Services and hardware complement each other to get enterprises up and running in a cloud environment.
Written by Chris Smith
Stephen King wrote a short novel called The Mist about New Englanders trapped in a supermarket enshrouded in fog that hides dangerous creatures. I can't help but think of this story when I read IBM literature about the cloud.
Is the IT cloud fraught with danger as AS/400 founder Frank Soltis suggests? Are security vulnerabilities so insurmountable that a public cloud can never be safe? That very well could be the case, considering the intelligence and determination hackers and malware authors are showing today. But courage is a requirement in challenging new frontiers, and limitations constricting today's data centers go beyond economics and include impending energy and even labor shortages. In today's distributed environments, where up to 85 percent of computing capacity sits idle, there is a tremendous amount of waste, waste that companies no longer can afford. Maintaining current IT infrastructure sucks up about 70 percent of today's IT budgets while new solutions and capabilities go begging. Storage requirements are growing at more than 50 percent annually.
Some believe the cloud is the answer to many of these challenges. If it just weren't for the problem of security.… However, even naysayers believe in the safety of internal clouds that allow companies to accelerate service delivery through Web-based portals; provide standard services from a single repository across the enterprise in a catalog fashion, giving users the freedom to find and request services they need; and have a single interface for IT to manage physical and virtual workloads for quick provisioning.
Not everyone out there is using IBM i running on a Power Systems server; many have a fleet of PCs or Intel-based servers running Windows and UNIX. Regardless of what they have now, many are hearing management discuss the cloud and the fact that it promises to save money, better utilize resources, and offer greater levels of responsiveness and scalability. Let's face it, more than one company has invested in a server and infrastructure based on IBM's recommendations only to find within a year or two that it's inadequate for what the latest job requirements are now. Having easy and vast scalability through a cloud infrastructure can help avoid such a dilemma.
IBM has been experimenting with the cloud at client sites for a couple of years now. In June 2009, IBM offered a private cloud solution for development and testing—the IBM Smart Business Development and Test Cloud, which is a private cloud service behind the client's firewall. It also has been beta testing development and testing on the IBM Cloud, and as of this month announced plans to go online with a commercial cloud service for software development and testing. The company now will allow enterprise and government clients to test and develop on an IBM Cloud. The company says that its beta test was successful and that it is working with partners in "cloud management, cloud security, and software development and testing support" to support development and testing on the IBM Cloud.
While IBM and others such as Amazon are dipping their toes in the public cloud waters, most companies are moving forward or considering a move ahead with private cloud initiatives that they deem more secure. If somewhat more expensive than public cloud solutions, they are less expensive than today's distributed environments.
Late last year, IBM introduced what it is calling IBM CloudBurst, and it has a complementary hardware appliance called WebSphere CloudBurst. The hardware portion of CloudBurst, while today based on System x IBM BladeCenter blades, will be expanded to Power Systems running AIX. No word yet whether it will run on IBM i, but you never know.
The base CloudBurst hardware configuration resides in a 42U rack configuration with a BladeCenter chassis, 3650M2 management server with eight cores, and 24 GB of RAM. There is a single HS22 CloudBurst Management blade with eight cores and 48 GB of RAM along with three managed HS22 blades with eight cores and 48 GB of RAM. It is configured with one DS3400 FC attached storage SAN. For a medium-sized configuration, it jumps from three managed HS22 blades to 13 blades, and for a large configuration to 28 blades.
The Cloud software configuration interestingly sits on Novell SUSE Enterprise Linux SP10, uses either VMware or KVM hypervisor for virtualization support, and is controlled with IBM Systems Director 6.1.1 with Active Energy Manager, IBM ToolsCenter 1.0, and IBM DS Storage Manager for DS4000 v10.36. It comes preconfigured with a self-service portal and service catalog; automation software and pre-packaged automation templates; metering, usage, and accounting software (IBM Tivoli Usage and Accounting); enterprise scalability software; and optional high availability and cloud management security. It supports the ability to manage other heterogeneous resources outside the IBM CloudBurst environment.
Readers can learn more about IBM CloudBurst at IBM developerWorks through the CloudBurst user guide, white paper, and customer paper. For a reasonably priced online class on configuring the WebSphere CloudBurst appliance, see CloudBurst.
The world is changing, and though the cloud may pose some risks, there probably aren't any life-threatening monsters in the mist (that we know of!).
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online