Infrastructure as a Service on the Private Cloud Solution Hub

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Recently my colleague Tom Shinder blogged about the content refresh on the Private Cloud Solution Hub. One area of the refresh is about the reorganization of the overall site and the placement of solution content front and center within the body of the content area. This area is navigated by tabs that focus on major domain solution areas of Private Cloud. Following the teams initial release of the Private Cloud Reference Architecture on the Solution Hub we then turned attention to Private Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Security.

Infrastructure as a Service has a dedicated tab on the Private Cloud Solution Hub with an initial focus on taking a platform independent architectural slice through the reference architecture to surface those areas most relevant to architects in designing an Infrastructure as a Service capability on a cloud computing platform.

The areas highlighted are:

  • Defining what Infrastructure as a Service is from both the Consumer and Provider view.
  • The Physical Platform commonly used to host an Infrastructure as a Service capability.
  • Definition and Modeling of a Service.
  • Fabric Management Process and Tooling.
  • Platform and Application Monitoring.
  • Self Service Portals and the Capabilities Provided.
  • A Capability and Maturity Model.

This is an initial platform independent view of Infrastructure as a Service on a cloud computing platform. Last week Microsoft executives Satya Nadella and Brad Anderson discussed the Microsoft vision for private cloud and the process and tooling capability available in the upcoming System Center 2012 product set. This invites the follow-on question about how do I realize the Private Cloud Reference Architecture using System Center 2012 to provide an Infrastructure as a Service capability in my organization?

In the upcoming weeks and months we’ll be taking key aspects of the Private Cloud Reference Architecture and realizing them on the Microsoft platform using Windows Server and System Center 2012. We’ll document our findings through new and refreshed solution content on the Private Cloud Solution Hub and blog posts here. While it will not be detailed step-by-step prescriptive build out simply due to the size of our team and ability to scale, it will be sufficiently detailed to allow IT Architects to connect the architectural dots in the Reference Architecture with an implementation that demonstrates capability and resolves unanswered design questions.

So next up for the Private Cloud Solution Hub is a deeper expansion of Infrastructure as a Service to include common workloads such as VDI and the illustration of the Private Cloud Reference Architecture using Microsoft Windows Server and System Center. As Tom mentioned in his blog this is a community effort, do let us know the specific scenarios you would like to see us focus on.

Bill Loeffler