Virtualization, Unisys Style

By VSM News Staff
published: Friday, April 11 2008

  The following is an interview with Deepak Batheja, Vice President of Worldwide Real Time Infrastructure Business for Unisys, recorded in January 2008.

DB: Unisys is a worldwide information technology services and solutions company. We provide consulting, systems integration, outsourcing and infrastructure services, combined with powerful enterprise server technology. We help clients create efficient, secure business operations to achieve their business goals.

Real Time Infrastructure is a strategic initiative at Unisys and I have global responsibilities for that effort.

DB: Unisys’ Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) definition is actually based on Gartner’s Infrastructure Maturity Model (IMM). Gartner’s IMM is very compelling and offers a sound framework to assess where you are on that maturity curve. We have taken that to the next level through an architectural framework that defines what that RTI end state looks like and then backing it with a robust portfolio of services, solutions and Unisys intellectual property that enables the industry to progress on that journey to RTI.

RTI also has many different interpretations in the industry. At Unisys, we define Real Time Infrastructure (RTI) as the end-state for an IT ecosystem where IT is fundamentally delivered as a ‘Service’. These services are dynamic and automated wherein they can sense changes in business conditions and respond dynamically on the basis of business policies.

One of the fundamental requirements is to turn the physical IT assets into a set of resource pools – independent of what physical asset it runs on. So as you can see, Virtualization has a monumental role to play here. By abstracting the technology assets into resource pools, you can measure it, monitor it and repurpose it dynamically in a standard fashion. Think about the overall utilization improvements.

DB: : There are numerous key components to our approach to RTI. Let’s take a look at some of the key ones:

• We take a business centric view to RTI. Starting with a SOA/SOI (Service Oriented Architecture and Service Oriented Infrastructure) perspective allows us to look at the entire IT world through the lens of business.

• A more holistic look at IT. Traditionally, IT is spoken of in discrete terms – storage, servers, networks, applications. We believe that to turn IT assets into a homogenous ecosystem, we need to account for all aspects of applications, infrastructure, IT processes and IT governance (measurements, monitoring) as a whole.

• Our approach is based on a closed loop model that maximizes the use of an organization’s current investments. We closely tie the ability to detect conditions and respond to them. In today’s complex world, not everything can be automated unless you rip and replace the current assets and move to a standard topology. There is a price to pay for that, as well as the time and complexity to operationalize it. Our approach is based on using as much of what is in place which reduces the cost, time and need for significant training or operational changes.

• An iterative approach. We approach the transformation to RTI as an incremental journey and not a big-bang approach. Few have the time and money to take the entire leap at once. Our approach is incremental where existing problems are being addressed but approached in a manner where there is an end-state in mind that is being worked towards… called RTI.

• A technology agnostic approach. We take a partner centric approach to solving problems. This allows us to truly bring the best-of-breed solutions to solve problems.

• Lastly, the ability to rapidly contextualize the environment. The biggest challenge in getting there is lack of visibility into all aspects of the enterprise, from business strategy through to IT infrastructure. This impairs the ability to make more informed decisions. Visibility focuses on providing visibility as one of the biggest enablers for business. Unisys works to rapidly map the business strategy and operational processes to the underlying applications as well as the underlying infrastructure and see the relationships across all components. This modeling capability enables you to assess the impact of change in advance and better prepare for those changes before you embark on extensive implementations. Organizations can start with what is in place and rapidly rationalize the current capabilities based on utilization patterns, availability, and key business & IT imperatives.

DB: To the business the most appealing factors of virtualization are the additional business benefits of service improvement, more effective asset utilization and helping with the corporate responsibility of reducing carbon footprint. RTI infrastructures offer the benefit of being automatically powered down when not required and back up when required.

From a technology perspective the appeal is exciting new technologies that leverage mature infrastructures to provide a dynamic environment under automatic control. It makes the job more interesting by moving the focus from one of the basic nuts and bolts to taking infrastructure closer to business needs and making it more responsive.

DB: There are several virtualisation solutions in the Unisys RTI portfolio including server virtualization, storage virtualization, Real-time Chargeback, Real-time Consolidation Accelerator amongst others.

We leverage our competencies in comprehensive discovery, consolidation assessment, IT Service Management, Business Service Management in particular for projects utilizing VMware and Microsoft virtual server. In the storage virtualisation space, InVista is the market leading solution we’ve adopted. Together with the ability to measure application and process usage with our Chargeback solution we’re able to offer clients an end-to-end service to transform their current silo-ed project by project infrastructures into a modern virtualized and shared model including the metering required to enable new financial business models to be exploited. Tools like our Real Time Consolidator assist in enabling the physical to virtual migration of servers where rapidity of migration is an imperative. So if you look at the big picture, we take a holistic view towards Enterprise Virtualization and operationalizing it.

Beyond server virtualization, Unisys offers solutions for management of the entire real-time infrastructure. For example, the new Unisys Infrastructure Management Suite of solutions, announced February 19, 2008, address a key client requirement,: automated management of infrastructure, in a way that enhances real-time services to the business while reducing operating costs. This set of solutions integrates blueprinting, architectural and implementation services with industry-proven software from Unisys and key partners, such as Scalent Systems and Enigmatec Corp. This suite provides flexibility for a client to begin deployment at any point, whether through architecture services, business process or applications services, or at the infrastructure level.

DB: We invest heavily in R&D and thought leadership to bring creative solutions to our clients and are well beyond the first wave of mere ‘utilization improvements.’ Approaching it with a 360-degree view is one of the things we do well. Starting with comprehensive discovery & assessments; we model and profile the infrastructure and operations - who manages them, how, where… down to the true utilization requirements. The blueprint clearly depicts the connections between all facets of the infrastructure and operations and prepares the organization for the impacts of virtualization before the implementation begins. This is one of the areas where Unisys is very strong and helps clients establish a clear road map with clear outcomes.

As you move into enterprise scale virtualization, we are pushing the envelope. with our virtualization factory model. Here we have taken a holistic view towards establishing enterprise virtualization standards such that you can virtualize in an iterative, phased manner and not the big-bang approach. With every iteration, we improve on what’s in place.

Another area deals with the aftermath of virtualization. Clients who have bitten the bullet with the 1st wave of virtualization are now wrestling with the complexities of managing – virtual and non-virtualized environments concurrently. Questions that typically come up are: ‘How mature are my IT processes, How do I maintain and manage configuration changes. Will availability management look different – how so, what is the right release management strategy for me?’

Our advanced virtualization services helps clients truly integrate virtualized environments into their IT Operations.

DB: We continue to work to do more with virtualization. We are looking to drive even more automation in the Data Center, and more dynamic workload orchestration and provisioning. In 2008 you’ll see our offerings based around this sort of automation and real-time services, with virtualization being at the heart of those.

Other areas will be Open Source and Microsoft where we have deep heritage.

DB: As we look ahead, taking a services oriented view towards virtualization will become more pronounced – This will have to entail collective virtualization of storage, server, application and network towards ‘Service Virtualization’ or ‘Aggregated Virtualization’.

On a technology front, until today - the market has tilted heavily towards VMware, but understandably so. The introduction of Microsoft’s Hyper-V will change that. The strong tie into Microsoft Server 2008 will open up some interesting avenues. Over time, we should anticipate sophisticated management capabilities evolving that will truly start to cross across multiple hypervisors.

Related Links:

Unisys.com , Real-Time Infrastructure , Gartner Infrastructure Maturity Model