INDUSTRY

Cluster Resources has announced that it is working with HP to deliver a next-generation cloud computing platform to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), part of the U.S. Department of Defense, using Cluster Resources’ Moab software to intelligently adapt, manage and optimize the cloud computing resources. “Moab’s intelligent orchestration capabilities enable computing environments that are both efficient and adaptive, even in highly complex environments,” said David Jackson, chief technology officer of Cluster Resources. “DISA is not building an ‘old-school’ static cloud but rather is creating a best-of-breed solution by combining Moab’s advanced management intelligence and HP’s provisioning, monitoring and management tools. The DISA cloud provides a flexible computing platform that adapts, self-optimizes, self-heals and delivers resources on demand to meet both the current and future needs of the agency.” The Department of Defense, through DISA, provides advanced information technology and immediate communications support to the president, vice president, secretary of defense, military services and combatant commands. DISA offers solutions and enhanced capabilities that enable its customers to make rapid decisions using real-time information and turn these decisions into critical strategic, operational and tactical actions (see www.disa.mil). DISA’s cloud computing infrastructure, known as RACE (Rapid Access Computing Environment), will serve a potential user base of around three million DOD personnel, enabling users to describe their computing needs and gain rapid access to a fully functional environment. The requesting personnel will utilize a custom version of Moab Access Portal for Clouds to graphically request resources from anywhere with Web access. The portal interfaces with Moab Cloud Service, which analyzes information collected from HP and government tools to evaluate resource availability, enforce SLA constraints, validate payment and then orchestrate the provisioning of a fully functional and secured computing environment. Using the DISA cloud, requesters are able to specify what they want to accomplish and describe the resources needed. The Moab cloud service applies highly sophisticated scheduling intelligence and workflow infrastructure to optimally map new requests to available resources while automatically addressing security needs, resource failures, workload surges, dynamic changes to existing allocations, and other conditions. Prior to the cloud solution from Moab and HP, DISA manually evaluated, created, configured and secured compute environments using a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. The additional burden of manually contending with hardware failures, changing schedules and payment issues compounded the difficulties of managing this environment. Moab’s unique design allows DISA to automatically and intelligently handle all of these processes with a solution that adapts to real-world disruptions. The Moab cloud service works in conjunction with HP’s enterprise provisioning tool, HP Operations Orchestration, and HP Service Manager, which inform Moab of resource availability, system failures, critical events and changing customer needs. The resulting solution unifies and simplifies the management of DISA’s cloud provisioning into a comprehensive offering. The collective power of these elements empowers DISA to ensure all compute resources are used effectively. With this integration, the Moab-enabled solution delivers a next-generation cloud service that is business-ready and delivers true resource ownership together with intelligence that can guarantee access to both resources and services based on service-level agreements (SLAs). Utilizing a reservation-based predictive cloud algorithm, Moab can validate SLA enforcement deep into the future while also providing an unrivaled level of optimization. This predictive scheduling can be combined with Moab’s automated learning to allow the performance of applications running within the cloud to be constantly improved in a manner that is fully transparent to end users. “DISA needed a scalable solution that would deliver a shared, flexible and reliable infrastructure for its next-generation cloud computing platform,” said Scott McClellan, chief technology officer, HP Scalable Computing & Infrastructure organization. “The integration of Moab with HP’s unique range of provisioning, monitoring and management tools has provided the Department of Defense with the agility required to fulfill its mission in an automated, cost-effective, efficient manner.”