Preparing for Private Cloud and Hybrid IT with Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure

Transcription

1 White Paper Preparing for Private Cloud and Hybrid IT with Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Sponsored by: Red Hat Gary Chen September 2017 IDC OPINION Organizations are increasingly moving to private or hybrid cloud architectures. They are following the lead of cutting-edge web companies that have built next-generation scale-out infrastructures that are inherently different from traditional datacenters. It's important to note that change is happening not just in the infrastructure but also across the entire stack, from middleware to applications as well as how datacenters, IT, and developers operate. Driving the need for these modern platforms that can service users and deliver applications faster is the movement by companies toward digital transformation (DX). Modern, connected digital technology is fueling a huge wave of innovation and disrupting nearly every industry with new business models, digital products, and new competitors. Competing on the digital front is essential today for business success, and enterprises need new tools to compete at the speed and scale of the new digital marketplace. A primary challenge in today's enterprise is how to adopt these new technologies and methodologies. Most organizations can't start completely anew because of the large investment required and, equally important, the continued reliance on existing infrastructure and traditional applications many of which have existed for several technology generations. So while there will be pockets of completely new cloud computing platforms, there will also be an evolution of existing assets. OpenStack, an open source cloud platform first released in 2010, garnered enormous interest upon release and has built a sizable community of tens of thousands of contributors since. The project has developed and iterated its code base very rapidly during its lifetime into a robust, stable, and mature cloud platform that has found particular success with telcos for network function virtualization (NFV) and in private cloud. OpenStack leverages hypervisors for compute but differs from traditional virtualization in several key ways that define modern cloud platforms: Virtualization of not only compute but also storage and networking to create a fully softwaredefined infrastructure (SDI) Fully automated processes that are not slowed down by manual intervention Control of and access to all infrastructure and services through easily accessible APIs, which creates the concept of programmable infrastructure or infrastructure as code Self-service portals that allow users to individually provision and manage their own resources, which are isolated from the resources of other users Modern cloud platforms such as OpenStack are often architected to assume a cloud-native application, which allows the cost of infrastructure to be reduced while still providing a highly available September 2017, IDC #US

2 application. Over time, OpenStack has added many capabilities to accommodate traditional applications, but enterprises will still need traditional virtualization for many applications. Enterprises have grown their virtualization footprints over the past decade as vendors have made the technology secure and more than suitable for mission-critical workloads. Much of that footprint needs to be carried over into cloud, but using a more flexible approach where new management technologies can be used in conjunction with virtual servers to provide end users some of the characteristics of cloud computing. In addition, organizations are adopting off-premise public cloud resources, and most companies use multiple public clouds. The public cloud represents yet another platform that needs to be governed and managed. It's not surprising then that enterprises will need a multifaceted approach to move to the cloud era. More specifically, organizations will need to phase in existing infrastructure, build nextgeneration services, and integrate with public clouds all while reducing complexity. Red Hat has developed a flexible, integrated solution that meets these requirements and helps organizations adopt a cloud infrastructure for both traditional and cloud-enabled workloads. Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (RHCI) provides a datacenter virtualization platform for traditional applications and OpenStack for next-generation cloud applications as well as hybrid cloud management to unify the management across both workload types, running on-premise or in public clouds. It is clear that enterprises will require a full solution to realize the many benefits of cloud while maintaining control and governance. RHCI is a prime example of a cloud solution that can help enterprises make the migration. SITUATION OVERVIEW The Rise of the 3rd Platform The industry is transitioning to what IDC terms the 3rd Platform, being driven by new applications and service models such as cloud, mobile, social, and big data/analytics. This new era of computing is also on a different scale, hosting millions of applications and billions of users, compared with thousands of applications and millions of users for the 1st Platform, which was the mainframe era. The 2nd Platform is client/server infrastructure. The needs of the 3rd Platform are driving new requirements at every level of the stack, such as new scale-out cloud architectures for both applications and the underlying infrastructure (see Figure 1). The 3rd Platform is also ushering in a new wave of digital transformation, changing the way businesses market themselves, reach and interact with customers, and enable the formation of entirely new products and business models. Nearly every industry is seeing disruption from new innovative companies that are taking a new approach to old industries and forcing change across competitors. In fact, IDC predicts that by 2020, the global Fortune 2000 companies will make the majority of their revenue from digital products and services. Not just large companies will be affected; companies of every size will be impacted. For many companies, this will mean that they have to significantly increase their digital know-how how to create modern applications, iterate faster, and manage an agile infrastructure to support these applications IDC #US

3 FIGURE 1 The 3rd Platform Source: IDC, 2017 While the 3rd Platform is growing, the long life cycles of enterprise applications have kept (and will continue to keep) 2nd Platform and even 1st Platform infrastructure around for a significant amount of time. Enterprises have made many significant investments in these applications, and it is often not easy or cost effective to migrate these applications to another platform. So, over time, enterprises acquire many silos of technology across multiple computing eras and technologies. Figure 2 depicts the distribution of IT spending between the 2nd Platform and the 3rd Platform IDC #US

4 FIGURE 2 The Shift to the 3rd Platform 3rd Platform Technologies and Solutions Are Dominating IT Spending nd Platform 3rd Platform CAGR -6.8% CAGR 11.8% ($T) Source: IDC, 2017 Virtualization Trends Virtualization is an important technology that started at the tail end of the 2nd Platform and remains a key foundation as the industry transitions to the 3rd Platform. Most of the 2nd Platform infrastructure has already been virtualized, a trend that began in the server market more than a decade ago. However, there remains a significant installed base of physical servers as well. While hypervisors are increasingly attached to private cloud systems, the virtualization of traditional servers is still growing as customers continue to deploy these systems to support 2nd Platform applications. Virtualization will also play a key role in 3rd Platform applications as the delineation between 2nd and 3rd Platform applications is not perfectly clean. For example, many existing applications are being updated and extended with new functionality such as mobile or social media as companies move into the digital realm. These extensions are sometimes developed in 3rd Platform environments, but for architectural reasons, sometimes they must remain on the 2nd Platform. So customers often have apps with modern features, but running in 2nd Platform environments. In addition, a single application can also span the 2nd and 3rd Platforms. Applications today are multitier and becoming even more decomposed, made up of multiple modules across multiple generations of technology and locations. The 2nd and 3rd Platforms will coexist for a long time during this transition, and virtualization is no exception. Hypervisors with traditional virtualization management will continue to underpin the 2nd Platform, while hypervisors managed by cloud system software will drive new clouds in the 3rd Platform, and customers will have significant footprints in both as they build digital transformation assets. The Growth of Private Cloud The cloud service model and technologies were developed and matured by public cloud providers. As grassroots usage among enterprise users grew for public cloud, users also began to demand 2017 IDC #US

5 similar services from internal IT, leading many corporations to develop initiatives around adopting a service provider model backed by cloud technology. Private clouds run on-premise and are built and operated by IT. The agility and speed of private cloud make it an ideal infrastructure for digital transformation projects, a major use case for private cloud. In a recent IDC study, enterprise respondents indicated that supporting digital transformation was the primary strategic driver when it came to infrastructure purchasing decisions. This shows that DX initiatives are not only changing the way companies do business and what applications they use but also driving changes even at the lower infrastructure level. More than a quarter of enterprises are already using private cloud in production, with another 15.1% in the pilot or planning stage, as depicted in Figure 3. Private cloud has moderate enterprise penetration today, with typically small to medium scale in most companies and only the most advanced using it on a large scale. IDC research shows that private cloud adopters generally target private cloud deployment to a few targeted use cases/applications and select groups of users, which tend to be more modern, faster-moving projects that are DX driven. Private cloud adoption today is also primarily based on existing enterprise virtualization because that is the installed base of infrastructure that has been built out over the past decade. Organizations deployed cloudlike capabilities in conjunction with these virtualized servers to provide cloud features such as metering, chargeback, and self-service. The more modern type of cloud uses a nextgeneration architecture similar to the hyperscale public cloud providers. It generally does not use traditional enterprise hypervisors or run legacy enterprise applications. Instead, new cloud-native apps need to be developed to take advantage of the new style of infrastructure, which is entirely API enabled. OpenStack is a prime example of this newer-generation cloud architecture. FIGURE 3 U.S. Private Cloud Adoption Plan to implement for production use within the next 12 months (6.3%) Already deployed (26.3%) In pilot stage of using (8.8%) Currently researching (20.5%) n = 205 U.S. respondents Are aware of the technology but have not yet formally considered using it (23.4%) Evaluated use but decided against deploying it (14.6%) Source: IDC's Virtualization and the Cloud MCS, IDC #US

6 OpenStack for the Enterprise OpenStack was initially adopted by service providers, web companies, and academia/research and was more prevalent in very large organizations. Organizations that were early adopters were typically advanced organizations for which technology is the core business, and they felt comfortable using code that was in the early stages of maturity and often customized and supported the software themselves. This is very typical of how open source software starts in the market. These early adopters had to work through some early issues, but they also demonstrated that OpenStack could be successfully used to build clouds at scale. Today, OpenStack is widely available in various commercial enterprise offerings and has found particular success in telcos deploying network function virtualization and enterprise private cloud. In the private cloud space, OpenStack has clearly emerged as the open source cloud platform of choice and overall as a top private cloud platform in the industry, open or closed source. IDC has seen OpenStack adopted by companies across all verticals, and it is no longer limited to larger companies as many medium-sized and smaller businesses are also deploying OpenStack. Over the years that OpenStack has been developed, the community and commercial vendors have made key achievements to turn OpenStack into a commercial, enterprise-ready product: Overall stability and maturity of the code base come with time and iteration. Focus on identifying key enterprise requirements and obstacles and devoting development resources to addressing these enterprise-specific issues. Develop a large ecosystem of compatible hardware and software so that OpenStack will work with nearly everything that an enterprise would use. Most vendors support OpenStack broadly today. Build a knowledge base that has come from time and experience from customers deploying OpenStack in a broad number of scenarios. Today, extensive reference architectures, guides, certifications, and documentation are available, and this gives enterprises confidence that they can find the information they need when they need it. Vendors have figured out the best enterprise release cadences, and most offer multiyear support on a single release that was not available in the early days of OpenStack. Installation, once an early OpenStack challenge, is today a routine process. The community and vendors have invested significant resources in building robust installers that reduce the burden on customers. OpenStack is available in many delivery models. DIY software is still the primary route, but public cloud, hosted private cloud, remotely managed private cloud, and appliances are all available and serving different customer needs. OpenStack is primarily a software-defined infrastructure project, and one of the key deployment scenarios for OpenStack is for use underneath developer-centric platforms such as platform as a service (PaaS), cloud application platforms, or container infrastructure (Docker/Kubernetes, etc.). These development platforms require some sort of modern SDI underneath, and OpenStack has developed deep integrations with a number of container technologies and most of the popular PaaS platforms. Containers, in particular, are drawing huge interest in the IT industry, and the OpenStack community has devoted significant resources into container integration, and there are a number of container-focused subprojects within OpenStack IDC #US

7 On the other side of the stack, if we look at what is "below" OpenStack, we find a deep link to Linux and KVM as key technology foundations for OpenStack. OpenStack, being open source, obviously leans toward building upon other open source components for collaboration and full-stack troubleshooting reasons, and Linux plays many key roles within an OpenStack deployment: The core control plane of OpenStack, which consists of a number of controllers that host the key OpenStack services, requires an operating system (OS), and nearly all OpenStack deployments use Linux for this. The OpenStack compute nodes require a hypervisor. OpenStack has drivers for a number of hypervisors, but the open source KVM is overwhelmingly the favorite and the best supported. According to the April 2017 OpenStack Foundation User Survey, 89% of OpenStack user respondents are using KVM as their hypervisor. KVM is an inherent part of Linux, so deploying KVM is essentially deploying a special configuration of Linux. Linux is also a popular choice for guest VMs spun up by OpenStack end users, and guest operating system support in OpenStack is dictated by what the hypervisor supports. KVM, the most popular OpenStack hypervisor, supports both Linux and Windows. For containers, Docker was originally developed on Linux, and Linux continues to be dominant in container deployments today, but operating systems such as Windows also now have Docker support. Security and isolation are gained from the security functions of the underlying Linux OpenStack is installed on (e.g., cgroups, SELinux). Driver compatibility is essential for third-party integration of tools and add-on technologies. Linux is responsible for ensuring proper support and certification for third-party drivers. Long-term stability and OpenStack service operation are dependent on the underlying Linux OpenStack is installed upon. The vast majority of OpenStack deployments use Linux for the host and controller nodes and leverage many of Linux's features, such as KVM for virtualization, cgroups for service-level management, container functionality such as kernel namespaces, and core networking functions for software-defined networking. Thus much of the service management, performance, reliability, and third-party driver functionality of OpenStack are directly inherited from the underlying Linux OS that OpenStack operates on. The tight integration between Linux and OpenStack has naturally led to the commercial Linux vendors becoming key OpenStack contributors and distributors because of their experience in developing, testing, and supporting Linux and their knowledge of the open source development model. Many of the bug fixes and patches for OpenStack actually go down to the Linux level, with patches needed for the Linux kernel, KVM, drivers, and so forth. To provide a full end-to-end OpenStack solution, vendors need to have an enterprise Linux solution underneath OpenStack and have deep Linux expertise in order to support it. Management and Hybrid IT As companies adopt 3rd Platform technologies to better support their DX initiatives, we have clearly seen that 2nd Platform technologies aren't going away soon, and one of the challenges will be how to manage yet more platforms and technologies and avoid creating more and more silos. Most enterprises will be juggling their traditional virtualization environments, a modern private cloud scale environment, and multiple public clouds. It is important to have a cohesive view across all of these as applications become decomposed and more modular and span multiple generations of technology and even physical location within a single application. Applications are no longer confined to infrastructure 2017 IDC #US

8 silos, and if infrastructure management is done in silos, it will present tremendous application management challenges and impede the development of DX assets. Managing this diverse set of infrastructure can be challenging as each is very different from the other, but enterprises will need a cohesive view across them, consistent policies that can be applied, and a core set of common management functions to absorb these new platforms successfully and leverage the innovations that these platforms can bring to digital transformation. RED HAT CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (see Figure 4) is a robust cloud solution that integrates several Red Hat products together and can be used to deploy and manage both traditional environments and new cloud environments, giving organizations the ability to reduce complexity while meeting the needs of cloud applications. FIGURE 4 Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure Source: Red Hat, 2017 Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure includes two core infrastructure platforms: Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) for traditional virtualization and Red Hat OpenStack Platform (RHOSP) for scale-out private cloud. Red Hat Virtualization is an enterprise virtualization solution that consists of the KVM hypervisor and a traditional virtualization management console. Red Hat is a leading contributor to the KVM hypervisor, which is part of the Linux kernel, and created the ovirt open source project, the open source enterprise virtualization management solution upon which Red Hat Virtualization is based IDC #US

9 Red Hat OpenStack Platform is a commercial, production-ready distribution of OpenStack. It is a hardened, tested distribution that is built with the same principles that made Red Hat a success in commercial enterprise open source with Linux: Red Hat provides an ecosystem of hardware, software, and services partners to help customers build and deploy robust OpenStack-based clouds. Red Hat backs Red Hat OpenStack Platform (and all Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure products) with enterprise-level support and training/certification materials. Red Hat provides a long support life cycle for certain releases of OpenStack, currently three years of production with two years of optional extended support for a total of five years. Red Hat is a leader in the OpenStack community and has consistently been a top code contributor to the project since it joined. While Red Hat Virtualization and Red Hat OpenStack Platform target different application deployment scenarios, there is a common foundation of Linux across both products. KVM is an inherent part of the Linux kernel, and thus Red Hat Virtualization is built off of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and is essentially a specialized configuration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. KVM also serves as OpenStack compute nodes, and Linux is a host server OS for OpenStack services and a guest VM OS for users. Red Hat also uses common subsystems across both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenStack Platform for simplified management and more consistency. Glance, the OpenStack VM repository, and Neutron, an OpenStack software-defined networking system, are also both used in RHV to provide common services. RHV and RHOSP are also key software-defined infrastructure technologies that support containers and OpenShift, Red Hat's container application platform. With Red Hat Virtualization and OpenStack providing the core infrastructure for traditional and nextgeneration applications, the other key component of the Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure suite is about managing the hybrid environment with CloudForms, which is a cloud management platform that can span diverse environments. It can manage: Traditional server virtualization environments, both Red Hat and non Red Hat hypervisors: CloudForms enables advanced management and cloud features for these environments, adding features such as orchestration, capacity planning, monitoring reporting, chargeback, policy compliance, and self-service portals. On-premise cloud environments such as OpenStack-based private clouds Public clouds such as Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform: CloudForms provides higher-level cloud management across both private and public environments for consistent functionality across the hybrid cloud, regardless of the underlying cloud platform. RHCI also provides life-cycle management of Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments and the Red Hat infrastructure with Red Hat Satellite. It also includes Red Hat Insights, which provides predictive analytics and failure detection for all components of the Red Hat infrastructure. Ansible is another key Red Hat management technology, and while Ansible isn't included in RHCI, it is increasingly integrated and/or supported within Red Hat products, including the core components of Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure as well as most other Red Hat products. As customers evolve their traditional server virtualization while building private clouds and integrating public cloud resources, they are struggling to juggle the various technologies, all of which continue to 2017 IDC #US

10 provide value and support key applications. Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure is a hybrid IT solution that has its feet in both the traditional virtualization world and the next-generation cloud world and ties both worlds together with cloud management tools to help manage these diverse environments. Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure works alongside existing infrastructure investments and integrates with numerous virtualization, management, and public cloud technologies. Red Hat is also a supporter of open standards and open APIs and integrates these elements into its entire product portfolio through an open source approach. Openness empowers customers by increasing interoperability, reducing lock-in, and providing more choices. For customers taking the next step into cloud, RHCI offers a solution for today's needs as well as a path for tomorrow, helping customers on their cloud journey. CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES Challenges A large installed base of non Red Hat server virtualization and a very competitive hypervisor market exist in the enterprise. Vendors that own these hypervisors will seek to own the management stack on top of them as well as the cloud stack. KVM came later to the market, and while it has an impressive attach rate to OpenStack, it doesn't have a large traditional virtualization installed base to build off of. The cloud platform market is extremely competitive and fragmented. Other major enterprise system software vendors are also building private cloud solutions, seeking to capitalize on their installed base of system software. The top major hyperscale cloud providers use proprietary platforms, with OpenStack being used for mid- and smaller-scale clouds, which hampers the OpenStack hybrid cloud story. The other potential disruption is from containers. Containers don't necessarily compete with OpenStack, and OpenStack has a great deal of container integration and functionality. Containers need some sort of software-defined infrastructure to support them, and it is not yet apparent whether OpenStack will fill that role or some other type of SDI might emerge underneath containers. Most of the early stability and installation issues of OpenStack are gone, and missing features have been added. OpenStack is today stable, mature, and enterprise ready. However, one key operational process continues to be a thorn for OpenStack customers upgrading OpenStack. There is hope on the horizon, however. Containerizing the OpenStack control plane has received a lot of attention lately, and this technology has the potential to make upgrade woes a thing of the past. Opportunities With all the fragmentation in the cloud platform market, OpenStack has arisen as the leading open choice, promoting open development, open source, and open standards and APIs. With the broad participation by the industry, OpenStack technology has been brought to market in different forms and by many different vendors. The open nature of the APIs and the development and healthy nurturing of a large, growing community will be key to OpenStack's continued success. As the industry moves to a cloud service model, enterprise IT must adapt to this new world or face irrelevance. This has led to the adoption of the private cloud. While the public cloud has its uses, some enterprise workloads just can't be moved off-premise for various reasons. For the foreseeable future, hybrid cloud will remain the dominant model, and enterprises must 2017 IDC #US

11 build cloud infrastructure and services to support their users and develop modern applications with a hybrid world in mind. Red Hat is a leading Linux vendor and has significant experience with the open source model. OpenStack needs a stable operating system underneath, and many OpenStack functions rely on Linux, thus requiring engineering work on both sides to ensure good integration. Red Hat's position in Linux lends significant engineering and business model experience, which is a competitive advantage. In addition, Red Hat's work in open source virtualization (RHV) and open source cloud management (CloudForms) is also key because these additional elements are needed to build a full cloud solution as OpenStack provides only the core infrastructure. CONCLUSION Digital transformation is pushing every business to move faster and engage further in the digital world or risk being made irrelevant by competitors that have adapted faster or start-ups that have pursued vastly different IT strategies for their business models. Enterprises need modern tools to tackle DX such as containers, private cloud, and public cloud. These tools are additive to the existing technologies that they have deployed today, so the matrix of what they need to support is only growing, not shrinking. Enterprises are accumulations of many generations and platforms of technology, and next-generation cloud will be just one more. The existing server virtualization environment will still be around for a very long time, and it will gain cloud features too, albeit in a way different from OpenStack. One key to success going forward will be not just standing up different stacks of technology but also connecting them together and managing across them. To succeed, enterprises will need to approach their cloud strategy from multiple angles and will require a diverse set of technologies. Red Hat is a vendor that is developing solutions to address these needs as a leading provider of open solutions. IDC has seen that openness has become a larger factor for customers adopting cloud. Red Hat's legacy in enterprise Linux and KVM virtualization provides the foundation for other emerging areas such as OpenStack and hybrid cloud management. By tying it all together as an integrated solution and with Red Hat's experience in supporting open source for the enterprise globally, Red Hat has a tremendous opportunity to provide cloud solutions that will be key for enterprises to make the transition into the cloud era IDC #US

12 About IDC International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community make factbased decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,100 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For 50 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. Global Headquarters 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA USA idc-community.com Copyright Notice External Publication of IDC Information and Data Any IDC information that is to be used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to deny approval of external usage for any reason. Copyright 2017 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden.