In this article we will look at the private cloud and how to navigate the ocean of choices from a business and management perspective to give your efforts the best chance of success.
The journey to the cloud is not well defined, and some might consider the path to be "cloudy," to say the least. Organizations have many options, ranging from private, hybrid and public offerings including a variety of vendors and technologies to choose from. Making a decision to move any workload to the cloud is a core business decision and selecting a private cloud strategy comes with both challenges and unique benefits.
With a private cloud, the key categories of consideration are infrastructure, security, procedures, management and administration, and cost. The specific cloud technology you choose is also a key consideration, however when building your private cloud the decision isn't as simple as choosing the fastest hardware or the vendor with the most advanced technology; the more important thing is which vendor can work with and adapt to your existing business needs, direction and policies. This might seem counterintuitive when discussing new technology deployments, however according to a recent Gartner survey, 95 percent of all private cloud projects fail and among the top reasons is failure to change the business process around the new cloud offering.
The cloud is a model for elastic compute resources that are provisioned rapidly through a self-service portal with minimal management interaction. Now if we compare this to the traditional process of requesting resources through IT, we notice many companies have layers of approval that exist to prevent misuse, provide accountability and ultimately a form of chargeback for the services as well. The definition of a cloud and its model goes against many of these existing procedures, so either your organization has to adopt a new model to fit the private cloud or the private cloud has to be able to adapt itself to your company's unique needs, policies and procedures. More than likely, it will be a mix of both extremes to allow for the benefits of what the private cloud has to offer, while still incorporating some of the existing company guidelines and procedures.
So let's break down some of these top private cloud considerations.
1. Private Cloud Infrastructure
One of the core benefits of a cloud, private or public, is that it facilitates elasticity; however, being able to dynamically provision and deprovision resources based on workload demands can be problematic. For a large service provider that can balance loads between different customers and industry segments, elasticity is less of a challenge. In a private cloud setting, where the peaks and valley would most likely all come at once, this presents a challenge.
Having enough compute and storage infrastructure to handle those peak loads while not wasting capital resources during the valleys is difficult. With over subscription of resources the impact can be lessened, but not totally removed. Going with less infrastructure means less elasticity; increasing the elasticity means additional capital expenses. Finding that middle point between use and cost is never easy, but trending your usage will go a long way to understanding your company's peaks and valleys and coming up with a balance between costs and elasticity.
2. Cloud Security
With a public cloud infrastructure, security is a constant concern due to the fact that someone else has control of your data. With a private cloud infrastructure, the security falls on the business rather than an external service provider. While on the surface this would appear to be a benefit with all data remaining internal, it does come with a pretty serious drawback as well.
While all of the security controls now belong to the business, that does not mean the same party has the expertise to configure and ensure the security of the private cloud. A public cloud solution provider is likely to have dedicated security professionals. An organization with a private on-premises cloud may not have the same availability and skilled resources of a service provider that does it day in and out and has a dedicated security team. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't look at private cloud options, just realize that third party auditing or security consulting might be required depending on the skill level of your internal personnel.
3. Procedures
When you start to look at the path to a private cloud you have to be able to incorporate it into your existing business. Is your business looking to change procedures or does the private cloud have to support the existing procedures that are already in place? If your business is looking to evolve, does the private cloud option you're looking at have the ability to put multiple layers of authorization in place today and easily remove them later?
A private cloud should not be looked at to replace an internal procedure; the business is what determines that and not a software package. The private cloud has to support the businesses needed to move from a static or traditional deployment model to an elastic model. Ideally this transition is done at the pace of the business rather than simply deploying software to help ensure a successful adoption.
4. Management & Administration
Private clouds are typically designed to reduce the management overhead involved in users requesting resources. On the other hand, the management of the cloud itself still has to be taken into consideration.
While these efforts might not be seen on the user side of things, there will be maintenance, updates and general administration required to keep that low maintenance on the customer end going. Those duties fall to internal IT personnel and while it might not be extensive amounts of work, it does become an additional system the often overworked IT staff needs to take care of. Private cloud options with built-in automation and configuration capabilities can help to reduce the management burden, if the staff is able to learn how to use the tools.
5. Cost
A private cloud is not inexpensive, however the cost is much more than simply a capital investment; it's a three-part combination. Of course, you need the compute, storage and networking infrastructure to make the mechanics of a private cloud to work. Coupled with the software to run the private cloud and it does become large capital investment.
One possible way to help reduce the cost is the use of open source software. While this does reduce the initial capital spend, support services are often needed in the event of an issue. Also the open source offerings do tend to be a bit more complex in setup and operation, possibly requiring additional staff resources or training for existing staff. An often omitted aspect when evaluating commercial software versus open source options is not the upfront cost, but what happens when the software breaks and the impact in time and money lost that can occur coming back online. But this is only the first third of the cloud cost.
The personnel managing the infrastructure and the cloud software itself can require additional head count. Coupled with the security and networking needs, this can add up to an unplanned expansion of personnel. While this can be seen as a soft cost when compared to the fixed capital investments in infrastructure and software, it is still a real cost that has to be dealt with. And it doesn't matter if the cost comes from internal IT staff or outside consultants, the need is still there.
The third part of the private cloud costs that should be taken into consideration might not be the most expensive, but it can be by far the most disruptive. It involves changing existing business procedures from the traditional methods of allocating resources to a new on-demand self-service model. This can strain both management and support staff. Without a clear plan on how to successfully make this adjustment, organizations can run into problems with staff being unsure about changes or even resistant to them.
The journey to a private cloud has many potholes in the path, but as you begin to compare the different offerings and features, the key becomes looking at it from a business and management perspective, and not simply technology.
Toms It Pro
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