Executive Summary
Enterprises are increasingly moving to the cloud for greater agility and cost effi ciency. However, they are fi nding that running complex enterprise applications requires much more than a “one size fi ts all” approach when they move to a cloud infrastructure. Based on our experiences, these large organizations have multiple workloads with diff ering performance and security requirements. Some applications demand a positive and consistent end-user experience for production and higher-tier workloads, while other applications need quick access to scalable resources, yet price sensitivity is higher because these workloads carry lower risk.
Using one virtual datacenter type to service varying workload requirements typically results in an enterprise not getting the level of performance or security needed for high-risk production applications, or conversely, paying too much for low-risk workloads. Hosted in the public cloud, the Bluelock Virtual Datacenter is a pool of cloud resources that run workloads remotely in an easily adaptable environment. This paper will address how to create more agile and effi cient clouds to better suit enterprise workload needs, and will address the benefi ts of using multiple virtual datacenters to solve some of the greatest challenges IT organizations face today. It will discuss how to solve the problem of diff ering performance and security requirements through VDC stratifi cation and off er guidance to prevent negative user experience through performance and availability of virtual datacenters. It will also discuss how to best match workloads or applications to diff erent types of virtual datacenters for the most positive cloud experience and optimal return on cloud investments. Finally, the paper will solve common cost effi ciency cloud problems with virtual datacenter recommendations and through Bluelock Portfolio™ decision support.
Virtual Datacenters Hosted in the Public Cloud:
One Size Does Not Fit All
Service-based IT continues to grow in popularity, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) off ered via a public cloud. These service providers off er the processing, storage, networks and other fundamental computing resources while ensuring nearly constant uptime and state-of-the-art security measures. More and more enterprises are drawn to IaaS models, given their clear cost and operational advantages. According to a June 2012 report from IT research and advisory company Gartner Inc., the Cloud System Infrastructure Services market is poised for strong growth with a worldwide forecast to grow from an estimated $4.3 billion in 2011 to $24.4 billion in 2016.1
Companies creating and managing their own private datacenters are prone to over-provisioning and building too much capacity based on projected demands that are one, two and three years into the future. On the other hand, we have found that organizations we work with that leverage IaaS services benefi t from
How to Choose the Right Virtual
Datacenter for Your Needs
USING MULTIPLE VIRTUAL DATACENTERS FOR GREATER CLOUD EFFICIENCY
• Executive Summary • Virtual Datacenters: One
Size Does Not Fit All • Common Uses for Virtual
Datacenters
• Which Virtual Datacenter is Right for Which Workload? • Benefi ts of Leveraging
Multiple Virtual Datacenters • Bluelock’s Unique Approach
to Virtual Datacenters • Conclusion
an unparalleled level of speed and agility because their IaaS resources can quickly conform to their changing market conditions and business requirements.
As a public cloud service provider, Bluelock has seen IaaS cost benefi ts also motivate enterprises to move workloads to the cloud. Public cloud service providers typically have large platforms segmented for customers, providing economies of scale and cost savings through effi ciency. In addition, because the infrastructure resides off premise, companies can adopt new technologies without having to worry about obsolete equipment, upgrades and retrofi ts. Instead, they remain focused on the core mission.
Although IaaS services are attractive to organizations wanting to reduce costs while creating a more agile enterprise, it is important to know what to consider when evaluating service providers and the diff erent types of public cloud services available.
Evaluating Service Providers
When evaluating IaaS service providers at the highest level, companies should establish what kind of service relationship they want, how service-oriented a potential company is, and whether the provider is knowledgeable and committed enough to understand the business type and use case.
Investigating datacenter platforms is also important. For example, companies virtualizing with VMware may discover that a service provider does not off er compatibility with the current VMware platform and tools they use or wish to use for virtualization. They also may not off er to support future VMware product releases, which could impact your future environment.
Every IaaS service is structured diff erently. Service providers vary in how they interact with other datacenters and how they interact with a customer’s private datacenter in a hybrid cloud model.
Some service providers off er the fl exibility of diff erent datacenter tiers, but the tiers do not work together, prohibiting workload movement between datacenters. When migration is impossible, vendor lock-in can result, making it diffi cult for companies to align their IT services and applications to the optimal virtual datacenter environment, especially as requirements change.
Enterprise vs. Commodity Clouds
Cloud services are viable and advantageous options for many companies, though one type may be better suited to a given company than another:
•
Commodity clouds – Some companies design their applications to run in commodity clouds, wherethe workloads can tolerate more risk in regards to security and performance. This option can reduce IT resource costs, yet typically involves high application development and management costs as the burden for security and performance is shifted to the application.
•
Enterprise clouds – These clouds are designed for organizations with more complex hosting needsthat are especially focused on security and performance requirements. Enterprise clouds are typically better suited to companies wanting a true technology partnership with the service provider, as well as integration of vital enterprise platforms such as VMware virtualization technologies across on-site and off -site datacenters.
•
Other cloud options – Other companies leverage private clouds or traditional colocation platforms.However, these environments do not feature the self-service and multi-tenancy capabilities that some companies demand. Some organizations get around this hurdle by using a commodity-type off ering for some workloads and another vendor’s cloud for other workloads for a multi-vendor strategy, though this option can be costly and complex.
Virtual Datacenters
A virtual datacenter is a pool of cloud infrastructure resources hosted in the public cloud that includes compute, memory, storage and bandwidth components. Service providers meet the ever-changing needs
of their customers by making these resources available to customer applications, business units and projects, eliminating concerns with physical capacity. Service providers that off er virtual datacenters may off er a single type of virtual datacenter or multiple types. When the multiple types off ered are compatible with each other, customers have the fl exibility to match diff erent workload requirements with diff erent virtual datacenters and move between those types.
Higher-tier virtual datacenters off er on-demand resources, greater performance and scalability and burstable capacity, and are the usual choice for production workloads. Lower-tier virtual datacenters also off er on-demand resources, yet are typically designed for less critical workloads with higher price sensitivity, such as development and testing environments.
Common Uses for Virtual Datacenters
Diff erent types of virtual datacenters, designed for specifi c concerns and uses, help enterprises meet their variable needs in IT service delivery.
Emerging Applications
Companies focused on emerging applications face many unknowns, yet must ensure that the underlying infrastructure will support application delivery in the short and long terms. Therefore, datacenter fl exibility and scalability and cloud server burstability are imperative, particularly as they relate to providing a consistently positive end-user experience. A production-level virtual datacenter off ers the fl exibility needed to accommodate a broad range of both IT and end-user needs for even the most robust, demanding new applications.
Development and Testing
IT departments involved in the development and testing of client-facing applications also face unknowns, especially where building the infrastructure and operational protocols to meet their exact needs is concerned. During development and testing activities, IT executives face particular fi nancial risk. They need to successfully predict the servers, computing power, networking and storage that will be needed at the development, testing and production stages. However, these applications residing in a development platform may not be ready for production for many months, and ultimately may never go live. Noteworthy is that a VMware Customer Benchmark study found that organizations that virtualized Test and
Development yielded a “compelling” 175% return on their investment.2
For these organizations, the virtual datacenter is a great option. By working with a cloud service provider with fl exible virtual datacenter options, forward-thinking IT executives can leverage a diff erent type of virtual datacenter based on how development and testing cycles unfold, and their eventual outcomes. For example, IT teams can conduct development and extensive functional testing in a lower-tier pre-production environment. They can keep it in a VDC designed for pre-pre-production indefi nitely if needed, or move into production if business requirements demand it. Also important, if they forge a partnership with a service provider that off ers seamless integration between its virtual datacenters and their own on-site datacenter, as in a hybrid cloud model, they will have additional fl exibility to move the workload into their own datacenter.
Moving a Workload to Production
When moving closer to production, virtual datacenter fl exibility is again important. For instance, a development project may initially require application replication for one small test team. Then closer to production, three instances of the application may be needed for three diff erent teams, temporarily requiring additional capacity. These activities are well suited to a pre-production virtual datacenter off ered at a lower cost than a production virtual datacenter.
2 “Boldy Navigating Towards IT-as-a-Service,” white paper by CIO Custom Solutions Group, 2011. –VMWARE JOURNEY
ADOPTION INSIGHTS 2011 REPORT ON APPLICATION TIME TO MARKET
“Customers in 2011 placed greater focus on applications as they strived for increased agility when compared with customers surveyed in 2010. They realized 25 percent faster application time to market, compared with the 2010 results. They also reported that agility is aided by cloud computing. In fact, the research shows that there is an opportunity cost for organizations that wait too long to adopt cloud computing.”
–VMWARE JOURNEY TO YOUR CLOUD EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW, 2011
In addition to reducing capital and operating expenses, customers report that their:
• Number of new projects increased by 21 percent • Application time to market
improved by 22 percent • Rework and test improved
by 26 percent • Server incidents were
reducted by 27 percent • System downtime was reduced by 26 percent Moreover, customers that choose to implement virtual-ization with cloud computing capabilities sooner in their IT transformation report achieving high value—lower costs and greater agility—six times faster than enterprises that wait.
Closer to production, additional bandwidth may be required for performance testing. With a desire to know exactly how the application will run in production, the team may want to test it in the production virtual datacenter since that is the eventual target, but may only need that environment for three weeks to conduct the performance testing. Upon successful testing, the application can easily be staged and moved into a production virtual datacenter.
Application Upgrades
More datacenter fl exibility is needed after running the application in production. Instead of using up production virtual datacenter resources, IT teams can conduct functional testing of the new version by replicating the production platform to the pre-production virtual datacenter, and then move it to the production virtual datacenter when it is ready to release to customers.
Other Virtual Datacenter Uses
The fl exibility of the virtual datacenter model makes it a viable, cost-eff ective model for many application environments in addition to development and testing, production and upgrades. Total cost of ownership is a key consideration when declining and aging applications can create usage—and therefore resource requirement—fl uctuations. IT can strategically move workloads between production and pre-production virtual datacenters to reduce costs and still meet end-user requirements.
In a traditional datacenter environment, companies build their datacenters for peak demand, which can result in costly resources sitting idle for long periods of time. A company participating in a trade show can temporarily leverage a production virtual datacenter to quickly deliver more capacity to accommodate a 50-prospect demonstration environment. Another example, the conference room pilot, involves demonstrating an application to prospective customers from a conference room. This is the perfect opportunity to leverage a pre-production virtual datacenter to temporarily have an instance of the application running, without needing high-performance production levels.
Which Virtual Datacenter is Right for Which Workload?
Few cloud service providers off er companies a choice of multiple types of virtual datacenters to serve the needs of diff erent workloads and diff erent business requirements. However, the ability to match workloads to virtual datacenters based on specifi c characteristics can drastically increase effi ciencies. To choose the
Declining (Old) Emerging (New) Core (Strategic)
right virtual datacenter for the right workload, companies must carefully assess resource and cost demands for each workload they are considering moving to the cloud.
MATCHING WORKLOADS TO VIRTUAL DATACENTERS: IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS STEP 1:
Assess Your Risk Profi le
There are diff erent risk profi les for diff erent applications, so you must consider requirements around:
•
Security•
Performance•
Flexibility•
Contractual commitment•
IT governanceEnsure that you get the appropriate level of value from the Virtual Datacenter per your risk profi le.
STEP 2: Access Resource
Predictability
Identify your fl exibility needs based on how predictable your workload is. You need diff erent degrees of fl exibility for production vs. pre-production workloads.
Identify how much capacity you will need to be able to quickly access. For top-tier workloads, you want the right amount of capacity available when you need it.
STEP 3: Assess Service and Resource
Management Needs
Analyze how you will need to be able to distribute capacity. You may need the ability to distribute capacity across teams, departments, applications or projects.
Self-service or managed service? For some business units and projects, you need self-service cloud management capabilities white for others you may need managed services to achieve optimal ROI.
STEP 4: Assess Cost Sensitivty
What services are you willing to pay for vs. do yourself? You need to be able to quickly make some changes yourself, while others might be better handled by the cloud provider. Identify a balance to prevent too much service for the business need and budget.
You should establish how much you are willing to pay for security, performance, fl exibility and contractual commitment levels.
To optimize your IT budget, it is important to have the fl exibility to change your mind and move workloads around, out to the cloud to the appropriate platform and back if needed. Understand what types of changes and movements you can make with your resources once they are in a virtual datacenter.
After assessing your application risk profi le, resource predictability, service and resource management needs and cost sensitivity, you will be able to establish which virtual datacenter type is the most
appropriate for a specifi c application. Once you make the move to running workloads from one or more virtual datacenters to better meet your pre-production and production needs, you will realize a new level of operational fl exibility, see ongoing opportunities to reduce costs, and have the scalability to adapt to changing IT requirements.
Benefits of Leveraging Multiple Virtual Datacenters
Companies desiring a more agile approach to business operations and IT service delivery can turn to virtual datacenters hosted in the public cloud for fl exible infrastructure resources and cloud services. Leveraging multiple virtual datacenters increases the fl exibility, cost-effi ciency and agility that organizations can realize from adopting a public cloud strategy:
•
Resource effi ciency – Leverage one public cloud provider’s platform with multiple virtual datacenteroptions rather than more than one platform, and mix and match applications to the most appropriate virtual datacenter
•
Centralized control – Deploy applications for multiple business units in the same virtual datacenterenvironment, empower groups with self-service capabilities, and equip IT managers with role-based access
•
Distributed capacity – Assign individualized infrastructure resources and security to diff erentapplication teams and business units, enable each group to have its own virtual datacenter environment without increasing IT management complexity, and offl oad simple operations such as virtual machine creation and control to individual departments
•
Flexible capacity and bursting – Leverage fl exible capacity and bursting month after month toaccommodate changing user demands
•
Cost-eff ective backup and recovery – Back up to a pre-production site to reduce costs while eff ectivelyprotecting your production environment with a sound backup and recovery plan
•
Positive end-user experience – Provide a more consistent end-user experience by running the rightworkloads in the right virtual datacenter, which enables both cost effi ciency and the performance needed for mission-critical applications
Bluelock’s Unique Approach to Virtual Datacenters
In addition to the more common features of virtual datacenters, Bluelock off ers unique capabilities and ser-vices that off er customers additional advantages. Bluelock Virtual Datacenters are pools of resources hosted in the public cloud. You can allocate and reallocate the resource components (memory, storage, bandwidth and compute) as needed rather than building a new virtual datacenter with the desired resource confi gura-tion. For instance, you can add memory to an individual server, in contrast to other service providers where you would have to invest in another, larger server to get the memory allocation needed.
You can also mix and match your workloads to the optimal virtual datacenter type. Bluelock Virtual Datacenters off er diff erent virtual datacenter types, VMware compatibility, robust cost management tools and fl exible burst options.
Bluelock Virtual Datacenter Types
Two distinct Bluelock Virtual Datacenter options provide you the fl exibility to match workloads to the right datacenter, shift workloads from one Bluelock Virtual Datacenter to the other if requirements change, and leverage a hybrid cloud strategy, moving workloads from your onsite datacenter to the public cloud and back again. Bluelock Virtual Datacenters include a pre-production version as well as one particularly suited to production workloads.
5-Series Virtual Datacenter
The Bluelock 5-Series Virtual Datacenter is a reliable and scalable cloud hosting solution designed for workloads and applications requiring high availability and a superior end-user experience. The main features include:
•
Designed with enterprise architecture for production workloads•
Delivers committed resources to insulate impact on application performance from other applications•
Ensures your mission-critical production applications will perform well•
Guarantees reserved capacity when you need it•
Variations of the model align price with client risk profi les•
Allows purchasing fl exibility with varying commitment levels•
Designed for stability, growth and bursting•
Serves as the primary conduit for advanced networking, load balancing and fi rewalls for the other Bluelock Virtual Datacenters2-Series Virtual Datacenter
The Bluelock 2-Series Virtual Datacenter is a scalable, on-demand datacenter designed to enable fast deployment of public cloud resources and considerable day-to-day fl exibility. Key features include:
•
Suitable for pre-production, transient workloads•
Matches the risk profi le and budget of less critical workloads•
Enables quick access to datacenter resources•
Off ers pay-as-you-go billing with access to a portal with utilization and cost metrics•
Designed and architected for enterprise applications with resource cost sensitivityVMware Technology and Compatibility
Bluelock is a certifi ed VMware vCloud® Datacenter Provider and is taking a prescriptive approach from VMware about virtualization tools and best practices. Bluelock enables hybrid cloud computing that is consistent with the technology and management tools that VMware virtualization clients currently use to manage their own private clouds internally. VMware is the primary hypervisor for 58% of organizations that use x86 virtualization software, according to independent market research group Vanson Bourne in a survey of more than 500 large businesses. Bluelock Virtual Datacenters, VMware vCloud Datacenter services, are built on proven VMware solutions, including VMware vSphere, VMware vCloud® Director, VMware vCloud® API, VMware vCenter Chargeback and VMware vShield products.
You can leverage your VMware tools and technologies such as VMware vCloud Director and VMware vCloud Connector to move workloads between your datacenter and Bluelock Virtual Datacenters. Your IT staff benefi ts from the familiarity of VMware technology and can be confi dent that your virtual environment will run eff ectively in the Bluelock cloud.
Virtual Datacenter Cost Management: Bluelock Portfolio™
To take advantage of the diverse features and capabilities of multiple virtual datacenter platforms, you need the tools to monitor application delivery and to know when it makes sense to move resources from one workload to another, and to move workloads from one type of virtual datacenter to another. Bluelock Portfolio, which is unique in the marketplace, provides this. With most clouds, customers do not have the visibility into resource utilization on a daily basis to prevent over-spending. Bluelock Portfolio helps customers manage their hybrid cloud and helps avoid waste and sprawl. Bluelock Portfolio:
•
Is a cloud-aware decision support tool that off ers deeper visibility into applications and the true cost of IT resources•
Enables you to adjust your virtual datacenters and resource components to better align utilization with spending•
Allows you to break down your cloud costs by region, site location, line of business, application, or virtual datacenter•
Provides visibility into which business units, applications, or technology components are consuming the largest amounts of your budget•
Empowers you to quickly pinpoint spending trends and outliers so you can help educate your team about what is really happening in your environment and the impact of specifi c patterns•
Off ers the tools to identify over-provisioned applications and potential overages so users can work with Bluelock Client Support to remedy•
Also allows users to take immediate action from within Bluelock Portfolio by clicking through to the self-service portal powered by VMware vCloud® Director, where they can quickly turn up or down the amount of resources inside your virtual datacenterFlexible Burst Options
Another signifi cant advantage of leveraging Bluelock Virtual Datacenters is having fl exible burst options with diff erent levels of burstable capacity. Bluelock fl exible burst options allow you to fi t the right costs and resources to individual and changing workload behaviors. Depending on how predictable your capacity requirements are and whether users might otherwise be impacted by temporary planned or unplanned traffi c growth, Bluelock off ers the amount of CPU power you need to quickly burst capacity to accommo-date periods of increased demand. You can then retract the added capacity once the period is over.
Conclusion
While virtual datacenters are providing an opportunity for enterprises to operate with a new level of IT and business agility, one type of virtual datacenter does not meet the requirements of all business applications. IT departments dedicating staff and fi nancial resources to move a variety of applications through their lifecycles need diff erent virtual datacenter environments for diff erent workloads at diff erent times. Bluelock’s unique approach to virtual datacenters off ers organizations the underlying technologies, fl exibility and management capabilities to deliver IT services and applications in a more cost-eff ective, strategic way than what is possible with other IaaS options in the marketplace. After thoroughly assessing workload requirements and establishing which Bluelock Virtual Datacenter is right for which workload, IT organizations can leverage the multiple virtual datacenter model to operate more responsively to internal clients and customers alike, and to have a positive impact on the bottom line.
About Bluelock
Bluelock provides mid-size and large enterprises fl exible IT infrastructure solutions with its Bluelock Virtual Datacenters hosted in the public cloud. Bluelock’s unique customer approach leads to innovative solutions that off er unprecedented visibility and control, helping customers make better decisions about risk, agility and operational effi ciency. Bluelock, a VMware vCloud Datacenter service provider, facilitates a true hybrid cloud approach for IT departments and business units seeking choice, platform compatibility and a proven cloud partner that focuses on each customer’s unique infrastructure needs.
About VMware
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the cloud era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver, and consume information technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specifi c needs. With 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 350,000 customers and 50,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offi ces throughout the world.
Stable & Predictable. Growing. Bursty & Predictable. Bursty & Unpredictable. Unpredictable.
