CloudBolt Differntiators

Transcription

1 CloudBolt Differntiators A CLOUDBOLT WHITEPAPER o v e r v i e w CloudBolt was built from the ground up to solve the problem of controlled IT Self Service in IT Enterprises. By starting with a powerful architecture, CloudBolt is more capable and flexible than any other IT Self Service tool available. CLOUDBOLT DOES WHAT OTHERS CAN T TOTALLY VENDOR AGNOSTIC PREVENTS VENDOR LOCK-IN INTEGRATES WITH A VARIETY OF DATA CENTER AUTOMATION AND CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT TOOLS HAS THE BEST TIME-TO- VALUE OF ANY SIMILAR PRODUCT ON THE MARKET INTEGRATES WITH ORCHESTRATION TOOLS MANAGES AND TRACKS SOFTWARE LICENSES PRESENTS A MUTI-TENANT CAPABLE IT SELF SERVICE PORTAL SUPPORTS PKI AUTHENTICATION INGESTS INFORMATION ABOUT EXISTING ENVIRONMENTS, AUTOMATICALLY CREATING IT SELF SERVICE CloudBolt s architectural design translates into capabilities that provide features and benefits that make it easy to choose CloudBolt over other cloud tools and services. Understanding the architecture is essential to understanding how it opens the door to functional capabilities as a highly flexible resource management tool and cloud solution across multiple platforms and cloud frameworks. 1

2 Extensible design allows CloudBolt s architecture to identify, track, allocate usage, provision, manage, and maintain IT infrastructure assets with easily configured modular connectors. CloudBolt uses an elegant data model, a powerful orchestration engine, and an abstraction layer that seamlessly integrates with IT resources and tools including: PROVISIONING ENGINE VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES HARDWARE PLATFORMS NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURES STORAGE SOLUTIONS PUBLIC CLOUD PROVIDERS EXTERNAL ORCHESTRATORS NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION PLATFORM SYSTEMS The CloudBolt data model was designed to capture and store a customer s organizational hierarchies, server environments, ordering processes and parameters, the cost of resources over time, and the mapping between them all. CloudBolt s approach to modeling server ordering parameters allows our customers to easily extend and customize ordering. End users, groups or subgroups and their roles and permissions for spe- cific environments can be designated with a just a few clicks. CloudBolt s design ensures that no new attack points are introduced by allowing users to take actions on resources but not enabling direct access to do so. End users utilize a single portal for access that provides or restricts access to data, environments and resources based on highly configurable role based permissions in addition to leveraging authentication via existing LDAP or active directory (AD), PKI, and security software. INTUITIVE INTERFACE The power of IT Self Service is limited only by how effectively your users can understand the steps and tasks necessary to interface with an IT Self Service portal. CloudBolt excels at presenting an intuitive interface one that administrators can rapidly customize right from within the UI and presents various types of end users with the types of questions they can be expected to understand. For example: Developers may need to have more granularity in choices when requesting systems than QA users. CloudBolt can be easily configured to present these different groups order forms of appropriate complexity. For administrators, CloudBolt s administrator page enables the easy interface to underlying technologies. Even seemingly compli- cated tasks are made straightforward, such as the creation of a new logical data center environment, granting permissions for applications to various logical data center environments, or specifying which groups have access to which networks. In CloudBolt, all of these tasks only require a few clicks. TIME TO VALUE Many IT Self Service and Cloud Management tools claim a rapid time to value, but in practice, few can meet their own lofty claims. CloudBolt is not one of those tools. From start of in- stallation to having a usable portal can take as little as nine (9) minutes. As administrators familiarize themselves with CloudBolt, they can extend its capabilities into other areas of their automated environments through by adding in additional technologies such as data center automation, configuration management, or external orchestration tools. Few organizations can prove their time to value in the way that CloudBolt does. Go to the website to see a video of a real-time installation. Industry analysts also have recognized CloudBolt for its unmatched time to value, saying CloudBolt has the best time-to-value of any product in the CMP market. Don t just take our word for it, though: CloudBolt is available at no cost for you to try in your own environment. INTEGRATION WITH EXISTING ENVIRONMENTS Few IT organizations have the benefit of routinely building out entirely new IT environments with every large shift in technology. CloudBolt C2 understands that very few IT projects takes place in the greenfield. At install time, and when new connec- tions are initiated, C2 gives administrators the option to import existing information from underlying technologies, such as: VM s Clusters OS Builds Templates Data Stores Workflows Networks Applications Because Cloudbolt imports this information, and then will routinely sync with underlying management tools, it works better than any other tool in existing environments. Once the details are imported, it only takes a few clicks from an administrator to assign ownership to existing server resources. CloudBolt is also uniquely non-invasive in the way it works with the underlying tools and technologies; it does not preclude administrators from directly using the underlying management tools, which administrators can continue to use as before to perform fine-grained configuration changes, create new templates, data stores, alter running resource configurations, build new software packages, networks, etc. CloudBolt automatically detects these changes, and makes them visible within the UI. 2

3 Since Cloudbolt integrates with so many different technologies, administrators also gain the ability to introduce new and disruptive technologies into their environment without drastically changing how end users interface with CloudBolt. For instance, it is possible to introduce Network Virtualization into a CloudBolt-powered environment, and users would gain access to the benefits, but without facing any issues with the complexity. No other tool works as well in existing environments, and no other tool continues to work so well in fluid environments where administrators continue to leverage underlying management tool capabilities to move the organization forward. b r e a d t h o f t e c h n o l o g i e s s u p p o r t e d CloudBolt has the broadest support for enterprise data center technologies available: it is vendor agnostic, and has builtin support for the types of technologies already in use in many IT environments. Beyond plain virtualization management, CloudBolt integrates with a number of technologies in ways that are unique to our solution. Data Center Automation and Configuration Management Tools when CloudBolt is implemented with access to a Data Center Automation or Configuration Management tool, every logical data center environment that has access to such a tool gains a multitude of capabilities. Administrators can automatically import existing applications, and assign them to various logical data center environments and groups. Users can be presented with interactive lists of applications that can be selected at provisioning time, or added on later through a button in the server view. As always, IT remains in full control over what groups and logical data center environments have access to. By also restricting network to certain logical data center environments and groups, administrators can ensure that a development applica- tion cannot be accidentally installed on a production network. Applications are also tracked using CloudBolts built-in rate metering capability. Users will see an interactive rate bar when selecting applications so they can understand what the impact is over picking one vs. the other. For example; Oracle DB has a considerably higher cost for the license than mysql but in some environments like Development provides little or no additional value. CloudBolt currently supports HP Server Automation, Puppet, and Chef, with support for BMC Bladelogic and CFEngine forthcoming. ORCHESTRATION INTEGRATION Modern enterprises often have at least one orchestration tool that is used to automate various repetitive tasks and processes within the IT environment. With CloudBolt, administrators can connect to, and import information about external workflows, map internal Cloudbolt parameters to those workflows, and then assign those flows for execution at various points during the resource lifecycle management process. Flows can also be executed on a one-off basis from within a server view in the CloudBolt UI. NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION MANAGEMENT INTEGRATION Exposing network options, model environments, and isolation of VLANs or virtual networks by group or environment means that virtual machines are only able to access networks specified by administrators, ensuring continued isolation for sensitive applications, systems, data, and groups. CloudBolt uniquely can directly manage network virtualization tools. Administrators use CloudBolt to create new cross environment networks, and assign groups and environments access to virtualized networks. Few independent tools integrate with any Run Book Automa- tion tools. And none other than CloudBolt integrates with multiple vendors offerings. CloudBolt currently supports HP Operations Orchestration and VM- ware s vcloud Orchestrator. CloudBolt currently supports VMware NSX Network Virtualization. 3

4 t e c h n o l o g y a g n o s t i c u n i q u e f e a t u r e s VENDOR LOCK-IN AND THE SOLUTION SUITE Vendor lock-in is an ever-persistent problem in any enterprise. Technology suites are supposed to offer IT organizations all of the capability, but without any of the integration headaches that often accompany the cobbled-together approaches. In practice, however, this is infrequently the case. In fact, single- vendor solution suites tend to drag along other requirements, insisting that in order to be supported, a customer must swap an existing technology for one that is supported as part of the proposed solution suite. This is unsustainable in any enterprise. Furthermore, although the suite approach may seem to decrease integration issues, to incorporate new capabilities the IT organization is now faced with the worst kind of IT project: a large-scale migration from one tool to another, and often in a way that provides only an expensive path to feature-parity. Bundling and requiring IT organizations to use other parts of a solution suite serves as another mechanism to ensure the IT organization remains dependent on the vendor, and as a way to corner out the competition. Using CloudBolt IT can incorporate other technologies and vendors products only where they actually add value while maintaining a cohesive management layer across the entirety of the enterprise resources. CLOUD SUPPLY CHAIN VALIDATOR It is not good when IT administrators are notified by their users about an outage, yet in multi-faceted enterprise IT environments, the likelihood increases. IT Self Service portals will span technology run by many different teams, only increasing the chances that traditional heartbeat-style monitoring will miss a critical workflow outage. Even a small disruption or change in any underlying environment can break provisioning in a way that will negatively affect users. Having been developed by data center experts; CloudBolt includes the Cloud Supply Chain Validator (CSCV) to help guard against this issue. CSCV automatically tests the provisioning and deprovisioning in CloudBolt environments, ensuring that each step of the appropriate process completes as expected. If there is any failure or warning to a critical process, administrators are notified before end users have a chance to notice. Because CSCV uses CloudBolt to do this automated testing, it ensures that every step of the automated process is tested, all the way down to external workflows, application availability, network availability, and underlying virtualization availability, whether it s locally accessed, or provided by a public cloud somewhere. VENDOR-AGNOSTIC LICENSE MANAGEMENT CloudBolt is a vendor-agnostic solution; it enables IT organizations to select best-of-breed technologies across the board. CloudBolt does not advocate for the use of any Vendors underlying technology over another, instead, choosing to work with the various technologies that IT organizations are already using. CloudBolt s agnostic approach is to the customer s benefit. Use the best-ofbreed technology in each area of your IT environment, and chances are C2 either already integrates with it, or can with a small amount of effort. Keeping track of software licenses in a dynamic enterprise environment is at best a difficult task. Add in IT Self Service, and multiple environments, locations, etc., and it becomes even harder to accurately track the deployed and allocated license count vs. what s available to be deployed, let alone in real-time. CloudBolt enables administrators to create a license pool, and then assign various OS templates and applications to that pool, so whenever CloudBolt sees that OS template or application on a VM it manages, it will automatically increment or decrement the appropriate number of licenses. This enables the IT organization to provide Business with an accurate count of what s actually being used, and often results in a significant cost avoidance when licensing contracts can be reduced to more appropriate levels. 4

5 MULTI-TENANT HIERARCHICAL GROUP MANAGEMENT Multi-tenancy is more than just ensuring different groups cannot access each other s resources. True multi-tenancy offers much more fine-grained capabilities, including customized login portals and other settings, personalized LDAP/AD authentication settings, and their logical environments, made up of their own networks, applications, OS templates, and rate programs. CloudBolt provides for multi-tenancy in it s core architecture thus securely segmenting customers and presenting each with customized views that adopt their processes and configurations. CloudBolt enables IT administrators to delegate group control to specific individuals, who then have the ability to create sub groups, and further sub-delegate subsequent group administration. Group administrators can manage group membership and user roles/permissions. This unburdens the IT staff and doing all the management for business lines and customers while putting more power into the hands of the consumer groups in a secure and accountable manner. CloudBolt s group structure ensures that CloudBolt is able to effectively model any organizational structure, and overlay that structure cleanly into CloudBolt. SERVICE CATALOG PKI SUPPORT With CloudBolt, administrators can create multicomponent services which offer end users one-click ordering of an entire IT stack, including servers, networks, and applications. Servers can be deployed into multiple environments, enabling the creation of hybrid-cloud ready application stacks. When a service is offered in more than one environment, it s possible for users to view the pricing in each location, and make decisions considering the most cost effective solution. CloudBolt natively supports PKI-based authentication through the use of browser accessible certificates. IT Organizations that make use of smartcard or token based certification authentication will be able to use those same smartcard-provided certificates to authenticate with the CloudBolt IT Self Service Portal. The process of creating a new service is completely done within the UI. Administrators create an order containing all of the appropriate components, and then save that order as a service. Each CloudBolt of the services has it s own page where administrators can provide additional information 5

6 c l o u d b o l t c o n t r o l l e d i t s e l f s e r v i c e b e n e f i t s ALIGN IT WITH BUSINESS AUTOMATE RESOURCE PROVISIONING ELIMINATE VM SPRAWL NABLE IT TO BECOME A BROKER/PROVIDER OF SERVICES RAPIDLY ENABLES PRIVATE AND HYBRID CLOUD IMPROVE LEVEL OF SERVICE TO LINES OF BUSINESS IMPROVE IT RESPONSIVENESS PROVIDE COST TRANSPARENCY TO LINES OF BUSINESS MORE RELIABLY ADOPT DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES REDUCE TIME TO CLOUD ENABLEMENT REDUCE VENDOR LOCK IN CONTROL SHADOW IT s u m m a r y CloudBolt is an elegant vendor-independent answer to the problems presented by hetero- geneous IT environments. CloudBolt has an extensible product design that makes it possible to rapidly deploy a private / hybrid cloud, and implement a flexible resource management solution that works across clouds and multiple IT platforms, lowering costs and improving productivity across the board. CloudBolt makes it possible to meet strategic goals in an enterprise organization, and remain responsive to changes in the market or business practices while maintaining an organization s existing policies and practices. CloudBolt takes on the first challenge of implementing a successful cloud management solution by making IT highly visible and consumable. CloudBolt has rapid, flexible deployment that layers on top of existing IT. The extensible design of CloutBolt product architecture makes it possible to identify, and deeply integrate with existing assets, providing them to be orderable as cloud as soon as CloutBolt is deployed. A unified user interface provides command and control features for managing and maintaining IT assets, as well as flexible provisioning options, freeing up time and resources in ways that other vendors cannot provide. CloudBolt s design makes it possible to open up silos of resources and data company-wide in a controlled manner that strictly manages access with customizable role based permissions integrating with existing LDAP or active directory, and security software. By optimizing IT integration and facilitating communication and performance, CloudBolt gives enterprise organizations the ability to fully leverage the capabilities and power of their IT investments, empowering internal business groups so these groups can focus on their core business instead of IT t o l e a r n m o r e a b o u t c l o u d b o l t VISIT: MAIL: INFO@CLOUDBOLTSOFTWARE.COM OR CONTACT YOUR CLOUDBOLT REPRESENTATIVE 6