Virtualisation and Cloud – How do they Fit ?

“Virtualisation and Cloud – How do they Fit ?”

At the 2010 VMWorld held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, VMware unveiled a new approach to ‘Cloud Computing’ that enables businesses and larger enterprises who already have virtualized infrastructures, to shift some of their IT operations to an ISP’s cloud service offering.

The new service, Computing as a Service (CaaS) enabled by VMware vCloud Datacentre, is currently in field trials. Enterprises can use this hybrid service without having to rewrite applications that operate on VMware, using their current modes of operation, according to the vendor.

“It is intended to lower some of the barriers to adoption of cloud computing.” says Joe Crawford, executive director of IT solutions. “VMware customers will be interested in this functionality. There are hundreds of thousands of customers who use VMware today, and they can now use a cloud-based solution using the same tool set and same knowledge base”

For some ‘Virtualization’ and ‘Cloud Computing’ is still a grey area, so let’s try to clarify this a bit.

Virtualization is the creation of a virtual version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resource, in essence it is scaling down from a ‘one server, one application’ model to ‘one server, multiple servers and multiple applications’ model. A number of customers have used this model to scale down massive power hungry data centres to run on a few high capacity servers. With an array of benefits.

Whereas ‘Cloud Computing’ is Internet based computing, it is also a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. These services are broadly divided into three categories – Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

This new service is ground-breaking for VMware, a company that has factored heavily in the service provider community’s move to cloud computing. VMware have started to engage with ISP’s to offer this cloud based solution, built on the customers’ requirements.

The new service also promises security for applications shifted onto the cloud-based architecture.

One immediate area of appeal is disaster recovery and business continuity, Joe Crawford, executive director of IT solutions says, “as enterprises look for network-based computing options that enable them to stay in business in the face of natural or man-made disasters or service interruptions. In addition, the CaaS offering will give businesses the ability to add or subtract computing resources as needed, paying for what they use rather than investing capital in computing power that sits idle during slower times.

InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) has been selected to trial the field tests for this service, using cloud computing to handle higher booking activity during peak travel times,  and with the upcoming to holiday season, they are likely to need extra capacity until the off season.

With this service, you can have variable workloads hosted by the service provider as opposed to using your own resources, so if you require a higher capacity it is as simple as putting through a request.

So moving forward we can see infrastructures scaling down through virtualized environments and them saving money, by only paying for what they use. We have a high expectancy from the field trials and hope within the next year we can see our local ISP’s adopting a CaaS model driving forward with VMware at the helm.

SaaS not easy for everyone

The terms “Cloud Computing” and “Software as a Service” have been flying around in IT circles for a while now, and have become a local buzz word, so much so we even having conferences based on these buzz words. Yet a number of people still do not understand what the core of Cloud Computing / SaaS is supposed to deliver ?

In short, Cloud Computing is simply to access shared resources, software over the internet, and Software as a Service (SaaS) to make that software available to customers via the same channel and thereby the vendor or supplier, charges a type of a leasing fee (depending on the vendors business model) for utilizing their software or resources.  [Edit: Of course - this model has at its core - the ability to scale massively and on demand - something that not all 'legacy' vendors are able to do.  BC]

The conceptual idea of selling software has become a model of the past, most companies are moving to a software as a service model allowing their services and software to be made available to customers at a fraction of the cost while they still maintain the ownership of the software.  [Edit: unfortunately not always at a fraction of the cost, but the long term TCO is generally considerably lower due to the simplified approach.  BC]

This has obviously changed the strategy and operations for the smaller to medium size vendors who have been more flexible in growing their own market share within the SaaS business model.

But this does put strain on the larger [legacy] vendors who do not have the flexibility of the smaller [younger - SaaS specific] companies, they have to incorporate their current business model and build that into a Cloud-based / SaaS model moving forward, which has kept a number of BA’s up late at night trying to figure out how to move this large ship with fixed processes and models to a flexible Cloud Based customer centric solution. For some local and international companies this is still a slow and difficult transition.

OPNET is a company that we have partnered with for a number of years, and are certainly a leader in the APM space.  They too are in the process of slowly changing their business model within the Network and Application Performance arena to ensure that they move forward with the changing trend in IT [edit - but as mentioned above - this isn't always easy. BC].

OPNET was founded in 1986 by brothers Mark and Alain Cohen, have a number of software packages in three categories of application and network concerns. Application Performance Management, Network Engineering, Operations, and Planning and Network R&D.

Its flagship product is APM (Application Performance Management) suite, which consists of three solutions: ACE Live, ACE Analyst, and Panorama.

ACE Live performs network monitoring, measurement, and detection of SLA violations. It gathers data about application performance, resource utilization, route quality, and other metrics and monitors network flows through passive Ethernet connections. It integrates seamlessly with ACE Analyst, which performs analysis of network packet traces, intermittent application problems, and other data in order to troubleshoot application performance problems.

Panorama does transaction tracing within the Java and .NET platforms and uses correlation technology and a statistical correlation engine to detect patterns in metrics and events. It monitors metrics with established ranges for normal behaviour and identifies deviations based on how far from normal they are.

OPNET’s products are slowing moving towards a SaaS model, but this will take some time, although the company can install its products on site for a customer and operate them on the customer’s behalf, they are still a way off from having a truly Cloud Based / SaaS offering.   [Edit - Unfortunately - APM type products just don't lend themselves to SaaS that easily, and Alain's comments below reflect this dilemma. BC]

Alain Cohen CTO of OPNET :

“For the most part, our solutions need to operate in the environment where the business transactions are processed and the network traffic is present,”

“They’re processing a lot of data, so to transfer it across the Internet would not be the best approach, and some of our solutions just wouldn’t work well that way, particularly in some aspects of reporting.”

So for a number of larger well know vendors who are trying to incorporate the SaaS model into their business, it will definitely be a slow and painful process.

For the immediate future Cohen says “OPNET’s mission is to keep looking for new levels of capability for application performance management. It will search for new ways to give all levels of IT staff visibility into the performance they’re getting and to expand the software’s analysis and troubleshooting to every nook and cranny of the IT environment”.

What is Service-now?

So here’s a a pitch on Service-now.com for the uninitiated. This is most certainly not the best, most comprehensive or only angle to consider, but I tried to touch on many of the aspects that local business in South Africa are concerned with and areas that I believe need real consideration.

As Marutech we have a few great products that enables you to offer better IT services while cutting costs and Service-now.com (SNC) is our flagship product that is taking the world by storm.  SNC has in fact shown exponential growth over the past 5 years – reaching the $50m revenue mark even quicker than Salesforce.com.

Service-now.com is a comprehensive IT Service Management (ITSM) solution and more.  In fact, it’s been seen more and more as an ERP for IT due to all the great features that are being added such as Project and Portfolio Management, Sale Force Automation, Runbook Automation, Development Lifecyle Management, etc. – far more than a just an ITSM solution. It competes directly with your current Remedy, HP Service-Manager, CA Service Desk or Frontrange HEAT solutions.  The great advantage of this solution is

that it was developed purely as an internet based service (i.e. Software-as-a-Service or SaaS) and is thus an off-balance sheet solution to which you subscribe on an annual basis rather than having to purchase licenses and hardware which you have to then maintain yourself.  The fact that it’s web2.0 type design allows you to access it from anywhere and at any time using virtually any browser (including smart-phones) is just an added bonus and adds great value to all your IT users.

Service-now.com has been replacing legacy systems worldwide at an astonishing rate (see attached competitive snapshot) because people are after solutions that are simpler, easier and best practice aligned – solutions that offer similar or better features, flexibility, customizability and benefits that legacy vendors just can’t match.  The amount of time and resources required to maintain or enhance existing legacy systems is costing more than what the systems [sometimes] seem to be worth, hence, the advantage of using a robust solution to which you simply subscribe.

I encourage you to review this solution before renewing maintenance or spending more time and effort on your current system.

Core Functionality

Service-now.com currently offers eleven Pink Elephant verified ITIL (v3) modules (i.e. Incident, Change, Problem, etc) and a whole bunch more – all inclusive of the subscription.  You can choose to enable each functional area as your organization matures and needs arise to utilize additional processes.

Architectural [default] features that most can’t afford in legacy systems include full disaster recovery, 3-5 different instances (depending on your size) so that you can separate your development and test platforms from production, numerous integrations and a high level of security and even encryption of the data if required.

Services Considerations

Probably the biggest differentiator to legacy solutions is the reduced effort (resources and time) to get the system going, aligned to business requirements and keeping it running.  The intuitive interface and ease of use means that customers are sometimes up and running and fully functional in a matter of weeks rather than months (or even years).   Service-now.com manages all hardware and software components so the effort, resources and risk of managing the systems, upgrades, etc yourself are all taken away.   As an example of the value of a great architecture, Service-now.com did the last upgrade of over 1500 instances (spring release) in under 2 days – with zero failures.   Service-now.com has been going since 2004, they releases 4 upgrades a year and continue to add great new features with virtually every upgrade.

Case Studies

Some of the world’s largest and most famous organizations are using Service-now.com including Facebook, New York Stock Exchange, Google, PWC, Hyatt Corporation, Pepsi, VeriSign, Myspace, Best Buy, Deutsche Bank, Juniper, Cisco…   the list just goes on.   In 5 years, Service-now.com have gained over 490 customers globally and are currently signing up between 5 and 10 new customers every week – this says a huge amount about the success of the product and the need out there for a fresh approach.

Costing Overview

The pricing model couldn’t be simpler.   Pricing is based on a subscription per process-user per year.  (specifically process users –  self-service users and people simply logging or monitoring their requests are at no cost).  The only ‘other’ component that is priced separately is the discovery option which requires the installation of a ‘probe’ in your environment and which will help with effectively populating the CMDB if you don’t have that info.  Discovery option pricing is currently based on the number of servers you have, but this is possibly subject to change in the near future.

The biggest consideration however with regards to cost remains the long-term value and savings achieved in reduced resources needed to maintain, develop and support the system.  This is where most organizations really see huge benefits.

To wrap up…

If you have more time to explore this, I’d encourage you to visit the website: www.service-now.com.   You could even go as far as getting your helpdesk manager or team to test the look and feel of the solution on the global demo instance (but be aware that others may also be playing around on it so you might find some funnies appearing.  This instance is reset one a day at 12:00 SA Time back to defaults.)

If this sounds good – you’d be right.  It’s a great product and Service-now.com are a great vendor to work with.

If you have any queries – please feel free to contact us on +2711 287 1501.