IBM® SmartCloudTM Entry provides a fully integrated software stack for transforming a virtualized environment to a cloud environment. The intuitive self-service portal allows users to get up and running quickly. Built-in workload metering and additional tools enable tight controls and planning. The IBM Reference Configuration for VMware on IBM System x® with SmartCloud Entry provides an affordable, easy to deploy, private cloud architecture with configurations based on leading-edge technology from IBM, VMware, and Juniper Networks. The reference configuration is for midsized companies that need simpler and affordable IT solutions, without compromising on functionality. IBM and VMware, world leaders in enterprise-class IT solutions, are now bringing IT solutions tailored to the midmarket. This IBM RedpaperTM publication provides setup, configuration, and deployment details for the reference configuration and is intended for IT professionals who are familiar with software and hardware setup and configuration.

This IBM® RedpaperTM publication provides a brief overview of cloud technology, and describes how, from a user perspective, IBM SmartCloudTM Entry can help you access the benefits of the cloud. In particular, the product provides a comprehensive cloud software stack with capabilities that you otherwise might need to purchase separately as multiple products from multiple vendors. Businesses with an existing virtualized platform (IBM Power SystemsTM with PowerVM® or IBM System x with VMware vSphere) can be transformed to a private cloud. IBM SmartCloud Entry makes this transformation possible. IBM SmartCloud Entry integrates with the IBM PureFlexTM System, so that clients with PureFlex System can also experience easier cloud-ready deployments. IBM SmartCloud Entry adds a self-service, user portal, and basic metering to your existing virtualized platform. Overall, IBM SmartCloud Entry delivers improved service levels and fast time-to-value results for receiving the benefits of a private cloud infrastructure. The four use cases demonstrate how easily IBM SmartCloud Entry can be deployed and the possibilities for improved efficiencies in your organization. The cases demonstrate cloud deployment in PureFlex, VMware, Power Systems and x86 environments, and a telecom company. Also described are two IBM SmartCloud Entry processes, showing the ease of provisioning and installing with this product. This paper is directed at decision-makers, such as CFOs, CIOs, CEOs, IT managers, systems administrators, enterprise architects, systems architects, and IBM Business Partners. Presales and post-sales technical staff can benefit from discussing this paper with clients and potential clients.

Distributed computing has been transformed with the introduction of virtualization technology. This has driven a re-architecture of traditional data center workload placement. In 2012, IBM® announced IBM PureSystemsTM, a new offering based on preconfigured software, servers, and storage that form an expert integrated system. Expert integrated systems now combine traditional IT resources into a single optimized solution, with prepackaged components including servers, storage devices, networking equipment, and software. With this evolution of technology, we move from discrete, siloed, and underutilized IT resources to shared resource pools. This IBM Redbooks® publication can help you install, tailor, and configure IBM SmartCloud® Entry on the IBM PureFlexTM System offering. This book is intended for anyone who wants to learn more about cloud computing with IBM SmartCloud Entry and offerings based on IBM Flex SystemTM elements.

In a traditional deployment model, software is installed on a physical server, and it is configured for the particular data center environment. The cloud deployment model requires that the dependency on a specific hardware configuration is severed. This IBM® Redbooks® publication guides you through the transition from the traditional application deployment model to the cloud-friendly deployment model. It explains how to achieve these goals by packaging the software stacks into industry standard virtual appliances. A key part of this transition involves using the IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool. This tool is the IBM tool for creating virtualized workloads that target several private cloud deployment platforms, including platforms from IBM and not from IBM. In fact, this tool is unique in its ability to support such a wide range of cloud offerings. It is also the only tool in the marketplace that can create virtual appliances for both x86 and IBM Power hardware architectures. This book provides an in-depth look at the capabilities and internal workings of Image Construction and Composition Tool. It focuses on the capabilities of this tool, which target the virtualization and cloud offerings of IBM Systems and Technology Group. These offerings include IBM Systems Director VMControlTM, IBM SmartCloud® Entry, and IBM PureFlexTM System with IBM Flex System ManagerTM appliance. The Image Construction and Composition Tool also has a much richer set of capabilities. Specifically, it supports IBM Workload Deployer, IBM PureApplicationTM Systems, and IBM SmartCloud Provisioning. This publication targets software architects, cloud solutions architects, and cloud administrators. Its goal is to provide you with the expert-level skills required to package the existing and newly created applications into self-configurable, smart virtual appliances. Related publication: Smart Virtual Appliances Made Easy with IBM Image Construction and Composition Tool, TIPS1037

SmartCloud Control Desk is a comprehensive IT Asset and Service Management solution that helps reduce cost and minimize service disruptions. It does so through automated service request handling, efficient change management, and optimized asset lifecycle management across IT and enterprise domains. SmartCloud Control Desk helps to reduce total cost of ownership by using one unified solution to license, install, and manage multiple ITIL processes under one price point. It can also help reduce business risk by using advanced impact analysis and defining automated change procedures that ensure integrity of existing infrastructure while supporting business agility. SmartCloud Control Desk improves efficiency and quality of service by unifying asset, change, and problem management. It lowers cost and mitigates license compliance risk by performing end to end software asset management. It also delivers an adaptive, role-based simplified UI that can be more intuitive for novice users, which reduces training costs, while allowing access from anywhere at anytime through mobile device support that includes BlackBerry, iOS, and Android. In addition, SmartCloud Control Desk supports both a profit center business model for internal IT organizations, and an external Service Provider model. It allows organizations to manage customers and customer agreements and bills for managed assets, usage, and work activities while improving utilization rates and reducing unnecessary purchases by managing the IT asset lifecycle. You can deploy SmartCloud Control Desk in a variety of ways; traditional on-premise, SaaS, VM image. This approach can make it more affordable to meet your current business needs, and seamlessly move between delivery models while keeping the same functionality. This IBM® Redbooks® publication covers IBM SmartCloud® Control Desk product configuration, customization, and implementation best practices.

Cloud computing opens a broad range of business opportunities across the computing industry and enables companies in other industries to provide services to their employees, customers, and partners. Cloud computing provides a compelling approach to addressing this opportunity. The IBM® SmartCloudTM for Service Providers portfolio can dramatically lower the business and technical barriers of entry to cloud computing. Companies rely on their business applications and systems as an integral part of their business. They can expand the business value of their applications and systems by using cloud computing to enable delivery of these functions as services. Companies have various options when adopting cloud computing. They can: Use existing service providers to operate services on their behalf. Implement hybrid solutions that extend existing applications through integration with cloud services. Add cloud service hosting capability to their existing facilities. For ecosystem partners, cloud computing provides compelling capabilities that ease deployment and long term management and maintenance. Equally important, cloud computing facilitates a more flexible business and technical environment. This environment can expand, contract, and adapt as services are added, removed, and evolve. The cloud replaces physical activity associated with change and change management by creating a fluid environment that adapts through automation. This IBM RedguideTM publication describes the business and technology choices companies make when entering the cloud service provider space. It introduces various cloud service provider business models and shows how to apply them to your business. This guide introduces the IBM CCRA cloud service provider adoption pattern, providing guidance about the definition, architecture, and deployment of cloud computing environments. Two cloud service provider deployment scenarios are highlighted throughout the guide, and they reflect the two most common starting points for service providers entering the cloud computing marketplace. The guide culminates with details about these deployment scenarios, and showing how they can be deployed today.

To meet today's complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of compute, storage, networking, and software resources that is simple to deploy and can quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need to be able to take advantage of broad expertise and proven preferred practices in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance, and more. The IBM® Flex SystemTM p260 and p460 Compute Nodes are IBM Power SystemsTM servers optimized for virtualization, performance, and efficiency. The nodes support IBM AIX®, IBM i, or Linux operating environments, and are designed to run various workloads in IBM PureFlexTM System. This IBM Redbooks® publication is a comprehensive guide to IBM PureFlex System and the Power Systems compute nodes. We introduce the offerings and describe the compute nodes in detail. We then describe planning and implementation steps and go through some of the key the management features of the IBM Flex System Manager management node. This book is for customers, IBM Business Partners, and IBM technical specialists that want to understand the new offerings and to plan and implement an IBM Flex System installation that involves the Power Systems compute nodes.

Organizations are looking for ways to get more out of their already strained IT infrastructure as they face new technological and economic pressures. They are also trying to satisfy a broad set of users (internal and external to the enterprise) who demand improvements in their quality of service (QoS), regardless of increases in the number of users and applications. Cloud computing offers attractive opportunities to reduce costs, accelerate development, and increase the flexibility of the IT infrastructure, applications, and services. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is the typical starting point for most organizations when moving to a cloud computing environment. IaaS can be used for the delivery of resources such as compute, storage, and network services through a self-service portal. With IaaS, IT services are delivered as a subscription service, eliminating up-front costs and driving down ongoing support costs. IBM® has defined the Cloud Computing Reference Architecture (CCRA) based on years of experience of working with customers who have implemented cloud-computing solutions. The IBM CCRA is a blueprint or guide for architecting cloud-computing implementations. This IBM RedguideTM publication highlights the Cloud Enabled Data Center adoption pattern and describes how you can use it to define an IaaS solution. This guide is intended for chief technology officers, data center architects, IT architects, and application architects who want to understand the cloud-computing infrastructure necessary to support their applications and services by using an IaaS solution. It explains the technical and business benefits of a Cloud Enabled Data Center solution. It introduces a Cloud Enabled Data Center maturity model where each maturity level corresponds to an increase in the degree of automation and the cloud-computing capabilities that are available. In addition, this guide describes the architectural framework provided by the IBM CCRA and explains details about the Cloud Enabled Data Center adoption pattern.

IBM® SmartCloud® Virtual Storage Center provides efficient virtualization and management of heterogeneous storage systems. It facilitates migration to an agile cloud architecture that can optimize storage availability and performance, while helping to reduce costs. IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center (VSC) helps convert existing storage to IBM Smarter Storage, providing more room for data growth and simplified storage administration. This IBM Redbooks® publication gives an overview of the concepts of software-defined environment (SDE) and software-defined storage (SDS), and how they work together with VSC. It explores the architecture, components, and interfaces, providing details of VSC and how to use it. It also includes practical scenarios and use cases, helpful for client VSC business environments, with a focus on the following topics: Introductory concepts VSC components and available integrations Storage management component of VSC Storage virtualization component of VSC Application aware data protection component of VSC VSC storage provisioning VSC storage optimization This book is primarily for storage administrators, users who are responsible for maintaining IT and business infrastructures, and anyone who wants to learn more about IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes the positioning of the IBM Systems Director in the complete management range. It also compares the IBM Systems Director with the IBM Flex Systems Manager (FSM) and describes the environments for which each tool is best suited. This publication helps you plan, install, tailor, and configure the IBM Systems Director on different platforms. It contains information about required system resources and which network ports are used. It shows how to use the Workload Estimator to select the appropriate hardware for IBM Systems Director server and provides information about the IBM Systems Director Editions. Best practices are covered for the basic management tasks that are available in IBM Systems Director, including how to perform discovery; how to collect inventory on discovered resources; how to deploy agent, driver, and firmware updates; how to manage hardware events; and other miscellaneous tasks. An overview of best practices is provided for using IBM Systems Director VMControlTM. Systems Director VMControl is a cross-platform product that assists you in rapidly deploying virtual appliances to create virtual servers that are configured with the operating system and software applications that you want. It also enables you to group resources into system pools, which enable you to centrally manage and control the different workloads in your environment. The following plug-in offerings are described: Energy monitoring and management features offered by IBM Systems Director Active Energy ManagerTM along with the best practice, which needs to be followed in using the IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager. The IBM AIX® Profile Manager is a tool that can help implement and monitor the security of all AIX servers in a production environment but also implement and monitor the system compliance of those AIX servers. Best practices and the most important questions to ask before creating Workload Partition Manager (WPAR) and WPAR Manager infrastructure. In addition, how you can manage and relocate WPARs using WPAR Manager graphical interface and the command-line interface. Network Control basic functionalities and how to plan for Network Control deployments and also a number of common scenarios with best practices. The IBM Systems Director Service and Support Manager describes how to set up and how to handle serviceable events. Best practices for the Storage Monitoring and Management capabilities offered by IBM Systems Director server. This book is for IBM IT specialists and IT architects, IBM Business Partners, and clients, who are utilizing or considering implementing IBM Systems Director.