This EMC Perspective describes how EMC IT has automated provisioning of Enterprise Platform as a Service using cloud-optimized management tools and a self-service portal.
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EMC IT Automates Enterprise Platform as a Service
1. EMC IT AUTOMATES ENTERPRISE
PLATFORM AS A SERVICE
Self-service portal delivers ready-to-use
development platform in less than one hour
Application developers order from online catalog with just a few clicks
EMC IT has automated provisioning of Enterprise Platform as a Service (ePaaS)
using cloud-optimized management tools and a self-service portal.
The initial prototype service automates on-demand delivery of EMC VMware
vFabric™ Suite runtime platforms to application developers at EMC, leveraging
VMware vCloud Suite and Puppet Labs tools. The service reduces the time-toprovision a complete development environment for SpringSource Java
applications—including network, storage, data protection, and application
monitoring— from months to days, and, in some cases, to less than one hour.
The automated ePaaS capability marks an important milestone in EMC’s cloud
journey to transform its global IT operation into a fully automated service delivery
organization. The portal is now being extended to enable EMC developers to selfEMC PERSPECTIVE
provision ready-to-use Microsoft .NET runtime platforms as well.
2. NEED FOR SPEED
Like other enterprises, EMC recognizes that its continued business innovation and
competitiveness depends on ever more agile and cost-efficient IT services.
EMC IT has long envisioned automated platform provisioning as a fundamental part
of being able to provide businesses with the IT services they need, when they need
them. Achieving this goal, however, had been hindered by a legacy of fragmented
and overlapping management tools and cumbersome IT processes.
With virtualization and the availability of new virtualization management tools, the
organization recognized an opportunity to take a new approach to delivering readyto-use platforms as a service.
FOCUSING ON APPLICATION DEVELOPERS
EMC IT decided to focus first on meeting the platform provisioning needs of
application developers. With approximately 500 EMC business applications, many
different project teams are concurrently creating, modifying, testing, and deploying
software around the world. The ability to quickly, efficiently, and securely provision
development platform requests would contribute significantly to strategic software
development lifecycle (SDLC) objectives and reducing the time and cost of bringing
innovation to market.
In addition, a relatively large proportion of IT provisioning requests are from
application developers. By streamlining and automating provisioning for this
community, EMC IT could realize considerable efficiency improvements, while also
restricting the impact of change and gaining experience for rolling out services to a
broader user population.
FOUR MONTHS, 600 WORK-HOURS
Traditionally, the creation of application development environments is an ad hoc,
largely manual, and siloed process. It is resource-intensive, error-prone, and takes
too long to support critical business and time-to-market objectives.
At EMC, for example, custom application development platform configurations could
take as long as 2-to-2.5 months to design—with deployment adding another month
or more. In all, the time from initial request to platform delivery could be as long as
4 months—and require 600 work-hours of effort.
Highly variable development platform configurations have consequences after
deployment, too. They make the IT environment less stable and scalable, increase
support costs, and complicate enterprise SDLC initiatives.
What’s more, developers are increasingly bringing their own personal servers to
work—or purchasing servers from the public cloud—to meet critical deadlines for
testing projects and delivering innovation. When the project is done, the user must
submit a request with IT to integrate the server into the corporate standard, which
is a long and costly process. These practices also expose the enterprise to multiple
security risks.
ACCELERATING DEVELOPMENT WITH PRIVATE
CLOUD
In addressing development platform provisioning time, cost, and risk issues, EMC IT
was able to build on and leverage virtual cloud infrastructure and efforts already
underway to optimize its cloud operating model with end-to-end IT-as-a-Service
(ITaaS) capabilities.
3. With 93 percent of its data center infrastructure now virtualized, EMC IT has
EMC IT TRANSFORMATION
achieved many of its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) objectives. Enterprise
applications, virtualized on VCE Vblock™ Systems are managed using VMware
RESULTS
operations and automation tools. An IaaS infrastructure service catalog has been
EMC IT’s new ePaaS capability
builds on the transformation todate in the organization’s Cloud
Infrastructure and Virtual Data
Centers.
developed. And virtual infrastructure (virtual CPUs, memory, storage) is dynamically
EMC’s IT transformation journey
began in 2004, when, as an
$8.2-billion-dollar company with
24,000 employees, it installed its
first virtual VMware ESX server.
Today, EMC is a $21.7-billiondollar company, with 60,000
employees. More than 93% of its
infrastructure is virtualized
(~10,000 OS images) and it is
closing in on its goal to be 100%
virtualized.
EMC IT is working to reduce the cost and time of delivering these capabilities in
Since then, EMC’s service
business, solution portfolio,
revenues, and workforce have
grown dramatically—and the size
of its data has grown 13-fold—
yet the corporate IT budget and
physical data center space have
remained constant.
Years ago, every application that
came into the datacenter was
designed from the ground up
with its own dedicated stack.
Now EMC IT is leveraging its
virtual infrastructure to change
its IT service delivery mode and
to “go to market” with new PaaS
and other highly responsive and
efficient IT-as-a-Service offerings
for business users.
For more information on EMC IT
initiatives and results, visit the:
EMC IT Proven website at:
www.EMC.com/emcitproven
EMC IT Blog Site at:
www.EMC.com/emcit
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pooled and shared across EMC global data centers.
To be productive, however, users need more than infrastructure. They need access
to specific software capabilities.
multiple ways, including:
•
Enterprise Platform as a Service—ePaaS delivers on-demand delivery of
automated IT platform operations as a service, including compute, network,
storage, data protection, monitoring, and application development
•
Software as a Service—SaaS enables authorized users to securely access and
work with private or public cloud based applications using an on-demand
consumption model
•
User Interface as a Service—UIaaS exposes each user to the layers of
application services they need through a variety of virtualized client interface
experiences, including mobility, virtual desktop, and/or “bring your own device”
(BYOD) computing choices
Wrapping all of these services together are user-centered IT Service Management
practices and end-to-end processes that replace traditional technology-centered
silos and leverage new, more intelligent and automated IT operations and services
orchestration tools.
5. HOW IT WORKS
Rather than submitting a request for specific infrastructure and
software to IT, users choose from a list of standardized platform
service offerings in a secure, self-service portal.
Users log in and select virtual machine (VM) images that reflect the
corporate “gold standard” image with standard corporate security
and backup.
Structured, standard service offerings, based on three tiers—the
application tier, web tier, and data tier—limit variation to ensure
consistency and simplify downstream support.
Requesters can use the portal to monitor the progress of their
order through the automated build and delivery.
Once the user has completed development and testing the VM is
returned to IT.
AUTOMATED SERVICE CATALOG
vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) controls portal access and
automates the catalog request service, using role-based access to
deliver the service options relevant to the individual user.
The user selects from a graphical menu to specify requirements,
including configuration, compliance, delivery, and chargeback
information and enters the quantity required. The user can review
their order and edit if required. They can also review cost prior to
submitting their order.
After the order is submitted, vCAC monitors the progress of the
provisioning process and sends the requester update notifications
via email. The requester can also return to the portal to check
status, which is updated in realtime.
AUTOMATED PROVISION MANAGEMENT
vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) acts as the virtual infrastructure
provisioning engine. It adds virtual machines (VMs) to the network,
and generates the application configuration. It manages the
sequence of provisioning and, as required, calls other subsystems
to execute specific provisioning tasks.
vCO also monitors the provisioning process as it executes.
Authorized users can view a dashboard with the status of all orders
submitted. They can select an expanded view for each order to
view details of workflow execution progress and status, and drill
down for still more detail on each of the specific services initiated
by the vCAC order.
AUTOMATED SECURITY AND LOAD BALANCING
vCloud Networking and Security automatically implements preapproved policies to manage platform security, including secure
application isolation from other applications hosted in the
environment. The tool uses the provisioning pools, which describe
individual machines attached to virtual interfaces, to automatically
configure load balancing.
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7. Each resource can then be individually selected to show more detailed metrics, for
example: CPU, memory, and storage performance. Administrators can review
historical data, as well as current statistics, and use the data to perform predictive
analysis.
An automation process runs in the background for each application tag, periodically
updating the topology with additional metric data. For example, infrastructure data
is collected from Virtual Center and application-specific data is collected by Hyperic
and Oracle Enterprise Manager and categorized in the topology view, to provide a
single consolidated performance view of the application.
Administrators can again drill down for more detail. For example, for storage, they
can see capacity, allocated disk space, disk I/0, the number of running VMs, and
individual data stores associated with each platform. They can also look at how
other applications are affecting the application; for example, applications sharing
virtual LUNs.
FASTER TIME-TO-VALUE
Currently, automated ePaaS delivered from private cloud enables user-selected
application development platforms to be deployed within an hour or a day, instead
of taking weeks and months.
Combined with the use of agile development methodologies and more integrated
and efficient management techniques across the application life cycle, ePaaS helps
EMC IT to meet demand from application and business unit stakeholders for faster
production releases, which, in turn, enables the company to better meet the needs
of its customers and compete in the marketplace.
EMC IT is continuing to invest in the evolution and enhancement of a robust ePaaS
capability. Currently, it is working to extend the service to developers requesting
Microsoft .NET platforms.
The business case indicates payback of operational and capital investment in an
enterprise capability within 2 years through benefits, including:
•
Faster time-to-value with platform provisioning, with turnaround times reduced
from weeks and months to hours and minutes
•
Increased quality through configuration standardization, automation, and
enforcement
•
Increased efficiency through automation and complexity reduction
•
Increased self-service, from help desk to portal
•
Increased user satisfaction, from IT issued to business and user choice
•
Increased financial accountability and transparency, from subsidized budget to
metered, cost-neutral chargeback
•
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Increased operation efficiency, from Infrastructure silos to IT services