ITA Tech Talk with ServerCentral

ServerCentral | 111 W . Jackson Blvd., Suite 1600 Chicago, IL 60604 | +1 312.829.1111 | www.servercentral.com
PUBLIC, PRIVATE, OR HYBRID
CHOOSING A CLOUD THAT FITS
Eric Dominguez
ServerCentral Director of Solutions Engineering

Parameters of a successful
Public Cloud Deployment
• Application Redundancy
– Critical applications must be able to survive regular provider outages
– Applications should be load balanced across multiple clouds or multiple
availability zones
– The more data-driven the application, the less hyperscale friendly the
application will be

• Application Portability
– Ability to pick your ball up and go home
– Applications are not vendor-locked
– Easily decoupled systems
– Legacy app integration

• Hyperscale development competency
– Outsourcing hyperscale development is a slippery slope
– These are expensive resources onshore
– High short term turnover rate amongst these employees

• Understanding of at-scale costs
– Costs can ‘hockey-stick’ as workloads increase
– Inefficient operations cost more in the public cloud

What are the parameters for a successful
Private Cloud Deployment?
• Understanding of growth pattern implications
– Longer term investments (provider contracts, etc.)
– Capacity planning is key
– Requires up-front understanding of existing infrastructure inner workings

• Willingness to grow in ‘chunks’
– Growth happens in larger increments than on public cloud
– Not all resources used all the time
– Larger up front cost than public cloud

• Most like traditional infrastructure
– Choose the right platforms (hypervisor/network/storage) for your
organization
– More flexibility means more decisions to make

hybrid cloud?
• Connectivity between private and public environments
– Extend enterprise network into the public cloud without lowering security
– Understand impact of latency between private environments and public
cloud availability zones
– Capacity plan for a rainy day

hybrid cloud?
• Support of underlying infrastructure and connectivity
– Clear delineation of duties to manage private and public
– Keep internal install base up to date
– Reconcile vendor invoices & understand ‘what you’re paying for’

hybrid cloud?
• Where to put what
– Have a clear vision for which apps will live in the cloud, and which will
stay in traditional infrastructure
– Map apps that will ‘burst’ into the cloud, and understand associated
costs
– Ensure data doesn’t ‘bleed’ between public/private environments
without good reason

Successful Cloud Transitions
• Deciding which applications belong where
– Some workloads lend themselves to being fully virtualized, some don’t
– Remember the 80-20 rule with regard to resource utilization and thereby
cost
– Internal teams ensure no cross pollination exists, or is mitigated
– What are your competitors/friends doing with these apps?

• Ensure the Benefit of the Cloud is realized
– Is it more cost effective?
– Is it more reliable?
– Is it easier?
– Does it scale better?
– Can somebody else operate it?

• Make your move successful with a strategic approach
– The whole team needs to sign off, from C-Suite to IT Johnny
– Evaluate the options through a holistic lens (Technical, Financial,
Strategic, Human Capital, etc.)
– Your plans must be fluid; ready to change with the weather

• Evaluate each application
– Develop internal ‘tiering’ system for apps
• Tier0 – 15 minute recovery time
– Critical systems – spend your money here
• Tier1 – 1-4 hour recovery time
– Email, non-revenue generating systems
• Tier2 – 4-8 hour recovery time
– Support systems and the like
• Tier3 and beyond
– Everything else

• Regulatory Compliance Considerations
– HIPAA/PII/PHI – Not public cloud friendly
• This market is emerging, expect it to be expensive and risky in the
short term
– PCI
• Moderate public cloud complexity
• Cost is a consideration here as well
• Short list of providers have gone through the validation process

Recent Experience
• Medium Sized Healthcare Software as a Service Organization (SaaS)
– HIPAA Compliant, Processes PHI
– Big Data Driven
– Entirely Online Business
– Predictable growth template
– Concerned with replication and DR testing

Healthcare SaaS Continued
• Selected Private Cloud, Disaster Recovery as a service (DRaaS)
• Primary site is Highly Available, secondary is non-HA
• Secondary site supports only Tier 0,1 apps
• Secondary site is also backup target for long term archival
• Management up to the application (OS management included, Customer
manages applications)

Large Dotcom Service Company
• PCI Compliant
• Aging Infrastructure
• Mix of enterprise systems and public cloud resources
• Lack of unanimous cloud strategy
• Extreme public cloud spend

Dotcom Service Company Continued
• Large dotcom service organization
• PCI Compliant
• Aging Infrastructure
• Mix of enterprise systems and public cloud resources
• Lack of unanimous cloud strategy
• Extreme public cloud spend
• Infrastructure and cloud teams roll up to different business units

• Cloud Utilization
– Developers in charge of their own environments
– Underdeveloped DevOps
– Continually shifting focus to ‘shiny’ tech
– Not connected to Core infrastructure

• Core Infrastructure Utilization
– Mature team and management
– Aging but stable systems
– Run as traditional enterprise IT
– Not connected to Cloud Infrastructure

• Mind-melding the two
– Unified management and budget
– Investment into DevOps training and resources
– Core and Cloud infrastructure interconnectivity
– Unanimity Required
– Enterprise and Cloud Infrastructure transforms to Hybrid Cloud
Infrastructure

THANK YOU

ITA Tech Talk with ServerCentral

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