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    ScienceLogic Takes on the Private Cloud Management Challenge

    There are really two fundamental challenges with trying to manage a private cloud. The first is that a homogeneous private cloud is going to be the exception rather than the rule, and the second is that trying to figure out what infrastructure elements support what application workloads is going to be complicated.

    Unless you’re planning on not using any legacy equipment at all, chances are pretty good that any private cloud that gets deployed is going to encompass both new and existing legacy equipment. The challenge is that every piece of IT equipment comes with its own management framework that needs to not only be paid for, but also mastered.

    To address these issues, ScienceLogic this week extended its namesake IT management platform to include support for FlexPod from NetApp and Vblock from VCE, the joint venture created by EMC, VMware, Intel and Cisco.

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    Jeremy Sherwood, cloud strategist for ScienceLogic, says that as cloud computing matures IT organizations are going to discover they will need a way to more granularly manage application workloads based on Service Profiles that span not only multiple types of next-generation integrated servers, but also legacy systems, some of which may be on premise or in a third-party data center. Rather than have to implement multiple management frameworks, Sherwood contends that ScienceLogic is providing a way to holistically manage all those environments in a way that is truly application workload centric.

    This approach, says Sherwood, allows IT organizations to carve up the management of the private cloud by application workload consumption, versus trying to piece together reports from different management platforms to figure out what may be affecting a particular workload. The fact is, says Sherwood, in the age of the private cloud, there are so many dependencies between systems that trying to manually piece together all that information is going to be next to impossible.

    In addition, Sherwood notes that acquiring the different point products needed to manage all those pieces of equipment is going to be considerably more expensive than deploying one comprehensive management framework.

    Sherwood says the core ScienceLogic platform includes all the monitoring tools, run-book automation and orchestration tools needed to manage a private cloud, which Sherwood says includes an extensible application programming interface (API) that can be used to extend that management framework in almost any direction.

    With the rise of private clouds, it’s pretty clear that IT is never going to be the same. As such, it doesn’t make much sense to try and manage private clouds the same way most organizations have previously managed legacy IT infrastructure. After all, it’s the costly way organizations manage existing IT systems that gave rise to the need for cloud computing in the first place.

    Mike Vizard
    Mike Vizard
    Michael Vizard is a seasoned IT journalist, with nearly 30 years of experience writing and editing about enterprise IT issues. He is a contributor to publications including Programmableweb, IT Business Edge, CIOinsight and UBM Tech. He formerly was editorial director for Ziff-Davis Enterprise, where he launched the company’s custom content division, and has also served as editor in chief for CRN and InfoWorld. He also has held editorial positions at PC Week, Computerworld and Digital Review.

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