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May 2011 - Posts

Cloud Service Optimizer: ERP For The Cloud

Published: May 24 2011, 01:40 PM | 2 Comment(s)
by Don Ferguson

Solving the problem of mapping and managing an IT Cloud Service  is similar to an supply chain management problem applied to IT resources as opposed to physical manufacturing. This model requires a completely new type of software system – cloud service optimizer (CSO), which is analogous to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for manufacturing. The CSO adds functions, specifically design time and execution time optimization, typically not part of an ERP system.

As shown in Figure 1 below, a CSO High Level Architecture introduces the five core systems in a Cloud Service Optimizer:

  • Shared Information, which has two components: 1) A logical, federated database of IT services, resources, systems extended to include information about cloud services. 2) A federated knowledge management and collaboration system for public and private communities defining IT cloud services, consuming cloud services and providing cloud services.
  • Insight discovers, analyzes, correlates, reconciles and normalizes information about IT services, resources, applications, transactions and policies. Insight extends traditional Monitor—Analyze with: 1) discovered and analyzed information about cloud services. 2) service level contracts between a provider a service/function and the IT service that embeds it in the supply chain.
  • Compose provides support for modeling new or modified IT cloud service supply chains, including service level contracts.
  • Optimize is a set of engines and disciplines for computing optimal realizations of the supply chain. Optimization occurs for deploying new or modified supply chains as well as dynamic optimization of deployed and executing supply chains.
  • Orchestrate implements automation processes and rules to provision and modify a supply chain at the direction of optimization.

 


Figure 1: CSO High Level Architecture
Subsequent blog entries will describe each of these systems and CA Technologies product realization. A short, partial preview of products realizing the vision is:


1. Shared Information: Catalyst, Unified Service Model, CA Open Space
2. Insight: CA NetQoS, CA Oblicore Guarantee, CA Spectrum Service Assurance, CA Spectrum Infrastructure Manager.
3. Optimize: CA Virtual Automation, CA 3Tera AppLogic and the workload automation/optimization products have basic optimization functions. 
4. Compose: AppLogic, service modeling in Spectrum Service Assurance and CA CMDB.
5. Orchestrate: Spectrum Automation Manager, CA Identity Manager.
Catalyst, blueprints and various prebuilt content (e.g. CMDB schema, ITPAM processing, Service Catalog Entries) integrate and simplify the technology to produce customizable solution as opposed to a collection of products.
 

 

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By: Don Ferguson
Dr. Donald F. Ferguson is executive vice president and chief technology officer at CA, responsible for delivering common technology services to CA’s business units, ensuring architectural compliance and integration of the company's solutions and products. Tasked with promoting technical excellence...
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Cloud Services: From SaaS to IaaS

Published: May 11 2011, 02:02 PM | no comments
by Don Ferguson

Cloud computing for business applications applies the supply chain management model to composite IT service and applications, transforming from vertically integrated IT to an a cloud spanning application that is analogous to a traditional supply chain. The enterprise maps the IT service’s resource requirements to various cloud service providers, which may include: (see figure 1 below)

  • Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Complete, cloud-delivered applications.
  • Business-Service-as-a-Service (BSaaS): Webcallable APIs for performing specific business operations, such as FedEx APIs for shipping or Dun & Bradstreet APIs for credit ratings (see www.programmableweb.com for examples).
  • Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): Online application—enablement tools and runtimes for providing application components, e.g. Force.com, RedHat’s JBoss hosted Drupal, delivered via PaaS. An extremely important observation is that using PaaS typically involves little or no programming. Exploiting PaaS is primarily customizing the PaaS functions through customizing data models, policies, etc. 
  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): Low-level, usually hardware resources, for running the applications and software stack that the consumer supplies. Amazon EC2 is an example.           
     

Cloud computing currently focuses on IaaS and SaaS, but this will evolve over time to greater exploitation of PaaS and BSaaS. A platform or hardware server’s primary purpose is to support elements of a composite application. Almost all applications will exploit SaaS, but also need to integrate the SaaS application into a larger, business solution-specific composite application. The need for integration and customization will drive the exploitation of PaaS and BSaaS.



The motivations for cloud services evolving to the new model are:

  • Cloud service providers specializing in:
    • Surfacing business APIs through Web services and REST/HTTP RPC to complement web interfaces to the provider’s functions. For example, an enterprise can directly integrate FedEx capabilities into its applications and workflows, replacing manual interaction with the Web UI. This delivers greater efficiency and agility than implementing the corresponding function using development tools and platforms. The programmable web is simple the SOA assembly and choreography concepts applied to the cloud.
    • Replacing low-level IaaS with higher value, integrated platforms (portal, business process management, etc. for executing elements of applications. This allows platform vendors to offer their products’ value to ride the “cloud computing wave” and the benefits of SaaS. Platforms optimized for application requirements reduce complexity of deploying an application relative to IaaS. Higher value allows a cloud provider to have higher margins.
  • Enterprise selecting, deploying and managing the composite application by:
    • Selecting the ideal provider for the various sub-elements of the larger application (Figure 2: Composite Application).
    • Deploying the composite application into integration and application platforms running in the cloud.
    • Managing and securing the cloud spanning application via infrastructure monitoring/management via SaaS, SaaS-enabled security systems (e.g. OpenID providers), etc.

An application/IT service following this model is an IT Cloud Service and cloud spanning application. The approach vastly reduces the cost and complexity by eliminating custom development of functional modules, acquiring and installing enabling software and hardware and exploiting greater cost and efficiency that cloud service providers can deliver.

 

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By: Don Ferguson
Dr. Donald F. Ferguson is executive vice president and chief technology officer at CA, responsible for delivering common technology services to CA’s business units, ensuring architectural compliance and integration of the company's solutions and products. Tasked with promoting technical excellence...
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The Role of Composite Applications in Cloud Computing

Published: May 09 2011, 11:10 AM | 1 Comment(s)
by Don Ferguson

I am writing a paper for an external conference and journal that defines the requirements and technology for effectively managing cloud-enabled/spanning applications. I wanted to share my observations of how businesses can fully exploit the benefits of cloud computing and gain the associated improvements in business performance while achieving sustainable competitive advantage.

This entry—the first of three on this topic—explains the role of composite applications in cloud computing. The second entry will cover the importance of providing and consuming cloud services to optimize composite applications and to achieve business agility through cloud spanning applications. The third will discuss a new type of software system for mapping and managing a cloud service.

Any non-trivial business application is a composite application (Figure 1). For example, a J2EE online ordering application might include plain-old-Java-objects (POJOs) implementing business logic, database stored procedures, portlets for the web UI, business rules to compute pricing and discounts, and a set of BPEL workflows for business processes (order processing, new product definition, etc). Slightly more complex composite applications typically include legacy applications (e.g. mainframe COBOL programs) and multiple technologies (e.g. ASP .NET, J2EE, CGI in C, PHP). Business transactions/end-to-end requests flows through the application components, for example, submit shopping cart.


Figure 1: Composite Application (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb220803.aspx)

A composite application requires a composite IT system (Figure 2: Composite IT System/IT Supply Chain). A composite IT system is an interconnected set of hardware and software resources that run and implement the composite application. The composite IT system may include:

  • Middleware:
    • Application servers: Tomcat, WebSphere, SAP NetWeaver, Microsoft Internet Information Services, JBoss, etc.
    • Portal/Collaboration Servers: Liferay, Drupal, etc.
    • Message Queuing, Event and Enterprise Service Buses: WebSphere/MQ, ActiveMQ, etc.
    • Database Servers: Oracle, MySQL, etc.
  • Operating Systems (e.g. Linux, Windows) and infrastructure software
    (e.g. Hypervisors, server daemons, Linux, Windows Server.)
  • Physical Hardware, including network attached storage (NAS), storage area networks (SAN), router, rack mounted/blade server farms, etc.

 
Figure 2: Composite IT System/IT Supply Chain

The composite application and supporting composite IT system implement an IT service. The IT service partially realizes a business service, which includes non-IT resources (physical documents, trucks, branches, etc, people and non-automated processes and policies.

The current approach to delivering IT services deploys virtually all of the hardware and software resources “in the data center”—either run by the enterprise or provided by a hosting/outsourcing company. This approach to IT is similar to vertically integrated manufacturing with all resources (factories, warehouses, manufacturing devices, etc.) inside the enterprise, and often in a small number of large factories.

Cloud computing for business applications optimizes applications and agility for new applications by mapping application and system elements to cloud service providers, producing a cloud-spanning application. The next blog entry will discuss the concept in more detail.

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By: Don Ferguson
Dr. Donald F. Ferguson is executive vice president and chief technology officer at CA, responsible for delivering common technology services to CA’s business units, ensuring architectural compliance and integration of the company's solutions and products. Tasked with promoting technical excellence...
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