There is no doubt that on-demand cloud services are gaining ground among corporate users of all sizes. Despite the obvious promises of greater flexibility and efficiency, the transition to cloud is incomplete until we can solve a few thorny issues.
In the cloud, data and applications are distributed across a dynamic pool of resources for greater efficiency, but this gain in efficiency comes with the difficulty of optimizing the cloud infrastructure without full visibility into the application and the data traffic it generates. Especially so when there are different kinds of applications, each putting specific demands on the same, shared infrastructure.
In a perfect world, we’d have all the answers and the cloud would be ubiquitous. But until we can answer these questions, the cloud remains an incomplete promise for most of us:
- What is the application?
What are the application’s attributes? What sort of online experience must it deliver? How does it scale? What data sets might it access?
- Where is the application located and accessed?
Where are its constituent parts? Who is accessing it from what location and how often? How much data does it send around? If the application is moving, how and where is it moving?
- What resources will the application need?
What is its usage pattern? Are peak loads required?
Completing the journey to cloud requires that we not only answer these types of questions, but have the ability to solve them.
Server, storage, and network models must continue to change to enable a dynamic cloud environment with the ability to detect, diagnose and fix issues in real-time.
At Avi Networks, we believe a fundamentally different approach is needed for delivering cloud-based applications . Bookmark www.avinetworks.com and visit us at VMWorld, San Francisco - Booth#329.
