on November 30, 2017 AIX Cloud Migration AIX Cloud Onboarding

AIX Cloud Service Onboarding

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Some cloud workloads may be simplistic in nature, and relatively straight forward to enable. IBM AIX workloads, on the other hand, tend to include significant applications, which may have complexities and specific or unique system requirements—even when dealing with development or test partitions. 

 

To efficiently migrate AIX to the cloud and capture the system requirements, we have developed an onboarding process to identify those unique characteristics of the AIX cloud workloads up front, which ultimately reduces onboarding time and ensures all aspects are properly covered.

What's Involved in the Onboarding Process?

In our onboarding process, captured through a worksheet, you will find all the standard items necessary for the virtual workspace, such as CPU, memory and disk storage. Additionally, there may be requirements for the following: 

Network

Integrating the AIX Cloud into your network is one of the most important considerations and it is critical to get this right. The solution developed is generally based around the planned amount of usage for the cloud implementation. Cost considerations are taken into account also.

  • Connectivity—There are typically two means of connectivity: Virtual Private Network (VPN) or customer supplied dedicated/private link. VPN is a faster implementation, but it can limit the speed of the connection and may cause the users a few more steps to connect to the cloud. A customer supplied dedicated/private link allows seamless and potentially faster connectivity, but implementation is slower.
  • IP Addressing—The customer guest server will be accessed using at least a single IP address within a specified range. More IP addresses can be requested if necessary.

Security

AIX security ownership is entirely up to you, the customer. The standard delivery is the root ID password, which is known by Data Integrity as well as your administrators, so Data Integrity can recover the customer guest server, if it becomes necessary to do so, without additional interaction with customer personnel. However, if the customer wishes, the root password can be changed, claiming sole ownership of the guest server. In that case if the server needs to be recovered, the customer must provide Data Integrity administrators with the current password to restore a copy of the environment.

Unique Operating System Levels

In the onboarding process, we capture the level and version of the standard supplied AIX image. If you require a unique level, you can provide that information in the worksheet.

Software Stack

The software stack for the cloud environment is usually a unique stack and is supplied by the customer. Licenses are the customer’s responsibility.

Data Onboarding

Data onboarding can range in difficulty. Simplistic data onboarding requirements (usually in gigabytes of size) can be loaded through the network connection. However, if there are terabytes of data, or if the network connection is relatively slow, it may be necessary for you to load the data onto a Data Integrity supplied appliance in order to successfully onboard the data.

Data Offboarding

The customer in most cases will want to manage the process of offboarding the data. You may want to take a tested environment and move it into a production environment. Or you may be terminating the cloud environment and wanting the data removed and completely erased. The onboarding worksheet, captures the complexity of the offboarding, if known at that time, and identifies any assistance required to perform the activity.

Data Encryption

Data encryption within the guest server is available upon request. The worksheet helps to clearly identify this requirement.

Data Backup and Recovery

Data backup and recovery is a unique requirement, and is not part of the standard delivery. There are multiple options available, including a customer supplied backup and recovery implementation of their corporate standard. 

Disaster Recovery

Disaster recovery is not a supplied option. However, customers may request that function in the worksheet, and Data Integrity will determine if it is possible.

Are these Chargeable Features?

Within the onboarding worksheet, the included items are identified and supplied as part of the AIX Cloud offering. Unique requirements are identified and a services cost will be provided prior to any work being performed.

This is a comprehensive list of usual additional functions that may be required. However, there may be other unique needs required. They can be added to the onboarding worksheet and Data Integrity will determine if these services can be provided.

Conclusion

The Onboarding Worksheet is a means to facilitate communication between the customer and Data Integrity. It's our way of helping you experience a smooth transition to the AIX Cloud.

Ready to discuss your AIX Cloud requirements? Reach out to us today to schedule a discussion.

Bruce Danforth

Chief Technical Officer at Data Integrity

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