Post on 14-Feb-2017
Table Of Contents
Jumping Into the Cloud
Clouds, Clouds, Clouds – Public, Private, and Hybrid
The Four Journey Stages to the Cloud & Who Is Involved
Choosing the Right Cloud Partner 11 Things You Should Know About Your Partner
Cloud Transformation in Action – a Case Study
Jumping Into The Cloud
Cloud is getting lots of attention these days. Cloud is a transformational platform
that can support the opportunities of today’s digital business being shaped and
driven by mobile, social, IoT (Internet of Things), Big Data and other forces. Cloud
Computing not only is a powerful agent of change, but it also can accelerate
transformation.
The benefits are big. “Cloud computing is a disruptive phenomenon, with the
potential to make IT organizations more responsive than ever,” says research firm
Gartner. “Cloud computing promises economic advantages, speed, agility,
flexibility,infinite elasticity an dinnovation.” As a result, more and more enterprises
are moving to the cloud. According to Gartner, 78 percent of enterprises are
planning to increase their investment in cloud through 2017.
Cloud Is Getting Lots Of Attention These Days.
Clouds, Clouds, Clouds
According to Intel, IT professionals often think in terms of cloud infrastructure
(public, private, and hybrid cloud). Business decision makers may be more focused
on the type of service to be delivered: InfrastructureasaService (IaaS),
PlatformasaService (PaaS), or SoftwareasaService (SaaS). By aligning the two
perspectives, enterprises can start to articulate an ideal cloud strategy. Companies
also need to think about processes, available skills and organizational structure to
support the transformation.
Cloud Is Typically Discussed In Two Contexts:
Public, Private and Hybrid
What infrastructure it’s built on. How it will be used.
ServiceIntermediation
ServiceAggregation
ServiceArbitrage
CloudBroker
Cloud Provider
Cloud ServiceManagement
BusinessSupport
Provisioning/Configuration
Portability/Interoperability
Service Layer
Resource Abstraction andControl Layer
Physical Resource Layer
Hardware
Facility
SecurityAudit
PrivacyImpact Audit
PerformanceAudit
SasS
PaaS
IaaS
Service OrchestrationCloud
Consumer
CloudAuditor
Secu
rity
Priv
acy
Cloud Carrier
The Four Journey Stages to the Cloud & Who Is Involved
Focused On:• Designing and developing the approach for cloud.• Conducting Proof of Concepts.• Finding the right cloud fit and discovering the great benefits that the cloud can provide for your business.
Who Is Involved: Technology Architects; Development, Testing, and Operations Group Managers; Head of Engineering; Head of Testing; Head of Operations; Head of Infrastructure; and Chief of Architecture are some of the people involved in this stage.
Focused On:• Large-scale move to the cloud.• Implementing cloud adoption, architecture support and managed services• Changing engineering approach to DevOps Software Development and Combined Engineering
methodologies that help accelerate speed to market and streamline the process of migrating applications to the cloud, as well as make applications more ‘cloud-ready’.
• According to SearchCloudComputing, “When a cloud DevOps project is undertaken properly, development and operations teams will be able to collaborate to make applications function effectively in the cloud and, in the process, permanently alter how an organization’s business and IT units function.”
Who Is Involved: Many of the same people who were involved in Stage 1. Additionally, significant go-to-market decisions need to be made involving vice presidents, business owners, CIOs, and CTOs.
Stage 2Implementation
Stage 1Finding the Right Cloud Fit
Focused On:• Nurturing your applications and cloud deployments by scaling up, monitoring important applications,
automating key processes, and enhancing delivery with DevOps.
Who Is Involved: Many of the same people who were involved in Stage 1.
Focused On:• Optimizing your delivery speed and quality, while cutting costs.• Excel with your applications in the cloud by using DevOps methodologies and a “cloud-first” approach.
Who Is Involved: This stage often involves teams from the prior stages, as well as senior and C-level executives.
Stage 4Living, Breathing and Managing Life in the Cloud
Stage 3Nurturing Stage
Choosing the Right Partner to Jump Into the CloudAs with any emerging technology that touches all aspects of a business, moving
to the cloud often involves partners. Not all clouds are created equal – nor are all
vendors. Here is a checklist for selecting a cloud-centric trusted partner to help
you succeed in the cloud:
1. A partner that has hands-on experience with end-to-end services in the Four Key Cloud Stages
outlined above.
• That has both business acumen and the technological expertise to understand where you
want to take your business. Knows how to find the right cloud fit for your enterprise as well
as establish realistic strategies.
• That can implement and provide architecture support, migration support, and managed
services. Your partner should also be capable of automating key processes.
• That can provide support once you’re on the cloud, including monitoring applications.
2. That is fluent in all the major cloud platforms — Amazon® Web Services, Microsoft® Azure™,
VMware® and emerging technologies.
3. That really knows applications. A partner that can move your applications from legacy
architecture and infrastructures to new-age cloud architectures – and support you at every
stage. Not every application is a good candidate for cloud; a good partner will know what apps
belong in the cloud and in what type of cloud – hybrid, public or private.
4. That has a track record of delivering solutions that are reliable, scalable (up or down as needed),
secure and resource efficient.
5. That has the available trained talent; does the partner have certified cloud architects, cloud
engineers, cloud support professionals on staff?
6. That knows how to implement security – at every layer.
7. That has expertise in governance and governmental regulatory guidelines.
8. That has an arsenal of transformational tools -- DevOps and other methodologies, best
practices and automation techniques for cloud application development – and a culture of
“DevOps”.
DevOps is no longer just an option but is a mandatory approach, especially for digital
businesses. According to Gartner, “a digital enterprise is likely to face the challenge of the
three V’s (volume, velocity and variety) much more intensely than a traditional enterprise. The
key stakeholders of a digital enterprise will demand a highly agile I&O (Infrastructure &
Operations) that can match the speed of change, the speed of new releases, and the speed of
new service models and delivery models. Therefore, I&O leaders for organizations that are
striving to succeed in a highly competitive environment must plan to start their DevOps
journey now.”
9. That has global cross-border experience. Industry leaders are leveraging cloud technology to
adapt quickly their business models and infrastructures to minimize risk and take advantage of
cross-border market opportunities. Your partner should know how to:
• Extend your private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructure across borders.
• Maintain data security across national borders.
• Manage a multi-geo cloud infrastructure.
10. That has strong testing capabilities for applications in the cloud. “When you move applications
into the cloud, you have to test thoroughly end-toend from multiple standpoints, not just
features and functions,” says Beyondsoft’s Natarajan. “You need to test performance, loads,
usability.”
11. That can train your staff and transfer knowledge and processes to your organization.
SummaryWhether it is your first venture or taking new directions in the
cloud, it can be a daunting prospect. But the rewards are great
for those who take the journey by creating a road map,
selecting the right cloud platform, and partnering with the
right vendor to bring you to the ‘last mile.’
Cloud Transformation Case Study
One of the world’s largest auto manufacturers with multiple, high-volume consumer
web sites and microsites for their various auto brands is seeking to move their
services into the cloud for agility, elasticity and cost efficiency. With the
hyper-competitive auto marketplace moving at the speed of the Internet, the
manufacturer’s business teams felt that the legacy infrastructure was not keeping
up with the needs of the business.
The Customer
The initial challenge was to find the right, end-to-end path to the cloud so that the
company didn’t choke on the implementation. They needed to be able to
determine the right cloud configuration, prepare their services and data for the
migration, implement the migration, re-optimize the services for the cloud and
grow, all in a seamless fashion without disrupting operations and customer
interactions. The web apps to be migrated are complex, core marketing websites
for the automobile manufacturer that have to be highly available and scale with the
end-user traffic. Core requirements included:
• The content of the website be region based with about 29 regions.
• The content for each region be maintained by separate marketing teams that
need the ability to manage and publish the content in a secure, timely and
storage constraint free manner.
• The content needs to be stored on a highly scalable, available, durable and secure
infrastructure.
• This solution needs to be a hybrid cloud solution where the applications securely
integrate with multiple, core backend on-premise services.
• Cost is one of the primary reasons for the migration, so the applications and the
databases must be able to scale out/in as needed.
• Since these are core services, the applications and databases also have to be
highly available, and the disaster recovery solutions need to meet the enterprise
requirements.
• Because multiple vendors develop different parts of the applications, multiple
developers are often involved in the development process. The solution must
include a continuous integration and deployment framework, so that the
manufacturer can innovate and iterate quickly.
• Security has to be part of every layer.
The Challenges
Over the past five years leading up to the decision to move to a full-scale cloud
deployment, Beyondsoft provided managed services for the manufacturer’s huge
fleet of about 200 EC2 instances on the AWS Cloud. The EC2 instances supported
microsites for multiple business teams within the enterprise. Each one was an
independent site managed by the Beyondsoft Managed Services team. The team
was able to manage such a large number of independent instances through
CloudFormation and Ansible, as well as applying DevOps principles in real-time.
The Solution
The first step was to find the appropriate cloud architecture to support the client’s
business. Based on the success of dipping their toes in the AWS Clold water, i.e.
experiencing first hand the flexibility, agility, fine grain security controls and cost
savings provided by the AWS cloud, along with the Beyondsoft team capabilities,
the customer took the next step and engaged Triaxil’s to implement the migration
of most of their existing core services, around 100+ workloads, to the cloud. The
project started with Triaxil’s application portfolio discovery process that helped
identify the initial two applications to migrate.
Triaxil then created the cloud architecture and provisioned the requisite
infrastructure on the cloud, using a combination of AWS and Azure cloud services.
The new cloud environment provided the agility and flexibility necessary to support
a digital transformation process that enabled the manufacturer’s marketing teams
to push content on demand creating highly individualized and highly engaging
customer experiences on the manufacturer’s B2C web sites.
Azure Active Directory services were used to manage both single signon
authentication and content management, adding several layers of security to the
applications. Content was also restricted using Amazon S3 buckets, further
protecting the customer’s key assets. Triaxil also implemented DevOps principles
like continuous integration and deployment that improved the quality and speed of
delivery for these applications. Currently, two of the key core enduser web
applications are being migrated to AWS, and one of the core authentication
services is being migrated to Azure.
Find & Implement
Once the services are successfully launched in the cloud, the next step is to
optimize the services to take advantage of cloud technologies, as well as implement
a scalable migration framework to migrate the remaining core services. The Triaxil
team has helped the manufacturer migrate their development to DevOps and some
of the core principles are already in practice, like: continuous integration and
deployment, infrastructures as code, version control via source code management
systems, continuous monitoring & logging. Currently, Traixil leads the migration of
two publicfacing websites to AWS as well as authentication service to Azure. The
team has been able to meet and exceed these requirements.
Nurture & Engineer
Thinking of Jumping Into the Cloud? With Triaxil You Can Do That With Confidence.
When we talk about moving to the cloud, we are really talking
about all the elements and processes to move, lift and shift to the
cloud and then do engineering to optimize the services on the
cloud, which is what enterprises want,” says Ezhilarasan (Ez)
Natarajan, Vice President and Head of Cloud Services at Traxil.
“The cloud holds real value and the future for enterprises.
Companies, however, wrestle with how best to move to the cloud.
Our focus is to help customers translate complex and divergent
enterprise needs into innovative, highimpact cloud solutions.
“
”
Traixil provides endtoend solutions and services for public, private and hybrid
cloud platform business models. By supporting some of the largest cloud
providers – including Alibaba®, Amazon®, CenturyLink®, Google®,
Microsoft®, Tencent®, VMware®, and Xen® – Beyondsoft has proven
technologies and methodologies to help customers develop cloud strategies,
move to the cloud and prosper on the cloud.
Contact Traixil at (877) 896-5859 or visit www.Triaxil.com to learn more.
1. Gartner – “Trending Topic: Cloud Computing,” website, September 2015.
2. Gartner – 2014 Cloud Survey.
3. ITPro – “Top 10 business reasons to move to the cloud,” February 21, 2013.
4. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) -- US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap Volume I, Special Publication 500-293, October 2014.
5. Intel – “10 Things IT Needs to Know about Cloud,” 2014.
6. TechTarget SearchCloudComputing – “A successful cloud DevOps project requires new ways of thinking,” September 2015.
7. Gartner “Ride the New Digital Wave With Public Cloud, DevOps and Automation,” Naveen Mishra and Tapati Bandopadhyay, February 13, 2015.
Sources