"Looming Clouds" will make you rebuild your IT platform
Mobility, the Internet of Things, Big Data and cloud computing are reformatting IT businesses, turning them into IT as a Service.
Ronald Wright Raffensperger, Technical Director, Data Center Solutions, IT Product Line, Huawei Technologies, Inc.
Managing an IT organization is a complex balance between priorities and urgency. Building a reliable infrastructure that meets today's needs, while trying to anticipate future needs, is not easy. But failures and malfunctions, which inevitably arise due to hardware and software problems, make IT management a task not at all for the faint of heart.
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Over the past few years, most organizations, seeking to improve the efficiency of their computing infrastructure, have switched to using virtualization. This first step brings the IT infrastructure closer to the cloud systems and significantly reduces the cost of maintaining IT. Unfortunately, the transition to virtualization itself is only the beginning of a long journey; at the same time, the problem of rapid scaling or reduction of platform performance with changes in application workloads remains unsolved. In addition, enterprises need the ability to provide their own cloud computing environments to users, including non-IT professionals.
Using ITaaS
This functionality has been given the group name "IT as a service" (ITaaS, IT-as-a-Service). With their help, companies can gain in productivity and reduce time to market using public clouds, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), but at the same time maintaining control over critical information assets. Using the concept of ITaaS, organizations can also optimize their data centers, providing support for internal services, thanks to their own cloud resources, either through an external cloud provider or by using combined options.
Thus, to implement the ITaaS model, an organization needs to resolve the following issues:
Those who have managed to realize all these opportunities and put ITaaS into operation can be congratulated. But is it worth it to calm down? Is a bright future guaranteed in which all the new demands of your business will be met?
Unfortunately, the answer is likely to be negative, and the reason for this is the rapid growth of IT requirements in a variety of ways. Several research companies analyzed the main trends and factors affecting the IT sphere. Apart from minor discrepancies, their conclusions basically coincide: they are mobility, the Internet of Things (IoT; Internet of Things), Big Data and cloud computing. To survive and succeed in an IT-changing world, these organizations need to meet basic data and flexibility requirements. At the same time, if ordinary business data simply accumulates as organizations grow and develop, then the data generated by mobile solutions and the Internet of Things take on new forms and are potentially capable of “blowing up” the existing infrastructure, because they increase the amount of information that companies have to work with . In particular, the data generated by the “Internet of Things” will be fundamentally different from the usual and convenient format for most companies, with the result that many of the existing strategies and platforms will be powerless to process them effectively.
Mobility adaptation
The problem of flexibility is more complex because it requires the adaptation of the IT infrastructure to work with cloud computing and Big Data, as well as mobile devices and the Internet of Things. The awareness of enterprises of the full scale of the impact of mobility changes their basic ideas about the role of IT in supporting their operations. In particular, mobility has the following unique set of requirements and features:
Seeing the influence of these factors, we begin to understand the requirements for cloud computing and Big Data. Without a cloud, it would not be possible to implement applications that provide the availability, scalability, and flexibility needed for mobile applications. And without the processing of Big Data, it is impossible to use all the available information and successfully apply the results of its analysis to improve the operation of the enterprise.
The future of information technology
Now let's take a closer look at the requirements for future IT applications arising from the above. Firstly, they should be considered and provided, first of all, as mobile. This means that their functionality should be assessed from the point of view of a device user with limited screen size and limited bandwidth. Interface designers of such applications should carefully structure user interaction tools to ensure ease of implementation of web applications and further reduce development complexity. The truth of this statement was recently confirmed by Google, which decided to prioritize search results for mobile devices, depending on whether the website has a mobile version or not.
The second requirement is the need to change the existing ideas about the structure of applications. To take advantage of cloud architectures and meet the requirements of mobile systems for the duration of the development cycle, it is necessary to abandon the principle of creating applications designed for highly reliable infrastructure and software division into “primary” and “emergency reserve” (primary / fail-over). It is necessary to prepare in advance for the fact that the application architecture, as well as the underlying infrastructure, will be subject to failures and failures, and then correctly overcome these failures. This transition from "reliability" to "fault tolerance" will yield significant results, including - not least - will shorten the development cycle, since the best way to make applications fault-tolerant is to change their structure from monolithic to fragmented. In the world of cloud services, such fragmentation is often referred to as “building applications using microservices”.
These conceptual changes extend to the definition of completeness of the application. Because of the need to respond quickly to market demands, applications may never be fully completed, with the result that IT organizations will have to work in perpetual beta mode. This not only creates difficulties for developing, testing and operating companies, but is also fraught with potential problems due to unjustified expectations outside of IT organizations.
In order to successfully work in the “perpetual beta version” mode, enterprises are advised to adopt more flexible DevOps protocols for application development engineering. This will require rethinking the relationship between the IT development and operations teams, as well as with internal and external users. You will need to master the new tools that destroy the views on the traditional IT environment, since working with open source software requires a new approach to acquiring and supporting development tools, testing and operation.
Open source development tools
The decision to use open source software tools to develop and support business applications is a serious step. As a rule, IT organizations focus on partners who have extensive experience in building and maintaining open source environments in forms that are appropriate for their business goals. In most cases, these organizations should also be deeply interested in the long-term success of projects using open source software and should be supported by participation in the development of the tools themselves. Choosing the right technology varies depending on the needs and maturity of each IT organization.
Table. Basic open source software for IT
Don't let new players ruin your business.
Dealing with future changes in IT is not easy: every IT organization must realize that in order to adapt to the inexorable impact of mobility, the Internet of things, Big Data and cloud computing, it is necessary to increase its competence and change its usual philosophy.
You can be assured that your competitors - including start-ups and other non-traditional players - will look for opportunities to get ahead and thereby destroy the business of traditional players. Adapt or die! Feel free to look into the future in person - restructuring your IT platform to adapt to cloud technologies will allow you to improve your position.
Ronald Wright Raffensperger, Technical Director, Data Center Solutions, IT Product Line, Huawei Technologies, Inc.
Managing an IT organization is a complex balance between priorities and urgency. Building a reliable infrastructure that meets today's needs, while trying to anticipate future needs, is not easy. But failures and malfunctions, which inevitably arise due to hardware and software problems, make IT management a task not at all for the faint of heart.
')
Over the past few years, most organizations, seeking to improve the efficiency of their computing infrastructure, have switched to using virtualization. This first step brings the IT infrastructure closer to the cloud systems and significantly reduces the cost of maintaining IT. Unfortunately, the transition to virtualization itself is only the beginning of a long journey; at the same time, the problem of rapid scaling or reduction of platform performance with changes in application workloads remains unsolved. In addition, enterprises need the ability to provide their own cloud computing environments to users, including non-IT professionals.
Using ITaaS
This functionality has been given the group name "IT as a service" (ITaaS, IT-as-a-Service). With their help, companies can gain in productivity and reduce time to market using public clouds, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), but at the same time maintaining control over critical information assets. Using the concept of ITaaS, organizations can also optimize their data centers, providing support for internal services, thanks to their own cloud resources, either through an external cloud provider or by using combined options.
Thus, to implement the ITaaS model, an organization needs to resolve the following issues:
- Applications. To take advantage of autoscaling, you need to modify most application services. For which of them will the effect of using this technology be positive and what will be the return on investment (ROI)?
- Security. If teams can create their own virtualized resources and use them without IT control, will the security of existing and future work environments be guaranteed?
- Capacity shared resources. Typically, networks and data storage devices are shared resources, and in this sense, the ITaaS model is no exception. Will it be possible to guarantee the availability and capacity of these shared resources with the independent implementation of new applications?
- Control. Many of the existing IT management systems are unable to provide key information needed to effectively monitor and manage virtual environments, including capacity information and the extent to which all common resources are used.
Those who have managed to realize all these opportunities and put ITaaS into operation can be congratulated. But is it worth it to calm down? Is a bright future guaranteed in which all the new demands of your business will be met?
Unfortunately, the answer is likely to be negative, and the reason for this is the rapid growth of IT requirements in a variety of ways. Several research companies analyzed the main trends and factors affecting the IT sphere. Apart from minor discrepancies, their conclusions basically coincide: they are mobility, the Internet of Things (IoT; Internet of Things), Big Data and cloud computing. To survive and succeed in an IT-changing world, these organizations need to meet basic data and flexibility requirements. At the same time, if ordinary business data simply accumulates as organizations grow and develop, then the data generated by mobile solutions and the Internet of Things take on new forms and are potentially capable of “blowing up” the existing infrastructure, because they increase the amount of information that companies have to work with . In particular, the data generated by the “Internet of Things” will be fundamentally different from the usual and convenient format for most companies, with the result that many of the existing strategies and platforms will be powerless to process them effectively.
Mobility adaptation
The problem of flexibility is more complex because it requires the adaptation of the IT infrastructure to work with cloud computing and Big Data, as well as mobile devices and the Internet of Things. The awareness of enterprises of the full scale of the impact of mobility changes their basic ideas about the role of IT in supporting their operations. In particular, mobility has the following unique set of requirements and features:
- Unpredictability. The mobile environment is characterized by completely new modes of use even for such relatively familiar applications as order entry and requesting customer information. Traditional ideas about peak hours do not work here: the intensity of use turns out to be extremely uneven, with five or even tenfold fluctuations over short periods of time.
- Availability. Users - from customers and partners to employees - use mobile devices both during work and during off-hours, quickly becoming dependent on their ability to be “always in touch”.
- Change management. Traditional applications are characterized by stable, relatively long development cycles, depending on changes in internal processes and requirements. In contrast, mobile applications often change under the influence of external factors, starting with the changes necessary for compatibility with new versions of the mobile OS and ending with the changes required for the interaction of some mobile applications with others. These tasks are not amenable to long-term planning, so they have to be carried out in a time independent of IT services.
- User expectations. Users of mobile applications are accustomed to rapid changes and the rapid development of functionality. Tracking user behavior, testing various ways to interact with them and successfully providing them with upgraded functions indicates the need for new development, testing and deployment paradigms.
Seeing the influence of these factors, we begin to understand the requirements for cloud computing and Big Data. Without a cloud, it would not be possible to implement applications that provide the availability, scalability, and flexibility needed for mobile applications. And without the processing of Big Data, it is impossible to use all the available information and successfully apply the results of its analysis to improve the operation of the enterprise.
The future of information technology
Now let's take a closer look at the requirements for future IT applications arising from the above. Firstly, they should be considered and provided, first of all, as mobile. This means that their functionality should be assessed from the point of view of a device user with limited screen size and limited bandwidth. Interface designers of such applications should carefully structure user interaction tools to ensure ease of implementation of web applications and further reduce development complexity. The truth of this statement was recently confirmed by Google, which decided to prioritize search results for mobile devices, depending on whether the website has a mobile version or not.
The second requirement is the need to change the existing ideas about the structure of applications. To take advantage of cloud architectures and meet the requirements of mobile systems for the duration of the development cycle, it is necessary to abandon the principle of creating applications designed for highly reliable infrastructure and software division into “primary” and “emergency reserve” (primary / fail-over). It is necessary to prepare in advance for the fact that the application architecture, as well as the underlying infrastructure, will be subject to failures and failures, and then correctly overcome these failures. This transition from "reliability" to "fault tolerance" will yield significant results, including - not least - will shorten the development cycle, since the best way to make applications fault-tolerant is to change their structure from monolithic to fragmented. In the world of cloud services, such fragmentation is often referred to as “building applications using microservices”.
These conceptual changes extend to the definition of completeness of the application. Because of the need to respond quickly to market demands, applications may never be fully completed, with the result that IT organizations will have to work in perpetual beta mode. This not only creates difficulties for developing, testing and operating companies, but is also fraught with potential problems due to unjustified expectations outside of IT organizations.
In order to successfully work in the “perpetual beta version” mode, enterprises are advised to adopt more flexible DevOps protocols for application development engineering. This will require rethinking the relationship between the IT development and operations teams, as well as with internal and external users. You will need to master the new tools that destroy the views on the traditional IT environment, since working with open source software requires a new approach to acquiring and supporting development tools, testing and operation.
Open source development tools
The decision to use open source software tools to develop and support business applications is a serious step. As a rule, IT organizations focus on partners who have extensive experience in building and maintaining open source environments in forms that are appropriate for their business goals. In most cases, these organizations should also be deeply interested in the long-term success of projects using open source software and should be supported by participation in the development of the tools themselves. Choosing the right technology varies depending on the needs and maturity of each IT organization.
Table. Basic open source software for IT
Don't let new players ruin your business.
Dealing with future changes in IT is not easy: every IT organization must realize that in order to adapt to the inexorable impact of mobility, the Internet of things, Big Data and cloud computing, it is necessary to increase its competence and change its usual philosophy.
You can be assured that your competitors - including start-ups and other non-traditional players - will look for opportunities to get ahead and thereby destroy the business of traditional players. Adapt or die! Feel free to look into the future in person - restructuring your IT platform to adapt to cloud technologies will allow you to improve your position.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/281324/
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