The Changing Face of Capacity Management - Private Clouds (3 of 5)

Looking at the present and future of Capacity Management, it's clear that managing cloud environments is incredibly important as more organizations decide to move much of their computing to the cloud.

The first type of cloud I want to cover is the private cloud.  

In many cases, a private cloud implementation involves organizations using virtualization and other technologies in-house that public cloud providers use when delivering their services.  In a traditional cloud implementation, services are delivered via the Internet.  In a private cloud, services may be delivered internally by other means.

For example, an organization could decide that it wants to change how it manages its Windows and Linux estate.  The company at this point decides to make an investment in VMware and turn all the existing physical servers into virtual machines to be managed centrally by a VMware administration team and using a lot of the automation VMware builds into vSphere.

Sounds good, right?

Well, one of the arguments for cloud computing is that clouds relieve the organization from day-to-day management and computing becomes much more of a utility (turn on the switch and it just works).  In private clouds that are implemented in-house, none of this is true.  Companies have to buy, build, and manage the environments and also deal with the complexity of having many applications running simultaneously in a virtual environment.

Still, companies feel that this is a good investment and, in many cases, so do I.  However, it's just as crucial, probably more so, that the environment be properly planned and managed.  In a typical application that runs on a server if the server runs into capacity and performance problems, only one application or service is affected.  In a private cloud, a shortage of capacity could affect all of the applications and services running within that cloud.

As of right now, most companies who are implementing virtualization technologies internally (and are taking advantage of technologies that allow for the rapid and seamless deployment and reallocation of resources) are setting up their own private clouds.

 
On Friday I'll deal with some of the things that need to be considered when looking at a private clouds.

Rich Fronheiser

Chief Marketing Officer