Provide a brief description of the Solution?
1. Provide a brief description of your cloud computing solution. “Our cloud computing solution consists of a set of three key elements: 1. a financial model designed on a capital based utility model, 2. a rapidly provisioned virtualized compute, network and storage infrastructure, and 3. a set of software and hardware technologies supporting cloud based services.”
Describe what elements of the cloud computing architecture were deployed in this solution, such as private vs. public cloud, how those decisions were made, and how security concerns were factored into the project design and implementation?
The elements of the private cloud included VMware virtualized compute layer connected to a shared storage environment. The client required the economic benefits of a large, shared infrastructure across multiple business units. The infrastructure supporting the deployment of new business applications required rapid infrastructure provisioning to support the vast number of business projects planned. Because the client’s business units didn’t have alignment in the timing of the spend of their budgets, the client lacked the financial resources to incur the entire investment of the solution and so a shared risk model was proposed where OnX took a portion of the investment and was paid as capacity was consumed. At the time of solution design and deployment, the client preferred to acquire small units of capacity on a capital basis rather than as a pure utility methodology or operating expense. The private cloud was deployed the client’s data center. OnX assumed title of the assets until each unit of capacity was consumed.
Describe what makes your cloud computing solution unique or innovative, and how you pushed the boundaries of a typical cloud computing architecture in designing and implementing this solution for your client?
OnX had to do significant research into the Canadian tax laws in order to formulate a strategy to allow the capitalization of virtual elements of the solution, the units of capacity the client paid for and capitalized as they were consumed. By defining a measurable, identifiable unit using the virtualization technology, OnX was successful in creating a financial model to meet the client’s preferred acquisition strategy.
Discuss why a cloud computing-based solution was the right choice for your client in this business case, rather than a traditional IT architecture?
The solution was the right choice for the client for a number of business and technology reasons: Business Reasons • The client lack the required capital expenditure needs of the entire solution and if the client had purchased on a piecemeal basis, the cost would significantly exceed the large, shared cloud solution • A utility, pay-per-use model using a traditional IT architecture violated the financial strategy for the organization and impact the books and financial standing of the company • A traditional IT architecture fundamentally lacked the financial and technical requirements of a cloud based solution because of its inability to provide rapid provisioning, principles of elasticity and pay-per-use functionality.
Describe the business need this solution was expected to fill for your client, and how this solution has meet or exceeded those expectations. What measurable metrics, such as reduced costs or other efficiencies, can be provided to support the customer’s return on investment?
The business need was to accelerate the time-to-market of delivery new applications and services to the marketplace while optimizing the investment by leveraging economies of scale. Since the client was a telecommunication organization supplying technology based services to the market, there was a direct link to between infrastructure and revenue generation. Supporting this acceleration was a need for the delivery of a standardized, rapidly provisioned infrastructures without the entire capital budget to acquire all of the solution at one time. Without the solution, the client would have spent weeks to months of time to procure, install, integrate, and operate the solution at a higher cost of ownership. With the OnX cloud solution, the time to provision virtual infrastructure (IaaS) was minutes, an improvement of over a 1000%.
Discuss how designing and implementing this cloud computing solution challenged or broke new ground for you as a solution provider. How did it differ from other cloud computing implementations you have done, and what new challenges were faced by your technical and sales staff?
The particular challenged of this cloud solution was the need to technically design and measure discrete units of capacity to meet the Canadian Tax laws for depreciation and allow OnX to retain title of the assets rather than most cloud services which are utility or operating expense items. OnX had to research the specific methodologies within the virtualization technology to define metrics relating to the billing items of the model.