Just a quick post here to give you a head’s up that the Enterprise Strategy Group has released their latest paper, and it just so happens to be a project I was directly involved in. If you attended any of the major internal and external trade shows last fall that NetApp participates in, you likely saw a presentation from myself and another about Storage as a Service with vCloud Director. This solution was so large, and so exhaustive, that it proved difficult to squeeze any and all of the technical details into an hour for a powerpoint presentation.
From their website:
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) is an integrated, full-service IT analyst and business strategy firm, world-renowned for forward-looking market intelligence, analysis, and consulting services that deliver proven, measurable results. Recognized as one of the world’s top 10 analyst firms by offering a unique blend of capabilities–including world-class market research, hands-on technical product testing, and expert consulting methodologies such as the ESG Strategy Lifecycle—ESG is relied upon by IT professionals, technology vendors, institutional investors, and the media for actionable IT and business intelligence.
For those unfamiliar with ESG, their charter is to validate solutions presented by vendors that are often times questioned by the greater audience. These validations from a 3rd party are taken very seriously, especially among the Director and C-level ranks, and help evaluate options when making infrastructure implementation decisions.
For my part, I provided the environment for the labs to be evaluated, and staged the area where ESG would be performing this validation. We stepped through all facets of the solution, and I pointed them to key focus areas, but above and beyond that, this is all them. They should be praised for truly putting a solution through its paces, testing every angle, and providing an unbiased opinion in the final paper.
Technologies included in this solution are:
- VMware vSphere 5
- VMware vCenter 5
- VMware vCloud Director 1.5
- VMware vShield & vShield Edge
- VMware vCenter Orchestrator
- NetApp DataONTAP 8.0.x
- NetApp OnCommand Unified Manager
- NetApp Storage Service Catalogs
- NetApp SnapCreator
The paper itself can be found here: http://www.enterprisestrategygroup.com/2012/04/vmware-cloud-infrastructure-and-management-on-netapp/
It is a very quick read of 18 pages, but contained within are some specifics on things you need to look out for when crafting a private cloud solution, and heading toward the *aaS model.
If you have any further questions about any specifics, feel free to ask in the comments below!
-Nick
