In Defense of Data Centers OSDC - April 2015.Nigel Kersten @nigelkersten CIO, Puppet Labs

Who am I?• Not here as a vendor • Not selling you anything • I’m a user too

Audience PollWho are you all?

The Cloud is fine

The Cloud is Fine

Undeniable advantages

The Cloud is Fine

Undeniable advantages

The cloud is just other people’s servers

I’m not a cloud skeptic

“Global SaaS software revenues are forecasted to reach $106B in 2016, increasing 21% over projected 2015 spending levels” — Forrester

“By 2018, 59% of the total cloud workloads will be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) workloads, up from 41% in 2013” — Cisco Global Cloud Index

“42% of IT decision makers are planning to increase spending on cloud computing in 2015, with the greatest growth in enterprises with over 1,000 employees (52%)” — Computerworld 2015 Forecast

More than hype — people aren’t that stupid

Traditional arguments against Cloud

Lack of control

Vendor lock-in

Performance

Cost

Security

The choice isn’t binary

Diversity is GoodInnovation and monocultures

The features are convenient

On-Demand

Self-Service

Elastic

Consumption-based pricing

Constraints Force Changes in Behavior

Behavior changes enable innovation

So much Innovation

Design is about reducing choice(on behalf of the user)

on behalf of the user

Under-engineered constraints

Unreliable

Lack of control

Worse performance

Isolated from on-premise

Unreliable

The cloud doesn’t care

Lack of control

“Insecure”

Affordances <—> Flexibility

Forced changes in operations

Developers don’t need your approval

They have APIs and tools

Infrastructure is programmable

API-driven rather than CLI/GUI-driven

Architect for resilience

What is a data center these days?

It’s not just about racking and stacking — more than raw infrastructure

You don’t have to be huge for it to make sense

Public Cloud Interconnects

Move to where your users are

Software Defined Data Center

More than just another annoying buzzword

Infrastructure vendors are changing

Automation is key

Lots of exciting open-source software out there

It’s not just about automation toolsOur operations processes and atttitudes need to change

It’s not just about automation toolsOur operations processes and atttitudes need to change

Call it “Devops” if you want

It’s not just about automation toolsOur operations processes and atttitudes need to change

Call it “Devops” if you want

or “Agile”

It’s not just about automation toolsOur operations processes and atttitudes need to change

Call it “Devops” if you want

or “Agile”

or “how we’ve always done it”

But automation is still keyDemand it from all your vendors

Relinquish control, not responsibility

Enable your users

Design self-service infrastructure

Design for resilience

Servers — Cattle, not Pets

Expect failure

It’s all disaster recovery

Small Components

Lots of exciting open-source software out there

Thanks — Questions?