A talk by Phil Richards at the Eduserv Symposium 2011 - Virtualisation and the Cloud.

1. Hybrid Clouds & Mini PodsEduserv Symposium 201112 May Dr Phil Richards Director of IT, Loughborough University

2. Overview The problem we are trying to solve? Definition of cloud Commodity and complexity IT What are large IT organisations doing? Do what I say, not what I do Hybrid cloud: de-risking the cloud The killer app for HE FE cloud? JANET brokerage – national grid for cloud

3. The problem we are trying to solve Save £100Ms from £23Bn UK HE turnover ~ 2% spent on servers and storage = £460M Can we save 50% of £460M?

4. Definition of cloud “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” (US National Institute of Standards and Technology)

5. Commodity vs complexity IT Complexity ITinsource, innovate Commodity IToutsource, share Dynamic equilibrium

6. Commodity vs complexity IT Cloud for quality Cloud for savings Complexity ITinsource, innovate Commodity IToutsource, share Dynamic equilibrium

7. HP consolidation project Create ‘private cloud’ Data centres: 85 6 (3 x pairs) Applications 6000 3000 Investment: $100Ms to create own JANET Saving: $1Bn per annum revenue (Source: eweek.com) Lesson: ‘industrial scale’ key to savings

8. What is ‘industrial scale’? “… construction of extremely large-scale, commodity-computer data centres at low-cost locations… uncovered the factors of 5 to 7 decrease in cost of electricity, bandwidth, operations, software and hardware at these very large economies of scale.” Armburst, Armando Fox et al.,Above the Clouds, Berkeley

9. Industrial-scale European data centres Source: Greenpeace report ‘How dirty is your data?’, April 2011

10. The ‘killer app’ for HE FE cloud? Research tools? Shared administrative applications? Cheap virtual servers (IaaS) via hybrid cloud Organic change: current IT staff retain job and role Cost savings if remote cloud ‘industrial scale’ Performance, security OK if via JANET Brokerage Exit strategy: risk mitigated by migration back to local cloud

11. Where are suppliers angling? PSN counter example – Wales PSBA, grew out of JANETwww.psba.org.uk Hybrid cloud IaaS counter-example – we may need to make it ourselves with Eduserv and Logicalis

12. De-risking the cloud and avoiding major buildLoughborough’s Hybrid Cloud Co-operative Cloud Avoid refurb Save £Ms + OJEU competitive dialogue for buy-in Local cloud2 x ‘mini-pods’ Logicalis BOCS Remote cloudvia ‘Traditional’data centreto retire

13. Summary: possible ingredients for large-scale cloud success Incremental change via IaaS virtual servers and storage Staff retain jobs and outlet for skills – no barrier University apps to differentiate and compete as needed De-risk transition via IaaS hybrid cloud Local cloud mini-pods avoid data centre new build cost Easy rollback/exit strategy from remote cloud £100M+ cost savings from industrial scale IaaS remote cloud But we will really have to force suppliers to provide this – or DIY JANET as national grid for ‘utility’ IaaS remote cloud JANET is already in place! JANET to set and assure standards and security levels JANET to act as ‘broker’ for competitive HE FE deals or DIY

14. JANET – our ‘national grid’ for hybrid cloud brokerage Remote industrialdata centre 2 Remote industrialdata centre 1 University or College local clouds

15. JANET – our ‘national grid’ for hybrid cloud brokerage Remote industrialdata centre 2 Remote industrialdata centre 1 University or College local clouds Test data centres