Cloud computing and resource utilization

Xiao Bian took you to explain, Stephen Smoot and his summary of the issue of private cloud computing on the WAN exchange. First of all, how to treat the relationship between private cloud computing and public cloud computing. The second is how to improve the WAN in order to better support private cloud computing. West let me answer for you one by one.

First of all, how do you define the cloud computing, how to treat the difference between it and the public cloud computing?

Stephen Smoot: Public cloud is a resource shared by many users. For example, the cloud is often compared to an infinite resource, where you can find the resources you need immediately, use those resources, and release them. It is very flexible and extensible, which is where cloud really means. Public cloud computing is easy to understand because all the resources are set up first, and you only pay for it. For example, Amazon EC2 is an infrastructure cloud and Salesforce.com is a software as a service public cloud. Like public clouds, private clouds also have the benefits of simplified management, simplified innovation, and lower usage thresholds (internal only). For a private cloud, you can still handle those resources in a similarly flexible and dynamic way, although you need to control your own resources.

How do businesses differentiate from private cloud computing? Are there any metrics that require organizations to adopt a public cloud infrastructure?

Smoot: I think it really depends on the business and the project involved. Many people will eventually need two alternatives; some require public clouds only. For businesses that are extremely focused on security, they may only use private cloud computing. For example, some organizations have no access to the outside world at all, so public cloud computing is not feasible. If you really need to have control of your resources, you need to have a private cloud. We want to make it clear: how to create a stand-alone private cloud and deploy high-end services in it. If you have a requirement in this area, obviously you need to deploy the resources internally. Similarly, if you do not want to develop your own online documentation system, you can use Office 365 or Google Docs, which of course is public cloud computing.

You mentioned in the book a service-oriented infrastructure (SOI) that explains why infrastructure needs to grow and support private cloud computing. So, what is the role of the WAN in the next generation of infrastructure?

Smoot: WANs are very important for cloud computing. One of the basic tasks people must do when building or using a cloud is to centralize all resources. Unless this location happens to cover all users, you will definitely need to connect users and cloud services over the WAN. With a public cloud, you can not even choose this location. The server you choose to handle employees' daily activities may be in another part of the United States, so users and cloud services need to be connected over the WAN. For SOI, this is the model that must be used to deliver services from the IT side to users. The key to IT services is your needs; you need someone to use your services. You certainly do not want them to be in trouble, so you have to have responsive, secure and scalable high-quality services that are the benefits of cloud computing. Another problem is that resources are not accessible. The speed of light is not something that we can do at random, so the farther the distance, the slower it can be. This is a challenge that many people have to face when moving to cloud services.

In the introduction to this book, you first point out that WAN "may be the weakest link in implementing cloud initiatives." Why is this, and why is this issue more obvious in a private cloud environment?

Smoot: Distance may be the real problem for the project. Suppose you have deployed some high-speed interactive web applications that use tables to present many sketches on web page elements. If this application is deployed on a server in another country, it may become slow. So, you need to think hard about how to move the service to the cloud and deliver the service to the user through the cloud.

How Can WAN Improve to Support Private Cloud Computing?

Smoot: There are two important aspects here. WAN optimization technology is a technology that is designed to handle long-range resource and low-bandwidth problems. As a result, deploying WAN optimization technology is a good idea in your own cloud environment. Another very basic aspect: the structure of service isolation. Similar to software design, you need to experiment and create abstract layers so that changes to some parts of your code do not affect other parts. WANs also require isolation techniques such as VRF. You can think of VRF as an industry-level VLAN. VLANs are virtual LANs that enable people to separate services and users. VRF has a similar role, but it is applied to the WAN.

What type of WAN optimization is needed to accelerate private cloud environments?

Smoot: The move to cloud technology is largely a web application. I can say that one of the important differences between an enterprise that uses a private cloud and an enterprise that uses only a data center to run the service is that the former has a large number of web applications deployed. This is not to say that the cloud only supports Web applications, and other technologies do not support it, but there is such a trend in private cloud environments. Therefore, performing good HTTP optimization is important for WAN optimization in this environment. In addition, the use of HTTPS is also increasing, so more WAN security services are now available. So you have to deploy a WAN optimization solution that delivers end-to-end security with optimal performance. You can assume that not every vendor offers this technology, so there are risks to some people's safety.

Hardware WAN optimization controller is still valid? Why?

Smoot: The hardware is definitely valid. People implement cloud environments with many virtualization technologies, such as virtual servers and virtual networks. So, you do not really need a lot of equipment to be able to use most of the WAN optimization with isolation. For example, you can restrict VLAN traffic to different VLANs to enable service isolation through a hardware-optimized controller. Moreover, the hardware approach can achieve a larger scale. In a private cloud environment, you have more flexibility in controlling spikes, so scaling up is not as difficult as it is in the entire Internet. Both of these aspects are important. That is, the Virtual WAN Optimized Controller is a more suitable model for most people when trying and determining which approach to implement. It has advantages in the concept and integration of scale-out. For example, Riverbed's Cloud Steelhead has an interception technology called discovery agent that does not perform interception at the network layer just like other hardware and virtualized software appliances, and you can simplify installing this software on the server you want to optimize The process of integrating Cloud Steelhead into a cloud environment.

What technology is needed to deploy WAN optimization in a private cloud computing infrastructure?

Smoot: The answer to this question has two aspects: technology and business. There are many technical issues to consider. You need to understand what to prepare for optimization and how it interacts with other network components - firewalls, IPS appliances, and load balancers. In an optimal environment, you do not have the freedom to choose a location to deploy your device. For example, you do not want to perform intrusion prevention deep packet inspection on an optimal character. You need to allow these target strings and packets because they are important to the design. Similarly, network visibility controls the behavior of network packets. These have their own advantages and disadvantages for different visibility mechanisms. You can even mix these techniques. For example, in Steelhead, you can use transparent visibility in some locations, while others use direct addressing, so you can use the right technology in different environments. At the business level, I think the key is understanding the business value you want to achieve. In this project, the most important thing is Web acceleration, video or SAP? You need to clear the business value, and try not to be disturbed by a variety of additional features.