Management Systems Soar Above the Clouds: ALU and Citrix as Enablers

4G, cloud computing, social networking. What would the IT and telecom industries be like without its buzzwords?  A little more boring, I suppose. Buzzwords tend to liven up industry debate. And they often signal a paradigm shift in the industry – although not every buzzword lives up to its hype. Terms like ASP and SOA would fit into the “unrealized potential" category, but publications and industry analysts need to sell the next big wave.

So what about cloud computing?  Is it a paradigm shift, hype or have we seen it before by another name?

That really depends on your definition of cloud computing. If it were only private clouds, then the industry shift would be nothing more than a name change from the client server era to the Web services era and onto cloud services in the data center. Even if the “cloud" were outsourced, Web hosting companies and service consulting companies have been offering “cloud-like" applications since the mid 1990s. In fact, I used to call it “online leasing" where the customer paid a monthly fee to have an engineering application hosted and managed by my former employer. All they did was point customers to the URL.

But the excitement today is more access to applications over public clouds, and the reason that’s a big deal is that with public clouds, the core data roams beyond organizational boundaries. Why do that?  Because moving applications to the cloud helps you with lots of useful things, such as saving personnel costs, consolidating systems, or gaining more processing capacity without spending a ton of money on your own IT hardware and systems. It is all about resource efficiencies.

The cloud is also about greater load and task sharing across organizations. The cloud acts like a data center, looks like a data center, and even smells like a data center – it’s just owned by somebody else and you take advantage of that scale and resources.

What is different today is that clouds deliver “elastic provisioning" – an ability to ratchet up processing power on demand. For instance, a concert or event promoter needs to fill X number of seats for a one-time event. Provisioning extra capacity for handling viewers and ticketing transactions on the venue’s website is critical because if concert-goers have trouble processing tickets online or if site performance is suffering, they’ll leave, which is like throwing money out the window. 

Retailers too know their requirements are going to spike during the winter holidays, so it’s convenient for them to borrow some elastic capacity from the cloud. Even engineering, finance and IT departments have peak load periods where they need a boost in capacity.

Of course, the real value is when you can bring ongoing operations and business applications – not just a one-time events – into the cloud. What if you could offload your CRM or email, video conferencing, document repository, project management, invoicing or accounting?  If you can do that, the savings could be huge.

Clouds bring lots of benefits, but there’s a big problem lurking out there: You can’t run cloud applications without control and visibility.

Even though companies are eager to save money by offloading their infrastructure to the cloud, they’re very concerned about losing the visibility and manageability of their data that they now enjoy in their own data center. Indeed, in a recent industry survey, the deficiency of monitoring tools was considered the No. 1 barrier to cloud adoption. The survey results are a bit surprising since security is usually seen as the biggest obstacle to cloud acceptance.   But isn’t it the monitoring tools that give the visibility in order to obtain real security?  These same monitoring applications not only look at performance metrics, but have capabilities in security monitoring and anomaly detection. Over the last couple years, I have seen an exponential uptick in the number of companies looking to measure the performance and security of their public and private clouds. 

While many of these cloud-enabling companies are venture-funded startups with fresh ideas, it’s the traditional network equipment vendors who will have the biggest impact on cloud infrastructure.  

One example is Alcatel-Lucent’s Open API Platform product that abstracts the Network layer to the Cloud layer, allowing developers and network operators to collaboratively introduce new applications and content.

Traditionally it would take a service provider 18 months to roll out such new devices and applications. The Open API Platform cuts that time to only four to six months. And because the platform securely exposes and manage network assets, developers can build out next-generation apps around the connected consumer at a fraction of the cost.

The platform includes enablers to automatically configure the desired alarms, measurements, security, billing, SLAs and other operational functions. Application metrics can also be integrated into the service provider's OSS/BSS system via a northbound interface and provisioned southbound to the associated devices and applications. 

The solution enables the creation of new distribution channels and revenue opportunities while at the same time maintaining full control and visibility over the assets of the service provider and application developer.

Yet another example is the Citrix Netscaler application accelerator and load balancer for virtual data centers and clouds. The solution delivers applications such as collaboration, voice and video to a far richer service delivery fabric regardless of whether they are running in disparate networks of enterprise data centers or public and private clouds and even in a hybrid environment.

A single control plane within the NetScaler Command Center provides unified provisioning, real-time fault monitoring and performance management of all virtual NetScaler instances. The network operator has a centralized view worldwide, be it in the enterprise data center, backup facility or the Cloud. Service providers are not a purchaser or consumer of the Citrix Netscaler solutions; instead Service Providers can add Citrix Netscaler as a value-added service to their enterprise customers. Again, the end result is better application delivery, cost savings and the ability to manage and control the networking and application infrastructure.

Conclusion

Because we’re a technology supplier to many of the firms who develop Cloud applications and manage Cloud infrastructures, we get a “free preview" of coming attractions. Judging by the buzz, the innovative ideas and demand we’re seeing for management solutions in this space, it’s clear that cloud computing is picking up speed and capabilities are maturing. Cloud is a freight train that can’t be stopped because it delivers reduced costs and greater operating efficiencies for service providers, enterprises and end-users.  

Eric Wegner is a 20-year veteran of the industry and has 10 years of experience with ZOHO Corp . (formerly AdventNet) working on large and complex network management infrastructures for network equipment manufacturers, service providers and military contractors. Eric joined the company as the first sales person and is now business development manager leading the WebNMS division in North America.