he constant demand for immediate access to data and resources,
reliability and efficiency has created a new ideal of modern,
powerful enterprise IT. Based on market research and technology
observation, this paper explores which criteria modern platforms
have to meet and how leading vendors and service providers
respond in order to deliver these platforms. It is intended as a
guideline for executives who need to make informed purchase
decisions.
Mastering MySQL Database Architecture: Deep Dive into MySQL Shell and MySQL R...
White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures- a consistent approach to meeting new IT demands
1. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
White paper
Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures-
a consistent approach to meeting new IT
demands
Contents
Introduction 2
IT challenges and technology trends 2
IT provider landscape 5
Fujitsu reevaluated 8
Conclusion 9
Page 1 of 9 http://ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
2. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
Introduction
The constant demand for immediate access to data and resources, On a functional level, they want to ensure seamless
reliability and efficiency has created a new ideal of modern, operation of their infrastructures in order to provide their
powerful enterprise IT. Based on market research and technology customers, employees, and partners with maximum
observation, this paper explores which criteria modern platforms benefits.
have to meet and how leading vendors and service providers
respond in order to deliver these platforms. It is intended as a On a strategic level, they are attempting to create
guideline for executives who need to make informed purchase competitive advantages by deploying technical innovations
decisions. that in turn could influence company-wide processes and
induce changes in business models and strategies for
IT challenges and technology trends competition.
For many years, companies have been trying to build IT infrastructures
that would serve as a utility for all departments and business units. On an organizational level, they are aiming to optimize
This trend has remained persistent as computers evolved from dumb business processes so that their organization can remain
boxes that carry out mundane tasks into today’s powerful instruments profitable and to encourage economically viable
for database operation, financial planning and scientific simulation. transformation.
To some extent, these technological advancements contributed to
achieving the goal of establishing business-driven computing Abstract as they may seem, these goals correspond to the answers the
infrastructures. However, it is still a valid observation that rather than same attendees gave when asked which of their current IT projects
subjecting to a particular business or workflow logic, IT and its have the highest priority. Here, the results indicate that their focus is
processes tend to shape operations and procedures on their own. on a variety of initiatives and infrastructure enhancements, most of
Therefore, it is important to understand the current major challenges which are centered on “cloud computing” – the new IT services
in IT as well as the status of IT evolution. delivery model that gained popularity over the past five years.
According to the interviewees, the top 5 issues are as follows:
IT goals and challenges
The ongoing digital revolution and the arrival of service-oriented, Reshaping IT strategies;
Web 2.0 architectures during the early 2000s have only confirmed Server virtualization;
companies’ needs for an efficient and flexible IT. An online survey Implementation of “private clouds”;
conducted among attendees of Fujitsu’s VISIT in-house exhibition Evaluation of “public clouds”;
Implementation of desktop virtualization concepts and
in November 2010 1 shows that decision makers and C-level
technologies (Server-based Computing, Virtual Desktop
management are pursuing three main goals with regard to their
Infrastructure, Thin and Zero Clients).
companies’ respective IT strategies:
Ranking of future IT-priorities (Top 10)
Overall Customers Partners
Rank 1. Evaluation of Cloud computing Reshaping IT Strategy Evaluation of Cloud Computing
2. Server virtualization Server virtualization Implementation of Private Cloud
3. Implementation of Private Cloud Implementation of Private Cloud Infrastructure as a Service
4. Infrastructure as a Service Evaluation of Cloud Computing Server virtualization
5. Thin Client Concepts (VDI, SBC) Thin/Zero Client Concepts Thin/ Zero Client Concepts
6. Reshaping IT strategy Business Intelligence Cloud Security Services
7. Business Intelligence Infrastructure as a Service Storage Consolidation (Unified) Topics
8. Cloud Security Services Win 7 Rollout Implementation of Hybrid Cloud Strategic initiatives
9. Storage consolidation (Unified) Server/ Storage modernization Business Intelligence Cloud Computing
10. Implementation of Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Projects
Storage Consolidation (Unified) Content Management
1
FTS VISIT 2010 Online Survey: Final Report – Overall Market Intelligence,
Munich 2010.
Page 2 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
3. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
Combined, these responses reveal that IT managers and their doing so. Another 27 percent stated there would be future plans,
superiors are collectively striving for a new level of agility, reliability, while only one third (34 percent) said they had “no plans” at all.
and cost-effectiveness, albeit for different reasons. C-level executives
typically demand that IT should make the difference in enabling their Moreover, projects from related areas such as Enterprise
organizations to meet customer needs faster than the competition – if Networking and Communication, Outsourcing and IT Services,
possible, at a better cost-performance ratio. What they expect is a Security and Compliance or Content and Collaboration could
shorter time-to-market for their innovative offerings as well as support also lead to a broader acceptance of cloud-related products,
for the retention of existing and the acquisition of new customers. services and solutions.
Thus a framework is established, while the actual task of “reshaping IT”
is delegated to company experts. While the Fujitsu survey at hand gives good temporary,
These IT decision makers, i.e. heads of data centers and cognate future-oriented insight, it does not explicitly identify underlying
departments, generally follow the C-level agenda; their deeper medium- and long-term trends, that is, the main challenges that
technical insight enables them to devise practical strategies, drive technical as well as strategic changes in data centers and IT
reference projects, and the like. Consequently, Fujitsu asked departments. For the purpose of this paper, other sources were
interviewees from this group to name their top priorities for the near therefore incorporated. Of particular importance were Gartner’s Data
future. Not too surprisingly, server virtualization – which has been a Center Issues and Priorities Survey 2010 and related analyses:
dominant trend for at least five years – still takes the lead. However,
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and cloud computing follow close Gartner asked respondents to identify the three biggest
behind, a result that clearly differs from those of the VISIT 2009 survey challenges that their organization will face respect to its data
in which these new delivery models met with a lot of skepticism. That center hardware infrastructure through the end of 2011.
means, even though both technologies have not yet achieved According to the survey, the No. 1 response was data growth,
followed by system performance and scalability, and network
mainstream status, their adoption is improving fast: by November
congestion and connectivity architecture. 2
2010, 39 percent of the respondents had either defined a “cloud
strategy”, evaluated/implemented solutions or were in the process of
Data growth 47
Systeme performance and scalabiliy 37
Network congestion and connectivity architecture 36
Cost of power, cooling and space 33
Data center management issues 30
Integrating multiple vendors´technologies 29
Virtual server sprawl 25
Underutilization of hardware and/or effective asset inventory 25
Physical server sprawl 20
Cable management issues 13
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Percentage of Respondents
2
Cf. April Adams, Naveen Mishra: User Survey Analysis: Key Trends Shaping
the Future of Data Center Infrastructure Through 2011, Gartner, October 2010,
p.4 and 5.
Page 3 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
4. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
Gartner also asked respondents what the three most important drivers
of strategic change in their organization's data center would be
through the end of 2011, business continuity and availability came in
first at 50%. Cost containment initiatives was ranked the
second-biggest driver of strategic change in the data center, followed
by the need to maintain or improve user service levels and
3
satisfaction.
Business continuity and availability 50
Cost containment initiatives 37
Maintain or improve user service levels and satisfaction 36
Infrastructure consolidation 32
Data center modernization 29
Existing data center at or nearing capacity and/or utilization limits 28
Infrastructure management concerns 23
Sustainability or green IT 21
Application consolidation or rationalizaion 21
The need to support regulation, reporting and/or compliance 18
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Percentage of Respondents
Precis
As outlined above, the purpose of this section was to identify the main services and enhanced business continuity) and increased efficiency
goals and challenges IT departments must face today. The combined (in keeping with cost containment policies). But unlike in the old days,
research results from Fujitsu and Gartner can only lead to the these demands cannot be fulfilled by simply rolling out new hardware
conclusion that there currently are three key demands that prevail in and software or marking up service level agreements alone. Instead,
enterprise environments and will likely carry over to midsize and small what companies need – and expect their IT partners to offer them – is
companies in the medium term: customers expect their future IT an integrated approach and matching portfolio of products, solutions
infrastructures to offer higher agility (more scalability and increased and services. For many vendors this means they will have to adapt to
service levels), greater reliability (availability of data and new business models or substantially upgrade their traditional ones.
3 Cf. April Adams, Naveen Mishra: User Survey Analysis: Key Trends Shaping
the Future of Data Center Infrastructure Through 2011, Gartner, October 2010, p.
8 and 9.
Page 4 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
5. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
Technology trends But even though vendors and service providers are already well on the
While the challenges that lie ahead are still complex, IT decision way, IT decision makers need to understand that this transformation
makers have to realize that the industry is constantly moving forward will happen over several years in an evolutionary, not a revolutionary
and many solutions are already close at hand. Important technological way. The reasons for this are at least twofold: on the one hand, cloud
advancements that were realized over the past 10 to 15 years include related technologies and offerings need to be developed further to
the change from proprietary hardware and software environments into provide “everything from the cloud”. On the other hand, security
standardized and integrated topologies, the introduction of concerns and compliance with legal standards make it difficult for IT
virtualization first at the server and later at the office and data center managers to switch their trusted IT environments for the new delivery
level, and finally the delivery of management tools that enable IT model anytime soon. This means that IT departments need to retain
process automation. Altogether this progress has made IT operations their capability to oversee the full technological spectrum in their data
much smoother and enabled companies to install standard centers, from traditional client/server infrastructures to cloud
infrastructures for highly specific usage scenarios, for instance online computing, yet not in a discrete but an integrated way in order to
shops, booking services, and day trading. The success of virtualization achieve greater efficiency. To many executives this may sound like
and automation in particular, along with the proliferation of business as usual; however, starting today they will have to face a
broadband telecommunications, has paved the way for a completely rising number of make-or-buy decisions – and to determine more
new delivery model for IT services. Rather than to have them in-house, frequently when it’s time for a strategic move to the next level.
which often includes a need to manage increasingly complex
networks, it is now possible to order a growing amount of capacities
and functionalities “as a service”. Some vendors offer portfolios that
range from providing extra physical servers, storage arrays and
software instances for peak demands to entirely virtualized, managed
office environments and beyond. The technical term for this new
delivery model is cloud computing, and it heralds an age of IT
industrialization – up to the point where vendors will finally be able to
fulfill the age-old dream of utility computing.
IT as a utility
Industrialization
Automation
Transformation
Virtualization Cloud Computing
Consolidation & Managed
Standardization Infrastructure
Tools for
Orchestration
Hypervisor
Industry
Standards
Time
Page 5 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
6. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
IT provider landscape
As pointed out above, the purpose of this paper is to assist business outsourcing with a variety of managed services and
and IT executives in making well informed and taking strategically telecommunications solutions; their scope, however, is somewhat
appropriate purchase decisions. To this end, this chapter shows the limited to select applications (ERP, email), tasks (archiving and
“vendor and provider landscape”, compares portfolios and strategies, document management) and platforms (mainframe, Microsoft). More
and assesses their relative pros and cons. Let’s begin with a detailed advanced offerings, such as Managed Workplace Services (MWS), are
look at market participants. just beginning to emerge.
Segmentation of IT providers It became questionable to put Dell in this category. While the
Currently only a handful of companies are offering comprehensive, company is still best known among customers for the way it
widely integrated product and/or service portfolios in combination streamlined PC production and sales throughout the 1980s and 1990s,
with a dedicated strategic concept of what computing and IT it has branched out extensively in recent years and added servers,
infrastructures should look like in future. These players may be roughly storage and networking hardware as well as solution and service
grouped into three categories: packages to its catalog. But although the company broadened its
horizontally focused companies: portfolio, its original competence in efficiency still remains very
Accenture, Dell, T-Systems strong; moreover, Dell has not changed its motto “Simplify IT” to a
alliances/mergers and acquisitions: more “dynamic” message since 2007. As a consequence, innovative
Oracle, VCE Coalition elements such as the Virtual Integrated System (VIS) Management
vertically integrated companies Suite for heterogeneous environments or various cloud-based services
Fujitsu, HP, IBM (email continuity, centralized asset management and software
distribution) so far only are delivered to a comparatively small
Horizontally focused companies customer base. Some of these services are still quite new and have
been added through the acquisition of Perot Systems (now Dell
The companies in this category are typically perceived as powerful, Services) in 2009 and Boomi in November 2010. Moreover, not all of
even dominant players in a specific market segment. However, they them are currently available outside the US. Altogether, Dell’s
usually do not cross boundaries, either because other segments are integration among products, solutions and services doesn’t appear
not in line with their business model or because their offerings quite as strong as that of other vendors.
outside their core segment have not yet matured enough. At present,
the most important companies in this group are Accenture, T-Systems
and Dell. In the case of Accenture and T-Systems, this categorization
is easy to understand. Although they will occasionally act as ‘retailers’
for select hardware and software partners, both generate their main
income from consulting, systems integration and outsourcing services
for applications, business processes and infrastructures.
Accenture, as the bigger of the two, runs a network of global Delivery
Centers across the Americas, Europe and Asia and maintains offices
and operations in over 50 countries and 200 cities worldwide. The
company serves a broad set of industries from chemicals through
healthcare and life sciences to retail and logistics and is considered a
global leader especially in systems integration, business-process
outsourcing and technology services. With regard to infrastructure,
Accenture offers packages for data center technology and operations,
service-oriented architectures, modernization, data and information
management, and a variety of Software-as-a-Service and cloud-based Alliances/mergers and acquisitions
solutions. However, these offerings are often segmented by
application and/or IT topics, which may make them complicated to The paradigm shift associated with cloud computing has spawned a
track down and understand; cloud computing and Infrastructure as a number of alliances as well as mergers in recent years. Among these,
Service solutions have only recently been added to Accenture’s the two most important ones – Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems
portfolio. and the forming of the VCE Coalition – have received extensive media
coverage.
T-Systems, a division of Deutsche Telekom, acts as a worldwide ICT
(information and communication technologies) provider for the With the acceptance of Oracle’s bid in April 2009, Sun ended a long
Group’s business customers, in particular large corporations and the period of decline; at the same time, the deal gave Oracle its
public sector, as well as other external customers. Headquartered in long-coveted chance to enter the hardware market. Following a
Germany, T-Systems has a strong European focus and is widely 20-year business relationship, the merger was hailed as an
recognized for its expertise in the automotive, transportation and “industry-defining event”; in an early statement, CEO Larry Ellison
banking sectors. The company’s infrastructure portfolio – dubbed claimed that “Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an
Dynamic Services – combines flexible IT and business process integrated system – applications to disk – where all the pieces fit and
Page 6 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
7. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
work together so customers do not have to do it themselves.” The Vertically integrated companies
company’s extended portfolio looks impressive indeed: it now offers
everything from thin clients and workstations through x86 and SPARC This last category is comprised of the vendors that offer integrated
servers to networking products and a so-called “integrated cloud product, solutions and services portfolios from a single source.
machine”. Simultaneously, its list of business software and However, what really sets them apart from other competitors is that
middleware was augmented with Java, Solaris and MySQL. But Oracle they also provide a concept of how future data centers and IT
also inherited a few assets that it needs to put back on track, such as infrastructures should function – and a strategy to get there. This
Sun’s storage unit. Further challenges could derive from the company’s description applies to HP, IBM and Fujitsu.
acquisition policy: over the past decade, Oracle has bought more than
60 different companies – among them other big names such as HP has been the largest computer manufacturer worldwide for several
PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems and BEA – which sometimes resulted in years. But that’s not where its capabilities end: HP is also a market
prolonged integration periods and temporary impairment of services. leader in peripherals, i.e. printers, scanners, and the likes. Its portfolio
is completed by networking hardware, disk and tape storage, and a
The Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) Coalition was formed in broad selection of software products. Services were first listed as a
November 2009 and unites renowned companies from very different separate business segment after the merger with Compaq in 2002;
segments of the IT market – namely VMware, Cisco and EMC. However, since then, HP has become the second largest IT services provider
in this case the disparities are considered a valuable asset, since the globally – a success that is partly due to the 2008 acquisition of
respective product portfolios complement one another: Cisco Electronic Data Systems (EDS), now known as HP Enterprise Services.
contributes its line of Unified Computing System (UCS) blade servers In the early 2000s, HP created the concept of adaptive computing – an
plus networking equipment, EMC adds what is needed for data early precursor of current dynamic infrastructure and cloud computing
storage and management, and VMware injects virtualization and solutions. Today, HP markets its related offerings under the label
operating system expertise. The companies decided to cooperate with Converged Infrastructure, which encompasses four core elements:
the specific aim to create a new major player in the cloud computing Operating Environment (management software), FlexFabric (switches,
market, whose entry barriers would otherwise have been too high for network adapters, routers etc.), Virtual Resource Pools (‘classic’ IT
any of the three participants. Betting on a rapid proliferation of products), and Data Center Smart Grid (a combined environmental/
private clouds, VCE have bundled up infrastructure packages – called facilities/ systems management solution to reduce energy
Vblock – that correspond to reference architectures for small, medium consumption). With this lineup in place, the company’s value
and large configurations. A virtual desktop infrastructure, integrated proposition is to change IT departments’ standard spending behavior –
professional services and a virtual support center complete the 70 percent of investments go into operation and maintenance – and
offering. Since Vblock are still very new to the market, no significant free up capacities for core business innovation. HP has earned lots of
sales figures exist as yet. The packages themselves may appear respect due to its strong focus on technology and down-to-earth
attractive especially to small and medium enterprises. But with handling of IT issues. However, combined with a dominant market
implementations being scarce, a few insecurities remain: first off, position this approach may sometimes make it hard to think outside
Cisco’s blades still have to prove if they can meet the ambitious of the HP universe.
best-of-breed standard. Secondly, the alliance promised to find a
balance between its best-of-breed approach to technology and IBM’s product catalog ranges from semiconductors to groupware and
end-to-end vendor accountability. Yet so far only few people have from mainframes to systems based on x86 processors, storage and
seen VCE support and services in action, so their capabilities and network management solutions. Consequently, its collection of
performance are currently hard to assess. Customers with a need for infrastructure offerings – dubbed Dynamic Infrastructure – addresses
robust solutions and reliable SLAs may therefore need more the following seven areas: asset management, service management,
assessment for support and services from VCE. virtualization, energy efficiency, information infrastructure, business
resiliency, and security. IBM’s true forte, however, lies in its consulting
expertise. Since the foundation of its Global Services division in 1991,
the company has continually expanded in the field. As a result the
division is now the world’s largest business and technology services
provider with offices in 170 countries. This huge success is based on a
consistent methodology of linking IT and business processes with the
aim of improving service, reducing costs and eliminating or mitigating
risks.
Still despite such achievements, IBM has incurred gaps in its portfolio.
The best example might be the sale of its PC and notebook division to
Chinese computer maker Lenovo. This “lack” is comparatively easy to
deal with from a customer’s/user’s point of view; however, IBM’s
approach to implementing its Dynamic Infrastructure model
sometimes calls for a customer’s long term commitment, from the
assessment to the transformation of IT infrastructures, hierarchies and
even business models. IT decision makers need to evaluate if issues
they are currently facing require either a transformation or an
evolution.
Page 7 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic
8. White paper Fujitsu Dynamic Infrastructures
Fujitsu, as the last company from this category, has much in common
with both IBM and HP: a near-complete offering of hardware, software
and services, consulting expertise, and a consistent, proven strategic
approach to IT solutions. With operations in 70 countries and more
than 170,000 employees, the company ranks as the third-largest IT
services provider worldwide and holds the first position in Japan.
Based on a long-standing tradition of collaborative efforts with its
customers as well as partners in the IT industry, Fujitsu has developed
its own distinct but flexible concept and delivered state-of-the-art IT
offerings. Fujitsu assembled its global service portfolio into three
segments: business services, application services and Dynamic
Infrastructures. Dynamic Infrastructures provide the basis to run
upper layer application and business services. Fujitsu Dynamic
Infrastructures consist of four “layers” that address different customer
demands and levels of IT maturity: Infrastructure Products and
Services (traditional hardware and software, product support), Fujitsu reevaluated
Infrastructure Solutions (customizable solution packages for standard The market and technology analysis provided above shows that both
business applications), Infrastructure as a Service (virtual server and offering the full technology spectrum in an integrated manner and
storage capacities and office desktops that can be ordered on customer orientation are considered cardinal virtues in the IT
demand), and Managed Infrastructure (transfer of IT operations to business. Yet many projects end in disappointing results; products,
shared delivery centers). In this context, the Dynamic Infrastructures solutions and service contracts are often criticized for being oversized,
concept serves as a framework for building and delivering inflexible or too costly.
standardized IT capacities and functionalities that at the same time During the past 5 to 10 years, a growing number of hardware and
fulfill individual needs. This holistic, customer-oriented approach software vendors as well as service providers have reacted to these
ensures that Fujitsu focuses on enabling companies to solve their IT complaints. Based on a set of key technologies – such as multi-core
processors/servers, 64-bit operating systems, new networking
issues.
standards, virtualization, and IT/business process automation – they
are now delivering agile, “living” infrastructures and on-demand
capacities instead of insular systems or segregated information silos.
Pros and cons
The core idea behind this new architecture model is to enable
From a customer’s standpoint, the above descriptions lead to the
enterprises to flexibly allocate physical and virtual server and storage
following implications:
capacities and turn them into dynamic resource pools that grow (or
shrink) according to business demands – if need be, on a daily basis.
First, horizontally focused vendors typically offer focused product
Fujitsu has been a pioneer of this new approach from the start, as can
and/or service portfolios – as opposed to a full spectrum of solutions.
be concluded from many solutions in its Dynamic Infrastructures
This is acceptable if your own demands are well defined, e.g. in case
portfolio, which build on the company’s own product lines such as
you want to purchase affordable hardware or need assistance with
PRIMERGY servers and ETERNUS storage arrays. Examples include
specific IT projects. However, depending on your IT department’s
FlexFrame for SAP, a pre-configured and pre-tested combination of
resources these offerings may not suffice when it comes to building
servers, storage, networking devices and software needed for a lean,
complete – or completely new – infrastructures.
ready-to-run SAP implementation; and Virtual Workplace, a workplace
solution in which traditional desktop PCs are replaced with Thin or
Second, Oracle/Sun and the VCE Coalition are equipped with
Zero Clients while all functionality resides in server-side virtual
comprehensive catalogs of proven hardware and software products machines. Its cloud-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings
and solutions. The problem is that these cooperations/mergers are still provide IT functionalities and resources via secure VPN connections
relatively fresh so that internal operations need time to become and let companies scale their environments in accordance with
attuned to one another, which might result in issues regarding the expected workloads in a secure and organized manner; billing occurs
integration of products as well as the consistency of service levels on a pay-as-you-go basis. Finally, Managed Infrastructure enables
during the IT life cycle. enterprises to delegate their IT operations or vital parts thereof to
Fujitsu while still retaining full control over their data and
Third, for the time being, only vertically integrated companies are infrastructure. Along with the company’s solution- and
prepared to meet the whole range of customer requirements – from customer-oriented approach, this comprehensive offering enables IT
basic hardware purchases to designing and managing complex managers to make the choices that best suit their enterprise’s overall
internal or external/cloud-based infrastructures. But the width and IT infrastructure and to select the most effective ways of leveraging
depth of their portfolios and expertise bears a risk for their customers, alternative sourcing and delivery models. Thus, Fujitsu successfully
as these vendors may feel tempted to guide them to their own “sweet assists IT managers in preparing for their next ambitious IT projects.
spot”, i.e. a desired sale. IT decision makers need to be aware of that
and prepare to ask a simple question: “Is this truly what we
want/need?”
Page 8 of 9 www.ts.fujitsu.com/dynamic