Simplify your private cloud | Nov18 Newsletter
Public clouds are not the right solution for every business. Whether due to security concerns, legacy applications that don't integrate, lack of cost benefits or other concerns, on-premises solutions may be a more appropriate approach – but that doesn't mean such organisations have to miss out on the cloud's benefits.
The key to gaining these benefits is to deploy an on-premises virtualisation solution for both servers and desktops. As the market diversifies and services proliferate, selecting the right technology platforms to support environments across virtualisation environments is a time-consuming task. That's why many organisations are building private cloud environments to host applications and desktops using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
Some of the key considerations when choosing a vendor are:
- ability to manage the storage directly from the OS
- thin provisioning and compression capabilities
- backup speed and efficiency
- deduplication efficiency (to reduce backup capacity requirements and improve backup speeds).
Whether you are looking for a domain controller, an email server, a SQL platform, a SharePoint farm or a VDI platform, these tools need to be able to be deployed quickly using plugins and APIs to streamline operations. The systems must scale efficiently and deliver when required, so you should look for a modular solution that makes it easy to scale up or down.
Ultimately, the real test of your private cloud is how well end users respond to it. If the centralised apps and desktops you're deploying allow them to perform all their job tasks, and move seamlessly from device to device, then you'll have gone a long way towards meeting a key business objective.
When you embark on selecting technology for your private cloud, keep in mind two critical factors:
Cost
Private cloud solutions can become expensive if they're not engineered with flexibility and scalability in mind, so it's vital to find a partner who’ll support your business as it changes and grows. There are also some basic hardware factors to keep in mind.
For example, CPU performance is outstripping memory performance, making memory bottlenecks a common problem. In response, many businesses are deploying four-socket servers or multiple two-socket servers to address this problem. It's an effective solution technically but it's also more expensive in terms of server, power and licensing costs.
Some vendors offer innovative solutions to this problem. For example, Cisco addresses this with technology such as UCS Extended Memory Technology which expands the capability of a two-socket server to support up to 48 DIMM slots or 384 GB of memory, using standard memory DIMMs and operating systems and hypervisors. This way, memory-intensive VDI environments can run two-socket x86 servers, with lower capital expenditures (CapEx) as well as lower operating expenses (OpEx) over time.
Support
Local hardware support is essential in case of device failures. On a more strategic level, you want a vendor that can provide trained specialists who can speed up deployment when you’re making changes, and assist with troubleshooting when you need to solve problems. Your IT department may not be big enough to include expert support for the platform, so ensuring you’ll have access to the expertise you need is essential.
In summary, if you are looking for a private cloud server virtualisation environment then you will do well to select a solution that is simple, efficient, flexible, well supported and powerful. Please let us know how we can help.