1. Journey to the Programmable Data
Center Modernizing our Data Centers – Strategy and
Approach
History, Perspective, Trends
Toby Weiss, Sr. Director, National Infrastructure Practice, Visionary Integration Professionals
Consulting | Technology | Outsourcing
1

2. Data Center Modernization Perspective
IT
CFO
Business
Real Estate
Image Sourced from Deepa Krishnan

3. The Hammer and the Nail
One size does not fit all:
Examples of Context:
Small Business
Business size
organization
needs
application
workloads
Culture,
leadership,
politics
Macro and
industry
economic
trends
Growth versus
maintenance
IT budgets
Technology
drivers like
virtualization &
converged
infrastructure
Rates of
adoption
ROI for our
unique
business needs
• Optimizing the workload already in house;
• Building departments of expertise (that eventually lead to silos)
• Partnerships: likely focused on a single vendors solution
• Leveraging Cloud for Applications and Infrastructure
Med Enterprise
• Mastering centers of expertise into departments (silos)
• Evolving from older platforms that started our business to more
robust and scalable IT
• Beginning to manage technical debt
• More reliance on multi-vendor environments
Larger enterprise
• Breaking through the silos for lean efficiencies
• Technology standardization
• and adoption of converged infrastructure/cloud computing

4. What Would You Predict?
“Computers in the future
may have only 1,000
vacuum tubes and perhaps
only weigh 1 1/2 tons.”
- Popular Mechanics, 1949
The nearly 18,000 vacuum tubes and 6,000 switches of the ENIAC, the
first electronic computer.
Image Sourced from ExplorePAhistory.com

5. Evolution of Computers
99.6% of our history
without Computers!
First mechanical
computer – difference
engine designed 1837.
Today we each have a
“smartphone”.
Image Sourced from Computer History Museum

6. Evolution of Data Centers - What is
Modernization?
Is the utility compute infrastructure our future?
What is relevant to enterprise IT?

7. Industrialized Data Centers and IT Infrastructure
Standardization
Modularity
Scalability
Geo-redundancy
Automation
Orchestration

8. Enablers in Data Center Modernization
Driving DC Modernization
Two Major Trends
1) Advances in Physical Technology
a) Shrinking Hardware  Drive Lower Costs  With More Power
b) Virtualized functions  Converged Infrastructure  Appliances
2) Increasing Abstraction from Hardware
c) Virtualization of Hardware  Evolved de-facto & industry standards
 hypervisor interoperability  workload variety
d) OS Overlay Concept  GRID  GoogleFS/Facebook  Hadoop  NextGen?
8

9. Historically, Two Approaches to Abstraction from the IT
Infrastructure Layer
Driving freedom from hardware dependencies and pooling resources for greater utilization.
Top Down
Large Workload
Bottoms Up
Small Workloads
Workload (application)
VM
VM
…
Compute (server) Asset Base
Geographically dispersed physical compute assets.
• Federation for aggregated capacity
• Loosely Coupled with middleware libraries
• Type of Parallel computing with common
networks as the “backplane”
• Focused on specific large data set and processing
intensive workloads (scientific traditionally).
Relatively centralized compute assets.
• Un-federated physical capacity to divide and share
• More tightly coupled due to domain of server, rack,
and data center
9
• Higher speed server and data center network as
the “backplane”
• Can support a wider variety of workloads.

10. Programmable or Software Defined Data Center…
Simply Defined
Variety of Workloads
• Complete Abstraction of
Physical Assets
• Hypervisors (software)
Control All Assets, not just
servers
• Top Down and Bottoms up
abstraction of assets
• Lowers I&O costs and
increases agility
VM
VM
…
Compute Assets

11. This is not just about Cloud
• Essential Characteristics
• On-demand self service
• Broad network access
• Resource Pooling
• Rapid Elasticity
• Measured Service
• Service Models
• SaaS, PaaS, IaaS
• Deployment Models
• Private, Community, Public,
Hybrid
Characteristics of DC
Modernization
• Enables and Leverages Cloud
Computing
• Abstracts workloads from
infrastructure
• Enables programmability of
Virtualized Infrastructure
• Modular, Scalable, Geo-dispersed
• Embraces de-facto and industry
standards
• Leverages new operational
process, new organizations, new
roles, new skills
Characteristics of DC
modernization
Characteristics of Cloud
NIST Definition of Cloud

12. What Would You Predict?
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
- IBM Chairman Thomas
Watson, 1943

13. The Pace of Change

14. Abstraction Continues to Enable IT Virtualization
Business Process
Applications
Virtual Infrastructure Layer
GRID Middleware – OS Overlay
Control Software Layer
Physical Infrastructure & OS
Server Machines
Storage Systems
Networking/ Security
Functions

15. Quick Review of Recent History
Mainframe
Client Server
Consolidation
• Monolithic
• Virtualized
• Single Pane of Glass
• Sized for Peaks
• Centralized Control
• Lower Costs*
• Spurs Sprawl
• Processing power
distributes
• Control moves to the
LOBs
• Enables Growth via
LOB Agility
• Creates Isolated
Islands of Storage
• Management of decentralized
computers
• Virtualization drives
consolidation
• Enables Virtual
Sprawl
• Management
Opportunity grows
• SANs simplify storage
via snapshots, dedup,
etc.
• Modular approach
evolves with DC
Containers / PODS
• Data centers
becoming more
complex
Automation &
Converged Inf.
• 1st generation
solutions to simplify
the controlled sprawl
– HP Utility Data
Center and Egenera
• Automation and
management tools
mature
• Hypervisors
concentrate servers,
SANs become
bottlenecks
Increasing Abstraction between the Human and Machine
Cloud
• Converged
Infrastructure at
foundation but still
expensive entry
point.
• Automation evolves
to Orchestration
• Notion of IT-as-aService
• Early in the hype
• Next Generation of
Converged
infrastructure and
Software Defined
Data Centers Evolves

16. What is different today?
Programmable Data Centers
Defined by Software
Evolution of top down Abstraction - OS Overlay
concept: GRID, Hadoop, GoogleFS, etc.
Application Abstraction
The Last Mile: increased flexibility to deploy
networks virtually via NFV and SDN. Control Plane
& Data Plane concept evolve.
Software Defined
Networks
Lessons learned with control of hardware. DevOps,
people, skills, IT organizing differently. Server
virtualization matures.
Facebook and others show us Vanity Free Servers Opencompute.org evolves. Hypervisor
Interoperability.
Evolution of Converged
Infrastructure
Standardized
Infrastructure

17. Evolve architectures to simplified, modular, highly scalable designs
Appliances that simplify & consolidate hardware stacks
Typical Storage Stack Deployment
Replaced with a local controller and Cloud Storage Service
Local Storage
Controller
Images Sourced from Nasuni

18. Evolve architectures to simplified, modular, highly scalable designs
Modular building blocks replace traditional hub & spoke designs
(the Google and Facebook file system concepts)
Layer of Abstraction Decouples Storage
Images Sourced from Nutanix

19. Evolve architectures to simplified, modular, highly scalable designs
Software Defined Data Center Solutions: Data Center Hypervisors
Business Process
Applications
Software Defined Data Center Layer (Virtual Infrastructure or Data Center)
Vendors’ Product: Management, Automation, Orchestration of Physical Assets
Management
Management
Management
SAN
Standard Servers
NAS/DAS
Standard Storage Systems
IDS/IPS
Standard Network
Components
19

20. Elements of Today’s DC Modernization Options
Cloud Deployment
Models
DevOps
Managed Demand
IT Maturity in People
and Process
Abstraction from
infrastructure
landscape
Increased
virtualization of
servers, storage, and
networking
Standardization of
Infrastructure
Hardware
Shared Resource
Pools of servers,
storage, networks
Converged
Infrastructure Point
Solutions
Cloud-first or
“Greenfield”
strategies
Automated
Deployment for
legacy landscapes
Software Defined
Data Center
Solutions
IT-as-a-Service
Consume it, don’t
build it yourself

21. What Would You Predict?
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates,1981

22. The Journey for Each of Us is Different

23. Multi-Year Strategic Planning to Include
SDDC
Last Inf. Refresh
SDDC Pilots
% SDDC Deployed
• Integrate DC Modernization Strategies with Application Portfolio Planning
• Understand the pace of change for your company and look for entry points to next
generation programmable DC solutions
• Drive out tactical efforts incrementally to lead to a transformation for the larger multiyear picture
• Leverage an IT maturity model from your favorite vendor.

24. Balancing Tactical Efforts with Strategic
Transformation
Pure Tactical
Technology & Process Improvement
Focus on:
“Doing things incrementally
better and with less cost”
Finding the right balance
Pure Strategic
Transformational Changes
Focus on:
“Doing things differently in a big way”

25. Example Planning Framework for Supporting Transform to SDDC
Journey to Data Center Modernization
Best Practices
Planning Layers
Business Strategy
Interim Mode Operations (IMO)
Current Operations (CMO)
(Applications, Architecture,
And infrastructure.)
Process Integration
Organization &
People
Management of
Change
Define
Services, Contracts
and SLAs
Discovery: Current
Technology &
Workloads
Management &
Orchestration tools
Business and IT
process discovery
ITaaS Org Design
Skill Assessments
Readiness
Assessment
POC
Design
Ongoing Governance
Implement Governance
Mechanisms
Governance Plan
Business Case
Technology Strategy
Business strategy
Future SDDC Operations (FMO)
Publish Service Catalog
POC Buildout
Full Buildout
Migrate Application
Workload
Ongoing Refresh and Maintenance
Implement Service Catalog Portal
Define new ITaaS
process and
integration points
to existing
processes
Adopt/modify
Operations Guide
Test Operations
Guide
Updates to Operations Guide
IMO Team leads Workload
Migration
IMO resource
training
IMO resource
transition
MOC Roadmap
Communications
Planning
FMO resource
transition
Steady State Operations – adds, changes,
decommissions, capacity expansions, etc.
Key Announcements and Communications
Line of Business and General IT
Education/Training
Plan Outsourcing
Transition
Transition to
External Service
Provider/Operator

26. Summary of Approach to Modernize Data
Centers
Embrace Multiyear strategic
planning for I&O
Big Picture on
the Puzzle may
be a common
Vision
Balance
Incremental
with
Transformational
Change
Align Pace of
Change across
layers in your
strategic
planning

27. Parting Thoughts
• IT infrastructure may become like a utility, but it is a long way off.
Infrastructure and Operations still relevant today!
• Embrace both on and off premise solutions. DC modernization is also
about leveraging someone else's modernized data center.
• Explore emerging technologies leveraging the ingenuity of the Web
2.0 companies. They may not be right for all of us today, but when
will it be right? Can you predict?
• DC modernization should support your enterprise cloud strategy.

28. THANK YOU
Toby Weiss
tweiss@vipconsulting.com
(503) 926-4710
Consulting | Technology | Outsourcing
28