Cloud Lifecycle Managing Cloud Services from Request to Retirement SOLUTION WHITE PAPER
Table of Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................... 1 CLOUD LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT........................................ 2 The Stages of Cloud Lifecycle................................... 2 Self-Service Portal.................................................. 3 Service Catalog.................................................... 3 Full-Stack Provisioning............................................... 4 Service Decommissioning.............................................. 4 KEY CONSIDERATIONS WHEN BUILDING A CLOUD ENVIRONMENT..................... 5 Leveraging the Public Cloud............................................ 5 Ensuring Scalability.................................................. 5 Supporting Heterogeneity.............................................. 5 THE BMC SOLUTION................................................ 6
Bob 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. Cloud lifecycle management ensures successful use of the cloud by implementing policy- driven provisioning processes through a self-service portal supported by a service catalog. 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 be they human beings, servers, or capital. 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 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 encompasses: Automated, full-stack layered provisioning and configuration of server, storage, and network resources across heterogeneous platforms A configurable service catalog, defining the offerings for users according to their roles A self-service portal for end users to request and manage their cloud services Hybrid cloud integration, enabling IT to leverage external cloud resources when needed Service retirement and resource reclamation 1
CLOUD LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT The goal of cloud lifecycle management is to manage the dynamic nature of the cloud environment, accelerating provisioning, facilitating flexibility, and rapidly meeting the needs of the business. With the BMC Cloud Lifecycle solution, organizations can deliver flexible, customizable cloud services while maintaining a structured, controlled, and dynamic IT environment. The key benefits of a cloud lifecycle management solution should include: Accelerating the delivery of cloud services in response to business needs Automating provisioning and workflows, both for speed and cost savings Enabling users to request flexible configurable cloud services for their specific use cases Supporting the use of public cloud infrastructures to augment internal resources Maximizing resource utilization by ensuring unused cloud services are reclaimed 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. The Stages of Cloud Lifecycle The BMC Cloud Lifecycle solution supports the full lifecycle from request to retirement, as depicted in Figure 1. End User Request Service Self Service Portal Service Catalog Service Request (Automated) Service Retirement Public Cloud CMS/ CMDB Virtual Servers Orchestration and Provisioning Network Storage Physical Servers Applications Operations and Governance Performance & Availability Capacity Service Cost IT Controls and Policy Figure 1. The Cloud Lifecycle 2
The cloud lifecycle starts with a user needing to request a service from the cloud. Requestors need a selfservice portal by which they can request, augment, and retire their cloud services. Driving the portal is a service catalog that aggregates the offerings available, by role, to the users. 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. Once provisioned, the service enters its operational phase, where the normal day-to-day activities of performance, capacity, and compliance are managed. Once a cloud service is no longer needed, 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. Self-Service Portal The most visible user-facing portion of the cloud computing environment is the self-service portal. BMC s user-friendly portal, the MyServices 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 MyServices portal. The portal gives users a multitude of options from which to select and customize their cloud service to suit their needs. Options are presented based on a user s role within the organization, and can range from different resource sizes, service tiers, and operating systems through application stacks and higher-level services, such as compliance and monitoring. The options presented are configured by IT through the service catalog, enabling both highly controlled and highly configurable cloud service requests. The user requests the service, selecting the set of service attributes. Approval for this service follows the approval process 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. The MyServices self-service portal: Provides a web-based interface to enable users to design and commission their own service Allows IT to customize the portal to the look and feel of its company Establishes the necessary controls to constrain options to an appropriate set for each user Enables users to manage existing cloud services Service Catalog At its most basic, a service catalog is a listing of services from which a user can drive the cloud service 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. Users then 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 internal costs are (for calculating chargebacks). 3
The following attributes are often defined in the service catalog: Resource configurations Operating systems Middleware stacks Application alternatives Networking options Compliance packages Monitoring tools Service levels Prices Full-Stack Provisioning In order to provide the most flexible service stacks for users, BMC Cloud Lifecycle supports a very flexible underlying provisioning capability. Traditional virtualization provisioning is image-based, requiring IT to either restrictively standardize on a very small set of images or, alternatively, manage a library of hundreds of unique images. The BMC Cloud Lifecycle approach is one of controlled customization, delivering flexibility for the user, within constraints designed by IT. BMC has the only solution that enables users to select from a layered service catalog of options in their cloud service, including OS, middleware, applications, monitoring, and compliance options, as well as network containers for ensuring secure multi-tenancy in the environment. Once approved, the service is automatically provisioned. This provisioning can be in any environment (virtual, cloud, or even physical) and spans server, network, and storage resources. The provisioning is also dependent on the service attributes chosen by the user when the service is requested. By automating the layered provisioning according to each user s request, IT need not maintain an enormous template library. A unique feature of the BMC Cloud Lifecycle solution is the network container functionality, which creates isolated and secure virtualized network zones within the cloud. They 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. 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 can even layer compliance rules and monitoring tools into each service delivered. Backed by a robust service catalog, automation capability, and role-based access controls, 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. Key provisioning functionality includes the ability to: Provision the full stack of a cloud service, from resources through to applications and additional tools Build each service to meet the needs of the requestor Provision the network container around cloud services to ensure secure multi-tenancy Fully automate the configuration of each cloud service Service Decommissioning Once provisioned, the service enters its operational phase, where BMC solutions manage the normal day-to-day activities of performance, capacity, and configuration compliance. 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. 4
When a cloud service is requested, a retirement date is assigned to it. Cloud services are typically out-of-sight and thus out-of-mind, so the remnants of past cloud services, if not placed on a termination schedule, will often linger indefinitely. When the retirement date approaches, the system automatically notifies the service owner and IT. The owner and IT can jointly make an intelligent and informed decision about whether to extend the service or to decommission it, therefore reclaiming unused disk and CPU resources. Key decommissioning functionality includes the ability to: Schedule, at provisioning, the decommissioning date of a cloud service Decommission each service according to a schedule, with the appropriate notification to its owner Let users of a cloud service extend that service, or terminate it early, though the self-service portal KEY CONSIDERATIONS WHEN BUILDING A CLOUD ENVIRONMENT Leveraging the Public Cloud An internal cloud may start small, yet the demands of a business might be much higher than anticipated. Similarly, it might not make sense to continue to grow an already large internal cloud to meet occasional demand peaks. Consequently, there are often times when leveraging public cloud resources can make good business sense. More and more workloads can be moved to public clouds, especially low-risk workloads. 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 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 MyService portal, and can be managed through the same administrative environment as the private cloud. Ensuring Scalability Cloud environments may begin reasonably small, but both the efficiency and the flexibility of the infrastructure will rapidly drive the growth of a cloud. As in the early days of virtualized environments, the ease with which cloud services can be requested and provisioned will increase demand on an IT environment, and thus drive accelerated growth. This growth represents IT s improved ability to serve the business, but also creates a key consideration in architecting a private cloud: scalability. The cloud being developed should be designed to scale to many times its initial estimates, and thus the management software used to build that cloud should be ready to support that growth. The BMC Cloud Lifecycle solution has been deployed in massive cloud environments with thousands of concurrent multi-tiered applications running as cloud services, being rapidly provisioned and de-provisioned on a daily basis. Supporting Heterogeneity Initial clouds are often conceived with reasonably homogeneous x86 environments in mind. But 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 to even the occasional mainframe. And 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. 5
Whether beginning as a homogenous cloud environment today, 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 solution can address the heterogeneous needs of advanced cloud implementations. THE BMC SOLUTION BMC Cloud Lifecycle manages the dynamic nature of the cloud environment, accelerating provisioning, facilitating flexibility, and implicitly setting expectations with the business. What s more, it 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, as well as the needs of the technology team. 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. BMC Cloud Lifecycle 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. 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, 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 September 30, 2010, BMC revenue was approximately $1.96 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. 2010 BMC Software, Inc. All rights reserved. *179317*