Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 16 | Page 36

FEATURE: NETWORK AUTOMATION For example, while the virtualisation component may be handled by the server team, a different team entirely may be responsible for all the network aspects. As a result, the network team may have no visibility into virtual machine (VM) resources as they’re created and destroyed, which makes it difficult for them to link these to automated set-up and configuration tasks. Indeed, without this visibility, and the lack of up-to-date and accurate information on which IP addresses and DNS records are assigned to which VMs at any given time, there’s very little point in networking teams even attempting to comply with audit and security policies. Various different factors such as applications, locations, and users need to be tracked for VMs and networks, IP addresses, and DNS zones but, while most server admins will have access to this information, it’s likely that most networking teams won’t. A reliance on using manual methods for the creation and deletion of VMs will result in their responses being slow. Arguably one of the main attractions of cloud deployment – the promise of rapid delivery – can be hindered by the time it can take for the manual provisioning of DNS records and IP addresses in a virtual environment. It may sound simple, but without a DNS entry, those virtualised resources cannot be seen on the network. And if they can’t be seen, they can’t be used. If you can provision resources in a matter of minutes, but have to wait days or even weeks to get them in use, you’re not getting the value from your investment in cloud technology ASHRAF SHEET Regional Director, MEA, Infoblox IF DNS AND IP ADDRESSES IN THE CLOUD AREN’T BEING MANAGED FROM A CENTRAL RESOURCE, IT TEAMS MAY FIND THEMSELVES FACED WITH AN INCOMPLETE AND OUT-OF-DATE VIEW OF THEIR NETWORKS, THEIR VIRTUAL PRIVATE CLOUDS (VPCS), IP ADDRESSES, AND THE DNS RECORDS BEING ASSIGNED 36 INTELLIGENTCIO What’s more, the possibility of a potentially costly network outage caused by unreliable DNS, DHCP and IP address management services can pose a significant threat to any organisation, with risks that extend beyond just the network itself, as evidenced by recent news headlines. The foundation of any organisation Those organisations with clouds running critical workloads, or spanning multiple different geographical locations, require www.intelligentcio.com