Systems/Enterprise:
VERITAS SOFTWARE TURNS UTILITY
COMPUTING VISION INTO REALITY
VERITAS Software Corporation Chairman, president and CEO Gary Bloom
outlined
plans at the company's annual user conference to enable utility computing
through its market-leading heterogeneous software(1). Utility computing
enables CIOs to deliver IT as a measurable, accountable service that is
aligned with business needs and capable of adapting to changing demands.
Combining its extensive storage software with recent strategic acquisitions
and more than 100 supporting partners, VERITAS Software uniquely offers a
broad range of products to deliver on the promise of utility computing
today.
"IT departments today must align with business goals and be responsive to
changing demands," said Gary Bloom, chairman, president and CEO of VERITAS
Software, "VERITAS Software helps enable complex, heterogeneous IT
environments to make the move to utility computing today. That means faster,
more reliable applications and lower costs."
CIOs are currently serving two masters. The business wants better
performance
and availability from their existing applications. On the other hand, the CEO
and CFO want lower IT costs and accountability to the business. To make
matters worse, the typical IT environment is complex and heterogeneous.
Utility computing is the answer, and VERITAS provides the key enabling
technologies.
VERITAS availability software and the application performance management
technology from VERITAS' recently announced plan to acquire Precise Software
share the ability to support heterogeneous environments, and, with the planned
acquisition, enable VERITAS solutions to span the entire IT stack from
application all the way down to storage. This helps IT departments maintain
application service levels no matter how complex the environment.
Heterogeneous hardware resources are pooled so that utilization can be
improved and capital expenditures reduced. These pooled resources are then
automatically provisioned on demand, helping to dramatically reduce labor
costs. Finally, VERITAS provides software that allows IT to align the services
and resources they provide with business needs. Execution is measured so that
accurate departmental charge-backs can take place based on services
delivered.
"IT departments have grown increasingly complex in order to support
business
demands for higher service levels and to proactively manage steep data growth
patterns," said Richard Guetzloff, senior director, enterprise systems, RR
Donnelley, which prepares, produces and delivers integrated communications
across multiple channels for content owners worldwide. "It takes a market
leader like VERITAS to understand that storage can be the cornerstone and a
natural foundation to provide always-on utility-like services. With VERITAS'
plans to integrate its new technologies, VERITAS will have greater resources
to enable utility computing."
VERITAS Software For Utility Computing
Service Level -- Availability
VERITAS' industry leading data protection(2), clustering(3) and
high-performance replication software(4) helps ensure the ongoing availability
of data, applications and servers across complex, heterogeneous IT
environments. VERITAS provides a continuum of capabilities from basic backup
on a laptop to disaster recovery, replicating entire data centers
instantaneously across the globe for the world's largest companies. All the
software is heterogeneous, supporting all major devices, operating systems and
applications.
Service Level -- Performance
Performance plays an equally important role in utility computing. An
"available" application running at slow speed negatively impacts employee
productivity if it is an internal application and can affect revenue if it is
a customer- or supplier-facing application. For many years VERITAS has focused
its efforts on speeding access to data. For example, VERITAS File System
provides almost an order of magnitude improvement in performance for operating
system platforms such as Solaris 9(5) and Linux(6).
With the acquisition of Precise Software, expected to close in Q2 2003,
VERITAS takes performance management to the next level. Precise's software is
proactive -- it is designed to detect performance problems before the end user
notices and to then go on to identify the root cause of the problem. It does
this by analyzing the total system performance from application to storage
array and correlating the results. Once the root cause is identified, the
software recommends a solution so that action can be taken.
Lower Hardware Costs -- Storage And Server Virtualization
Utilization of storage and server hardware barely rises above 50 percent in
most organizations. Storage and server resources operate in silos beneath
business applications. If a disk fills up or server becomes CPU-bound then a
new disk or server is purchased. As a result, empty disks or idle servers
running other applications are not utilized. Through VERITAS Volume Manager
and VERITAS OpForce, recently acquired from Jareva Technologies, together with
VERITAS Cluster Server, VERITAS allows storage and server resources to be
shared, driving up utilization rates and helping lower hardware costs.
Lower Labor Costs -- Storage And Server Automation
The largest cost in any IT department is labor. For example, a study from
analyst firm Gartner reveals that for every dollar spent on storage hardware,
three dollars are spent managing that hardware(7). VERITAS can help lower the
cost of managing storage hardware through VERITAS SANPoint Control,
automatically performing common operations such as zoning, masking and
provisioning. In the same way, VERITAS can help lower the cost of managing
server hardware through VERITAS OpForce -- automatically provisioning servers
to applications when required.
Fully Automated Systems -- VERITAS, Precise & Jareva Integrated
No matter how good IT is at predicting demand for its systems, there will
always be surprises. Typically these surprises are dealt with after the fact
-- for example, the system grinds to a halt and then a new server is
added.
With the planned acquisition of Precise and the acquisition of Jareva,
VERITAS
plans to create automated systems that can detect performance degradation long
before the end user notices. The automated systems can then diagnose, for
example, that the problem is a Web server running out of CPU cycles. The
course of action determined by the system is to notify the Jareva technology
that a new Web server machine is required.
Jareva automatically provisions the machine and hands it to VERITAS Cluster
Server to manage. Now the problem is solved and no administrator intervention
is required.
Aligning IT with the Business -- Introducing VERITAS Service Manager
If IT is to be run as a utility, then, like any utility, it needs to define
and commit to service levels with its customers. Also, after the fact, IT
needs to report on what actually happened and what the cost was -- just like a
monthly utility bill. VERITAS Service Manager, currently in beta, is designed
to allow IT infrastructure staff to define services (such as storage, servers,
backup, high availability, etc.) that they will provide to business
applications. VERITAS Service Manager then tracks actual service delivered and
calculates how much IT expense was incurred.
This is then provided through a portal back to the business. All business
unit
service levels and charge backs are calculated from a single source to
minimize disputes over charge-back levels. VERITAS Service Manager is expected
to be generally available in Q4 2003.
Enabling Utility Computing Means Heterogeneity
To truly enable utility computing, software must be heterogeneous. There
are
many applications, databases, application servers, operating systems, servers
and storage hardware from many different vendors. Heterogeneity is at the core
of everything VERITAS does. More than 100 partners are now participating in
the VERITAS Enabled program ensuring that VERITAS Software can manage all
popular servers, storage arrays or devices and interoperate with the vast
majority of business applications.
Making IT Happen
Finally, to educate users on best practices for enabling utility computing
in
heterogeneous networks, VERITAS today unveiled an online community called
VERITAS Architect Network. VERITAS Architect Network is an online resource
where IT professionals can learn best practices and exchange information about
VERITAS products and technologies, providing tools to help companies meet
service levels and help lower labor costs.
(1) Gartner, Inc. "2002 Storage Management Market Share," C. DiCenzo, April
2003.
(2) Gartner, Inc. "2002 Storage Management Market Share," C. DiCenzo, April
2003.
(3) Kusnetzky, D. "Worldwide Clustering and Availability Software Forecast
and
Analysis, 2002-2006." June 2002. IDC
(4) "Benchmark Test Results: VERITAS Data Replication." April 2003. Giant
Loop
Testing and Certification Lab.
(5) "Benchmark Test Results: VERITAS Foundation Suite and VERITAS Database
Edition." November 2002. Giant Loop Testing and Certification Lab.
(6) "VERITAS Foundation Suite for Linux 2.0: Performance Comparison Brief:
Foundation Suite, EXT3, and ReiserFS." December 2002. VERITAS Software.
(7) Nicolett, M. and Paquet, R. "The Cost of Storage Management: A Sanity
Check." November, 2001.
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