IBM relies on power BAE to help customers migrate to cloud mode

Internal customers throughout the enterprise are required to launch new resource-intensive business services every day. We know that virtualization computing resources and leveraging cloud capabilities can help you meet this need, but you don't trust the security of the public cloud and don't know how to have enough resources to build a private cloud. At the same time, directors are constantly questioning you about the "cloud strategy".

In an increasingly digital world, troubled enterprise IT departments face unprecedented service delivery pressures. In Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, 60% of workers can be classified as mobile knowledge workers, those who work with information as their focus and often remotely (http://bit.ly/InXcHg). In the United States, this ratio is 70%. At the same time, service providers in Customer Self-Service channels to achieve 52% of the composite annual growth rate (HTTP://BIT.LY/JLEBFG). IT departments are eager to have secure, reliable solutions, and cloud computing gives them the answers they need.

Less

The cloud infrastructure provides a powerful way to reduce the cost and complexity of IT service delivery. Cloud computing leverages a computing resource-sharing pool (a cloud that can be dynamically evaluated and reconfigured), allowing businesses to deploy virtual devices in just a few minutes. Instead of maintaining a separate island of computing capacity for departments such as finance, marketing, HR, and software development, IT organizations can collect all computing resources into an integrated infrastructure for any user to access at any time. Companies are no longer forced to invest in computing assets that are ultimately found to be redundant assets that are dispersed across facilities or idle. Cloud computing allows businesses to do more with less resources. Internal customers can leverage automation tools to immediately deploy virtual devices to shared pools that provide processing power, storage, and network assets, and then return those resources to the cloud at the end of the project. Internal customers get the security resources they need, and system administrators can spend less time setting up systems and deploying software, and the back-end metering feature gives everyone a better understanding of how things work, and companies optimize the return on IT investment.

With SmartCloud Entry, bank workers can now deploy a virtual server within one hours (rather than weeks) to achieve a 99% increase in speed.

But it's just a theory anyway. Translating the theory into reality is a challenge. After adding cloud computing to the strategy, the CIO ratio almost doubled to 2010 compared to 60% (www.ibm.com/services/c-suite/cio/study.html). More than half said they viewed cloud computing as a way of doing business with leaner, faster, and more flexible processes.

This does not mean that they are ready to completely discard the traditional IT environment, which includes a pre integrated system and standard hardware and software. Their goal is to implement a hybrid environment that combines traditional IT with the cloud infrastructure to deliver dynamic performance, dynamic Data, and application portability.

IBM was aware of the value of the cloud computing approach years ago and began leveraging the power BAE platform to help customers around the world migrate to cloud mode. Demand for the service is growing rapidly.

"After performing thousands of of service activities, we found that customers have a consistent common need throughout the deployment process," said Ian Robinson, IBM Bae Software, BAE and Marvell Group's virtualization product line manager. This became the foundation of SmartCloud Entry. We basically produce software that is deployed once in a practical application. Therefore, as an initial release of the software, this code is very mature, very reliable. ”

Into the cloud

SmartCloud Entry allows users to easily translate a virtualized power BAE environment into a self-service cloud infrastructure that provides complete flexibility and secure access to resources, as well as a detailed display of back-end metering. SmartCloud Entry contains a software layer located on top of the power BAE software stack, including PowerVM Enterprise virtualization and IBM BAE Director Advanced Virtualization management.

This package provides everything that the enterprise's basic cloud infrastructure needs to have. With a user-centric interface, internal customers can deploy their own workloads by just clicking four times.

"Users do not need to specify how much memory or storage they want," said Terri Schlosser, Power BAE Cloud services product manager. "They just have to say, ' Oh, here's my Red Hat image, ' and then click the mouse. SmartCloud Entry can determine the best location to run workloads, automatically acquire storage and network resources, allocate all resources, and then put them in a private cloud. ”

This is a different way of deploying thinking for both it and end users. "Management tools before cloud mode are focused on letting administrators configure workloads," Robinson said. "And cloud mode is to push the configuration to the end user." It allows administrators to save a lot of repetitive work and standardize workloads. ”

The SmartCloud Entry provides the "set and perform automatically" feature. Initially, the system administrator needs to establish a standardized set of virtual images or devices that define default processing capabilities, storage, and network resources. Once these Gold Master images are established, users can reconfigure them through the automation interface without further intervention from the IT staff. After the work is done, the user can return the resource to the cloud with just a few clicks.

Suddenly, a lot of repetitive work by the system administrator is reduced. They no longer need to spend a lot of time repeatedly configuring the same virtual image, just configure it once. At the same time, SmartCloud Entry makes it easier for users and system administrators to customize workloads on demand, increasing system responsiveness and giving system administrators more time to focus on delivering new business services.

The cloud infrastructure also helps increase asset utilization. There was a time when the process of acquiring new computing resources was time-consuming and laborious and completely unresponsive to requests for short delivery periods. It is not surprising that once users have the computing resources, they will seize the resources (even if the resources are idle) to avoid duplication of effort. SmartCloud Entry changed the situation. For example, an application development team that develops, tests, and delivers critical product updates can use the SmartCloud Entry interface to request deployment of their applications and databases, use them for a month or two, and then delete them without any delivery time and paperwork. They receive the support they need, and then return the calculated resources for others to use, which increases overall utilization.

The SmartCloud Entry Project feature is another powerful tool for managing computing resources. In the past, each department maintained its own proprietary servers and software, regardless of whether or not they were used. SmartCloud Entry can provide the same localized computing experience in its mobile cloud architecture. Cloud administrators work with project owners to define and set the scope of activities for their members. This may create a project for individual projects in each department or department. Assign each project a set of appropriate virtual devices that are intended for use only by users assigned to the project. As a result, project members just have access to the virtual devices they need, that's all. For example, an HR person can access an HR device, not an SAP device.

In China, Hengfeng Bank has opted to use IBM SmartCloud Entry as part of its power BAE implementation to enhance infrastructure flexibility and workload deployment. Previously, the bank's computing infrastructure was based on a static dedicated server. Although the performance of the technology is good enough, deploying new workloads is a time-consuming, error-prone process.

In 2011, Chinese banks turned to private cloud environments provided by IBM technology. "The cloud is a new technology and a trend for the future," said one company spokesperson. With SmartCloud Entry, bank workers can now deploy a virtual server within one hours (rather than weeks) to achieve a 99% increase in speed. This fully scalable solution optimizes computing resources and helps banks standardize deployment and capture of workloads.

"By using IBM Bae Director VMControl and SmartCloud Entry, introduce a portal to monitor all of our power Bae," the spokesperson added. "Virtual device management, such as capture and deployment, is completely automated, which saves us a lot of work." ”

Measurement and insight

SmartCloud Entry helps businesses migrate cloud not only physically but also conceptually. In the past, the IT department has been centered on cost. Virtualization and cloud computing provide fine-grained usage information (how much resources can be spent on billing users one day), transforming IT from a larger, more expensive department into a revenue-generating department.

The outlook is exciting, but it is also unsettling to many IT managers. For a given project, the current pattern involves identifying requirements, setting schedules, and budgeting. Internal customers request services based on these estimates, while the IT department is responsible for providing services. This is an imperfect system where users and providers do not have the actual ability to quantify the resources used, but at least that is what they are familiar with, and the high availability, pay-for-use approach is unknown. "Will customers end up using more resources because they own these devices?" Schlosser asked. "Because they will be able to finish the work faster, so they won't use too much resources?" SmartCloud Entry allows IT departments to gather information in order to understand that they need to charge for those services in advance. ”

The metering capabilities of the SmartCloud Entry detail the types of workloads that customers deploy and how long they are used. Each project will be funded at the outset. Each time a project member deploys a workload, the system monitors the resources used by the workload and, as appropriate, registers the account debit. When the account balance is reduced, the system gives a variety of responses that, when the balance reaches a threshold, notifies the user by e-mail, and the server shuts down when the balance is zero. IT stores and internal customers are aware of usage patterns and resource consumption. The introduction of accountability also ensures that internal customers will more accurately request the resources they need and return those resources to the cloud more quickly after the work is done. Finally, SmartCloud Entry allows IT departments to gather the information they need and eventually turn to the "pay by usage" model. They can begin to understand what resources are required to charge users, creating an actual usage model.

The migration to the cloud infrastructure via the IBM SmartCloud Entry on power Bae also offers other important benefits. Security is a primary concern of any network system. IBM has designed the power BAE virtualization layer to fully implement secure operations to protect against external threats. In addition, SmartCloud Entry provides internal security to ensure that members of a project cannot access other items within the cloud unless they are provided with permissions.

In addition to security, the PowerVM virtualization power BAE platform provides the level of performance required by today's businesses. For each workload, the performance of PowerVM virtualization, which runs on power 750, is 131% higher than that of VMware vsphere 5.0, while scaling vertically within a single virtual machine, with a performance that is 525% higher than VMware vsphere 5.0. (Ibm.co/powervmreport)

Fast, simple and Low-risk

For entry-level users, SmartCloud Entry is provided as part of IBM's new Pureflex BAE product line. For those users who have used the virtualization power BAE platform, the SmartCloud Entry software can be deployed as an add-on in just a few minutes at ultra-low prices.

"This is a very convenient starting point to increase the cost per user of the IT budget assigned to the update server every year." "Schlosser said. "SmartCloud Entry is a quick, easy, low-risk way to start using cloud solutions." ”