CLOUD ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT
Cloud computing deployments must be monitored and managed in order to be optimized for best performance.
Cloud management software provides capabilities for managing faults, configuration, accounting, performance, and
security; this is referred to as FCAPS.
Cloud management includes not only managing resources in the cloud, but managing resources on-premises.
The management of resources in the cloud requires new technology, but management of resources on-premises
allows vendors to use well-established network management technologies.
Efforts are underway to develop cloud management interoperability standards.
The goal of these efforts is to develop management tools that work with any cloud type.
One effort is the DMTF’s (Distributed Management Task Force) Open Cloud Standards Incubator.
Another group called the Cloud Commons is developing a technology called the Service Measurement Index (SMI).
SMI aims to deploy methods for measuring various aspects of cloud performance in a standard way
MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES
To monitor an entire cloud computing deployment stack, you monitor six different categories:
1. End-user services such as HTTP, TCP, POP3/SMTP, and others
2. Browser performance on the client
3. Application monitoring in the cloud, such as Apache, MySQL, and so on
4. Cloud infrastructure monitoring of services such as Amazon Web Services, GoGrid, Rackspace, and others
5. Machine instance monitoring where the service measures processor utilization, memory usage, disk consumption,
queue lengths, and other important parameters.
6. Network monitoring and discovery using standard protocols like the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP),
Configuration Management Database (CMDB), Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), and the like.
In IaaS, we can alter aspects of our deployment, such as the number of machine instances you are running or the
amount of storage we have, but we have very limited control over many important aspects of the operation.
As we move first to Platform as a Service (PaaS) like Windows Azure or Google App Engine and then onto Software
as a Service (SaaS) for which Salesforce.com is a prime example—becomes even more restrictive.
MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES
The goal of cloud lifecycle management is to manage the
LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
dynamic nature of the cloud environment, accelerating
provisioning, facilitating flexibility, and rapidly meeting the
Definition of
needs of the business. the service
The key benefits of a cloud lifecycle management solution
Client
should include: Retirement of interactions
the service with the
Accelerating the delivery of cloud services in response to service
business needs.
Automating provisioning and workflows, both for speed and
cost savings
Management
Enabling users to request flexible configurable cloud services of the
Deployment
of an instance
operation of
for their specific use cases instances
to the cloud
Supporting the use of public cloud infrastructures to augment
Service
internal resources optimization
and
Maximizing resource utilization by ensuring unused cloud customization
services are reclaimed
LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT
Cloud services have a defined lifecycle, a management program has to touch on each of the six different stages in
that lifecycle:
1. The definition of the service as a template for creating instances (creation, updating, and deletion of service
templates.
2. Client interactions with the service, usually through an SLA (Service Level Agreement) contract. This phase
manages client relationships and creates and manages service contracts.
3. The deployment of an instance to the cloud and the runtime management of instances. Tasks include the creation,
updating, and deletion of service offerings.
4. The definition of the attributes of the service while in operation and performance of modifications of its properties
Perform service optimization and customization.
5. Management of the operation of instances and routine maintenance. Monitor resources, track and respond to
events, and perform reporting and billing functions.
6. Retirement of the service. End of life tasks include data protection and system migration, archiving, and service
contract termination.
CLOUD MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS
Cloud management products are software tools designed to help organizations manage their cloud computing
resources.
These products provide a unified platform for organizations to manage and monitor their cloud resources, automate
workflows, and optimize costs.
Cloud management software and services is a very young industry, and as such, it has a very large number of
companies, some with new products and others with older products competing in this area.
The core management features offered by most cloud management service products include the following:
Support of different cloud types
Creation and provisioning of different types of cloud resources, such as machine instances, storage, or staged
applications
Performance reporting including availability and uptime, response time, resource quota usage, and other
characteristics
The creation of dashboards that can be customized for a particular client’s needs
CLOUD MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS
BMC Cloud Computing Initiative
• cloud planning, lifecycle management, optimization, and guidance.
VMware Hyperic
• Performance management for VMware deployed Java applications
Amazon CloudWatch
• AWS dashboard
Microsoft Azure Management:
• A set of tools and services that help you manage your Azure resources and applications.
Google Cloud Platform Console:
• A web-based interface for managing your Google Cloud resources.
CLOUD MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS
All of the service models support monitoring solutions, most often through interaction with the service API.
Tapping into a service API allows management software to perform command actions that a user would normally
perform.
Some of these APIs are themselves scriptable, while in some cases, scripting is supported in the management
software.
One key differentiator in monitoring and management software is whether the service needs to install an agent or it
performs its service without an agent.
The monitoring function normally can be performed through direct interaction with a cloud service or client using
processes such as an HTTP GET or a network command like PING.
For management functions, an agent is helpful in that it can provide needed hooks to manipulate a cloud resource.
Agents also, as a general rule, are useful in helping to solve problems associated with firewall NAT traversal.
CLOUD MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS
Different cloud service providers use different technologies for creating and managing cloud resources.
No entity is likely to want to make a major investment in a service that is a silo or from which data is difficult to
stage or to extract.
To this end, a number of large industry players such as VMware, IBM, Microsoft, Citrix, and HP have gotten
together to create standards that can be used to promote cloud interoperability.
One effort is the DMTF’s (Distributed Management Task Force) Open Cloud Standards Incubator.
Another group called the Cloud Commons is developing a technology called the Service Measurement Index
(SMI).
DMTF CLOUD MANAGEMENT STANDARDS
The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) is an industry organization that develops industry system
management standards for platform interoperability.
Its membership is a “who’s who” in computing, and since its founding in 1992, the group has been responsible for
several industry standards, most notably the Common Information Model (CIM).
The DMTF organizes itself into a set of working groups that are tasked with specifying standards for different areas
of technology.
A recent standard called the Virtualization Management Initiative (VMAN) was developed to extend CIM to virtual
computer system management.
VMAN has resulted in the creation of the Open Virtualization Format (OVF), which describes a standard method
for creating, packaging, and provisioning virtual appliances.
OVF is essentially a container and a file format that is open and both hypervisor- and processor-architecture-
agnostic.
DMTF CLOUD MANAGEMENT STANDARDS
Since OVF was announced in 2009, vendors such as VirtualBox, AbiCloud, IBM, Red Hat, and VMWare have
announced or introduced products that use OVF.
It was, therefore, a natural extension of the work that DMTF does in virtualization to solve management issues in
cloud computing.
DMTF has created a working group called the Open Cloud Standards Incubator (OCSI) to help develop
interoperability standards for managing interactions between and in public, private, and hybrid cloud systems.
The group is focused on describing resource management and security protocols, packaging methods, and network
management technologies.
Although the OCSI’s work has not yet been joined by Amazon or Salesforce.com, a set of open standards that
extend the use of industry standard protocols—such as the Common Information Model (CIM), the Open
Virtualization Format (OVF), and WBEM—to the cloud are going to be hard for vendors to resist
CLOUD COMMONS AND SMI
CA (Computer Associates) Technologies has taken some of its technologies in measuring distributed network
performance metrics and repositioned its products as the following:
CA Cloud Insight, a cloud metrics measurement service
CA Cloud Compose, a deployment service
CA Cloud Optimize, a cloud optimization service
CA Cloud Orchestrate, a workflow control and policy based automation service
At the heart of CA Cloud Insight is a method for measuring different cloud metrics that creates what CA calls a
Service Measurement Index or SMI.
The SMI measures things like SLA compliance, cost, and other values and rolls them up into a score.
To help allow SMI to gain traction in the industry, CA has donated the core technology to the Software Engineering
Institute at Carnegie Mellon as part of what is called the SMI Consortium.
The second CA initiative is the funding of an industry online community called the Cloud Commons.
The Cloud Commons is promotes information exchange on cloud services and the SMI standard.
Cloud Commons has built a dashboard called the CloudSensor that monitors the performance of the major cloud-
based services in real time.
CLOUD COMMONS AND SMI
CLOUD COMMONS AND SMI
The Service Measurement Index (SMI) is based on a set of measurement technologies forming the SMI Framework
that CA donated to the SMI Consortium. It measures cloud-based services in six areas:
Agility- How quickly adapt to changing demands and market conditions.
Capability- Range of advanced tools and infrastructure.
Cost- How much they offer.
Quality- Robust uptime, performance, and compliance standards, ensuring reliable and consistent operations for
users.
Risk- Such as data breaches, service outages, and dependency on third-party providers for critical infrastructure.
Security- Including encryption, multi-factor authentication, and compliance frameworks, but organizations must
also implement proper governance and access controls.
These form a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that can be used to compare one service to another.
