Making OpenStack enterprise ready with software defined availability

When we think about the first era of computing, our memories take us back to a generation governed by mainframes and hardware solutions. As our dependency on IT has grown rapidly we have become a business society that expects nothing less than fast performing, well connected systems.

Organisations have come to expect IT to support the ever increasing number of devices and applications that are required to keep their businesses up and running. The demand for extra capacity and flexibility is what is driving many organisations to make the transition from traditional IT to private cloud services.

OpenStack is growing in popularity as the standard for deploying open source-based clouds without vendor lock-in. However, many of its elements need to mature and challenges still need to be overcome before it is considered enterprise ready.

Elasticity vs Availability

Availability is one of the requirements that is often compromised when moving to the cloud. Clouds typically make use of low-cost commodity components and are expected to fail. To ensure always-on availability of applications in these environments, they need to be designed to work around potential failure. When we take a closer look at OpenStack – while it has proven to provide a great framework for building clouds – it is currently missing some key ingredients, such as availability, that are slowing down the pace at which deployments are being implemented.

For organisations requiring availability across their OpenStack control plane, as well as within application instances running on OpenStack clouds, Software Defined Availability (SDA) can help achieve both without running the risk of downtime. Bringing this new approach to availability to OpenStack clouds can also significantly reduce the cost and complexity of moving applications to the cloud. By addressing availability at the infrastructure layer rather than writing it into the application itself, organisations can really take advantage of the elasticity of the cloud, attaining availability services on demand along with the other cloud resources required for the application stack.


SDA: The next generation of availability

SDA is the next generation of availability that uses the elastic nature of the cloud to ensure organisations meet the demand for an always-on environment now, and in the future. It does this by dynamically moving applications to the appropriate environment depending on the level of availability required. With SDA, downtime prevention and recovery decisions about availability are moved out of the hardware into a software layer that matches applications to the right infrastructure for the right level of availability. In monetary terms, this means organisations can run their cloud much more efficiently without overpaying for availability when they don’t need it, but still have it when it is required.

This next generation approach to availability will be particularly powerful when applied to environments such as OpenStack where availability, is still one of the top concerns stalling adoption. Building availability into the cloud infrastructure itself will significantly improve the quality of cloud SLAs while removing the availability worries and cost barriers that prevent applications from moving to the cloud.

Incorporating an SDA layer when building cloud infrastructures will enable enterprises, and solution providers, to dynamically move applications between availability levels in a single cloud environment based on whether they are business critical, important, or general purpose. It can also build this flexibility into one holistic environment by changing the levels of availability based on the needs of specific applications during a given period. Organisations have the assurance that their applications will remain up and running during critical periods and can automatically move them to less costly availability levels afterwards.

When applied to the cloud and services built in an OpenStack environment, SDA results in a more reliable, efficient cloud infrastructure, and one that enterprises and solution providers can embrace fully without hesitation. A model that can reduce complexity, and the level of IT skill required, is an attractive proposition and worth implementing.

There are a lot of processes that have changed as the enterprise world evolves towards this next generation of cloud computing. Using the same availability techniques that have been used for the past 50 years just doesn’t make sense when everything else is changing. Creating an SDA solution specifically for cloud will bring availability techniques up to date to deal more effectively with how our world is changing. Above all, it will equip organisations to operate more effectively and experience the immediate benefits of the cloud now, and in the future.