Overview of the Hybrid Cloud Management
Ideal recognise that enterprises wishing to leverage hybrid (private and public) cloud infrastructure face a number of key technical and organisational challenges:
Providing secure and resilient connectivity between on and off premise infrastructure
Using new and unfamiliar user interfaces to manage and control remote virtual workloads
Creating security policies that are consistently enforced wherever a virtual machine (VM) might be hosted
Having the flexibility to move workloads between providers with minimal effort and risk
Moving workloads to and from the cloud using a straightforward and consistent process
Cisco Intercloud Fabric for Business (ICFB) is a management platform that unifies connectivity, management and control between private and public infrastructures. ICFB provides a hybrid cloud solution that enables enterprises to easily and securely connect the enterprise data centre to the public cloud as needed and on demand.
Ideal Validation and Deployment Services for ICFB enable rapid installation and deployment of the Intercloud solution. The service provides an ICFB Subject Matter Expert (SME) to install the product, create several sample configurations, and transfer knowledge / answer questions regarding the initial deployment.
Our Validation and Deployment Service accelerates time to value by quickly providing IT staff with a working ICFB instance and introductory knowledge to begin implementing solution requirements. Combined with ICFB supplemental training, this ensures a smooth introduction of ICFB, improving return on investment and decreasing project risks.
Technology overview
ICFB is deployed on premise and allows connectivity to a large ecosystem of cloud providers to enable hybrid cloud deployments for enterprises. Product components include:
Intercloud Fabric Director provides an end-user and an IT admin portal for lifecycle management of physical, virtual, and cloud workloads
Intercloud Fabric Secure Extender creates highly secure connectivity across multiple clouds. It helps ensure secure workload migration by maintaining all network and security policies specific to that workload
Intercloud Fabric Firewall (Virtual Security Gateway) is a virtual appliance that provides trusted access to secure virtualised data centres in provider cloud environments. The appliance enables dynamic policy-based operations, mobility-transparent enforcement and allows scale-out deployment for dense multitenancy, ensuring that access to trust zones is controlled and monitored through established security policies
ICFB offers integration with the following public cloud providers. Customers can select single or multiple cloud partners which are then managed using a common user interface and API:
Amazon Web Services
Microsoft Azure
Cisco Intercloud ecosystem providers
Within your own on-premise infrastructure, Cisco Intercloud Fabric will integrate with VMware vSphere, OpenStack KVM, and Microsoft Hyper-V, as indicated below:
Initial Engagement
On receipt of purchase order, the on-boarding process commences. All engagements are subject to scope definition and approval prior to commencement and include consultation to identify customer requirements; solution design and architecture to meet customer requirements;
appointment of a project lead who will provide project plan and project management and governance; installation, migration and service design; and a billing schedule.
The project lead is appointed who will attend an initial meeting with the customer to verify/develop the solution design and agree the exact implementation schedule and migration activities required. All project delivery follows a common high level approach to management:
- Plan – understand requirements, define proposed activities, and agree - Design – Detail solution deliverables
- Implement – Deliver solution, , handover to appropriate operational teams
The Scope of Works is prepared and agreed with the customer, describing the Services to be provided and setting out estimated timescales, including if applicable Milestones and responsibilities of the respective parties for the provision of the Services.
All customers have access to 24/7 technical support. The Service Centre can be contacted by telephone, email and online portal.
Validation and Deployment Service
ICFB is installed within the on-premise infrastructure as part of a technical design built around the customer’s existing environment and specific business requirements.
Intercloud Fabric will be tightly integrated within the existing Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) design to leverage the right amount of bandwidth, security and flexibility to facilitate the joining-up of each network domain from the customer data centre up to the provider cloud network. Intercloud Fabric Director then provides a single interface to
unify all technical functions covering VM management, firewall policy and configuration compliance.
Ideal Networks offer three different approaches to adopting ICFB so that the customer can select the right level of support to work with their own in-house IT specialists.
Intercloud Fabric for Business – DIY Validation Service
Technical workshop to explain ICFB architecture and plan pilot deployment infrastructure, using up to ten virtual machines
Pilot limited to one onsite data centre and one IaaS cloud provider
High level design for pilot
Remote support for customer-led ICFB installation and pilot workload integration
Intercloud Fabric for Business - Consultant led Validation Service
Technical workshop to explain ICFB architecture and plan pilot deployment, using up to ten virtual machines
High level design for pilot
Consultant-led ICFB installation, configuration and pilot workload integration
Pilot limited to one onsite data centre and one IaaS cloud provider
Consultant-led acceptance testing to prove all required functionality
Low Level Design (LLD) documentation for the ICFB deployment
Initial configuration of ICFB router and firewall components
Intercloud Fabric for Business - Complete Deployment Service
Scoped and costed following consultant led validation service as per rate-card.
Off-boarding process
On completion of a project Ideal will provide full documentation confirming completion of deliverables and/or agreed success criteria to the customer.
Governance and Reporting
Ideal will maintain a RAID log during engagement and will follow the formal change control procedure in agreement with customer.
Service Levels
Ideal Networks shall use reasonable endeavours to manage and complete the project as described in the agreed Scope of Works. Any Milestone dates agreed shall be estimates only and no service credits are offered as standard. Service credits can be agreed when required.
Ordering and invoicing process
Customer should contact sales and send purchase order. Services will be invoiced on receipt of
Termination terms
Termination terms from standard Ts and Cs apply.
Customer responsibilities
Customer obligations from standard Ts and Cs apply
Details of any trial service available
An initial technical consultancy session can be provided prior to engagement enabling customers to trial professional services available.
