The Polysynthetic Data CenterA NEW DATA CENTER / HYBRID CLOUD VISION

June 2015© CAW Holdings, LLC

About Christopher (Chris) Williams

Chris Williams is an industry recognized, highly innovative IT visionary in Cloud Infrastructure. Definitely not "Business as Usual", his unique combination of deep technical and business leadership skills make him an ideal transformation leader aligning people, process and technology.

Original VCAP-DCD (#49) and VCAP-DCA (#225)

Acknowledged as lead architect of one of the first client production, virtual infrastructure platforms using fully converged infrastructure

Mentioned as one of “…the who’s who in the dataverse…” of virtualizing Oracle on vSphere

Wrote the foreword to the VMware Press book, “Virtualizing Oracle Databases on vSphere” (ISBN 978-0-13-357018-2) by Don Sullivan and Kannan Mani

Veteran speaker/presenter at technology conferences and business forums including VMWorld, VMware Partner Exchange, Data Center Insights

Extensive experience in designing and deploying Cloud infrastructure to support business critical applications, and supporting business processes

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THE CLOUD PENDULUM

Seems like “Everyone is running to The Cloud”…

Simplify IT

Cheaper: Reduce Capital Expense

More flexible and agile than traditional Data Center

Business Driven Focus – Providers Compete for your $$

THE CLOUD PENDULUM

…But there may be trouble ahead…

For Example:

IT didn’t simplify – in fact it just got more complex

More Expensive Overall: Capital Expense went down, but Operational Expense skyrocketed

Increased agility led to virtual machine sprawl and a loss of control of managed systems

System performance difficult to manage or predict, especially for business critical and tier 1 applications

Cloud Services Provider outages significantly and negatively impacted business even though SLAs were met

THE CLOUD PENDULUM IS SWINGING BACK…Reality: Not everything fits on an external Cloud.

Many (most) external Cloud platforms are just a new form of IT Outsourcing.

Whoever controls the hypervisor and interfaces, controls everything (including you)

You still must fully understand the infrastructure and interfaces your apps run on, including when they are hosted on an external Cloud (the one that you don’t really control – see the last rule)

If your applications weren’t good outsourcing candidates to begin with, moving them to an external Cloud won’t help.

“The Cloud is like The Hotel California. It’s easy to get your applications in, but it’s not so easy to get them back out.”

–Paul Maritz, EMC/Pivotal and former CEO of VMware

Bottom Line: The Private Data Center is Alive and Well – It’s Just Changing!

Context Based Security

Private Data Center

Compute Storage Network

Service Delivery & Management Methodology

Virtualization and Orchestration

Converged / Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Cloud Service

Providers

Cloud Data Centers

IT is in the midst of its most important transformation in decades...

Private Network / Internet

ApplicationMobility

APP APPAPP APPAPPAPP APP APP

Any User Any DataAny Device Any LocationAny Workload

Virtualized Storage Virtualized Compute Virtualized Network

…and now relies on fully virtualized components across the stack

VirtualizedApplications

The software-defined journey we’ve begun takes us in new directions. It’s one that is changing the concept of the data center permanently:

• software-defined data center (SDDC)• enterprise hybrid cloud• big data, fast data• mobile computing

SDN, SDDC, SDE, … vs. New Data Center – What’s the difference and how do they fit together?

‘Software-defined’

definitionssoftware-defined anything/everything (SDx):“What all these ‘software-defined’ concepts really boil down to is: virtualization of the underlying component and

accessibility through some documented API to provision, operate and manage the low-level component. Analysts are

talking about Software-defined anything/everything (SDx) changing the enterprise workplace.”-- Softwaredefined-enterprise.com

Common SDx memes:Software-defined data centerSoftware-defined networkingSoftware-defined enterprise

SDx is a foundational, enabling approach to embarking on the software defined journey…

Internet of ThingsThe Internet of things (IoT) refers to uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure.

– Proposed by Kevin Ashton in 1999 though the concept has been discussed since at least 1991.

Internet of Everything“Cisco defines the Internet of everything (IoE) as bringing together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before-turning information into actions that create new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented economic opportunity for businesses, individuals, and countries.”– Cisco

The Internet of Everything is supported and made feasible via the software defined journey, embodied by a new kind of data center…

‘THE INTERNET OF EVERYTHING’Advancing the Internet of Things to its next logical step

‘Poly * Synthetic’… /ˌpälisinˈTHetik/ adj.

Usually used in Linguistics to describe a Language.

Definition – Polysynthetic Language (Google): denoting or relating to a language characterized by complex words consisting of several morphemes, in which a single word may function as a whole sentence. Many American Indian languages are polysynthetic.

The Polysynthetic Data Center…The continuous predictive (re)compilation of infrastructure, process, and methodology expressed as a single, managed data center entity. It relies on a transformational approach to IT that enables and securely delivers on-demand services to the business by leveraging software defined resources and shared services that can be consumed flexibly as they are provided.

The Polysynthetic Data Center | Properties

A balanced, business driven IT approach integrating software defined infrastructure, process, and methodology

The Polysynthetic Data Center…• extends beyond the traditional data center to include optimized network and cloud, both internal and external• intentionally, proactively, and predictively puts together specific systems and services in context to achieve

specific business outcomes, which often are unique to a given organization• will usually span multiple locations and include endpoint devices, depending on context• relies on and integrates several enabling technologies, methodology and concepts, including SDx and IoE, as

foundational principles• is business requirements and associated desired outcomes dynamically describing and driving IT strategy, use

and consumption – It’s not just a wave of new technology and systems• is capable of using consumption based models (even intended to do so), although some organizations may

choose not to use this capability• reduces cost in most cases, but cost is not the primary value driver – business agility, control, and flexibility are

more important

Polysynthetic Data Center: Components

Context Based Security

Private Data Center

Compute Storage Network

Service Delivery & Management Methodology

Virtualization and Orchestration

Converged / Hyper-Converged Infrastructure

Cloud Service

Providers

Cloud Data Centers

Private Network / Internet

ApplicationMobility

APP APPAPP APPAPPAPP APP APP

POLYSYNTHETIC INFRASTRUCTURE Polysynthetic DC Building Blocks:

Spans multiple physical locations and will greatly reduce the size and scope of your internal data center (but you will still need one)

Distributed IT infrastructure made up of modular components implements a single data center entity across all locations

All functional components are swappable because all of them are abstracted, while consolidating systems management

Connectivity combines Software Defined Networking and Network Feature Virtualization to ease application and system mobility across infrastructure components

Multiple Cloud systems use common, organization owned APIs to move apps based on business need

Private Cloud Core (Command and Control)Other Cloud Services

GoogleAmazon

SalesforceSite Private CloudvCloud Air

Site Private Cloud

Azure

SUPPORTING POLYSYNTHETIC APPLICATIONS

Leverage All Forms of Virtual Infrastructure:Software Defined ComputeSoftware Defined NetworkSoftware Defined StorageSoftware Defined Software

Polysynthetic Infrastructure concepts must extend up the stack to complete the Data Center picture…

Polysynthetic Applications (a.k.a. Software Defined Software) must ideally be fully modular and both “aware” of and use the capabilities provided by the underlying infrastructure

This isn’t as easy as it looks (and it doesn’t look easy). How do I get it RIGHT?Virtualize 100% of everything (not just compute), including especially your Business Critical and Tier 1 Applications

Continuously mature both your technology and IT Service Delivery / Service Management capability

Align your technology to support your business goals – and then continuously keep them aligned

Enabled: Polysynthetic Infrastructure

Enabled: Polysynthetic Data Center

BUSINESS CRITICAL AND TIER 1 APPLICATIONS• The first cornerstone: virtualizing business-critical applications• What’s business critical?

Question: “Can I run my business without this application?” Answer: “No” or “Not for very long” = Business Critical

• Business-critical apps are also tier 1 apps, but not all tier 1 apps are business-critical• Most business-critical and tier 1 apps have one or more of the following in common:• High compute loads – either with heavy threading or heavy math processing• High RAM utilization• High and specialized I/O – particularly storage• High availability configurations – often requiring OS or application clustering• Complex networking configurations – public and private networks, often to support clustering

Today’s vBCA questions: Now that I’ve virtualized my business critical apps, where is the best place to host them? How do I know they’re optimized? When do I move them? Can my infrastructure support them, especially as they move?

Implementing a Polysynthetic Data Center requires aligned maturity in 2 key areas:

Commitment to advance your IT infrastructure, including non-x86 platforms• Software-defined Compute (Machine Virtualization)• Software-defined Network (Network Virtualization)• Software-defined Storage (Storage Virtualization)• Software-defined Software (Application Virtualization)

Integrate and balance internally and externally provided services, including cloud

Ensure all physical components meet the demands of your data center approach

Key Milestones:Virtualize all business critical and

tier 1 applicationsConverge Infrastructure (especially

network and storage)Optimize utilization across cloud,

network, shared services and internal systems

Polysynthetic Data Center: Getting It Right…

Implementing a Polysynthetic Data Center requires aligned maturity in 2 key areas:

Align the organizational roles and responsibilities to a services management approach

Define, simplify, optimize, and then automate core operational processes (across the enterprise)

Weighing and balancing on-premises and externally provided services and disciplines

Stack Management

“I need an Oracle database server. It should be based on

my standard build…”

“I need a standard database system…”

“I need a data service to provide information for my

Upcoming marketing Initiative…”“…to support my new sales automation

application…”

Systems ManagementServices Management

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Polysynthetic Data Center: Getting It Right…

When technology and organizational maturity don’t align…

Infrastructure becomes chaotic and almost impossible to manage

• Lots of tools for individual point solutions with little to no strategic oversight

• No integration or coordination or management between systems

• Technology and infrastructure sprawl (including VMs)

• Overly complex systems and configurations

• Greatly increased operational risk

• Increased costsLike giving the keys to the McLaren MP4 to

a teenager who just got his driver’s license…

When technology gets too far ahead:

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Bureaucracy reigns and becomes a “wet blanket”

• Processes become overbearing (process for the sake of process)

• Air of “nothing gets done without someone else’s approval”

• Loss of agility – process overrides capability

• “Shadow IT” becomes a common way of doing things

• Increased costs

When processes and organization get too far ahead:

Like making an elite F1 race driver

compete on the track with a Trabant…

When technology and organizational maturity don’t align…

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When first deploying, start small and grow

Once your platforms are established (and growing), it’s time to move systems

Replace vs. migrate vs. retire

• Remember: KISS principle first – then Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast…

• Bake a “batch of cookies” and perfect the recipe

• Bake several batches of cookies – make sure the recipe doesn’t change

• Build cookie factory…

• Driving a train and changing rails

• Understand where you’re migrating to and why (private cloud, public cloud, outsourced, managed service)

• Many systems will migrate easily

• Some systems will migrate with difficulty, often the oldest or most critical systems

• A few systems will just go quietly…

Maturing to the Polysynthetic Data Centergetting started

Maturing to the Polysynthetic Data Centerachieving business goals

Understand business goals first

New technology will intentionally add layers of abstraction in your Data Center – Avoid adding corresponding layers in your organization

Keep organizational maturity aligned and slightly ahead of technology maturity

• Business and IT leadership must consistently communicate and remain strategically aligned

• Implement services management capability in IT operations

• Align services provided to business goals

• Abstraction in technology will lead to more complexity

• Abstraction in organizations will lead to more bureaucracy

• Optimized infrastructure architecture and organizational design are key to reaping the full benefits

• Higher maturity is not higher complexity

• Resist technology for technology’s sake

• Resist process for process’ sake

Thank You!CHRISTOPHER A WILLIAMSF O U N D E R A N D P R I N C I PA L , C AW H O L D I N G S , L LC

E : C H R I S W @ C AW L LC .C O M P : ( 3 0 3 ) 5 0 7 - 1 3 3 1

“Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.”

--Vince Lombardi