Cloud Management - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 95

If you're starting fresh using new hardware and software or a new data center is
required, see Chapter 3, “Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing.” But
if there is an existing hardware infrastructure, the problem here is how to transform that
on-premise and fragmented environment into one single cloud environment. That should
already be taken care of in the planning process during the discovery of existing IT assets.
Though the technical details might vary depending on the current infrastructure, the
process can be broken down into a few steps.
Running Your Cloud
A lot of what goes into running and keeping your cloud online has to do with mitigation of
technical problems before they can even happen. Operational intelligence is one way to deal
with arising situations as they occur, so it should be a major part of any cloud management
platform. Knowing exactly what might happen because of a given scenario is enough to raise
flags when certain difficult situations might occur, and then operational intelligence allows
you to detect and formulate solutions and workarounds in case specific unfavorable situations
do occur. And when they do, you know exactly what to do to mitigate them in such a way
that the customer will not even notice or to prevent them entirely from happening.
Anticipating Unusually High Web Traffic
Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, almost taking the Internet with him. Actually, a
lot of websites were bogged down and even crashed because of heavy traffic due to the
buzz over the pop star's death. Administrators would argue that this was unforeseen,
but it actually wasn't. Anyone who knew who Michael Jackson was and how famous
should have known what kind of web traffic his death would generate and taken action
immediately to prepare for it.
This is a good example of where operational intelligence would have come in handy. When
a sudden spike in web traffic centered around certain keywords occurs, an organization's
operational intelligence system should send out alarms, and operators knowing the cause
of the alarms should quickly provision additional servers.
What This Means for Customers
Customers of cloud computing need to understand how exactly the end user will use the
cloud; in other words, they need to understand the workflow as well as how the provider's
underlying infrastructure performs and affects this experience if they will be buying into
a cloud service that they will be patronizing for a long time. Cloud computing, despite its