Hybrid infrastructure is becoming the norm, with many enterprises utilizing a mix of cloud services and physical infrastructures. AWS serves as a benchmark for operational practices, and organizations need to embrace automation while ensuring infrastructure remains composable to handle constant changes. The necessity for diverse operational capabilities and the challenges of managing multiple platforms highlight the complexity of hybrid environments.

1. Operating
Hybrid Infrastructure
Creating Operating Environments that Span
Clouds and Physical Infrastructures
Rob Hirschfeld, CEO
RackN
Data Center Automation for Hybrid Infrastructure Exchanges

2. Hybrid is an
overloaded term!
Multiple Hybrid Dimensions:
● Different Vendors
● Different Platforms
● Different APIs
● Different DevOps Tools
● Different Operating Systems
We’re talking about using
infrastructure in change tolerant way.
The only predictable thing about
infrastructure is that is will change.
Hybrid acknowledges that you will be
using old and new and new new.

3. Hybrid Infrastructure is the new normal
TWO THIRDS
OF ENTERPRISES
HAVE HYBRID IT
(IDC)

4. And Infrastructure choice is increasing
and
many
others...
and
many
others...
AWS
GCE Azure RackSpac
e
and
many
others...
“Bare Metal”
On average, large enterprises are using about two dozen cloud services from nine providers (Gartner)
VMware OpenStack OpenStack
Public
Private

5. Tools do not manage Hybrid IT - not just cloud, but ALL Infrastructure
Cross-Platform Orchestration (aka Hybrid DevOps) fills gaps left by current ops tools
and
many
others...
and
many
others...
AWS
GCE Azure RackSpac
e
and
many
others...
“Bare Metal”
VMware OpenStack OpenStack
“Why is it so hard
to scale up this
infrastructure?”
“We need clawback
our apps from AWS”
“Data locality means I
need data centers all
over the world”
“I need to consolidate data
centers. How do I simplify
management too?”

6. So…. we need a single API!

7. No.
No single API or Platform wins.

8. Infrastructures have unique requirements
Platforms
WorkloadCloud, Physical & NetworkPhysical Infrastructures
Step
2
Step
6
Step
7
Step
1
Step
3
Step
4
Step
2
Step
7
Step
1
Step
3
Step
4
Step
8
Step
10
Step
2
Step
1
Step
3
Step
5
Step
9
Step
11
Step
6
Step
9
Step
11
Step
6
Step
7
Step
4
Step
8
Step
9
Step
10
Step
11
Step
2
Step
6
Step
7
Step
1
Step
3
Step
4
Step
5
Step
8
Step
9
Step
10
Step
11
ApplicationWorkloads
“Bare Metal”
Ops need to create a system-wide control fabric by composing lots of individual actions in sequence
Orchestration
Step
5
Step
5
Step
8
Step
10
Step
2
Step
3
Step
4
Step
1
Step
2
Step
1
Step
3
Step
4
Step
2
Step
1
Step
3
Step
6
Step
7
Step
7
Step
8
Step
10
Step
5
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role
Func
Role

9. To Vendors:
AWS Drives
Operational
Patterns
AWS Azure
GCE
IBM
RAX
DO
Amazon is so dominant in
infrastructure that their patterns (API
and Implementation) must be factored
into any operational discussion. Even
if it is a physical only deployment.
Our hybrid DevOps objective is simple:
We need multi-infrastructure Amazon
equivalence for ops automation.
This trend will accelerate an AWS
competitor work to reduce switching
friction off AWS. It is easier to recruit
cloud users from AWS than IT Ops.

10. To Enterprise IT:
AWS is disruptive
but not only choice
While AWS dominates the market,
individual companies have a much
more mixed infrastructure. They are
starting from existing workloads.
There are many factors for IT in
infrastructure vendor choice including
relationships, control and cost.
When, mono-infrastructure is dead
then portability becomes critical.
AWS still sets the operations standard
and that ultimately influences back
into internal IT.
AWS
Azure
IBM
Private
Cloud?
Internal
IT

11. What makes
Hybrid hard?
Beneficial Diversity.

12. It may not be
pretty, but working
Ops is not wrong
There are many ways to run
infrastructure. Just because it’s
different (or last generation) does
mean that it’s wrong.
Burning down your data center is not
an effective option.
Most operators would happily migrate
to new tools if it was less disruptive.
The alternative is to create more
operational silos.

13. Operations drives
Infrastructure
Software
Hardware
Ops
When I worked for Dell, we thought we
could sell Scale Cloud and Big Data by
just bundling them with some servers.
Scale platforms have very high
operational requirements and require
automation.
This is especially true because the
platforms have sub-six month release
cycles.
Selling hardware or software without
and operational story will frustrate
customers.

14. Data Center Ops
APP
Hybrid Needs
Composable Parts
Deployments are always composed of
a lot of moving parts. They are both
integrated both vertically and
horizontally (not shown). So
incremental changes will dstrupt the
whole stack.
Everything is always changing.
Robust deployments must be build
with composable modules so that they
can be fault tolerant and resilient to
change.
It is very expensive to add
composition afterwards!
Mgmt Tools
Logical Net
Operating System
Infrastructure
Provisioning
APP
Mgmt
Tools
Logical
Net
Operating
System
Infra-
structure
Provision-
ing
DC Ops
Fragile Mono-
Integration
Interchangeable
Composition
Mgmt
Tools
Logical
Net
Operating
System
Infra-
Structure
as a
Service

15. In Summary:
● Hybrid Infrastructure is new normal
● Amazon is the Ops benchmark
● Embrace operations automation
● Invest in making it composable
My blog http://RobHirschfeld.com
@zehicle on Twitter