building private clouds on ibm power systems

Building Private Clouds on IBM Power Systems

Bob Minns IBM Power Systems Team

IBM SWG Competitive Project Office 512-286-7592

[email protected]

Last update: April 21, 2010

Table of Contents

Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................................... 2

Executive Summary....................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 4

Requirements for a Private Cloud................................................................................................................. 5

Building Blocks for a Private Cloud ............................................................................................................... 7

Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM)............................................................................................. 7

VIO Server ................................................................................................................................................. 7

IBM Tivoli Monitoring ............................................................................................................................... 7

IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager .............................................................................................. 7

IBM Power Systems for Private Clouds......................................................................................................... 8

Virtualization............................................................................................................................................. 8

Stability ..................................................................................................................................................... 8

Support...................................................................................................................................................... 8

Scalability .................................................................................................................................................. 8

Using the Private Cloud................................................................................................................................. 9

Self-Service................................................................................................................................................ 9

Request a New Server.............................................................................................................................10

Monitoring ..............................................................................................................................................11

Flat Rate Charging ...................................................................................................................................12

Initial deployment of Private Clouds...........................................................................................................15

References ..................................................................................................................................................16

Whitepapers............................................................................................................................................16

Product Information ............................................................................................................................... 16

Building Private Clouds on IBM Power Systems of 17

Executive Summary

Private Cloud solutions enable IT organizations to respond to new and changing business requirements while maintaining control and maximizing the security. Using IBM Tivoli Service Management software and Power Systems, customers can implement a complete private cloud environment.

Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM) is a key software element to creating and managing a private cloud environment. The automation provides a “set and forget” process for users of the private cloud. No one is waiting for the software to be copied to the disk and configured. Non-IT users can easily request new virtual servers in the private cloud with the software stacks that they need, with no assistance from the IT staff and no knowledge of the environment. The “out of the box” integration between Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM), IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) and Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM) products provides a complete end to end “private cloud” solution. The ITM agent for the virtual server can be installed and configured as part of the server request. This gives the operations staff the instant visibility of any problems with the health of the virtual servers within the private cloud. The ITM agents for the VIO Server and CEC are configured with the VIO Server to provide visibility of the VIO Server and the underlying hardware platform. The complete environment is being monitored and managed as virtual servers are added to the private cloud.

Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM) provides the functionality for supporting pay-as-you-go or subscription-based charges for the private cloud users. TUAM provides an easy way for users to view their charges and correlate these charges to the resources that they are using within the private cloud.

IBM Power Systems provide the industrial strength virtualization, stability, support and scalability to fully support a private cloud environment.


Introduction

This paper is intended for customers planning to build private cloud solutions with IBM Power Systems and Tivoli Service Management software. For some time, public cloud offerings have promoted the paradigm of cloud computing and its perceived lower costs to the business. Moreover, cloud computing promises attributes such as flat rate charging, request driven provisioning and real-time deployment allowing customers to respond to new and changing business requirements in a timely manner.

What is usually ignored is the fact that it is possible to create a private cloud with all of these same attributes within the existing IT organization at a lower cost1. A private cloud can be more aligned with the needs of the business and a private cloud provides increased security because it is managed within an internal, secure environment. Private clouds still give direct control to the end users for quickly requesting a fully-functioning solution stack on a new server and the added benefit to the customer of having full control over the private cloud implementation.

1 Whitepaper - Building a Dynamic Infrastructure with IBM Power Systems: A Closer Look at Private Cloud TCO


Requirements for a Private Cloud

The success of a private cloud implementation within an IT organization is dependent on providing a service to the internal business users at a competitive cost, compared to the public alternatives. In order to do so, a private cloud implementation leverages the following factors to reduce IT costs – Virtualization, Automation and Standardization.

Automate

Virtualize Standardize

Figure 1: Reducing IT Costs Using a Private Cloud

Virtualization allows multiple workloads to run on a single physical system, increasing the utilization of the physical hardware. This in turn reduces the number of physical systems required to run these workloads with savings in lower power, cooling and floor space costs as well as reduced software licenses. Multiple workloads can be consolidated on to fewer, larger physical systems. Due to the nature of consolidation through virtualization one thing is intuitive: the larger the servers, the more workloads it can be support and the more system resources can be shared between the workloads to improve physical system utilization levels.

Internal labor costs average 41% of the total IT expenses2. To significantly reduce overall costs, every hour of labor must have as large an impact as possible. Automation helps eliminate repetitive tasks, provides consistent results and improves the service to the end users. There is a larger investment in the setup of the automation but the payback is provided in each subsequent use of the automated process.

2 AMR Research: 2009 Overall Operating Expense Budget – Overall Averages http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.aspx?CompURI=tcm:7-49849


http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.aspx?CompURI=tcm:7-49849

Creating a limited number of standard software stacks reduces the number of differences between environments and reduces the labor required to create, support and maintain these software stacks. With fewer variations, there are fewer problems to resolve. Therefore, private cloud users expect servers with “golden” or “pre-tested” software stacks so they are using a software stack that has been created and tested elsewhere not a brand new combination of software with unknown problems.

The following example shows just the time improvement by using virtualization, automation and standardization to deploy a complete software stack. The manual install time assumes all the software is staged ready for installation and the systems administrator is waiting for each step to complete before initiating the next step. In reality, a systems administrator will kick off an installation step and then return later to initiate the next stage of the installation. In contrast, it takes approximately 40 minutes to deploy a complete software stack (AIX V6, WAS V6, JEE application and the ITM agent) to a new virtual server using TSAM (Tivoli Service Automation Manager) in our private cloud solution. In reality, no one is waiting for the TSAM installation to complete. The private cloud user takes a few minutes to request a new server (a set and forget installation) via the portal and then later receives an email with the system password and related information once the new server is accessible via the network. It is completely hands-off once the request is submitted.

Tota

l Dep

loym

ent T

ime

(min

utes

)

Automated Install

Submit a request then check later for an emailNo real waiting

Manual Install

40

120

0

25

50

100

150

200

250

67%reduction

Figure 2: Relative Deployment Times


Building Blocks for a Private Cloud

Customers can easily build their own private cloud environment using IBM Power Systems and Tivoli service management software.

Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM) TSAM provides the foundation for creating a private cloud within any enterprise. TSAM is the packaging of two mature Tivoli products – Tivoli Service Request Manager (TSRM) and Tivoli Provisioning Manager (TPM). TSRM provides the front-end while TPM provides the automated provisioning on the back-end. Additional workflows and integration are provided for managing private clouds as part of the TSAM product.

VIO Server The Virtual I/O Server (part of the PowerVM virtualization support for IBM Power Systems) allows the network and I/O to be virtualized for each virtual server. This allows the bandwidth of the physical network adapters and the fiber channel adapters to be shared by the virtual servers in the private cloud. The VIO Server will be running the ITM agent for the VIO Server for monitoring the health of the VIO Server as well as the ITM CEC agent for monitoring the underlying hardware platform. These two agents are configured with the initial setup of VIO Server before the private cloud users start requesting services.

IBM Tivoli Monitoring The operating system ITM agent can be installed and configured as part of the virtual server request. Operations staff can monitor the health of the virtual servers, the VIO Server and the host platform using the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server (TEPS) interface. The user is responsible for the installation of the Monitoring Agent by selecting the checkbox when requesting a new virtual server. The installation of the operating system ITM agent is a separate step which is performed after restoring the system image. TSAM will then configure the operating system ITM agent to communicate with the correct Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server (TEMS) as part of this process.

IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager TSAM can be configured to provide daily accounting files for the Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM). TSAM provides 3 subscription based metrics – Server Hours, Memory Hours (in MBs) and CPU Hours for pay-as-you-go chargeback. The TUAM Reporting Server can be accessed by the end user to display these metrics for specific months, specific dates, projects and virtual servers to track their usage of the private cloud.


IBM Power Systems for Private Clouds

IBM Power Systems are an ideal platform for creating a private cloud. IBM Power Systems provide the necessary system attributes to support a private cloud environment - industrial strength virtualization, stability, support and scalability.

Virtualization The PowerVM virtualization is built-in to every system with the same capabilities across the entire product line. The virtualization is always on for any IBM Power System environment. As a customer, you can focus on the applications you need for your business rather than having multiple vendors trying to resolve integration issues with the virtualization technology.

Stability The private cloud can be used for lots of small applications. Individually, these applications may not be “mission critical” but as the number of applications increases and the size of the private cloud grows, you will need a robust and stable environment. Customers have enjoyed the reliability, availability and serviceability characteristics of IBM Power Systems for large “mission critical” applications and these same characteristics are now required for private clouds. The stability of IBM Power Systems has been highlighted in a number of third party customer surveys3.

Support The complete software stack from the hardware to the IBM middleware is developed and supported by IBM. The hardware, firmware, virtualization support and operating system are tested together. Customers can run middleware and key applications from other vendors with the underlying operating system, virtualization and hardware, fully supported by IBM. The single vendor approach is valuable because there will always be environment-specific issues that need to be resolved, and with a single vendor providing support for your private cloud environment, any problems will be resolved quicker.

Scalability Some applications in the development or the testing phase may not need a lot of system resources to get started and it is easy to stand up a complete environment using a private cloud. Over time, the number of users may suddenly increase due to demand or the time of year. For growth and scalability, it is reassuring that the system resources for a Power Systems virtual server can grow from a 1/10 CPU to the entire system (possibly 256 CPUs with the newly announced high-end POWER7-based systems), if required. These system resources can be added dynamically without interrupting the users or the workload.

3 ITIC: ITIC 2009 Global Server Hardware & Server OS Reliability Survey; July 2009 http://itic-corp.com/blog/2009/07/itic-2009-global-server-hardware-server-os-reliability-survey-results


http://itic-corp.com/blog/2009/07/itic-2009-global-server-hardware-server-os-reliability-survey-results

Using the Private Cloud

Self ServicePortal

End User

System Administrator

IBM Power Systems

PowerVM Hypervisor

VIOServer

TivoliEnterprise

PortalServer

ITMAgent

TivoliEnterpriseMonitoring

Server

AutomatedProvisioning

ReportingServer

TivoliUsage andAccounting

ManagerServer

Operations

Tivoli Service Automation Manager

AccountingData

3. Monitoring

2. Request A New Server1. Self Service

4. Flat RateCharging

Private Cloud(Multiple Systems)

Figure 3: Using the Private Cloud

Self-Service TSAM V7.2 provides an easy to use Web 2.0 interface for non-IT users to request virtual servers. The different components of the interface are the frequent requests (create a project, add a server to an existing project, remove a server and cancel a project), the status of submitted requests and the status of the user’s projects.


Figure 4: Self Service Portal

Request a New Server This is the panel for requesting a new server for an existing project (SOF Web Testing in this example). The end date can be specified (in this case, it is indefinite which could be changed at a later date). There are two standard software stacks for installation – SOF Investment and SOF Mortgage. These software stacks include the operating system (AIX V6.1), application server (WAS V6.1), and a JEE application. The user can also install and configure the ITM agent as part of the deployment of the virtual server by selecting the checkbox “Monitoring Agent to be installed”. Multiple servers with the same software stack and settings can be requested in a single request. The system resource settings for CPU, memory and storage are the recommended settings that have been setup by the cloud administrator. The user can still adjust these settings using the controls before submitting the request. In this case, we have a small private cloud environment and TSAM is showing that 2 virtual servers are available with this configuration and requested dates.


Figure 5: Request a New Server

Monitoring It is easy to determine what servers are being used for which projects just by selecting the individual projects. The panel shows the virtual servers that are being used for the SOF Web Testing project – sofpw1 and sofpw2. The bright green button shows that the ITM agent is installed and configured, providing the statistics (for Memory, CPU and Disk) to the right of the Server Name. A virtual server can be selected and the icons shown above the servers can be used for backing up the server, restoring a server backup, removing a server, starting a server, stopping a server, restarting a server and resetting the server password,


Figure 6: Monitoring Servers in a Project

Flat Rate Charging TUAM provides 4 levels for the Accounting Structure. The accounting structure can apply across the entire IT organization not just the “private cloud” environment. The accounting structure will vary slightly from customer to customer. For this example, we are highlighting the capabilities of subscription based chargeback for the private cloud using the integration between TSAM and TUAM. Chargeback is typically to a financial entity (a department for our purposes) within the enterprise for each accounting period (month). The four levels here are Chargeback Department, Requestor, Deployment Instance (by TSAM Project) and the Virtual Server Name (Hostname).


Figure 7: Accounting Structure for Chargeback

In this example, the private cloud user can access the Reporting Server for TUAM to check the accumulated private cloud charges for his entire department for the month of February. It is possible to also view the breakdown of charges for the lower levels.


This invoice shows the monthly charges for the department (dept99) for our sample company. It shows the flat rates for the 3 TSAM metrics – TSAM Server Hours, TSAM Memory (in MBs) Hours and TSAM CPU Hours. The charges for the month are the resource usage multiplied by the flat rates. With the TUAM reporting Server, it is possible to drill down within the invoice to show the breakdown of resource usage by virtual server hostname. This helps resolve any disagreement between the charges for the month and the resources used. The rates used are for example only. TUAM can also be used for determining the real cost of the computing resources in the private cloud to ensure that the IT Department is close to breaking even while providing realistic flat rates to the private cloud users.

Figure 8: Invoice for Private Cloud Charges


Initial deployment of Private Clouds

As with any new technology, confidence is gained by introducing on a small scale and expanding its use as more experience and skills are acquired. The resources in a private cloud can be automatically provisioned as well as de-provisioned. This lends the best usage of private clouds to smaller, less critical application environments that need computing resources for short or fixed periods of time. The added benefit on the back-end of the project is that the computing resources can just as quickly be released, maximizing the reuse of the available computing resources for other projects. An ideal environment for introducing private clouds is development or test environments that need resources for short periods of time to test new levels of software before full deployment in a production, mission critical or quality assurance (QA) environment.


References

Whitepapers Building a Dynamic Infrastructure with IBM Power Systems: A closer Look at private Cloud TCO

ftp://submit.boulder.ibm.com/sales/ssi/sa/wh/n/pow03043usen/POW03043USEN.PDF

Product Information Tivoli Service Automation Manager – Product Website

http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/service-auto-mgr/

IBM Tivoli Monitoring – Product Website

http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/monitor/

IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager – Product Website

http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/usage-accounting/

IBM Power Systems – Product Website

http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/


ftp://submit.boulder.ibm.com/sales/ssi/sa/wh/n/pow03043usen/POW03043USEN.PDF

http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/service-auto-mgr/

http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/monitor/

http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/usage-accounting/

http://www.ibm.com/systems/power/

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2010

IBM Corporation Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY10589 USA

Produced in the United States

April 2010

All Rights Reserved

IBM, the IBM logo, DB2, Tivoli, WebSphere, AIX, Power Systems and PowerVM are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Java and all Java-based trademarks are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.

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