THREE WAYS TO GET EXTREME PERFORMANCE IN THE CLOUD

Transcription

1 THREE WAYS TO GET EXTREME PERFORMANCE IN THE CLOUD By Barbara Lewis 2013 W W W.OUT S OUR CING -CENT E R. C O M Outsourcing Center 2013.

2 A Package Deal: Managed Cloud Services for Engineered Systems The fundamental reason to move to a cloud computing environment is primarily is that the pooling of elastic computing resources provides business agility, high efficiency, scalability and availability, along with the added business advantage of significant cost reductions. Yet, how does an organization choose the right cloud technology to support cloud-based applications? Three Different Cloud Consumption Models There are three different models of consuming software and technology in the cloud. A Public Cloud Consumption Model A public cloud model consists of a service or set of services that are purchased by a business or an organization and delivered via the Internet by a third-party service provider. The cloud infrastructure resources compute, storage and network are shared and consumed amongst many customers who do not buy, license or manage any hardware or software. The technology is delivered as a pay-as-you-go service. This often appeals to companies that want to get up and running quickly and prefer the idea of a subscription model and a flexible, elastic cloud computing platform. A Private Cloud Consumption Model By contrast, a private cloud model is an extension of an enterprise's traditional data center that is optimized to provide compute, storage and network capacity for a variety of functions. A private cloud is a non-shared resource and the customer typically owns and controls the cloud environment but is also responsible for managing, maintaining and updating the infrastructure. This can add considerable training and overhead to an IT organization. Managed Cloud Services for Engineered Systems has proven to lower the total cost of ownership of hardware and software by managing it all in the cloud. Customers have found that tapping a single cloud services provider to manage high performing, pre-integrated hardware and software, results in benefits such as easier manageability, higher availability and performance, short deployment times and faster realization of ROI. A Managed Cloud Consumption Model With a managed cloud services model, customers can still have their own private clouds, but a service provider takes full responsibility for building and managing the cloud infrastructure. These managed private clouds can be located either at the customer s own data center or at the service provider s data center. This allows organizations to offload routine management and Outsourcing Center

3 maintenance and instead focus on their core business, thereby gaining peace of mind knowing that the managed cloud service provider is taking care of their infrastructure and securing their data 7/24. Your Advantage: An Optimized Cloud Platform When a cloud technology platform is engineered to work together in a pre-integrated, preconfigured system designed by a single vendor it can be optimized to deliver astonishingly high levels of performance, availability, scalability, efficiency and manageability. Customers who opt for this inside the box approach with a managed cloud services provider that offers a comprehensive management framework for platform and application software inherit some or all of the following advantages: Simplifying IT by offloading of routine maintenance and management, and sharpening focus on strategic, value-add activities Security enabled at every layer throughout the stack One-throat-to-choke for hardware, software, support and services Aggressive availability service level agreements of up to percent with penalties Development level expertise in the technologies from Apps-to-Disk ITIL v3-compliant end-to-end lifecycle management Advanced tools and automation for proactive incident and problem management with rapid resolution of service tickets Fully redundant ISO certified data centers with industrial-strength security and compliance Location independence with the engineered system managed at a provider s, client s or partner s data center Customer s choice of service models Customer s choice of OpEx-based commercial models Oracle, a Frontrunner Oracle is a frontrunner in this unique space of comprehensive managed cloud services for engineered systems such as Oracle Exadata, Exalogic, and Exalytics. Many organizations that use engineered systems also rely on Oracle s Managed Cloud Services to maintain them. Many CIOs acknowledge that they consistently derive greater value, have more choices and experience a high level of confidence as they realize more value from their technology investments than was possible in previous, multi-vendor relationships. More Than a Matter of Cost Cloud computing changes the way technology impacts and delivers value to any organization. While cost is a primary consideration for cloud adoption, organizations still turn to the cloud for improved business agility and faster innovation, as well as alignment of business strategy with IT to drive business transformation. Outsourcing Center

4 Recently, more organizations have begun to consolidate and optimize their IT infrastructure with engineered systems and managed cloud services. The undeniable advantage of relying on a single provider to deliver a cost-effective solution to run and maintain platforms is attractive, as is the associated shift in focus from routine maintenance and troubleshooting to the company s core business innovations and activities. Leveraging a single provider s services and products throughout the entire technology stack enables customers to achieve increased time to value and reduced risk, while profiting from a lower, more predictable cost. Let s examine why the single-provider approach to managing engineered systems in the cloud is garnering such an enthusiastic following. Why Move to Managed Cloud Services For Engineered Systems? Most organizations simply don t have an internal staff with the latest training on vendors products. Additionally, many are running legacy systems that involve multiple vendor relationships. As the business needs of an organization grow over time, the IT ecosystem alters and grows more complex. Therefore, the value an organization realizes from its investment in a multi-vendor technology stack is often not optimized. Engineered systems provide a very effective way to consolidate resources, whether in the data center or in the cloud, while simplifying the IT environment and paving the way for innovation. Engineered systems need less power, use less floor space, and require less maintenance time from IT administrators. Consolidating workloads from several machines onto a single, engineered system provides efficiency with faster performance. It also proves to be less expensive and is a sound approach to reducing a data center footprint and simplifying IT. Experts Run and Maintain. Upgrade as You Choose. As managed cloud services expertise and efficiencies have developed over time and cloud deployment has become more mainstream, organizations have begun to realize that it s much more efficient for managed cloud services experts to run and maintain hardware and software for them. These efficiencies surface in expert level understanding of the most recent releases, efficient upgrades and expedited problem resolution. Coupled with high-performing engineered systems that pre-integrate hardware and software from a single trusted source, the entire solution from the hardware Outsourcing Center

5 through the management of the applications, supported by one reliable cloud service provider, begins to look very appealing. Choice: At Your Data Center or at Oracle s Data Centers In addition, with services and products that are designed, pre-integrated and managed by Oracle, it is also possible for customers to choose between having their Oracle technologies managed remotely in their own data center or at Oracle s tightly controlled, ISO27000 security-certified data centers located around the world. Many customers are eager to have this level of choice. Companies not only want agility and accelerated business value from their systems but also reduced risk and a lower, more predictable cost. Broadly speaking, most are faced with the following challenges: Lack of in-house training, familiarity and expertise in specific software platforms, as well as frustrations with optimization efforts A growing need for an integrated management framework from Apps-to-Disk that expedites issue resolution Contractual availability requirements of up to percent, e.g., financial institutions need extremely reliable performance to process transactions in real time Insufficient data center capabilities, e.g., power, space and cooling, as well as performance tuning for application environments A wish list that may include flexible deployment options and service models, as well as the desire to achieve reduced outages and ROI within less time Thinking Inside the Engineered Systems Box Enables Optimization For a managed cloud services offering to provide the most value, it should be capable of delivering in a number of ways, as follows: Enable the rapid incorporation of the latest technologies and innovations Minimize upgrade costs with systematic, proactive change management all while transforming business processes Provide end-to-end capability across applications and technology flexibly scale up and down as the market and business undergo inevitable shifts CASE STUDY A UK Mobile Phone Retailer Chooses Oracle Managed Cloud Services for Engineered Systems A rapidly growing mobile phone retailer with 680 stores in the UK and 100 more to come chose Oracle Managed Cloud Services (OMCS) to manage Oracle Exadata and Exalogic primarily because of Oracle s willingness to assume all accountability for its certified configurations. Of course, this customer had done its homework, investigating Oracle s many references. Intent on business transformation, the retailer established the following 3-year strategy: Increase consideration, re-transactions and recommendations Increase income from business operations Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty Revamp its business operational processes Increase employee satisfaction Make the best use of its assets and capabilities Outsourcing Center

6 Be deployed for the customer s current business needs without lock-in Incorporate world-class security and best-practice regulatory compliance and governance Include standardized operating processes and innovative tools to deliver enterprise-grade performance Additionally, it is important to consider that, when best-of-breed hardware and software components are pre-integrated in an engineered system, all hardware and software are designed, engineered and most importantly, tested, to work together. When the components are pre-assembled for targeted functionality, the complete system is optimized for the best possible performance. The complete integration of these components throughout every layer of the technology stack often yields less risk and lowers costs for a customer s business. Furthermore, a comparison of price/performance numbers with multi-vendor solutions that customers buy, build, integrate and test on their own, definitively points to engineered systems yielding better business results and lower costs across the board. Examples of Oracle Applications Optimized on Engineered Systems For PeopleSoft optimized on Engineered Systems: Increase performance with Oracle PeopleSoft Payroll processing in half the time Boost productivity with up to 11x faster HR self-service response times with 4000 concurrent users Minimize risk with fully tested, pre-built configurations Accelerate time to value with up to 4.5x faster application deployments CASE STUDY Oracle s Managed Cloud Services helped this mobile phone retailer by: Successfully deploying a greenfield technology and applications stack on Oracle Exadata and Exalogic that supports: A single customer view A new digital platform that enhances the multi-channel experience Its existing Oracle license footprint, while introducing best of breed technologies Delivering a future-proof solution with a predictable cost model that provides agility, scalability, security and resiliency Establishing a relationship with a trusted partner who is entirely accountable and responsible for the management and maintenance For E-Business Suite optimized on Engineered Systems: Accelerate deployment with 4.5x faster time to production Lower TCO by 2x over IBM Power 780 systems and HP Superdome 2 Maximize productivity with full high availability Optimize performance with 200,000-plus Oracle Financials transactions per hour with 80 percent capacity to spare Enable increased security and compliance Outsourcing Center

7 Maximizing Value, Delivering Choice and Confidence The greatest benefit of using managed cloud services for engineered systems is: Customers are able to leverage a single provider s undeniable depth of experience, up-to-the-minute support and unparalleled commitment to service and accountability, which frees them to focus on core business competencies and re-direct staff resources. This approach provides more value from technology investments with the additional opportunity to consume the latest innovations, while offering more choices to deploy and control business applications along with a greater level of confidence that applications and engineered systems will perform and scale as required. In conclusion, by combining a Managed Cloud Service and Engineered Systems, the following additional benefits can be realized: CASE STUDY Oracle Managed Cloud Service features that enabled the phone retailer to achieve its goals include: Strong systems governance Elevation of the business to a significantly higher level of operational excellence Certified configurations World class managed cloud service capability Enterprise-class security Flexible access to expert resources Oracle s accountability for Oracle technology stack and applications Accelerated implementations Reduced and predictable IT costs Improved processes and controls High performance and scalability as needed Proactive patches and updates Reduced upgrade risk and downtime Far fewer service requests on average Faster time to resolution World-class security, compliance and governance For more information, visit Outsourcing Center

8 An Outsourcing Center Paper W W W.OUT S OUR CING -CENT ER.C O M Outsourcing Center 2013.