Why automation is the key to a successful private cloud deployment

With the greater agility and better security offering that private cloud provides compared to public clouds or traditional client-server architectures, it’s no great surprise that an ever-increasing number of organisations are investing in virtualised, automated data centres and private clouds.

Despite the significant role that automation now plays for storage elements and private cloud servers, the network still tends to be provisioned and configured manually. In doing so, many organisations are not taking full advantage of the diverse benefits that private cloud can offer. Scalable, automated network control must be a priority investment for all organisations to help avoid delays in deployments due to legacy processes.

Private cloud: like a fine wine

There is no quick-fix approach to moving onto a private cloud, and any IT department goes through a series of phases as its private cloud infrastructure matures. The first of these stages is to pilot the project. By taking advantage of any non-critical applications and workloads, both the cloud’s infrastructure and its design can be tested. This provides experience and insight that helps the IT team to make any necessary changes before moving onto business-critical workloads.

Once an organisation is confident in the design of its cloud, they can move on to phase two: production. At this stage, a small number of business-critical workloads are moved onto the private cloud. This is a crucial step because it allows the IT team to make any further changes before a full deployment.

The final phase sees the private cloud scaled-out. This transition will involve moving to a geographically-dispersed private cloud environment in numerous datacentres, and may also include multi-vendor cloud platforms.

Managing risk

If the deployment of the private cloud is not in sync throughout the entire process then this can present risks for a business – regardless of the size or scope of the project.

The disparate groups involved with implementing a private cloud can cause major challenges which must be carefully managed. Whilst the virtualisation component is most commonly handled by the server team, all other network aspects are often overseen by a completely different unit. As a result, the network team may lack key visibility into the virtual machine (VM) resources as they’re created and destroyed. This makes it especially difficult to track and manage the huge spike in new instances.

The importance of this visibility cannot be overstated, as it enables the network team to access accurate information on which DNS records and IP addresses are assigned to which VMs at any given time. Without this, there is little point in the network teams attempting to comply with any audit and security policies. Factors such as locations, applications, and users must be tracked for VMs as well as networks, IP addresses, and DNS zones.

Whilst server admins may have access to this information, very often the networking team is kept in the dark. Couple this with the manual methods used to react to the creation and deletion of VMs, and their responses will often be slow.

Automate to accumulate

A private cloud is only as fast as its slowest component. With speed being such an important factor, due consideration must be given to the core network services when building a private cloud. This includes assigning IP addresses and DNS records so that VMs can easily be commissioned and decommissioned in just a few moments.

The promise of rapid delivery can only be achieved in the right environment. By manually provisioning DNS records and IP addresses in a virtual environment, the rate of delivery can be inhibited by hours or even days. And beyond the significant waste of time and energy, this process is often inefficient and inaccurate and your team could end up having to navigate a virtual wasteland of unused IP addresses and DNS records. Furthermore, just a few keystroke errors could result in potential IP address conflicts, leading to significant downtime in the private cloud environment.

The threat that unreliable DDI (DNS, DHCP and IP address management) poses to any organisation goes beyond just a potentially costly network outage. If IP addresses of VMs are being used for billing internal “customers,” manual processes could result in either lost revenue or disgruntled customers.

DDI services are essential for providing scalability and resilience for private clouds running critical workloads, or those spanning several geographical locations. Any limits on the scalability of an organisation’s network could prevent the deployment of additional tenants and VMs, which are required to meet any demands of its growth.

You can have your cake and eat it

With a thorough understanding and due consideration given to all critical factors, such as those mentioned above, a business has every opportunity to successfully deploy a private cloud. An organisation which bases its approach around the principles of automation, visibility and integration will be able to take effective control of its private cloud deployment.

Businesses investing in an infrastructure where the management of storage and compute are heavily automated and where the agile delivery of low-cost services is supported across all lines of the business, will see tangible benefits delivered across the entire organisation.

Most successful, modern private cloud deployments use automation to manage storage and compute, thereby supporting the agile delivery of low-cost services to lines of business. This unlocks faster, more efficient deployments, delivering real benefits across the whole organisation.