Eight Requirements for Self-Service IT and the Next Generation Data Center

Using a Service Catalog for Data Center Automation

newScale White Paper

Eight Requirements for Self-Service IT and the Next Generation Data Center

Table of Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................ 1 1. Make Self-Service Easy and Convenient ................................................. 2 2. Drive Users to Standard Service Options ................................................ 3 3. Enable IT to Track and Manage Lifecycles and Workloads ...............5 4. Provide Complete Services, Not Just Servers.......................................... 7 5. Include Role-based Access Controls ........................................................... 8 6. Coordinate and Integrate with Back Ofce Systems............................8 7. Shape Demand ............................................................................................... 9 8. Accommodate Move to Cloud Computing .............................................10 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................12

Executive Summary

Executive Summary
Virtualization is revolutionizing computing. It greatly facilitates the creation and deployment of services, permitting IT to be fast on its feet in delivering the services the business requires. With virtualization, IT can deliver services to users on-demand. With this capability, IT can empower users to serve themselves in requesting services. For example, a user can request a complete application development system and have the request quickly fulfilled through the provisioning of virtual resources. This eliminates the long delays and much higher costs of provisioning physical resources. Like all technology innovations, however, virtualization introduces IT management challenges. IT has to ensure that it effectively manages user self-service so that demand does not quickly outstrip available resources and that request fulfillment is done in compliance with internal policies and external regulations. And, because of the ease of creating and deploying virtual servers, IT has to ensure that an operating model exists to control and manage this technology so that it does not replace physical server sprawl with virtual server sprawl. A comprehensive and well-designed Service Catalog offers a solution to these challenges. It provides a single point from which the IT staff can gain enterprisewide visibility and management control of its physical and virtualized data center infrastructure. It also provides an effective vehicle to communicate standardized data center offerings to end-users and allow users to serve themselves in requesting services. In essence, the Service Catalog is the foundation for a new front office of IT and acts as the face of IT to the enterprise. This important capability positions IT to take full advantage of the next major wave in computingcloud computingwhich is based on virtualization. Consequently, IT organizations must take great care in designing and implementing their Service Catalogs. newScale, the recognized thought and market leader in the Service Catalog industry, has derived eight major requirements that a Service Catalog must satisfy to meet the challenge of self-service. newScale has developed these requirements based on 10 years of experience in providing Service Catalog software for more than 1.7 million users. The company presents this paper with the intent of helping IT organizations implement an effective Service Catalog that will enable them to reap the full benefits of self-service in virtualized and cloud computing environments. This paper examines the requirements and provides guidance on leveraging the resultant capabilities to their full potential. The paper focuses on VMware environments because it represents the majority of virtualization implementations. However, the concepts discussed apply to all virtualized environments across multiple hypervisors as well as physical data center infrastructures.

Make Self-Service Easy and Convenient

1. Make Self-Service Easy and Convenient

To realize the full promise of the virtualized environment, it is critical to empower users to easily and conveniently serve themselves in selecting and requesting services. A well-designed Service Catalog enables users to confidently select and request services all on their own, without intervention by the IT staff. This requires far more than just a web form in which user simply enter their requirements. Here are some suggestions for building a Service Catalog that fully empowers users to serve themselves: Self-service Lifecycle Management User self-service should continue beyond the initial request and receipt of services and give users visibility and control over the entire lifecycle of the services they request. This includes the ability to stop or delete the VM entirely, or to modify it such as by changing memory or CPU allocation, or migrating the VM to another physical server. Extending user self-service over the entire service lifecycle allows the requestor to quickly and easily make adjustments (or turn off the VM) to meet changing business requirements. Self-service reduces the load on the VM administrators and helps control server sprawl by eliminating orphan VMs that are still active but no longer used. Search Users are accustomed to Google-type search engines. Consequently, you need to provide users with a powerful, easy to use, and fast search capability to find the services they need. Navigation Different users approach service selection from different perspectives depending on a variety of factors, such as job function. For example, some users approach selection from the point of view of their use of the service (intranet or application server); others think in terms of performance (high, medium); still others think in terms of cost. You should provide different navigation paths that guide users in choosing the servers and configurations they need based on their perspective. There should be multiple paths to arrive at the same servers and configurations. Comparison Comparison guides help users answer the question, Am I making the right choice from whats available? These guides should have different vectors of comparison so users can see the most important differences among configurations. Content Be sure that the content clearly communicates features, functions, and benefits. Include links to other materials such as FAQs or videos. Dont scrimp on graphics. Establish an overall graphic appearance in which colors, fonts, and pictures are coordinated. Use service bundles to communicate value. A library of pre-defined content, graphics, and images is critical. Wizards Include wizards that guide users through various processes. For example, a configuration wizard can guide users through to a final configuration once they have selected a general server or environment. The wizard should permit users to tweak their choices so they can make adjustments where necessary. In addition, the wizard should prevent users from combining elements that cannot be used together.

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Other useful wizards guide users through calculations or estimates for capacity, availability, and security. The calculations dont have to be exact, but rather provide estimates that help users make more informed choices. Wizards should be embedded in service request forms to allow more granular control. (See Figure 1.) For example, in a form that asks whether there are data privacy requirements, if the user selects yes, the wizard would automatically recommend an internal environment as opposed to a cloud environment.
Figure 1. Service request wizards help users choose the proper computing environments

Drive Users to Standard Service Options

To inuence users to utilize standard service offerings, the Service Catalog should provide four capabilities: 1. Enable users to discover whats available in a way that is meaningful to them 2. Guide users in their selection, based on their roles and requirements 3. Help users compare options 4. Assist users in guiding their requests to the right options for their needs

2. Drive Users to Standard Service Options

You can achieve significant consolidation and efficiency gains by adopting virtualization as a key component of your data center strategy. To gain the full operational efficiencies of virtualization, you need to establish standardized service offerings. Without standardized services, the IT staff has to address every user request for server environments individually, and that typically requires laborious and time-consuming interaction with each requester. Fulfilling each request involves substantial server engineering to create a unique configuration. This results in service delivery delays. A one-off approach is not desirable in the virtualized environment because it limits the agility made possible by virtualization and it complicates management.

Drive Users to Standard Service Options

The problem is that customers may resist adopting standard VM builds or templates, in some cases for valid reasons. In most cases, however, the reluctance arises because the standard configurations are not described in ways that are meaningful to users. Thats because IT typically views requests from a technology perspective whereas business users view requests from a service perspective. As a result, users may not be able to match their requirements to the standard offerings and cannot compare offerings to determine the best match. The right Service Catalog provides the means to overcome these two obstacles. It provides a useful tool to communicate, in the language of the customer, the different options in virtual environments that are available. These options are based on the server standards and configurations that you want to encourage users to request. Rather than having one-off discussions with users concerning their service requests, you can publish baseline services and pre-defined variations in the Service Catalog. Standard service offerings eliminate time consuming telephone calls and email exchanges. As Figure 2 illustrates, the Service Catalog can present a comparison of standard service offerings to custom configurations. By making standard services easy to find, understand, compare, and request, the Service Catalog influences users to utilize them.
Figure 2. Comparison of standard offering to custom conguration

The Service Catalog must provide multiple views for different user roles, such as customer, technical, and financial. For example, when a developer (technical) customer selects small Linux environment for testing, the appropriate bill of materials and standard options are generated. Once the user selects the standard basic offering for his role, self-service request forms provide guidance that helps him select appropriate options, and prevents him from making errors such as requesting incompatible options.

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Once the customer selects the desired service, the system generates the environment build sheet. That drives the provisioning and configuration of the requested resource, including any in-place automated activities required. The Amazon EC2 Service Catalog provides an example of a catalog that standardizes complicated service offerings. Their catalog clearly outlines the two available standard packagesStandard and High CPUand three sub-choices. The EC2 Service Catalog also provides descriptive information, including links to explanations and FAQs to guide users in making selections. The Dell Computer storefront provides another example of publishing standard services and options in an easy-to-understand Service Catalog. The Dell catalog divides servers into classessuch as rack and bladeeach with different models. Customers can then customize the basic offerings within the parameters defined for each model. By eliminating manual forms and automatically triggering the workflow to fulfill the request, the Service Catalog reduces the chance for human error and eliminates the need for involved bottleneck discussions and strategies with every server deployment request. Standard classes and models combined with self-service is a useful construct to keep in mind when designing Service Catalog templates. In building templates (service offerings), ask the following questions: What standard classes of environment do you provide (e.g. production, development, and QA)? What models do you offer (e.g., on-line transaction processing, extranet, intranet HR, basic web server, basic database)? When providing guidance to customers in building services, keep in mind that choices differ markedly, depending on the environment. For example, the choices for an extranet, high transaction database differ from those for a personal development environment. Standardizing the offerings for users greatly facilitates and speeds the provisioning process because IT knows up front all the parameters of each request. Consequently, VM server administrators can deliver functional server environments in hours and days rather than weeks and months, and that means faster realization of value to the business. The Service Catalog also reduces the cost of selection, ordering, and provisioning. Through the Service Catalog, users can access infrastructure on a just-in-time basis from an easy-to-use self-service portal. For short timeframe projects or last-minute requests, users can quickly access available capacity on-demand. For planned needs, they can reserve resources for use in the future. The Service Catalog should also allow VM administrators to capture the information about what their market is requesting. That information is useful for capacity planning.
3. Enable IT to Track and Manage Lifecycles and Workloads

Enable IT to Track and Manage Lifecycles and Workloads

Virtual servers are fast and easy to provision. Without the proper server management processes in place, however, virtual servers can easily spin out of control, such as remaining active even after they are no longer being used. In addition, over time, the configurations of these servers may drift from the original requested configuration due to a variety of factors, including software updates and patches.

Enable IT to Track and Manage Lifecycles and Workloads

It is therefore necessary to manage virtual servers across their entire lifecycle, from initial selection (as offered), to requested service (as agreed), to provisioning (as built), and then through change, and finally to retirement. A well-designed Service Catalog maintains a wealth of information that can be leveraged for lifecycle management. The Service Catalog, being the source of as offered, as requested, and as built, maintains the lifecycle for VM server requests. The VM build sheet also gathers information on who owns each server, how long the user needs it, and other relevant data. A well-architected Service Catalog also maintains a record of the parameters that describe the servers workload. The Service Catalog should maintain information that indicates the kind of requests a user can make on a virtual server during its deployment, such as add memory, start, stop, snapshot, and upgrade. It should also maintain information on service level agreements (SLAs), operational level agreements (OLAs), and available maintenance hours. In addition, the Service Catalog should maintain a history of all requests made against each standard server configuration.
Figure 3. Managing and tracking the lifecycle of a workload or virtual machine

A well designed Service Catalog provides a unified management environment from which VMware administrators can manage the complete lifecycles of virtual machines. (See Figure 3.) As a result, administrators can achieve a higher first-time success rate in request ordering and server deployment, and make cleaner task handoffs to back office systems. The result is faster time to value. In addition, administrators can monitor server workloads and retire servers that are no longer being used, eliminating a major source of server sprawl.

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4. Provide Complete Services, Not Just Servers

Provide Complete Services, Not Just Servers

VMware administrators can quickly provision new virtual server instances, but thats just the beginning of providing a complete application hosting service. It is important to understand the entire service requested. Is it just raw computing power with an OS, or is it an entire application stack? What ancillary services need to be coordinated to deliver a complete server environment? What integration points are required? VM administrators need to view their task as delivering complete environments that can work in a physical data center, a virtual one, or in a cloud environment. To fulfill user requests, its necessary that the Service Catalog trigger workflow that initiates action to add any additional components necessary to complete the server stack. This includes such components as security, network, storage, middleware, data, and applications. Consequently, administrators must have a centralized, vendor-agnostic platform for managing services that may include multiple back-office vendors and provisioning products. A well-architected Service Catalog provides just such a platform.
Figure 4. Display of available data center services in self-service storefront

As Figure 4 illustrates, the Service Catalog should present users with an IT storefront of available ancillary services to support the virtual servers they are requesting. By influencing users to request complete packages, the Service Catalog enables administrators to maintain governance and control across dedicated, virtual, and physical environments, including storage, security, network, and back-up. You should also consider packaging environments into complete services, so instead of requesting a VM, users can request a complete service such as a complete hosting environment (e.g., Oracle application test environment or MS SQL development system).
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Include Role-based Access Controls

5. Include Role-based Access Controls

Different users have different needs with respect to services. In addition, different users have different levels of authorization with respect to the types of environments they can request. These needs and privileges usually depend on the users role in the organization. For example, in the physical domain, certain mainframe environments may be available to only the application teams that work on mainframes; whereas Linux test servers are available to all QA and development groups. Similarly, in the VMware environment, some developers may be permitted to perform only basic lifecycle functions (start, reboot, terminate), while others have more expanded privileges (add memory, snapshot). Consequently, its important to place role-based controls on users access to services. This ensures that users are presented with only the services that they are authorized to use. These controls should be based on corporate policy and external regulations. Here is where role-based access control (RBAC) comes in. RBAC allows the creation of rules that limit the view of users to only those service classes, or even individual services, that the users are authorized to request. Access privileges can be based on departments, groups, or even individuals. Implementing RBAC in your Service Catalog enables you to control: Who can see, order, or approve which services Who can change which services once operational The Service Catalog should provide access control for a complete service category, a service definition, a form component, or a field. Access control ensures security by preventing users from accessing services that they are not authorized to use. It also simplifies use of the Service Catalog because users are presented with only the services they are authorized to use.
6. Coordinate and Integrate with Back Ofce Systems

Facilitating self-service in selecting and requesting services is only part of the story. It is also important that users have confidence that their requests, once submitted, are handled competently and expeditiously. Consequently, it is important to support the Service Catalog with automation that streamlines request fulfillment. The Service Catalog provides the foundation for orchestrating this automation to create a selfservice system. Heres an example of how such a system can operate: The user browses, and selects and requests a standardized VMware build from the Service Catalog. The Service Catalog adds the necessary parameters, such as hostname and IP address. The system automatically gathers the necessary approvals. When all necessary approvals have been obtained, the system forwards the request to the VMware administrator. The VMware administrator checks resources and approves the build.

Shape Demand
Once approved, the system automatically integrates to the vCenter server and provisions the requested VMware resources based on the standard template that the user selected from the Service Catalog. Automation requires integrating the Service Catalog platform with back office systems that perform the build and delivery of the requested services. This includes integration with a virtualization management console, such as VMware or other hypervisors, and/or with data center automation and provisioning tools. Integration enables the Service Catalog to trigger the necessary workflow to build and deliver the requested server environments. It smoothes task handoffs to back office systems resulting in faster turnaround and a higher first-time success rate in request fulfillment. Consequently, you should look for a Service Catalog that includes tools that facilitate integration with back office systems. In addition to requesting provisioning of virtual servers, the Service Catalog can support provisioning of other services. For example, a common service request is for identity provisioning, such as to add specific test ids, grant access, or change firewall rules. These services require provisioning by different groups and/or tools. By integrating the Service Catalog with back office systems that provision other services, you can increase its scope. That gives you the flexibility to bundle other services with virtual server offerings, or offer the services separately. Integration of the Service Catalog with back office systems enables you to automate the fulfillment of service requests. Through automation, you can enforce policies and retain full control of the infrastructure, eliminating the problems of manually fulfilling infrastructure requests.
7. Shape Demand

Virtualization makes server provisioning fast and easy. Thats a double edge sword. The advantage is that you can achieve a high level of agility in responding to the needs of the business. But there is also a risk. You can expose the organization to the risk of replacing physical server sprawl with virtual server sprawl. The Service Catalog is key to maintaining control of the virtual environment. With the right Service Catalog, you can shape demand by clearly communicating to users the cost of resources. Users can then assess whether the service they are about to request makes economic sense. This will cause users to think twice before they request resources because people do respond to cost information. Cost information is also important to enable customers to make intelligent and costeffective choices. Here are some examples of cost tradeoffs. The cost of a large Linux environment is three times that of a small Linux environment. The cost difference between 4 nines and 5 nines availability is usually substantial. The cost of a small Linux VMware instance for GA/testing is essentially $0 on a monthly basis, whereas the same configuration in physical form has a significant cost. Including cost information in the Service Catalog not only communicates value, but also provides users with valuable data to help them make more informed decisions in matching their requests with their needs. You can begin with showback, that is, showing the cost for each service but not actually billing it back to the business customer. Showback can be a stepping stone to full chargeback in the future. Its important to note that, even without chargeback,
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Accommodate Move to Cloud Computing

clearly communicating costs changes users behavior. For example, a newScale customer showed in the Service Catalog that an expensive service provided by a third-party cost $200. The company saw requests for that service drop 40 percent. You can also add other demand shaping information such as lead times. For example, a virtual machine instance can be delivered in a far shorter timeframe than a physical implementation. Demand shaping requires an understanding of customer demand. Its important, therefore, that understand your virtual environment across the enterprise. You need to know what virtual servers are deployed, where they are deployed, what they are doing, and who is using them. You have to define your products carefully to enable the reporting needed to give you visibility into demand.
Figure 5. Server demand

This is where the standardization and packaging that a Service Catalog permits comes in. Understanding the product packages and the services included and tracking their consumption helps you better align existing capacity and architecture with demand. It also helps you better understand future capacity requirements. Figure 5 illustrates how a Service Catalog can clearly indicate user demand. By understanding and shaping demand with the Service Catalog, you can gain valuable insight that helps you better manage capacity and achieve higher utilization of your IT infrastructure. Also, by understanding demand you can more closely align IT with the business by providing the services that the business needs, much like a product manager monitors demand to more closely align product offerings with the market.
8. Accommodate Move to Cloud Computing

Cloud computing brings user self-service to the next level. Enabled by virtualization and automation, cloud computing features standard service options and pay-asyou-go billing. The benefits are compelling and include lower capital and operating
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expenditures and greater business agility in that IT can more quickly respond to changing business demands. Many organizations are already taking advantage of services provided by public clouds, such as the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and some organizations are beginning to implement private or internal clouds. In order for the organization to reap the full benefits of cloud computing, users must be able to easily request the cloud computing services they need and the IT staff must be able to respond quickly to those requests. Consequently, a well-designed Service Catalog is an essential ingredient of cloud computing. It empowers users to serve themselves in requesting cloud services, and it enables the IT staff to quickly fulfill those requests. The Amazon EC2 offering provides a good example of how a Service Catalog can be structured to maximize the effectiveness of the cloud environment by enabling fast provisioning of virtual servers at guaranteed costs and service levels. The Amazon EC2 catalog presents cloud computing in a consumer-like manner that is meaningful to users. It provides a comprehensive look into the available resources and includes a wide variety of meaningful information, such as: Functionality Service highlights (benets) Instance types Operating systems and software Pricing Resources Detailed descriptions Intended usage and restrictions SLAs Pointing out benefits is important to influence users to take advantage of cloud resources. The Amazon EC2 catalog does this by including a description of its unique differentiators and comparing its cloud offerings to those of an internal data center. Amazon is careful to point out to its customers that they are able to maintain complete control of their environment. The Amazon catalog includes more than just servers. It also describes available operating systems, database software, and middleware choices. Its important that the Service Catalog provide pricing information. This permits users to make intelligent choices based on economic as well technical considerations. Pricing should be shown not only for virtual servers, but also for supporting services such as network and storage services. In the case of Amazon, pricing is presented on a per hour basis. Another feature worth noting is that Amazon provides a pricing calculator to help users calculate certain costs, such as data transfer charges, that are difficult to map to controllable costs. Amazon also provides sample configurations with cost estimates. Keep in mind that the Service Catalog is not static; its actionable. Amazon, for example, enables its users to create private login accounts. Through these accounts, users can request, configure, and deploy services that are delivered with known,

Accommodate Move to Cloud Computing

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Conclusion
vetted standards, and thats key to making cloud computing work. Amazon users can also perform a variety of actions on their own to manage the lifecycles of their virtual instances. For example, users can track hourly usage and costs. If you plan to move into cloud computing, you need to consider a Service Catalog very early to help you establish standards, service levels, and provisioning processes. By making service requesting easy and convenient, a well-designed Service Catalog can help you accelerate the adoption of and drive demand toward standard, lowercost virtualized and cloud computing environments. Whats more, the Service Catalog enables you to satisfy demand with fulfillment of requests in hours or even minutes, and not the weeks or months typically associated with traditional service request fulfillment. Many organizations will eventually implement hybrid cloud environments that combine services from both public and private clouds. These organizations will strive to implement the optimum combination of private and public clouds based on their specific needs and resources. Its important, therefore, that the Service Catalog allow users to seamlessly request and obtain both private and public cloud services from hybrid environments, and where there are similar services, make easy comparisons. Its also important that IT control the mix of internally-provided and externally provided cloud services available to users. IT can do this through the Service Catalog by presenting only those externally-provided services that supplement rather than compete with internally-provided services. In this way, IT can prevent becoming Amazoned.

Conclusion
Virtualization is revolutionizing computing. One of the most important benefits of virtualization is that it enables IT to become far more agile in responding to the needs of the business. Key to fully exploiting this agility is to empower users with self-service through a well-architected Service Catalog. The Service Catalog can provide an IT storefront and to an e-commerce-like operating model for data center automation. A Service Catalog that meets the requirements discussed in this paper will enable you to automate the deployment of user-centric, multi-tier IT services, and permit easy selfservice access for business users and administrators. In addition, it will enable you to gain extensive visibility and tight control of the virtualized environment, which increases efficiency and reduces the risk of sprawl. Now organizations are beginning to move into the next wave of virtualizationcloud computing. Public cloud services are already available and many organizations are beginning to implement private clouds and hybrid clouds that combine private and public could services. With the right Service Catalog, you will position your organization to take full advantage of virtualization and cloud computing, and reap the resulting benefits.

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For More Information

newScale provides the only complete suite of Service Catalog and Service Portfolio software solutions for the front ofce of IT. Comprehensive out-of-box capabilities give you a head start on implementing this important component of virtualized and cloud computing environments. That means less costly development and faster time to value. For more information on the newScale offering, visit www.newscale.com. newScale, Inc. www.newscale.com Corporate Headquarters 2215 Bridgepointe Parkway, Suite 500 San Mateo, CA 94404 +1 650.403.7700 Main +1 650.403.7710 Fax European Operations newScale, Inc. Parkshot House 5 Kew Road Richmond Surrey TW9 2PR United Kingdom +44 208.334.8077 Main +44 208.334.8100 Fax Australia/New Zealand Operations newScale, Inc. +61 2 8005 6239 For specic questions, please send your E-mail request to the appropriate address below: General Information: informationrequest@newscale.com Sales Information: sales@newscale.com Press and Analysts Information: press@newscale.com * The initial content for this white paper is from blog entries written by Rodrigo Flores, newScale founder and CTO (www.servicecatalogs.com).
newScale, Inc. 2215 Bridgepointe Parkway, Suite 500 San Mateo, CA 94404 866.639.7225 main - 650.403.7700 fax - 650.403.7710 www.newScale.com
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