Unitiv Blog

There was a time in the data center when we dedicated specific infrastructure and specific administrators to specific projects. This was a period of tremendous inefficiency and underutilization. This approach created a huge overhead in terms of administration, and project cycles that seemed to go on and on.

Today, however, cloud computing and virtualization technologies have change things for the better. Data centers are much more likely to pool resources – computing, storage, and network resources – into a private cloud configuration.

Private cloud challenges

While  these virtualized private cloud solutions don’t have the administrative headaches that the old approach had, they do present some unique challenges. There are a number of components in the private cloud that need to be correctly managed, including:

•    Data center automation

•    Virtualization management

•    Performance monitoring

•    Automated provisioning

•    Chargebacks

Each of these areas requires a separate product or solution. In some ways, this recreates some of the inefficiencies of the pre-virtualization world. Each component acts independently, and it’s up to data center personnel to try to fit the pieces together and make sure each solution is working well with the others.

Coming solutions

Fortunately, solutions providers are beginning to recognize this problem. Solutions are emerging that look at the private cloud from the bird’s eye view, and that manage all of the various moving parts at once.

A good example of this is OpenStack. OpenStack is an open source project that is designed to provide a core set of management tools to help organize the private cloud. Some of those tools include things like management of virtual machines, storage management, and even image servicing.

OpenStack was originally developed by NASA along with Rackspace, but is now an open source project with more than 130 companies participating. These are big names in cloud computing, too, and include companies like Cisco, Citrix, HP, NEC, and others.

Making the private cloud even better

In the long run, these solutions are going to offer an even greater degree of efficiency and management capability to the private cloud. Once they take hold and start to gain third party support, they’ll become viable solutions for just about any data center.