USE CASE
Cloud Management Platform
Cloud Management Platforms provide the interface
between an organisation’s virtual IT infrastructure and
applications across private, public and hybrid clouds.
Ideally this integration should extend to encompass
the organisation’s existing physical infrastructure,
providing a single integrated view.
The Challenge for IT
IT is under increasing pressure to deliver services to the
organisation with the speed and agility of cloud services
such as Amazon and Google. Users want ‘point and
click’ self-service access to applications and services.
They want the Amazon experience within their own
organisations.
Innovative IT departments are meeting this challenge by
supplementing their existing infrastructure with flexible,
cloud-based services and then repackaging their own
legacy infrastructure as internal ‘cloud’ resources. IT also
needs to provide their users with a credible alternative
to going directly outside the organisation, or they run the
risk of being bypassed and side-lined.
Integrated Agnostic Approach
To be fully effective, the Cloud Management Platform
should be vendor agnostic and, at the very least,
integrate performance, fault and configuration systems
management tools across the whole of the physical
and virtualised environment. This enables IT to efficiently
manage the demand, utilisation and placement of
service requirements.
Workflow enables IT infrastructure management
automation, freeing up IT to focus on their role as
service providers. This same workflow can be used by
the organisation’s business users to automate their own
businesses processes – ideally via a self-service cloud
management portal.
To meet this challenge, traditional IT departments need
to transition to become a fully virtualised service delivery
function, incorporating both legacy and new cloud
services.
The final step is to provide business users with a services
catalogue so that they can select and customise their
own applications, complete with usage and billing
reporting.
This is where a Cloud Management Platform can help.
A Platform which offers all of the above features is the
Federos™ Cloud Management Platform.
Federos Cloud Management Platform (CMP)
Federos CMP provides an intuitive, role-based, integrated browser interface, between the user and
corporate applications, whether legacy mainframe or cloud-based. In addition, by introducing effective
workflow and systems integration, service delivery can be fully automated in the context of business
requirements, removing the constant need for interaction with IT.
This allows organisations to offer a ‘point and click’ consumer-type experience, utilising both physical
infrastructure and cloud-based services. Existing toolsets can be incorporated and the support overhead
inherent when running multiple core applications reduced, as can the reliance on key individuals to support
legacy systems. The need to replace these legacy applications can be deferred or removed, as the existing
data centre becomes part of the overall virtualised environment.
At the heart of business
www.tdbfusion.com
Takeaway
To be fully effective a Cloud Management Platform
needs to be vendor agnostic, offering a range of internal
and external management adapters, or the ability to
leverage API’s. This enables the platform to connect
to both new cloud services and legacy infrastructure,
including existing IT and business management
applications and processes. IT can then focus on
managing and optimising the utilisation of the physical
and virtual environment, providing end users with a
consumer ‘App store’ type experience and maintaining
their position at the heart of the organisation.
CLOUD MANAGEMENT PLATFORM: KEY COMPONENTS
Access management tier:
• Self-service request interface
• Programmable interface Subscriber management
• Identity and access management
Service management tier:
•Vendor/contract/license management Service
catalog
• Service model
•Service configuration management (including
service provisioning)
•Service availability and performance
management
• Service demand and capacity management
•Service financial management, including
metering, showback, billing
Service optimisation:
•Service governor (policy management and
optimisation engine) Orchestration
•Abstraction layer to external service providers
and to resource management tier (internal/
external)
• Federation
Differentiation
•External management adapters (or the ability to
leverage APIs). The need to connect the cloud to the
traditional infrastructure and existing management
and processes is critical.
• T hese adapters enable integration with incident,
problem and change management tooling.
•As these integration ties are enabled, it becomes
important to provide access to analytics tools that
can show deeper metrics for trending.
•Mechanism to manage the virtual infrastructure,
whether private, public or hybrid. This capability varies
by vendor.
• M
ajor focus continues to be on demand, utilisation
and placement of VM workloads.
•Managing IT service infrastructure hygiene tasks
(physical or virtual) day-to-day remains a challenge –
addition of new adjacent solutions that offer deeper
(more traditional management) capabilities (e.g.,
application performance management monitoring,
patching and compliance).
•“Day 2” capability that will provide deeper
management for the IT service, as well as inside the
VM bubble. We expect that others will follow suit.
About TDB Fusion
TDB Fusion specialise in integrated business IT management systems. Our knowledge and experience has led to trusted technology
partnerships with our customers. We deliver solutions to manage the different facets of IT systems and through systematic
automation enable significant operational savings and efficiency improvement to our customers.
T +44 1344 852 852 | E [email protected]
TDB Fusion Ltd, Unit C, Waterside Park, Cookham Road, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 1RB
At the heart of business
www.tdbfusion.com