Management
The Cloud, Under Control

Tools for managing cloud services range from easy-to-use dashboards that let you create virtual software stacks in minutes to enterprise-class platforms that handle a full range of provisioning and management tasks. The further you get into cloud computing, the more you'll need those higher-end tools.

Amazon.com, Google, and other cloud service vendors provide the basic tools to get started. The administrative console in Google's App Engine, for example, shows traffic levels, bandwidth and CPU utilization, and error rates of Google-hosted apps, and lets you dig into the log file for other detailed data. You also can use it to control administrative rights and manage application upgrades.

However, App Engine is still in "preview" mode, which means those tools will max out as requirements increase. "We're still missing some pieces," admits Google product manager Pete Koomen.

Cloud service providers, startups, and systems management vendors are scrambling to give customers more full-featured tools to manage resources in cloud environments. Amazon says a new management console and cloud-monitoring capabilities for its Elastic Compute Cloud service are "coming soon." Amazon already provides basic functionality, such as the ability to create Amazon Machine Images using a command-line interface. The console will let users configure and manage EC2 resources, while the monitoring capabilities will include real-time metrics on EC2 instances and "availability zones"--those parts of the Amazon infrastructure that customers select for redundancy and maximum availability. Load balancing and auto-scaling also are in Amazon's 2009 plans.

Companies that specialize in cloud management are another option. RightScale's platform--offered as a hosted service--includes a management dashboard, database and Web site management, batch processing, multiserver deployment capability, and the ability to scale automatically. A bare-bones developer's edition is available free, but most IT departments will need one of RightScale's three other editions (Website, Grid, and Premium), which start at $500 a month plus a one-time fee of $2,500.

Founded last year, RightScale got its start with Amazon Web Services and is now expanding to manage other public cloud services, including FlexiScale's and GoGrid's. RightScale also has a version of its platform for the University of California at Santa Barbara's Eucalyptus Public Cloud, an implementation of the open source Eucalyptus software for cloud computing on clustered servers. It's essentially a research and testing project, but the goal is to be able to manage public clouds and Eucalyptus-based private clouds from RightScale's dashboard.

As Easy As Web Apps
IT departments experienced at managing Web apps and infrastructure will find that cloud computing has similarities. "If you can manage Web apps, you can manage cloud apps," says Javier Soltero, CEO of Hyperic, which has a version of its Web application monitoring software that runs in Amazon Web Services.

Hyperic HQ consists of a central management server -- which typically runs on a company's on-premises server -- and agents that reside on Web servers and report back to the management server with availability, performance, and other metrics. With the just-released HQ 4.0, the Hyperic server has been configured as an Amazon Machine Image in EC2. For IT administrators, that means ease of deployment, subscription pricing, and faster performance. Hyperic HQ's capabilities include auto-discovery of software, diagnostics, alerts, analysis and reporting, and other tools.

Beware of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude toward cloud apps. "The notion that, because you're deploying an application in the cloud, it's inherently free from monitoring and management is one of the great lies of cloud computing," Soltero says. "Code is inherently flawed and technology breaks, so you've got to be able to monitor that."

Kaavo also specializes in multicloud management. The startup's platform supports server monitoring, LAMP software configuration in the cloud, load management, software audits, patch management, runtime configuration management, and notifications and alerts. Its Infrastructure and Middleware On Demand software has been out in a free test version; a general release is due soon. In Kaavo's favor is its management team: Founder and CEO Jamal Mazhar is a Sun-certified J2EE architect, and CTO Shahzad Pervez is a former director of IT and enterprise architect at major companies.

Leading systems management vendors are bringing new controls to the cloud, too. IBM's Tivoli unit plans to inject cloud management into its Service Request Manager, Provisioning Manager, and Monitoring products, says Dennis Quan, IBM Software's director of development for autonomic computing. IBM also wants to boost confidence in cloud security by giving customers greater "control" over the systems that house their data in the cloud, although Quan didn't say how IBM will do that.

Microsoft's answer to cloud management is still in development. It introduced the Windows Azure operating system and related Azure Services Platform in October but hasn't said when Azure cloud services would be available, although the development tools and basic building blocks for getting started are available to developers. Also in October, senior VP Bob Muglia demoed a version of Microsoft's System Center enterprise management platform, code-named Atlanta, that will run in Microsoft's cloud.

As all this activity shows, vendors are hurriedly developing enterprise-class controls for emerging cloud services. The challenge for IT administrators is to get the tools in place before cloud service adoption takes on a life of its own.

-- John Foley

This story was updated Dec. 23 to correct the name of the Hyperic HQ product.