Hybrid Cloud Delivery Managing Cloud Services from Request to Retirement SOLUTION WHITE PAPER

Transcription

1 Hybrid Cloud Delivery Managing Cloud Services from Request to Retirement SOLUTION WHITE PAPER

2 Contents Executive Summary Hybrid Cloud Delivery »» The Stages of Hybrid Cloud Delivery 2»» Service Catalog Establishment 3»» Cloud Service Delivery 5»» Cloud Resource Management 6 The BMC Solution

3 Cooper turned to his computer with a sense of relief and pulled up his self-service portal. He needed to run some analytics on his latest experimental data, and time was of the essence. In the past, it would have taken him a weekend to run on his desktop, or weeks to request an extra server, delaying his project and wasting money not to mention the hassle of filling out forms and tracking down status updates. However, since his company built a cloud environment, he can request a cloud service with a simple click. He can even request the application stack he needs, and weigh the costs and benefits of different configurations. Once he submits his request, the cloud service is automatically provisioned, and minutes later he is on his way. Executive Summary The complete lifecycle of a cloud service includes both internal and external cloud resources from request through self-service provisioning to decommissioning. This lifecycle is tailored to the needs of the business, with both the flexibility to deliver the full required software stacks and the management rigor to ensure the operational integrity of the cloud. Hybrid cloud delivery ensures successful use of the cloud by implementing layered provisioning processes through a self-service portal supported by a service catalog. Once provisioned, intelligent policies govern the initial placement and ongoing management of those cloud services in the environment. With cloud lifecycle management in place, IT can achieve the fundamental goals of a cloud environment: agility, cost savings, and a more optimized use of resources (whether personnel, servers, or capital). Even the most basic clouds, such as those supporting development efforts, still have a diverse set of users who require differences in instance size, monitoring requirements, service level agreements (SLAs), or security and compliance options. The users each need a very specific cloud service to truly meet their needs and should be able to select from a variety of offerings to optimize individual configurability. The more robust, flexible, and role-based the service catalog is, the better you re able to satisfy the user. Many organizations approaching cloud computing today have already had some experience implementing virtualization in their data centers. Extending the traditional virtualized environment, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management delivers an operational model for the lifecycle of cloud services and the utilization of public clouds in a hybrid model. Every resource in the environment goes through a lifecycle that, when defined and appropriately automated, provides a seamless and predictable cloud for both IT and the business. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management encompasses: Service Catalog Establishment Enable your users to select their own solutions through self-service requests with tiered, configurable services; oversee your users through customizable role-based access and flexible approval workflows. Cloud Service Delivery Ensure that your cloud is fulfilling all of your needs during its lifetime by supporting provisioning and de-provisioning, facilitating patching and configuration management, and supplying ongoing policy-based management. Cloud Resource Management Manage your cloud resources proactively by defining resource pooling, on-boarding local and external resources, and enabling secure multi-tenancy. 1

4 Hybrid Cloud Delivery The goal of hybrid cloud delivery is to manage the dynamic nature of the cloud environment in order to accelerate provisioning, facilitate flexibility, and rapidly meet the needs of the business. With the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution, your organization can deliver flexible, customizable cloud services while maintaining a structured, controlled, and dynamic IT environment. Initial decisions around cloud lifecycle management will help lay the foundation for the technology decisions going forward, ensuring that the environment is flexible enough to address anticipated areas of growth in the future. Cloud computing management will help you:»» Meet business needs by providing flexible cloud service offerings Key Benefits»» Meet business needs by providing flexible cloud service offerings»» Improve availability by delivering efficient single and multi-tier cloud services»» Optimize costs through intelligent, policydriven placement of cloud services Improve availability by ensuring broad»» resource support for physical and virtual environments, as well as private and public clouds»» Improve availability by delivering efficient single and multi-tier cloud services»» Optimize costs through intelligent, policy-driven placement of cloud services»» Improve availability by ensuring broad resource support for physical and virtual environments, as well as private and public clouds The administration of the hybrid cloud environment occurs through an administrative portal, customized to the needs of tenant managers (who manage the users of the cloud), service designers (who create and configure cloud service offerings), and cloud administrators (who manage the resources of the cloud). The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution has a user-friendly, flexible portal environment for administering all three aspects of the cloud environment: (1) Service catalog (2) Policy-based operations, and (3) Underlying resource management. The Stages of Hybrid Cloud Delivery Figure 1. The Cloud Service Request Lifecycle 2

5 The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution supports the full lifecycle from request to retirement. The cloud lifecycle starts with a user needing to request a service from the cloud. Requestors need a self-service portal by which they can request, augment, and retire their cloud services. Driving the portal is a service catalog that aggregates the service offerings available, by role, to the users. Each offering can be associated with a vast array of configurable options, defined by the service designer or cloud administrator. Once a request is initiated, a workflow is invoked either fully automated or with manual steps (depending on the request and on the organization s needs). Once approved, the service is automatically provisioned. A cloud requires full-stack provisioning server, storage, and network resources, as well as middleware, applications and other software elements in order to exist. This provisioning can be in any environment (virtual, cloud, or even physical) and spans server, network, and storage resources. The placement of the service depends on the nature of the workload, information about the user, capacity and performance information from the cloud, and a variety of other configurable factors that drive a policy-engine within the Service Governor. Once provisioned, the user receives the cloud service, and the service enters its operational phase, where the normal day-to-day activities of performance, capacity, and compliance are managed. [For more information on cloud operations, please reference our companion white paper, Beyond Provisioning: Ongoing Operations of an Efficient Cloud Environment.] Once a cloud service is no longer required, users will need a mechanism to decommission that resource. Good decommissioning systems operate on-demand, at the user s explicit request, or according to a predetermined schedule. Service Catalog Establishment At its most basic, a service catalog is a listing of services from which a user can drive the provisioning process. The challenge lies in the natural tension between users, who want to completely customize their offerings, and the IT group, which has to maintain tight controls on the services in the environment. The role of the service catalog is to bridge that gap. The service catalog enables IT to define the areas of configuration and choice that users can select, according to their role. As a result, users feel some measure of customizability of their cloud services. Each service offering has attributes that IT defines, including who can see and select this service, what service levels or constraints are important to this service, and what the service costs (for calculating chargebacks). In other words, the service catalog houses the service offerings, which communicate a set of technology specifications in business language. Cloud services might be multi-tier or single-tier application stacks. They may have differing deployment alternatives based on size and service tier. Finally, they might offer all the configuration options a user might require. These elements are defined as individual service blueprints within the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution. Once defined functionally, they are then characterized in business language as service offerings which are stored in the service catalog. It is from these offerings that end users select their cloud services. 3

6 Figure 2. The Three Components of a Cloud Service Offering The following attributes are often defined in the service blueprints:»» Resource configurations»» Operating systems»» Middleware stacks»» Application alternatives»» Networking options»» Compliance packages»» Monitoring tools»» Service levels»» Prices IT can choose which cloud services to offer to users and how customizable those services will be. At one extreme, users can be offered a choice between only two or three non-customizable full-stack configurations. On the other extreme, users can be offered an extensive set of choices for each component, enabling them to fully customize their stack. A common middle-ground approach is for IT to determine which broad offerings should be presented, which elements should be optional and which should be required (like compliance or monitoring), and which users will be presented with which options. 4

7 The user is exposed to the service catalog only through their self-service request and management portal. BMC s user-friendly interface, the My Cloud Services portal, guides users through the service request process, showing them only those options available to them based on their role. In addition to placing new requests, users can manage the services they ve requested from the cloud, turn them on or off, and request additional time or resources in the My Cloud Services portal. The portal is customizable to match the look and feel of the company, as well. Once a service is requested, the approval process is initiated according to policies defined by IT. This process may be fully automated or may require manual approval. The key is that this process is determined by IT, and can be different for each service type. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management provides the capability to define the service blueprints, expose them through the service catalog into the user s request and management My Cloud Services portal, and ensure that requests are approved according to policy. By enabling highly configurable cloud services to be delivered in scalable, automated manner, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management ensures that business users are given the cloud services they need. Key benefits of service catalog establishment:»» Enable self-service request and administration»» Offer tiered, configurable services»» Customize role-based access and flexible approval workflows Cloud Service Delivery Once a cloud service is approved, there are three major components to delivering that service. First, there is the act of provisioning the service from the resources through the operating system and up to the applications. Second, there is the challenge of placing the service in the environment, according to a set of policies. Finally, there is the ongoing effort of maintaining and managing the cloud service throughout its lifetime. Multi-tier Cloud Service Provisioning In order to provide the most flexible service stacks for users, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management supports a very flexible underlying provisioning capability. Traditional virtualization provisioning is image-based, requiring IT either to standardize on a very small set of images or, alternatively, manage a library of hundreds of unique images. The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management approach is one of controlled customization, delivering flexibility for the user, within constraints designed by IT. This is accomplished by marrying the Service Blueprints with automated full-stack provisioning. Full-stack provisioning allocates physical resources and an operating system in the environment; provisions and configures network containers for multi-tenant support; and layers middleware and applications into the cloud service. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management can even layer compliance rules and monitoring tools into each service delivered. The provisioning behind the solution gives users precisely the stack they require, while also maintaining the tight controls necessary to manage a complex IT environment. In this way, IT is not burdened with maintaining an enormous template library This provisioning can be in any environment (virtual, cloud, or even physical) and spans server, network, and storage resources. In fact, using BMC Atrium Orchestrator Adaptors, the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution even supports the provisioning of Amazon Web Services resources. Because the goal of the cloud is to better use resources all of the time, service decommissioning or retirement is a very important function, completing the lifecycle. 5

8 Policy-based Placement Each cloud service not only must be provisioned, but also, must be located somewhere in the shared resource pool. That location should be based on a number of factors, including:»» The identity of the requestor»» The nature of the workload»» The capacity of different elements in the environment»» The applicable compliance policies»» The required service levels»» Organization-specific policies In order to properly place a workload, therefore, the cloud management solution has to take a policy-based approach to intelligent placement, weighing the different guidelines and making a decision. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management accomplishes this through a Service Governor, which acts as the intelligent policy-engine for the cloud environment, making both initial placement decisions and performing ongoing management. Ongoing Operations Once provisioned, the service enters its operational phase, where BMC solutions manage the normal day-to-day activities of performance and capacity management, as well as patching and configuration management. That core functionality ensures that capacity and performance information is adequately feeding placement decisions of the Service Governor. Further, as part of baseline cloud operations, the functionality to maintain patch levels and configurations of cloud services in an automated manner is core to the capabilities of the cloud environment. Finally, by virtue of the provisioning mechanism, updates to applications and other software elements can be assured to be up to date for all future cloud services. Key benefits of cloud service delivery include:»» Enable provisioning / de-provisioning»» Perform ongoing patching and configuration management»» Provide continuous policy-based management [Please note that this paper touches on this topic at a high level only. For more information, we recommend that you also reference our companion white papers: Beyond Provisioning: Ongoing Operations of an Efficient Cloud Environment and IT Business Management and Compliance: Ensuring Cloud Governance.] Cloud Resource Management Underneath the management of a cloud are the resources the vast pools of servers, storage, and networks that come together to deliver the cloud services. These resources must be on-boarded, managed for capacity and performance, and tracked appropriately in the environment. Initial clouds are often conceived with reasonably homogeneous x86 environments in mind. However, diversity in a cloud environment can come from many places over time. Multiple hypervisors are currently available on the market, and are increasingly being co-mingled in data centers. The dynamic and flexible cloud provisioning environment is often seen as beneficial to non-x86 architectures, as well from Solaris to IBM AIX and even to the occasional mainframe. Finally, there may be instances when users will want to use the same mechanisms to provision the occasional physical resource alongside all the virtualized ones. 6

9 The BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution can manage a broad array of heterogeneous underlying resources, ensuring that you can make the most of your cloud environment, leveraging the right hardware and infrastructure software to deliver against business requirements. Through BMC Atrium Orchestrator adaptors, it can also provision resources in public clouds. More and more workloads can be moved to public clouds, especially low-risk workloads. In fact, public clouds are not only getting more secure, but they are also providing more and more guarantees of their security and service levels. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management is integrated to provide seamless provisioning of cloud resources from Amazon s Elastic Computing environment. Whether obscured or transparent to the end user, the provisioning of these resources occurs through the same My Cloud Services portal, and can be managed through the same administrative environment as the private cloud. A unique feature of the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution is the network container functionality, which creates isolated and secure virtualized network zones within the cloud. Network containers are often used by organizations to separate cloud services from one another, supporting co-mingled, multi-tenant environments. They create isolated networking environments that can include security zones, firewalls, and load balancers. Once created, cloud services can then be provisioned within them. Whether beginning as a homogenous cloud environment, or incorporating diversity from the start, the scope of a cloud environment is likely to change over time. With this in mind, the BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management solution can address the long-term needs of enterprise-class cloud implementations. Key benefits of cloud resource management include:»» Define resource pooling»» On-board resources whether locally or from external service providers»» Enable secure multi-tenancy The BMC Solution BMC brings together the benefits of traditional IT management, including operational excellence, automation, and service delivery models, and merges them with the dynamic potential of cloud architectures. What s more, BMC helps you achieve tangible results while maintaining a structure, controlled yet still dynamic IT environment. One key role of cloud computing is to layer on top of virtualization an operational structure that is scalable, delivers consistent service, and addresses the needs of the business and the technology team. BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management delivers an operational model for the lifecycle of private cloud resources and utilization of public clouds in a hybrid model. It provides the foundation for a strong, flexible, and valuable cloud infrastructure that supports IT operations and delivers exceptional service quality to the business. To learn more, please visit 7

10 Business runs on IT. IT runs on BMC Software. Business thrives when IT runs smarter, faster and stronger. That s why the most demanding IT organizations in the world rely on BMC Software across distributed, mainframe, virtual and cloud environments. Recognized as the leader in Business Service Management, BMC offers a comprehensive approach and unified platform that helps IT organizations cut cost, reduce risk and drive business profit. For the four fiscal quarters ended December 31, 2010, BMC revenue was approximately $2 billion. * BMC, BMC Software, and the BMC Software logo are the exclusive properties of BMC Software, Inc., are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and may be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other BMC trademarks, service marks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the U.S. or in other countries. AIX and IBM are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Solaris is a trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners BMC Software, Inc. All rights reserved *