When it comes to cloud environments, cable operators would do well to go with a hybrid model for a variety of reasons, according to a keynote panel Tuesday morning at Expo.
Comcast executive vice president and chief technology officer Tony Werner moderated the panel “Cable’s cloud forecast: More apps and infrastructure,” which also included a discussion on the role that dev ops and agile developments played in the cloud setting.
Werner and fellow Comcast employee Mark Muehl, senior vice president, product engineering said Comcast initially went with more of a private cloud several years ago. But Werner pointed out that one disruptive Linux kernel would propagate itself unchecked across various systems.
Since then, Muehl said that Comcast has gone with a heterogeneous approach for cloud infrastructure, which includes a deal with Amazon that provides Comcast with cloud insurance and a playground for prototyping applications in the hybrid cloud.
Cisco cloud architect Geoff Arnold said the hybrid cloud model would be the norm going forward, but the various cloud-based technologies and applications need to be knitted together.
“That’s an interesting challenge we’re taking on now,” Arnold said.
In the face of disruptive technologies, Werner asked Arnold what role the cloud would play going forward.
“The disruption is really at both the application and the infrastructure levels,” Arnold said. “On the application level it’s obvious that we can deploy new apps much more rapidly because we don’t have to go through the lengthy procedures for provisioning and the human processes.
“There’s also disruption at the infrastructure level because we can slide in the new technologies very rapidly without having to negotiate the applications up and down the stack. In both cases that means that we need decision making that can keep up with the technology. Organizational and business decision making and operational decision making so we can move as fast as the cloud allows us to.”
In the past, Werner said that when Comcast wanted to roll out a new guide some divisions could say they were too busy at the time. With the cloud, there’s no stopping the new guide being deployed.
The key to enabling cloud-based rollouts and apps is getting former disparate teams on the same page.
“At some level operating in the cloud, whether it’s for infrastructure purposes or application purposes, the dev ops model is about removing friction in the process,” Muehl said. “When we’re talking about infrastructure, it’s making it easier for developers to get the technical systems they need in order to build the system. Then when you get success with the system it’s easy to scale it up.
“In the dev ops environment one of the things we learned over the past few years is when we really step on the gas for dev ops at Comcast is that when you have an ops team and dev team you have two different groups of teams, at least, with different incentives. With the ops team it’s typically focused on keeping it stable, and making sure we have a great experience with our customer. Then we have a dev ops team that is trying to get a feature out. By blurring the lines between those two different organizations and two different goals, by uniting the goals, we get a great experience out for the customers that is stable. By getting everyone on the same page we remove that friction.”
As for agile deployments, Muehl pointed to the recent Sochi Olympics where Comcast deployed NBU’s app. Since NBC carried the Olympics, and Comcast committed to carrying numerous streams, Comcast had 200 virtual machines on hand the opening night. The app proved to be so popular that Comcast had to deploy more virtual machines to keep up.
In the legacy days, procuring additional equipment would have taken Comcast 3 to 6 months. Werner said Comcast can stand up and tear down virtual machines at will and the Olympic virtual machines have since been re-purposed.
Nick Barcet, vice president, products and pre-sales, eNovance/Red Hat said that before a company comes to him wanting a cloud-based service they first need to figure out what their business needs are.
“I’ve seen many customers that come to us that want a cloud,” he said. “I spend a lot of time asking them what their business needs are. If they can’t explain their business needs, I can’t help them. By concentrating on the business outcomes, that’s how the cloud becomes successful.”
Other keys to cloud-based apps and services include building apps with self-resiliency and forcing the apps to fail in order to find software failures, according to Arnold and Barcet.
“To summarize, one of the themes is that we’re still at the very beginning and I think the balance between how much freedom you give developers versus how much security are things that are going to continue to ebb and flow as we find different models,” Werner concluded. “It’s an exciting time. I think it’s not only important to our future but its imperative.”
