CA announced today new tools as part of an offering called Service Management Accelerator.

By providing a common view of relationships and dependencies across the enterprise, CA CMDB simplifies and automates IT change and configuration management and ensures the availability of critical business processes. It delivers fast time-to-value by providing more than 70 relationship types, 140 pre-defined CI classes and 200 reports and queries out-of-the-box. With CA CMDB at the core, enterprise IT organizations can automate and integrate both ITIL Service Delivery and ITIL Service Support.

Interesting to see how it compares to other CMDBs.

Technorati Tags: CMDB, ITIL

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Posted by jc on 29 June 2006 14:32:22 PDT #

In a post titled "Reconciliation: The Key to an Accurate CMDB" the author suggest that discovery and mapping tools are key to ensure the accuracy of a CMDB. However, this solves only one of the problems: how to ensure that the infrastructure state matches what is in the CMDB. The issue is that there is no way to know if what is discovered ought to be or is simply the result of out of band management.
The key to solve this issue is to drive the configuration and changes through the CMDB, by integrating the CMDB with change management, release management or configuration tools.

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Posted by jc on 28 June 2006 17:20:33 PDT #

In a previous post I tried to capture the functions required to manage datacenters and services across their lifecycle. In a subsequent one, I tried to map the VMWare virtual infrastructure 3 functions. Obviously, the granularity was not the right one. Below is another attempt to capture what the holistic management offering should be :

Hardware Management
Not specific to the virtualization domain, but critical to have an end to end solution. Usually, this part is implemented with solutions like IBM Director, N1 System Manager, or HP Insight Manager. However, one of the many issues when done in a virtualization setup is the control of virtual machines in a way similar to physical machines (with a virtual IPMI implementation for example).

• HW Discovery: This is discovery of bare metal systems using IPMI or other vendor specific baseboard interfaces. The machine does not need to have an OS, or Domain 0 to be discovered.
• FW Update: Update of the BIOS or other hardware specific software. Usually requires some tight integration with hardware management interfaces.
• HW Monitoring : Monitoring of environmental information like fan speed, CPU temperature ...
• Hardware Abstraction Layer : A kind of driver layer allowing to decouple the hardware specific functions from the various protocols or vendor interfaces. Critical to be able to, for example, configure the machine to boot by using PXE.

Hypervisor
the central piece of the virtualization offering, this could be Xen or VMWare ESX for example. This layer is now a commodity and offered for free as part of the OS.

Virtual Server Management
Functions usually implemented in the Domaine 0 (aka Host OS, or Service Partition).

• Virtual Device Management : Management of devices exported to Virtual Machines. This includes network, disks, PCI devices, consoles, ... this function is usually highly tied to the hypervisor and share its implementation with the virtual server management. Can include the fault management of the various devices.
• VM Management: Life cycle management of the Virtual Machines instanciated on a given host. Provides essentially methods to boot VMs, either from local disk, CDROM or network (e.g. through PXE).
• Volume Management: Provide a logical volume manager, as well as various storage related functions.
• Resource Management: Allocations of physical resources to many VMs hosted on a given server. Includes the scheduler configuration.
• Monitoring: Monitoring of resources used by various VMs. Could be an aggregation point for information collected in the various guest OS.
• Migration: Live migration of VMs from a server to a given target server. Could be more or less stateful or real time dependending on the virtualization layer capabilities.

OS Management
Mainly targeting the management of the guest OSes, and therefore not specific to the virtualization domain, but critical to have a end to end solution. Could be implemented by solutions like IBM Director, N1 System Manager, or HP Insight Manager but this would lead into additional complexities introduced by the management of virtual machines.

• OS Provisioning: Infrastructure required to implement NAS boot or SAN Boot, as well as building OS profiles
• OS Monitoring: Monitors OS parameters such as CPU utilization, directly from the guest OSes.
• OS Patching: Update of OSes with patches. Additional complexity when required to update non deployed VMs.

Datacenter Management

• Datacenter Resource Management : Grouping of server, storage and network resources and allocation to various services. Basis of multi-tenant aware solutions, or hierarchical resource management capabilities. Can implement some level of workload management.
• Failover : migration of virtual machines based on availability related policies.
• Configuration management : repository of various information about virtual machine parameters, or OS configurations. Could be also a repository for OS profiles, OS versions, ...
• Policy Management : More generic policies driving the operations like migration, or provisioning. Can be linked to performance goals, cost/utilization goals, schedules (calendar events)
• Automation : Definition of workflow on top of basic operations allowing the implementation of complex operations.

Next step is to try to map the various vendors to this breakdown.

Technorati Tags: virtualization

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Posted by jc on 26 June 2006 15:23:12 PDT #

Irving Wladawsky-Berger is IBM's VP of Technical Strategy and Innovation. He said in a recent interview with AlwaysOn about the Software as a Service (SaaS) share of total Software sold :

Wladawsky-Berger: In 10 years I would be surprised if it's much higher than 20%. I can easily see it going higher, but all the things we talked about have to come into play, which is increasingly good Internet infrastructure. Let's agree that's happening. Increasing standardization of software components and web services - that's happening also. Increasing agreement on standard business components and software- I believe that's starting to happen. The reason it's hard to predict the percentage is that it's a series of things that have to happen.

It is possible that the share will not increase much more than 20%, but if it does, this could definitely be an issue for IBM, relying heavily on their Global Services revenue.

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Posted by jc on 22 June 2006 09:45:09 PDT #

Found an interesting piece of advise in one of Guy Kawasaki pieces, specifically in Rule 7 :

Find out the age of the oldest person in your audience, divide that number by two, and that's the font size to use!

Thanks Guy !

Technorati Tags: presentation, powerpoint

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Posted by jc on 21 June 2006 12:06:21 PDT #

Last week, VMware announced their acquisition of Akimbi and their Slingshot product:

VMware adds Virtual Lab Automation, Configuration Management and Self-service Provisioning to its Portfolio

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 16, 2006 -- VMware, the global leader in virtual infrastructure software for industry-standard systems, today announced the addition of virtual lab automation, configuration management and self-service provisioning to its software lifecycle management solutions that span development, quality assurance, pre-production and production environments.

If you remember my last post about Virtual Infrastructure 3, you can see that this acquisition would complement nicely Virtual Infrastructure as there was some gaps in the provisioning area.

Technorati Tags: virtualization

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Posted by jc on 20 June 2006 15:55:47 PDT #

In a posting to AlwaysOn, Guy Kawasaki from Garage Technology Ventures talk about innovation, and startups. In part 3 Guy advise the reader about being willing to "kill your cash cow" :

The second thing you need to do to get to that next curve is be willing, able, and indeed eager to kill your cash cow. This is one of the most difficult things we had to do at Apple in trying to figure how to deal with both Apple II and the Macintosh. Apple II was making all the money; it was a cash cow with beautiful, large, milk-gorged udders. And we were milking that cow. Yet we knew that if Macintosh were to succeed, it would kill Apple II. And eventually it did kill Apple II.

This is really true, and maybe a reason why established companies seem to have difficulties to innovate. The cash cows are too powerful, and often, engineers tend to identify themselves with a product and are very reluctant to jump on the next curve. There is a lot of convincing to be done, and buy in from every level of the hierarchy.

Technorati Tags: innovation

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Posted by jc on 20 June 2006 14:41:53 PDT #

Garmin announced last March that they will release a new mobile phone based GPS, the Garmin Mobile 20.
The web page about this product is here Garmin Mobile 20:

Garmin Mobile 20 supports Nokia, Windows Mobile and Treo smartphones, and its integrated phone mount, the GPS 20SM, with a built-in, highly sensitive GPS receiver and Bluetooth-enabled speaker and microphone, accommodates nearly any size. Wherever you're going, Garmin Mobile 20 with included mapping software provides wireless mapping and navigation to deliver you directly to the front door. And for on-the-go convenience, the wireless interface, powerful speaker and noise-canceling dual microphones let you drive and talk hands-free without using a headset.

There is no price published yet, but it seems that this unit is comparable, feature wise, with the nuvi units.
Product will be available in July 06. Time for a new gadget ?

Technorati Tags: gadget

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Posted by jc on 20 June 2006 10:43:12 PDT #

With the recent acquisition of nLayers by EMC, it is the right time to look back at the landscape after this wave of consolidation :

• EMC acquired nLayers, and their Insight product
• Symantec acquired Relicore and their Clarity product
• Eracent has its EnterpriseAM product
• BMC has BMC Foundation Discovery with technology coming from Network Associates' Magic, and Marimba
• Tideway with its Foundation product
• IBM acquired Collation and its Confignia product
• Mercury acquired Appilog
• Cendura has Cohesion
• CA with its Sonar product
• HP with its acquisition of Peregrine

There are still some independent companies, and options for consolidation.

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Posted by jc on 16 June 2006 16:31:51 PDT #

In a recent blog entry, Bill Burke is talking about the features of the new JBoss microkernel. Incidentally, Bill mentions that the architecture will not use the "older" JMX based kernel :

We will continue to support JBoss 4 and earlier JMX service beans. What you won't see is that the new JBoss microcontainer will be under the covers instead of the older JMX-based kernel.

I'm sure that this change of architecture will not prevent the instrumentation of deployed JEE applications through JMX and will not impact JBoss support for JSR77, as shown on page 20 of the JBoss roadmap.

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Posted by jc on 14 June 2006 21:09:34 PDT #

In the press announcement for the 2006 JBoss world at Las Vegas, JBoss announced the open souring of the agent used in the JBoss Operations Network.

Open source strategy for management platform: JBoss will open source the core systems
management agent in JBoss Operations Network (ON) to create and drive broadened adoption and
collaboration around its open management platform. With this announcement, backed by a massive
JBoss developer and ISV community, software vendors and customers now have a foundation for
building their own management agents, which will enable interoperability across heterogeneous IT
environments. A special management and operations track at the conference will provide further
details on the JBoss ON roadmap and integration with Red Hat Network

Technorati Tags: system management

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Posted by jc on 14 June 2006 13:36:30 PDT #

On June 5th, VMWare announced a suite of products under the label Virtual Infrastructure 3.

The components of the suites are the following :

• VMWare ESX Server : ESX is the virtualization layer installing on top of the Bare Metal. It seems that ESX is able now to run VMs created by Microsoft Virtual Server, or Virtual PC, or also Symantec LiveState Recovery images.
• VMWare VMFS : VMFS, the Virtual Machine File System is an extension of the ESX Server allowing multiple VMs to read and write from the same file storage location. This file system allow adaptive block sizing and automated LUN discovery and mapping.
• VMWare Virtual SMP : The virtual Symmetrical Multi Processor is an extension of ESX Server allowing a single VM to use up to 4 physical processors (within the same physical machine). The scheduler within Virtual SMP allow over commitment of the processors as well as reuse of idle processors between VMs.
• VirtualCenter: This is the centralized management server enabling features like VMotion, VMWare HA, VMWare DRS, VMWare clustering, resource pools, ... which are really targeting enterprise class deployments.
• VMWare Virtual HA: Virtual High Availability is a simple failover solution using a heartbeat to detect hardware failures. Virtual HA will restart an identical VM on another machine. However, there is no mention of checkpointing of the VMs to ensure minimal state loss. This feature is integrated with VMWare DRS to enable intelligent VM placement.
• VMWare DRS: The Distributed Resource Scheduler allow the definition of advanced resource allocation policies for distributed applications. DRS enforce these policies at initial placement time by selecting the best server for a given workload, or continuously, to optimize the resources allocated by eventually moving the VMs through VMotion.
• VMWare VMotion: allow the migration of VMs across all types of physical servers supported by ESX, including across Fiber Channel SAN, NAS, or iSCSI SAN storage devices.
• VMWare Consolidated Backup : It allows the backup of virtual machines from a central location. This is a set of scripts allowing that enable LAN-free backup from a centralized Microsoft Windows 2003 proxy server.

VMWare has segmented the market in 3 categories targeted by a specific offerings :

• Small Business or Branch Office with VMware Infrastructure Starter. It includes ESX starter and VirtualCenter management agent. It retails for $1000 for each couple of processors (physical processors, not cores).
• Enterprise class infrastructure with VMware Infrastructure Standard. It adds clustered VMFS and virtual SMP. It retails for $3750 for every couple of processors.
• Enterprise class Dynamic Datacenters with VMware Infrastructure Enterprise. It adds VMotion, DRS, HA and consolidated backup. The reatil price for this version is $5750 per couple of processors.

The following products are still available separately : VirtualCenter, VMotion, VMWare HA, VMWare DRS and Consolidated Backup.

If we try to map the resulting offering on the functional breakdown I previously described here, we get the following result :

The rational for the coverage is :

• Resource provisioning is partial since VMWare doesn't seem to provide a solution to do the initial provisioning of VMs : You can use PXE to boot from the network, but you will have to manage the OS installation either through Microsoft RIS, or Kickstart.
• Resource Discovery is also partial since VMWare doesn't seem to provide a solution to discover bare metal servers by directly talking to the baseboard. Installing ESX Server from the CDROM or SAN would require a third party management solution.
• Performance management is partial since the whole OS instance is monitored, and any metric available at the middleware or service layer would not be visible to DRS, VMotion of other VMWare products.
• Availability management is partial also as only availability from the OS down to the hardware would be considered, and failure of the application or service would not generate the restart or migration of the VM (not that this would actually be able to fix the problem)
• Workload management is partial since the VMWare solution is not taking into account the scheduling of transactions or workload items to make decision, but seems to only observe OS and hardware resources consumption. It's not clear for example, how VMWare DRS would integrate with a load balancer or other middleware managed schedulers (like Oracle RAC).

Updated on 06/14/2006 to remove the Orchestration support since there is no modeling of worklows in VMWare.

Technorati Tags: virtualization, Service oriented Infrastructure

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Posted by jc on 12 June 2006 16:55:06 PDT #

Yesterday, Google announced in their blog that they are creating a tool to exchange, or synchronize, multiple Firefox browser through an online service.
That is looking a lot like Apple's .mac value proposition, if we couple that with the availability of Google Calendar,
and Google Page Creator (in Labs at this time).

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Posted by jc on 08 June 2006 11:37:58 PDT #

You might have read about the tentative to create a new version of the Service Oriented Architecture dubbed SOA 2.0.
You might also have seen the rise of opposition to this new term on some blogs like Elemental Links or even an online petition to oppose this term.

The main rational for creating a new version of SOA seems to be :

With SOA 2.0, an event-driven architecture is deployed in which software modules are related to business components, and alerts and event notifications are featured. The initial SOA concept has not been event-driven but instead has featured direct calls from one piece of software to another in a client-server process, Natis said.

Well, that doesn't fly. What events are we talking about here ? In which way these events are different from asynchronous service invocations ? What about messages sent on an ESB like Mule or openESB ? Are they events ?

I would point to this article for a good example on how EDA and SOA can come together, without releasing a new architecture version.

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Posted by jc on 08 June 2006 09:37:00 PDT #

EMC just announced that it has acquired nLayers, a vendor of IT infrastructure a management tool used to discover applications, servers, and devices, and to map relationships between them.

It was named CMDB leader in a recent Forrester CMDB wave report, even though I don't think that they really qualify as a CMDB. nLayers insight has the following features :

• Discover and Map
• Change Tracking
• visualize and analyze

Which indicate that their configuration database is populated from the discovered configuration, and not from approved change requests. It is therefore impossible to know if what is observed is the correct configuration, or is the result of an out of band modification. The nLayers solution is complementary to a real CMDB, under change control, if it is interfaced with a correlation engine, and an audit process which drive either :

• reverting the observed state to comply with the CMDB state
• update the CMDB state after creation of a change request.

Also, it is likely that because the information is discovered, the information about the CI cannot be changed to include user defined fields, or define custom relationships between CIs (which could not map to any discovered relation).

For example, nLayers Insight could not meet the mandatory criteria required for certification by Pink Elephant for Configuration Management (and they are not in the certified toolset list)

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Posted by jc on 07 June 2006 12:45:32 PDT #

In a recent weblog entry, Gary Slinger has posted a mindmap summarizing the ITIL Service Delivery and Service Support books. Thanks a lot Gary. For one thing, this seems a very usefull tool to prepare for the ITIL foundation certification.
The link to the article is here :
Gary Slinger ITIL: Service Support & Service Delivery - the whole thing:

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Posted by jc on 07 June 2006 11:26:50 PDT #

Following some links I went from unconferences to the Mashup Camp to one of the discussions hosted last year on microformats .

Microformats are basically data formats built on top of XML/XHTML. They are used to represent contacts, calendar, resume, ... designed for humans, and machine second. See some more information here.

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Posted by jc on 07 June 2006 10:55:34 PDT #

Recently, IBM, HP, Fujitsu and BMC launched a CMDB standardization initiative. The goal of this effort is to define a standard allowing the exchange of information between CMDBs. The standardization can happen at different levels, as an API, as an exchange protocol, or a data model.

Lets look at the current state of affairs in that space :

It might look a bit like an alphabet soup, so here is the explanation :

• Sun has a product called N1 Service Provisioning System, which, while not really being a CMDB is able to model applications and associated artifacts in a language called CRML (CenterRun Markup Language). N1 SPS is more like a release management product coupled with a DSL, a Definitive Software Library. This markup language is expressed in XML using XML-Schema.
• Opsware has a CMDB in their Asset Tracking Edition. Opsware is a co-founder of the, now, OASIS TC defining the DCML, the Data Center Markup Language. DCML is based on RDF, the Resource Description Framework. RDF allow the definition of a taxonomy of data center objects and their relationships. DCML was not designed from its inception as a CMDB description model, and is trying to play catchup now.
• BMC is providing a CMDB, Atrium, built on top of a DMTF CIM model. This model could be exported using the WebService / CIM mapping: WS-CIM (now part of the WBEM Infrastructure and Protocols WG).
• CA seem to also use DMTF CIM in their CMDB.

That's for the part about the CMDB vendors. Now, as for the modeling and the repository :

• UML, the Unified Modeling Language could be use to model and specify relationships used in the CMDB. UML is defined by the Object Management Group.
• UML can be exported using XMI, the XML Metadata Interchange format, also defined by the OMG.
• MOF, the MetaObject Facility, defined by the OMG can be rendered by using XMI (Not to confused with the CIM's MOF, which is the Managed Object Format).
• The OMG MOF is a way to export models, and store them, in, for example MDR, the Metadata Repository. This repository can be accessed using JMI, the Java Metadata Interface.
• ebXML registry is an XML repository that can be used to store XML Schemas, this registry is specified under the control of an OASIS TC. ebXML registries can be accessed using JAXR, the Java API for XML Registries. There is some research work going on right now to add RDF/OWL support on top of ebXML.

It will be interesting to see where the new initiative will land in term of technology and standard body.

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Posted by jc on 06 June 2006 15:41:33 PDT #

In an article on Grid Computing appearing in Fall 2004 MIT Sloan Management Review, Heather A. Smith and Benn Konsynski explore the challenges of Grid Computing.

While taking an IBM centric view, focusing on Globus for example, the article raise several interesting issues :

... the internal integration that is achieved with technologies such as enterprise-resource planning (ERP) and customer-relationship management (CRM) is not going to help organizations evolve in the future. Hardwired technologies will actually ossify existing organizational structures, preventing the flexibility companies will need to operate in a network-centric environment.

... centralized command-and-control structures will no longer be effective.

Top Managers will therfore have to relinquish some degree of decision making control in favor of an accelerated ability to respond.

... some CIOs will find their jobs reduced in scope and will become IT directors.

I'm not sure about the last one, except maybe if we think that, in the case of global grids, each grid CEO become an IT director for the global grid ?

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Posted by jc on 06 June 2006 10:53:37 PDT #

Today, Hyperic announced the open sourcing of their HQ product.
Hyperic HQ is a management solution based on J2EE providing the following features :

• Discovery
• Monitoring
• Inventory

They support an extensive list of platforms and applications.

This announcement is to put in perspective with the recent announcement of the OpenManagement consortium bringing together the following OSS projects :

• OpenEMS : Open Source Enterprise Management Services
• OpenQRM : QLusters' management solution
• OpenSIMS: Security Infrastructure Management System
• Enomalism: Xen Virtualized Management Console
• Webmin : Operating System Management solution
• NetDirector: Configuration management for network services
• NodeDirector: User and Host management
• Nagios : Host and Network Monitoring program
• Zenoss: IT infrastructure monitoring software

The space of open source management products has really changed.

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Posted by jc on 06 June 2006 08:53:43 PDT #

With the increased popularity of SOA, service oriented architecture enterprises are faced with news challenges :

• Applications are de-composed into service units, distributed across multiple architectures, across multiple management domains or even different governance models. Think about the difference in complexity between a single application deployed on a mainframe, versus a composite application with components running on Solaris, windows, one in the finance department, the other in the HR department, and the third one in that newly acquired company. It is clear that new management paradigms or infrastructure models are required to address this new type of applications.
• Applications have dependencies on many parts and components. deploying such an application is more complex than just installing a binary on a single machine. Starting this application is no less challenging. How to ensure that all the required components are up and running ?
• The definition of an application can evolve dynamically. Think about the possibilities that BPEL based orchestration engines bring to the table. New workflow, with new dependencies can be created and deployed dynamically by business analysts, which are maybe not all that plugged in the operations side of the datacenter. How to deal with that dynamic environment ?

The first step was to try to define an operational model that would follow some standards or best practices.

This problem has been solved by Telcos for decades now. There operations are highly service focused. They even have defined an operation map capturing business processes required to deliver and manage services. The latest version, eTOM, the enhanced Telecom Operation Map become even less Telco specific (e.g. the term network has been replaced by the term resource).

In parallel, ITIL, the IT Information Library was developed but took a more inward focused point of view. There is little mention of customers in the ITIL books (ok, except maybe in the servicedesk chapter). Most of the best practices are addressing problems that an IT department would face in their quest to improve its maturity. The two main books in this library are the Service Delivery book, and the Service Support book.

It is obvious that those two points of view had to align and come together in some way, or at least, be able to relate to each other. A document published by the TMF, Telecom Management Forum, GB921V (absorbing the content of GB921L) is helping the practitioners to make sense of those two models. By simplifying a lot, we can say that ITIL processes can be built by using eTOM process elements.

My primary focus was to define a model which would align nicely with ITIL, either by not forcing an incompatible operational model, or by being able to support and automate the customers' business processes. It's a mix and match, simplified melting pot of ITIL, eTOM and our N1 concepts. The result can be seen in the following picture :

• Resource Provisioning : In the case of compute resources, deployment of OS images on systems and groups of system. Includes set up of images, boot servers, network elements required to support this function (DHCP, DNS/NIS, NFS servers)
• Resource update: In the case of compute resources,Deployment of one or more OS or application patches on systems. Includes the patch analysis, dependency analysis, and compliance analysis to a defined baseline.
• Failover : Reprovisioning of compute elements in the event of an unrecoverable hardware error. All appropriate software elements are deployed on the new compute element, and all storage and network elements are reattached to it.
• Resource Accounting: Recording of all events that can be associated with the usage of a compute resource. It can also include specific metering to provide a finer accounting of resource usage.
• Advanced Monitoring: In-depth monitoring of compute and software elements, including display of specific field replaceable units (FRUs) and isolation of failed FRUs for replacement.
• Discovery : Automated dynamic discovery of compute, storage, network and software elements.
• Firmware update : Firmware upgrade of compute elements. Includes all the operations required to perform the update, like driving the boot sequence, the distribution of the update to the machine, the tracking of firmware levels, the analysis, and comparison with a baseline.
• Hardware Abstraction : Provides a level of management operation abstraction on top of hardware element specific management operations.
• Service Design : Operations required to capture the business service requirements, composition, and specific operational model (how to start/.stop it, deploy or upgrade it, ...). Include the definition, management , or use of patterns, reference models, or templates.
• Service provisioning : Deployment of services on a set of possible resources. Includes the deployment of the required software elements, the configuration of specific software, network, or storage elements. Includes also the capture of existing deployments for duplication and the update of the configuration management database.
• Application Deployment : Deploys software applications and their components and concerns all required application realization conditions and interdependencies. Includes the definition and capture of application models and configuration, as well as the abstraction of applications parameters in order to deploy application across various datacenters of life cycle phases.
• Configuration Management : Maintain the configuration management database. Includes entering new hardware and software elements either manually or through discovery, update the configuration by synchronizing it with the deployed services and elements, as well as auditing the configured services and elements for compliance with their expected state.
• Service Update : Update of complex services through multi steps processes. Includes delivering the updates to the various elements, orchestrating the upgrade by executing the individual upgrade operations while minimizing downtime, updating the configuration management database with up to date information.
• Performance Management : Enforce performance related Service Level Objectives by monitoring the services and their elements for compliance with key performance indicators, report any violation, and initiate remediation operations in order to maintain SLOs.
• Availability Management: Enforce availability related Service Level Objectives by monitoring the services and their elements for availability, report any violation, and initiate remediation operations in order to maintain SLOs. Include multiple strategy for remediation, depending on the capabilities of the infrastructure, and local policies.
• Workload Management: Enforce datacenter wide resource allocation policies, including associating the right resources to services, optimizing the resources across the datacenter in order to achieve specified objectives (lower cost, increased utilization, increasing throughput, ...). Includes matchmaking of resources with specified service constraints and SLOs, maintaining the current resource allocation in the CMDB, optimizing the allocation, generating accounting information.
• Service Accounting : Provide a service level accounting by aggregating the resource usage of all the service elements. Includes the collection of usage events, the normalization to take into accounting the dynamic in the resource allocation, the composition and aggregation into resource per service usage records and the reporting to relevant billing entity.
• Orchestration : Orchestrate, and automate the various operations required across the life cycle of a service. Includes the design of service specific workflows, the execution of these workflows at pre-defined life cycle events, the monitoring of the execution, and the remediation in case of failure of the worflows. The orchestration implements the specific operational models for the services.

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Posted by jc on 04 June 2006 22:24:21 PDT #