I N S I G H T
G e t t i n g t h e N e t w o r k R e a d y f o r C l o u d i n C a n a d a
David Senf Dave Pearson
I D C O P I N I O N
Many organizations don't cast their network planning far enough into the future. Weaknesses are exposed at the best of times, in a network stretched beyond original scoping. Cloud computing now adds a new layer of complexity. Findings include: Risk of failure builds as activity on the network moves from basic addition
(physical) to multiplication (virtual) to exponential geometric (cloud) growth. Public cloud infrastructures create new problems for network admins and
architects, from availability to performance to security.
Private cloud again spawns more networking issues. Combining these two technologies — known as hybrid cloud — with existing infrastructure adds another layer of network complexity. SLAs, security, governance, architecture, vendor/equipment selection, and expertise all come under fire as the network evolves toward an underlying cloud fabric.
I N T H I S I N S I G H T
This IDC Insight highlights the coming IT networking challenges that Canadian organizations face with the adoption of public, private, and hybrid cloud models. Many organizations don't cast their network planning far enough into the future. Risk of failure builds as activity on the network moves from basic addition (physical) to multiplication (virtual) to exponential geometric (cloud) growth. Public cloud infrastructures create new problems for network admins and architects, from availability to performance to security. Private cloud again spawns more networking issues. Combining these two technologies — known as hybrid cloud — with your existing infrastructure adds another layer of network complexity. SLAs, security, governance, architecture, vendor/equipment selection, and expertise all come under fire as the network evolves toward an underlying cloud fabric.
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S I T U A T I O N O V E R V I E W
Public cloud adoption is picking up, as are private cloud deployments across Canada. SaaS is used by one out of three firms, while IaaS is used by one in ten firms and PaaS by one-fifth of firms in Canada. Public cloud is growing at nearly six times the Canadian IT market growth rate. Private cloud experiences rapid growth too, but from a smaller base of predominantly larger organizations. Universal cloud adoption is not on the five-year horizon, but the economics are compelling enough to ensure that some degree of cloud adoption will be a certainty for many Canadian organizations. But are they ready? The IT investment planning time horizon averages one year among Canadian organizations. This time frame expands within large organizations and the public sector and drops in smaller organizations, but overall it is restricted to an annual planning cycle. Considering the scope of change at the network alone, a longer-term view is important. Particularly during the early stage of cloud adoption, making the right architecture, vendor selection, deployment model, and myriad other decisions is critical. Network traffic growth was once a matter of relatively straightforward addition, as each new physical server, storage device, application, or endpoint connection came online. Performance now is about multiplication as the IT stack goes virtual. Think of visiting a friend. In the past, the car is packed up to roll along the highway to the destination. But akin to a physical box going virtual, instead of packing up the car, the practice is to wheel the entire house down the highway. New bottlenecks form while others are exacerbated — the old roads are in for some change. WAN optimization, dedupe, and other optimization techniques can ameliorate some bandwidth issues for virtual machines, but the fact remains that a lot more server and storage activity is running along corporate pipes. The whole box, in essence, traverses not only internal network switches but across the WAN into branch offices and datacenters. Multitenant self-service cloud applications are expected to spin up and back down when needed. Average and peak load performance becomes a matter of exponential growth at this point as cloud takes hold.
A high growth area for private and public cloud — and one that has implications on hybrid cloud — is disaster recovery (DR). This is a hot topic of late, and server virtualization is at the root of its renewed popularity (i.e., DR on the cheap). Despite virtual servers being the catalyst, DR is really about storage and the network. The availability of public cloud and hosted storage services generates a higher DR focus too. In fact, storage services in Canada hold an average of 11% of organizations' total data, according to IDC survey research. These organizations further believe that their cloud storage will climb to 24% of their total data in the next five years. Recovery from across the WAN, within the datacenter, or from the public cloud is constrained by network latency, MTBF, and security.
The performance demands and latency sensitivity of cloud services (most notably storage) is inspiring a second look at traditional network architecture. The three-layer network model of core, distribution, and access layers serves its function, but may not be optimal at the speed of cloud. There are too many stops from the starting source to the destination. For example, as VM mobility increases, each interface becomes of greater concern to overall performance. The goal is fewer stops in an any-to-any switching fabric between servers. To reduce latency, fewer switches in a flat network model accelerate traffic for the cloud. Fewer switches, though, elevate the risk of failure with less redundancy. Choosing the right equipment becomes even more critical in the cloud. WAN optimization takes on greater significance, too, as a range of services are used from both internal and external cloud sources.
Network considerations that organizations should explore as cloud lifts off include:
Public-private-hybrid balance. Security level of data/applications, compliance,
peak versus average load/seasonality, acceptable QoS, cost, staff expertise, and sudden business change (e.g., M&A) all determine which type of cloud is used where and when. Take the time to inventory and sketch out these areas for your organization to establish, at the bare minimum, a qualitative plan for cloud. The type of cloud deployment has a major impact on network requirements. And even if this is obvious today, what does it look like in three years' time when cloudbursting from private into public infrastructure is commonplace?
QoS/SLAs. Each application has quality-of-service requirements, both running
live and in a DR scenario. Consider bursting and peak loads by application. Set an acceptable baseline for latency, loss, and MTBF to then monitor for deviation over time. Consider, too, incident prevention rather than the typical incident response. Work from known and potential bottlenecks such as storage, VM mobility, and user connection. Of course, the public Internet has no SLA guarantees. Public cloud services subscribers are at the mercy of this reality. Unlike controlling the WAN to a branch office or other datacenter, you can't fully understand latency and loss. Testing a service (e.g., traceroute and ping at different times) through a trial period will provide at least a rough guide for latency and loss to come.
Visibility. Limited visibility of network admins into the virtual switch at the VM
causes problems. Virtual switches/NICs are a boon to performance because the VM traffic remains in host RAM. But the network admin is cut off from control/monitoring, QoS, and security. New virtual switches and tools help alleviate these concerns. Consider as well the shift from problem management to incident management. In a private cloud, the team can root out problems. But in the public cloud, the IT department has limited to no control — other than a strong SLA.
Politics. Cloud invites with it a new set of discrepancies over who controls what.
Private pits the server admin (virtual server, more specifically) against the network admin. Public cloud pits the business user versus IT. For hybrid to exist, there needs to be agreement as to who does in fact control what and what corporate policies are around public cloud service usage outside of IT.
Governance. This boils down to acting on the points above with risk,
performance, accountability, value creation, and assurance in mind. Ideally, key performance indicators (KPIs) are set up to track areas including capacity planning, upgrades, incident response, and user satisfaction across various workloads/cloud deployments.
F U T U R E O U T L O O K
IT infrastructure vendors are addressing cloud networking challenges in several ways. Over the past couple of years, we have seen a return back to the future of integrated (or converged) physical systems of network, storage, server, virtual servers, and management tools. These systems are positioned both as higher-performance open components in a private cloud and as appliances that are essentially workload islands. The advertised benefits include better network integration for higher server I/O, storage performance, and VM mobility. There is support, too, for networking among VMs — by the VM vendors and in management tools and virtual switches/NICs from traditional network vendors. Outside the datacenter, WAN optimization has evolved to be noninvasive and to operate unilaterally at a particular site (which helps with public cloud optimization).
The network of the past is under massive pressure from a variety of new technologies — from very large data warehousing (VLDW) to virtual desktops to smartphone proliferation to high-bandwidth content creation, such as video. Each of these major trends needs a place in network planning. At the same time, the cloud megatrend demands rethinking of the traditional network on top of these other market forces. Without a cloud migration plan, networks will likely function — the sky won't fall. But operations expenditures will be higher and opportunities to capitalize on cost and myriad other advantages of cloud will be squandered. Ensuring that the tactical decisions of this planning cycle align with a long-term strategy for your organization's network of the future can help make the most of your investment.
C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e
This IDC research document was published as part of an IDC continuous intelligence service, providing written research, analyst interactions, telebriefings, and conferences. Visit www.idc.com to learn more about IDC subscription and consulting services. To view a list of IDC offices worldwide, visit www.idc.com/offices. Please contact the IDC Hotline at 800.343.4952, ext. 7988 (or +1.508.988.7988) or [email protected] for information on applying the price of this document toward the purchase of an IDC service or for information on additional copies or Web rights. Copyright 2010 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved.
