A Buyer’s Guide to Choosing a Cloud Service Provider
Transcript of A Buyer’s Guide to Choosing a Cloud Service Provider
A Buyer’s Guideto Choosing a CloudService Provider
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© Skytap, Inc. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Dynamic IT Workloads are Ideal Candidates for External Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What Are the Top Ten Enterprise Requirements? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. Ability to Run Existing Enterprise Applications Unchanged in the Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Self-Service Web Portal for Functional Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3 VDC Control, Configurability and Visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4 VDC Install and Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Import and Export VMware Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Support for Existing Software Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. Role-Based User Access Control (UAC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8. Policy Management, Cost Control and Charge-Back . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
9. Team Collaboration and Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
10. Enterprise-Class Support and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Dynamic IT Workloads are Ideal Candidates for External Clouds
Enterprise CIOs are actively looking for ways to
adopt cloud computing solutions that (1) deliver
agility and immediate cost savings and (2) can be
adopted incrementally without posing a major risk
to business operations . Dynamic IT workloads, such
as application development and test projects, IT
prototyping projects, ERP and application migration
projects and virtual training classrooms, can account
for 35% or more of IT infrastructure and are prime
candidates for ‘virtual private clouds’ . They offer
immediate opportunities for cost savings as they
are often underutilized due to uneven demand,
and expensive to administer because they require
frequent set-up and tear-down work . They are also
low-risk candidates to move to an external cloud as
they don’t typically have an immediate impact on
mission-critical systems .
What Are the Top Ten Enterprise Requirements?
Given the recognition that dynamic IT workloads
are one of the most compelling use cases for
cloud computing, IT managers are exploring cloud
vendors such as Skytap, Amazon EC2, Rackspace,
and Microsoft Azure as a way to move these
environments externally to cloud-based Virtual
Data Centers (VDCs) .
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Based on our experience with Fortune 1000
companies, we’ve compiled the top ten enterprise
requirements to adopt external cloud for these
workloads:
1. Ability to Run Existing Enterprise Applications Unchanged in the Cloud
2. Self-Service Web Portal for Functional Users
3. VDC Control, Configurability and Visibility
4. VDC Install and Snapshot
5. Import and Export VMware Images
6. Support for Existing Software Licenses
7. Role-Based User Access Control (UAC)
8. Policy Management, Cost Control and Charge-Back
9. Team Collaboration and Workflow
10. Enterprise-Class Support and Training
Buyers need to ask themselves: how do different
vendors compare against these requirements?
There is a lot of discussion in the press around
Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, VMware vCloud
and similar offerings but are they ready to support
enterprise requirements, especially for dynamic IT
workloads?
This white paper explores the top ten requirements
in detail and explains how the Skytap Cloud
supports these requirements .
Most enterprises are now evaluating external clouds to offload their dynamic IT workloads, including application development, testing, training, IT prototyping and ERP migration environments . This white paper explores the top ten requirements buyers must evaluate to select the right cloud provider .
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1. Ability to Run Existing Enterprise Applications Unchanged in the Cloud
Ask any enterprise CIO what platforms and vendors
they use to support the business, and a typical answer
includes most of major vendors and platforms .
Enterprises have many flavors of operating systems
(Windows, Linux, Solaris,etc .), application servers /
platforms ( .NET, JEE, etc) and databases (SQL Server,
Oracle, DB2 etc) . In addition, enterprises typically
have mainframe and Unix-based systems that
support key business processes .
Most cloud services are designed as a platform for
building new scalable applications and services,
not as a way to extend existing enterprise IT
workloads to an external cloud . As such, the range
of supported operating systems, infrastructure
applications (e .g . Windows Domain Controllers)
and enterprise applications falls well short of the
requirements for an enterprise cloud provider . In
contrast, Skytap supports all enterprise applications
and operating environments that run on the x86
platform, including ERP systems and client-server
applications . In addition, Skytap’s state-of-the-art
network virtualization provides virtual data centers
that support mainstream infrastructure applications .
Finally, Skytap enables a ‘virtual private cloud’
through an enterprise-grade IPSec VPN capability
to enable secure, seamless connectivity to in-house
systems, including mainframes and Web services
that cannot be moved to an external cloud .
2. Self-Service Web Portal for Functional Users
Enterprises have a wide range of business
activities that require virtual data center access .
These activities can range from development and
testing, application migration, technical sales,
consulting, support, and training . These activities
involve technical users, such as IT administrators
and developers, but also functional users, such
as business analysts, project managers, software
testers, and line-of-business users such as sales
engineers, trainers and support professionals . The
cost savings and agility associated with ‘self-service’
access to computing resources can’t be realized if an
external cloud solution requires a technical user to
provision and provide access to these resources .
Some ‘Infrastructure-as-a-Service’ providers such
as GoGrid or Amazon EC2 are designed for technical
users that need simple, low-cost environments, and
are comfortable using mostly command-line tools or
a basic Web interface . In contrast, Skytap’s Web portal
is designed to enable any user to perform complex IT
operations with simple actions . This enables rapid
adoption, immediate results and reduces time-
consuming manual set-up work for IT . This approach
also enables a self-service platform that can handle
a wide-range of use cases, from distance training
of business users, to user acceptance testing and
prototyping of new business applications .
Fig. 1 Skytap Self-Service Portal
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Many ‘Infrastructure-as-a-Service’ offerings
only support “cookie cutter” instance types, so
it becomes almost impossible to fully replicate
an existing enterprise IT environment in the
cloud . Also, most cloud vendors don’t provide
sophisticated administrative tools to provide
visibility into deployed VDCs . In contrast, Skytap
offers full configurability of servers and networking
3. VDC Control, Configurability and Visibility
In the same way enterprises run a wide range of
applications and platforms, they also need to support
a wide range of infrastructure configurations in a
virtual data center (VDC) . For instance, a particular
application may be clustered and require servers
with multiple network interfaces (NICs) . Another
application may be processor intensive and require
a high number of CPU cores or memory per server
to perform effectively . Control and configurability of
VDC infrastructure becomes very important when an
external cloud is used for application development
and testing, because the test environment needs
to mirror the production environment as closely as
possible . Finally, administrators want visibility into
all the VDCs deployed across their organization,
including owners, usage details and audit trails .
through its self-service user interface . This includes
the ability to dynamically scale disks, set CPU cores
and memory per virtual machine, configure NICs
and MAC addresses, and specify network subnet
addresses, host IP addresses, host names and more .
Skytap also provides a powerful administrator
interface to query deployed virtual machines and
data centers, usage and audit trails .
4. VDC Install and Snapshot
Most enterprise applications are complex and
comprise multiple interconnected servers and
services . The concept of a virtual data center becomes
important to encapsulate these applications and
services and enable entire IT environments to be
deployed accurately and quickly .
With other cloud services, it’s not possible to easily
deploy an entire virtual data center, including
custom infrastructure settings and network
configuration . Furthermore, they don’t support the
capability of suspending an entire VDC and taking a
snapshot (including memory state of the machines) .
This results in a lot of manual set-up and tear-down
work to create IT environments .
Skytap provides the concept of virtual data
center configurations to enable deployment of
complex multi-machine environments in seconds .
Furthermore, it enables an entire virtual data
center to be suspended and saved (as a snapshot)
into the Skytap configuration library or simply
shutdown until later use . Snapshots are especially
useful when diagnosing software bugs, as an entire
application stack can be suspended at the point of
failure for a developer to debug at a later time . It is
also useful to save a ‘golden image’ of a virtual data
center for deployment at a later date .
Fig. 2 VDC Control and Configurability
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5. Import and Export VMware Images
The vast majority of enterprises run VMware
for their virtualization platform and expect
their external cloud provider to run on the same
platform . Furthermore, the ability to import and
export virtual machine images is important to
enable interoperability between environments and
a way to avoid vendor lock-in . Finally, if an existing
VMware ‘gold master’ image exists, it’s much easier
to import this image than recreate from scratch in an
external cloud .
Most cloud services run on a customized version
of the Xen hypervisor and do not support VMware
images natively . In addition, they don’t offer full
import and export of virtual machines, which only
enables files to be moved an existing base image .
In contrast, Skytap supports the same VMware
platform that most enterprises use today and
provides the capability for self-service, automated
import and export of VMware images .
6. Support for Existing Software Licenses
Most enterprises have already negotiated and
paid for licensing agreements with major vendors
to cover their enterprise-wide usage . For instance,
Microsoft’s MSDN licenses cover the development
and test of Microsoft products by specified
individuals in an organization . Most cloud providers
charge a per hour fee for the use of Windows
machines and do not enable enterprises to use their
existing MSDN licenses . In contrast, Skytap enables
organizations to utilize their MSDN licenses within
its external cloud and avoid double payment for
development and test use cases .
7. Role-Based User Access Control (UAC)
Enabling sophisticated user access control (UAC)
is a key requirement for enterprise adoption of
external clouds . Users within an enterprise often
have different permission levels depending on their
role . For instance, an administrator may have the
right to view a complete audit trail of activity in a
virtual data center, whereas an offshore tester may
only have access to a sand-box test environment
to complete specific test cases . Furthermore,
enterprises often require a ‘single sign-on’ capability
to utilize the same LDAP or Active Directory servers
for user management .
Most cloud providers don’t offer sophisticated role-
based access to accounts or the ability to specify
permission levels for users . Skytap’s solutions,
however, offer a rich UAC model and ability to set
fine-grain permissions depending on the role of the
user . For instance, roles such as ‘managers’, ‘editors’
and ‘members’ can be implemented to enable
different levels of access to a virtual data center . In
addition, sandboxes can be created and published
for vendors or consultants that enable work to
be completed, but have no access to a corporate
network .
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8. Policy Management, Cost Control and Charge-Back
The ability to enforce enterprise IT policies, ensure
costs are kept under control, and enable charge-back
billing to internal groups are key requirements for
any large enterprise organization . ‘Infrastructure-
as-a-Service’ providers typically offer no advanced
cost control capabilities or the ability to isolate
usage to internal groups for charge-back .
Furthermore, they usually require that IT policies
are implemented manually rather than enabling
policies to be enforced across the organization .
9. Team Collaboration and Workflow
Cloud-based virtual data centers are highly dynamic
environments which are accessed by a broad range
of functional users and typically deliver dramatic
improvements in team productivity . For instance,
an IT professional can be prototyping a new server
installation and want to share it with a security
expert for review, or a tester can find a bug that’s
very hard to replicate and want to suspend an entire
virtual data center and share it with a developer
for debugging . Facilitating an agile approach to IT
delivery is one of the major drivers that increase
IT’s ability to rapidly implement new projects and
maintain alignment with business priorities .
Most cloud providers offer virtual infrastructure, but
do not deliver a platform to dramatically improve
team performance . Skytap was designed from
the outset to provide a complete cloud solution
for enterprise IT teams, including collaboration
and workflow capabilities . For instance, Skytap
provides WebEx-type capabilities so users can
share desktops in real-time using a secure URL . In
addition, Skytap provides project functionality to
enable users to share virtual data centers, assets
and documents . It also enables users to save and
restore entire virtual data centers into a central
repository, so IT environments can easily be cloned
and shared across distributed teams, much in the
same way users collaborate using products like
Microsoft SharePoint .
In contrast, Skytap offers cost control capabilities
which have been proven to reduce the Total Cost of
Ownership (TCO) of enterprise workloads by 50%
or more . For example, Skytap enables virtual data
centers to be auto-suspended when not in use to
save costs . In addition, quotas can be applied to
individuals and organizations to cap usage unless
authorization is obtained to burst capacity . Skytap
also enables IT policies to be enforced globally, such
as approved subnet ranges for virtual data centers
and the ability to prevent assignment of public IP
addresses to virtual machines .
Fig. 3 Cost Control and Charge Back
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10. Enterprise-Class Support and Training
Enterprises run mission-critical systems and expect
the highest levels of vendor support and training
to ensure smooth deployment and operation of
IT systems that support the business . Many cloud
providers offer premium support for a fee, but this
case-based support over the phone falls short of
the enterprise-class service typically provided by
vendors . In contrast, Skytap assigns a dedicated
account team for each customer, including a
named account manager and technical support
engineer . Our on-boarding process ensures
customers successfully adopt Skytap in their
organization and our account team is always on
hand to answer questions or help solve customer
issues . In addition, our product management and
engineering organization frequently engages with
our customers, ensuring new feature requests and
ideas for improvements are rolled into our solutions
on a regular basis .
Summary
Adopting a cloud vendor for dynamic IT workloads is
a smart move for almost any enterprise organization .
Considering the high cost and time burden involved
in managing workloads such as application
development, testing, IT prototyping and application
migration, external clouds such as Skytap can
provide an easy way to off-load these environments
to the cloud and gain time and resources to focus
on the core business priorities . Just as Software-
as-a-Service vendors such as Salesforce .com offer
a low-risk, high ROI alternative to in-house CRM
packages, using a Skytap for dynamic IT workloads
offers similar benefits . Organizations typically see
immediate cost savings, increased productivity
and improved responsiveness to the business by
incorporating Skytap as part of their IT strategy .
For more information, interactive demos and pricing for
Skytap please visit www.skytap.com or call a customer
representative on 1-888-759-8278 (1-888-SKY-TAP8).
Fig. 4 Sharing a Virtual Data Center in the Cloud
Skytap, Inc.
710 2nd Avenue, Suite 1130 Seattle, WA 98104
Toll Free: +1-888-759-8278 (1-888-SKY-TAP8)
Direct: +1-206-866-1162
Web: www .skytap .com
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