F5 White Paper

Availability and the Cloud

Cloud computing offers IT another tool to deliver
applications. While enticing, challenges still exist in making
sure the application is always available. F5’s flexible, unified
solutions ensure high availability for cloud deployments.

by Peter Silva
Technical Marketing Manager
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Availability and the Cloud

Contents
Introduction 3

Cloud Forecast: Partly to Mostly Sunny 4

Delivering Applications in the Cloud 4

Achieving Availability in the Cloud 5

Conclusion 8

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Introduction
“By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets.”1 While the need for Cloud computing is a style
hardware will not disappear completely, hardware ownership is going through a of computing in which
dynamically scalable and
transition: Virtualization, total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits, an openness to often virtualized resources are
allow users run their personal machines on corporate networks, and the advent provided as a service. Users
of cloud computing are all driving the movement to reduce hardware assets. need not have knowledge of,
expertise in, or control over the
While many IT departments haven’t yet fully embraced all the potential of cloud technology infrastructure in the
computing, there is a growing understanding that cloud computing can offer cost “cloud” that supports them.
Furthermore, cloud computing
savings, including a reduction in capital expenses. Cloud computing also offers
employs a model for enabling
the ability to deliver critical business applications, systems, and services around the available, convenient, and
world with a high degree of availability, which enables a more productive workforce. on-demand network access to
a shared pool of configurable
There are three primary deployment models for the cloud: public (resources computing resources (e.g.
networks, servers, storage,
provisioned and available over the Internet), private (internal provision of resources applications, services) that
through intranet and virtualization), and hybrid (a combination of public and can be rapidly provisioned
and released with minimal
private models). Within these deployment models, different delivery services
management effort or service
provide infrastructure, platform, and software delivery. Although there is also some provider interaction.
confusion (and disagreement) about the parameters of these services—particularly
given the ongoing evolution of the cloud—most of the industry recognizes three F5 Networks Cloud Survey,
service delivery models: August 2009

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS delivers computing infrastructure as a

service. Instead of purchasing hardware and other infrastructure components,
customers use some form of virtualization to access outsourced resources. Because
consumption is on an on-demand basis, costs directly reflect the amount of use.

Platform as a Service (PaaS): PaaS delivers computing and development platforms

(for example, Microsoft .NET, Java EE, Google applications) as a service, giving
users the ability to deploy and develop applications without significant hardware
and software expense or management time. Since the deployment platform is very
specific, like .NET, there might be limitations of the types of applications that might
be supported. For instance, Google App Engine only supports applications written
using Python while Heroku supports Ruby on Rails application development.

Software as a Service (SaaS): By delivering applications as a service, SaaS offers

customers pre-packaged/pre-built applications through a standard web browser.
With SaaS, customers can avoid the installation and management of software on
their own computers and further benefit from centralized, automatic software
updates as well as lower costs. Customers don’t need to dedicate valuable resources
to software deployment or management.

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No matter which cloud service—IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS (or combination thereof)—

customers or service providers choose, the availability of that service to users is
paramount, especially if service level agreements (SLAs) are part of the contract.
Even with a huge cost savings, there is no benefit for either the user or business if
an application or infrastructure component is unavailable or slow.

Cloud Forecast: Partly to

Mostly Sunny
Over the last year or so, cloud computing has quickly grown from a little-understood
delivery model to a valuable resource for IT departments. IT departments don’t need
a cloud expert on staff since many of the offerings and services are either pre-built
or are similar to what has traditionally been deployed in house. In fact, the primary
difference is that the offerings and services are not located in house, but outside the
organization in one or more data centers either off-site or in the cloud.

As hype about the cloud has turned into the opportunity for cost savings,
operational efficiency, and IT agility, organizations are discussing, testing, and
deploying some form of cloud computing. Many IT departments initially moved
to the cloud with non-critical applications and, after experiencing positive results
and watching cloud computing quickly mature, are starting to move their business-
critical applications. No matter what the deployment model, much of the initial
capital outlay for hardware, software, bandwidth, licenses, and more is reduced,
enabling business units and IT departments to focus on the services and workflows
that best serve the business.

Delivering Applications in the Cloud

Like business, the cloud is dynamic in nature; as such, cloud computing integration
and support needs to be flexible. F5® solutions, in general, focus on the task
of application delivery. Since the driver for any cloud deployment, regardless of
model or location, is to deliver applications in the most efficient, agile, and secure
way possible, all F5 solutions can fit within the cloud infrastructure and enhance
application delivery. The dynamic control plane of cloud architecture requires the
capability to intercept, interpret, and instruct where the data must go and must
have the necessary infrastructure, at strategic points of control, to enable quick,
intelligent decisions and ensure consistent availability.

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F5 products and solutions provide the scalability, extensibility, adaptability,

manageability, security, and real-time performance required of a dynamic control
plane. Since the cloud exists just about anywhere, controlled, contextual delivery
of applications becomes paramount in the realm of availability. F5 products such as
BIG-IP® Local Traffic Manager™ (LTM), BIG-IP® Edge Gateway,™ and BIG-IP® Global
Traffic Manager™ (GTM) help customers and service providers alike build a cloud
computing environment that meets specific needs. F5 products provide intelligent,
strategic points of control through proxies, policies, and services in a unique,
modularized delivery infrastructure that is capable of handling the high-volume of
traffic associated with cloud computing. Additionally, because F5 solutions can be
deployed on a wide range of hardware platforms, they help ensure availability.

Achieving Availability in the Cloud

The on-demand, elastic, scalable, and customizable nature of the cloud must be
considered when deploying cloud architectures. Many different customers might be
accessing the same back-end application(s), but each customer has the expectation
that only their application will be properly delivered to users. Making sure that
multiple instances of the same application are delivered in a scalable manner requires
both load balancing and some form of server virtualization. As an Application Delivery
Controller (ADC), BIG-IP LTM represents the pinnacle of load balancing. BIG-IP LTM
can virtualize back-end systems and can integrate deeply with the network and
application servers to ensure the highest availability of a requested resource. Each
request is inspected using any number of metrics and then routed to the best available
server. Knowing how an ADC can enhance your application delivery architecture is
essential prior to deployment. Many applications have stellar performance during the
testing phase, only to fall apart when they are live. By adding the BIG-IP® Local Traffic
Manager™ (LTM) Virtual Edition (VE) to your development infrastructure, you can
build, test and deploy your code with ADC enhancements from the start. By providing
a programmable, adaptable platform BIG-IP LTM enables the scalability necessary in
the cloud and the availability necessary for the particular application delivered from
the cloud.

Since application availability is paramount in the cloud, BIG-IP LTM, built on the
TMOS® modular traffic management platform, enables the addition of features and
functionality without disrupting the production architecture. Load balancing is just
the foundation of what can be accomplished. In application delivery architectures,

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additional elements such as caching, compression, rate shaping, authentication,

and other customizable functionality, can be combined to provide a rich, agile,
secure and highly available cloud infrastructure. Scalability is also important in the
cloud and BIG-IP LTM can bring up or take down application instances seamlessly—
as needed and without IT intervention—helping to prevent unnecessary costs if
you’ve contracted a “pay as you go” cloud model. BIG-IP LTM can also isolate
management and configuration functions to control cloud infrastructure access and
keep network traffic separate to ensure segregation of customer environments and
the security of the information. The ability of BIG-IP LTM to recognize network and
application conditions contextually in real-time, as well as its ability to determine the
best resource to deliver the request, ensures the availability of applications delivered
from the cloud.

F5 Powered Cloud
with iControl
Clients
Remote Employees
Partners
1 3

Cloud Data Center

Location 1

F5 Application
Delivery Network
Corporate Infrastructure with iControl
3

1 2 BIG-IP Global 3 F5 Application

Traffic Manager Delivery Network
with iControl

Cloud Data Center

Location 2

Corporate Users

Corporate Data Center

1 Users (local or remote) make a request to access web resources.

2 BIG-IP GTM makes a determination based on capacity, performance, location (and other
user-specified parameters) which site—local or cloud—will best service the request. If the
cloud is an F5 powered cloud, the parameters from which the administrator can choose will
be more extensive.
Administrative domains isolate configuration and management for fine-grained control over
access to cloud computing infrastructure.
3 The selected data center/cloud answers the request.

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Availability is crucial; however, unless applications in the cloud are delivered without
delay, especially when traveling over latency-sensitive connections, users will be
frustrated waiting for “available” resources. Using SSL technology, F5 BIG-IP® Edge
Gateway™ is a high performing controller, offering secure, accelerated access no
matter where in the world a user is located. With the BIG-IP® WebAccelerator™
product module and the BIG-IP® WAN Optimization Module,™ web applications
are delivered with LAN like speed, and file transfers are smooth even on high latency
lines. Using cache, adaptive compression, and data deduplication, access to
applications and needed resources is so fast that users could just as well be
connected directly to a LAN. If other BIG‑IP devices are deployed throughout the
overall infrastructure, administrators can create secure optimized tunnels between
BIG-IP devices, creating an instant private backbone. When a user initiates a secure
connection from their client to the BIG-IP, and there is a secure tunnel between
BIG-IP devices, you get double encryption with ultimate optimization and high
availability all with BIG-IP devices.

Additional cloud deployment scenarios like disaster recovery or seasonal web

traffic surges might require a global server load balancer added to the architecture.
BIG-IP GTM, which is built on the same TMOS architecture as BIG-IP LTM, uses
application awareness, geolocation, and network condition information to route
requests to the cloud infrastructure that will respond best. BIG-IP GTM can also
determine the geolocation of users based on IP address and route them to the
closest cloud or data center, all without user interaction. In extreme situations, such
as a data center outage, BIG-IP GTM will already know if a user’s primary location
is unavailable and it will automatically route the user to the responding location.
BIG-IP GTM provides global application availability whether you choose IaaS, Paas,
or SaaS.

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Conclusion
Cloud computing, while still evolving in all its iterations, can offer IT a powerful
alternative for efficient application, infrastructure, and platform delivery. As
businesses continue to embrace the cloud as an advantageous application delivery
option, the basics are still the same: scalability, flexibility, and availability to enable
a more agile infrastructure, faster time-to-market, a more productive workforce,
and a lower TCO along with happier users. Even though cloud computing in all its
variants is still evolving, F5 provides a set of flexible, unified solutions to address
cloud delivery needs now and in the future to help ensure the cloud computing
environment is always fast, secure, and highly available.

i
Press Release: Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2010 and Beyond

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