Service-Oriented Everything...

Agility Principle: Service-Oriented Network Architecture (eBiz: Mark Milinkovich, Director, Service-Oriented Network Architecture, Cisco Systems): Cisco is touting the network as the center of the universe again, but this article is pretty close to the truth about software and infrastructure architectures we are moving to. Most importantly, Mark points out that there is a three layer stack that actually binds applications to infrastructure:

• Applications layer - includes all software used for business purposes (e.g., enterprise resource planning) or collaboration (e.g., conferencing). As Web-based applications rely on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) schema and become tightly interwoven with routed messages, they become capable of supporting greater collaboration and more effective communications across an integrated networked environment.


• Integrated network services layer - optimizes communications between applications and services by taking advantage of distributed network functions such as continuous data protection, multiprotocol message routing, embedded QoS, I/O virtualization, server load balancing, SSL VPN, identity, location and IPv6-based services. Consider how security can be enhanced with the interactive services layer. These intelligence network-centric services can be used by the application layer through either transparent or exposed interfaces presented by the network.


• Network systems layer - supports a wide range of places in the network such as branch, campus and data center with a broad suite of collaborative connectivity functions, including peer-to-peer, client-to-server and storage-to-storage connectivity. Building on this resilient and secure platform provides an enterprise with the infrastructure on which services and applications can reliably and predictably ride.

Of course, he's missing a key layer:

Physical infrastructure layer - represents the body of physical(and possibly virtual) infrastructure components that support the applications,network services and network systems, not to mention the storage environment,management environment and, yes, Service Level Automation (SLAuto) environment.

It is important to note that, while the network may becoming a computer in its own right, it still requires physical infrastructure to run. And all of these various application, integrated network, and network systems services that Mark mentions not only depend on this infrastructure, but can actually be loosely coupled to the physical layer in a way that augments the agility of all four layers.

For example, imagine a world where your software provisioning is completely decoupled from your hardware provisioning. In other words, adding an application to your production data center doesn't require you to predict exactly what load the application is going to add to the network, server or storage capacity. Rather, you simply load the application into the SLAuto engine, let traffic start to arrive, measure the stress on existing capacity, and order additional hardware as required. Or, better yet, order hardware at the end of a quarter based on trend analysis from the previous quarter. No need for the software teams and the hardware teams to even talk to each other.

I will admit that it is unlikely that many IT departments will ever get to that "pie-in-the-sky" scenario--for some the risk of not guessing high enough on capacity overwhelms the cost of predicting short to medium term load. However, SLAuto allows you to get past the problems of siloed systems, such as "hitting the ceiling" in allocated capacity. Even if the SLAuto environment runs out of excess physical capacity, it can borrow the capacity it needs for high priority systems from lower priority applications.

The best part is that, since the SLAuto environment tracks every action it takes, there are easy ways to get reports showing everything from capacity utilization trend analysis to cost of infrastructure for a given application.

Back to Mark's article, though. It is good to see some consensus in the industry on where we are moving, even if each vendor is trying to spin it as if they are the heart of the new platform. In the end though, if the network is indeed the computer, the network and the data center will need operating systems. Mark has entire sections dedicated to designing for application awareness (this is where most data center automation technologies fall woefully short), and designing for virtualization (including all aspects of infrastructure virtualization). He is right on the money here, but there needs to be something that coordinates the utilization of all of these virtualized resources. This is where SLAuto comes in.

Most importantly, don't forget to integrate SLAuto into all four layers. Make sure that each "high" layer talks to the layers below it in a way that decouples the higher layer from the lower layer. Make sure that each lower layer uses that information to determine what adjustments it needs to make (including, possibly, to send the information to an even lower layer). And make sure your physical infrastructure layer is supported by an automation environment that can adjust capacity usage quickly and painlessly as applications, services and networks demand.

As you prepare your service oriented architecture of the future, don't forget the operations aspects. We are on the brink of an automated computing world that will change the cost of IT forever. However, it will only work for you if you take all of the components involved in meeting service levels/operation levels into account.