Philippe Julio Web Blog Business and IT Value

MogileFS  is an open source distributed filesystem, flexible and high available on a network of commodity hardware.
MogileFS is an anagram for "OMG Files" and was created for LiveJounal to handle the storage, replication and retrieval of the large amount of file uploads. MogileFS is a Danga Interactive project. Six Apart has acquired Danga Interactive in 2006.

Who used MogileFS : LiveJounal, Digg, Skyrock, Wikispaces, Friendster

Key Enablers
- A scalable, Fault tolerant, High performance distributed file system
- No Single Point of Failure
- Automatic file replication (3 replications recommanded)
- Better than RAID
- Flat NameSpace
- Share-Nothing
- No RAID required
- Local filesystem agnostic
- Tracker client transfert (mogilefsd) - Replication -- Deletion - Query - Reaper - Monitor
- Files are broken up and spread over the Storage Node (mogstored) HTTP and WebDAV server
- Database MySQL stores the MogileFS metadata (the namespace, and which files are where)
- Client Library : Ruby, Perl, Java, Python, PHP…

High Availability
- For increasing the high availability of the MogileFS it is possible to interconnect 2 database servers (active/passive) with Solaris Cluster
- 2 Trackers nodes for availability and one for the load balancing
Security
- For the security of the MogileFS cluster you should encrypted the data for safeguarding all transactions on the web.

Proof Of Concept
- Create an architecture with three servers (tracker, database, storage node) and test the performance and the feasibility of MogileFS.
- For rapidly testing MogileFS you can create 3 Solaris Containers (tracker, database, storage node) on the same physical server.

Development
- Interface your application with MogilesFS and implement the "Save as Cloud..." and  "Open from Cloud...". functionalities.
Service and Support
- MogileFS support with http://www.sixapart.com

Architecture Overview



















Hardware Sizing
- Useable Data Volume : Customer data volume (customer need)
- Number of replication blocks : 3 (recommanded)
- 2 CPU quad-core
- 16 GB RAM minimum
- Work Data Volume (metadata, namespace...)
- Raw Data Volume : (Useable Data Volume * Nb of replication blocks) + Work Data Volume
- Number of cluster nodes : Max (Number of replication blocks, (Number of Trackers + Number of Storage Nodes))
- No RAID factor, No HBA port

Hardware Configuration
- 2 Database servers : 2CPU Quad-Core / 32GB RAM/ 2HD 146GB SAS/ 4 GbE Ports
  with Sun StorageTek 12 Disks SAS 146GB RAID1 and Solaris Cluster for high availability
- 3 Trackers servers 2CPU Quad-Core / 32GB RAM/ 2HD 146GB SAS/ 4 GbE Ports
- 4 Storage nodes servers with 2CPU Quad-Core / 32GB RAM/ 48HD 1TB SATAII / 4 GbE Ports
- No fiber channel interface for trackers and storage nodes connection is needed because the network protocol is Ethernet.

MogileFS Presentation
Download

Key Links
http://www.sixapart.com
http://www.danga.com/mogilefs

Cloud computing is a convergence of High Performance Computing architectures, Web 2.0 data models, and Enterprise computing data scale.
Cloud Analytics should leverage Sun's compelling storage architecture.

Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is scalable with high availability and high performance. HDFS on servers with 3 cluster nodes minimum (1 Master Node and 2 Slaves Nodes). The blocks data are 64 MB (default) / 128 MB, every block is replicated  3 times (default). NameNode is the metadata of the file system. The files are divided and distributed on DataNodes.
MapReduce is a data processing software and is designed to store and stream extremely large datasets in batch, not intended for realtime querying and does not support ramdom access. JobTracker schedules and manages jobs, TaskTracker executes individual map() and reduce() tasks on each cluster node.
HBase is distributed storage system, column-oriented and multi-dimensional, This software is very interesting to manage very large structured data for the web semantic. HBase can manage billions of rows, millions of columns, thousands of versions and petabytes across thousands of servers. Realtime querying.
Hive is a system for managing and querying structured data built on top of Hadoop with SQL as data warehousing tool. No realtime querying

High Availability
- The NameNode is a single point of failure (SPOF), the transaction Log is stored in multiple directories and a directory is on the local file system or on a remote file system (NFS/CIFS).
- The secondary NameNode is the copies of FsImage and Transaction Log from NameNode to a temporary directory.
- For increasing the high availability of the Hadoop cluster it is possible to interconnect 2 master nodes (active/passive) servers with Solaris Cluster
Security
- For the security of the Hadoop cluster you should encrypted the data for safeguarding all transactions on the web.

Proof Of Concept
- Create an architecture with minimum three nodes and test the performance and the feasibility of Hadoop.
- For rapidly testing Hadoop you can use the OpenSolaris Hadoop Live CD
- The OpenSolaris LiveHadoop setup install three virtual nodes Hadoop Cluster
        - Once OpenSolaris boots, two virtual servers are created using Zones
        - Zones are very lightweight, minimizing virtualization overheads and leaving more memory for your application
        - The "Global" zone hosts the NameNode and JobTracker, and two "Local" zones each host a DataNode and TaskTracker

Development
- Interface your application with HDFS and implement the "Save as Cloud..." and  "Open from Cloud...". functionalities. Use the Hadoop Java API for your development.
Service and Support
- HDFS, MapReduce, HBase and Hive are Open Source software and supported on OpenSolaris.
- For the US countries it is possible to contact Cloudera for bringing big data to the enterprise with Hadoop.
- Who support Hadoop across the globe ? http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/Support

Architecture Overview














Configuration
- Application Server (2 servers minimum for load balancing) with 2 CPU Quad-Core / 32 GB RAM/ 2 HD 146 GB SAS/ 4 GbE Ports
- Data Server (3 servers minimum for data replication) with 2 CPU Quad-Core / 32 GB RAM/ 48 HD 1 TB SATAII / 4 GbE Ports
- No Fiber Channel for storage connection is needed because the network protocol between the Hadoop nodes is Ethernet.

Hadoop Presentation
Download

Key Links
http://developer.yahoo.com/hadoop
http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/Support
http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/FrontPage
http://hadoop.apache.org/core/docs/current/hdfs_design.html
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/livehadoop
http://hadoop.apache.org/

Social Networking
Participate and Win


Why Should You Care for Web 2.0 ?

• Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users
• Know Who know's how : Seek information from the right source - Share your expertise
• Sharing is Power
• Create a network of contacts and make it easier to seek help

Customers Business Challenges

• Turn Intranet into Vibrant Communities
• Capture and Keep Knowledge in the Enterprise
• Locate Expertise
• Manage Information Life Cycle
• Reduce Costs

Why the Web 2.0 in the industries

• Manufacturing : Resources Consolidation  - Manufacturer/Supplier collaboration
  
• Telecommunications : Internationalization – Customize Services
• Banking Finance :International development - Activities diversification
• Government : Provide direct information access - Provide timely access to decision support information - Accomplish more work with fewer resources
  
• Retail : Industry consolidation – Consumers adoption of electronic channels and payments
  
• Media & Entertainment :: On-going technological innovation
• Healthcare : Accelerating Employers-Led Initiatives - Accelerating IT Adoption Among Providers  - New Consumers-centric Technologies
  
• Education & Research  : Creating a New Form of Collaborative Education  - Expanding the Boundaries of Knowledge
  
• Transportation & Travel : Social Responsibility - Technology, exposure to other cultures - Collecting and Sharing experiences - Business Travel online Adoption
• Energy : Energy education
  

Technologies for Web 2.0

• Atlassian Confluence 2.0 software
• Sun Value Platform (TCO, ROI Solution)
• Functionalities : My profil, My Share, Community Equity,Tagging, Ratting, Commenting, Statistics, Search Mashup, Wiki, Attachment, Feed Syndication, Bookmark, WSYWYG, Blog
• Methodology : Identity, responsibility, role, rythm, value, publishing policy, tool
• Open Source Free : Source code, Binary product, Simple Training, Security help
• Open Source Paying : Subscription, Support, Services, Training, Indemnification
• Open Storage : Open Source Software with Industry Standard Hardware - Sun Storage 7000
• Archiving, Data Protection
• Open Source Software : OpenJDK, OpenSolaris, NetBeans, GlassFish, Grid Engne, OpenSSO, OpenFM, OpenOffice, OpenDS, OpenPortal, OpenESB, OpenSparc, VirtualBox; MySQL, OpenOffice
• Architecture : 64 bits processors CMT, Multi-thread, Multi-core, Less Power, Space, Cooling - Hybrid server Sun Fire x4540 -Sun Blade Server on AMD, Intel, UltraSparc T2, multi-OS : Solaris 10, Windows, Linux - Virtualization: Sun xVM Infrastructure  - Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software - Sun Ray 2
• Solaris Securiity, Identity Management and role management

          

  The Best Performance At The Best Price
Open Storage

Key Business Drivers

• Manufacturing : Costs reduction – Eco responsibility
• Telecommunications : Outsourcing - Costs reduction – Eco responsibility
• Banking & Finance : Increase banking and financial transactions, Inheritance optimization and mangement  - Costs reduction
• Government : Accomplish more work with fewer resources – Eco responsibility
• Retail : Need to manage profitability and control expenses – Eco responsibility
• Media & Entertainment : On-going technological innovation – Costs reduction – Eco responsibility
• Healthcare : Accelerating employers-led initiatives  - Costs reduction – Eco resposibility
• Education & Research : Enable anytime, anywhere access - Creating a new form of collaborative education  - Costs reduction – Eco resposibility
• Transportation & Travel : Social responsibility - Technology, exposure to other cultures - Collecting and sharing experiences - Business travel online adoption - Green initiatives - Costs reduction
• Energy : Energy education  - Carbon emissions reduction – Power consumption reduction - Energy cost reduction
• Pharmaceutical : Enhanced information dissemination - Costs reduction - Eco  responsibility
• IT Outsourcing : Resources consolidation - Green sourcing - Costs reduction

IT Drivers

• Increase data volume and processing
• Speed up deployment new services
• Green IT
• Infrastructure consolidation
• IT costs reduction
• Open Source componants
• Data management simplification

Technology

• OpenStorage Strategy : Freedom of use - More material choice - More suppliers - Larger community users
• Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage Systems Appliance with SATA, SAS and SSD  technologies, JBOD Array, Opteron processors
• OpenSolaris
• ZFS Services : Snapshot, Encryption, Replication, Compression, RAID-Z, De-Duplication, Media Management, 1600 PB, Virtual Pools, Dynamic Stripping, Snapshot, Compression embeded, Administration simplified
• Data Protocols: FS v3 and v4, CIFS, ISCSI, HTTP, WebDAV, FTP, NDMP v4
• Data Services : Flash Hybrid Storage Pool, RAID-Z (5), RAID-Z DP (6), Mirroring, Striping, Active-active Clustering, Remote Replication, Antivirus via ICAP Protocol, Snapshots, Clones, Compression, Thin Provisioning, End-to-End Data Integrity, Multi-Path I/O, Fault Management
• Management : DTrace Analytics, Dashboards, Role-Based Access Control, NIS LDAP & AD Alerts, Phone Home, SNMP, Scripting, Upgrade Hardware View, Advanced Networking

Key Performance Indicators

• Power consumption
• Return On Investment
• Total Cost of Ownership
• Time to deploy a new service
• Number of Open Source components
• Number of contributors
• Economies made by the OpenSource choice
• Service quality

Added Value Services

• OpenStorage Workshop
• Product Deployment Services
• Sun Learning Services
• Sun Managed Services
• Sun Support Services
• Sun Global Financial Services Operation

Reference

• Objective : Cost effective network unified storage solution. Reduce administration. Reduce reliance on platform/OS knowledge
• Solution : Sun Storage 7410 Cluster with 2 x J4400. On-board Flash Disk for increased data read performance. Managed Ops contract was uplifted to 3 year 24x7 gold support
• Customer Benefit : Open Source approach. ZFS - today and future capabilities (Pooled storage). Price. User interface. SSD Integration, an easy and inexpensive expansion

          

Data Warehousing Without Limits.

The Data Warehouse Appliance powered by Sun and Greenplum is the industry's first cost-effective, high-performance super-capacity data warehouse appliance. Purpose-built for high-performance, large-scale data warehousing, the solution integrates best-in-class database, server, and storage components into one easy-to-use, plug-and-play system.

At the heart of the Data Warehouse Appliance is the Sun Fire™ X4500 server powered by Dual-Core AMD Opteron™ processors. The Sun Fire X4500 server
represents a revolution in server architecture for data warehousing. With up to 24 terabytes of on-board, high-density storage (48 drives in a 4 RU system), it delivers industry leading compute power, storage density, and near-zero latency access to data in a single, integrated solution. The hot-swappable disks provide 2 gigabytes per second serial read throughput per system. Utilizing the massively parallel processing architecture provided by Greenplum's MPP PostgreSQL database, the Data Warehouse Appliance
distributes data across all disks in the system, enabling query-in-storage processing for today's demanding data warehousing applications. The Data Warehouse Appliance powered by Sun and Greenplum changes the game in data warehousing with low acquisition costs, quality, global support, and technical expertise.The Data Warehouse Appliance truly transforms the economics of data warehousing.

Value Proposition

• Data Warehouse Appliance powered by Sun and Greenplum
• Open Source : PostgreSQL
• Solaris™10 Operating System and Solaris ZFS
• Sun Fire™ x4500 servers with 2 Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors
• Sun Fire x4100 server (parallel optimizer planner)
• 1 TB/mn Scan
• Scale to hundreds of terabytes
• Massively Parallel Processing
• MPP PostgreSQL
• Parallel Loading 500GB/hour
• Modular Design
• 100 TB/rack (DW100 hardware)
• 9 KW/rack
• Global Support
• Sun Solution Center
  

Sun and Clouds

I think that the Cloud Computing concept exists for several years but the technologies are now available and mature to be implemented in datacenter.
Cloud computing is a real business opportunity for service providers and outsourcing companies. They will be able to manage many datacenters across the world in different countries with lower total cost of ownership. According to me, Cloud Computing is the result of 2 major technologies, the Grid Computing and the Virtualization on servers, storage, network and desktop. Imagine many datacenters distributed in the world and managed as a unique resource. It is now possible in the real life with the new technologies !
The major difficulty for the Cloud computing is the infrastructure scablabilty distributed in any geographic points. If an application has need of more resources unavailable in one datacenter, the Cloud Computing must run simultaneously the application process on a second datacenter and so on.

Sun Value Proposition

• AMD, INTEL, CMT Processors blades in the same box
• Multi OS : Linux, Solaris, Windows
• High Performance Network Gigabit, 10G or Infiniband. Reduction of cabling with switch Magnum
• Sun Blade 6048 Modular System
• Sun Datacenter Switch 3456
• Sun StorageTek J4xxx
• Sun Storage 7000 Unified Storage System
• High Performance Storage (Lustre, pNFS, Sun Fire x4540 48TB, SAM-FS Archiving)
• Sun Studio 12 (for free)
• Sun Grid Engine (Open Source)
• Sun HPC Cluster Tools (OpenMPI)
• Hadoop : Distributed applications with high density of data
• MogileFS: File System  with horizontal storage extension on unlimited number of machines
• Dynamic System Domains, Solaris Containers, VMWare, Microsoft Virtual Server
• Sun xVM Infrastructure with Sun xVM Server ( LDom, Xen) and Sun xVM Ops Center
• Solaris Cluster and Geo Cluster Edition
• Storage virtualization : Sun StorageTek 99xxV and Sun Virtual Tape Library, Solaris ZFS
• Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software
• VirtualBox (Client virtualization)
  

The Helios-synchronous Dynamic Architecture

The best architecture for sales management of an multinational compagny. The system performance must be on top for user activity and data Integration. User activity and data integration are in day and night alternation for every time zone across the world. The system must follow the sun and be synchronized with users activity. Nevertheless the data integration activity being done the night, a reserve of power must be allocated at every time zone to guarantee the system availability and performance. It is thus necessary to design a dynamic system according to the days and nights alternation.

This solution is based on SAP BI Software and Solaris Containers.

• Solaris 10 and Solaris Resource Manager
• Resources guaranteed for any Time Zone
• One Local Zone/Time Zone per AS Instances
• Resources consolidation
• Global Zone for DB/CI Instances
• User activity the Day & Data Integration the Night
• Resources in Day & Night Alternation
• Dynamic integration for new country

The Key Success Factors (KSF) are the strategic elements that a company must monitor in order to ensure its durability and its ability to outperform its competitors.
The Key Success Factors are conditioned by the company and market environment.

Some Key Success Factors for deliver Business Value in the company :

• Products and Services standardization
• IT Processes Optimization
• Change Management
• Environnements Analysis, Monitoring, Automation Deployments
• Increase Hardware Use Ratio, Infrastructure Flexibility, Dynamic Infrastructure
  
• Business Continuity
• Open Source
• Service Level Agreement
• ...
  

          

You can’t manage, What you don’t measure !

IT Value Benefits are beyond Costs reduction, contributing to increase company's profitability
It's not easy to prove that an infrastructure gives business value to a company. I will try to answer at this difficult question.
To measure the IT infrastructure performance it is necessary to understand the performance indicator concept..


What is Key Business Value ?

• Focus on Industry : Bank/Finance, Government, Retail, Telco, Manufacturing...
• Business Value is Large : Stakeholder Value, Customer Value, Employee Value, Partner Value, Supplier Value, Managerial Value, Societal Value
• Key Business Indicators : Profitability, Revenue Growth, Customer Satifaction, Market Share, Cross-Sell Ratio, Marketing Campaign Response Rates, Relationship Duration...
• Common Language Management
• IT Portfolio
• IT Maturity

What is IT Value ?

• Business/IT Alignment
• Intellectual Properties
• IT Process Automation
• IT Performance
• Innovation
• Community
• Know-How
• Expertise
• Service Level Agreement

Key Metrics

• Key Metrics = Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• Technical performance indicators : CPU, I/O, SAPS, SpecInt, TPC-H, Availability Ratio, Time To Repair, Data Loss Ratio...
• Financial performance indicators : TCO, ROI, Depreciation...
• Ecological performance indicators: Space, Watt, CO2, RoHS Ratio, WEEE Recycling Ratio...

What is Performance Lever ?
The Performance Lever is specific key performance indicator, it increases the system performance and it interacts with key indicators
It is a functional indicator, not technical !

Example:

• #Concurrent Users Indicator is a Performance Lever (Business Indicator)
• #CPU and #I/O are Key Performance Indicators
• Calculate #CPU = f(#Concurrent users)
• Calculate #I/O = f(#Concurrent users)
• Start a Provisioning Process automatically
• with #CPU and #I/O Values
• Activate #CPU and #I/O Cards with Capacity on Demand Process
• Integrate a new Web server with xVM Ops Center and N1 Service Provisioning System process
• Testing

Measuring IT Value Process
Monitor

• Put technical captors in different points of the infrastructure via scripts, software…
• Gather technical, financial and ecological indicators values

Analyse

• Integrate the native indicators values into the CMDB (My SQL for example because it's free software)
• Calculate the complex indicators with native indicators
• Analyse the results with reporting tool (StarOffice Calc for example because it's not a expensive solution)
• Compare the results obtained to the awaited results.
• Build a dashboard for CIO, IT Managers

Optimize

• Infrastructure update with analysis results

           

Fast Requests for Users activity and Data Loading

To meet these challenges, SAP offers SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator, an appliance-like solution co-developed by SAP and Intel to leverage the advanced hardware design of Intel Xeon processors. Sun offers a solution for the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator on the Sun Blade 6000 family with Intel Xeon server modules. SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator offers performance improvements and query flexibility with the price/performance of Intel platforms. It also reduces IT support time by performing on-the-fly data aggregation and eliminating the need for query tuning. The SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator combines high-performance software from SAP NetWeaver with Intel processors to provide a Web search engine-like capability for structured data — delivering a 10 to 100 times average speed increase for query performance and as much as 80 percent faster load times. Completely transparent, it lets users browse detailed cube data without waiting for IT staff to fine-tune databases, providing the ability to ask any question any time. Built with open hardware and OS, business process management capabilities, and BI, the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator integrates easily into existing SAP environments without changing the data model.

Solaris 10 Containers is good for SAP BI Performance

SAP Netweaver architecture is made of 3 instances categories: Database Instance (DB), Central Instance (CI) and Dialog Instance (DI). The application server (AS) and dialog instance (DI) are the same. A customer often wants to know, if it is better to install DB and AS instances on the same physical server rather than on distinct physical servers. Another of its concern is if it is better to create AS or no.

Install DB and AS on the same physical server or No
This question depends on the Service Level Agreement of the SAP application. Availability is the first reason to decide to design an architecture with one or several physical servers. For a standard (no high availability) SAP BI application, you could install DB/CI and AS on the same physical server and isolate the different instances with Solaris Containers (Zone + SRM). For high availability SAP BI application, it is better to install one physical server for DB/CI instances and another for AS instances. Concretely, I advise blades server for AS instances and midrange or high end server for DB/CI instance. This solution is optimized for flexibility, availability and performance.

Create AS or No
Database (DB) and Central Instance (CI) are mandatory when you install SAP application, the Dialog Instance (DI) being optional . If you don't create a DI instance, ETL and users processes share the CI instance. Performance is managed by Solaris 10 and if you don't use advanced functionalities of Solaris, it will not be possible to insure availability of resources for one category of users for example. So, I advise to create several AS instances to separate different users categeories (ex. users in different countries of the world). After that, you can increase isolation application processes by configuring Zones for each AS and DB/CI instances. Flexibility will be better and you can manage resources allocations with Solaris Resource Manager (SRM).

          

MySQL, Yes for Business Intelligence

I think that MySQL can be a good compromise compared to the great databases of the Business Intelligence market having advanced functionalities in this field like Oracle or Sybase. Today we surely can propose MySQL as an alternative to Oracle or Sybase. MySQL evolves and is improved with various functionalities related to Business Intelligence.
Today, if you want increase Business Intelligence funtionalities with MySQL, you should add a software Infobright BrightHouse (it's a Data Warehouse engine for very large database)

It's a solution for Analytic Data Warehousing that delivers high performance for complex analytic queries across vast amounts of data. BrightHouse delivers the following key features:

• high query performance for analysis across terabytes of data.
• average data compression of 10:1 (10TB of raw data can be stored at 1TB).
• low administration requirements.
• runs on low cost, commodity hardware.
• compatible with all major BI tools including Cognos, Business Objects, etc.

BrightHouse at its core is a highly compressed column-oriented datastore that incorporates MySQL technology. BrightHouse leverages MySQL’s pluggable storage engine architecture and bundles MySQL Version 5.1.
The MySQL connectors (C, JDBC, ODBC, .NET, Perl, etc.) are used in BrightHouse. The MySQL management services and utilities are used as the technology around connection pooling. As with other MySQL storage engines, MyISAM is used to store catalogue information such as table definitions, views, users, permissions, etc.

For the reporting functionalities, we work with the partners like JasperSoft and Actuate. For the ETL functionality, we work with Talend (Open Source ETL).

Our stack Business Intelligence is thus: MySQL + Talend + JasperSoft.

For IT governance, I see real interest to position MySQL as a reference database to implement CMDB according to ITIL best practices. At first, to control IT performance infrastructure by deploying IT model in MySQL and then to have this model deployed in the field by professional services ( standardization phase ).

           

The Best Architecture for Business Driving

If you want to size this type of architecture you must read the BI rules and definitions here

Sizing Methodology
The major parameters for sizing business intelligence technical architecture are : Concurrent queries launched by users (low, medium, high), Processor (type, frequency), Operating System (name, version), Tools Analysis and Databases (name, version), Data (raw data volume, usesable data volume), Data flow (size, frequency, timing, complexity, period) and aggregates building.

Understanding Business Intelligence Rules and Definitions

If you want to understand the Business Intelligence and design the best architecture for the customers needs, then, you must know of them the rules and definitions. It is the best way of being able to dialogue more easily with the specialists.


What is Business Intelligence ?
Business intelligence (BI) is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI applications include the activities of decision support systems, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining. Business intelligence applications can be: Mission-critical and integral to an enterprise's operations or occasional to meet a special requirement Enterprise-wide or local to one division, department, or project. Centrally initiated or driven by user demand.

Raw Data vs Usable Data
Raw data is the data source resulting from the operational systems (CRM, RH, BILLING, PURCHASES, SCM).
Usable data is the result of raw data and technical data according database organization, like indexes, aggregates, metadata, axis, indicators and data work. Usable data does not include Raid factor.

Data Structure
The database is structured in 3 levels: Staging Area is the storage area for data validation. Data Warehouse is the storage area for data details and metadata (ex. Oracle, DB2...) and Data Marts is the storage area for business data including axis, indicators and aggregates (ex: Oracle, DB2, Sybase, Essabse...)

Users Activity
Named users may reach the Business Intelligence system. Users perform concurrent access to BI system ressources. Low users perform reporting by means of requests sweeping around 1.000 records. Medium users perform navigation and analysis around 100.000 records. High users perform ad hoc navigation and analyze large volumes of data with several joints of tables or full facts table scan around 1 million records.

Extraction, Transformation, Loading
Data Integration is more or less complex according to the transformation topics that they perform. Simple processing represents simple calculations, simple concatenations. Medium processing represents average calculations, medium concatenations. Heavy processing represents heavy calculations, statistical, complex algorithms and heavy concatenations

Software
Software is classified according to several technologies topics: ETL Tools for extraction, transformation and data loading (PowerCenter, DataStage, AbItinio...). Relational database (RDMS) is an entitie/relation data structure (ex: Oracle, Sybase, SAS Base, DB2...). Multidimensional database (MDMS) is a matrix data structure stored on disk (ex: Essbase, Powerplay...). Reporting/Analysis tools (ex: Business Objects, Cognos, SAS, SAP/BI...)

Time Management
The Business Intelligence system is different from the operational system because it integrates the time factor. Time management is very important in Business Intelligence: data retention duration (ex: 3 years), operational period (ex: Monday - Friday), operation frequency (ex: daily) and associated time frame (ex: 08:00 AM - 07:00 PM)

           

That's a unique Sun IT Propositions which brings Value to the Company

It is an important part of business value proposition as it shows our core-business :
- Our assets compared with competitors
- Our services capabilities
- A significant reference including figured customer benefit
- Functional and technical indicators to drive solution performance

The IT model is based on 5 axis :
  Scalability/Power : Horizontal/Vertical Scalability, Power (CPU, I/O...)
  ECO : Economy (Costs), Ecology (KVA, RoHS, WEEE...)
  Security : (Data, Access...)
  Availability : (Clustering, Components redondancy...)
  Flexibility : (Virtualization, Provisioning...)

A large part of Sun's IT value proposition is based on the fact that we master all the key elements of the IT value chain.
It does not mean we cannot address heterogeneous environments, but it creates the conditions to deliver strong IT solutions to our customers.
We know how to address a broader range of needs and when we answer a business problem from one of our customers,
we are in a position to consider all the aspects of it. This is a strong differentiator compared to some of our competitors who are specialized in one area.

We have defined the Sun IT value propositions that can be seen as templates of the “Business/IT Alignement Approch” which are instantiated when we address a particular customer.
A given IT value proposition defines the typical key performance indicators that we use. It also describes the unique assets and services that Sun owns and that makes Sun proposition unique on the market. Finally, a real life customer experience is presented.

Sun IT Value Propositions

1. Industrialization and Best Practices : Products/Services, IT processes industrialization and best practices
2. Standardized technical basis : Normalization and management of technical basis evolutions, architecture principles
3. Optimization of computer rooms : physical room optimization, consolidation, cooling and electric security
4. Provisioning : Environment analysis, monitoring and deployments automation
5. Infrastructure Virtualization : Utilization ratio improvement, infrastructure flexibility
6. Desktop Virtualization : Access to applications from everywhere in the world with complete security
7. Web 2.0 : Technologies and Web use for next Internet generation
8. Eco Datacenter : Economical and Ecological infrastructure for Datacenter
9. Open Source : Freedom and software components choice
10. Disaster Recovery Plan : Infrastructure for disaster recovery
11. Infrastructure Business Application : Technical infrastructure for ERP, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing
12. High Performance Computing : Parallel computing grids
13. Business Continuity : Availability and security infrastructure according  to Service Level Agreement
14. Identity Management : Users identification and access management
15. Security : Information access in full security
16. Archiving : Data Management from its creation to its destruction. Data archiving
17. Data Protection : Backup, restore, data replication
18. Services Oriented Architecture : Systems interoperability, Web Services
19. x86 : Servers and software with high performance at low cost
20. CMT : Servers and software with high performance at low cost
21. Cloud Computing : A Software Design and a Set Of Architectures (Grid Computing and Virtualization)

          

The Sun Solution Aligned on the industries business drivers

Business drivers are the people, information, and tasks that support the fulfillment of a business objective.
They lead the company trying to get it away from pitfalls and turn unforeseen mistakes into good lessons for future success and sustainability. A business needs to be constantly driven and updated to be at par with its competitors and to be in sync with the latest trends in business technology which change sometimes very unexpectedly. The business drivers that I propose to you is only for information, not suffisant for specific business. It is only the business trends for industries. Business drivers are in strategy center, objectives and processes according the market company.

Business Drivers by Industry

• Manufacturing : Resources Consolidation  - Manufacturer/Supplier collaboration - Reengineering sales – Re engineering  distribution - Intensified focus on customer - Costs Reduction - Eco Responsibility
• Telecommunications : Convergence audio/video, fixed/mobile – Internationalization – Outsourcing - Customize Services - Costs Reduction
• Banking Finance : Increase banking and financial transaction - Critical size on the market - International development - Banking and financial regulations observance - Inheritance optimization and mangement - Activities diversification - Increase risks management - Costs Reduction
• Government : Provide direct information access - Citizen services enhancements - Public security - Provide timely access to decision support information  - Accomplish more work with fewer resources - Recognize and adapt to frequent business process changes - Eco responsibility
• Retail : Need to manage profitability and control expenses - Increased competition from traditional and new providers - Need to mitigate current and emerging risk - Increased regulatory pressures - Industry consolidation – Consumers adoption of electronic channels and payments - Consumers concerns about security and privacy - ECO responsibility : Reduce wastes, Biological foods...
• Media & Entertainment :: Emerging media environments – Evolving consumer behaviors - On-going technological innovation - Increasing scarcity of consumer attention – Costs Reduction - ECO responsibility
• Healthcare : Accelerating Employers-Led Initiatives - Consumerism Entering Healthcare - Accelerating IT Adoption Among Providers  - New Consumers-centric Technologies - Disintermediation of Care - Patient Security - Costs Reduction - ECO Responsibility
• Education & Research  : Enable Anytime, Anywhere Access - Create Intelligent Buildings - Protect School Records and Information - Protect Safety Incidents on School Campus -  Creating a New Form of Collaborative Education  - Expanding the Boundaries of Knowledge - Costs Reduction - ECO Responsibility
• Transportation & Travel : Social Responsibility - Technology, exposure to other cultures - Collecting and Sharing experiences - Consolidation for buying power - Business Travel online Adoption - Increase Safety - Green Initiatives - Costs Reduction
• Energy : Increase refining capacity in traditional petroleum - Grid Connected Power improvement - Investments in the renewable energy sector - Energy education - Carbon emissions reduction  - Power consumption reduction - Energy cost reduction - Security power plan

           

KPI to follow the IT Infrastructure Performance

The IT Infrastructure is analyzed according 5 axis of IT model (scalability/power, flexibility, security, availability, economy/ecology). and the performance is measured by the Key Performance Indicators.
Control IT infrastructure is to give the means of measuring the variations of architecture states and of being able to anticipate the risks which degrade its level of maturity and thus the value business delivered by the company.


I propose performance indicators classified by IT Infrastructure Solution

• Industrialization and Best Practices : Incidents number handled per day, Solving mean time for an incident, Changes number Mean time for the change, Infrastructure Maturity Level, Mean time to repair...
• Standardized Technical Basis : OS Number, OS number releases, Administration software number, Open source components ratio, Technical basis change frequency, Total Cost of Ownership...
• Computer Room Optimization : Servers consolidation ratio, Storage consolidation ratio, SwaP ratio, Hot points number in a room, Electric consumption ratio, Square meter reduction ratio, Return on Investment...
• Provisioning : Time to deploy a new service, Update time, Services number deployed per year, OS number deployed per year, Applications number deployed per year, Administration ratio for a deployment...
• Infrastructure Vitualization : Virtualized applications ratio, SwaP ratio, Use rate of equipment environment, Return On Investment, Virtual machines number, Availability ratio...
• Desktop Virtualization : Virtualized terminals number, Virtual machines number deployed per year, Decibels decrease ratio in the call center, Productivity improvement ratio, Temperature decrease ratio in the call center....
• Web 2.0 : Open Source components number, Electrical consumption, Costs saving, SwaP ratio, Web concurrent users number, Time to Repair, Return on Investment, Total Cost of Ownership...
• Eco Datacenter : Servers consolidation ratio, Storage consolidation ratio, SwaP ratio, Electric consumption ratio, Square meter reduction ratio, Return On Investment...
• Open Source : Open Source projects number, Open Source Components number, Contributors number, Economies made by the OpenSource choice, Freedom of Choice, Service Quality, Open standards...
• Disaster Recovery Plan : Data quality ratio after incident, Recovery point objective, Recovery time objective, Full recovery time objective...
• Business Application Infrastructure : Response time, Number of concurrent users, Data flow integration time, Availability ratio, Mean time of intervention on site, Number of application modules composing the solution...
• High Performance Computing : Mean calculation time, Gflops number, Watt/Flop number, Availability ratio, Processors number, Calculation hours number per year...
• Business Continuity : Data quality ratio after incident, Recovery point objective, Recovery time objective, Full recovery time objective, Hardware availability ratio, Data restore period...
• Identity Management : Propagation time of a new user, Exemptions number, Applications number integrating the SSO, Notifications number per user, Propagation anomalies number per year, Password number per user...
• Archiving : Retention period of archived data, Resource consumption per service, Media number on which the data have transited during its lifecycle, Return On Investment, Mean time of an archived data research...
• Data Protection : Data availability ratio, Data retention duration, Data restore duration, Data quality ratio after incident...
• Service Oriented Architecture : Time to make a new service available, Cost of inter-services cross charges, Applications ratio participating to the SOA, Response time, Data repository quality...

           

Ecology it's good for planet and good for business

OpenEco is a global on-line community that provides free, easy-to-use tools to help participants assess, track, and compare energy performance, share proven best practices to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and encourage sustainable innovation. more


March 21, 2007 - Today is International Earth Day, a day celebrated each year around the world on the vernal equinox. It's also a good time to remind ourselves that even small changes in the way we conduct business can have a big impact on our environment.
At Sun, eco responsibility is about changing the way we approach business, IT, and the environment through sustainable computing. To do that, we innovate, act, and share. more

Our Technology Assets

• TCO/ROI Model
• 64 bits processors multi-cores multi-threads (CMT)
• Sun StorageTek 6540 Disk Array
• Sun StorageTek SL8500 Tape Library
• Infrastructure consolidation (Racks, Blades, Sun Modular Datacenter S20..)
• Virtualization (Solaris Containers, Sun xVM Infrastructure, Dynamic System Domains, SAN, VTL, Sun Modular Datacenter S20, Sun Ray 2)
• Electrical consumption and space reduction
• Restriction on the use of certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling

• The own Sun experience on his Santa Clara's Datacenter (USA)
     Click on this photo

           

Business Intelligence drives Business and IT Performance

In today’s highly competitive business climate, making better decisions faster
can mean the difference between surviving and thriving. The challenges are
managing the exponential growth of data in a cost-effective and secure manner,
while transforming relevant data into information for decision support needs. Sun takes the cost and complexity out of today’s business intelligence and data warehouse requirements with a single open platform whose architecture can scale to meet your entire needs from deployment today to meeting your growth needs tomorrow. The results are faster access to information, the ability to make better decisions quickly and speed up time to market.

Sun has more 2000 customers references in business intelligence and data warehousing in the world on all industries (bank/finance, manufacture, retail, government, telco...)
Sun Microsystems developed a network competenties and expert in Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing around the world and working with its partners : SAS, Oracle, Informatica, SAP, etc.
The Sun Microsystems Business Intelligence Solutions integrate specific services around Extraction, Transformation and Loading,  Database, Reporting, OnLine Analytical Processing, Technical architectures, Proof-of-Concept and Benchmarks.

See performance results DMreview, Wintercorp, TPC           

The qualification of the Business Intelligence technical architecture is declined according three assumptions :

1. Data storage volume : for disk sizing. technical architecture support the data volume. The useful volume is the raw volume for operational systems with index, agregats, metadata and data work for database system.
2. Extract, transform and load : for extraction, transformation and data loading. The technical architecture support for ETL process is based on the data flow volume and data processing.
3. Users volume : for sizing users activities (Reporting, OnLine Analytical Processing). The technical architecture support for reporting process is based on concurrent users number on Data Warehouse and Data Marts.

Our Technology Assets

• Architecture based on projects experiences, benchmarks (SAPS, TPC-H) and references architectures
• Architecture has been making for change and functional evolutions
• Sun is technical partner with SAP and Oracle
• N1 Advanced Architecture for SAP
• Oracle RAC and SAP Netweaver optimized on Sun Platform
• SAP Skill Center at Walldorf in Germany
  
• Sun VIP Support for SAP and Oracle

           

IT Value for your Business Needs

Here I propose a deployment of the overall approach. I analyze the business model, then define an IT model that fits the business needs and in the end propose some IT solutions based on hardware, software and  value added services.
Business and IT Alignment is not a one time activity: it is actually a closed loop cycle where we re-evaluate IT needs according to the business needs on a regular basis.
Business changes quickly, so we need to be able to react and adapt the IT infrastructure to those changes. This approach gives us the needed reactivity to do that. So this is pretty common sense ! But this has to be done in a conscious and organized manner. So, in order to help our customers evolving in terms of IT maturity and delivering business value, we now tend to use at Sun the Business/IT Alignment Approach.
It consists first in identifying the business drivers that apply to a particular customer. These business drivers can be related to some strategic goals, to tactical objectives, to Corporate process improvements, to specific constraints of a particular industry...
It is central for an IT provider to understand up front these business drivers. There is no way we can design and deploy effective IT solutions without going through that step first. This is particularly true for storage where a lack of understanding of those drivers often leads to a very monolithic and difficult to manage storage in the best case or to silos of non interoperable storage in the worst case.
Once business drivers are identified, we need to understand key success factors and key performance indicators that will be used in order to drive and monitor progress. When I say "performance", I actually mean technological but also financial, environment and security. As an example, we may want to achieve a decrease of 30% on floor space. We may also want to achieve a higher availability on some critical data... To say it simply, we have to understand what needs to be achieved in terms of IT objectives, keeping in mind the business drivers that have been identified.
Business/IT Approach is an iterative loop and consist in aligning business drivers part of the business model with the success factors part of the IT model. The key performance indicators measure the performance of the IT solution according business, financial and technological criterias.
Each time a business model changes, IT model changes and in the end  IT solution also.

Example in Telco industry

• Key Business Driver : Negotiate convergence fixe phone, mobile phone, Internet and TV
• Key Success Factor : Deliver customer services independent of the support
• Key Performance Indicators : Virtualized applications ratio, SwaP ratio, Use rate of equipment environment, Return On Investment, Number of virtual machines, Availability ratio...
• IT Value Proposition: Infrastructure virtualization - Improvement of utilization ratio and infrastructure flexibility

           

Dynamic Infrastructure for Business Value

The goal is to show that gaining maturity from an IT standpoint in order to deliver business value goes through a series of well defined steps.
5 Levels of maturity are defined by Gartner on IT Management Process Maturity Model.
Crisis control, IT Component management, IT Operation management, IT Service management, Business value management. The first step in this maturity model is to build a strong industrialized and normalized IT infrastructure. This is usually achieved through standardization of IT needs and answers to those needs as well as consolidation of existing resources. This is in particular applicable to servers and storage where we often see a proliferation of resources in organizations that barely reach levels 1 or 2 in the maturity model scale.
The next step in gaining maturity now more and more resides in virtualization. Once more this applies not only to computing platforms but also to storage. Virtualization permits in particular to put in place provisioning which is a key requirement for an effective servers and storage management strategy. It brings the required agility to face the quickly changing business needs.
The last step is to achieve automation. This is what is required to reach the top levels of the maturity scale and drive IT really from a business perspective. Once more, the needs of business change quickly and the IT infrastructure must be adapted in a very reactive manner. Only automation can do that.
On top of that, we always need some form of governance layer that allows the IT managers to assess and control IT operations. A certain number of indicators and tools need to be put in place. We typically Information Management Maturity Model (IM3) to help our customers evaluate their storage management maturity and Operation Management Capabilities Model (OMCM) for operations management maturity. Dynamic architecture, it is automation according to Business/IT Alignment approch. The infrastructure "On Demand", it is the dymamic adaptation of IT solution to the business needs for the company and entirement automated.

IT Dynamic according IDC more

Infrastructure Industrialization

• A 360° sight of Staff, IT Processes and Products
• Best Practices ITIL, Sun i-Runbook (Best Practices Sun and Customer)
• Approach : Services Optimized DataCenter, Data Center Reference Implementation
• Methodologies : Prince2, Six Sigma, COBIT, Information Management Maturity Model (IM3); Operation Management Capabilities Model (OMCM)
  
• Services : Operations Capabilities Assessment

Infrastructure Virtualization

• Datacenter virtualization
• Sun xVM Server
  
• Storage virtualization
• Sun Virtual Desktop
  

Infrastructure Automation

• Sun xVM Ops Center
  
• N1 Service Provisioning System
  
• N1 Advanced Architecture for SAP
• Business Continuity
  
• Services Oriented Architecture

           

The Sun solution aligned on the Top Strategic Technologies 2009

Virtualization
Cloud Computing
Servers - Beyond Blade Servers
Green IT
Web-Oriented Architectures
Enterprise Mashups
Specialized Systems
Social Software and Social Networking
Unified Communications
Business Intelligence

IT Trends according Gartner more

           

That's a unique Sun Proposition which brings Value to the Company
It's enrolling within the scope of governance and integrates business intelligence.
A business value proposition contains in a company context: strategy, objectives,
business drivers, assets, services capabilities, customers references, promise (business drivers and IT solution crossed matrix), and key performance indicators (business, financial, technical).

The business model is based on 4 axis :
  Industry (ex: Manuf., Bank, Telco, Gov...)
  Strategy (ex: Innovation, Customer satisfaction...)
  Objective (ex: Personnalize et individualize services, Adaptation for regulatory constraints...)
  Process (ex: Sales, Supply, Billing...)

Business value proposition best practices

• Consult the activity report of your customer`s company.You will find in it informations like strategy,business drivers and financial performance indicators.
• Consult CIO which will give you further informations on the IT stakes they will have to overcome .
• Consult analysts reports (Gartner, IDC, Forrester...) which will give you the IT trends and business needs for each market.
• Consult Web sites and press articles to get informed of the market events
• Have a good dose of creativity to amaze your customer