Two Models Meet Developer Needs for IT Private Cloud Services

With two delivery models in the Cisco IT Elastic Infrastructure Services (CITEIS) program, Cisco IT is meeting the needs of developers who just want raw servers and storage and those who want a fully managed platform service. The two models are an ongoing subscription service for a virtual data center (VDC) and a customizable set of resources for short-term use.

CITEIS Virtual Data Center Subscription Service

The VDC model is used primarily by product development groups to meet ongoing needs for IT infrastructure. Users who want the CITEIS VDC service access the Cisco Prime Service Catalog to select from defined pools of resources with bundled services. Cisco IT then reserves and guarantees these resources on a secure and supported platform where the Cisco Virtual Security Gateway enforces multitenant segmentation. The users then create, allocate, and manage their own application spaces.

Under the VDC subscription model, the user’s department receives a monthly budget charge for the allocated resource pools and bundled services. Enhanced infrastructure services like load balancing are available for additional charges. This model requires a minimum one-quarter subscription.

CITEIS Express Service

The Express model delivers an infrastructure “sandbox” that is designed to meet the needs of short-term development projects. This option is also ordered through the catalog, where users specify whether the virtual machine will act as a database, web, or transaction server and then choose appropriate options.

Because this service is used primarily for testing and proof-of-concept projects, the users allocate and manage their assigned resources based on their specific needs. The CITEIS team offers a basic level of support and a best-effort SLA.

Under the CITEIS Express model, users receive a limited, on-demand infrastructure with charges based on the time and resources used. This model requires a minimum commitment of one hour, but can be used for a maximum of only 90 days.

What’s Common in Both Models

Although these models are distinct for the purposes of delivering services, all CITEIS resources operate on the standard Cisco IT data center and network architectures. For both service types, the ordered resources are assigned and provisioned by the Cisco Process Orchestrator system and the Cisco Intelligent Automation for the Cloud (Cisco IAC) software.

For managing their assigned infrastructure, CITEIS users can choose self-management or sign-up for IT support. We found that the do-it-yourself option is very attractive; it has been chosen by 90 percent of CITEIS users, which reduces the support burden on Cisco IT.

In the VDC model, we’ve also found that users make reasonable initial requests when they know they can always order more resources if needed. This change reduces our need to over-provision resources as a “just in case” to meet unpredictable demand.