Manage your Data Centre using MS EXCEL

Data Center managers are increasing to rely on automated tools to manage their Servers and storage infrastructure. These tools do not come cheap!

Cost of providing a baseline report could reach thousands of pounds in CAPEX and OPEX, not to mention the complexity of setting up these automated discovery tools.

The fact is that “off-the-shelf” IT infrastructure auditing tools provide you with a lot of additional valuable information which is always “nice to have” but not really required for daily operational purpose.

This blog shares my experience in managing an average size IT infrastructure environment using MS Excel by consuming data and knowledge held by people in your technology teams.

Coming SOON

Cloud Computing, "Is it a transformation in IT Climate?"

What problems can I possibly have?

Your technology has evolved significantly. Computing performance has increased dramatically. Virtualised computer hardware has notably enhanced server hardware utilisation and reduced cost. However your organisation continue to struggle with the challenge of efficiently implementing, deploying, configuring and managing clustered, highly scalable and high (performance) demanding applications.

Your problems are your requirements to consolidate the entire technology to manage the infrastructure through a single point of contact. Ideally single point of contact should be the external supplier. In simple terms, moving the IT technology to another space where it is managed and supported under one contract. Other requirements include making IT more flexible, centralised, increase automation, etc. However the real challenge is to achieve these targets while reducing costs.

Do you think you have a solution to all these problems?

There is no silver bullet, however it is important that you understand what cloud computing has to offer.

Before we address how Cloud Computing technologies can benefit your business, let's first discuss what Cloud Computing is all about?

Gartner has defined cloud computing as ‘a style of computing in which massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service” using internet technologies to multiple external customers’.

Cloud Computing is increasingly being used as a catchall term which has different meanings to different people. In reality the term Cloud Computing is conceptual in nature. Some organisations uses terms such as distributed computing or managed computing, others may refer this to managed concept as grid computing.

For a business user, Cloud Computing is a concept of delivering software and everything associated with the software, as a service. The service is then managed, developed, measured and tested by a third party supplier or suppliers.

For a technical user, Cloud Computing a software application can be designed, deployed managed and delivered to customers using the internet as a platform. A third party supplier is then responsible for supporting the service.

The concept of Cloud Computing is an evolution of existing technologies and growing business requirements. Some organisations are partially using cloud computing in the form of distributed and grid computing. However the Cloud Computing concept brings an enterprise closer in understanding how to implement, deploy, configure and manage a clustered, highly scalable and high performance demanding applications.

Hmm, What are the general benefits?

Cloud Computing enables you access a technical service without knowledge of, expertise with or control over the technical infrastructure. The other major benefits are as follows:

Reduced Cost: a service implemented using Cloud technology is paid for, according to the usage. i.e. when the service is not being used then costs are not incurred

Increased Storage: Cloud computing suppliers are likely to be able to store more data than private computer systems.

Highly Automated: because the application and systems are delivered as a service local IT Personnel are no longer required for updating software.

Flexibility: Offers much more flexibility then past computing methods – able to respond rapidly to changes etc.

Focus on Innovation not management:
IT staff will be free to concentrate on meeting business needs rather than delivering IT support.

SLA Driven: The systems deployed in a cloud are managed by a Service Level Agreement. a rigorous SLA will define how the service is delivered to meet business needs.

Availability: The technology is independent of device or location i.e. services are available at anytime and anywhere.

Data management – the supplier will be responsible for the safe and secure storage of data (and backups)– again facilities are likely to be much better than a single organisation can afford.

In summary, Cloud computing gives a valuable advantage of using multiple computing technologies under one umbrella.

What are the negative aspects of this?

Cloud computing also has its disadvantages, and depending upon the nature of your business, the adoption may be a severe risk

Internet Connection: Services are entirely dependent on availability and reliability of their internet connection. Some vendors have developed ways to deliver their applications available offline but majority of the supplier do not currently have this feature.

Security: A detail auditing of Cloud technology provider is required to ensure security of the data and other risks. A user does not have complete control over the processing and storage of the information.

Legislation – data held offsite may be located anywhere, organisations need t o understand where their data is held and what jurisdiction applies to it.

It is unlikely that a single vendor will be able to deliver an organisations requirement through a cloud computing solution, therefore it will be necessary to mange multiple suppliers.

What are the "Elements" of Cloud ?

The implementation of the Cloud Computing concept uses existing managed and distributed computing technologies as an ingredient. For example, the concept of Grid computing (explained below) is used in combination with utility computing to empower an organization to measure and pay for a service according to the use.

Before we examine the existing distributed technologies, let us begin with the list of known computing terms that are required to deliver a successful application to an end user without using Cloud Computing:

Application: Allows a user to perform tasks on a computer system.

Platforms: Applications uses platform software or operating system on the machine it runs on. Examples of well known platforms are Windows, Linux and Solaris.

Hardware: An operating system is deployed on computer hardware with which the user interacts.

Communications Infrastructure: required to establish connections between two or more hardware devices and software, for example, a connection established between two computer applications via a data network.

Storage: a location where data is saved. This can be a local storage within the same hardware or same building or dedicated storage in a remote location.

Services: Applications may require an external input from a local or a remote location. For example email servers hosted remotely.

Grid Computing: The concept of applying the resources of multiple computers to handle one application or task. This can be achieved by using internal infrastructure or external services provided by a third party supplier.

Utility Computing: concept of providing computing resources as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility, such as electric, telephone, etc.

Managed Computing: A model where a computing resource has been outsourced to a third party

Before Cloud Computing

A typical application delivery model currently utilises internal and some external services. The IT activities that are observed in an organisation are as follows:

• Developer may design and install an application
• User will use the application available on a local drive or a network drive
• Administrator or support staff will supply and manage the users and developers requirements
• Local IT staff usually provide first and second line support for the application
• Additional external services are provided by a third party supplier

The physical IT equipment required to facilitate the above is situated both internally and externally. It is usually managed by different support teams and multiple suppliers. For example an application may be supported by the application team however the hardware and the storage of the application data will be managed and serviced by another team.

The following figure demonstrates the usage of an IT service from a user.

After deploying the Cloud concept, a developer, user and administrator (support) will use the Internet to design, develop and manage an application. An example is where different type of IT users will perform their duties by using any suitable internet browser

After Cloud Computing

A service provider offering Cloud based applications, will manage different layers to facilitate a user’s request. A service provider may also employ and manage multiple sub services such as SUN Grid for infrastructure or Amazon Simple Storage services as a Storage Area Network.

The organisation will only be required to focus on the business application and the Cloud vendor will be responsible for providing the underlying hardware, network infrastructure, platforms, storage and other services in an organised and measurable style.

The following figure shows how different type of user will design, interact and manage the IT infrastructure

Who is Providing it?

Cloud Vendors

The following list contains the name and a brief description of some of the vendors of cloud computing solutions

It is important to understand that each Cloud technology vendor may provide many features individually however an organisation may need to engage multiple cloud vendors to completely achieve the Cloud transformation. For example, an organisation may use a combination of Akami performance service to measure the SalesForce application speed.

Akami: Offers application performance services that speed up applications for the users of the cloud computing.

Amazon: offers Amazon Elastic Compute Service (E2C) and storage in the Cloud.

Areti Internet: Provides dedicated hosting for customised servers.

Enki:, provides hosting business that stimulates and manages the Cloud performance.

Fortress ITX: offers utility computing / grid solution based on 3 Tera’s Applogic.

Joyent: provides teams with collaboration software (email, calendars, file sharing), data backup services and on-demand computing solutions

Layered Technologies: Offers complete enterprise grade IT platforms and consolidate multiple applications onto one system technology.

Rackspace: This hosting provider is offering a new cloud computing service through its subsidiary Mosso. The service competes with Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). It also competes with Joyent.

Salesforce: is a vendor of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, which it delivers using the software as a service model.

Terremark: Offers internet optimized computing infrastructure.

XCalibre: Offers managed, dedicated and shared hosting services.

Some of the other vendors providing Cloud technologies to end users for either free of charge or low cost are:

Conclusion

A successful platform invention can have a significant impact, for example how multi tier architecture can change the way we write software. The evolution of Cloud is already proving to be a centre of discussion. Organisations are now evaluating a variety of existing distributed technologies and planning for future growth.
The implementation of Cloud Computing is not yet a fixed objective of many organisations, however the prospects for its uptake are favourable. The attractions of Cloud Computing are its inherent flexibility and capability to deliver large scale computing power to smaller organisations. These benefits will lead to the inevitable implementation of the technology.