Recently I was asked few times what is the difference between virtualization and private cloud. There are distinct differences between virtualization and private cloud. They are not the same thing. Virtualization is just the first step towards private cloud.

According to NIST defination, a private or public cloud should have following characteristics. These are the fundamental differences between private cloud and virtualization.

• On-demand self-service: the ability for a user to obtain computing resources (compute, network, storage) as needed and automatically, without interaction with other people
• Broad network access: the computing resources are accessible over the network and using tools widely used as thin clients and thick clients (phones, laptops, desktops, slate)
• Resource pooling: the computing resources are pooled together to serve different customers using a multi-tenant model. The different physical and virtual resources are assigned dynamically, based on the needs of users. This allows you to get a sense of independence from the location of resources as the end user does not have an exact idea of ??where you actually reside the resources it uses, but may indicate a high level of preferential locations
• Rapid elasticity: the resources can be quickly modified, often automatically, so you can quickly adapt to the waxing and waning of necessity. From an end user’s point of view, this can lead to the feeling of having unlimited resources to buy the necessary amount for the time.
• Measured Service: The cloud systems automatically monitor and optimize resources by exploiting the capabilities measure implemented at different levels of abstraction depending on the type of service provided. The use of resources can be controlled, measured and reported enabling the end user and service provider access to information transparently use

Virtualization alone does not achieve these characteristics and does not enable efficiency. Let’s look how these cloud functionalities can be through Microsoft technologies.

Base Virtualization Infrastructure

The base infrastructure for private cloud is virtualization. One important thing everyone tends to take for granted is Active Directory. Active Directory provides the base for identify and security management. In the base infrastructure, there are

• Access control and identity management – AD, Single Sign On, ADFS, Claim based authentication
• Virtualization Capabilities – Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and / or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1
• Dynamic management of resources – Dynamic Memory, QoS
• High availability – Clustering, Shared Clusterd volume

Management Stack

To achieve the cloud functionalities, the management stack is very important. System Center is the management stack from Microsoft. It provides seemless management capabilities across both physical and virtual environment. This helps organization to move from physical to virtual, private cloud or hybrid cloud, as one single set of tools enable management through different phases. Here is how System Center 2012 can help to achieve these functionalities.

• Measured Service – System Center Operations Manager, especially in version 2012 (now available in Beta 2) is able to run an End-to-end from physical resources (servers, storage, network devices)operating systems (Windows but also Linux / UNIX) to applications and services including distributed systems (monitoring applications. NET and JEE). The operating infrastructure can be exposed in SharePoint using the possibilities made available by SCOM 2012 to build custom widgets or dashboards System Center Service Manager.

• Resource pooling – System Center Virtual Manager, in particular the version 2012 (now available in Release Candidate) is the tool that allows you to deploy and manage pools of resources to be allocated dynamically to users of the infrastructure: cluster virtualization hosts, networks virtual pool of IP load balancers, storage (with classification according to the basic features and usage based on policy) are completely manageable from the administrative console or via the SCVMM 2012 PowerShell

• Rapid elasticity – System Center Virtual Machine Manager and System Center Orchestrator can be used to achieve this feature. SCVVM 2012 brings in the concept of “Service Template”, which allows you to manage services / applications seen as a set of virtual machines connected to networks and logical storage resources, which “work together” to deliver a service / application. For each VM, which helps to define the service can define a minimum and maximum number of instances that can be put into production under varying conditions of calculation. Virtual machines are put into production, taking into account the load handled by different nodes in the cluster virtualization and eventually moved between different nodes of the cluster depending on the load and the needs of these VMs (Dynamic Optimization). SCVMM 2012 can be coupled, in the implementation of this feature by System Center Orchestrator 2012. SCO2012 automates datacenter operations in maintaining control over the assets through the development of automated process flows that can interface and control of other System Center family of products, Active Directory, operating systems and third-party products.

• Broad network access – access to computing resources provided by the private cloud can be performed by different devices, for example, using the Remote Desktop Services in Windows and possibly mediated by the family of products such as Forefront Unified Access Gateway. SCCM 2012 provides capabilities to manage all different devices including iOS and Android.

• On-demand self-service – SCVMM 2012 Self Service Portal 2.0 provides basic functionality for authorized users. Greater control of resources and better integration with SCVMM 2012 and with its model of service management is achievable with System Controller App Center 2012 (code-named “Tannery”). SCAC 2012 is a new addition to the System Center family that implements a self-service portal to allow end users to manage their applications / services running on a private cloud business
  (based on SCVMM 2012). More importantly it also allows management of public cloud Windows Azure within the very same portal with the very same domain login.

There are more exciting System Center 2012 products coming to help you build a complete private cloud solution. In the meanwhile, you can start downloading the trial version / beta of the various products and start to try:

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 (latest version);

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2;

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1;

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (latest version);

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1;

Deploying and Managing Windows Azure Applications with Operation Manager

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