ENTERPRISE CLOUD STRATEGY:

SIX NEAR- FUTURE SCENARIOS

An Ubuntu workbook from Canonical
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
2
Tweet this
INTRODUCTION
In boardrooms across the world,
millions of CIOs are taking a bold step
into an uncertain future.
Cloud computing is barely proven
in the enterprise. No one knows
for sure how it will turn out, which
strategies will prove to be successful
and which will end in misery. Few
people can even agree on what cloud
computing is.
But what everyone does know is that
something has to be done.
Data centres can scarcely handle the
kind of workloads created by todays
resource-hungry business processes
and theyre minuscule compared with
whats just around the corner.

Overloaded infrastructures and
soaring power costs are obstructing
innovation at a time when fortune
is rewarding businesses who dare to
be diferent.
The pace of business is going optical
with frictionless data transfer driving
processes that are literally completed
at the speed of light.
Enterprises have to keep up, and the
only viable way to do that is by moving
to a cloud IT infrastructure whether
thats in a private cloud, in the public
cloud, or in a hybrid environment.
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The provision of processing, storage,
networks, and other fundamental
computing resources where the consumer
is able to deploy and run arbitrary software,
which can include operating systems
and applications. The consumer does
not manage or control the underlying
cloud infrastructure but has control over
operating systems, storage, deployed
applications, and possibly limited control
of select networking components.
NIST Defnition of Cloud Computing, National Institute
of Standards and Technology, October 2009
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
3
Tweet this
But with so much uncertainty today,
how can you build a strategy thats
ft for the future?
Thats what this ebook is about.
Weve imagined six near-future
scenarios that may not (quite) be
reality today, but which will very
likely creep up on most enterprises in
the next few years.
Plan your IaaS strategy with these
scenarios in mind, and youll be well
placed to take advantage of what
the cloud can ofer. Ignore them, and
youll fnd the cloud is more limiting
than liberating.
Youll notice a common theme
running through them: a cloud
infrastructure based on open-source
technologies will serve you better
than one based on proprietary
technologies.
We would say that; were the
company behind Ubuntu, the worlds
most popular open-source operating
system. But its not just us. Ubuntu
is one of the most popular instances
on leading public cloud services,
including Amazon Web Services and
Rackspace. Its a core component of
the OpenStack platform, which is
emerging as the de facto standard for
large-scale cloud computing. And its
increasingly the platform of choice
for private enterprise clouds too.
For the full story of why Ubuntu is
the ideal platform for the enterprise
cloud, make our white paper Ubuntu
Cloud: Technologies for future-
thinking companies next on your
reading list.
But for now, come with us on a trip
to the future
INTRODUCTION
MORE THAN JUST AN OPERATING SYSTEM:
Run a reliable, secure and proven OS in both your public
and private cloud environments.
UBUNTU CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE:
Build your own cloud with Ubuntu. Manage cloud work-
loads on your own servers and send workloads to the
public cloud when you need extra capacity.
UBUNTU CLOUD GUEST:
Deploy Ubuntu guest instances on demand, either with
popular public cloud providers (AWS, Rackspace) or on
your own Ubuntu-based infrastructure.
JUJU:
Deploy, orchestrate and scale services instantly in the
public, private or hybrid cloud with Jujus revolutionary
charms*. (* Our name for a reusable encapsulation of the
knowledge needed to deploy a service on one or more
servers. Professionals can use Juju charms to deploy new
services instantly, with no new coding required.)
UBUNTU ADVANTAGE:
Get the best from your Ubuntu cloud deployment with
expert systems administration, fast problem resolution
and unlimited access to Ubuntu specialists.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
4
Tweet this
SIX FUTURE SCENARIOS YOU
NEED TO CONSIDER TODAY
Were not technical futurologists at Canonical, but when youre at the
centre of a worldwide community of technology developers, evangelists
and enterprise IT strategists, you tend to get a good view of where things
are heading.
Here are six technology-driven scenarios that may not be afecting
your business today, but almost certainly will be by 2016. Building
your cloud strategy with these in mind will put you on a much more
certain path to success.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
5
Tweet this
YOUR BUSINESS GOES LIGHT-SPEED
SCENARIO 1:
The pace of business is accelerating,
and those who work fastest will win.
Cloud strategy needs to take into
account not just efciency gains and
cost savings, but the power to do
things faster than anyone else.
That could be analysing stock
movements, delivering search results,
diagnosing faults, generating quotes
anything where immediacy means
competitive edge.
In the elastic world of the cloud, that
advantage will come from being able
to deploy new servers and services
instantly. Choosing the right cloud
platform and management tools will
let your business surge ahead while
others lag behind, laboriously
provisioning each new server and
service by hand.
Remember when contracts took weeks to sign as documents went back and forth in the
post? Today, that process can be completed in an hour. In fve years time, processes that
take an hour today may take seconds, or fractions of seconds.
WHERE UBUNTU FITS:
Ubuntus innovative service management tool, Juju, lets
you create and deploy new services in seconds, and scale
them up or down dynamically based on simple, pre-writ-
ten commands. Why crawl with proprietary systems when
you can fy with Juju?
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Make sure you can deploy new cloud services faster
than the competition.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
6
Tweet this
As the pace of business speeds up youre going to need to work
fast (faster than your competitors) and cheaply (so that the
speed advantage pays dividends).
CLOUD-SWITCHING BECOMES THE NORM
SCENARIO 2:
Private clouds are great for making
better use of available computing
resources, but the real game-changer
will be the ability to burst high-
intensity workloads out to the public
cloud whenever a massive boost in
computing resource is needed for a
short period of time.
So if youre an online retail business
anticipating a seasonal rush of
customers, or a startup that lands the
front page of Time Magazine, you can
cope with the huge spike in trafc
without having to add new servers
that you wont need later (or worse;
face your website falling over at a
critical time).
That means getting the infrastructure
in place today that will let you move
applications and data between your
private cloud and a public cloud like
Amazon Web Services or Rackspace.
If youre using a proprietary operating
system and API from a private cloud
vendor today, thats going to be
very, very hard. Building your cloud
infrastructure on open standards
means youll be able to shimmy
between diferent cloud models at
will while others stay locked behind
the frewall.
Lock-in goes far beyond having
to make changes to code to
use a given platform. The costs
associated with changing
processes, procedures and
retraining staf could also be
considered impediments to
moving from one platform
to another
Dan Kuznetsky, ZDnet, September 2011
WHERE UBUNTU FITS:
Ubuntus completely open infrastructure adheres to de
facto industry standards (Amazon APIs, etc.), so youll
be able to move easily between cloud providers when
you need to.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Give yourself the option to switch easily between
private and public clouds.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
7
Tweet this
THE DATA CENTRE GOES GREEN
SCENARIO 3:
If the trend continues, its going
to have knock-on efects all over
the place, from cloud infrastructure
providers charging more for access
to computing resources, to
enterprises choosing to ration
(or not carry out) potentially
innovative processes because
they consume too much energy.
Thats not even considering the
biggest knock-on efect of all:
the impact on the environment.
Something disruptive needs
to happen for cloud computing
to stay economically viable and
environmentally positive. That
something may be the arrival of new,
energy-efcient microprocessors.

HPs decision to create a new server
line powered by energy-efcient ARM
chipsets hints at a future in which
x86 servers are joined by a competing
hardware platform: one highly suited
for the massively scalable, distributed
workloads common in cloud
computing.
What does this have to do with
your cloud strategy? It suggests you
shouldnt rush to settle on hardware
that may prove needlessly costly
in the long run. When those new,
low-cost, high-density ARM servers
arrive, youll want the freedom to
use the optimum platform. You wont
want to fnd yourself locked into
hardware thats not the right choice
for your workloads.
With energy prices and data volumes soaring, the cost of running a
traditional datacentre is already nearing unworkable levels.
The volume of data processed
in fnancial markets has increased
exponentially. Traditional scale-
up or scale-out architectures are
struggling to keep up with de-
mand without vastly increasing
cost and power usage
- Niall Dalton, director of high-frequency trading
at Cantor Fitzgerald, quoted in the
Financial Times, November 2011
WHERE UBUNTU FITS:
Canonical is working closely with ARM and other
innovative hardware vendors to optimise Ubuntu for new,
energy-efcient chipsets. If your cloud strategy depends
on reducing power consumption and costs,
this is defnitely a trend to watch.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Be ready to exploit new, energy-efcient microprocessors.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
8
Tweet this
VIRTUAL IMAGE SPRAWL
DRAGS YOUR BUSINESS DOWN
SCENARIO 4:
Because virtualisation relies on
virtual machine images to replace
physical servers, the more servers
you virtualise, the more those
images start to proliferate. And when
you dont have any physical machines
limiting what you can do, its very easy
for virtual machines to get out
of hand.
Pretty soon, your low-cost cloud
environment ends up costing the
earth, as thousands of individual
server images at a minimum of 8GB
each start flling up disk space,
incurring new license fees (if youre
using a proprietary operating system)
and keeping an army of sysadmins
busy documenting, monitoring and
patching an increasingly
unmanageable virtual IT landscape.
Virtual image sprawl is already
a major headache for IT departments,
and will only get worse as time goes
on. As Ken Hess of Linux Today puts
it, Virtual machine sprawl is the
new virus in IT data centers, and
its increasing your total cost of
ownership. (Virtual Machine Sprawl:
What Does It Cost You?, Linux Today,
6th October 2008)
In fve years time, image sprawl in
the cloud could be costing you more
than a physical data centre tying
up much-needed cash and computing
resources and blunting your
competitive edge.
Virtualisation may seem like a great solution for data centre
consolidation, but if virtualisation is your frst step on the path to the
cloud, beware of its hidden dangers.
In more than 95% of
[virtualized] environments
we fnd overspending of some
form. In a relatively small
environment of approximately
325 virtual machines, we found
more than $200,000 in over-
spending and inefciencies.
- Jay Litkey, CEO, Embotics, quoted in
Forbes.com, The Costs of Virtual Sprawl,
December 2009
WHERE UBUNTU FITS:
With Ubuntu you can use a single machine image to serve
hundreds (or even thousands) of cloud instances, carrying
similar or diferent roles. Ubuntus Landscape manage-
ment console manages and controls your cloud images.
And, using Juju, you can deploy services like patches
across your entire cloud infrastucture.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Minimise the side-efects of image sprawl in the cloud.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
9
Tweet this
(MORE) GLOBAL ECONOMIC TURMOIL
SCENARIO 5:
However things pan out, recent
events suggest that over-zealous
spending is not a great recipe for
longevity. In other words, the less
you spend (on unnecessary things),
the better placed you are to adapt,
survive and grow whatever the
economic climate.
Traditional IT investments are
starting to fall into that category of
unnecessary things. One of the big
attractions of cloud is that it frees
businesses from having to buy new
hardware for every new application,
service or bank of users.
But what about software? The other
big attraction of cloud is that you
can scale computing resources up or
down with demand. But if you have
to pay a license fee for every new OS
instance you spin up, it gets decidedly
less attractive.
Instead, choose a free, open-source
platform and apps for your cloud
environment, and spend your money
on something more worthwhile.
With experts saying were now in uncharted territory economy-wise,
businesses need to prepare for all eventualities: continued slowdown,
a lost decade of stagnation, or a glorious post-bust boom.
WHERE UBUNTU FITS:
With Ubuntu you can scale services endlessly without
incurring license costs. Add 50, 100, or 500 machines to
a private cloud or spin up an unlimited number of guest
instances on public infrastructure, with no increase in
license fees. Thats the true economic promise of cloud.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Open-source cloud software frees up cash to fund
business growth initiatives.
By year-end 2012, half of the
Global 100 will have at least one
service that they consider to be a
private cloud computing service,
using virtual machines as a basic
building block.
Gartner Presentation: Server Virtualisation :
From Virtual Machines to Clouds, 2009
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
10
Tweet this
ORGANISATIONAL BARRIERS (FINALLY) BREAK DOWN
SCENARIO 6:
Thats starting to change now,
accelerated by the move to a cloud
infrastructure. Key aspects include:
Software development that
is in continuous integration
mode rather than following
discrete release cycles meaning
development becomes an ongoing
operational function
The increasing irrelevance of
the underlying hardware as IT
environments become a set of
software services running on
virtualised servers in an of-premise
data centre
The need to develop, deploy and
modify services very fast in order
to meet changing business demand
In response to a new IT environment,
a unifed, culture of devops is
emerging. It sees developers and
administrators collaborating on the
specifcation, development, testing,
deployment, management and
modifcation of apps and services.
In future, organisations that take
the devops route will meet business
requirements better, put services
into production earlier, and modify
services faster. As a close-knit devops
culture emerges, a more efcient
IT organisation will improve quality,
speed to market and adapt to change.
A lot of business inefciency is caused by organisational barriers between functions
that should work closely together. Theres no better example than IT development and
IT operations. Historically, the two functions have operated in silos, so every time a
new application or service is required, time, knowledge and quality get lost between
the software being developed and it being put into production.
WHERE UBUNTU FITS:
Members of the Ubuntu developer community are at
the forefront of the devops movement, working hard to
forge a new, unifed working culture in their respective
organisations. Canonicals Juju supports a devops
approach by providing a tool for encapsulating knowledge
about how to deploy, scale and orchestrate services in
the Cloud. Charms created with Juju are distillations of
knowledge that can be re-used by devops professionals
to roll out and manage new services in the cloud in a rapid
and highly efcient way.
KEY TAKEAWAY:
Devops organisations will be faster and more efective
than siloed organisations.
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
11
Tweet this
CONCLUSION
Things are going to change a lot in the next fve years. The massive
acceleration of every aspect of business, the global energy crisis,
the murky economic outlook all these factors will have a critical
infuence on corporate strategy.
CIOs have it harder than most, because the technology choices they
make today will need to see the business through the turbulent
times ahead.
While cloud is undoubtedly the right way to go, the choice of vendor,
infrastructure, tools and applications will all have a serious impact
on future success. Keeping options open and fexible is the best
strategy and theres no more open, fexible and future-proof
platform for the enterprise cloud than Ubuntu.
To fnd out more about how you can build your enterprise cloud
with Ubuntu, contact us today.
A PRIVATE CLOUD IN JUST 5 DAYS
If youre ready to get started with the cloud, you
might want to learn more about our Jumpstart ofering:
a private cloud in 5 days with a dedicated Canonical
engineer on-site.
Jumpstart is a fast, low-risk route to deploy private
cloud infrastructure on your premises. Compatible
with the Rackspace, HP and Amazon public clouds,
it costs just $9,000 and its guaranteed to take just
fve days.
Learn more about jumpstart
Enterprise Cloud Strategy: Six Near-Future Scenarios You Need to Consider Today
An Ubuntu Workbook from Canonical
12
Tweet this
LEARN MORE ABOUT
UBUNTU CLOUD
Webinar
On demand webinar with Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth
and Stephen OGrady, RedMonk Ubuntu Cloud
Whitepapers
Ubuntu Cloud: Technologies for future-thinking companies
Top misconceptions about cloud complexity