Table of contents
Executive summary. ...................................................3 What is cloud computing?.........................................3 The evolution of cloud models....................................3 Factors driving cloud adoption...................................4 Challenges introduced by the cloud. ............................5 Cloud implications for the Configuration Management System. ................................................5 Defining a CMS.......................................................5 Will cloud success ultimately depend on the CMS?. .......6 The CMS provides end-to-end visibility into the cloud: Discovery and dependency mapping, integrations and federation are key success factors...............................6 Conclusion..............................................................8
Executive summary
The ability to lower costs while improving agility and speed of service delivery was once something a CIO could only dream of. But the advent of cloud computing is making it a reality. However, along with the benefits have come drawbacks. Virtualization and cloud computing (private, public, and hybrid) add a much higher level of complexity, and this is exacerbated by a lack of visibility. This white paper provides an overview of cloud computing, including a standard definition, the evolution of cloud models, and the driving factors behind cloud adoption. It also explores the challenges that cloud computing have introduced. Next, it defines the configuration management system (CMS), looks at the way the CMS and the cloud are related, and discusses the belief that many share: cloud deployments depend on a CMS to be successful. And finally, it explains how discovery and dependency mapping is a key contributor to successfully enabling end-to-end visibility into the cloud, necessary to make the right decisions for IT and the business.
dedicating to this service. Nearly all cloud services leverage this model to provide cost elasticity as your consumption changes. Self-service means highly automated. The third major differentiation is in how these solutions are provisioned. Its easy to set up a webpage through which consumers can request services from you. However, thats not how cloud computing works. With cloud, services require provisioning upon requestusually within five to 15 minutes. This means that to operate a cloud service you have to automate the provisioning operations so that they happen like clockwork, following highly standardized procedures to ensure that deployment is predictable and done cost-effectively.1
Youre Not Ready For Internal Cloud, Forrester Research, Aug 2010
Internal/Private clouds: Cloud assets are operated solely for single entity and may be located on or off premises. They may be owned and managed by that entity or by a third party. A virtualized IT infrastructure that hosts services for employees and is managed by an organizations IT staff, shifting the IT departments primary role from service and maintenance to service provider. In a private cloud, all data remains under the full control of the host organization, mitigating many potential risks intrinsic to public cloud deployments. For many enterprises, internal clouds are the most cost effective approach to cloud computing adoption. Hybrid clouds: The hybrid cloud is a blended solution that utilizes parts of both the public and private clouds. The integration of on-premises IT infrastructures and internal cloud applications with applications and information deployed to a service provider either on a temporary or permanent basis. This model enables an enterprise to serve as its own cloud provider and to leverage an external cloud provider simultaneously.
Ease of maintenance is another attractive characteristic. Because cloud models require less hardware than comparable distributed computing deployments, fewer dedicated IT staff members are necessary to maintain the integrity of the clouds infrastructureparticularly during peak hours. A 2010 research report from Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) examined both the benefits and challenges of cloud computing, drawing from more than 150 global respondents, 65 percent of whom already had cloud computing deployments, and 35percent of whom had defined and committed plans for cloud adoption within 12months.2 In general, the survey respondents were strongly positive about cloudcomputing related benefits, with 76 percent of those in deployment claiming real or measurable financial benefits from cloud. Figure 1 highlights the most critical drivers for cloud computing adoption. From an IT perspective, support for rapid provisioning and deployment is another attractive characteristic that appeals to growing enterprises. Because cloud computing architectures offer nearly infinite ondemand capacity, new applications can be deployed immediately without extensive provisioning, speeding time-to-market. Industry analysts agree cloud adoption will continue to grow. Recent IDC cloud research shows that worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services exceeded $16 billion USD in 2009 and is forecast to reach $55.5 billion USD in 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 27.4%. This rapid growth rate is over five times the projected growth for traditional IT products (5%).3
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The Responsible Cloud, Enterprise Management Associates, Jan 2010 C, Worldwide and Regional Public IT Cloud Services 20102014 D Forecast, Doc #223549, June 2010
Reduce the operational costs of IT management Improve IT service quality Reduce the capital costs of IT management Increase flexibility and agility Reduce complexity of IT management Enable disaster recovery/business continuity Improve security or risk management outcomes Free up resources for strategic projects Improve regulatory compliance Expand revenue channels by reselling cloud services Other (Please specify) 1% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 1 1% 10% 22% 21% 30% 27% 42% 36%
52% 46%
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These challenges underscore the fact that the tried and true disciplines of IT management are more important given the level of complexity the cloud introduces. The services users access shouldnt be different when organizations move to the cloud. Although the cloud may change how services are delivered to users it shouldnt change what is being delivered to users.
Defining a CMS
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) v3 defines the CMS as tools for collecting, storing, managing, updating, and presenting data about all configuration items and their relationships. (See Figure2: CMS defined.) The definition can be simplified into collecting, managing, and presenting data about configuration items. A key function of a CMS is simply about collecting configuration data from data providers to supply configuration information to data consumers. Federation works behind the scenes to connect many different data sources.
Figure 2:
CMS defined.
Presentation
Service desk view Business service management view Asset management view
Cloud Automation
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Collecting configuration data is an important part of the CMS because there are many potential providers of configuration data across an enterprise. Companies need to ensure that they leverage reliable sources of configuration data within their CMS. Effective discovery tools can help by automating the discovery of configuration item data and their dependencies to help build a service dependency map. Organizations need to ensure automated discovery and dependency mapping approaches are capable of discovering a diverse set of configuration types and relationships including network, server, application, and storage related. A CMS also supports the configuration management process by providing configuration validation as part of the configuration management lifecycle. Finally, a CMS lets you use both service and element configurations to navigate the IT data swamp in order to find the right data you need, in the right service context, to solve most IT problems.
providers configuration management databases (CMDBs). Different IT management stacks for the private cloud may exist and the cloud CMDB must integrate with the integrated or Master CMDB as depicted in figure 2. The CMS becomes crucial in the cloud for complete visibility. According to a recent blog based on data collected from research from Enterprise Management Associates vice president Dennis Drogseth, cloud computing seems to be surprisingly good for service managementboth in terms of technology adoption and in terms of political and processrelated transformation. This includes technologies like CMDB/CMS, IT process automation, user experience management and Service Level Management (SLM), as well as integrated service desk and chargeback accountingamong other bellwether technologies or technologies that reflect more advanced organizational and process readiness. As evidenced by figure 3, research data shows that two thirds of survey respondents believe that a CMS inspires confidence when investing in a cloud provider.
The CMS provides end-to-end visibility into the cloud: Discovery and dependency mapping, integrations and federation are key success factors
Gartner recommends that IT organizations that are beginning private, public or hybrid cloud projects should understand the tools capability (and limitations) for discovering and tracking changes of application and IT service configurations.5
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op Seven Considerations for Configuration Management for Virtual and T Cloud Infrastructures (ID Number: G00208328), Gartner, October 2010 T Service Dependency Mapping Tools: Market Dynamics Update (ID I Number: G00208932), Gartner, November 2010
Figure 3:
Two thirds see a shared CMDB or CMS as brining greater confidence into investing in a cloud provider
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Automated discovery and dependency mapping, integration and data federation are all critical to providing this visibility. The CMS provides the information foundation that enables IT to make better decisions as an information broker between providers and consumers of data, and imparts a service context to the information so that all decisions are made with a business service in perspective. Integration is a critical aspect especially as organizations begin to integrate to their cloud service provider CMDB(s). Integrations and federation are both integral components of the CMS. Whether the goal is to virtualize a legacy data center, build a private or hybrid cloud, or consolidate multiple data centers, the key to success is to have a rich understanding of all the infrastructure components involved and to be able to use this knowledge to create move groups that support the effective execution of the transformation. Move groups are discrete groupings of infrastructure that can be moved independently without introducing network latency or other issues that will impact ongoing data center operations. This understanding of the environment must be comprehensive, timely, and should take into account the complex web of interdependencies that make up todays multi-tiered infrastructures. Historically, Data Center Transformation (DCT) projects have relied on manual processes to create maps that reflect the transformation target infrastructure and its interdependencies. This approach has proven to be insufficient given the size, complexity, and high frequency of change associated with todays modern, distributed, and multi-tiered infrastructures. This requires a discovery and dependency mapping solution that works in complex physical environments, and is compatible with leading virtualization software that provides real-time visibility into the dynamic relationships between applications and the virtual and physical infrastructure. It automatically maintains
an up-to-date topology map that enables you to understand the business service context of virtual components and to quickly identify IT issues that will affect the business. Dynamic virtualized IT environments need automated discovery and dependency mapping solutions that discover virtualization hypervisors and their environments, can track and control configurations, understand the risks posed by proposed changes, andwhen problems occurknow which business processes are affected. HP offers a comprehensive discovery and dependency mapping solution, proven in complex, real-world environments that: Delivers a broad and deep, fine-grained view of your virtual environment Reveals the dependencies among applications and components Can be customized to meet your unique requirements Forms the foundation for a bridge to your physical environment, so that you can manage your IT environment holistically Is part of a suite of virtualization management solutions from HP HP Discovery and Dependency Mapping (DDMA) functions with virtualization software from leading vendors. For instance, with VMware, HPDDMA works across the ESX/ESXi, vSphere, vCenter, and vMotion product lines. It gives IT teams visibility into the architecture of these products so that they can understand VMs by location and by hypervisor, and tell whether hypervisors are managed or unmanaged (See figure 4). It can also discover license server features and dependencies, virtual resources utilized by VMs, and shared virtual resource pools by hypervisor and virtual cluster.
Figure 4:
HP DDMA architecture.
HP Universal CMDB
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HP DDMA
with existing solutions today and solutions planned for tomorrow. In fact, HP CMS, comprised of HPUniversal CMDB and HP DDMA addresses many of these issues today.
HP DDMA delivers this insight in various ways. It communicates directly with the operating system running on a VM, or it indirectly discovers the existence of VMs through direct communication with the hypervisorin near real time. It can also communicate with the VMware vCenter (formerly Virtual Center) management platform to discover details unknown to infrastructure components: data center groups, cluster configurations, and license server dependencies.
As discussed in the What is cloud computing? section above, highly repeatable, consistent service delivery is inherent to the cloud. When consuming the cloud as an abstraction, controlling the timing for when operations take place is essential. Change windows and SLAs are very relevant and potential disruptions Event driven discovery functionality in DDMA software are a risk. Every cloud has an infrastructure and it must allows events, for example, movement of applications be managed either internally for private clouds or by from one virtual machine to another, to trigger new the MSP for public clouds. The move to event driven discovery paths and population of UCMDB allowing discovery and the discovery of virtualized environments almost real-time visibility into the virtualized environment. is critical to a successful cloud implementation. HPCMS is addressing each of these issues.
Conclusion
Two facts are indisputable. Cloud adoption is growing exponentially; and visibility into your environment is at least as, but probably more important when utilizing the cloud. When utilizing a cloud model, you are making more automated and faster decisions on configurations within your environment than ever before and that means you need to understand it even more completely and fully. This requires visibility into the cloud. HP is embracing the cloud and is responding to the challenges and opportunities the cloud introduces
Make no mistakethe importance and role of the CMS will not be diminished with the proliferation of the move to the cloud, it will only become more crucial to its success.
HP DDMA offers broad and deep visibility into your IT environment that includes application components, middleware, operating systems, system hardware, and virtualization environments. To learn more, visit www.hp.com/go/DDM.
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Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. 4AA0-7336ENW, Created June 2011