including features and options, delivery timeframe, required approvals, and price. 5. Submits the request for provisioning. Figure 9. ACME Service Catalog Navigation Flow After reviewing, testing, and validating the content in the service offerings and the navigation flow of the service catalog, ACME made the service catalog accessible to their users with a customized Web portal integrated into the IT ticketing system behind the scenes. By utilizing the service catalog, ACME users were able to request standardized services in a consistent manner, which allowed IT to streamline its provisioning processes resulting in an improved user experience as well as decreased operating expenses VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 17

18 Conclusion IT is undergoing a transformation brought on by the introduction of virtualization technology. The transformation has led to a desire to re-engineer IT and move to a model of true IT as a Service. The driving force is the opportunity to reduce operating expenses, increase business agility, and increase the efficiency and consistency with which IT provides services to business users. To achieve their goal of offering IT as a Service, IT organizations must adopt new practices and methods for presenting and delivering services to users. Presenting services and solutions to users by means of a service catalog is a foundational and critical element in the transition to this new IT operational model. The requirement to demonstrate value to the business is also driving many IT organizations to implement best practices for provisioning, delivering, and supporting IT services. The service catalog is a means to capture and communicate the key linkages between IT and the business and demonstrate the value provided by IT. Following the simple, five-step process outlined in this paper will result in a well-structured service catalog of standardized services and solutions that add value to the business and improve IT operational efficiency. A service catalog with standardized service offerings described clearly and presented in an intuitive interface can optimize service provisioning to the business, reduce the overall costs of IT service delivery and support, and, as a result, facilitate the transition to an IT as a Service model. The service catalog will yield the following benefits: Standardized, high-quality service and support offerings Business needs linked directly to IT services Timely, consistent, and cost-effective IT service delivery Improved IT operational efficiency Increased customer satisfaction Next Steps To learn more about this and other solutions, contact a VCE representative or visit References MacDonald, Neil, Why Cloud-Based Computing Will Be More Secure Than It Is Today, Gartner Data Center Conference 2010, December 6-9, VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 18

19 ABOUT VCE VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment Company formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock platform, delivers the industry's first completely integrated IT offering with end-to-end vendor accountability. VCE's prepackaged solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating and managing IT infrastructure. For more information, go to Copyright 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Vblock and the VCE logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company, LLC. and/or its affiliates in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. 19