When you think Cloud, whether Private
or Public, one of the key advantages that comes to mind is speed of deployment.
All businesses crave the ability to simply go to a service portal, define their
infrastructure requirements and immediately have a platform ready for their new
application. Coupled with that you instantly have service level agreements that
generally centre on uptime and availability. So for example, instead of being a
law firm that spends most of its budget on an in house IT department and
datacenter, the Cloud provides an unavoidable opportunity for businesses to
instead procure infrastructure as a service and consequently focus on
delivering their key applications. But while the understanding of Cloud Computing
and its benefits have matured within the industry, so too has the understanding
that maybe what’s currently being offered still isn’t good enough for their
mission critical applications. The reality is that there is still a need for a
more focused and refined understanding of what the service level agreements
should be and ultimately a more concerted approach towards the applications. So
while neologisms such as speed, agility and flexibility remain synonymous with
Cloud Computing, its success and maturity ultimately depend upon a new focal
point, namely velocity.
Velocity bears a distinction from
speed in that it's not just a measure of how fast an object travels but also in
what direction that object moves. For example in a Public Cloud whether that be
Amazon, Azure or Google no one can dispute the speed. Through only the clicks
of a button you have a ready-made server that can immediately be used for
testing and development purposes. But while it may be quick to deploy, how
optimised is it for your particular environment, business or application
requirements? With only generic forms the specific customization to a
particular workload or business requirement fails to be achieved as
optimization is sacrificed for the sake of speed. Service levels based on
uptime and availability are not an adequate measure or guarantee for the
successful deployment of an application. For example it would be considered
ludicrous to purchase a laptop from a service provider that merely stipulates a
guarantee that it will remain powered on even though it performs atrociously.
In the Private Cloud or traditional
IT example, while the speed to deployment is not as quick as that of a public
cloud, there are other scenarios where speed is being witnessed yet failing to
produce the results required for a maturing Cloud market. Multiple
infrastructure silos will constantly be seen to be hurrying around, busily
firefighting and maintaining “the keeping the lights on culture” all at rapid
speed. Yet while the focus should be on the applications that need to be
delivered, being caught in the quagmire of the underlying infrastructure
persistently takes precedent with IT admin having to constantly deal with
interoperability issues, firmware upgrades, patches and multi-management panes
of numerous components. Moreover service offerings such as Gold, Silver, Bronze
or Platinum are more often than not centered around infrastructure metrics such
as number of vCPUs, Storage RAID type, Memory etc. instead of application
response times that are predictable and scalable to the end user's stipulated
demands.
For Cloud to embrace the concept of
velocity the consequence would be a focused and rigorous approach that has a
direction aimed solely at the successful deployment of applications that in
turn enable the business to quickly generate revenue. All the pieces of the
jigsaw that go into attaining that quick and focused approach would require a
mentality of velocity being adopted comprehensively from each silo of the
infrastructure team while concurrently working in cohesion with the application
team to deliver value to the business. This approach would also entail a
focused methodology to application optimization and consequently a service
level that measured and targeted its success based on application performance
as opposed to just uptime and availability.
 |
| Velocity leads to a comprehensive focus on the successful deployment and optimisation of the application |
So for velocity to take precedent
within the Private Cloud, Cloud or even Infrastructure as a Service model and
to fill this Cloud maturity void, infrastructure needs to be delivered with
applications as their focal point. That consequently means a pre-integrated, pre-validated,
pre-installed and application certified appliance that is standardized as a
product and optimised to meet scalable demands and performance requirements.
This is why the industry will soon start to see a new emergence of specialized
systems specifically designed and built from inception for performance
optimization of specific application workloads. By having applications
pre-installed, certified and configured with both the application and
infrastructure vendors working in cohesion, the ability for Private Cloud or
service providers to predict, meet and propose application performance based
service levels becomes a lot more feasible. Additionally such an approach would
also be ideal for end users who just need a critical application rolled out immediately
in house with minimum fuss and risk.
While there may be a number of such
appliances or specialized systems that will emerge in the market for
applications such as SAP HANA or Cisco Unified Communications the key is to
ensure that they’re standardized as well as optimised. This entails a converged
infrastructure that rolls out as a single product and consequently has a single
matrix upgrade for all of its component patches and firmware upgrades that
subsequently also correspond with the application. Additionally it encompasses
a single support model that includes not only the infrastructure but also the
application. This in turn not only eliminates vendor finger pointing and
prolonged troubleshooting but also acts as an assurance that responsibility of
the application’s performance is paramount regardless of the potential cause of
the problem.
 |
| Driving the Velocity of Change within the industry: VCE's new SAP HANA Vblock specialized system |
For more information on VCE's new specialized Vblock Systems please visit:
