What Is Hyperscale cloud resource management ?
is the field that keeps an eye on, arranges and improves computer, storage, and network capacities across large groups of computers located all over in the clouds.
When organizations grow from hardware being used to run servers to thousands of computers located in many different locations it becomes impossible to manually keep track of everything. Hyperscale cloud resource management allows IT teams to monitor their infrastructure and make sure they are keeping everything up and running which is safe and cost-effective.
Case in Point: The sheer size of the subject area creates unique issues that must be resolved by companies that operate at hyperscale, such as a cloud service provider, large SaaS company or global corporation. Adding an additional location, server or cabinet of servers increases the complexity of the entire operation. If these operations are not managed well by employing some type of structured approach to managing computing resources, the number of ‘firefighting’ i.e. fixing outages after they occur will increase greatly. The following article provides information about what ‘hyperscale resource management’ (i.e. Hyperscale Cloud) is, why it is important, and also provides some guidelines to follow when creating your own ‘Hyperscale Resource Management Model’.
Why Do Hyperscale Operations Require a Different Method of Operations?
Traditional IT management tools were designed to support small, centralized data centers. However, the way that hyperscale environments function is quite different from that of traditional environments. They can exist in multiple geographic areas, and they will probably operate across a variety of different hardware vendors and also support tens of thousands of servers running at once.
There are several reasons why the management of cloud resources at hyperscale must change.
One of the biggest reasons is that scale changes everything. At a small scale, a single server that was not configured correctly was not a big concern. At a large scale, however, one server with a configuration issue that has been replicated to hundreds of servers will result in a large outage.
Downtime costs money. And when you have many thousands of dollars per minute being lost to a big outage, trust is damaged too.
Hyperscale providers don’t use just one vendor for their equipment, so when managers create solutions to manage their data centres, they want those solutions to work across multiple vendors.
With a vendor-neutral infrastructure management approach, instead of being forced to use a particular manufacturer’s products and tools, can use one central console to manage multiple kinds of equipment.
Core Components of Hyperscale Cloud Resource Management
Effective management of hyperscale cloud resources is typically achieved through several connected components that all work together.
Cloud Infrastructure Management Platform
A Cloud Infrastructure Management Platform serves as the control hub for hyperscale systems. It combines all of the operations (monitoring, provisioning, and troubleshooting) into a single location, rather than having engineers use multiple separate sources.
A good platform will often include the following capabilities:
The ability to view the current status of physical servers/ data centers in real-time (Health, Power, Network)
Automated_notifications for hardware_failure/ performance anomaly across distributed teams
Role-Based Access Controls
Merging with current DevOps tools and monitoring systems
Out-of-Band Management
Out of band management provides the following:
• Remotely power cycle a server that has become unresponsive, without the need to physically visit the data center.
• Remotely access and change the BIOS or firmware configuration.
• Remotely troubleshoot a failed boot before the operating system has loaded
• Reduce reliance on on-site technicians and therefore reduce response times by a large percent.
For businesses with data centers that operate in different timezones, having access to OOB is often the difference between fixing a problem in minutes or hours.
Serial Console Server
A Serial Console Server allows direct access to your network equipment and servers on a very low level (physical layer) via serial port, independently of any IP connection.
Oftentimes, this low level of access to your devices can be vital when making changes to your network configuration because if you make a mistake it can prevent you from logging in completely as others are locked out.
Serial console servers provide a failsafe option for hyperscale teams. When switches or routers are misconfigured in such a way that normal access is blocked, the serial console provides a means of direct access to these devices by engineers to remediate the misconfiguration.
Hyperscalers investing in cloud resource management experience measurable performance gains in many areas.
Reduced downtime. With centralized monitoring (e.g.: The cloud), the organisation can monitor their network and identify issues before they develop into full-fledged outages.
Decreased operational costs. With the ability of out-of-band management to remotely troubleshoot datacenter/IT issues, there is a reduced need to have technicians travel to remote/field locations in an emergency.
Having a better security baseline.With audits and permissions tied to a person’s position or job function; it will be easy to determine who accessed what and when.
Speed up the entire organization’s migration to the cloud.Through automation, organizations can quickly add additional resources to their cloud environments.
Vendor flexibility.Vendor-agnostic systems will allow organizations to negotiate prices and will also allow for mixing and matching of equipment from various manufacturers
Pros and Cons at a Glance
Pros:
Single source of control over all distributed assets
Remote access equalizes response times across all sites.
Low Infrastructure Costs.
Audits/Compliance Reporting Made Easier
Cons:
Dedicated engineering time may be required to establish and integrate the system to begin with
Training is required for users so they are able to utilize all of the advanced features on the platform effectively.
Access control that is not appropriately managed may pose a security threat.
Productive Actions for Integrating Hyperscale Cloud Resource Management
Evaluate your current infrastructure; check the location of all servers, racks, and network devices currently used in your infrastructure; identify the areas where there are gaps in the way you currently manage your infrastructure.
Select an agnostic (vendor-neutral) infrastructure management platform to manage your hyperscale environment; Since a hyperscale environment generally doesn’t remain with one vendor for an extended period, don’t tie yourself down to a specific hardware manufacturer’s products through the choice of your management platform.
Implement out-of-band management for your most critical systems. Focus first on servers located in remote or difficult to access areas because these are most likely to experience significantly longer periods of downtime.
Build a serial console server to provide access to your network gear through a secondary connection point should something go wrong while you’re doing a configuration change.
Create role-based access controls to limit access to particular function sets based on the position of the person using them; this will help reduce security risks in large organizations.
Many day-to-day monitoring processes can be automated if you use thresholds for CPU, memory usage, disk space, power, etc. as means of notifying you of an issue before it causes a complete loss of service.
Check your system every three months and alter it if required. Hyperscale systems are always changing so you should continue updating your management plans – never update them all at once.
Expert Insight: A Real-World Example
Think about a medium-sized SaaS company that went from having two data centers to having twelve data centers over three years. At first, the engineering team would manually manage the servers, logging into each server individually. As the company grew, their response time to outages went from being minutes to hours. The engineers who were on call reported burnout from having to travel frequently to remote locations.
After implementing a centralized cloud infrastructure management platform with “out of band” access built in, the company has cut their average incident response time by over 60%. Engineers can reboot non-responsive servers and get to BIOS settings from afar, eliminating most site visit emergencies. Many organizations are seeing a similar transformation, too, once they formalize their approach to managing their hyperscale cloud resources, as opposed to managing them using informal processes
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Depending on a single access point One single network to a server will mean the total loss of access to the server in case of network failure occurrence.
The negligience of the concept of vendor lock-in. It will be more convenient to select proprietary products at the beginning, but will bring the high cost of migration and many difficulties in the later period.
Underestimating the need for training. Even a platform has many functions; therefore, if engineering teams lack the access to the functions cannot realise the potential of the platform.
Delaying the Automation Processes: Manual Monitoring is not a scalable option. Therefore, when automation is taking a longer time to create, technical debt will continue to grow
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Conclusion
Hyperscale cloud resource management is now required for businesses working at scale. A centralized cloud infrastructure management system, out-of-band management, and a serial console server with good access to the internet are all needed to keep everything up and running and lower the cost of operating the equipment while the organization becomes larger and uses more vendors and more locations. Organizations taking a vendor neutral approach to Infrastructure Management will be able to scale with confidence, react to incidents faster and avoid the problems associated with siloed manual management. By investing in organised hyperscale cloud resource management today, you are laying the ground work for future growing reliable
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is hyperscale cloud resource management?
Answer: This means the set of tools, policies and procedures you use to manage, track and allocate computing resources across large, distributed cloud environments (typically having thousands of servers spanning multiple data centers or across multiple geographic regions).
Question: Why does out of band management matter for hyperscale?
Answer: Out-of-band management lets IT administrators access and troubleshoot or repair remote systems even when the primary network connection, and in turn the utility of the system is unavailable, therefore reducing system downtime and eliminating the requirement for frequent onsite visits.
Question: Could you elaborate on the concept of vendor-neutral infrastructure management?
Answer: The idea of vendor-neutral infrastructure management revolves around the use of applications and services that can function with more than one manufacturer’s equipment rather than using the vendor-lock model of a single source of equipment.
Question: In what ways does a serial console server assist in network management?
Answer: Serial console servers provide direct access through serial ports or lines to networking devices and therefore provide administrators with an option for device diagnostics in case the device loses connectivity over the standard (IP) network path.
Question: What are the core advantages to using an CIM platform for managing your Cloud Infrastructure?
Answer: The benefits of CIM differs from user perspective but they include; the central monitoring capability of all cloud resources, the automation processes to produce an alert notification, the roles based access control for users, and the simplified process for resource provisioning. All these benefits combine to allow easy management of large-scale infrastructure with both efficiency and security.
