the federal cio s guide to the dynamic data center 78830

8/8/2019 The Federal Cio s Guide to the Dynamic Data Center 78830

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-federal-cio-s-guide-to-the-dynamic-data-center-78830 1/13

Cetig 21st Cet Goeet Ifotio Tecolog Ifstcte

Te Fedel CIO’s Gideto te Dic Dt Cete

The Federal Dynamic Data Center Executive Leadership Report Series



ExECuTIvE Summary

The Federal Government data center is rapidly evolving to providenew services and capabilities that can greatly enhance the valueof the agency’s enterprise infrastructure.

New technologies such as Cloud Computing, Infrastructure/Softwareas a Service (IaaS or SaaS), and Virtualization have the abilityto transform the existing agency enterprise into a 21st Centuryinfrastructure that is agile and service oriented.

The Federal Dynamic Data Center Executive Leadership ReportSeries provides agency executives, CIOs, and their staff witha clear understanding of this evolution and how to link theirtechnology investments and support into their agency’s strategicgoals and objectives.

This is the first document, the “foundation”, in a series that willprovide federal executives with:

• Reports written for the federal executive that focus on businessaspects of technology,

• An understanding of the changing data center landscapeand how it will impact their agency, and

• A framework to tie data center investments to improvedcapabilities to drive greater value.

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OvErvIEw

Information technology (IT) has become a central focus of the new administration to lower the cost of

government, improve efficiencies, and engage its constituents into a greater participation. For many agencies,

IT is becoming more than just a critical part of their business processes; it is becoming an essential part

of their mission and delivery mechanism. Forward thinking and savvy government executives understand

that a true advantage in IT can be leveraged to improve services and lower costs if it is intertwined into their

strategic planning process. While many agencies have a distributed IT infrastructure across their enterprise,

there has been a significant movement towards Cloud based services and consolidation that places the

data center at the core of the agencies’ plans for technical evolution.

Building and operating data centers is a complex and challenging prospect. Agencies of all sizes and types

have come to realize, often through mistakes, poor planning, or poor execution, that a typical data center

can very easily become a liability and a cost sink that creates headaches and worries for not only for IT

managers, but also for business managers as well. Operations can be significantly burdened by a variety of

factors, including legacy hardware and software systems, varying management platforms, and piecemeal

implementations that include the latest technologies. This can cause leadership to lose focus on more

important goals while concentrating resources on maintaining standard levels of operational support andproviding ad hoc solutions for day-to-day problems and emergencies.

When combined with the typical growth of a data center and the expanded need for space, energy supply,

and cooling capacity, the simple existence of a data center can leave agency leadership with the sense that it

is a black hole of increasing costs that consumes ever-increasing amounts of an agency’s resources toward

no particular end. However, from a business perspective, it has become abundantly clear that if IT is going

to act as a business driver, it is necessary to take control of the data center and leverage its capabilities and

potential, making a Dynamic Data Center an organizational asset.

“...it is ecess to tke cotol of te dt cete d leege its cpbilities d

potetil, kig Dic Dt Cete ogitiol sset.”

This document is the first in a series of executive reports written to provide a clear understanding of the

government focused business ramifications associated with the changing data center landscape. The focus

of these reports will be to provide readers with a clear and concise view of the issues, solutions, and benefits

that are associated with the operation of a data center. These concepts can then be used to leverage the

creation of a Dynamic Data Center within the agency, and to derive greater value and performance from

the IT infrastructure. The reports are written for an audience of senior executives and will concentrate on the

business of technology, rather than the underlying technical issues faced by operational managers.



whaT IS ThE DynamIC DaTa CEnTEr?

The Dynamic Data Center is the realization of a Service Oriented Infrastructure (SOI) where technology

and capability are merged into an Agile IT environment capable of meeting the ever-changing needs and

mission of the agency in a cost-effective manner. The Dynamic Data Center wil l provide organizations with

the foundation necessary to achieve the ultimate goal of providing IT as a Service (ITaaS), which is the

combination of Iaas, SaaS and Platform as a Service (PaaS). This will not only allow agencies to deploy new

capabilities faster, more easily and cheaply with improved security and data protection, it will provide the

framework for agencies to add new and future technologies such as application aware storage to quickly

adapt to meet changing mission requirements.

“Te Dic Dt Cete ill poide goeet gecies it te fodtio ecess

to ciee te ltite gol of poidig IT s Seice (ITS), ic is te cobitio

of Is, SS d Pltfo s Seice (PS).”

STraTEGIC FOCuS OF ThE DaTa CEnTEr

Traditionally, IT has not been perceived as a strategic asset within an agency. Most agencies typically view

it as a necessary expense that can be used to improve organizational productivity or to launch or support

new services. Through this line of thought, data centers have rapidly transitioned from a small, manageable

inconvenience into a huge l ine item that poses one operational fire drill after another.

This growth was accomplished primarily through a reactionary basis, with the primary drivers being the ability

to quickly roll out a new application, support a new initiative, or resolve sudden, volatile issues that might

arise. Even as IT became further interwoven in the fabric of an agency’s business, the data center was rarely

incorporated into its strategic plan. Leadership was typically satisfied to receive notification of a milestone

accomplishment, one that would be forgotten and pushed into the background as more pressing issues were

faced. Even now, most agencies tend to focus on maintaining the status quo and running without incident bycontinuing to keep pumping money and other resources into support for the current data center environment

that is not equipped to provide the agility and flexibility necessary to meet the agency’s changing demands.

Fortunately, the data center no longer needs to be viewed as an organizational money pit. If controlled and

managed correctly, it can evolve into a strategic differentiator that can provide the agency with a positive

return on investment (ROI) and help position it for future success. In order to achieve such a transformation,

executives must first understand the basic business drivers and face the challenges intrinsic to building,

operating, and maintaining a Dynamic Data Center within their agencies.

A simple example is the combination of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Cloud Computing with

underlying infrastructure technologies such as unified storage and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). Many

agencies have recently come to understand the need to transform to a service-oriented environment that providesthe ability for zero-touch, instant delivery of services and capabilities, and elastic scaling that meet fluctuations

in demand. With a properly structured and managed Dynamic Data Center, agencies can not only move more

quickly to concepts such as SOA, but can also implement a more advantageous and effective solution that meets

a broader range of the agency’s requirements and fits into the longer term strategic objectives. It also allows

agencies to potentially implement pay-per-use models where they can offer excess services to other agencies

or leverage additional resources from other agencies or outside vendors to meet excess demand requirements

without investing in a significant amount of infrastructure that sits idle for a majority of the time.





DynamIC DaTa CEnTEr ChaLLEnGES

The evolution of a data center poses a number of challenges that are common to all agencies. For example,

most agencies will find that the most costly aspect of IT and data centers today are not in the technology,

but in the management and operation of the data center. Many agencies will adopt new technologies and

introduce them in a piecemeal fashion to solve an immediate problem. Subsequently, corresponding legacy

systems are not phased out, creating layers of generational systems that in many cases provide overlapping

functionality and increase expenses. Thus, the management costs and requirements multiply, and savings

promised by the new technology are never realized.

1 PrEFErrED vEnDOrS

A major challenge many agencies face is looking beyond the relationships with their existing vendors to

ensure the agency is acquiring the best solutions for their needs. The Dynamic Data Center requires a truly

heterogeneous environment that allows solution sets from numerous vendors to provide the best solution

available and reduce overall risk. Many agencies may find themselves quickly locked into a single solution

and not able to easily migrate to a multi-protocol solution that will allow for greater flexibility, continuity, andreduced costs in the future.

2 TEChnOLOGy aDvanCEmEnT

Business requirements should always be the primary driver of technology purchases. An agency must be

willing to accept that in some cases, requirements may necessitate the purchase and deployment of new

technologies in advance of the agency’s full preparedness to use them. In order to be successful in such

endeavors, disparate groups within an agency must be able to work together to effectively communicate

their needs as well as any restrictions that must be placed on an implementation. Within a single department

or even agency, the concept of multi-tenancy can be leveraged to operate the entire organization from a

shared platform, but provide each group with its own set of administrative controls and policies. In additionto addressing requirements and restrictions, this type of forum allows for the discussion of capabilities that

newly acquired data center resources may provide to the agency for use in leveraging differentiated services

and value for the end customer.

3 PrIOr InvESTmEnTS

While it is important to understand the limited life cycle of existing IT investments, it is also critical to evaluate

new technologies while taking advantage of your existing systems. The operational life cycle of many IT

systems has become shorter and shorter, and agencies must be ready to discontinue use of existing systems

even prior to the end of their expected life cycle if the business case supports the early transition to a new

technology. This appears to be somewhat counterintuitive and a source of aggravation to many executiveswho have a natural tendency to try and drain every last drop of value out of a system. But it is imperative

that an impartial analysis is made to determine if the costs of extended operation with an existing system

exceed those of the next system that offers a better solution.



4 EDuCaTIOn & TraInInG

Training, introduction of new technologies, and better strategic and operational business practices should be

a core value of an agency’s IT culture. With the constant influx of new technologies and processes, it is critical

for agencies to ensure their staff is trained on an ongoing basis to effectively use and operate the technology

assets available to them. Investments in human capital, the employees that operate and maintain the data

center, will encourage organizational consideration and acceptance of new solutions as opposed to causing

fear that the introduction of new technologies will leave them exposed to being displaced by new hires.

5 EnTrEnChED PrOCESSES

One of the greatest barriers to effective technology transition is the ability for agencies to migrate and evolve

their own internal business processes to maximize the benefit of the new technology. Simply implementing

new technologies is an insufficient and ineffectual method of managing change. Agencies must be willing and

able to evaluate and provide some level of improvement to existing business processes before deploying new

technologies. The simple truth is that agencies can often achieve substantial improvements if they are willing

to step back and discover better ways to run their business. New capabilities such as online provisioningand instant delivery cannot only speed existing processes, but could drive agencies to radically change

their business processes that will provide a significant increase in service levels and customer support while

reducing administrative costs.





DrIvErS FOr ThE DynamIC DaTa CEnTEr

Determining the core business drivers of an agency and focusing on solutions within them is one of the

most critical steps to understanding the true requirements for its IT infrastructure. Engineers and technology

managers tend to draft solutions in terms of technical requirements. However, effective executives and

business managers understand that the business drivers are the genesis of all requirements within the agency.

A requirement that cannot be mapped back to a business driver is, in fact, not an actual requirement.

1 COnSOLIDaTIOn

As the demands of the data center increase, agencies can easily find the growth unmanageable. Therefore, it

is necessary to maintain greater operational control and proper configuration management in order to promote

consolidation both within individual data centers and across multiple locations within an agency. The types of

hardware and software technology utilized can be similar for multiple applications or services, so it is important to

attempt to avoid redundancy. This becomes increasingly difficult as data center sprawl exponentially increases

over time, and leads to a lack of configuration management and a loss of true understanding of what each piece

of equipment is supporting. To prevent this wasteful use of resources, it is absolutely necessary to standardizeoperations with a limited set of equipment, applications, and processes that can be adequately and cost

effectively managed to meet critical service level agreements. It is also necessary for agencies to “right-size”

the number and locations of their data centers to maximize business continuity, while minimizing cost and

resource issues. It is also important to leverage concepts such as data deduplication to significantly reduce

the amount and redundant data housed, and multitenancy to increase the utilization of existing resources.

2 DEmanD

There are a number of aspects in which a data center exerts demands on its agency. As the number and

types of applications and services increase, exponential growth occurs in terms of the number of servers,

CPU cycles, memory, and bandwidth needed to support the data center’s mission. As agency requirements

grow and IT becomes increasingly more sophisticated, the need for more highly specialized solutions alsoincreases. This results in the introduction of new applications and services. Along with the new applications

and services, new hardware and support processes are normally introduced to sustain these capabilities.

This compounds the increase in demand since as new resources are continually introduced, consumption

of valuable floor space, utilities, and management cycles also increases. Agencies will need to establish the

ability to provide scaling without limits, where they can add additional infrastructure either logically within

their own data center or virtually through Clouds and other agencies and outside services providers.

3 BuDGET

Understanding costs, their nature, and their relationship to the operation of a data center is a core component

of being able to manage and efficiently control their effect while still providing the best available capabilities.Historically, capital expenses have composed a large portion of the data center’s costs. More recently, the

operational resources necessary to maintain and manage the IT infrastructure have become more cumbersome.

In addition to standard operational costs, many agencies are seeking to adopt “green” approaches with the hope

of being able to maintain their operational costs. As energy sources become more limited and expensive, reducing

power consumption and finding alternative sources of energy has become a much greater priority not only to

accommodate the organizational conscience, but as a method to try to reduce expenses as well. Agencies are

also looking towards the Cloud Computing models where they can buy ITaaS and utilize a pay-per-use model.



4 COnTInuITy OF OPEraTIOnS (COOP)

As IT has become a vital part of many agencies’ ability to operate and survive, data centers have been tasked

with not only supporting continuous business operations, but also with the ability to survive or overcome

catastrophic events. Increasingly, the concept of COOP is an absolute requirement for government agencies.

As IT services become more critical, agencies will move away from discussing availability in terms of 9’s

and start looking for 7/24 forever, where there is no anticipated interruption in service. Therefore, some of

the solution sets employed by data centers must be engineered with fail over sites that duplicate existing

solutions and can be used as hot standbys. This approach is contrary to many of the other drivers identified

in this section as it significantly increases costs and operational issues and lowers overall utilization of

resources. Additionally, some agencies have coupled their business continuity plans with a host of other

requirements such as workforce mobility, to develop highly usable solutions that use communal resources

to provide distributed computing and dynamic continuity even in the face of major disasters.

5 TEChnOLOGy

Technology advancement in IT and related areas continues at an extraordinary rate. The impact of thisprogress must be understood and incorporated into the expansion of data centers. Business requirements

may drive the introduction of new technologies, but agencies must continually strive to understand new

technology and how it can be leveraged in developing new and improved solutions. In this way, technology

advancement becomes a cyclical process. Initially, new business requirements may drive new technologies

or services, but in turn, new technology will drive new business requirements. Therefore, planning to derive

solutions to multiple problems with each IT investment is not only efficient, but logical as well. Agencies

must embrace a “technology transition” philosophy by which they are building their internal processes to

support an ongoing stream of technology insertions, or risk having legacy architecture from day one. As

a result, agencies should consider technologies that provide basic infrastructure capabilities and can be

incrementally upgraded over time. Under this dynamic approach, the latest technologies can be implemented

in a reasonably fluid manner. This is particularly important for large commercial and government agencies

that may need to transition to new technologies outside their normal li fe cycle management approach.

6 mISSIOn EFFECTIvEnESS

Data centers have become a significant investment and a core asset for many agencies and thus are being

required to provide the ability to differentiate through advanced capabilities, services, agility, and reliability

that will directly help impact the bottom line of the business. This is the very core of the Dynamic Data Center

concept. It will help an agency align the development of its Dynamic Data Center to truly provide enhanced,

mission-effective solutions that will deliver a significant ROI.

7 manDaTES

All agencies, regardless of size and mission, must endure some form of government mandate, regulation, and

requirements from Congress and the administration. Agencies must consider government requirements for

business continuity, customer privacy, archiving, data integrity, data survivability, and “green” computing, as

well as many others. These requirements and best practices have a significant effect on the way agencies run

their data centers. In some cases, noncompliance with certain regulations or practices can result in monetary

or other penalties. For example, the Federal Government, as well as some state and local governments, are

changing acquisition regulations to focus on solutions that require green computing.





rEquIrEmEnTS FOr ThE DynamIC DaTa CEnTEr

The concept of a Dynamic Data Center will have different meaning and different paths to success for different

agencies. Despite these differences, there are many attributes that will be pertinent across organizational

boundaries. The specific implementation of a Dynamic Data Center should be as unique to an agency as

its business plan. The creation of a roadmap to develop and maintain a Dynamic Data Center requires an

agency to fully understand the relationship between business and technical requirements and then to identify

and address the gaps between the current operation and the desired one. As agencies collaborate with

vendors and service providers to implement their future data center needs, specific requirements need be

adhered to in order to achieve the Dynamic Data Center vision. The following areas should be considered

as a starting point for agencies when planning their Dynamic Data Center.

1 InFraSTruCTurE COnvErGEnCE

Technology convergence has occurred both in the communication and computing environments. In

communications systems, Internet Protocol (IP) has become the de facto standard for IT communications. The

next generation of systems will combine communications and computing platforms into a single pool of sharedresources that can be virtually allocated based on need. The Dynamic Data Center will provide the ability for zero

touch, instant delivery of IT services to setup, modify, and tear down virtual environments at will which will be

coupled with online provisioning capabilities. Computing and communications environments will be multi-protocol

and capable of accessing pooled resources without the need to reformat or translate data. The instantaneous

deployment of servers, applications, routers, firewall, and other devices will occur through online environments

that will then be implemented across a suite of heterogeneous platforms. This capability forms the basis of a

service-oriented infrastructure and eases the organizational drive to fulfill SOA requirements. The convergence

of computing and communications systems will also provide an open-style platform that allows data center

operators to provide greater multi-faceted capabilities and services to meet the needs of agencies that choose

to outsource their data center requirements, but have concerns about security, spoof detection, and fraud.

2 rESOurCE SharInG

The flexibility provided by the Dynamic Data Center allows for efficient, on demand allocation of both

hardware and software resources. Key components in the evolution of the data center will be virtualization,

unified storage, elastic scaling, re-use, and resource sharing. Using powerful systems to imitate multiple

smaller systems increases efficiency and shows consistent ROI. Typically, virtualization is carried out to the

operating system level. The Dynamic Data Center will push the limits of virtualization, by extending resource

sharing to processing, memory, storage, and communications. This in-depth level of a true resource sharing

environment will provide agencies an unprecedented level of control and agility in their data centers.

“Te Dic Dt Cete ill ps te liits of itlitio, b etedig esocesig to pocessig, eo, stoge, d coictios.”

df



3 OPEraTIOnaL CaPaBILITIES

The management of any data center is a challenge. That challenge is amplified in the Dynamic Data Center.

Advanced technologies and virtualization are key components to the core solution set, and while they do

present significant benefits, they do not necessarily simplify the management of the data center. Newer

technologies and greater virtualization make evaluation of business processes essential. Pooling and sharing

of resources can make the data center seem to be running more smoothly, but if procedures are not in

place to manage the configurations, management of change and new implementations becomes difficult or

impossible. Further, this can lead to uncertainty regarding the status of both hardware and applications which

the agency may be capable of retiring, creating the very type of legacy systems the Dynamic Data Center is

designed to eliminate. Management tools for the Dynamic Data Center need to provide a centralized point

of control across the entire scope of operations and not just for specific vendors or solutions. Providing

comprehensive management tools capable of tracking and controlling computing, networking, and storage

technologies and how they interoperate is an essential step in achieving the goals of the Dynamic Data

Center. It is also essential to provide greater data protection.

“mgeet tools fo te Dic Dt Cete eed to poide cetlied poit of cotolcoss te etie scope of opetios d ot jst fo specific edos o soltios.”

4 GrEEn IT

Power and cooling requirements have become major factors in the sustainability and growth of data centers. As

the density and overall quantity of physical devices increases, the power and cooling requirements per square

foot also increase, frequently at an exponential rate. This level of density applied on a sizeable data center

can create problems. Sufficient power must be made available to sustain data center environmental controls,

uninterrupted power supplies, and backup power generation equipment. Some agencies may need to work

with local utility companies to expand their supply, particularly in older facilities that were built with much less

demand for power. Other agencies need to account for “green” computing efforts, as they may be requiredto reduce electrical consumption, despite the increasing needs for new resources. Creating confined areas

or “hot spots” would concentrate resources in higher density locations, and power and cooling facilities can

be used with maximum efficiency. Consolidation has proved an effective tool for improving efficiencies and

meeting overall Green IT initiatives. By bringing agency wide computing resources into a smaller number of

multi-tenancy environments and leveraging concepts such as resource sharing and deduplication, agencies

can employ more energy efficient designs and achieve greater overall utilization of equipment.

5 InFraSTruCTurE DEnSITy

Operating data centers in a smaller, more compact footprint is a simple way to reduce expenses. While

technologies such as blade servers provide for greater densities, they still have limitations. In essence, theyapply the same physical server paradigm but in a smaller form factor and are preferred to traditional, stand-

alone servers. However, other modular computing and communications technologies that leverage higher

performance backplanes should be explored. By providing greater density, in a smaller geographic footprint,

agencies may also provide some relief from associated issues such as power and wiring.





DynamIC DaTa CEnTEr BEnEFITS

Government agencies can realize a number of benefits as they evolve towards the Dynamic Data Center.

Although the level of benefit will vary based on the specific agency needs and requirements, the following

five benefits will be universally realized.

1 aGILE IT

The Dynamic Data Center will allow agencies to control all aspects of the data center electronically and from

standard based interfaces. This will leverage the Cloud approach to dynamic allocation and provisioning

of services on an as-needed basis. It wil l allow agency operational staff to provision adequate services and

resources when required, and to tear them down when the requirement has ended. Agencies will be able

to react quickly to mission demands and to automate manual processes. They will also be able to launch

new services and resolve issues more quickly.

2 LOwEr COST

Agencies will realize a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with the Dynamic Data Center as compared

to traditional data center approaches. They will see greater affordability from equipment, management,

application, real estate, and utility costs. In addition, the advantages provided by the Dynamic Data Center

will provide agencies with solutions that meet current and future requirements with the flexibility required as

their operational mission and requirements shift.

3 quaLITy

Many agencies utilize a wide variety of management tools that increase the number of systems being

supported. Dynamic Data Centers provide greater management tools and processes that allow for improvedaccountability and flexibility, and provide the ability to improve quality control aspects. This will allow the

agency operational IT team to focus on improving operations versus spending time on putting out fires.

4 rESOurCES uTILIzaTIOn

Agencies will be able to derive significantly improved resource utilization across the data center infrastructure.

This will provide savings in equipment, personnel, space, power, and management. Improved utilization will

apply to new technologies introduced as well as current platforms.

5 PhySICaL & CyBEr SECurITy

Security is one of the most critical challenges agencies will face as they introduce new technologies and

consolidate their enterprise infrastructure. Security is a requirement that must be built in from the ground up

and tie into the physical and cyber security capabilities. This will allow agencies to provide better accounting

and auditing services, higher degrees of assurance, and improved performance through the use of ubiquitous

security technologies that will provide a security blanket across all of the applications and services.




PILLarS OF ThE DynamIC DaTa CEnTEr

The pillars of the Dynamic Data Center are core technologies, concepts, and processes that are fundamental

to the Dynamic Data Center. These pillars provide a greater understanding of the underlying concepts,

technologies, and processes agencies need to understand as they transform their data centers. The pillar

reports will provide an executive level summarization of the most important aspects agency executives need

to know and understand.

Pillar reports will be released on a regular basis to provide agency executives a continuing source of valuable

information and better understanding of the Dynamic Data Center. The Pillar reports will include:

• A description of the pillar,

• The drivers associated with the pillar,

• Benefits of the pillar, and

• Next steps on which agency executives should focus.

COnCLuSIOn

While federal agencies are focused on high-profile initiatives such as data center consolidation, cloud

computing, virtualization, and green IT, it is a perfect time for their existing data centers to migrate into a Dynamic

Data Center. This will not only help the federal executive establish the evolutionary path for their Enterprise

infrastructure, it will provide real benefits and return-on-investment that can be clearly measured over time.

BrOuGhT TO yOu By:

www.merlin-intl.com

www.netapp.com

COnTaCT:

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1-877-430-3021

www.merlin-intl.com

Request your copy of the Federal Dynamic Data Center Executive Leadership Report Series today at:

.FedelDicDtCete.co



Cetig 21st Cet Goeet Ifotio Tecolog Ifstcte

Te Fedel CIO’s Gideto te Dic Dt Cete

the federal cio s guide to the dynamic data center 78830

Documents