INFORMATIONWEEK REPORTS
Informed CIO: Private Cloud Automation
Informed CIO: Private Cloud Automation
Our InformationWeek 2012 Private Cloud Survey shows that the technology has reached a tipping point: 51% of 414 respondents, all of them involved with managing, purchasing, advising on or implementing data center technologies, are either starting a project (30%) or have a private cloud today.
Unfortunately, when we asked those building private clouds about nine critical steps, orchestrating automation across multiple subsystems came in dead last (see Figure 1, p. 5). Let’s be clear: no automation, no cloud.
How do we figure that? NIST defines cloud as having five essential characteristics: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity or expansion, and measured service. While virtualization and proper WAN engineering will provide resource pooling, elasticity and broad network access, measured service and—most importantly—on-demand self-service are not part of standard virtualization management suites. No, for self-service, automation is required to drive the infrastructure in a preprogrammed fashion in accordance with “customer” desire, even if private cloud “customers” are really just internal resources. Here’s how to get there. (S5170612)
