cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
cancel
1693
Views
9
Helpful
4
Replies

Cisco UCS and Cloud Service Definitions

sgangoly07
Level 1
Level 1


Hi All,

I am currently looking into options and features of Service Definitions related to Cisco's UCS and Cloud offerings. Any guideline, pointers and/or recommendation from the Gurus here will be very gratefully appreciated.

Thanks a lot!

Best Regards

santanu

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

You're right, it's a pretty wide open question. Probably best to just give some of my thoughts and let others add theirs as well.

If you're looking into building your own offering, I'd recommend looking at what others are currently offering as a starting point. As you know the definition of what you offer is completely up to you and you define it. The first big lumping bucket is physical vs virtual. Then you need to look at the physical bucket and do you want to define it by sockets, cores, processor speed, RAM, storage, IOPs, network bandwith, etc? Then do you charge for time used, or actual resource utilization? Do you want to allow them to migrate service profiles to other hardware, or lock it to specific systems?

On the virtual side, same type of questions. Charge for vRAM, vCPUs, storage allocation, resource pools, etc? Do you want to define things in the context of Small, Medium, Large, XL? And then how will you define those buckets, and what costing models?

So all I've done to this point is given things to think about in the definition, and frame your question. As far as in the context of Cisco UCS, I don't think anything has been defined. There's not much more to add except for the unique things we can do with Service Profiles and virtual interfaces we provide via the VIC. You could make that a part of the definition, or add on as an optional service to your S,M,L,XL definitions, if you put them in that bucket.

Here's some examples to examine

VMware's Public Cloud definitions - https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-Public-Cloud-Service-Definition.pdf

Verizon/Terremark - Virtualization and Cloud Computing Pricing | vCloud™ Express

RackSpace - Cloud Servers Pricing - Rackspace Hosting

Windows Azure - Pricing Details - Cloud Services | Windows Azure

I'm sure others will have more to add to the conversation. I think anything Cisco UCS defined would focus on the "Rapid Elasticity" part of the NIST cloud definition - http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf

View solution in original post

4 Replies 4

micturne
Level 4
Level 4

Hello Santanu,

Can you ellaborate a little more on exactly what you are looking for?  Related to UCS there are Service Profiles, Service Levels such as Smartnet and of course IT as a service options.  Also additional details relating to your goals with the services would help narrow the field down.

Thanks,

Mike

Hey Mike,

Thanks a lot for that! Yes, I realize that my request was ambiguous to say the least! My apologies!

I am more looking into (and trying to build) service offerings and definitions with UCS and Cloud as a focus. For example, Service Profile definitions could be a part of one such service offering; another could be how API's can be utilized to maximize control and management. I am ambitious of authoring a few robust technical cases where such services offerings could be used to address customer needs. Just in case there are whitepapers and other high level ideas available online....

I am also aware that this forum may not be the best place for the above. In that case, my apologies. Just thought I'd try to pick brains wherever possible :-)

Thanks a lot! Best Regards

santanu

You're right, it's a pretty wide open question. Probably best to just give some of my thoughts and let others add theirs as well.

If you're looking into building your own offering, I'd recommend looking at what others are currently offering as a starting point. As you know the definition of what you offer is completely up to you and you define it. The first big lumping bucket is physical vs virtual. Then you need to look at the physical bucket and do you want to define it by sockets, cores, processor speed, RAM, storage, IOPs, network bandwith, etc? Then do you charge for time used, or actual resource utilization? Do you want to allow them to migrate service profiles to other hardware, or lock it to specific systems?

On the virtual side, same type of questions. Charge for vRAM, vCPUs, storage allocation, resource pools, etc? Do you want to define things in the context of Small, Medium, Large, XL? And then how will you define those buckets, and what costing models?

So all I've done to this point is given things to think about in the definition, and frame your question. As far as in the context of Cisco UCS, I don't think anything has been defined. There's not much more to add except for the unique things we can do with Service Profiles and virtual interfaces we provide via the VIC. You could make that a part of the definition, or add on as an optional service to your S,M,L,XL definitions, if you put them in that bucket.

Here's some examples to examine

VMware's Public Cloud definitions - https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware-Public-Cloud-Service-Definition.pdf

Verizon/Terremark - Virtualization and Cloud Computing Pricing | vCloud™ Express

RackSpace - Cloud Servers Pricing - Rackspace Hosting

Windows Azure - Pricing Details - Cloud Services | Windows Azure

I'm sure others will have more to add to the conversation. I think anything Cisco UCS defined would focus on the "Rapid Elasticity" part of the NIST cloud definition - http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf

Hey Scott,

Fantastic stuff! My sincere gratitude for your comprehensive response. Indeed, the query is wide open. I am looking for a few starting points and I believe you have given me that. So, THANKS a lot! You are as helpful as you are at your webminars :-)

I shall get started with the pointers you have given so kindly and build on that from perspectives of types of hypervisors, CPU/vCPU etc.

Thanks a lot Scott! Good luck with your Poker prowess ;-)

Best Regards

santanu

Getting Started

Find answers to your questions by entering keywords or phrases in the Search bar above. New here? Use these resources to familiarize yourself with the community: