1

2 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth

Transformation to Cloud

IDC OPINION

The power of digital technologies, such as cloud computing, big

data, mobile, and internet of things (IoT), is being constantly
released. Enterprises with stronger innovating ability in digital
transformation are having a bigger impact on the market. Any
enterprise implementing a digital strategy may possibly become
a market leader, with continuing growth in operating revenues,
profitability, and estimated market value.

IDC identifies enterprise IT functions as support business or

business innovation, but the gap between them is becoming
small. In the era of digital transformation and cloud computing,
enterprises will continue to develop new business based on
3rd Platform technologies. Despite the speedy growth of the
public cloud computing market in recent years, many large
enterprises still have concerns for replacing existing traditional
IT infrastructure with public cloud computing. They need to
consider migrating businesses and applications to cloud smoothly.
Organizations should migrate IT infrastructure to a suitable cloud
model based on the feature of their applications and workloads for
less impact on current business support.
 IDC Opinion 3

InCloudRack is a significant innovative product

of integrated architecture, including multiple
computing, storage, network resource, and a
IDC recommends that users adopt flexible,
unified management platform, which is the best
architecture of IT platform for the new-generation configurable infrastructure platforms that
enterprise. InCloudRack can leverage scale-up and
best match the features of applications.
scale-out functions to varied applications while
supporting centralized and distributed storage By building an IT infrastructure that meets
configuration. It provides an on-demand modular both typical applications, enterprises can
deployment model and a cloud-oriented optimized
management platform, applied in scenarios such support agile business activities and also
as compute-intensive application, virtual resource critical workloads to beat the competition
integration, cloud computing platform building,
in the future.
distributed storage, large databases, enterprise
resource planning (ERP), customer relationship
management (CRM), big data, high-performance
computing, and network functions virtualization
(NFV).
TABLE OF CONTENTS

MARKET OVERVIEW

Digital Transformation Trends of Enterprise Users 6

Cloud Trend of Enterprise IT Infrastructure 7

ENTERPRISE IT INFRASTRUCTURE'S GRADUAL TRANSFORMATION TO

CLOUD

Cloud Computing Market Segmentation 9

Cloud Market Situation 10

Public Cloud Market 10

Private Cloud Market 11

Concerns About Cloud & Workload Migration 12

INSPUR INCLOUDRACK SUPPORTS SMOOTH MIGRATION TO CLOUD

Software Define & Demand-Driven Modular Hardware 14

Modular Hardware Design 15

Cloud-Oriented Orchestration Software 17

The Benefit of the InCloudRack Design 18

Compatible for both Scale-Out and Scale-Up Architecture 18

Support both Centralized Storage and Distributed Storage 19

CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES

CONCLUSION
 5

LIST OF FIGURES

1 Five Dimensions of Digital Transformation 6

2 Digital Transformation and 3rd Platform Technologies 8

3 Cloud Computing Market Segmentation by Deployment Model 9

4 Worldwide Public Cloud Services IaaS Market Forecast, 20152020 10

5 Worldwide Private Cloud Infrastructure Spending Market Forecast, 20152020 11

6 Cloud User Workload Migration Trend 13

MARKET OVERVIEW
Digital Transformation Trends of Enterprise Users
Internet and digital technology are becoming
integral parts of peoples lives and work.
IoT, social media, and mobile technology are
constantly changing the type of interaction
between people, enterprises, and government.
The government, finance, and internet or
traditional manufacturing enterprises are all
thinking about how to transform digitally to
achieve differentiation of product and services.
The power of digital technologies, such as cloud
computing, big data, mobile, and IoT, is being
constantly released. Driven by these new digital
technologies, the value chain will be broken
and reshaped, and a new ecosystem will arise.
Figure 1 Five Dimensions of Digital Transformation
The digitalization business model is breaking the
existing rules of the game and creating a newer
experience for users.
Enterprises with stronger innovating ability in
digital transformation are having a bigger impact
on the market. Any enterprise implementing a
digital strategy may possibly become a market
leader, with continuing growth in operating
revenues, profitability, and estimated market
value. According to IDCs perspective, the maturity
of digital transformation can be measured in five
dimensions, namely leadership, omni-experience,
information, operating model, and WorkSource.
Source: IDC, 2016

IDC's Global Digital Transformation Survey 2015
found that 64% of enterprises were still in the
process or initial stage of digital exploration. The
digital transformation strategy is limited and only
implemented on a pilot basis, which cannot provide
substantial digitalization-driven products and
services. In utilizing innovative digital technologies,
these enterprises seemed to be too cautious. The
effective ecosystem has not been formed with
low complemented and integrated technology.
Therefore, digitalization needs a long time to finish
the transition from quantity to quality. Meanwhile,
IDC found that numerous enterprises are showing
greater interest in digital transformation. In the
foreseeable future, there will be more enterprises
crossing the initial phase of digital transformation,
becoming a digital transformer and game changer
of the market.
Cloud Trend of Enterprise IT
Infrastructure
IDC believes that new IT is the key to realize
digital transformation. New IT will push the
innovation of production, management, and
marketing; reshape industry chain, supply chain,
and value chain; and reform traditional functions.
Market Overview 7
The 4+6 technologies based on the 3rd Platform
are the key elements of the new IT era. The 4
represents 3rd Platform technologies, namely
cloud computing, big data, social business, and
mobile technology, whereas the 6 represents six
innovation accelerators (i.e., next-generation
security, virtual/augmented reality, IoT, cognitive
computing, robotics, and 3D printing).
IDC believes that the future of digital
revolution will be determined by 10
technologies that will continue releasing
their potential and interact with each other.
Therefore, the 3rd Platform and relevant
technologies, especially cloud computing,
intelligent interconnection, and big data
technology, will dominate digital innovation in the
next couple of years.
 8 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth
Transformation to Cloud
Figure 2 Digital Transformation and 3rd Platform Technologies
IDC identifies enterprise IT functions
as " business support" or "business
innovation," but the gap between them is
becoming small.
Source: IDC, 2016
In the era of digital transformation and cloud
computing, enterprises will continue to
develop new businesses based on 3rd Platform
technologies. IT needs to accelerate with business
expectations for delivery of services and products.
Fast upgrades and innovation of business mean
that IT infrastructure has to change. To meet the
demands of a growing business, organizations need
to adopt a cloud platform to achieve scalable
performance, flexible configuration, efficient
operation, and powerful computing.
 9
ENTERPRISE IT INFRASTRUCTURE'S GRADUAL
TRANSFORMATION TO CLOUD

Cloud Computing Market Segmentation

Cloud computing is not just public cloud computing. According to the cloud computing deployment
model, IDC segmented cloud computing into five models of deployment.

Figure 3 Cloud Computing Market Segmentation by Deployment Model

Source: IDC, 2016

The market includes a self-run private cloud, private cloud of outsourced management services
deployed in users self-built datacenter, virtual private cloud, hosting private cloud, and public cloud
deployed in the datacenter of cloud services providers.
10 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth
Transformation to Cloud

Cloud Market Situation

In the past few years, cloud technology has seen a

great success. Both public cloud and private cloud
that provides computing capability and storage
space is of greater popularity in the market. According to IDC Public Cloud
Public Cloud Market Computing Data Tracker, the
IaaS market of global public
Under the context of Internet Plus and digital
transformation, corporate users have generally cloud computing in 2015
begun to deploy online outward applications on had hit US$12.6 billion and
public cloud platforms, including marketing and
online promotions, whereas governments are the 2020 forecast will reach
also actively making cloud computing services US$43.6 billion.
standards and government purchase access
systems, promoting the transition of government
purchase to a specialized service delivery.

Figure 4 Worldwide Public Cloud Services IaaS Market Forecast, 20152020

Source: IDC, 2016

 Enterprise It Infrastructure's Gradual
Transformation To Cloud 11

Private Cloud Market

Although it does not have an astounding growth rate as the public cloud service market had, private
cloud also achieved double-digit growth in 2015. According to the IDC Cloud Infrastructure Data Tracker,
worldwide private cloud investment reached US$12.5 billion on IT infrastructure in 2015, whereas users
such as government, finance, energy, and utilities all prefer deploying their mission-critical applications
on private cloud rather than public cloud.

Figure 5 Worldwide Private Cloud Infrastructure Spending Market Forecast, 20152020

Source: IDC, 2016

IDC forecast that worldwide private cloud

IT infrastructure spending will hit US$21.1
billion in 2020.
12 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth
Transformation to Cloud

Concerns About Cloud & Workload Migration

Despite the speedy growth of cloud computing market in recent years, many large enterprises still have
concerns on replacing existing traditional IT infrastructure with cloud, including:

Security Legacy system Performance Legal compliance

Most large enterprise users
have many legacy systems.
The security of cloud
They need new infrastructure
computing, along with data
support compatible with
security and availability,
their past applications, even
has remained a concern for
though they already built
users.
on old architecture over five
years ago.
The performance of a system
is more important to large
CIOs need to follow
enterprises. Cloud services
regulations on issues related
lack support for enterprise
to information security and
workload, enterprise users
intellectual property rights
need infrastructure to provide
(IPR) leaks.
a scale-up capability, which
public cloud cannot offer.

IDC believes that organizations should have a clear goal and road map of
implementing a cloud project. They should implement their cloud platforms step
by step during the practice of cloud.

To migrate the business and applications smoothly is one of the most important jobs in implementing
a cloud project. Organizations should migrate IT infrastructure to a suitable cloud model based on the
feature of their applications and workloads for less impact on current business support and keeping
total cost of ownership (TCO) under control.
 13

Figure 6 Cloud User Workload Migration Trend

Source: IDC, 2016

14 INSPUR INCLOUDRACK SUPPORTS SMOOTH
MIGRATION TO CLOUD
To support traditional enterprises transition
to cloud platform smoothly, Inspur has
launched InCloudRack's integrated
infrastructure, which is packaged as a whole
rack server solution.
It is an important innovative product of integrated
infrastructure, including computing, storage, and
networking resources, and also managed as an
integrated platform.
In contrast to a traditional rack or blade server,
InCloudRack is a software-defined whole rack
solution. Since businesses drive IT infrastructure
to continue to evolve, there would no universal
platform for every workload. End users need both
hardware and software to continue optimizing
to support a growing business. Inspur believes
the software-defined and hardware-restructured
platform will be the innovation of converged
infrastructure. With the restructuring of hardware
and configuration of software, InCloudRack will
ideally be used for many applications including
compute-intensive application, virtualization
environment, cloud management platform,
distributed storage, RDMS, ERP, CRM, big data,
high-performance computing, and NFV.
The whole rack architecture also increased the
consolidation level of power and cooling, further
improving energy efficiency and rack density,
decreasing the total cost.
Software Define & Demand-Driven
Modular Hardware
The software define and modular hardware is the
innovative design for support restructure both
hardware configuration and software deployment.
It is design for meet the demand for various
computing and storage capabilities for various
workloads.
End-user already begins to adopt software define
infrastructure solutions, for build an agility
platform and improve datacenter efficacy. But
they are still facing the problem due to the
flexibility and scalability of hardware. The
commodities server nodes cannot support various
workload, and it is also cannot extend quickly to
support fast growing of business.
To solve the concern of end-users, Inspur provides
modular deployment options for InCloudRack, in
which users or system integrators can configure to
support various business demands. The innovative
design of InCloudRack includes demand-driven
modular hardware design and Cloud-oriented
orchestration software platform.

Modular Hardware Design
There are six types of nodes InCloudRack supports,
including four computing nodes and two extension
nodes:
01
Two-socket half-width
computing node NX5460M4.
This is a half-width server based
on the Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3/v4
series CPU and supports 24 DDR4
memory slots. With high computing
capability, this model is ideal for
compute-intensive applications,
virtualization environments, and
cloud computing
platforms.
04
Eight-socket full-width
computing node NX8880M4.
This is composed of four units
of NX8280M4 combination,
stacked by QPI. This model is
ideal for databases, ERP, CRM,
high-performance computing,
virtualization, and NFV.
02
Two-socket full-width computing
node NX8280M4. This is a full-
width server based on the Intel
Xeon E7-4800/8800 series CPU and
supports 48 DDR4 memory slots. With
high computing capability, memory,
and extension capability, it can be
assembled to a four-way or eight-way
server by stack modules with 2/4 units
to support scale-up workload. This
model is ideal for databases, ERP, CRM,
and high-performance computing.
05
Storage extension node. This is a
half-width node at 1:1 ratio combined
with NX5460M4, supporting 12 of
2.5in. Serial Advanced Technology
Attachment/Serial Attached Small
Computer Systems Interface (SCSI)/
solid-state drive (SATA/SAS/SSD) hard
disks to extend storage capacity
for computing nodes. It is ideal for
distributed storage, big data, private
cloud, and virtualization.
Inspur Incloudrack Supports
Smooth Migration To Cloud
15
03
Four-socket full-width computing
node NX8480M4. This is
composed of two units of NX8280M4
combination, stacked by Intel's
QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). This
model is ideal for databases, ERP,
CRM, high-performance computing,
virtualization, and NFV.
06
Peripheral Component
Interconnect Express (PCIe)
extension node. This is a half-width
node at 1:1 ratio combined with
NX5460M4, supporting two of PCIe
3.0's x16 slots or four of PCIe 3.0's x8
slots. It supports a many integrated
core (MIC) adapter, graphics processing
unit (GPU), PCIe SSD, and other PCIe
devices. It provides an extension of
I/O resources for computing node. It is
ideal for computing
acceleration, deep
learning, video
analytics, and
virtualization.
16 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth
Transformation to Cloud

Inspur InCloudRack supports various workloads, including compute-intensive, storage-intensive, and

compute storagebalanced solutions, by modular design and modular combinations. It means users can
choose different architectures to support the business requirements of system performance and capacity
expansion. InCloudRack supports existing and emerging workloads. By combining computing modules and
extension modules, it supports all general workloads and mission-critical applications. By deploying the
storage extension module, it can support distributed storage, big data, and private cloud. By deploying
the PCIe extension module, it can support new workloads, such as deep learning and video analytics, by
installing components of PCIe, SSD, and GPU.

Compute-intensive Compute storage Heterogeneous Mission-critical All in one

workload balanced workload acceleration workload workload

Cloud-Oriented Orchestration Software
InCloudRack has a preinstalled Inspur InCloud
Manager (ICM) software. It supports private
cloud and hybrid cloud platform management
by providing an open and secure management
platform. It is integrating the management
platforms of computing, storage, and network
resource to build software-defined datacenter,
dynamic optimization of applications, intelligent
resource management, and automatic service
delivery.
Based on a virtualized resource, ICM provides
integration of resources from a datacenter and
provides cloud management function and cloud
services. Based on OpenStack structure, ICM
provides overall management of cloud platform.
The cloud management platform is composed of
modules involving cloud resources management,
resource monitoring, business management,
billing, deployment and configuration, failover
management, and reports system.
ICM provides comprehensive operation and
maintenance management of various hybrid
physical resources and virtual resources. The
operation and maintenance function of ICM covers
different types of nodes. The main features
include:
Inspur Incloudrack Supports
Smooth Migration To Cloud 17
Node firmware batch upgrading and
configuration (Basic Input/Output System
[BIOS] upgrade and redundant array of
inexpensive disks [RAID] configuration)
Node software batch deployment
Software automation function with zero
proxy
Overall management function of asset and
software
Overall failover management and report
ICM also provides hardware monitoring, billing
management, and multiuser management
functions by providing resources view, node
view, business view, alarming management,
performance management, report management,
and assets view of monitoring function. With
a pay-per-use model, the billing management
supports expenses calculation based on cloud
resources. Multiuser system management defines
the authority of each user.
The system administrator can delegate
managed functions to the organizational
manager to avoid low efficiency due to
complicated user resources application.
18 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth
Transformation to Cloud

The Benefit of the InCloudRack Design

Since Inspur InCloudRack provides a demand-driven modular hardware design and cloud-oriented
optimized orchestration platform, it support the demand for agility of internet and cloud users, and
also to accommodate traditional legacy workloads.

Compatible for both Scale-Out and Scale-Up

Inspur InCloudRack solutions are Architecture

compatible with both scale-up and
scale-out for varied applications and
support centralized and distributed
storage.
Regarding IT infrastructure architecture, the two major
deployment models are scale-out and scale-up, each
having its own advantages and limitations. The most
important impact will be on system stability, reliability,
scalability, flexibility, and cost for choosing a different
system architecture. The differences between scale-out
and scale-up architecture are:

Scale out Scale up

Its computing capability is based on the
server number. It means organizations can
increase the number of servers to improve
computing capability and provide reliability
based on load balance and fault tolerance of
server cluster.
This increases the server's internal
computing resources, such as processors,
to upgrade the single node of a server to
meet the requirements of the applications.
It provides stronger single-node computing
power, which also means higher cost.

To support legacy workload, scale-up architecture lets organizations use less servers and less power
consumption to deploy multitude workloads. The growth of cloud drives the development of scale-
out architecture. Since the number of new workloads is increasing, the ROI and flexibility of scale-
out architecture are an advantage for these emerging workloads. For example, big data analysis
applications require computing power to support large data set processing, whereas scale-out
architecture can meet the goal by deploying a cluster of standard server.

Meanwhile, both scale-up and scale-out
architecture have weaknesses. Scale-up
architecture hardly supports the fast-growing
requirement of computing resources, such as
virtual environments. If organizations decide
to deploy a scale-out environment, they need
to consider applications design or migration for
traditional legacy applications.
It must be noted that scale-out and scale-up are
not totally incompatible. It is becoming more
important for organizations to utilize scale up
to run legacy applications to maintain business
operations while using scale-out architecture
to support computing-intensive workload. It
is critical for them to adopt an applicable
architecture based on business demand and
balance new workload and legacy systems.
Inspur has launched InCloudRack as a new-
generation integrated infrastructure product
to meet organizations' demand. It is based
on modular design, provides high reliability,
availability, and serviceability (RAS) capability,
and converges computing and storage.
Organizations can easily make flexible
configurations for both scale-out computing and
critical business. It allows scale-out architecture
to support private cloud solutions and can also
provide high performance for critical business
workloads, such as traditional database, by simply
changing the configuration. InCloudRack will help
organizations to transform to cloud platform
smoothly.
Inspur Incloudrack Supports
Smooth Migration To Cloud 19
Support both Centralized Storage and Distributed
Storage
Storage systems have already become one of the
most important parts of infrastructure today. Both
centralized and distributed storage systems are
being adopted widely.
Centralized storage improves I/O capability based
on the processing performance of disk array. It
provides not only the wide practicability but
also the smooth operating. Apart from that, the
serviceable range is limited while it costs high.
Distributed storage supports data storage based
on multiple low-cost storage units. Each unit is a
small standard node of cluster. It provides better
TCO for preliminary investment but is hard to
manage and share storage in each node.
According to the practice of system architecture,
organizations need to consider about actual
applications and business trends in the initial
stage of system design. Regarding internet-
related businesses, distributed storage meets
the requirement on multitransition. As for
traditional applications, a dedicated disk array
in centralized storage can be adopted to provide
high availability.
20 InCloudRack Supports Users Smooth
Transformation to Cloud

Inspur InCloudRack is an integrated infrastructure, converged to manage both

computing and storage resource in a whole rack solution.

Users can decide whether to use centralized or Effective system storage planning
distributed storage based on their own production to avoid strategic misjudgment of IT
systems or actual applications based on storage system during planning phase
customizations while installing InCloudRack.

Fully utilizing existing storage products

Deploying Inspur InCloudRack, organizations will to identify storage solutions for current
benefit from customized storage solutions, which data from the user's infrastructure
can be configured based on an analysis of business
needs and features of applications:
Saving costs and improving efficiency of
investment to minimize the spending of
new storage products

Front view Rear view

 21
CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES

As an innovative whole rack solution, InCloudRack has not been adopted widely yet. Organizations need
to use more accurate accounting methods to determine the real costs related to IT environments before
they can figure out a more rational ratio of ROI. Then they will acknowledge the value of a whole rack
solution. Traditional methods are generally focused on the cost of the system regardless of the costs
of management and maintenance. Notwithstanding the cost of hardware and software is conspicuous,
the cost of datacenters, facilities, power and cooling, migration of legacy applications, and future
applications stability are not considered. Also, the impact of IT purchase on business has been rarely
considered. IDC recommends that users consider ROI regarding users business and entire datacenters.

The whole rack solution is also a high facility requirement of an inadequate datacenter. Many outdated
datacenters underestimated technological development when they were being designed. The powering
and cooling of racks have no future-oriented capacity planning and cannot support the capacity of
the whole rack application environment. IDC has also noticed that more new datacenters are under
construction. The new datacenters will provide better support for high-density products in terms
of space, power supply, and cooling. IDC recommends that users should pay attention to the power
capability of datacenters when deploying whole rack products such as InCloudRack.
22 CONCLUSION

With quick development and implementation of emerging technologies such as cloud computing, big
data, mobile, and social network in recent years, the scale of IT infrastructure is becoming larger,
new applications and workloads are mushrooming, and the requirement of enterprise IT infrastructure
shows two trends: traditional legacy workload and standardized large-scale deployment of emerging
applications.

IDC recommends that users adopt flexible, configurable infrastructure platforms that best match
the features of applications. By building an IT infrastructure that meets both typical applications,
enterprises can support both agile business activities and critical workloads to beat the competition in
the future.

Matthew Eastwood
Thomas Zhou
Storm Liu
 23

About IDC

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