cloud service whitepaper

WHITE PAPER

© 2011 VCE Company LLC, All rights reserved. 1

CLOUD SERVICE ASSURANCE WITH VBLOCK™ INFRASTRUCTURE

PLATFORMS

July 2011


Table of Contents

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 3 Challenges Facing Service Providers ......................................................................................... 3 Solution ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Valuable Benefits ........................................................................................................................ 4 Scope .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Audience ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Terminology ................................................................................................................................ 4

Service Assurance and Service Level Agreements ................................................................... 6 Establishing Market Segmentation ............................................................................................. 7 Providing Service Deployment Satisfaction ................................................................................ 7 Controlling Rising Costs .............................................................................................................. 7 Managing Unpredictable Demand .............................................................................................. 7

Solution: Vblock Infrastructure Platforms .................................................................................. 8 Trusted Multi-Tenancy ................................................................................................................ 8 Workload Mobility ...................................................................................................................... 10 Services .................................................................................................................................... 11 Technical Components ............................................................................................................. 12

Benefits of Service Assurance ................................................................................................... 14 Providing Effective SLAs ........................................................................................................... 14 Easier Service Deployment ....................................................................................................... 14 Lower, More Reliable Cost Model ............................................................................................. 14 Managing Demand .................................................................................................................... 15

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 16


Executive Summary

In order to prevail in today’s competitive Information Technology (IT) marketplace, it is essential for service providers to offer quality service assurance that matches the business needs of potential customers. In the marriage between service providers and their respective customers, the Service Level Agreement (SLA) functions as the ever-important vows, ensuring the delivery of reliable data centers and efficient, cost-reducing IT operations. In fact, service assurance through an SLA can often be an elusive commodity for companies migrating to an innovative cloud-computing environment.

In today’s high-technology industry, service assurance has become more than just a luxury for corporations migrating to the cloud. It has become a primary differentiator when seeking support of critical applications and dependable data center operations. With increasing concerns over untimely service interruptions and the immobility of important workloads, companies have become reluctant to perform application operations in a virtualized environment, particularly without the backing of a solid, comprehensive SLA.

Vblock™ Infrastructure Platforms furnish service providers with the confidence to deliver stringent, high-quality SLAs to their customers. With end-to-end support, Vblock platforms offer a unique blend of agility and scalability in a converged infrastructure, allowing service providers to remain a cut above providers like Google and Amazon. With this innovative solution, virtual machines provide fluent workload distributions between multiple data centers while assuring accelerated application performance levels and reliable security services. With the ever-increasing demands of stable IT operations and an aggressive cost-reduction campaign, Vblock platforms provide the framework for top-quality service provision, the cornerstone of any progressive customer relationship.

Challenges Facing Service Providers

With growing demands on application delivery, a heightened emphasis has been placed upon service assurance to attract business and maintain solid customer relationships. In order to remain ahead of the competition, service providers rely upon rigorous SLAs to convince potential consumers to move critical applications into virtualized environments. Converged infrastructure is an essential component for providing the necessary value for meeting SLAs.

Today, service providers face many imposing challenges, including:

• Establishing market segmentation • Service deployment satisfaction • Rising costs • Unpredictable demand

Solution

Vblock platforms provide the foundation for service providers to match the strict needs and demands of IT corporations, as outlined in their SLAs. With the VCE’s Trusted Multi-Tenancy (TMT) model, service providers can meet a customer’s growing demands, offering services that are both consistent and predictable. Vblock platforms offer workload mobility that allows service providers to scale and deploy cloud-hosted workloads without costly service interruptions.

Vblock platforms also work with high-quality components to guarantee optimum service assurance to customers. These services include:

• Security • Application acceleration and wide area network (WAN) optimization • Application performance monitoring • Service management and reporting


Valuable Benefits

Vblock platforms converged infrastructure provides flexible service options that can be scaled up on an on-demand basis while reducing the operating costs and staffing expenses of typical data centers. With Vblock platforms, service providers can depend upon a host of benefits, including:

• Providing effective SLAs • Easier service deployment • Lower, more reliable cost model • Managing demand

Scope

This paper outlines how Vblock platforms converged infrastructure enables service providers to offer SLAs to enterprise customers for whom performance, security, and availability are paramount. It allows service providers to address the concerns and challenges of enterprise customers reluctant to migrate their data center needs and application operations into a converged infrastructure platform.

Audience

CIOs of application service providers offering quality SLAs to companies moving application operations into a virtualized, cloud-computing environment.

Terminology

The following table contains terms used throughout this paper.

Term Description

Cloud computing Data center environment in which shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, and utility computing.

Converged infrastructure A converged infrastructure packages multiple IT components packaged into a single, optimized computing solution. Components of a converged infrastructure solution include servers, data storage devices, virtualization, networking equipment and software for IT infrastructure management, automation, and orchestration.

Workload Virtual machines and their corresponding applications and storages.

Workload mobility The ability to move workloads within a physical or virtual data center (VDC) into different data centers in order to preserve application availability and resources.

Trusted Multi-Tenancy (TMT) An architectural model that optimizes resource sharing while providing sufficient levels of Quality of Service (QoS) throughout the shared environment; also provides security and compliance to agreed policies to each individual tenant.

Application acceleration The acceleration of application traffic over the wide area network from the cloud-hosting data center.


Term Description

Load balancing The even distribution of workloads across two or more resources in order to obtain optimal performance and utilization while averting overloads.

IT as a Service (ITaaS) IT as a Service (ITaaS) refers to a method by which an IT organization or service provider delivers well-defined services delineated at a clear business interface, usually to multiple consumers and/or different business units. Delivering services in this manner, as opposed to operating as pure infrastructure administrators, allows an IT organization to increase underlying resource utilization and reduce associated operational costs. It also enables IT to offer pay-per-use business consumption.


Service Assurance and Service Level Agreements

Growing expectations for application delivery and business continuity has placed increasingly rigorous demands upon service providers to deliver reliable, cost-efficient SLAs to IT corporations. While many of these high-technology industries now turn to service providers for data center support, meeting these SLAs depends solely on the quality of the infrastructure platform. Today’s IT corporations work under a more demanding set of prerequisites, including operating applications in a scalable, flexible multitenant environment, supporting highly extensible workloads, and maintaining consistency and predictability of application performance under adverse conditions.

IT corporations have become wary of the effects of migrating data center operations into a cloud-computing model, particularly when it pertains to costs of such a transitional endeavor. Corporations need to consider the capital expenditures (CAPEX) of transitioning into a new IT infrastructure, as the uncertainties of both the long and short-term effects can hamper adoption. Also factoring into the equation are operating expenses (OPEX) stemming from powering and cooling of high-density equipment, as well as the staff requirements for maintaining such duties.

Additional questions may hamper an organization’s decision to move its data center needs and application operations into the cloud. For instance, it is imperative for applications to comply to the same regulatory requirements as in a typical IT environment. Organizations must bank on the same quality of service (QoS) in a cloud-computing environment as in a traditional IT setting. Corporations expect the same level of security measures enforced in the cloud.

Customer demands for a more intricate, sophisticated SLA require improvements in the infrastructure platform in nearly every facet. While IT customers once emphasized service availability as the cornerstone of an SLA, agreements now focus on quality network performance as the primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI).

Quality SLAs are comprised of such components as establishing segmentation in the marketplace, providing simple service deployments, controlling rising costs, and managing ever-changing customer demand.

Figure 1. Components of Quality SLAs

Today's SLAs

Establish market

segmentation

Control rising costs

Provide satisfactory service

deployments

Manage unpredictable demand levels


Establishing Market Segmentation

Segmentation within a market has become a common practice for corporations seeking to make an impact with sales production. However, a successful market segmentation endeavor can often result in hefty increases in sales expenditures, as it establishes clear differentiators with market competitors. In order to appeal to a targeted demographic, the marketing campaign must identify the potential consumer’s requirements and impending needs, prerequisites that are generally outlined in an SLA. These customer requirements often include:

• Cost reduction • Productivity increases • Improve service quality • Greater profitability • Supporting highly extensible workloads

Providing Service Deployment Satisfaction

Deployment complexities can often hamper an organization’s commitment to migrating into a new IT environment. Successful service deployments often require an intricate, convoluted process that involves intense planning, increased manpower, and an extended integration of application resources. When deploying into a new IT environment, organizations need affirmation that security, integrity, and efficiency will not be compromised during the process. The reluctance of many major enterprises to shift into a cloud-computing community stems directly from the ambiguity of the deployment process.

Controlling Rising Costs

The hefty cost of support and maintenance is another obstacle that service providers contend with when wooing major corporations into cloud computing. Nearly every organization today is targeting cost savings as a leading priority in their business ventures. However, the financial demands placed on staffing, IT maintenance, and operating equipment can be stifling. Growth and expansion has become increasingly difficult for companies seeking to expand data center capacities while fully utilizing network and computing resources. In essence, the ability to lower capital and operational expenditures has become highly elusive in today’s challenging marketplace.

Managing Unpredictable Demand

Varying utilization among customers increases the need to ensure data availability for enterprises considering a leap into virtualized infrastructure solutions. With demand levels that consistently fluctuate, IT corporations prefer a flexible, scalable infrastructure for handling unpredictable workloads.


Solution: Vblock Infrastructure Platforms

Vblock infrastructure platforms deliver the finest in IT solutions, combining computing and networking services in a converged, virtual environment. Customers can reduce costly IT support while reserving time for invaluable marketing endeavors. Fully integrated and highly innovative, Vblock platforms seamlessly combine management, storage, and virtualization software in one all-encompassing package.

Vblock platforms provide the vital ingredients for affirming quality assurance with customers contemplating a move into the world of cloud computing. These essentials include:

• Trusted Multi-Tenancy (TMT) model • Workload mobility • Services

Trusted Multi-Tenancy

The VCE Trusted Multi-Tenancy (TMT) model is an integral part of Vblock platforms as it provides component isolation and dynamic resource allocation through its six elements. With the cohesiveness of several major hardware and software components, the VCE TMT model incorporates numerous valuable services, including:

• Security of virtual machines in each layer of the TMT stack • Acceleration of application traffic from the cloud-hosting data center • Optimization of the wide area network (WAN) • Monitoring and reporting of application performance over the WAN to various locations

Figure 2. Six Elements of Trusted Multi-Tenancy

One component is Service Assurance, a critical means for establishing customer satisfaction among various tenants in the cloud environment. While the scalable resources within a virtualized platform are constantly allocated and reallocated, multi-tenancy allows the service provider to conform to the customer’s ever-changing business needs, delivering the same level of maintenance outlined in an SLA.


Secure Separation

Perhaps the most integral part of multi-tenancy in a virtualized environment is secure separation, the successful segregation of the various tenants and their respective assets. Effective secure separation is one in which each tenant can access only the resources existing within their ownership. It is assured that these resources remain uninhabited, whereas the workloads, data pools, and various applications remain separated from other new tenants being provisioned. Methods of secure separation include network, compute, storage, and application infrastructure layers.

Service Assurance

The level of service guaranteed to a customer is a vital component of TMT operations, and the inability to deliver reliable performance hampers the process of providing quality SLAs. With the constant evolution of workloads, compliance protocols, and application requirements, it is critical to maintain high service levels to uphold customer relationships. Providers must be able to conform to a customer’s dynamic needs, as a consistent, predictable delivery of service is highly essential. Providing top-quality service and maintaining solid cost models are the keys to effective service assurance.

Security and Compliance

A leading concern of providers and tenants in a TMT environment is the guarantee of security and compliance within each layer of the TMT stack. Utilizing such tools as firewalls, malware protection, encryption and key management, intrusion prevention, and identity management and access control, the security and compliance of this solution preserves the confidentiality of the tenant’s resources. The tenant’s daily activities are continuously verified and monitored, as are all the provisioning, management, and configuration activities performed within the environment. With the dynamic nature of regulatory compliance, operating on a cloud requires increased subjection to security and compliance standards.

Availability and Data Protection

In the multi-tenant environment, not only must sufficient data storage, memory, bandwidth and memory be accessible to the tenant, they must also remain protected at all times. Data protection addresses a tenant’s concern of remaining secure in a cloud-computing environment, where emphasis is often placed upon high performance levels. With the guarantee of solid data protection, enterprises may identify the more critical items in regards to reducing costs and maintaining a solid procedure for preventing data loss.

Tenant Management and Control

Another facet of TMT is the rendering of management and control to tenants within the environment, allowing them to maintain security, compliance, and budding revenue opportunities. Maintaining control over important aspects of their individual services, tenants can maintain administrative contacts, modify a management status for various elements of the infrastructure, determine the direction of virtualized objects, and provision allocated resources. With delegated control and management capabilities, tenants can remain on top of the existing data within the multi-tenancy environment while conforming to workloads that change according to varying resource requirements.

Service Provider Management and Control

The final tier of the TMT model allots appropriate levels of management and control to the providers of infrastructure services. Challenges are often presented when managing a multi-tenancy environment, including the proper delegation of control among various tenants, handling reporting issues, and distributing capacity alerts. Therefore, full visibility of the shared environment is imperative for service providers to furnish tenants with security, data protection, availability, and necessary service levels. The Vblock platforms thereby provide integrated management solutions that are both scalable and flexible, allowing a comprehensive application performance interface (API) stack to enhance service value.


Workload Mobility

A key essential to the delivery of service assurance is workload availability and mobility. In order to supply first-class services, providers must be able to effectively and flexibly scale a variety of workloads in a cloud environment in a cost-efficient manner. With workload mobility, service providers can overcome limits placed on high volumes of virtual machines and connections that can be supported among large enterprise customers.

Often times, server failures and data center issues result in service interruptions. Therefore, the ability to deploy virtual machines from one server to another without nagging interruptions is an invaluable benefit for any IT organization. Likewise, the mobility of virtual workloads between data centers is paramount in averting disasters. Workload mobility not only prevents interruptions during such transfers, it also allows you to locate the ideal path for virtual private network (VPN) connections, accommodating users migrating to data centers with available resources.

This capability afforded to customers of supporting high numbers of virtual machines ensures capacity for future demand spikes and business growth. Hence, the availability and mobility of a virtualized workload provides tremendous leverage for service providers determined to produce exceptional SLAs. Figure 3 illustrates the mobility of workloads between data centers supported by Vblock platforms.

Additional benefits of workload mobility include:

• Migration to an additional data center deflects issues with power, cooling, capacity, and space constraints in the primary location.

• Applications migrated from a data center requiring maintenance eliminates downtime. • Load balancing can be performed across multiple sites when virtual environments are extended

between data centers.

Figure 3. Workload Mobility Architecture


Services

There are additional services to realize and report on the level of assurance offered to service providers using Vblock platforms to offer IT as a Service. The following premium services enhance performance and increase availability to provide a valuable, differentiated service to customers.

Security

In a virtualized environment, there is a heightened demand for security among IT corporations migrating to the cloud. Therefore, it is important for service providers to offer a security system that is consistent with a virtualized, multi-tenant environment. In turn, Vblock platforms include Cisco® Virtual Security Gateway™ (VSG), delivering an extensive security service that stretches beyond port numbers, virtual local area networks (VLANs), and IP addresses, establishing security policies at virtual posts. With these capabilities, virtual machines moving from one data center to another do not compromise security standards imposed upon them. These security services support:

• Service templates • Security zones • Administrative roles • Multi-tenancy • Rules-based security policies

Application Acceleration and WAN Optimization

More and more large enterprises are focused upon the velocity at which applications move traffic through the WAN from cloud-based data centers into multiple locations. In other words, without application acceleration and WAN optimization, it is difficult for service providers to manage high volumes of connection requests and ensure quality response-time performances. Therefore, application acceleration has become a critical element of service assurance.

Vblock platforms offer Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE), an effective solution for content switching, load balancing, application optimization, and server offloading in both a physical and virtualized environment. Load balancing assists the distribution of heavy traffic across multiple servers, paving the way for efficient utilization of server resources as well as application availability. Cisco Virtual WAAS™ (VWAAS) is an effective counterpart that handles application acceleration in a virtual environment, ensuring ideal user operations in the private cloud infrastructure.

Application Performance Monitoring

Paramount to IT businesses is the ability to oversee operations and daily activities of applications. A clear visibility coupled with monitoring capabilities will appease many corporations’ desire to monitor application performances over the WAN. Vblock platforms feature the Cisco Network Analysis Module™ (NAM), allowing companies to access important performance data from data centers across multiple locations.

With this feature, application performances are monitored in real time, allowing companies to observe applications running on the network while determining precisely how resources are being utilized. It also allows for more pressing needs to be addressed through prioritizing applications more specific to critical missions. Other application performance monitoring features included in this package include:

• Monitoring application response times • Assessing the amount of bandwidth used by specific applications and branch offices • Utilizing path optimization, directing applications to paths that will enhance performance, thus

adhering to strict SLA terms • Establishing priorities of applications (Oracle, SAP) specific to critical missions


Service Management and Reporting

A useful tool for service providers is to manage and comprise reports on the resources residing in each level of the virtual infrastructure, ensuring that the platform is fulfilling its duties outlined in the SLA. As part of this feature, providers are relegated a means for monitoring, provisioning, troubleshooting, and charging back the various resources being utilized by tenants.

Service management gives providers ample control and visibility of the shared infrastructure in the multi-tenant environment, assisting them in providing the data protection, security, and service quality agreed upon in the SLA. With the flexibility offered in this design, service providers may effectively fulfill all duties required in the virtualized, multi-tenant environment.

Technical Components

The aforementioned services are delivered by multiple technical components working with Vblock platforms. The following diagram illustrates the cloud service assurance architecture:

Figure 4. CSA Architecture


Cisco VSG

Cisco® Virtual Security Gateway™ (VSG) serves as a security policy management tool for applications hosted in a virtualized environment, supporting various services in the cloud, including security zones, service templates, multi-tenancy, standard securities policies, and administrative roles. This component is managed by the Cisco® Virtual Network Management Center (vNMC).

VMware vShield

VMware vShield is a critical component that provides important protection for virtual data centers and cloud environments. A dependable security solution, VMware vShield fortifies security for data and application operations while improving control and visibility, accelerating compliance measures, and enabling multi-tenancy in a virtualized environment. This component engineers flow monitoring to enhance visibility while providing centralized management of segmentation and zone boundaries.

Cisco vWAAS

Cisco® Virtual WAAS™ (vWAAS) is a virtual operating appliance that enhances business applications of private cloud infrastructures through rapid acceleration. Offering a flexible multitenant deployment, this component operates on the VMware ESXI hypervisor and Cisco UCS x86 servers, serving as a WAN solution that can be deployed on-demand through a virtualization-savvy configuration.

Cisco ACE

Cisco® Application Control Engine (ACE) operates in the virtual data center environment to perform load balancing and application delivery functions. In addition, this component optimizes application performance and offloads servers while providing content switching. With server load balancing, Cisco ACE has the ability to manage traffic across multiple servers, providing utilization of resources and delivering application availability. With this product, costly time spent performing application deployments may be greatly reduced, while expenses and resources linked to data service application infrastructure is kept at a minimum.

Cisco NAM

The Cisco® Network Analysis Module (NAM) serves as the primary source for collecting critical performance data for the use of network reporting systems. This component, with Cisco® Virtual WAAS™ (VWAAS), enhances application performance and optimizes solutions. In addition, Cisco NAM contains a useful troubleshooting system for alerting users of performance issues before they occur, allowing organizations to swiftly rectify issues and operate with increased efficiency.


Benefits of Service Assurance

Service assurance is an invaluable tool when it comes to maximizing the long-term profitability of service providers. In any business, the quality of the product being delivered will ultimately determine its success in the marketplace, thereby attracting new customers while maintaining existing ones.

Not only does solid service assurance facilitate easier service deployments of service, it also elevates the quality of an SLA, all the while providing a more sensible cost-reduction plan for potential customers. Ultimately, assuring quality service results in a win-win situation for service providers and customers alike.

Providing Effective SLAs

A solid SLA serves as the cornerstone of the provider/customer relationship, setting the framework for lucrative, long-term business ventures. At the core of an effective SLA is the provider’s confidence that quality, first-rate service will be delivered to the consumer with minimum risk of fallback. The best way for a service provider to uphold these assurances is by enhancing and fine-tuning the product being showcased.

An appealing SLA is often the determining factor for IT corporations selecting services that best fit their computing needs. An innovative product such as the Vblock platforms, with cutting-edge technology and multi-faceted benefits, provides tremendous leverage for service providers constructing a solid SLA.

Easier Service Deployment

In the case of Vblock platforms, service assurance is fortified by a simplified deployment process, often a key beneficiary for corporations moving toward a virtualized environment. Offered in integrated units, the components of the Vblock platforms are tested and pre-configured to work in a cohesive manner, assembled in a single IT infrastructure that is primed for production.

Highly scalable and fully integrated, Vblock platforms allow businesses to bypass the design restructuring of their data services. Packing these integral technologies in one all-encompassing system eliminates the headaches of planning comprehensive architectures for new and existing data centers.

Vblock platforms are pre-tested and assembled to operate with most major applications, including Oracle RAC, SAP, VMware, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft SharePoint.

Lower, More Reliable Cost Model

In today’s financially-strained business world, corporations are targeting predictable cost efficiency as a high priority within their respective IT operations. Vblock platforms offer an ideal cost model that provides enhanced IT services while considerably reducing operating expenses.

• A pre-tested, validated infrastructure results in shorter deployment periods and ultimately an accelerated return on investment (ROI).

• On-demand services in a cloud-hosted environment reduce costly implementation periods from months to mere hours.

• Pay-per-use option allows for a predictable, manageable cost model that prevents high costs for underutilized infrastructure.

• Expanded access of the Vblock platforms provides head office, regional, and branch offices with toolset of security and performance capabilities for hosted applications.


Managing Demand

Vblock platforms contain the flexibility to conform to a wide influx of requests and needs, utilizing its scalable, extensible, and burstable nature to manage strict customer demands.

• Scalability – Each platform is engineered to help service providers maintain consistent, balanced application performance as customer needs change.

• Extensibility – Vblock platforms are used in conjunction with numerous component-specific management tools in order to ensure the highest quality service. Each platform allows a centralized control and visibility throughout each level of the virtual infrastructure.

• Burstability – Vblock platforms counters high demands with burstability for effectively handling high volumes of IT traffic as business expands.


Conclusion

Service assurance has emerged as a primary differentiator for IT customers preparing to migrate to a virtualized environment. Without first-class SLAs to offer potential customers, service providers are unlikely to remain atop the competitive fray. A firm, business-aligned SLA that ensures compliance measuring and reporting requirements is often the determining factor in a prospective IT customer relationship.

Vblock platforms effectively counter the concerns of enterprises considering a migration into cloud computing, offering the finest in IT solutions in an innovative cloud environment. Merging first-class networking and computing services in a converged infrastructure, Vblock platforms deliver end-to-end services in one all-inclusive package, including storage, management, and virtualization software. These solutions offer a multitude of invaluable features, including:

• Trusted multi-tenancy • Workload mobility • Services

With service assurance comes a host of benefits to service providers looking to introduce IT customers to a cloud environment. The capabilities presented by quality service assurance include:

• Producing effective SLAs • Easier service deployment • Lower, more reliable cost model • Managing demand

Next Steps To learn more about this and other solutions, contact a VCE partner or representative or visit www.vce.com.


ABOUT VCE VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment Company formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock platform, delivers the industry's first completely integrated IT offering with end-to-end vendor accountability. VCE's prepackaged solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating and managing IT infrastructure. For more information, go to www.vce.com.

Copyright © 2011 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Vblock and the VCE logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company, LLC. and/or its affiliates in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

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