Global Cloud Leader
Created by 10 Industry Veterans – 18 years – 3 companies
Started with one of the first mass market hosting companies in the world 1995
Dialup, hosting, domain registration
Learned the value of automation
Next moved to ne of the first mass market dedicated hosting companies in the world 1999
Colocation & managed services
Learned how automation could enable faster provisioning
SoftLayer
We previously had seen how most customers were ordering the same products and services over and over, but did so in a custom way. They were all using the same x86 servers, firewalls, and load balancers, etc but in a custom deployment.
We had the ability to created something new from blank sheet of paper – driven by customer demands and needs.
Wanted to design something that at the time didn’t exist
We decided to pre-build a standardized platform with an abstraction layer on top called IMS that allows us to sell infrastructure as service.
Buy it buy the drink, only pay for what you used, and easily scale over time with price predictability
We had to think differently about how we did things before to achieve the attributes our customers were looking for.
Rack and stack servers differently
Create a new complex network topology that didn’t exist
Create a billing model to allow for monthly and hourly billing
Ultimately SoftLayer would become one of the first (if not the first) cloud computing company in May 2005 - 12 months before our closest competitor – Amazon.
Four Guiding Principles
Innovation – “innovate or die” – SoftLayer’s fundamental operating mantra is to bring new technologies to market as soon as they become commercially viable
Empowerment – complete transparency and control to the end customer. Our datacenter is your datacenter. We show customers everything. If you want the information its there, if not spin up your infrastructure and you are on your way.
Automation – key takeaway today – automation / automation / automation – if it cannot be automated – it does not live within the SL platform. Automation; 1) reduces costs 2) improves efficiency, 3) improves time to market, 4) eliminates human mistakes and results in higher SLA
Integration - hosting solutions traditionally have been disparate operating silos – SoftLayer offers a fully integrated approach from billing to service delivery delivered thru a single interface and API set. It also means building solutions that allow you to integrate your current infrastructure into the SoftLayer cloud.
A working definition
Market – defines cloud as virtual machines and simple storage in a multi-tenant environment
SoftLayer – defines clouds as – “On-Demand Compute with Consumptive Billing”
On-Demand – buy it now – get it now
Compute
Bare Metal – 4 hours or less
Private Clouds – Fully orchestrated in 1 hour or less
Public Clouds – minutes
Ancillary Services – real time with no downtime
Consumptive Billing
Hourly or monthly billing
No Contracts
Makes IT costs truly variable in nature
SL is Uniquely Positioned to Match Business Needs to IT Needs
What does cloud mean to you and what does SoftLayer’s cloud mean to you as an IT leader?
Integration – we anticipated legacy installations – a “shift to the cloud”
API - Over 1600 APIs to integrate into existing infrastructures
Slowly add new workloads to the SoftLayer cloud
Begin migrating existing systems to the SoftLayer cloud
Eventually start turning down old or outdated systems in your existing infrastructure
Global Network -17 POPs globally to connect existing environments – up to 10g
Connect existing Intranets, internal systems, datacenters, and colo environments via network pops around the world.
Allows your cloud environment to co-exist with your existing environment
Software – Enterprise customers trying to shift away from commercial software and to open source software.
We support both commercial and opensource software
Recognize you cannot immediately shift from one to the other without transition time.
Time to Market – IT resources are often the “long pole” for most organizations
Rapid time to market becomes a competitive advantage
Make a mistake, buy the wrong resources – easy to change hardware rapidly
No contract, no setup fees. Cancel and reorder what you need.
Access to Technology – IT managers face unlimited IT wants with shrinking budgets
A and B projects get all the budget, C and D projects get the scraps.
Imagine if every developer, project, division, group, or unit had access to all technologies
Small or cost constrained projects gain access to SAN storage, Quad Processors, or Enterprise SW
Reduce or eliminate the need to prioritize projects – all technologies available in real time in consumable fashion
Access to Innovation – fast direct path to new technologies that become commercially viable.
Examples
Big Data – Big Insights, mongoDB, Cloudant, Cloudera, Riak
Private Clouds – Opentstack and Object Storage
SoftLayer’s “Innovate or die” mantra combined with IBMs $6Billion annual R&D budget is a perfect match going forward
Contract and Cost
No long term contract requirement – consumed by the hour or by the month
“Effectively makes technology risk zero”
At SL – user and group based permissions allow for cost assignment
Track costs by user, group, division, unit, project, subsidiary or company
Enterprise Scale
Robust SLAs
Global Backbone and Redundant Network
Tier 3 – N+1 Datacenters
Same trusted hardware used internally
Juniper, Cisco, Intel, F5, Citrix, Fortinet, EMC, NetApp, IBM
Internet Scale
Example – spin up a fully orchestrated Citrix Private Cloud or MongoDB Solution
2000 physical or virtual nodes
Across 10 different datacenters
3 different continents
Managed from a single console or API set
In 2 hours or less
SL did this for the Obama Inauguration – single largest web event ever
Control and Transparency
You select the city / datacenter/ POD you want to be in – not in a regional zone
Complete insight into the physical infrastructure
Routers, switches, racks, power, server, components, serial #, firmware, etc
You choose – managed as a developer resource or driven as system administrator
Built by engineers for engineers
All controlled thru UI or extensive API set
Global Cloud Platform
SL is the ONLY cloud provider to offer bare metal, private clouds and public clouds in a single integrated environment.
Bare Metal for high I/O intensive applications – databases and big data
Private Clouds for repetitive IT tasks – Vmware, Citrix, Parallels, Hyper V, Openstack
To us its just an OS install
Public Clouds for unpredictable, burstable, seasonal or R&D workloads
Mix and Match all three technologies across multiple datacenters
Largest and most sophisticated customers use all three
Ordered today, tomorrow, next week or next year
Interconnected private network with no bandwidth cost
Presented to you as if they were in the same physical rack
Can share firewalls, load balancers, SAN storage and backup
All managed thru on UI or our extensive API set
Global Footprint
13 Datacenters across three continents
Only Cloud provider in the world with a global internet backbone
17 Network POPs including all major carrier exchanges worldwide
7 Tier 1 transit providers, 1400 private peers, pass about 500Gbps sustained
IPv4 and IPv6 dual stack – every compute instance and ancillary service comes dual stacked
Arbor Network & Cisco Network Analysis and DDOS Mitigation
Enterprise DNS system consisting of over 400 load balanced physical nodes across 20 global locations
20,000,000 active domains
100,000+ physical nodes – millions of virtual machines
21,000 customers in 140 countries
Unparalleled Flexibility and Power
Any physical server in any datacenter can be turned into any service
No silos of assets or services across the service platform
All services are available in all datacenters – true ubiquitous platform
Triple network Architecture
Every physical or virtual node has 5 network interfaces
2 x GigE or 10GigE to the public network
Transit to and from the internet
2 x GigE or 10GigE to the private network
Connect any physical or virtual machine to any other in any datacenter
Access to the service network – SAN storage, Object storage, DNS resolvers, OS update servers, application update servers, template repository
1 x GigE to the management network
VPN Access to the management interface – BMC and KMV over IP
Customer controlled – create VLANs, add/remove IPs, SWIP IPs – with dual stack IPv4 and IPv6
How it all fits together
Standardized modular datacenter layout and construction
Unique, fully redundant triple network architecture overlay
IMS orchestration layer consisting of 3 million lines of production code
Easily driven thru simple UI or 1600 APIs
Robust, full featured API
SoftLayer started with the API first – our own control panel uses our API
1600 Function calls to over 200 services – industry competitors less than 100
Support Rest, SOAP, and XML-RPC interfaces
Easy integration into existing environments
Supported by SL developer network with numerous examples, downloads and plugins
SoftLayer’s own iPhone/iPad and android apps show the power of the API
Service Portfolio
Widest and deepest service portfolio in the cloud industry – far greater selection
Trusted enterprise grade hardware and software solutions coupled with leading open source options for complete control and vendor alignment
Ability to “buy ingredients” to create custom solutions - or choose fully orchestrated solutions sets delivered on the fly
Leading-edge Customers
First 5 years – internet centric SMBs – born on the web and die on the web – revenues tied to platform
Last 3 years – huge shift to enterprise or fortune 1000 – top 25 customer base rolled almost 100%
Future – continue to service internet centric customers while services cloud demands of IBMs enterprise clients