Cloud Powered Data Center - By
Kasey Shah
Objective
In this Blog I will coin a new term, “Cloud Powered Data
Center,” explain it, and provide you a high level architecture
guidance on designing your next data center to be a Cloud Powered Data Center!.
Introduction
Data centers are used to house corporate applications and
data for over two decades now. Recent trend is to leverage public cloud
resources, which are neither located on campus nor co-located at
a hosting provider’s environment. In my opinion, the combination of
private data center and the public cloud environment works the best for
most of medium and large enterprises.
When I speak at conferences I often get asked
that "whether it is necessary to have a private data center any
more?" My answer is along the lines that for the medium to
the large organizations, having a private data center is unavoidable.
Whereas startup companies are born in the cloud era and are generally not
interested in owning any metal for their applications, which is understandable.
However, medium and large enterprise companies almost always have private data
center for a number of reasons, including, security, compliance, data
sovereignty, data proximity, and performance.
I think that the ideal balance can be struck somewhere in
between the private data centers and the public cloud environment
Traditional Data Center
Traditional data center housing corporate applications and
the application data can be either located on site or it can be hosted in
a private environment by hosting companies such as Rackspace,
Centurylink, and many other similar companies
offering such service. Exodus Communications (company I worked for)
commercialized data center hosting in late 1990s. Most medium and large
enterprises have combination of their own data center (sometimes called server
room) and an hosted data center environment.
Typical data center environment has racks of servers for
compute, size able amount of storage disks & controllers, network &
security equipment, and special purpose equipment based on specific needs.
Facility housing such complex equipment is designed for large amount of power,
cooling, resiliency, and physical security. Recently, this environment is
referred to as a private cloud.
Public Cloud - A really big data center
Public cloud is a fully hosted infrastructure and
application environment delivered as a service. Amazon pioneered this concept of public cloud
environment in 2004 when they started offering their excess capacity to other
companies in order to run applications and store their data. Today
(in 2017) this concept has matured a lot. Amazon Web Services (AWS) earned
almost $10 billion USD in 2016 selling their public cloud services. Microsoft Azure Cloud and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are competing
cloud services offering similar services. All of these public
cloud services are growing at a rapid pace.
Essentially, public cloud services can be viewed as a really
really big data center for enterprises because they offer unimaginable amount
of compute and storage. Companies can pay as they use and grow in the public
cloud environment providing cost effective and potentially efficient
infrastructure in the cloud.
Cloud Powered Data Center
Private data center approach is known to lack in scalability
because it requires capital and operational investment every time capacity or
capabilities need to be upgraded. Whereas, public cloud only approach may
not be practical for medium and large enterprises for the reasons stated
above.
Hybrid cloud approach, meshing the public cloud with the
private cloud environments, provides the most flexibility and enormous capabilities.
Hybrid cloud is general direction most medium and large enterprises are taking.
These organizations are using public cloud resources today. However,
they are keeping private cloud and public cloud environments separate for the
most part by hand picking applications deployed in the public cloud. Public
cloud is not used as a seamless extension of their private cloud environment,
which limits their return on investment.
Today, I am coining the term “Cloud Powered Data
Center.” There must be a super glue between the inevitable private
cloud environment and the capability-rich & infinitely scalable public
cloud environment This has to be lot more than mere IPSEC VPN or private
line connectivity between the two environments. Rather, I am suggesting that
the connectivity between these two environments be made at various touch points
to achieve seamless integration of the infrastructures, enabling
services, and applications on both environments.
Architecture Guidelines for Cloud Powered Data Center
When you are architecting your next data center, make it a
Cloud Powered Data Center. Think like “Cloud Inside” when you architect
(or re-architect) your private data center environment. Don’t stop at mere
network connectivity between the private cloud and the public cloud
environment. Think about glueing these two environments to provide seamless
connectivity at infrastructure as well as application layer. Think about API
based integration between these two environments. Also, think about integrating
DevOps tools between these two environments.
Conclusion
Cloud Powered Data Center architecture glues private data
center with the public cloud environment at various touch points and by doing
so it brings best of both worlds together enabling continuous integration and
continuous development. It is not practical to have private cloud only or
public cloud only strategy for medium to large enterprise companies and it may
not be possible to have public cloud only environment either. Thus, if
architected with this information in mind, the Cloud Powered Data Center
allows enterprises to deploy applications in either environment securely,
confidently, and quickly enabling them to innovate at a rapid pace.
Written By:
Kasey Shah
Technology Strategist, Consultant, and Architect
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