bmc dc automation 1

8/13/2019 Bmc Dc Automation 1

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One of the best ways to get started with automation

for the cloud is to focus on service provisioning,

the building and conguration of services, including

the operating system, middleware, databases, and

multi-tiered application environments. In particular,

automating your infrastructure services goes beyond

virtual provisioning, beyond rapidly distr ibuting vir-

tual machines, and beyond spreading the workload

across available capacit y. Because automation

should focus on allocating resources and workloads

in line with t he services you’re providing, it should

also take into consideration your organization’s

contracts, expectations, and behaviors. It should

orchestrate your network, storage, and services, as

well as the set of technologies that support those

services and their accompanying service level

agreements (SLAs).

To prepare for success in the cloud, you must go beyond

simply provisioning the base operating system and

reach to all of the applications and congurations

on top of that operating system — the entire stack.

Z op = Z MlagWhat does end-to-end service provisioning look

like? To paint a clearer picture, compare service

provisioning to auto manufacturing. Think about the

key components of an automobile. A s tandard, yet

essential, component of any vehicle is the chassis

Another key component is the engine. Some com

ponents are not essential but rather are add-ons

or “nice-to-haves,” such as automatic windows and

locks, or cruise control.

Think of the basic infrastructure of a service as being

like the chassis of a car a nd the operating system

Data Center automation

Your Path to the ClouDBy Ben Newton, Senior Manager of Operations Management Solutions, and

David Williams, Vice President of Strategy in the Oce of the CTO, BMC Soware

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and basic applications as being like the engine. With the

cloud, what oen happens is that the ser vice provider

stops there — oering little more than the “chassis”and the “engine” to get around in as your organization

attempts to do business. The service provider may oer

only the most basic services — the bare necessities —

without thinking about the additional services that the

business wants and needs to be competitive.

When it comes to cars and trucks — and cloud services —

optional features are important. Consumers of ser vices

demand options to match their needs. For example, if a

company delivers vegetables, it needs a truck equipped

with refrigeration. An ordinary truck would not meet

these requirements. Similarly, if your company is car-

rying heavy freight, you need some sort of towing

mechanism on the truck, another option. With IT, an

optional feature in the cloud might be the ability to deploy

a precongured environment for a developer, which

might include a database and an application server.

What if car manufacturers created vehicles as one-size-

ts-all, with no options? If you wanted refrigeration (or

a towing mechanism, or electric windows and cruise

control), you’d need to install it yourself. This is just the

position, service-wise, in which some enterprises are

nding themselves as they begin to enter the cloud.

When it comes to provisioning services, it’s important

for IT to be exible enough to be able to del iver the range

of services its users are seeking without requiring an

extensive investment of work upfront from the user.

As IT organizations move more business-critical, and

complex, services to the cloud, the “nice-to-haves,” such

as fully congured enterprise-level application serversor databases, have become necessities. Manually

congured services in the cloud lose much of the anti

cipated benets of the cloud, since new capacity could

take days or weeks to deliver. Automation enables you

to consistently and rapidly deliver a service.

w D Y bg? bldg CCmpc CldDo you need a fully automated data center before you

can even contemplate moving to the cloud? Not really

Data center automation and service provisioning are

not one-size-ts-all. A few enterprises are attemptingtransformational installs, where they start from scratch

and do everything in a single push. While an all-or-nothing

strategy is ne for some groups, this approach will not

necessarily be best for ever y organization. Instead

many enterprises take a phased approach rather than

automating the entire data center at once. This enables

IT to focus on incremental projects that oer a greater

likelihood of real value for the organization.

You can start developing standardized automation

processes long before you enter the cloud. For example

you can design a server provisioning process andlater use an enterprise service provisioning solution

to “elevate” that standardized method as a service, pro

moting it to the cloud when you’re ready. The enterprise

provisioning solution should not only automate the

process but also provide an integrated service catalog

for the standardized services that you build.

You can take the same approach with the rest of your

automation tasks, from provisioning a virtual network

to building out applications, to allocating storage

Decide on a standardized way to build on a network, and

later move that network to the cloud. By building core

competencies, enterprises can obtain real value along

the way to achieving the goal of cloud computing. Self-

service and service catalogs are essential to building

common, standardized services. That’s because these

resources provide a standard interface for the end-user

experience while reducing the complexity of deliveries for

the IT organization.

As IT organizations move

more business-critical, and

complex, services to thecloud, the “nice-to-haves,”

such as fully congured

enterprise-level application

servers or databases, have

become necessities.




h tclgy Ca hlpA consistent set of automation technologies can play a

key role in managing the entire IT operations environ-ment. Ideally, what is needed is a solution that would

not disturb the daily duties of IT administrators and

decision makers, and yet manage to invisibly break

down operational silos that have vexed senior IT man-

agers for so long.

Emerging solutions for service provisioning allow

for the consistent deployment of complete business

services across applications, servers, networks, data-

bases, and client devices using a dened architecture

for provisioning, compliance, and release management.

Technology like this can help IT organizations accel-

erate the delivery of new services, reduce the risk

associated with change, improve productivity, lower

management costs, and enforce operational, security,

and regulatory compliance.

It’s not enough to just build out services over time.

Automation also plays a critical role in the maintenance

of services in the cloud. A service provisioning system

that can build a ser vice, but cannot update and cong-

ure that service over time, will reduce the value of the

cloud for your organization. The automation system

must be able to update and maintain congurations

without the entire service needing to be reprovisioned.This means that the automation should not rely too

heavily on templates and images, as is common

in the cloud. Rather, it should be able to surgically

change congurations without creating downtime

caused by misconguration.

Additionally, in the cloud, both securit y and operation

continue to be important — perhaps even more so.

Just as with your traditional data center, the cloud

needs to be kept in compliance with your operational

standards, security standards, and any applicable

regulatory policies. This means that the automationplatform must be a ble to integrate compliance pro-

cesses with the conguration management processes

aer the services have been provisioned.

Finally, the cloud environment must still be a part of the

larger data center. As a result, the cloud environment

should be integrated with any IT management process-

es already in place. This includes processes such as

change, incident, problem, and release management.

This ensures that the cloud environment does not be-

come separate from the normal operational processes

that have been developed over the years.

Lkg AadCloud computing has quickly taken what was once

a “nice-to-have” (automation) and turned it into an ab-

solute “must-have.” No longer can problems be solved

simply by hiring more people — the complexities of the

data center are expanding too rapidly, and pressures to

hold down costs are greater than ever. You have to be

able to extract maximum value at the least expense.

Automation is the only way you can consistently deliver

a service again and again with the fewest resources.

Now is the time to evolve automation so that you can

provide more than the “bare-chassis, zero-option car”

needed for your business to operate in the cloud.

Automation and end-to-end serv ice provisioning will

help you to make the right set of options available to

users — ones that will help your enterprise remain

competitive as it enters the cloud.

For more information about data center automation,

visit www.bc.c/dc.

The cloud environment

should be integrated

with any IT management

processes already in place.

http://www.bmc.com/dca

http://www.bmc.com/dca



BMC, BMC Soware, and the BMC Soware logo are the exclusive properties of BMC Soware, Inc., are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Oce, and may

be registered or pending registration in other countries. All other BMC trademarks, service marks, and logos may be registered or pending registration in the U.S. or in

other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademar ks are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 BMC Soware, Inc. All rights reserved.

*215469*

About the AuthorsDavid Will iams is a vice

president of Strategy in the

Oce of the CTO at BMC

Soware, with particular

focus on availabil ity and

performance management,

application performancemanagement, IT operations

automation, and management tools archi-

tectures. He has 29 years of experience in IT

operations management. Williams joined BMC

from Gartner, where he was research vice

president, leading the research for IT process

automation (run book automation); event, corre-

lation, and analysis; performance monitoring

and IT operations management architectures

and frameworks. His past experience also

includes executive-level positions at Alterpoint

(acquired by Versata) and IT Masters (acquired

by BMC), and as vice president of Product

Management and Strategy at IBM Tivoli. He also

worked as a senior technologist at CA for

Unicenter TNG and spent his ear ly years in ITworking in computer operations for several

companies, including Bankers Trust.

B e n Ne wto n i s se n i o r

manager of Operations

Management Solutions at

BMC Soware, where he

leads a team focused on

pro d uct me ssa g ing for

BMC’s data center auto-

mation and proactive oper-

ations portfolio. For the last decade, he has

specialized in the various aspects of data center

automation, particularly related to conguration,

application release, compliance automation,

and cloud computing. Before joining BMC, heworked as a systems architect for Electronic

Data Systems (EDS) and Northrop Grumman. He

graduated in 2000 from Cornell University with

a master’s degree in comput er s cienc e.

business runs on i.t.

i.t. runs on bMC softwAreBusiness thrives when IT ru ns smarter, faster

and stronger. That’s why the most demanding

IT organizations in the world rely on BMC Soware

across distributed, mainframe, virtual and cloud

environments. Recognized as the leader in

Business Service Management, BMC oers a

comprehensive approach and unied platform

that helps IT organizations cut cost, reduc e riskand drive business prot. For the four scal

quarters ended June 30, 2011, BMC revenue was

approximately $2.1 billion. For more information,

visit .mc.cm.


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