Next Generation Tech-Talk. Cliqr is Now Cisco Cloudcenter

Transcription

1 Next Generation Tech-Talk Cliqr is Now Cisco Cloudcenter

2 2 [music] 00:06 Phil Calzadilla: Oh, yeah. Got a little thunder. Welcome, everyone to another edition of Next Generation TechTalks. I'm Phil Calzadilla, the CEO and founder of NextNet Partners, and I am very pleased to have with me today, Scott Mohr from Cisco Systems. Hey, Scott how are you sir? 00:27 Scott Mohr: I'm fantastic, Phil. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. 00:30 PC: We're really excited to have you, and Scott is probably in one of the most exciting areas of Cisco right now. Scott has a long history with Cisco. Actually, he started even before me in '97 back at Cisco and was there for quite sometime as an account manager, a major account manager. He was a PSS for the West, that's when he and I worked together for the whole data center crew, then had UCS and cloud, and then went to a little company called CliQr that was acquired by Cisco. And he was the director of channel sales at CliQr and now he's the global BDM for CliQr on... Well, actually now it's called Cisco Cloud Services, correct? 01:15 SM: CloudCenter. 01:17 PC: CloudCenter, that's it. What was once CliQr is now owned by Cisco and it's called Cisco CloudCenter. And this is just a great exciting product, right Scott? 01:28 SM: Absolutely. So CloudCenter really is designed to run at the top end of all of your infrastructure and it allows you to have a service catalog or a shopping cartlike experience for application deployments into many clouds. In fact, CloudCenter covers almost 19 different target clouds both public and private, and this allows us to truly enable or deliver the hybrid cloud strategy. We have many customers that are either born in the cloud or on the startup side and we can cover those customers if they're launching application workloads into Amazon or Google or Rackspace, etcetera, Azure. Or, we have customers that are only managing, let's say, private clouds on vcenter environments around the globe in multiple data centers. 02:23 SM: But the bulk of our customers really are truly managing a hybrid model today and they're struggling with that because they have to build individual silos to clouds if they wanna go to a public provider or if they want to build in their own private environments then they're really only building applications to go into each one of those unique siloed clouds. What CloudCenter does is really disaggregates the application from the underlying cloud operating system, and as a result, we build an application profile that allows us to port that application to many clouds. So it's actually really cool technology 'cause it allows you to, rather than having to rewrite your apps for every cloud operating system like CloudStack and OpenStack and VMware, etcetera, you can now build a template once and serve many clouds. 03:21 PC: Yeah, it's very powerful. So I mean if I picture what you said right now, without the

3 3 Cisco CloudCenter, if I were working on, and I'm trying to use either a hybrid strategy or an external strategy, something like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, or I'm doing our internal cloud maybe on a Metapod or something like that, whatever the case may be I'm having to go into all these different systems, figure out all these different things, and I'm customizing each and every one of those interfaces. But with Cisco CloudCenter, I literally get a catalog presented to me, right? And now this catalog I can click and say, "Yup, I want this," or "I'm trying to run this application," let's say it's Oracle or some type of ERP app, I click on it and now it automatically gives me the resources. And my understanding from talking to you and from talking to the team about what this does in the background is that actually it will do all the policy and the governance and the compliance in the background as well, right? So, it could actually figure out that, "Hey, it's cheaper to go this way than that way so let's use these resources, these processors, this memory, this storage as we go forth," and it does all that based on a click that you're trying to get something done, right? Very powerful. 04:49 SM: Absolutely. That's a nice little overview of it. I think the real power in the utility allows us to model applications, so we manage those applications and deploy those applications in a model, manage and deploy scenario throughout the life cycle of a customer's application scenario. So the idea is that we bring a single integrated platform to the table that offers full life cycle management, it's 100% enterprise class ready, it's highly scalable, and there's a tremendous amount of security baked in. Included in the system itself, we have the ability to turn on and off policies that can be applied to specific use cases or business cases like the healthcare industry, for example. Or, you may have an ACI enabled network and we're able to tie directly into ACI, so we can push policies down to the APIC that allow you to deploy the contract and endpoint group management scenario through the cloud center interface as opposed to managing through your APIC interface on ACI. 06:05 SM: So we 're not necessarily meant to be an element manager, what we do is we consume cloud resources. And that's really the big differentiator where you would see a CloudCenter maybe laying on top of UCS director strategy or a vcenter for private cloud enablement or a Metapod for private cloud enablement. And from there we're then not only able to, in essence, cloud enable those private stacks, but once we've done that now we can extend those application solutions off to public clouds as well. We even have the ability, and this is where it gets really exciting Phil, is in our latest version of code, we have the ability to run what we call a split profile or a stretch profile. 07:00 SM: So think of like a three-tier web application, maybe it has a load balancer, a web server, and a database. Well, in most environments today, in any cloud strategy, you have to launch all three of those elements or all three of those components of a web application, all three tiers into that single cloud. And what we're able to do is able to disaggregate that, in fact, from a compliance perspective, customers are getting really excited about this where they can run the load balancer and the web server in an Amazon or a public cloud, but yet they can run their MySQL database or their database in a private cloud, keeping their full security posture wrapped around behind the firewall in their private data center. And that is going to become I think a very exciting strategy moving forward as the stretch or split profile capability. 08:01 PC: Yeah. Absolutely. And you said a lot in there that some folks who may not have the technical backgrounds may not pick up, but when Scott was talking about ACI, that's Application

4 4 Centric Infrastructure. There's so much detail behind that in terms of an application. What it really requires on the network, the policies associated with that app, the security with that application, there's a lot to the background of that. So making a simple statement like, "Oh, it ties back in the ACI," sounds simple but the amount of detail that's behind that, that will work, that already went into it that can be leveraged in this new Cisco CloudCenter Environment is very powerful. He also mentioned, I think it was the... It wasn't the ASX it was an APM. Is that what you're talking about? 08:51 SM: The APIC. 08:51 PC: The APIC. 08:51 SM: The Application Policy Infrastructure Controller from ACI. It's actually the FPN front end that we have the... We wrote to the API. 09:01 PC: Yup. 09:02 SM: Yeah. We wrote to the API for the APIC and it allows us to talk directly to it. 09:07 PC: So companies have made, especially in enterprise, have made a big investment into ACI and setting that up. And so this sits right on top of that and can leverage all the infrastructure. If they don't have that type of investment they can still sit on top of all of this. Basically, we have a strategy at NextNet Partners that we call stratosphere. And a stratosphere is above the clouds right? A little tongue in cheek, we've talked about it a couple of times. But what stratosphere does is allows us to, when we're working with clients, to figure out, "Hey, what is the business outcome you're really trying to achieve here? What are the economics associated with the decision you're looking to make." Right? Versus not making a decision now over a five-year cost or using cloud or using hybrid strategy. What are the economics of that? 09:54 PC: And then, most importantly, what are the security and compliance issues that you gotta deal with? The governance issues you have to deal with as part of that strategy. This Cisco CloudCenter kind of takes all of those portions of it and also sits way above the clouds 'cause you can work with multiple vendors, you can work with hybrid infrastructure, and then set that policy and have it go. The power is just amazing to your point of the modeling, the managing, and the deploying scenarios. Actually, Scott did a demo for us at the office and he was showing how you can model an application. How much processor does it really need? How much power does it really need? How much storage? And do we really need to allocate over those resources or just the right amount of resources, so we're not wasting the resources as we go, right, right Scott? 10:48 SM: No. That's perfect. So what we try to do is consult with our customers to determine kind of what their use cases are. Determine which their applications are and then determine which applications might be ripe for migration, which ones need to stay onsite, which ones can be offprem. Which ones might need to run in that split profile or that stretch profile model based on some level of compliance that they may need to meet. So really the idea around CloudCenter is that we sit on top all of your private cloud infrastructure and allow you to extend that private cloud infrastructure and applications into a public model. The four primary use cases that we really see

5 5 today, and this is kind of where I was talking about earlier, we're really trying to skate to where the puck is going. And it's about Devops and CICD, moving from those mode one to mode two models. Today each one of those models is a separate silo. So by having CloudCenter, we actually allow you to bridge the gap between your legacy mode one environments as well as your new modes, Devops and CICD environments. 11:53 SM: In fact, we've taken a lot of customers from more of that waterfall approach to software development into a much more Agile approach now, where they're able to get multiple swim lanes of development underway simultaneously which leads to much faster turns, better customer feedback, and ultimately a better user experience. One of the second ones we kinda pursue is this "IT as a service with governance." So, following that NIST model if you will, that North American Institute of Science and Technology, they came out with a cloud... What is a cloud? A few years ago. And really it's all about a selfservice catalogue and automation. And those two components really combine us to provide a tremendous amount of governance as well. 12:43 SM: So, we do IT as a service, but governance is where we really shine. In fact, we have some unique functionality that make us different in the marketplace under the fact that we provide the ability to create usage plans for individual users. It's a lot like a cellphone plan where you can provide a budget or a number of hours or a subscription or a number of VMs, or a dollar amount, etcetera. We have rollover capabilities like you would get from your AT&T or Verizon for your rollover minutes. We have a charge back, show back capability. The great things that we do is called an aging policy. We actually can go in and set a policy around the application so when it gets deployed you're able to turn it off. So, if you know the job or the workload is gonna be done in maybe two to three hours, turn it off in four hours. 13:43 PC: Yeah, instead of letting it run for a month. 13:44 SM: There's no need to have that zombie VM running over the weekend and you get a large bill. So, things like aging policies really lends itself well to governance. 13:55 PC: That's great. 13:56 SM: And then, kinda the third use case we really pursue is our ability to migrate and manage their application. So, other customers may use terms like liftandshift where they want to deploy into a new target cloud. Well, because we've built that application construct in that profile as, in essence, a gold image for your application, it's now disassociated from the underlying cloud operating system. But once I have that application profile I can now deploy it onto any of the 19 target clouds that we support. 14:32 PC: Nice. 14:33 SM: So, it's a very impressive solution. And then, the fourth one is dynamic capacity augmentation or bursting. 14:41 PC: Where all of a sudden you need capacity. Maybe you're a retailer and you've hit the busy

6 6 season and now you need more servers, you need more capacity and you can burst using CliQr, correct? 14:52 SM: That's exactly right. Yeah, in order to meet your customer requirements and your workload requirements you may need to set some thresholds around policy within your infrastructure that says, "Hey, when I reach 80% or 90% start migrating or launching these workloads into another cloud, maybe an Amazon or a Google or a Rackspace or an Azure or an IBM soft layer. And we have that dynamic capacity augmentation capabilities built into the tool, so it's a very impressive system. 15:28 PC: Very powerful. So, if anyone's trying to... You're trying to figure out your cloud strategy and understand where you're headed, this is the kind of tool that can really help crystallize that and put policies and governance in place. Let's talk about that a little bit, Scott. So let's say I'm a client, I've decided, "You know what, CliQr, Cisco CloudCenter is right for me." Talk to me about the process 'cause this is some of the magic that we discussed when we first were talking about this. How does this get done? How do you actually get to the point where you build out all the governance, and the requirements, and the information that goes into the tool that you're actually using to create this service catalogue/marketplace? 16:17 SM: Yeah, so typically... And that's a good question, it's a very broad question so it does require a little bit of a response that would entail things like call NextNet. 16:31 PC: Yes, that's right. 16:31 SM: They'll come in and work with you to determine what's your workload and your business requirements would be. Most of the time what we can do is, with Cisco and partners like yourself, we'll come in and we'll drop on a set of tools. It'll scan your entire network. It'll tell you everything you... Every application you have running in your environment, where they're running, and what type of instances or instancetypes you're even subscribing to. Most customers don't realize it but they usually have a multitude of shadow IT instances going on with a bevy of public file providers. It's that traditional, "I have something to do tomorrow. My IT Department's not agile enough to respond overnight. It takes them three weeks, so I run off to Amazon with a credit card." 17:23 SM: And now pretty soon you're submitting expense reports and your CFO thinks you're buying a bunch of books. Well, when you add it all up it's a significant amount of funding that's now leaking out of IT into an expense report budget that's now falling into a line of business. So, what this product allows line of business leaders to do as well is really provide additional value by bringing everything back under one centralized managed control. It allows IT to remain relevant to the business by bringing all of the shadow IT budget back inhouse. And at the same time providing the governance and the policy and the security controls around what an enterprise shop or a midmarket customer might need. I've had many customers tell me it's like, "I don't want to develop my proprietary information in a public cloud, but yet most of the developers are building their resumes around public cloud tool sets." 18:27 PC: Right, yeah.

7 7 18:29 SM: So how do you overcome that? You have to be better than AWS. So, what we're able to provide is that full capability that developers need in order to get things spun up very rapidly. They want something on demand. I need my database in 30 seconds. I don't need it in three hours. I need to be able to access these things on the fly and then be able to compile them and then get results immediately so I can then move on to the next phase of the development. And that's where CloudCenter can help. It provides a massive powerful utility for developers as well as application managers, as well as the teams that are doing migration management, along with all the compliance and/or bursting that might be required in an organization today. And that's I think, that itself, is worth it's weight in gold. Because now you're not, you don't have to worry about a security issue, you don't have to worry about leakage, you don't have to worry about compliance. And you don't have to worry about, let's be honest, that corporate espionage. Where you're getting hacked or other people taking your proprietary information now. 19:53 PC: Excellent. It really is amazing. And when it comes down to it, this is about time to value. It's, let's get in fast, let's get working fast, and get the resources that we need up and running as quickly as possible so that we can execute as a company. And very powerful, and I know one of the, besides working with the NextNet team you're also gonna be working with the Cisco Advanced Services team to enable us and make sure that you're successful with Cisco CloudCenter. So Scott, thank you so much. 20:20 SM: Absolutely. 20:21 PC: You hear the closing music in the background, so thank you a great deal for doing this with us. And if you wanna learn more about Cisco CloudCenter or if you looked it up and you found CliQr and that's how you got to the podcast at CliQr, feel free to call NextNet Partners. You can send us an at info@nextnetpartners or give us a call at We'd be happy to show you more about the product, maybe even bring Scott out with us and talk about it. So with that, thank you for another great show. I look forward to talking to you next time.

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