Cloud computing and IaaS are powerful tools that hold many tempting promises. With Linux leading in this field, IaaS is often one of the first mission critical Linux deployments in enterprises. Doomed to do it right, implementing a Linux cloud is hard work, and you risk both your managment and users losing faith if you stumble into ten common pitfalls. Nils explains to engineering architects, operations engineers, and technical system managers how to circumvent common problems and comes up with hints to overcome them. His audience benefits from over 15 years' first-hand experience in designing secure and reliable infrastructure projects in data centers. Real-life examples from past and present project illustrate the challenges engineers and managers face on their way to the cloud.

1. A System Architect Guide:
Ten Ways to Ruin Your Cloud Experience ...
... and How To Mitigate Them
LinuxCon Europe, October 22, 2013 in Edinburgh, Scotland
Nils Magnus
inovex GmbH
Senior System Engineer
Wir nutzen Technologien, um unsere Kunden glücklich zu machen. Und uns selbst.

2. Nils Magnus
•
•
•
•
Senior System Engineer with
inovex GmbH
lives in Munich, Germany
plans, designs, consults, and
actually implements scalable
data center solutions for hist
clients
•
if you are an experienced and
curious engineer, looking for
challenges and a good package:
we hire!
•
•
•
•
Member of the Board and
Program Chair at LinuxTag
next time in Berlin, Germany
plans, organizes, and actually
hosts one of Europe's most
traditional conference and expo
since 1996
if you are an experienced
speaker with a hot subject to
talk about to your peers:
we want your talk in our cfp
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

3. Use the term "cloud computing"
What is „cloud computing, anyway?“
Open Stack, OwnCloud, SugarCRM, …
No need to confuse your engineers
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

4. Rely on „feelings“
Requirements are individual
„I believe NFS does not scale“
Define a spec. Challenge the
competitors. Projects and vendors are
usually no idiots.
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

5. Do „handicraft“ your environments
It's tempting to do apparently
nonrecurring steps by hand for „quick
wins“
„Let me just configure this interface“
Mandatory to automate your „make
world“ from end to end
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

6. Neglect demanding your service levels
Cloud providers offer SLAs. Most
clients hesitate to challenge them.
„Well, they have a steep learning curve
with that filer, too ...“
SLAs are expensive. Either pay and
use them – or just save the money for
something else
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

7. Broaden the gap between developers and ops
Resoponsibility ping-pong and
fingerpointing don't solve problems
„That crappy artifact doen't deploy, so
what?“ – „Why don't those weirdos just
run our scripts?“
Assign a dev the „deputy admin of the
week“ role. Send the engineers to a
coding dojo.
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

8. Implement your individual tools for standard tasks
Reinvent the wheel. Not-invented-here
syndrome.
„Those configuration management
systems are all nonsense. Mine's
perfect.“
Standardization is a strong weapon.
Join forces by improving existing tools
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

9. Keep a generous buffer of ressources
Utilizations below 90% are a waste of
ressources in virtualized environments
„Let's upgrade, we have an average
load of 0.6 over the last week“
If your infrastructure does not scale
elastically, why did you go for the
„cloud“ in the first place?
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

10. Set up individual maturity environments
Software did work in the test and
integration environment, but failed in
production
„I was never told there could ever be
more than a single database slave“
Configure all environments from the
same sources, use the same scripts
and assign comparable sizing
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

11. Don't bother yourself with scalability
Single ressource become bottlenecks
sooner than you expect
„We won't need multiple application
servers“
Planning scalability might be a
challenge, squashing it into existing
environments is way beyond price
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

12. Try to find a technical solution for every challenge
We engineers like to play with our
toys. But there might be problems,
that do not need technical solutions
„How should we implement the SD
backed, hot failover HA enhanced,
LDAP driven, role-based user
management for the both of us?“
Less is more
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013

13. Thanks for listening! Questions?
Contact
Nils Magnus
Senior System Engineer
inovex GmbH
Office Munich
Valentin-Linhof-Str. 2
81829 Munich, Germany
+49-173-3181-057
nils.magnus@inovex.de
Agent L9 Oxycryocrypt
Nils Magnus: Ten Ways To Ruin Your Cloud Experience (and how to mitigate them) – LinuxCon Europe, Edinburgh, Scotland – 22.10.2013