These slides explore report findings from a survey where 250 IT decision makers shared their views on the role of the network, data centre and downtime on their cloud strategies. The slides also examine how the UK’s underlying IT infrastructure is coping with the demands of the mature Cloud.

1. Building the
silver lining
Date: 20th November 2012

2. • Building the silver lining report – key findings, Simon Acott
• Accessing the Cloud – data centres, super-highway or M25?, Dominic Anschutz
• Smart Wired Cloud – virtualised networking, Adrian Hobbins
• Coffee break
• Cloud strategies from the real world, Dominic Anschutz
• Cloud aggregation – the good, the bad and the ugly, Dominic Anschutz
• Closing remarks & Exponential-e 2013 cloud strategy, Simon Acott
• Discussion and Q&A
• Lunch and networking

3. Simon Acott, Building the silver lining

5. Dominic Anschutz, Accessing the cloud –
super-highway or M25?

6. Overview
The noise in the market is all about placing data in the cloud – security,
compliance and risk. However, a good cloud strategy is underpinned with the
network providing the access to cloud services and providers. How secure is
the route to the cloud, is the infrastructure fit for purpose and is bandwidth
scalable?

7. Overview
• For many, Cloud computing has become synonymous
with the Internet.
• The whole paradigm of Cloud computing is built on
the notion of accessing resources across a network.
• According to studies, 70% of companies are reluctant
to adopt Cloud technology because of their concerns
with security and privacy.
• Organisations are looking for an inherently more
secure, high-bandwidth, low latency route to their
data than the public Internet.

8. Expressions

9. Proverbs
• Have been around for 1000s of years some the earliest being biblical and
my personal favourite
• Eat Drink and be Merry (Luke 12:19)
• If they were not true they would not be here today?
“A picture is “Behind every
“Don't count
worth a great man
your chickens
thousand there's a great
before they’re
words” woman”
hatched”
“Let
sleeping
“A chain is only dogs lie”
“Good things
as strong as its
come to those
weakest link”
who wait”

10. How does this apply?
The saying "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" definitely applies to a
network, as your network performance is often only as fast as the slowest
components.
So if you have just invested in a State of the art Cloud service how are you
connecting to it?

11. Cloud definition
NIST Definition – version 15!
( National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network
access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g.
networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service
provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is
composed of five essential characteristics, three service models and four
deployment models.

12. Definition
NIST Definition – version 15!
( National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network
access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g.
networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service
provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is
composed of five essential characteristics, three service models and four
deployment models.

13. The reality is that most traditional networks were designed over 20 years ago, and
were not architected with cloud computing in mind. Given understandable concerns
about security, a2011 Metzler and Associates study showed that 90% of cloud-bound
traffic is being backhauled through the data center, which has huge implications for
network congestion, resulting in higher bandwidth costs and a poorer user experience

14. What about the network?
• Gartner expects 60% of enterprises will have migrated branch office
services to the cloud or virtualized servers by 2015 (Gartner Analyst
Review, February 2012).
• In April 2012, Cisco surveyed over 1300 IT professionals across 13
countries, and found that the most important element of infrastructure
needed to implement cloud computing was a cloud-ready wide area
network (37%).
• Yet, oddly enough, many businesses have done relatively little to prepare
their existing network infrastructure for the inevitable transformation and
the network remains the critical path between users and the cloud
services

15. Bandwidth consumption
Source: Amazon

16. S3 Growth
Source: Amazon

17. Direct Connect
Source: Amazon

18. Bandwidth consumption
• An estimated one-third of the world's population is online
now, a proportion
that is sure to grow.
• More users, more devices that connect to networks, and more
data-heavy services to ride over the pipes are causing a
“bandwidth explosion”
Source: TeleGeography

19. Mobile data
• Globally, mobile data traffic will increase 18-fold between 2011 and 2016. Mobile
data traffic will grow at a CAGR of 78 percent between 2011 and 2016, reaching
10.8 exabytes per month by 2016.
• Global mobile data traffic will grow three times faster than fixed IP traffic from
2011 to 2016. Global mobile data traffic was
• 2 percent of total IP traffic in 2011, and will be
• 10 percent of total IP traffic in 2016.

20. Bandwidth consumption
• Some of the best numbers we have on bandwidth usage come
from Cisco's Visual Networking Index (VNI)
• Initiative to track and forecast the impact of visual networking
applications. This document presents the details of the Cisco VNI global
IP traffic forecast and the methodology behind it.
• Global IP traffic has increased eightfold over the past 5 years, and will
increase threefold over the next 5 years.
• In 2016, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross global
IP networks every 3 minutes. Global IP networks will deliver 12.5
petabytes every 5 minutes in 2016.
• It would take over 6 million years to watch the amount of video that will
cross global IP networks each month in 2016
• Annual global IP traffic will surpass the zettabyte threshold (1.3
zettabytes) by the end of 2016
Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index

21. Is Amazon secure?
• Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliant
• ISO27001
• PCI DSS Level I Certification
• HIPAA compliant Architecture
• SAS70 (SOC 1) Type II Audit
• FIISMA Moderate ATO’s
• DIACAP MAC III-Sensitive
• SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402
• FIPS 140-2
http://aws.amazon.com/security/

22. S3 storage
• “Durable” S3 Storage
• SLA 99.999999999 %
• “If you store 10,000 objects with us, on average we may lose
one of them every 10 million years or so. This storage is
designed in such a way that we can sustain the concurrent
loss of data in two separate storage facilities.”

23. Why use Internet?
• Security
• Performance
• Control
• Quality of Service
• Cost
For cloud computing to truly become mainstream it’s time to rethink how
organisations connect to cloud services. If cloud remains synonymous with
the internet, then it will also remain synonymous with insecure and
unreliable connectivity.

24. Summary
• Consistent and reliable network connection to your cloud
services
• Rapid deployment of new services and applications
• Secure and private connectivity - avoiding Internet traffic
• Access to a wide range of cloud services and applications
• Lower network costs by avoiding Internet transfer and
bandwidth charges
• Increase performance by bypassing congested Internet
connections

25. The Buffalo theory?

26. Words of wisdom
“Well, you see, Norm, it’s like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the
slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it’s the slowest and weakest ones at the
back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole,
because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the
regular killing of the weakest members.
• So Where do you want be… fastest or slowest?

27. Private vs. public

28. Adrian Hobbins, Smart Wired Cloud –
virtualised networking

29. Is Your Network Design the Weak Link in Cloud Computing?
“Through 2013, at least 60% of enterprises will
experience slow or inconsistent application
performance issues from externally placed
applications, due to improper network design”.

30. Cloud Connectivity: Carefully does it
“Connectivity is not widely perceived to be a major barrier to
the adoption of Cloud services”.
“But experience of Cloud highlights that in reality connectivity
can be a significant challenge”.

31. Telecom’s Central Role In Cloud Computing
“Without a robust communications layer, the concept of
cloud computing is a nonstarter”.
“All three dominant flavors of cloud computing –
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), software-as-a-service
(SaaS), and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) – depend on fast,
efficient, reliable communications”.

32. “The network is often the forgotten
piece in the rush towards
virtualisation”.
“Raising the importance of the
network in the consciousness of the
business, is not an easy task……
The business just doesn’t get it”
Clive Longbottom, head of research at Quocirca

33. Public
Internet
• Typical Enterprise Environment
– Mixture of legacy bare metal servers.
Internal – Some newer virtualised servers.
applications
and databases – Mixture of internal disks, database
Corporate
WAN
servers and dedicated SANs.
– Off-site tape back-ups.
– Insatiable demand for more computing
Off-site power and more storage.
Tape
Off-site Backups
Replication

34. Public
Internet The Enterprise Server LAN is
augmented with elastic computing
power and data storage in a
Cloud Data Centre
By extending services using VPLS
and Layer 2, applications and
Internal databases appear local.
applications
and databases
Corporate
WAN
Exponential-e seamlessly extends the
enterprise server LAN into a Hybrid
Cloud.

35. Public
Internet
Application Mobility
App App App App App App
OS OS OS OS OS OS
Corporate Ultra Low Latency Connectivity
WAN
Storage Mobility

36. Public
Internet
Dual Cloud Data Centres offers
even higher system availability
and SLAs
Primary Alternate
Corporate
WAN
Enterprise IT staff can remain in control of
their IT environment and can configure
cloud based resources. Data Security & Privacy Issues Resolved
All servers, databases & applications sit on the
clean side of your firewall.

37. On-Net data centres in the UK
Telecity PowerGate Telia Cromwell Road
Telecity Meridian Gate
Telecity Williams House SunGard LTC
Telecity Sovereign House
Telecity IFL2 (Manchester) Level3 Goswell Road
Level3 Braham Street
City Lifeline
Telstra LHC
Equinix Airport Gate LD2
Equinix Finsbury Pavement LD1 Global Switch 1
Equinix Park Royal LD3 Global Switch 2
Equinix Slough LD4
Scolocate Edinburgh
Interxion Hanbury Street
Sentrum Woking
Telehouse North
Telehouse East Iomart (Paul Street)
Telehouse West
Virtus Enfield DC1

38. Exponential-e
Cloud
Community

39. Coffee break

40. Dominic Anschutz, Real world strategies

41. AWS Direct Connect?
• AWS Direct Connect lets you establish a dedicated network connection between
your network and one of the AWS Direct Connect locations
• Reduce your network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more
consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.
• Using industry standard 802.1q VLANs, this dedicated connection can be
partitioned into multiple logical connections.
• Logical connections can be reconfigured at any time to meet your changing needs.
• Exponential-e one of 18 Global AWS Direct Connect Partners.

42. Highlights
• Reduces Your Bandwidth Costs
– AWS Direct Connect reduces your network costs as you are charged at the reduced AWS
Direct Connect data transfer rate rather than Internet data transfer rates.
• Consistent Network Performance
– Data is now routed which can provide a more consistent network experience.
• Compatible with all AWS Services
– Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3),
– Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2),
– Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC).
• Private Connectivity to your Amazon VPC
– You can use AWS Direct Connect to establish a private logical connection from your on-
premise network directly to your Amazon VPC,.
• Elastic
– AWS Direct Connect makes it easy to scale your connection to meet your needs. AWS
Direct Connect provides 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps connections, and you can easily provision
multiple connections if you need more capacity.

43. What is AWS Direct Connect?
• AWS Direct Connect lets you establish a dedicated network connection between
your network and one of the AWS Direct Connect locations
• Reduce your network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more
consistent network experience than Internet-based connections.
• Using industry standard 802.1q VLANs, this dedicated connection can be
partitioned into multiple logical connections.
• Logical connections can be reconfigured at any time to meet your changing needs.
• Exponential-e one of 18 Global AWS Direct Connect Partners.

44. Why Direct Connect?
• Predictable & reliable performance to your AWS cloud
• Enablement of new services and applications
• Increase Security through private connectivity
• Lower network costs by avoiding Internet transfer and
bandwidth charges
• Increase performance by bypassing congested Internet
connections

45. Dominic Anschutz, Cloud aggregation – the
good, the bad and the ugly

46. Cloud Aggregation

47. Gartner Inc. predicts that by 2015, most cloud computing
Customers will rely on a cloud broker to handle a diverse
range of services, from discounted pricing to custom
application monitoring.
Three Roles:
• Aggregation
• Integration
• Customisation

48. • Aggregation: A cloud broker can bundle many individual services
together and present them as a unified service. For instance, by
partnering with a cloud broker, a provider can offer a unified billing
service or unified cloud provisioning.
• Integration: An enterprise will often rely on a cloud broker to
bring integrate multiple services, collectively providing new
functionality. The cloud broker can help move data into the cloud
and integrate the customer's network with the provider's network.
• Customisation: A cloud broker often customises cloud services
for individual customers, usually around the network edge because
cloud services can only be changed by the cloud provider.

49. Which way?

50. Overview
• An aggregation platform such as the one originally developed for service providers,
is an excellent basis to integrate legacy applications to the private cloud services
as well as services sourced from the public cloud.
Why let service providers have it all ?
• CIO’s can now also take the role of strategic service broker while modernising their
legacy environment, optimizing the use of their IT assets. They can benefit from a
pay-per-use model for infrequently used applications, while this allows them to
address the evolving needs of the business, improving its agility and
responsiveness.

51. What do you look for?
1. End to end SLA
2. Self Service Administrative interfaces
3. Location and device independence.
4. Scalability
5. High availability
6. Multi tenancy
7. Plan based or consumption based billing
8. Web portal
9. Reporting, notifications and audit trials
10. Platform independence

52. But what about…?
1. Tiering and archiving services
2. Continuous, incremental or scheduled backups
3. Multi-dimensional, multi tiered billing system
4. Capacity based licensing systems
5. SLA management and monitoring system
6. Unified Comms.
7. Disaster recovery plans and replication services
8. Mobile computing
9. File synchronisation
10. Data de-duplication, compression and encryption

53. The Good
• Typically more cost-effective to the customer than purchasing each service
separately
• Aggregated services from one logical user interface
• Mitigate the challenge to manage assets across mixed environments

54. Architecture
Exponential-e Enterprise Cloud

55. Exponential-e Portal

56. IaaS Migration
vMotion
On-premise Exponential-e
Datacentre vCloud Connector IaaS
Exponential-e
VPLS
Customer Office Customer Office

57. Data centre relocation
Exponential-e
IaaS
Old New
Datacentre Datacentre
Exponential-e
VPLS

58. The Bad
• Limited choice
• Internet only
• No QOS
• Lack of automation
• Margin stacking
• No end to end SLA

59. The Ugly
One size does not fit all
The bottom line is that the aggregations are
intended to benefit the customer!

60. Simon Acott, Closing remarks
Questions