Converged infrastructures promise to simplify private clouds

Just when you thought you understood private clouds, along comes converged infrastructure. You wouldn’t be wrong to wonder, are they the same thing?

A private cloud, most people agree, is a virtualized computing environment designed to serve separate groups of people using shared resources located behind a firewall. A public cloud allows IT to create and manage multiple virtual servers within a set of physical servers.

Because the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines cloud computing as having such characteristics as self-service provisioning and metered service (in a pay-as-you-go model), many believe a private cloud should provide these as well, along with layers of automation and management that reduce the need for human intervention.

For its part, NIST defines a private cloud as an infrastructure operated solely for an organization that can be managed by the organization or a third party, and can exist on-premises or off. You might agree, that’s a pretty broad definition.

Private clouds can be built using existing technology, but it’s no simple matter, according to James Staten, principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc., who said only 5% of corporations are ready to offer private cloud service. Policies, procedures and automated tools need to be put in place to manage virtual machines, and business units need to be ready to use the same infrastructure, he said.

Even then, security remains a tough nut to crack — perhaps even more so than in the public cloud, where providers have had time to fine-tune their offerings, according to experts.

Enter converged infrastructure, a term given to prepackaged virtual computing environments from various cadres of vendors. Notable entries include Hewlett-Packard’s BladeSystem Matrix and Cisco Systems’ Unified Computing System (UCS), which combines Cisco servers and networking with VMware’s vSphere and EMC storage. As for security, VMware reportedly is working on adding it to the hypervisor.

A converged infrastructure combines server and networking features into a single virtualized machine that enables true resource sharing, rather than certain resources being assigned to a particular server. But are these “private clouds in a box” the solution for your enterprise? The key concern, as we will soon examine on SearchCIO.com, is vendor lock-in.

Analysts say major consolidation is afoot — look no further than Oracle’s buying Sun Microsystems not too long ago. So, choosing the right converged infrastructure — should you choose to go that route — is a decision of utmost importance.