Making the Connection: SovLabs IPAM and DNS Integration Modules for vRealize Automation

W H I T E P A P E RSOVLABSSOVLABS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

In response to the never-ending pressure to deliver strategic competitive advantage to today’s transforming digital enterprises, IT organizations are deploying private and hybrid clouds to shorten time-to-market, increase flexibility, and improve financial performance. However, as many enterprises with ambitious cloud plans have learned the hard way, successful clouds require streamlined workflows and deep automation for dynamic provisioning and de-provisioning of cloud resources. If internally-provided cloud resources aren’t available on-demand, users will find alternatives.

Fortunately, industry-leading cloud management, orchestration and automation platforms are available from one of IT’s most trusted partners - VMware®. VMware’s vRealize® Suite enjoys dominant market share and continues to outgrow the market by a significant margin because they are proven solutions that offer extensive out-of-the-box capabilities, particularly for automating provisioning of compute and storage resources. However, until very recently, provisioning and, equally important for dynamic on-demand cloud resources, de-provisioning of network resources has largely remained manual, complex and error-prone. This lack of automated network provisioning can be the “weak link” that increases risk, delays time-to-value and threatens your cloud program success

It is to address exactly this challenge that SovLabs has developed a family of inter-operable plug-in modules to render advanced network provisioning capabilities natively in vRealize Automation®. Specifically, SovLabs’ IPAM and DNS Modules for vRealize Automation integrate with multiple leading 3rd-party IPAM and DNS suppliers to enable cloud administrators to deploy policy-driven automated workflows that ensure IP addresses and name server records are allocated, validated, documented and configured appropriately, 100% from within vRealize Automation. To ensure that the benefits of this seamless integration scale “in the real world”, SovLabs uniquely extends beyond single-solution provisioning and de-provisioning to provide the same transparent vRA automation even when multiple IPAM and DNS address management solutions, often from different vendors, are in use.

Unlike custom workflows that require continuous effort and investment to maintain, all of SovLabs' integration modules are standard products that install in minutes with demonstrated compatibility and full support.

INTRODUCTION

IT organizations are increasingly being driven to deploy cloud infrastructure by competitive pressure for time-to-market advantage combined with the imperative to provide scalable resources to accommodate often as-yet undefined future requirements. Forrester Research has recently reported that nearly forty percent of North American and European enterprise infrastructure technology decision makers are building cloud environments[1]. These findings serve to illustrate that businesses are increasingly demanding consumable products and services provided by IT organizations that are coming to be viewed as strategic partners instead of shared services[2] cost centers. More specifically, the number one benefit demanded by line of business users is accelerating time-to-market[3] by enabling shorter development cycles. To further complicate IT planning, this drive for strategic agility is coupled with an iron-clad imperative to continue to deliver reliable and predicable services for legacy applications, at peak demand, while containing costs.

While the challenges can be daunting, the risks of inaction are profound. As McKinsey reported,

“The ‘topple rate,’ at which [industry leaders] lose their leadership positions, increased by nearly forty percent as digital technology has ramped up competition, disrupted industries, and forced businesses to clarify their strategies, develop new capabilities, and transform their cultures."[4]

The silver lining on this dire observation is that this “toppling” increases opportunity for challengers possessing effective strategies to rise with the digital tide.

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THE CASE FOR AUTOMATION

Amazon AWS, along with similar offerings from vendors like Microsoft and Google, have set a high bar for expectations of cloud responsiveness; click a button to order resources that will be available for use within minutes. Anything less than that will lead to frustrated users, which is a strong predictor of cloud program failure[5]. However, providing “AWS-like” responsiveness requires completely automated, “never touched by human hands” resource provisioning.

“[companies that are already seeing significant benefits of cloud adoption] used virtualization and automation technologies to improve production and maintenance processes”[6]

While VMware’s tools provide strong support for automated provisioning and de-provisioning of compute and storage resources, out-of-the-box network address allocation, name service reservations and client network configuration still default to manual operations which are relatively slow, effort-intensive and error prone.

FIGURE 1: Summary of manual network address and name services configuration

As illustrated in Figure 1, manual provisioning, even when there are no errors introduced, requires significant effort, intergroup coordination (with attendant opportunities for organizational friction) and most importantly, delays time-to-value of every project.

“…automation improves accountability, efficiency and predictability, while reducing cost, variability and risk.”[7]

In short, lack of automation for network configuration decreases responsiveness while increasing costs and risk - the benefits expected from the investment in cloud infrastructure are diluted or lost.

AUTOMATING ADDRESS MANAGEMENT AND NAME SERVICE CONFIGURATION

Fortunately, there are a number of stand-alone products that automate IPAM and DNS configuration, and they effectively solve an important part of the problem. These products enhance responsiveness and improve reliability by standardizing allocation, verifying configuration and simplifying issue resolution. However, there are at least two major challenges to automation with these solutions:

• To integrate these tools into VMware cloud management requires custom scripted workflows, which increasestime-to-value, risk and complexity

• Even assuming a successful custom scripting effort, these tools still require cloud system administrators to use toolsoutside of vRealize Automation and may still require the expertise of network administrators to use safely andeffectively

Custom scripting has the advantage of providing the possibility of automation precisely tailored to your specific requirements, if those requirements are carefully and completely documented and if the script development process, whether in-house or contracted, is mature and well-managed. On the other hand, custom scripts typically take several weeks to develop, require custom documentation and maintenance. And when requirements change or different IPAM and DNS solutions are selected, existing scripts must be modified or re-written.

MAKING THE CONNECT ION

SovLabs’ IPAM and DNS Modules for vRealize Automation are standard software products that integrate with leading 3rd-party IPAM and DNS solutions to enable administrators to deploy policy-driven automated workflows that ensure IP addresses and name server records are allocated, validated, documented and configured appropriately, 100% from within vRealize Automation. These modules install in minutes and, as shown in Figure 2, all network address and name service provisioning can now be executed automatically, without human intervention or inter-departmental interaction. Unlike custom workflows and basic vRO plug-ins that require continuous effort and investment to maintain, all of SovLabs’ integration modules are standard products that install in minutes with demonstrated compatibility and full support. With SovLabs’ IP IPAM and DNS Modules for vRealize Automation, total provisioning time can be reduced from days to minutes, accelerating time-to-value for new projects and reducing operational costs.

“Scripts are more fragile …. What you end up with is disconnected islands of automation”[6]

What is needed, then, is a complete solution that provides end-to-end automation of IPAM and DNS provisioning, completely from within vRealize Automation, without incurring the burden, expense, risk and complication of developing and maintaining a library of custom scripts.

FIGURE 2: Summary of manual network address and name services configuration

To ensure that the benefits of this seamless integration scale “in the real world”, SovLabs uniquely extends beyond single-solution provisioning and de-provisioning to provide the same transparent vRA automation even when multiple IPAM and DNS address management solutions, often from different vendors, are in use.

Key benefits of adopting SovLabs’ IPAM and DNS modules for vRealize Automation are summarized in Table 1.

TABLE 1: Summary of SovLabs' IPAM + DNS module benefits

CONCLUS ION

For many enterprises, deploying cloud infrastructure offers the best path to accelerate time-to-market and enable strategic agility. Successful cloud programs require comprehensive automated network provisioning to realize anticipated cloud benefits and deliver resources on-demand. To sustain maximum responsiveness in cloud environments, it is also necessary to automate de-provisioning of resources when they are no longer required, thereby making those resources available to support future demands.

SovLabs' IPAM and DNS modules for vRealize Automation are standard products that integrate leading IPAM and DNS automation solutions seamlessly into vRealize Automation, without need for custom scripting, to deliver maximum automation and accelerate time-to-market.

Footnotes:

1. 6 trends that will shape cloud computing in 2017, CIO - November 2, 2016

2. IT as a service: From build to consume, McKinsey&Company - September 2016

3. Leaders and laggards in enterprise cloud infrastructure adoption, McKinsey&Company – October 2016

4. Raising your Digital Quotient, McKinsey & Company - June 2015

5. How To Predict The Success Of Your Cloud Project, Toms IT Pro - February 3, 2013

6. Ibid

7. Automation: The Next Frontier for IT, Gartner - May 18, 2016

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