Infrastructure as a Service

Agenda

• Summary• Technology• People• Process

Summary

• Infrastructure as a Service requires change in people, process, and technology to be successful. – The benefits will translate into reduced time to

value for the business, increased effectiveness of the infrastructure organization, and reduced workload for the infrastructure organization• Hopefully this translates into being able to continue

doing more with less while avoiding burnout of the employees.

People

Process

Technology

Organization

Skillset

Hardware

Software

Technology

• The technology needed to support Infrastructure as a Service includes both hardware and software

• Each is a key building block towards having the actual infrastructure needed to support an Infrastructure as a Service organization.

• Tools that have visibility across multiple technical domains are of more value than tools that only provide domain expertise as inter connecting multiple tools to provide visibility will increase effort and reduce value.

Hardware

• Traditional implementations of hardware require various system engineers to design and test various interdependencies to ensure the hardware integrates with existing systems. – Implementing virtualization would require integration between

the servers, network, and storage teams in order to have a system available.

– Each of these integrations requires time and effort and introduces a new variable to the environment.

– These are custom designs that are hard to standardize. – Optimizing for performance and availability are also additional

requirements that require fine tuning.

Hardware

• To support an as a Service environment requires a standardized block of hardware that can be implemented quickly and easily expandable.

• Traditional organizations tend to work on purchasing disparate hardware and then integrating on site. – Spending days to build an integrated hardware

platform that can be standardized compared to purchasing an already integrated platform doesn’t provide much business value.

Hardware

• A standard block is really a better option to provide value to the business immediately. – This approach allows the systems teams to instead

provide value in getting processes automated and orchestrated to take advantage of the underlying infrastructure.

– Teams will always be asked to do more with less, this is one key way to reduce the time needed to implement new infrastructure whenever needed in a standard approach that reduces time to value.

Software

• Automation & Orchestration is critical to creating an as a Service organization. – Automation is within one technical domain while orchestration is

across multiple technical domains. – Infrastructure organizations must implement orchestration for all

processes that are run by the users of the service. • This usually requires tools that can provide a catalog of services and then

orchestrate any needed work across multiple domains.

• Monitoring tools must also look into multiple domains to correlate issues across each domain. – Does an issue within a virtual machine cause the storage

performance to drop or is the network causing a bottleneck causing the storage performance issue?

Software• Some of the key software components necessary to support an as a

Service organization starts with a Service Catalog. – This provides the list of services that are available as well as details on each

service including a way to substantiate the service. • The substantiation or change of a service should kick off an orchestrated

process to perform the tasks. – A “simple” example that occurs on a regular basis may be creation of multiple

virtual machines to support an application. – The orchestration platform may get approvals, update chargeback systems,

provision storage, provision the virtual machine, configure the virtual machine if needed, configure database environment, configure networking necessary, setup monitoring, and provide status back to the requestor once completed.

– That process shows how critical both the orchestration software is and the need to have cross domain expertise.

People

• Supporting IaaS requires both an organizational change and new skill sets– While domain expertise is still critical; as

technology continues to converge key roles will be able to support processes that bridge multiple domains.

– Skill sets previously thought not a part of the infrastructure organization take on added importance (marketing and negotiation skills)

Organization

• Traditional Infrastructure organizations have very defined groups that often times are defined by domain– Storage, Servers, Network, Security, Virtualization, Desktop,

etc. – Often times these are also split into more individual groups

to have an operations, administration, engineering, and perhaps even architectural component for each domain.

• Having a request to “Build a virtual machine” may require more than ten groups excluding any non Infrastructure people such as finance or asset management!

Organization• Organizations looking to move to an as a Service philosophy have

to simplify their model. – Solution architects could be a group designated to providing an overall

architecture that is followed by all domain groups. • This team should be competent across all domains in order to create the initial

framework

– Solution engineering could be another level of the organization empowered to build out the design working as one team across all domains.

• This does not alleviate the need to have domain experts, it just requires them to also understand their connection points to the other domains. – Broad skill sets should not come at the expense of deep skill sets for the

top level architects and engineers.

Skillset

• Converged infrastructure now requires employees to be proficient in multiple infrastructure domains. – Virtualization is a driver of this progression. – Creating a virtual machine requires networking knowledge,

storage knowledge, server knowledge and hypervisor knowledge.

– Now may be a great opportunity to update employee skill sets to take advantage of the changes taking place within the infrastructure world

• Personnel that have multiple talents will become critical to continue providing a particular level of service without expanding the workforce substantially.

Skillset

• Additionally more soft skills are required for staff. – As a Service requires more negotiation with the business for what

standard services are in place– How many infrastructure team members can negotiate a

standardized database service to support ~85% of use cases? • Without this negotiation there can not be an as a Service offering

• Marketing of the service will serve as an important function– “Build it and they will come” only works in the movies. – Without a team actively working on marketing the service as if

there is competition the service will not see any takers.• This may also translate into substantial shadow IT where the business

takes their infrastructure needs elsewhere without ensuring any requirements for availability or security are met.

Process

• Process is a key component of Infrastructure as a Service as well as any other as a Service offering. – More importantly the first step to orchestrating a

service requires determining the process that will support the services.

Process

• Architecture that provides both flexibility and standardization is an enabler of a service mentality– Having a solution that provides multiple input

options but has a standard format provides flexibility for quick design yet standards for ease of support.

Application DevelopmentApplication Development IT Infrastructure/OpsIT Infrastructure/Ops IT ManagementIT Management

Call or Email IT

Operations

Architecture Reviews

Approval Process

Track Down Status

One-Off Custom Builds

Incomplete Requiremen

ts

Add Security, Back-up,

etc.

Exception Managemen

t

No Standard Process

No Visibility into Future

Demand

No Way to Track Server

Lifecycle

No Data to Track Cost

Existing Data Center Processes – Complex, Time-Consuming, Expensive, Uncontrolled

ProcessTraditional organizations have separate disparate processes that do not integrate. Each new process requires starting from scratch as there are no reusable components.

Having an integrated process that consolidates all requests into one catalog supporting all infrastructure domains allows a standard approach for chargeback, approvals, tracking to support all requests.