HP CloudSystem

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HP CloudSystem is a cloud infrastructure from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) that combines storage, servers, networking and software.

Contents

HP CloudSystem is now branded HP Helion CloudSystem and is an integral component of the HPE Helion portfolio.

History

HP CloudSystem was first launched in January 2011. [1] Many of its components are based on earlier HP products. HP CloudSystem is based on HP BladeSystem Matrix technology, which was originally launched in 2009. BladeSystem Matrix is a combination of HP Systems Insight Manager, HP BladeSystem c-Class blade chassis and HP StorageWorks EVA Fibre Channel Storage framework, along with Microsoft Active Directory and virtualization Hypervisors from Microsoft and VMware. HP Insight Orchestration provides the orchestration functionality. [2]

Previous versions of HP CloudSystem combined HP Matrix Operating Environment, which manages, monitors and provisions servers for physical and virtual resources and HP Cloud Service Automation Software, a set of system management tools used to provide and manage the lifecycle of IT services. BladeSystem Matrix supports HP ProLiant x64 blades running Microsoft Windows and Linux, and HP Integrity blades running HP-UX. [3]

HP CloudSystem is now branded HP Helion CloudSystem and is an integral component of the HP Helion portfolio.

Cloud migration challenges

The migration of traditional IT, in which IT directly controls IT purchasing, deployment, management, and use, to a cloud computing model holds a number of challenges. A paper titled "Cloud Migration: A Case Study of Migrating an Enterprise IT System to IaaS," by researchers at the Cloud Computing Co-laboratory, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, raises several socio-technical issues related to the migration of IT services to the cloud. The researchers state that in-house IT personnel are at risk of becoming dependent upon the cloud service vendor, of which the user organization has no control over. The researchers also note that the user organization could also require more resources to carry out migration to the cloud and overcome the issues that could crop up after migration, such as a lack of in-house knowledge of cloud operations.

The researchers also note that the user organization's customer representatives could take longer to resolve customer problems, as their questions may require input from the external cloud services provider. Furthermore, migrating to cloud computing could reduce job satisfaction among IT staffers, whose jobs change from a hands-on technical role to managing external service providers. User organizations must also learn to cope with a new way of managing IT as they are no longer in charge of software support contracts or hardware maintenance issues. [4]

Other cloud migration challenges that have been cited include security, vendor management and technical integration. Security experts have raised the issue that because public clouds are multi-tenant (see: Multitenancy), meaning that the cloud provider hosts data from many different user organizations, opening up security risks. Vulnerabilities or defects in one organization's applications could negatively affect other applications hosted by the same service provider. [5]

Under the vendor management issue, user organizations must also take responsibility of ensuring different cloud providers meet their Service-level agreements. User organizations must identify what is required to integrate the cloud service with their existing IT infrastructure. The user organization may need to create a virtual machine template that describes the infrastructure, application and the security that's required of the service provider. [5]

Dan Kusnetzky, cloud computing analyst at research firm the 451 group cites resistance to change as an inhibitor to cloud computing. He is quoted as saying: "Basically, IT people are charged with keeping the status quo, because the possibility for changes introduces the chances that things will stop working." HP's Cloud Discovery Workshop and HP Cloud Roadmap Services has been described as created to address these concerns. [6] The workshops aim to educate user organizations about the impact of cloud computing to company culture. The opportunities and risks of cloud computing are also discussed. [7] The roadmap service is offered as an addition to the discovery workshop. It aims to help organizations plan and adopt cloud computing. [8]

CloudSystem environments and characteristics

Cloud Service Automation Software

CloudSystem includes HP Cloud Service Automation Software, a set of system management tools used to provide and manage the lifecycle of IT services. That is done in an automated way. [9] Cloud Service Automation Software is based on technology from a company acquired by HP in 2007 called Opsware. The tools that are part of CSA manage the following cloud tasks: workflow, configuration, provisioning, management and monitoring. [10]

Lauren Nelson, an analyst with industry research company Forrester Research has been cited as describing CSA as offering tools to create a cloud that would be similar to Amazon Web Services or Rackspace Cloud from a collection of servers. [10]

CloudSystem Matrix

Industry analyst company Illuminata has described CloudSystem Matrix as a "coordinated system for setting up pools of modular resources and flexibly deploying IT services across those pools." [11] HP CloudSystem Matrix is a platform for private clouds. It has been described as helping to shorten the time it takes for user organizations to deliver complex applications and IT infrastructures. [12]

HP CloudSystem Matrix 7.0 cloud automation environment was launched in November 2011. It includes pre-integrated server, network, storage and software components. This version also includes cloud bursting capabilities and automated self-provisioning. [13]

Judith Hurwitz, a widely recognized industry analyst [14] described CloudSystem Matrix as a linchpin of HP's cloud strategy. [15] She has described CloudSystem Matrix as a unified computing system that combines virtual and physical server blades. A central console is used to manage resource pools, physical and virtual servers and network connectivity. Among the virtualization hypervisors supported are VMware, KVM and Microsoft Hyper-V, Hurwitz writes in her article.

The engine of CloudSystem Matrix is the Matrix Operating Environment, which manages, monitors and provisions servers for physical and virtual resources. Matrix OE also carries out network management. [9] It is an infrastructure lifecycle management software that enables users to provision and modify complex infrastructures according to dynamic business demands. CloudSystem Matrix includes HP Cloud Maps, a set of templates to assist user organizations to architect cloud computing infrastructures to deliver applications and services. [16] HP Cloud Maps templates are pre-configured to include workflow and deployment scripts for cloud services. [17] Cloud Maps have also been described as pre-configured templates for creating application stacks. These stacks could include workflows or third-party applications from Microsoft, SAP and Oracle to be delivered as cloud services. The templates can be loaded into CloudSystem to create a cloud services catalog. HP has been cited as describing Cloud Maps as reducing the time it takes to provision cloud services by 80%, and to reduce the time it takes for compliance management by up to 75%. [18] [19]

HP CloudStart

HP CloudStart enables user organizations to design, build and install a private cloud based on CloudSystem Matrix. CloudStart includes Cloud Service Automation and a virtual infrastructure provisioning product that features a self-service portal. It also provides resource metering and chargeback facilities for private clouds. IT services are also included with CloudStart, including an assessment of the user organization's existing IT infrastructure plus recommendations for how the organization could use cloud computing. The cloud configuration is set up by HP, which also moves the defined services to the cloud. Training is also provided to the user organization. HP has been cited as saying that it can create a private cloud for user organizations within 30 days of its initial engagement with the organization. [3] [20]

Cloud orchestration

Cloud computing disperses applications and services among multiple servers and, in some cases, multiple data centers. Cloud orchestration coordinates the different cloud elements to ensure systems and applications management, integration, support, billing, provisioning, service-level agreement management and contract management. Cloud orchestration is a part of CloudSystem and the feature is based on Opsware Workflow, a centralized console for provisioning and server and patch management. [21]

CloudSystem Enterprise

CloudSystem Enterprise provides a single environment for the creation and management of private clouds. Based on Cloud Service Automation, CloudSystem Enterprise manages private clouds running on standalone physical servers, and hybrid clouds running across private and public clouds. CloudSystem Enterprise includes a lifecycle management tool to manage the deployment and retirement of applications and infrastructure. [21]

HP CloudSystem Service Provider

CloudSystem Service Provider is a platform for service providers to deliver public and virtual hosted private cloud services. It is aimed at service providers building Private clouds or Public clouds for Infrastructure as a service, Platform as a service, or software-as-a-service. [21] CloudSystem can be used by service providers to provide cloud services on carrier-level networks and IT infrastructures. It also allow service providers to automate and provision cloud services. [22] [23]

Cloud bursting

In November 2011, HP announced a cloud bursting feature for CloudSystem. This feature enables CloudSystem to use the capacity of external private and public clouds when demand increases. [10]

CloudSystem includes other software. This includes HP TippingPoint, which provides intrusion detection, network security and traffic management. CloudSystem is based on templates called CloudMaps that provide common enterprise application stacks. Compliance is provided by HP ArcSight. [10]

Third-party support

CloudSystem is supported by a partner program, which helps cloud computing services vendors to build Cloud Centers of Excellence. These have been described as demonstration clouds for HP CloudSystem and HP Converged Systems platforms. The centers can include products from HP Networking, HP TippingPoint and HP 3PAR storage. [24]

Certified HP partners are also able to offer HP workshops, such as the HP Cloud Discovery Workshops and other training support. The Cloud Discovery Workshop is designed to educate attendees about cloud computing and helps attendees establish how cloud computing fits into their organizations and discusses best practices. [25]

Related Research Articles

In telecommunication, provisioning involves the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide new services to its users. In National Security/Emergency Preparedness telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.

NetApp American technology company

NetApp, Inc. is an American hybrid cloud data services and data management company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. It has ranked in the Fortune 500 since 2012. Founded in 1992 with an IPO in 1995, NetApp offers hybrid cloud data services for management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments.

Opsware

Opsware, Inc. was a software company based in Sunnyvale, California, that offered products for server and network device provisioning, configuration, and management targeted toward enterprise customers. Opsware had offices in New York City, Redmond, Washington, Cary, North Carolina, and an engineering office in Cluj, Romania.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are online services that provide high-level APIs used to dereference various low-level details of underlying network infrastructure like physical computing resources, location, data partitioning, scaling, security, backup etc. A hypervisor, such as Xen, Oracle VirtualBox, Oracle VM, KVM, VMware ESX/ESXi, or Hyper-V, LXD, runs the virtual machines as guests. Pools of hypervisors within the cloud operational system can support large numbers of virtual machines and the ability to scale services up and down according to customers' varying requirements.

Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that provides a platform allowing customers to develop, run, and manage applications without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure typically associated with developing and launching an app.

WaveMaker

WaveMaker is a private aPaaS software for building and running custom apps. WaveMaker provides Rapid API App Development & Deployment to build enterprise-grade multi-device apps, and leverages Docker containerization for an app-optimized infrastructure.

Egenera, Inc. is a multinational cloud manager and data center infrastructure automation company with corporate headquarters in Boxborough, Massachusetts in the United States. Egenera develops and sells software that enables enterprises and service providers to virtualize their computing infrastructure and create highly available private, hybrid or public cloud services. Egenera also provides consulting and training services related to its products and technologies. Egenera is a privately held company with approximately 110 employees. Founded in March 2000, the company was named by Network World as one of the top 10 startups to watch in 2002 and was a winner in the annual "Red Herring 100 North America" award given by Red Herring magazine in 2006.

Cloud computing Form of Internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. The term is generally used to describe data centers available to many users over the Internet. Large clouds, predominant today, often have functions distributed over multiple locations from central servers. If the connection to the user is relatively close, it may be designated an edge server.

Dynamic Infrastructure is an information technology concept related to the design of data centers, whereby the underlying hardware and software can respond dynamically and more efficiently to changing levels of demand. In other words, data center assets such as storage and processing power can be provisioned to meet surges in user's needs. The concept has also been referred to as Infrastructure 2.0 and Next Generation Data Center.

OpenStack Cloud computing software

OpenStack is a free open standard cloud computing platform, mostly deployed as infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in both public and private clouds where virtual servers and other resources are made available to users. The software platform consists of interrelated components that control diverse, multi-vendor hardware pools of processing, storage, and networking resources throughout a data center. Users either manage it through a web-based dashboard, through command-line tools, or through RESTful web services.

HP Cloud Service Automation is cloud management software from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) that is used by companies and government agencies to automate the management of cloud-based IT-as-a-service, from order, to provision, and retirement. HP Cloud Service Automation orchestrates the provisioning and deployment of complex IT services such as of databases, middleware, and packaged applications. The software speeds deployment of application-based services across hybrid cloud delivery platforms and traditional IT environments.

HP Business Service Automation was a collection of software products for data center automation from the HP Software Division of Hewlett-Packard Company. The products could help Information Technology departments create a common, enterprise-wide view of each business service; enable the automation of change and compliance across all devices that make up a business service; connect IT processes and coordinate teams via common workflows; and integrate with monitoring and ticketing tools to form a complete, integrated business service management solution. HP now provides many of these capabilities as part of HP Business Service Management software and solutions.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and its predecessor entities have a long history of developing and selling networking products. Today it offers campus and small business networking solutions through its wholly owned company Aruba Networks which was acquired in 2015. Prior to this, HP Networking was the entity within HP offering networking products.

HP Network Management Center (NMC) is a suite of integrated HP software used by network managers in information technology departments. The solutions allows network operators to see, catalog and monitor the routers, switches and other devices on their network. It alerts IT staff when a network device fails and predicts when a network node or connection point may go down. It was designed to improve operational efficiency.

IBM cloud computing is a set of cloud computing services for business offered by the information technology company IBM. IBM Cloud includes infrastructure as a service (IaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) offered through public, private and hybrid cloud delivery models, in addition to the components that make up those clouds.

Converged storage is a storage architecture that combines storage and computing resources into a single entity. This can result in the development of platforms for server centric, storage centric or hybrid workloads where applications and data come together to improve application performance and delivery. The combination of storage and compute differs to the traditional IT model in which computation and storage take place in separate or siloed computer equipment. The traditional model requires discrete provisioning changes, such as upgrades and planned migrations, in the face of server load changes, which are increasingly dynamic with virtualization, where converged storage increases the supply of resources along with new VM demands in parallel.

HP ConvergedSystem is a portfolio of system-based products from Hewlett-Packard (HP) that integrates preconfigured IT components into systems for virtualization, cloud computing, big data, collaboration, converged management, and client virtualization. Composed of servers, storage, networking, and integrated software and services, the systems are designed to address the cost and complexity of data center operations and maintenance by pulling the IT components together into a single resource pool so they are easier to manage and faster to deploy. Where previously it would take three to six months from the time of order to get a system up and running, it now reportedly takes as few as 20 days with the HP ConvergedSystem.

HP Cloud

HP Cloud was a set of cloud computing services available from Hewlett-Packard (HP) that offered public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, managed private cloud, and other cloud services. It was the combination of the previous HP Converged Cloud business unit and HP Cloud Services, which is the OpenStack technology-based public cloud. It is used by enterprise organizations so they can combine public cloud services with their own internal IT resources to create hybrid clouds, or a mix of different cloud computing environments made up of private and public clouds.

Cloud management is the management of cloud computing products and services.

SAP Converged Cloud Private computing cloud

SAP Converged Cloud is a private managed cloud developed and marketed by SAP.

References

  1. ↑ Clark, Jack. “HP packages aim to entice enterprises into cloud,” January 25, 2011, ZDNet
  2. ↑ Venezia, Paul. “Exclusive Review: HP BladeSystem Matrix,” June 17, 2009, InfoWorld
  3. 1 2 Prickett Morgan, Timothy. “HP punts turnkey Matrix cloud,” August 30, 2010, SearchCloudComputing
  4. ↑ Khajeh-Hosseini, Ali., Greenwood, David.; Sommerville, Ian. “Cloud Migration: A Case Study of Migrating an Enterprise IT System to IaaS," Cloud Computing Co-laboratory, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, UK
  5. 1 2 Freedman, Rick. “Cloud computing migration issues: What you need to know," TechRepublic, December 22, 2009
  6. ↑ Brooks, Carl. "HP launches cloud computing consulting services," SearchCloudComputing, June 23, 2009.
  7. ↑ "Kovar, Joseph. K., "HP offers cloud computing 101," CRN, June 23, 2009". Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
  8. ↑ Gardner, Dana. "HP adds new consulting services to smooth the enterprise path to cloud adoption," ZDNet, June 24, 2009.
  9. 1 2 Clark. Jack, “HP automates hybrid clouds on CloudSystem,” November 30, 2011, ZDNet "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-12-06. Retrieved 2012-07-12.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. 1 2 3 4 SearchCloudComputing, “HP CloudSystem: What exactly is it?"
  11. ↑ Illuminata Spotlight, “HP CloudSystem Matrix: Managing at a higher level"
  12. ↑ Preimesberger, Chris. "Red Hat reveals new cloud-related deals with HP, BMC Software," eWeek, May 5, 2011
  13. ↑ Volk, Torsten. EMA Impact Brief: "HP CloudSystem Matrix 7.0 to be available in Q1 2012," January 9, 2012
  14. ↑ Analyst Profile: Judith Hurwitz, IT-Director.com
  15. ↑ Hurwitz, Judith. "HP's Ambitious Cloud Computing Strategy: Can HP Emerge as a Power?," Judith Hurwitz blog, February 15, 2011
  16. ↑ "CIOL, January 25, 2012. "HP Cloud Map makes cloud deployment simple"". Archived from the original on March 2, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
  17. ↑ Burke, Steven., McLaughlin, Kevin. "HP takes the wraps off cloud-focused channel program," CRN, March 29, 2011
  18. ↑ Cox, Mark. "HP announces new program for partners to win in the cloud," CRN, March 29, 2011.
  19. ↑ Info-Tech Research Group, "HP Canada analyst day--cloud, cloud, cloud," May 12, 2011. Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ↑ Ricknas, Mikael. “HP's CloudStart said to speed private cloud deployment,” August 30, 2010, InfoWorld
  21. 1 2 3 Prickett Morgan, Timothy. “HP plugs CloudSystem into Amazon and other heavens,” June 7, 2011, The Register
  22. ↑ Burt, Jeffrey. "Cisco, HP expand cloud computing efforts," eWeek, December 5, 2011. [ permanent dead link ]
  23. ↑ Hoofer (5 December 2011). "Cisco, HP Expand Cloud Computing Efforts". CloudCow.
  24. ↑ Dutt, Robert. “HP launches CloudSystem Partner Program,” March 29, 2011, ChannelBuzz.ca
  25. ↑ "Kovar, Joseph. F. "HP offers Cloud Computing 101," June 23, 2009, CRN". Archived from the original on February 13, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
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