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Adventures in Data Center Automation:

December, 2007

Dec 31 2007   6:47PM GMT

Month in Review - December 2007



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter

Thanks for all your feedback and ideas during this months postings. Keep them coming.
Development of Data Center Automation Blueprint (DCAB)

Reviewing Details within some of the DCAB functional areas

Overall DCA Trends and Observations

Out with 2007 and in with 2008, Happy New Year!

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Dec 28 2007   11:31PM GMT

Digging into each of these 6 functional areas: Performance and Capacity



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, HP Software, IBM Tivoli, InfoVista, Integrien, Netuitive, Systems monitoring, OSS, BMC, Quest Software, NetIQ, Network monitoring, Performance management, CA, Zabbix, ZenOSS, OpenNMS, NAGIOS, Hyperic, Groundwork, Packet Design, Apparent Networks, Xangati, Gomez, Keynote, Brix Networks, Entuity, Opnet, Network Instruments, Fluke Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Compuware, NetScout, NetQoS, Symantec, EMC

First things first, we have many of the same vendors from the Availability & Notification functional area of this Data Center Automation Blueprint in this category. Which probably begs the question, do we combine Availability & Notification with Performance & Capacity? I know in the OSS (not Open Source Software but telco-oriented Operational  Support Systems) model they do this and call it “Service Assurance”, another name could be Service Level Management as they two monitoring-centric functions are about ensuring service levels are met…or simply I call it Availability & Performance? I’ll come back to this at the end after I type up the players in this Performance & Capacity area:

But then, we have a slew of others that have been around for quite some time now…

And some innovative up-and-comers in some unique technology/approaches…

Real-Time Behavior/Pattern Analysis through Dynamic Thresholding

IP Traffic/Packet Flow Monitoring & Analysis

Open Source Software (OSS) vendors

Whew..that was more work then I expected to pull together and I’m not done yet…  Please throw into the comment who I’ve missed (I know there has to be a few).

The major challenge here is organizing and breaking down this functional area.  There are so many approaches to obtain performance metrics from/for the data center.  Some of the techniques and perspectives include;

  • passive vs. active
  • agent vs. agent-less
  • in-line appliance vs. out-of-band appliance (e.g., span a port)
  • proprietary vs. leverage infrastructure mgmt. capabilities (e.g., Cisco Netflow)
  • outside the data center looking in vs. inside the data center itself.
  • Reactive troubleshooting vs. Proactive Predictive

I’m going to need to have a part two (and maybe more) for this functional category breaking down the pro’s and con’s of various approaches.  Which vendors do what, etc.  I also need to revisit that question from the top of do we combine this into a single “availability & performance” functional category???  For now, this first pass will have to do…

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Dec 27 2007   6:04PM GMT

Great write-up on Security Managment activities this year



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Symantec, HP Software, IBM Tivoli, Security, Securitychannel, EMC

I have Security as one of the 6 DCAB Functional Categories.  This article does a great job highlighting some key landscape changes in the overall Security Management market (some items are beyond what is covered by this blog).  As it relates to monitoring/managing the security of the data center this points out some key activities:

  • Web Application Vulnerability Scanning - IBM acquiring Watchfire, HP acquiring SPI
  • Data Leakage Monitoring - Symantec acquiring Vontu, EMC acquire Tablus and others.

As noted, these capabilities aren’t exclusive to the data center but have applicability.

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Dec 24 2007   5:52PM GMT

So let’s start to dig into each of these 6 functional areas: Availability and Notification



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, HP Software, IBM Tivoli, BMC, Quest Software, NetIQ, CA, EMC

So it’s time to start refining the Data Center Automation Blueprint. One way I hope to do that is through these next 6 blog posts (one for each functional DCA category) that will:

1) create list of vendors I know about that have some capabilities for the data center in the specified functional area

2) during this first pass attempting I also hope to breakdown each function by some major capabilities.

*NOTE: Help me out if I miss some vendors, miss some products within vendor product lines etc. Again, the focus is for current/future complex data center so I won’t be including tools like Ipswitch What’s Up Gold or products that are on their way out (end-0f-life) by vendor (e.g., NetView).

Event consolidation & root cause analysis

A new product segment that has materialized that for now I’m going to go place here is log management where you maintain historical event/message/alert logs and then have historical reporting and applying advanced indexing and searching technology to quickly find the “needle in the haystack” problems. It also has application beyond operational availability management of the data center within the security space for compliance management.

Next up will be the current Data Center Automation Functional Area of Performance and Capacity.

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Dec 21 2007   9:36PM GMT

BarCampESM, January 18-20th - Austin, TX



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
Systems monitoring, OSS

Just learned about this and it sounds really cool!  Thanks for the heads-up Doug, and to think it’s just down the road basically in my backyard.

http://barcampesm.org

BarCampESM will throw users, developers, vendors, and anyone else interested in systems management together at a non-commercial event, organized by volunteers, with free attendance for all

Current topics being planned/considered:

  • State of Open Source Systems Management
  • Good, bad, ugly of monitoring
  • Standards-based management

I’m sure their will be more to come but if your in Texas and care about systems management (most likely if your reading this that answer is yes) this will be something to check out.  And if your not in Texas, well this is a great excuse to check out the great city of Austin!

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Dec 19 2007   8:42PM GMT

Great IBM Tivoli ESM Recap, quick stab at mapping to DCAB



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
IBM Tivoli

John Willis posted a great recap of Enterprise System Management moves IBM Tivoli has been doing over the recent years. This has great applicability to my attempt at defining a Data Center Automation Blueprint.

Here is the link to his posting - Mission Impossible It’s always fun reading the history behind things to.

So now I’m going to attempt mapping this to the 6 functional DCA categories from the blueprint (this may take a couple attempts as I don’t have all day to work on this) and also I’m going from memory and performing numerous Google searches on the Internet for public information (ex: articles of acquisitions, current and former product pages - btw if you’ve never checked out the wayback machine your missing out):

Resource Reconciliation: Tivoli Application Dependency Discover Manager (former Collation) and also I would assume some components from the MRO Software acquisition around Asset managment

Process Orchestration: Tivoli Provisioning Manager (former ThinkDynamics)…not sure how well this product stacks up against more recent “Run Book Automation” technologies that were acquired by it’s main competitors (e.g., iConclude now in HP portfolio, RealOps now in BMC portfolio) in head-to-head situations.

Configuration & Change: So here seems to be a big hole from what I’ve seen/heard that allegedly Tivoli Configuration Manager and/or Provisioning Manager attempt to fill. I just can’t see that as a strength compared to what HP has now with the Opsware acquisition (e.g., CCM for applictions/system/network/storage). Maybe I’m overlooking something here…any thoughts or insights out their from people who have compared would be appreciated.

Security & Protection: I need to spend some time (*todo) looking through what they purchased with ISS, Watchguard while they also acquired some assets through Micromuse (who acquired GuardedNet) and whatever the previous Tivoli capabilities were.

Performance & Capacity: Some of the former Micromuse (Micromuse had acquired Quallaby) and Candle product fit here along with some of the Rational products. Another acquisition that wasn’t mentioned that should have some fit here was Vallent (telco centric but depending on the data center may have a play here)

Availability & Notification: Tivoli Netcool (e.g., Micromuse acquisition) was huge move (in my opinion) that had some great impact in so many different areas (well beyond monitoring the data center)! Some of the former Candle products would fit here also.

Beyond the 6 functional areas currently you could fit the MRO Software acquisition (Tivoli Service Request Manager) in the Service Desk bucket and Cognos. We will have to wait and see if they apply it at the dashboard level or at a point currently being discussed as another functional area of the model called “analytics.”

Again, this is a first pass and I need to get back on top of some other things I”m working on. In the weeks ahead as the blueprint gets closer to being solidified I’ll revisit this. Hope it’s helpful for now and thanks again to John for his write-up.

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Dec 17 2007   5:59PM GMT

Next pass on Data Center Automation “Blueprint”



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, CMDB, eTOM, FCAPS, IT Process Automation, ITIL, Application monitoring, Network monitoring, Performance management, Security, Storage, Virtualization, RBA, Run Book Automation, Systems monitoring, Systemschannel, WAN optimization

Thanks for the feedback, I’ve incorporated some points that have been made into an updated version of the Data Center Automation Blueprint (DCAB).

data-center-automation-blueprint2.jpg

As mentioned previous this is a work in progress and I love getting feedback, ideas, concerns etc. with the model. As mentioned previously I’m trying to build a functional model (at the 30,000 foot level) that represents key software functionality to automate the data center towards someday becoming “lights out.”

Also, with that said, it needs to be comprehensive but not overwhelming. I want to keep the yellow DCA functional areas limited in number…if this grows to be much more then the current six I feel it becomes too complex. So to add any new areas I need to assess how do they compare to the current areas and could I combine any areas.

One I’m struggling with right now is I’ve received feedback that analytics itself is an area. The interesting thing is analytics currently fits to some degree within each of the 4 horizontal functional areas (e.g., Configuration/Change, Security/Protection) as each of those products offer advanced reporting and as that progresses they do predictive reporting and analytics around that functional area.

Analytics would also show up at the dashboard level (currently beyond the scope of what I’m defining as the functional areas of the Data Center Automation Blueprint) where you would correlate business intelligence, patterns etc. across not just Data Center Automation functional categories but also across manual task orchestration (e.g., service/help desk) details.

Thoughts?

One more thing to clear up, I know some (many) of these functional categories and their products extend beyond the Data Center. The lens this blog looks through is exclusively focused on the challenges posed by large, complex data centers. For example, I know performance products are also useful in all sized companies (big & small) and also beyond the data center (e.g., headquarters, remote offices, partner networks, etc).

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Dec 14 2007   4:50PM GMT

Recent activities in Configuration Management, tis’ the season of webinars



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
DataCenter, Alterpoint, BladeLogic, mValent, Solidcore, Ecora, Configuresoft, BMC, CA, EMC, NCCM, Network configuration

December is a time when things typically “slow” down for the holidays.  Many data centers are under a freeze where no major changes can occur (or should occur), etc.  So I guess it’s a great time to do a little research for next year.  Bring on the webinars which many vendors seem to be offering up this time of year:

BladeLogic had a very successful webinar, over 400 people, where real customers talked about real benefits of configuration management automation for their data center.  The press releases on the survey results & the webinar sound like a infomercial (which it should be since it’s marketing).  I was hoping to take a watch but their archived link doesn’t allow me to register and watch.  I enter my registration information and it says the event is full.  Oh well, another time.

ConfigureSoft also had a webinar, more process centric (PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT: Closing the Loop on Change), but it’s archived and I was able to check that one out.

 Tripwire, not wanting to be outdone, had 4 differerent webinars recently.  The one I checked out was The Five A’s of a Healthy Data Center.  Where their focus was around the 5 step process of monitoring your configurations in the data center (Assessing, Assuring, Auditing, Achieving, Automating)

Ecora back on the 11th had a webinar around surviving audits through monitoring your configurations.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it archived anywhere to check it out.

Solidcore didn’t have a new webinar to offer but did put out a press release highlighting how they can help with the upcoming PCI deadline on December 31st with monitoring configurations.

mValent, who focuses on very the specific challenges of application/middleware configuration management, had a very interesting press release with some hard ROI numbers;

  • The average application migration project takes 20+ man-weeks with an average labor cost of just over $72,000.
  • Total IT direct-headcount costs associated with application migration initiatives range from $500K to $800K.

AlterPoint, focused on the network side of the data center, announced their analytics solution can now extend/compliment a customers previous investment in CiscoWorks (if they are a predominately Cisco networked Data Center) without requiring replacement.

I also looked to see if their was anything new from HP (Opsware), EMC (Voyence), BMC, IBM, CA but didn’t see anything specific.  And I recently talked about configuration vendors that are focused on virtualization so I didn’t rehash that.

I know I must have overlooked some vendor(s) out there, throw your information in the comments section (if your the vendor) or if your an enterprise using another product please tell us who your using and what you think.  I’ll take a look and update the post if appropriate. 

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Dec 12 2007   8:32PM GMT

Pondering Cisco and their play in Data Center Automation…



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
BEA, Cisco, DataCenter, BMC

Great article by Jim Duffy, NetworkWorld, called “Cisco to accelerate shift to software and data center in 2008” had some really interesting thoughts.

One statement that got those juices flowing was, “Some analysts believe Cisco’s ambitions may lead to the acquisition of a major software vendor – perhaps BEA Systems…”

Now that is a serious thought! IBM has WebSphere, the biggest pure play application server platform beyond them is BEA!

Cisco already has, and continues to build out, all the non-system data center infrastructure categories (e.g., switching/routing, storage, security, application/network optimization). I would assume they don’t want to go head-on competitive against their biggest partners/channels (e.g., the server/storage vendors; HP, IBM, EMC) so a creative end-around, “coopetition” play, would be to buy in and establish credibility with a major “platform” vendor (e.g., application platform or even a database vendor). I personally think they have shown signs of this intention through buying Webex.

Another way to creatively gain further credibility and an established customer base in the data center would be to grab a major management software vendor (e.g., BMC). Now that would bring excitement to the hole Data Center Automation (DCA) front! BMC has legacy data center presence (e.g., mainframe), system/storage/application monitoring presence, CMDB play with Atrium, RealOps acquisition for process orchestration, configuration/change automation with Marimba, help desk with Remedy, etc. One of BMC’s biggest perceived gaps/weakness has always been “the cloud,” what a great combo this could make. With all the web 2.0, virtualization buzz you have to believe Cisco want’s to be in the heart and minds of data center executives so they can capitalize.

Doing some further back-reading after Cisco launched Data Center 3.0 found these statements made in another article by Jim Duffy.

<snip>
Whereas Cisco’s Data Center 1.0 and 2.0 strategies focused on data center consolidation, 3.0 targets virtualization and automation, says Jayshree Ullal, Cisco senior vice president of the Datacenter, Switching and Security Technology Group.

Data Center 3.0 is also aimed at optimizing application performance, service levels, efficiency and collaboration, Cisco says.
<snip>

Hmmmm….that sounds like an advertisement for what BMC could bring them!

Anyways, just as an FYI, BMC & BEA have a market capitalizations of under $7B on revenues around $1.5B. Who knows, it’s fun to just step back and ponder what-if scenarios like this sometimes.

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Dec 10 2007   6:44PM GMT

2 of 10 are “disruptive” according to Gartner



Posted by: Ryan Shopp
CMDB, IT Process Automation, DataCenter, RBA, Run Book Automation

Gartner held their Data Center conference during the last week of November where a presentation was given by Research Vice President Carl Claunch on his view of the top 10 disruptive technologies for the data center.

Two of those 10 are management/automation oriented and have already found their way into the reference model or Data Center Automation “Blueprint” that we’ve been working on.

1) IT operations process automation (e.g., the DCA Blueprint currently calls this process orchestration)
Gartner estimates that operational error causes about 40% of all outages. Why? Because as technology gets cheaper, the same number of people have more to manage. Errors will happen.

“When you have these two trends, they intersect at points, and it’s time to shift what was human labor to automation,” he said. “As we move to a real-time infrastructure, we need to find a way of automating all of these tasks.”

2) CMDBs (e.g., the DCA Blueprint currently calls this this Resource Reconciliation)
According to Gartner, through 2009 the implementation of a configuration and change management strategy will reduce downtime by as much as 35%.

“Knowing what is actually happening is important to making sure it is working right,” he said. “If you try to respond to a problem based on outdated information, you make mistakes.”

Some of the others find themselves covered by our categorization of the Data Center Infrastructure itself.

These by far are the two hottest areas of the 6 functional areas currently covered by the model (e.g., DCA Blueprint).  They are also probably the most complex to solve.  Both require significant initial start-up costs to codify or integrate current technologies, software or processes into the functional applications themselves.  But the strategic and tactical ROI from what I’ve seen and heard so far is tremendous.

Special thanks to Mark Fontecchio’s complete article over on searchdatacenter.com where I grabbed the two snippets from on the two disruptive technologies.

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