Cloud Management - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 119

Finally, risk can be everywhere, and the sources can vary. Because it affects workload
management and our system as a whole, risk has to be minimized. This includes securing
processing servers from external attacks and securing data to prevent sensitive information
from being stolen or corrupted. There are many security systems for managing risk and
securing your infrastructure, and all of them use some sort of encryption as their primary
defense. But awareness and best practices, especially in change management and policies,
can go a long way in terms of lowering risk and increasing the security of a system.
Chapter Essentials
Network and IP Planning/Documentation Network and IP planning and documentation
is an essential step that most organizations skip because they feel that it is not important
enough. But the essence of network planning is to have full control over the network and all
of its nuances, from implementing proper homogeneity and configuration standardization to
root-cause analysis of network problems. This will also help in planning upgrade paths.
Configuration Standardization and Documentation Simplicity through homogeneity
and standardization is one of the hallmarks of cloud computing. When every piece of hard-
ware and every configuration are based on a well-defined standard, there is little room for
error. An important note to consider here is timeliness of hardware upgrades and a proper
upgrade path plan to ensure that configurations stay standard, homogeneity is not affected
too much, and systems stay optimized. Formal documentation for different configurations
for all system pieces must be kept on hand and updated. A configuration officer is often
assigned to ensure this.
Change management best practices Everything changes, and only the process of change is
constant. There is no exception to that, so preparation for any sort of change is important.
Change can be brought about by internal or external forces, but the most favorable change,
and one over which we have absolute control, is internal change, meaning that we initiate the
change ourselves as an act of innovation or part of a larger plan for growth. The opposite is
change brought on by an external force, which almost always forces an organization to make
unfavorable changes or ones that they are unprepared for. Change management minimizes the
negative impacts of externally influenced changes and ensures the success of internal initiative
changes. Changes can be initiated through requests or change proposals and can be catego-
rized as normal, standard, or emergency. All changes should go through the change advisory
board, and a change manager should oversee every aspect.
Configuration Management Change brings about configuration changes as well, so
configuration management is important. It ensures that all IT assets that are essential to
service and function delivery are properly controlled and documented. ITIL and ITISM
provide the standard for configuration management. The process involves the identifying
configuration items (CIs), controlling and protecting them, and maintaining the configu-
ration system, which includes the configuration management database (CMDB) to keep
CIs accurate and updated.