1. technology and computing

How to Make the Most of Cloud
Computing Without Sacrificing Control
A Look at IBM’s Uniquely Well-Balanced Approach to
Managing Cloud Services Across Their Full Lifecycle
An ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) White Paper
Prepared for IBM
September 2010
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Table of Contents
Executive Summary..............................................................................................................................................1
Cloud Computing: Benefits and Challenges ...................................................................................................1
Cloud Drivers and Benefits...........................................................................................................................2
Some Cloud Computing Challenges...........................................................................................................3
Workloads ..............................................................................................................................................4
Optimizing Cloud Computing Through a Lifecycle Approach...................................................................5
IBM’s Distinctive Technologies for Cloud Lifecycle Enablement........................................................6
Setting Objectives and Baselining . .............................................................................................................6
IBM Technologies to Support More Effective Planning and Preparation for Cloud..............7
Discovery: TADDM.............................................................................................................................7
Reconciliation and Visibility for Planning and Managing Change: CCMDB............................8
Asset Management and Planning: TAMIT .....................................................................................8
Provisioning Cloud Services.........................................................................................................................9
IBM’s Distinctive Portfolio for Cloud-related Provisioning ........................................................9
Provisioning with TSAM.....................................................................................................................9
IBM Service Delivery Manager........................................................................................................ 10
IBM CloudBurst................................................................................................................................. 10
Monitoring Cloud Services........................................................................................................................ 11
How IBM Brings Business Service Management to Cloud....................................................... 11
Bringing it All Together with Tivoli Business Service Management (TBSM)......................... 11
Accounting for Value for Cloud Services................................................................................................ 12
Accounting for Value with Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager......................................... 12
Managing Change and Planning for Next Steps .................................................................................. 13
IBM’s Holistic Architecture Offers Strong Governance Advantages for Cloud................... 13
EMA Perspective................................................................................................................................................ 14
About IBM ......................................................................................................................................................... 15
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Executive Summary
Cloud computing is on the rise for good reason as it can deliver strong values in terms of cost
savings and more flexible, versatile and potentially even more resilient IT services. However, Cloud
computing also brings many obstacles with it in terms of enhanced requirements for visibility, control
and automation.
Just as significantly, Cloud computing places extreme demands
for effective cross-domain collaboration that more siloed IT
Cloud computing places
organizations will struggle with without the right management
extreme demands for effective
foundation. This is becoming more and more evident as virtualized
cross-domain collaboration
infrastructures and other Cloud services become more pervasively
operational versus niche. Enterprises and organizations seeking
to optimize their Cloud investments will also need to understand
how to plan for Cloud services in terms of application-to-infrastructure and application-to-application
interdependencies, addressing critical workload requirements with a top-down service impact
perspective. Otherwise IT will be crawling through the process via bottoms-up pockets of virtualization
that can easily lead to train wrecks down the road.
Finally, Cloud represents a largely unchartered territory in terms of defining roles and responsibilities across
entire communities of enterprises and service providers. These are largely process and organizational
issues, but technology can help pave the way. Without the proper capabilities to account for and measure
value, as well as to provision new services and monitor performance and impact, enterprises will not be
able to effectively optimize hybrid environments in order to meet business objectives.
This ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES® (EMA™) report looks at the Cloud
opportunity and its challenges in context with IBM’s well balanced approach to managing private and
public Cloud requirements. The report targets the full service lifecycle, from planning, to provisioning,
to monitoring and optimizing, to ongoing governance and continued improvement.
Cloud Computing: Benefits and Challenges
The U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) defines Cloud computing as: “a model
for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks,
servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort
or service provider interaction.”
Note that while this requires that computing services must be accessible across a network, it does not
necessarily require that they be accessible across the public Internet. However, it does require resources
be pooled and reusable, rapidly reconfigurable, and accessible with little manual intervention from IT
staff. It’s also worth highlighting several key characteristics that make up much of both the value and
the challenge of optimizing Cloud computing environments:
• On-demand self service – so that a user can ideally unilaterally provision computing capabilities or
access application services when needed.
• Broad network access – in order to match a wider variety of services with a larger number of users
across different device types (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, PDAs, etc.).
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
• Resource pooling – which typically requires dynamically assigning different physical and virtual
resources based on customer demand using a multi-tenant model. This means dynamically
reallocating systems, storage, network bandwidth and applications based on user needs in a way
that makes the physical and geographical location of the resources invisible to the user.
• Rapid elasticity – so that resources can be quickly and easily provisioned based on demand.
• Measured service – so that Cloud services can be accurately accounted for and assessed in terms of
cost and value with transparency to both provider and consumer.
NIST also specifies three service models for Cloud computing:
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): Providers deliver applications to consumers (internal or external) over a
Cloud infrastructure typically accessed through a thin client interface, such as a Web browser.
• Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS): Here the provider offers both an underlying Cloud infrastructure and
application-related tools and resources such as programming languages to an internal or external
consumer.
• Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS): Providers deliver Cloud infrastructure support (systems/processing,
storage, networks, etc.) to support consumer (internal/external) requirements for running
applications and operating systems.
These service categories and characteristics suggest a number of benefits as well as challenges when
it comes to effective management – from provisioning, through operational management, retirement,
governance, planning and control.
Cloud Drivers and Benefits
EMA research from January 2010, The Responsible Cloud, examined both the benefits and challenges of
Cloud computing. It drew from more than 150 global respondents, 65% of whom already had Cloud
computing deployments, and 35% of whom had defined and committed plans for Cloud adoption
within twelve months.
Most IT organizations plan
mixed or hybrid approaches
to Cloud adoption including
both on-premise internal
and off-premise hosted.
This data showed that private Cloud adoptions, in which IT is
the “service provider,” led public Cloud computing adoptions
from external services providers by more than two to one, while
on the other hand most IT organizations plan mixed or hybrid
approaches to Cloud adoption including both on-premise internal
and off-premise hosted. Similarly, SaaS led both PaaS and IaaS by
about twenty percentage points.
Among the more favored Cloud computing services were
storage-related, application test and development environments,
production Web hosting, and a number of applications ranging from back-office (payroll, HR, etc.),
to messaging and collaboration, sales-related, and ERP. Not surprisingly, those applications most
critical to the functioning of the business as whole, such as ERP applications, were adopted most
conservatively and cautiously, as IT organizations wrestled with the issues and challenges of going
forward with Cloud.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
In general, the survey respondents were strongly positive about Cloud-computing related benefits,
with 76% of those in deployment claiming real or measurable financial benefits from Cloud. Figure 1
highlights the most critical drivers for Cloud computing adoption. As you can see cost reduction (both
operational and capital) are dominant objectives, as well as increased flexibility and improved service quality
due to greater responsiveness to user demand and superior infrastructure resiliency. Among the most
dramatically achieved benefits, capex led opex savings, while improved service quality, freeing up human resources
and reducing complexity all scored high.
Reduce the operational costs of IT
management
52%
Improve IT service quality
46%
Reduce the capital costs of IT management
42%
Increase flexibility and agility
36%
Reduce complexity of IT management
30%
Enable disaster recovery/business continuity
27%
Improve security or risk management
outcomes
22%
Free up resources for strategic projects
21%
Improve regulatory compliance
11%
Expand revenue channels by reselling Cloud
services
10%
Other (Please specify)
1%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Figure 1: Cost savings and superior service delivery are among the top drivers for Cloud computing adoption. Better
than 75% of those respondents with actual Cloud adoptions reported measurable financial savings.
Some Cloud Computing Challenges
The dynamic nature of Cloud computing, as well as the organizational and political complexities of
managing Cloud internally and externally, is still forcing many IT organizations to deliberate on how
and when to adopt Cloud services. In fact, some of this deliberation can be healthy if it’s put into active
assessments and plans. Figure 2 highlights what survey respondents found most problematic about
Cloud computing adoptions.
1. Human/ political issues
2. Cost of migration/ implementation
3. Inadequate tools or processes for IT management
4. Increased operational costs
5. Degraded or uncertain regulatory compliance
6. Degraded security or risk outcomes
7. Increased capital costs
8. Poor service quality, more down time, slow response
9. Limited or non-existent backup and recovery, or business continuity
Figure 2: Organizational, political and process challenges typically outweigh purely technical challenges
in adopting Cloud computing services, but good management solutions can go a long way to providing
the foundation for dialog and problem solving needed for effective Cloud adoptions
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
While many IT organizations have struggled with the challenges
of effectively partnering with external service providers, Cloudrelated or not, due to rigidity and lack of process-related clarity,
internal organizational challenges are often present as well. Survey
data shows that Cloud adoptions often touch many organizations
within IT, including data center, architecture, network operations,
cross-domain service management, security, storage and others.
Ensuring that these organizations work together effectively requires
superior management tools as well as more mature processes.
Survey data shows that Cloud
adoptions often touch many
organizations within IT, including
data center, architecture,
network operations, crossdomain service management,
security, storage and others.
Security in multiple arenas (data protection, access control, regulatory compliance requirements, and
vulnerabilities to outside security threats) are top of mind in many IT organizations, as are fears that
service quality and service performance will decline once IT applications are dependent on more
dynamic and potentially more chaotic Cloud infrastructures.
Managing changes and keeping account of the values and costs of critical IT assets can also become
more problematic with Cloud. Another sometimes valid concern is that costs will go up, at least initially,
as IT organizations try to gauge and assess exactly what it will take organizationally and technically to
make their Cloud computing adoptions a success.
Workloads
One of the challenges that IT organizations often face once they get beyond toe-in-the-water
Cloud deployments is managing workloads in the context of broader application and other service
requirements. Workloads reflect specific processing requirements that can vary significantly based on
the sensitivity and complexity of the application service they support. For instance, a single application
service might have various software components resident on three separate physical servers or VMs
– an application server, a middleware server, and a database server, each of which represents separate
workload requirements. Understanding how to optimize these
workloads cannot be done on a per VM or per server basis.
Workloads reflect specific
processing requirements
that can vary significantly
based on the sensitivity and
complexity of the application
service they support.
Knowing how and where relevant applications and application
components reside across an entire application ecosystem (e.g.,
DNS lookup or security services is required for many applications
to function) is important for taking control of broader workload
issues. Web 2.0 application modularity multiplies these application
ecosystem complexities, as do Web Services-based SOA
implementations where requested services are at least partly
dynamic.
IT organizations will also want to decide which workloads are:
• Processing intensive – where strong batch processing requirements apply to support complex
application queries.
• Request intensive – workloads for highly interactive applications requiring fast response to many
multiple requests at once.
• Event-driven – workloads supporting application services that respond to often unpredictable
event streams.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
• Multiple-application-dependent – workloads such as those where there are many application components
that need to function with collective precision to support a single business transaction. For instance
a loan processing application would typically require interactions across multiple databases, as well
as an outwardly facing application and orchestration or middleware component.
• Multiple VMs on a single server – Conversely, the same physical server may host VMs supporting
different application ecosystems, so that high demand for one could easily disrupt performance
on the other with no visible connection if the performance monitoring system cannot capture
virtual-to-physical interdependencies.
• Single user versus multi-user interdependent – many initial Cloud computing deployments have featured test
or development environments with single users. On the other hand, production level applications
support multiple users and carry with them far more complex operational demands.
• Business-critical, volume-critical, or security critical – workloads are as varied as the application
ecosystems and application components they support. Those which are very sensitive to business
competitiveness or security/compliance issues are often those with the greatest perceived barriers
to Cloud adoptions. Workloads subject to extremely high, unpredictable volumes on the other
hand can be natural targets for Cloud, where infrastructure resources can be dynamically reassigned
based on need.
Optimizing Cloud Computing Through a Lifecycle
Approach
In order to optimize your Cloud computing investments, it’s ideal to take a lifecycle approach so that
Cloud resources can be fully understood in the context of the services they support in terms of value,
costs, capacity, performance, compliance and security, with an eye
to business impact and business and organizational contributions.
EMA recommends the following five steps that will be dealt with
in more detail in each of the sections below:
1. Setting objectives and baselining
In order to optimize your Cloud
computing investments, it’s ideal
to take a lifecycle approach.
2. Provisioning Cloud services
3. Monitoring Cloud services for performance and SLA compliance
4. Accounting for value – planning for optimization
5. Continual service improvement
These are a rough parallel to ITIL v3’s recommendations for service lifecycle management – which
includes:
• Service strategy – planning and aligning IT’s service portfolio in conjunction with business
objectives
• Service design – application and other service development
• Service transition – provisioning new or enhanced services across the infrastructure
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
• Service Operation – monitoring and optimizing service delivery on a day-to-day level
• Continual Service Improvement – governance to optimize service delivery and business impact based
on data, analysis and effective dialog across IT and the business it supports
It should be stressed that all of these steps include process and potentially organizational discussions
to support more effective planning, collaboration and execution across different disciplines. This can
become especially important in Cloud adoptions because of their dynamic nature and their inherently
cross-domain impact.
IBM’s Distinctive Technologies for Cloud Lifecycle Enablement
IBM has taken a balanced and well-thought-out approach to supporting Cloud computing adoption
through its own core portfolio and architectural strengths combined with unique new capabilities
optimized specifically for Cloud and hybrid environments. IBM’s portfolio combines key foundational
requirements for application dependency mapping, configuration
and change management, provisioning, performance monitoring,
as well as accounting and asset management, with a strong focus
IBM’s ability to unify cost, usage,
on automation and business impact.
performance, provisioning,
and capacity planning as a
mutually reinforcing set of
solutions and data points for
Cloud and hybrid environments
is unique in the industry.
IBM’s product alignment is not only well integrated, but based on
an overarching architecture, well optimized for automation and
business/service impact analysis for Cloud, hybrid, and traditional
infrastructures. IBM’s ability to unify cost, usage, performance,
provisioning, and capacity planning as a mutually reinforcing set
of solutions and data points for Cloud and hybrid environments
is unique in the industry.
IBM also offers services specifically targeted at supporting planning and readiness requirements for
Cloud. IBM’s services are arguably the most complete in the industry as they include both process and
organizational discussions as well as technology adoption planning. IBM’s leadership in understanding
of business models in individual verticals positions it well to support Cloud adoptions aligned with
specific business outcomes.
This report will focus on IBM’s management solution set for Cloud lifecycle management in context
with the phases outlined above.
Setting Objectives and Baselining
While it may sound self-evident, the first basic premise of knowing why you are going forward with
Cloud computing is often overlooked in an era when “hot technology” all too often becomes an end
in itself. To be clear, Cloud computing is not an end in itself. It is, like virtually all IT technologies, an
enabler for more effective and efficient service delivery.
Once approached from that perspective, you are better able to ask the right questions. A partial list of
go forward questions might include:
• “What types of services are best suited for my first-phase Cloud deployment?”
• “What types of cost and performance goals and metrics are most appropriate for measuring and defining my
objectives?”
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
• “Who will benefit most and how should I set their expectations?”
• “What technology requirements are necessary for initiating and managing my Cloud adoption?”
• “What process changes do I have to make within my IT organization to support Cloud deployments?”
• “What service providers, if any, make sense for phase one adoption and what T’s and C’s do I need in place to ensure
they’ll be true partners to me in supporting my Cloud requirements?”
• “What are the workloads associated with initial phase deployments and what are their processing requirements/
vulnerabilities?”
• “How do I know when I’m successful with phase one and ready to move on to phase two?”
In other words, prepare for Cloud adoption through creative planning, dialog and socialization with all
affected constituencies. Remember to include relevant executives and business and technical consumers.
One trick to keep in mind is to optimize where both need and enthusiasm levels are high, once you can
validate that your technology, process and organizational readiness can support your goals.
IBM Technologies to Support More Effective Planning
and Preparation for Cloud
If you don’t know what you have in terms of infrastructure
(physical and virtual), you will have no solid foundation for
planning and optimizing your Cloud investments. IBM’s solution
set for supporting this includes three key product/ technology
areas:
Discovery: TADDM
If you don’t know what you
have in terms of infrastructure
(physical and virtual), you
will have no solid foundation
for planning and optimizing
your Cloud investments.
Central to IBM’s discovery is Tivoli Application Discovery
and Dependency Manager (TADDM). TADDM is designed
to support effective discovery of interdependencies including application-to-application, applicationto-infrastructure and infrastructure-to-infrastructure, with support for both physical and virtual
infrastructures. This capability is central for optimizing how and where to plan to optimize workloads
as they impact business or IT services. TADDM can keep a current view of where and how physical
and virtual infrastructures can impact service performance, as well as supporting more effective
automation and compliance in managing change.
TADDM is designed to assimilate and reconcile other discovery sources such as, for instance, network
discovery from Netcool or from other third-party brands for physical and logical layer connectivity,
and has sensors to support VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V and PowerVM™ for virtualized systems.
TADDM’s proactive discovery delivers near-real-time visibility into Cloud-related and hybrid
configuration changes as they happen. TADDM’s Utilization sensors also support capacity planning
requirements by identifying underutilized servers for clustering or for optimizing hybrid and virtualized
environments.
TADDM works as a natural extension of IBM’s overarching architectural direction, with direct support
for its CCMDB, and its Common Data Model. This means that TADDM can automatically interrelate service impact issues to infrastructure and configuration changes, as under- and over-utilized
infrastructure components.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Reconciliation and Visibility for Planning and Managing Change: CCMDB
EMA research shows compelling advantages for CMDB deployments in supporting and accelerating
Cloud deployments. Two thirds of respondents felt that shared CMDB systems would strongly
advantage Cloud service provider relationships for reasons of security, change management and
control, consistent baselines for best practices, and other reasons. But even more dramatically, those
with integrated CMDB deployments are accelerating effective Cloud deployments across a wide range
of services (infrastructure, application, etc.) by a minimum of 30% and as much as 100%.
IBM Tivoli’s Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB) is designed to support
a reconciled view of infrastructure, applications, process, service, asset/cost and business-related
interdependencies. One of the unique strengths of a CMDB and its modeling is its ability to link
physical and logical connections, such as who “owns” a problem, or who is the customer for a specific
service, as well as service provider-related T’s and C’s associated with specific services or service
components. This is especially critical for Cloud computing adoptions where a wide variety of physical
and logical associations need to be brought together and reconciled with currency and accuracy.
Like TADDM, IBM’s CCMDB leverages the Common Data Model and supports dynamic insights
relevant to everything from service performance to asset planning and infrastructure optimization
for Cloud and hybrid environments. EMA has seen many successful IBM CCMDB deployments
designed to support a wide range of objectives, including capacity planning for virtualized and hybrid
infrastructures.
Asset Management and Planning: TAMIT
Tivoli Asset Management for IT supports the following capabilities:
• IT Asset Lifecycle Management – for planning, acquiring, deploying, maintaining and retiring critical
IT assets, including support for Cloud and hybrid environments.
• Software Asset Management (SAM) – including SW License Management, which can be so critical to
Cloud and SW inventory
• HW asset management – so IT can create baselines for planning Cloud-related and other initiatives in
terms of infrastructure costs and infrastructure optimization
• Process support – with direct links into the Tivoli Process Automation Engine (TPAE) that can
enhance everything from change and configuration management, to service request management
and service provisioning, to lifecycle management requirements such as patch updates, maintenance
windows, and incident and problem management.
IBM’s capabilities for linking IT
and business asset management
requirements are currently
unequaled in the industry.
TAMIT is also tied into industry solution sets through Maximo
Asset Management, which can enable superior business impact and
business alignment in planning and optimizing Cloud computing
investments. IBM’s capabilities for linking IT and business
asset management requirements are currently unequaled in the
industry. IBM Maximo Data Center Infrastructure Management
integrates with TAMIT, and visualizes and manages the physical
infrastructure of the data center, including IT and non-IT assets,
facilities, space, power, cabling and network connectivity.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Provisioning Cloud Services
Provisioning services for Cloud environments, much like managing change and configuration
requirements in more traditional infrastructures, is not just a matter of technology, but rather requires
defined processes with clear roles, usually across IT domains. Ideally this is all supported by high
levels of automation. What is different about Cloud is the high level of dynamic currency required to
optimize efficiencies and minimize risks.
As a direct result of this, investing in effective automation is key. Automation should be able to
enable real-time or at least run-time visibility into workloads and applications, while standardizing and
enforcing established policies and procedures and so minimizing risk. Automation can also help to
make the inherent benefits of on-demand Cloud services a reality by orchestrating processes touching
on multiple IT roles when approvals between, say, service desk, asset managers, security and access
control, HR and others may slow provisioning down from a matter of minutes into a matter of days.
In EMA research, 83% of respondents with actual or committed Cloud deployments felt that integrated
capabilities for change and configuration management were important or very important. Cohesive
approaches to automation received similar rankings – at the 80% level.
IBM’s Distinctive Portfolio for Cloud-related Provisioning
IBM’s solution set for provisioning Cloud and hybrid environments builds on its strong foundations
with TADDM, CCMDB, TAMIT as well as other discovery capabilities and provisioning capabilities,
such as Tivoli Provisioning Manager for systems and Intelliden for network provisioning. Highlighted
here are three offerings specifically packaged to support Cloud requirements.
Provisioning with TSAM
The Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM) was first introduced in November of 2008 and has
enjoyed rapid and accelerated acceptance in the marketplace. It is a software solution optimized to
accelerate Cloud deployments with a thoroughgoing approach to service-aware automation. To achieve
this it leverages both Tivoli’s Process Automation Engine (TPAE) and IBM’s CCMDB (in its “federated
data subsystem”) for clearly defined insights into physical and virtual infrastructure interdependencies
from a configuration, asset and service management perspective.
It also includes capabilities from Tivoli Provisioning Manager (TPM) for actively provisioning new
VMs and the Tivoli Service Request Manager (TSRM) for self-provisioning through service catalog
requests. TPM is designed to discover and track data center resources, automate best practices, and
can create thousands of VMs simultaneously, as well as configure physical Microsoft, Linux and Unix
servers. It can also provide metering data to Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM). TSRM
can support workflows that accelerate process and approvals essential for delivering Cloud services in
the real world. TSRM can also support compliance requirements, and respond automatically to deltas
between desired and actual states to keep configurations consistent.
The benefits of this combination can be striking in terms of operational efficiencies, risk mitigation,
and responsiveness to customer needs. And as a unified package, TSAM drastically simplifies the need
for IT architects and planners to stitch together automation across multiple sources on a custom or
one-off basis. A feel for the breadth and flexibility of TSAM’s capabilities is presented graphically
in Figure 3, which illustrates TSAM’s advanced deployment and management. The graphic shows
both machine-to-machine and people-to-machine automation, including customer/requesters, request
approvals, system users, service desk workflow management and L1-3 technical support.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Figure 3: TSAM in advanced deployments delivers a rich matrix of people-to-people, machine-to-machine, and people-tomachine automation to ensure that Cloud services are optimized, consistent, and compliant. (SLIDE 22 TSAM deck)
IBM Service Delivery Manager
IBM Service Delivery Manager (ISDM) is a tighly integrated service management solution that
combines the necessary software components to implement cloud computing. It’s delivered as a preintegrated software stack deployed as a set of virtual images that automate IT service deployment,
and provide resource monitoring, cost management, and provisioning services via cloud. Products
within the software stack include Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM), IBM Tivoli Monitoring
(ITM), Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM), and Tivoli System Automation (TSA), which
is designed to control and optimize the performance of systems resources such as file utilization,
processes, and IP addresses in clustered or Cloud environments.
IBM CloudBurst
IBM CloudBurst was introduced in May 2009 as a turnkey approach to private Cloud. CloudBurst
is a purpose-built solution designed to optimize business workloads with minimal customization. It
includes the entire software stack delivered by the IBM Service Delivery Manager, as well as hardware
including preconfigured servers, storage and networking.
CloudBurst is designed for fast deployment and fast time to
value and supports a common user interface, common reporting,
security, and other services across the Cloud environment. It
integrates with existing systems, network and storage hardware,
and comes as a single blade in a BladeCenter H chassis with
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
CloudBurst is a purpose-built
solution designed to optimize
business workloads with
minimal customization.
Page 10
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
redundant Ethernet and Fibre Channel switch modules. CloudBurst also supports energy utilization
and management, backup and recovery, metering and accounting and has significantly expanded its
reporting options since its 2009 introduction.
CloudBurst is typically introduced with custom software and installation services.
Monitoring Cloud Services
Once Cloud services are deployed and workloads are optimized to support application and service
requirements, performance and service impact monitoring becomes critical. In one sense Cloud
computing changes nothing: the most fundamental baseline for success remains the effectiveness
with which end users can interact with IT and or service provider-delivered applications, whether
for communication, or information gathering, or transactions, or
collaboration, or other requirements.
In one sense Cloud computing
changes nothing: the most
fundamental baseline
for success remains the
effectiveness with which
end users can interact with
IT and or service providerdelivered applications.
This is why user experience management remains a critical ongoing
requirement for assessing the effectiveness of Cloud services. In
parallel, security and compliance requirements remain as stringent
as always – including access control, data protection and data
integrity, and support for industry and other compliance audits.
However, as important as security is, a great deal of emphasis in
Cloud deployments is beginning to shift towards performance
management, with 88% of respondents with actual or committed
Cloud deployments ranking service performance and availability
monitoring for Cloud services as important or very important.
How IBM Brings Business Service Management to Cloud
IBM leverages its Common Data Model to reconcile performance and service impact information
with its core foundations in TADDM, CCMDB, ITAM, TPAE, and other sources. This means that
there is a common architectural foundation for understanding relationships and interdependencies,
performance and service impact information, asset and cost related information, and security and other
vulnerabilities. This foundation can create a “super highway” for effective automation by providing
consistent levels of visibility and control across hybrid, physical and Cloud environments, and so, for
instance, effectively monitoring workloads in context with the application services they support.
Bringing it All Together with Tivoli Business Service Management (TBSM)
Tivoli Business Service Manager (TBSM)’s Tivoli Integrated Portal (TIP) is IBM’s answer to a cohesive
Business Service Manager dashboard. TIP technology enables TBSM to deliver task-based workspaces
supportive of individual roles in IT as well as among business and other consumers of IT services. It
is also well optimized to support consistent management between Cloud service providers and their
customers through multi-tenancy and a consistent format for authentication, authorization, single signon, and role-defined access.
Service models defined through the Common Data Model can dynamically populate TBSM, so that
critical insights into infrastructure, workloads, applications and other services can be accessed based
on policies and trusted source. Critical to Cloud are IBM’s strength in network and cross-domain
event correlation through Netcool Omnibus, and its support for transaction management and user
experience management through IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager (ITCAM) integrations.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 11
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
Given the challenges of Cloud in terms of dynamic currency, often unpredictable infrastructure
complexities, and the need to optimize on a fluid, ongoing basis, IBM’s advanced investments in
Predictive Analytics can be a particularly powerful advantage. Predictive Analytics integrates with TBSM
and leverages a range of heuristics from self-learning and anomaly detection-oriented algorithms, to
trending, to rules-based event management, to Online Analytical Processing and data warehousing.
These capabilities can support IT and service provider organizations seeking to optimize Cloud on a
continual or ongoing basis across large and complex infrastructures.
Accounting for Value for Cloud Services
With Cloud computing, the role of IT itself begins to change. It is no longer sufficient for IT
organizations to define themselves as static support groups that cost the businesses they support in
overhead, but which are black holes when it comes to demonstrating value. The options for dynamic
services that Cloud computing provides also means that IT organizations need to be able to account
for value, impact and usage if they are to meaningfully “broker” how to deliver services to their
constituencies across internal and external Cloud environments, as well as hybrid infrastructures.
The truth is that with or without Cloud the move to account for value was an inevitable direction for
IT as it matured to become a more effective part of the business ecosystem it supported. But Cloud
computing is accelerating these requirements because of its fluidity, as well as because of the fact that
in many cases business professionals are bypassing IT, or at minimum their central IT organizations,
in seeking quick access to new applications. For IT executives to remain in proactive control of these
changing infrastructure and business dynamics, usage-based accounting is finally becoming a well
understood imperative.
EMA research shows that usage analysis and accounting ranks high as a requirement for governance,
planning, optimization and communication. For instance, 66% of respondents with existing or
committed Cloud deployments ranked utilization and chargeback as a critical metric, and it ranked
fourth in overall priorities behind availability and application and network performance (See Figure
4). Not surprisingly, strong commitments to chargeback and usage-based analysis were, of all service
management disciplines surveyed, the most strongly linked to high maturity levels in seeking effective
Cloud deployments.
Accounting for Value with Tivoli Usage and Accounting Manager
IBM Tivoli’s Usage and Accounting Manager (TUAM) can collect data from TSAM to provide service
usage reporting and enable accurate billing of cloud services consumed. It provides comprehensive
insights into IT consumer costs across virtualized, hybrid and traditional infrastructure and application
environments. From a Cloud perspective, it can show who’s (individual, department, geography,
SP customer, project etc.) using what and how much of the shared resources are available. If
chargeback is desired, it can also generate bills, either for actually billing or for data-driven capacity
and portfolio planning.
TUAM drill-down delivers both per-service and per-service
component usage, which is important for Cloud. For instance,
it can itemize on a volume or dollars-and-cents basis database
usage, e-mail usage, print server usage, storage requirements, and
systems/workload usage for Cloud and non-Cloud infrastructures,
in support of both distributed and mainframe-hosted services.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
TUAM drill-down delivers both
per-service and per-service
component usage, which
is important for Cloud.
Page 12
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
The benefits of this type of visibility are manifold. It allows for capacity and resource planning,
portfolio and service planning, vendor management, and conversely vendor-enabled billing for
customers. Perhaps most importantly, it provides a foundation for IT and business executives to discuss
in consistent and meaningful dollars-and-cents terms how and why and at what cost IT services are
being used and so promote better communication between IT and the business it supports. This of
course paves the way for that elusive “holy grail” of superior business alignment.
Service or systems availability, uptime
Overall application response time
Network infrastructure performance
Cloud service utilization
Security, risk, compliance and integrity measurement
Storage system I/0 response time
Server-based transaction response time
Service response time across multiple transactions
Client- based transaction response time
Figure 4: Key metrics for optimizing Cloud services based on EMA research
Managing Change and Planning for Next Steps
Governance and continual service improvement are central requirements for an IT or service provider
organization seeking to optimize Cloud investments. This, the fifth of the IT Infrastructure Library
(ITIL)’s libraries, draws from critical investments in usage and accounting, service management, CMDB
and app dependency visibility, and security and compliance audits, among others.
Figure 4 highlights key metrics associated both with governance and planning for Cloud, as well as
for ongoing operational control. Not surprisingly more operational and service-related metrics tend to
take precedence, but usage-based insights and more componentcentric metrics (e.g., storage I/O and server-based transaction
time) are also key.
IT organizations should
approach Cloud governance and
planning on both an ongoing
and continual basis, as well
as well as a longer-term, more
strategic phased approach.
IT organizations should approach Cloud governance and planning
on both an ongoing and continual basis, as well as well as a longerterm, more strategic phased approach. For instance, operationalizing
Cloud services from niche usage to more pervasive, company-wide
dependencies will require shifts in roles, processes and KPIs, as
well as investments in more powerful technologies for automation
and visibility into Cloud services, their interdependencies, and
their impact on users and business outcomes.
IBM’s Holistic Architecture Offers Strong Governance Advantages for Cloud
If identifying and provisioning targeted Cloud deployments requires enhanced levels of visibility and
control, governance for Cloud to emerge from a purely tactical to a more strategic set of resources
places even greater demands for integrated and reconciled insights across domains. IBM’s architecture,
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 13
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
centered in its Common Data Model, CCMDB, TADDM, provides a natural foundation for both
tactical Cloud optimization, and longer-term phased planning for Cloud services. IBM’s design point
offers strong support for integrating third-party applications, including competitor applications that
can be required to round-out visibility for governance and lifecycle management in many real-world
Cloud deployments.
EMA Perspective
Cloud computing can offer dramatic benefits in terms of cost savings, flexibility, backup and recovery,
and overall service delivery – but it also carries with it a number of explicit challenges. These include
the dynamic, unpredictable nature of Cloud infrastructures, the challenges of understanding workload
requirements both in and of themselves, and most importantly in service context, and the process,
technology and organizational challenges that arise from assimilating multiple dynamic services from a
wide variety of internal and external sources.
In order to meet these challenges, it’s important that IT organizations approach Cloud computing as a
resource rather than a goal in itself. This means understanding infrastructure and service management
requirements, as well as business priorities, and having clear and well-defined objectives for utilizing and
monitoring Cloud services for performance, compliance, usage and value. Otherwise IT organizations
run the risk of getting lost in a lot of fragmentary initiatives that may seem to bring quick and easy
value, but which in the end can lead to dangerous disruptions in both how IT works, and how it
supports its business and organizational customers.
IBM offers a uniquely well-balanced approach for assimilating
IBM offers a uniquely welland optimizing Cloud computing in virtualized and hybrid
environments. IBM’s approach combines rich foundational
balanced approach for
support in terms of discovery, application dependency mapping
assimilating and optimizing
and CMDB/CMS-related service modeling with high levels of
Cloud computing in virtualized
automation for provisioning and monitoring Cloud services, as
and hybrid environments.
well as strong usage and accounting capabilities for assigning
value and costs. IBM’s capabilities are also enriched through
strong services and support that can help IT organizations better
appreciate how and where they are best positioned to begin with Cloud and how best to measure their
progress going forward. IBM’s strengths in understanding vertical industry requirements adds yet
another layer of value to its offerings, so that optimizing Cloud services for unique business models
can be more easily achieved.
IBM’s balance of services, business as well as technical acumen, and its well rounded portfolio should
serve as an example to the industry that Cloud computing is itself multi-faceted and as such requires a
strongly grounded multi-dimensional service management approach.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 14
IT & DATA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS & CONSULTING
About IBM
International Business Machinesis a multinational computer technology and IT consulting corporation
headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. The company is one of the few information
technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. IBM manufactures and
sells computer hardware and software (with a focus on the latter), and offers infrastructure services, hosting
services, and consulting services in areas ranging frommainframe computers to nanotechnology
IBM has been well known through most of its recent history as one of the world’s largest computer
companies and systems integrators. With over 350,000 employees worldwide, IBM is one of the largest
and most profitable information technology employers in the world. IBM holds more patents than any
other U.S. based technology company and has eight research laboratories worldwide. The company has
scientists, engineers, consultants, and sales professionals in over 170 countries.
How to Make the Most of Cloud Computing Without Sacrificing Control
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | www.enterprisemanagement.com
Page 15
About Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum of IT
and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth
knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help its clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services
for enterprise IT professionals, lines of business users, and IT vendors at www.enterprisemanagement.com or follow EMA on Twitter.
This report in whole or in part may not be duplicated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or retransmitted without prior written permission of
Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All opinions and estimates herein constitute our judgement as of this date and are subject to change without notice.
Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. “EMA” and “Enterprise Management
Associates” are trademarks of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
©2010 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved. EMA™, ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES®, and the mobius symbol
are registered trademarks or common-law trademarks of Enterprise Management Associates, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters:
5777 Central Avenue, Suite 105
Boulder, CO 80301
Phone: +1 303.543.9500
Fax: +1 303.543.7687
www.enterprisemanagement.com
2158.092410