VCenter On Demand

Foreword : the need for a private cloud

For many companies, a significant portion of their IT needs cannot be met by a standard public cloud solution. This is particularly true for:

• legacy applications that require a specific operating system and environment to run and be updated.
• data privacy and isolation,
• enhanced security,
• data traceability, controlled location and proximity,
• the fully dedicated performance provided by dedicated servers,
• compliance with regulations and applicable European law,
• the customer’s control over the infrastructure maintenance/update schedule,

Orange Business responds to all these needs by offering the Cloud Avenue [Private] service, which provides dedicated computing/storage resources for each customer.

With a streamlined and standardised architecture choice, Cloud Avenue [Private] is designed for customers who are looking for the essential features and benefits of a private cloud while benefiting from lower costs and faster implementation.

Service overview

Cloud Avenue [Private] (aka vCenter On Demand or vCoD) is a dedicated VMWare hyper-converged cloud service hosted on the Orange Business Cloud Avenue platform in Orange datacenters located in France.

Cloud Avenue [Private] provides fully dedicated computing/storage resources and management infrastructure, physically isolated from other customers.

It offers a wide range of configuration options to meet all needs, from 30 VMs upwards, and can be deployed on one or two sites.

It is a secure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution, operated on a self-service basis by the Customer, which can be supplemented by mutualized options from the Cloud Avenue catalogue and, for specific needs, by dedicated options in a tailor-made offer designed and operated by the Orange Business teams (such as dedicated backup, additional dedicated NAS/SAN storage bay, etc.).

Customers access and operate their resources via a BVPN or IP Sec connection over the Internet.

Orange Business manages the entire underlying technical platform (servers, virtualisation layer, storage, network and security) for the Customer.

VCenter On Demand (aka vCoD) is the core of the Cloud Avenue [Private] service. It is an offer consisting of the following elements:

• dedicated, physically isolated cluster based on modular “hyper-converged” servers
• dedicated storage attached to the servers in vSAN
• management device entirely dedicated to each cluster (see §3-Control plan)
• dedicated virtual network
• dedicated virtual security
• shared physical network
• shared physical security

vCoD is based on an automated platform with the following characteristics:

• VMware Cloud Foundation Platform (vCF)
• high level of integration and automation
• migration and disaster recovery included (VCDA)
• overlay network operated with NSX-T

Service location

Geographical presence

The Service is available in France and hosted in Orange datacenters located in France, at the Val-de-Reuil and Chartres sites.

Cloud Avenue [Private] is offered by default in a single site configuration but can be proposed in a dual site configuration to provide a reinforced service continuity solution.

The two available sites are separated by 100km, allowing for low inter-site latency, which is ideal for the extended cluster option of the Cloud Avenue [Private] service.

Regardless of the configuration envisaged (single or dual site), the customer has the choice of the primary site for the implementation of its cluster (Val-de-Reuil or Chartres).

Inter-site connectivity

The service uses a 2x 100Gbps physical dark fiber link to provide inter-datacenter resilience and benefits from low latency (<5ms) between the 2 sites.

Applicable law

The offer is provided by Orange Business, the location of the datacenters and customer data is on French territory, the applicable law therefore remains under French jurisdiction, beyond the reach of extraterritorial laws such as the US Cloud Act.

Dedicated control plane

The control plane is fully dedicated for each Cloud Avenue Private customer and installed within its cluster.

The management infrastructure (the control plane) includes different software from the VMware suite to provide the necessary functionalities for the optimal operation of a dedicated infrastructure:

• vCenter
• vRops
• NSX-T Manager
• VCDA
• …

Management interface

Each customer has its own dedicated vCenter.

In Self-Service, the resource management is done, at the customer’s choice, via:

Direct access to the vCenter API

The customer is free to use his own CMP (Cloud Management Portal) to manage the resources, via API.

vCloud Director Portal (vCD)

• paying option
• for very large environments
• management tool on top of vCenter
• standard service catalogue
• service scope:
  • management of VM resources (detailed management),
  • template creation, image import,
  • advanced configuration modification (in VMs, VM hardware profile),
  • capacity alerts (cluster level),
  • storage profile management (replicated or default performance), with a level of granularity at the VM level.

vRealize Automation (vRA) portal

• paying option,
• graphical user interface,
• customisable to customer requirements,
• access control management with predefined profiles and roles within the customer’s organisation (business groups),
• enriched service catalogue,
• scope of service:
  • deployment and management of virtual instances (simplified management),
  • image catalogue and blueprints in 1 click (a catalogue of standard blueprints is available to the customer, customised blueprints are subject to additional invoicing),
  • overview of resource pools (by function or by activity group),
  • capacity alerts (at resource pool level),
  • blueprint-based storage profile at VM granularity (+ optional encryption key),
  • native hybridisation capability with the public cloud.

These 3 methods of access to resource administration cannot coexist and the Customer must choose one of the three exclusively according to his level of expertise and needs.

Infrastructure implementation and management

Orange Business shall implement and configure the Cloud Avenue [Private] Service for the Customer. The implementation may be accompanied by personalized assistance to help the Customer in its migration to the Service.

Orange maintains the service in operational conditions and upgrades the components in compliance with the availability, security and performance commitments.

Infrastructure management covers the following activities:

• design, sizing of the solution,
• installation and configuration of servers,
• administration, maintenance and support,
• monitoring and management of incidents and changes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Server configuration

Cloud Avenue [Private] / vCenter on Demand is based on the principle of hyper-converged architecture.

The vCoD catalogue offers a family of 4 standardised servers of latest generation (Gen 11) with progressive levels of capacity and performance to meet all use cases:

Minimum configuration, maximum configuration and increments

The minimum configuration of a vCoD client cluster starts with 4 servers (starter kit). Growth is done in increments of 1 server.

Single-site

• minimum 4 servers per cluster
• maximum 28 servers per cluster

Dual-site

• minimum 8 servers per site (4 servers per site)
• maximum 56 servers for dual site non stretched (28 servers per site)
• maximum 40 servers for dual site stretched (20 servers per site)

Server loss coverage by design

Orange Business has designed vCoD with native client cluster resilience. In case of failure or maintenance of a server, its workload is automatically distributed to the other servers of the cluster, without impact on data, volume and performance (e.g. for a cluster of 4 servers, the maximum usable capacity is capped so that it can be contained on 3 servers in case of unavailability or failure of 1 server).

The initial sizing and capacity planning take this possibility into account by limiting the maximum capacity of the entire cluster to n-1 servers (e.g. 3 servers for a cluster of 4 servers).

VMWare’s high availability and the DRS/HA (Dynamic Resource Scheduling) function ensure distribution and restart on other available hosts.

Storage

The storage associated with vCenter on Demand is of the vSAN type. In terms of hardware, it consists of full flash SSDs with a raw capacity of 1.92, 3.84 or 7.68TB per unit.

There are 4 storage packages available:

• 4 disks per server
• 6 disks per server
• 8 disks per server
• 10 disks per server

Several types of vSan configuration are available for the Customer to choose from and are shown in the table below with an impact on the available usable storage.

Sizing, Capacity management

Sizing

The sizing of the customer cluster is calculated according to the client’s needs (performance, storage replication, options) but also takes into account the coverage of the loss of a server and the resources consumed by the dedicated control plane.

Capacity management

Cluster capacity management is the responsibility of the Customer, both in terms of computing power and storage.

With the architecture chosen (standardisation and modularity of components) for Cloud Avenue [Private], the scaling of the Client cluster is optimal and can be carried out on several levels :

• Computing resources, by adding additional servers,
• Storage, by adding disks to the chassis storage module (up to 8 disks per server)
• Site resilience, by implementing another cluster in a second datacenter.

Maintenance and update operations

The maintenance and update operations of the customer’s cluster are carried out by Orange Business. They concern security and maintenance patches and service packs offered by hardware and software providers.

Maintenance operations do not impact the operation of customer VMs.

Predefined maintenance and update ranges are provided for the vCOD service platform, on the following dates and times:

• By default, every Tuesday from 00:00 am to 06:00 am (Paris Local Time)
• Exceptionally, and for minor operations, maintenance can be carried out between 12:00 and 14:00 (Paris Local Time) from Monday to Thursday

For all scheduled maintenance, the customer is notified within 15 calendar days prior to the operation. This delay can be shortened if a patch or security patch must be deployed urgently.  

Possibility of customization: if the proposed date presents a disadvantage to the customer, her may contact the Service Provider to agree on an adjustment of the intervention schedule, within the limit of maintenance that would only concern components dedicated to the client (client servers or control plane) and unless an update is mandatory, it cannot be deferred.

Orange Business ensures the traceability of all updates in a dedicated operating tool within its scope of responsibility. This data is kept by Orange Business for the duration of the contract with the Customer.

Backup

Mutualized backup

The standard Cloud Avenue [Private] backup optional service, based on NetBackup ‘9.1 solution, enables the Customer’s data to be backed up on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and restored, when necessary, at a date chosen within the limits of the backup history.

The default backup platform is mutualized and separate from the Customer’s compute/storage infrastructure. It is located on the same site than the client cluster but in a separate room.

The backup and restore processes are managed by Orange Business and applied to the volume associated with the Customer’s cluster, at the image or file level (the operating system must be managed by Orange Business to allow backup at the file level). The scope of intervention of Orange Business covers the following areas:

• Monitoring of the Customer’s backups,
• Definition of the storage repository profile,
• Restart of backups in case of failure,
• Restoration at customer’s request,
• Capacity planning of the backup platform.

VM are backed up as described here.

Tailor-made dedicated backup

For specific needs (more advanced isolation, specific backup technology, sizing, etc.), Orange Business offers a dedicated backup solution, hosted in the co-location space, near the customer’s dedicated cluster.

This offer is entirely customised, based on a large catalogue of the main solutions on the market and is subject to a specific quote. It requires a minimum commitment agreed with the customer, which then extends to the entire Cloud Avenue [Private] solution.

Additional storage bay

For specific storage needs in terms of capacity or performance and in addition to the vSAN storage associated with vCenter-on-Demand, Orange Business offers dedicated NAS or SAN storage solutions, hosted in the co-location area, close to the customer’s dedicated cluster.

This optional service is entirely customised, based on a large catalogue of the main solutions on the market and is subject to a specific quote. It requires a minimum commitment agreed with the customer, which then extends to the entire Cloud Avenue solution [Private].

Colocation

Colocation enables equipment to be hosted outside the perimeter of the Cloud-Avenue infrastructure.

The racks dedicated to colocation can accommodate equipment that does not exist in the Cloud-Avenue hardware catalogue.

These slots can accommodate specific or obsolete technologies such as Oracle ODA, HSM, etc.

Hosted equipment can be managed by Orange Business on a case by case basis.

Cross-site resilience (extended cluster)

This service allows the Customer to use extended VM profiles, which means that each VM is replicated to two locations. It is based on an extended cluster implemented either between two rooms in the Orange datacenter in Val-De-Reuil, or in the two Orange datacenters in Val-de-Reuil and Chartres, which are approximately 100km apart.

The extended cluster benefits from the continuity of the high-speed network between the two data centres and very low inter-site latency, <5ms.

A minimum of 4 servers is required at each location (4+4) with the same number of servers on both sides and identical configurations.

Extended clusters are natively datacenter crash resilient infrastructures. In an extended cluster, the Customer can select which of the deployed VMs will automatically restart on the other datacenter in case of a major datacenter failure.

The storage security profile is granularly applicable to the VM level.

Monitoring, Reporting, Logs

Orange Business continuously collects all the technical metrics of the platform, whether they are VMs or objects hosted on the platform (infrastructure and virtual instance metrics).

The infrastructure metrics are then processed and the results are made available to the customer in the form of dashboards or reports:

• dashboards (via vROPS web access) with real-time cluster health and VM metrics,
• reports (alert, change, capacity) automatically generated and sent by email.

Optional specific monitoring tools provide metrics on managed services (OS, Middleware, DDB, applications).

The customer accesses the monitoring and reporting tools via the CloudStore.

Internet access

The Cloud Avenue [Private] service includes by default an Internet access for the Customer to the Service.

The functional elements offered are as follows :

• a redundant Internet connection to Orange’s two secure datacenters, SAS 70 type II certified, monitored 24/7,
• allocation of public IP addresses in predefined ranges,
• burst capability with a defined limit.

Subscription and order

The subscription to the Cloud Avenue [Private] / vCenter on Demand service is made through the Customer’s usual sales contact.

The Customer must order:

• A “starter kit”, including a minimum pack of 4 servers (or nodes)
• One or more additional servers, depending on the desired target configuration
• A storage pack associated with the servers
• Hardware or software options

Capacity increase orders are placed in the Customer portal.

Service price, Billing

The Service price includes hosting, the provision of the dedicated infrastructure (hardware, software, licences), the management of the infrastructure, standard and optional services in addition to the infrastructure, and support.

Cloud Avenue [Private] / vCoD invoicing is monthly, based on the number of physical servers. In detail, it depends on the following criteria:

• type and number of servers (minimum 4)
• associated vSAN storage package (4, 8 or 10 disks per server)
• resilience model (single site or dual site)
• Cloud Avenue catalogue options (administration portal, shared backup, additional VMware features, BMS, licences, etc.)
• tailor-made dedicated options (dedicated backup, dedicated storage bay)
• level of support

For dual-site, the price of the service takes into account the total number of servers on both sites plus a share of the inter-site broadband link.

Billing for other services:

• change requests
• other options available (see table below)

Commitment and Termination

There is no duration commitment for the Customer, except for specific cases with optional tailor-made features.

The Customer may terminate the Cloud Avenue [Private] / vCenter On Demand service (i.e. the entire cluster and its options) at any time, via the Cloud Customer Area. The request is processed at the beginning of the month following the request.

Support

Support model

The Cloud Avenue [Private] / vCoD relies on a European support and operating model, i.e. provided by teams located in France or in the European Union.

Support levels

The following table lists the support offer attached to the Cloud Avenue Service and which applies to Cloud Avenue [Private] / vCoD.