Got a tip from another reader on a blog post, Enterprise Cloud Computing - Build your own with Cisco VFrame .

Enterprise Cloud Computing - Build Your Own With Cisco VFrame - Why Wait ?

21 August, 2008 by Greg Ferro
I can see some value in external Cloud Computing, but why not just build your own with Cisco ? Take a bunch of leftover machines, that old storage system and get a demo version and make your own.
It seems clear to me that Cloud Computing is going to go down two quite different paths. The first is the path that Amazon / Google / Joyent represent. Enough said on those technologies.
But why not build a Cloud Infrastructure in your own Data Centre ?

And says Cisco has the solution

Cisco already makes a cloud solution

Sometimes there are so many products in the Cisco catalog that some of them get lost. But one product I have been researching over the last six months is Cisco VFrame.
Now VFrame is software toolset that automatically provisions VMware ESX servers, Cisco Catalyst switches, ACE Application Delivery Controllers¹ , FWSM modules, Storage Arrays and Storage Switches and so on. In simple terms, it is programming environment that allows to ‘orchestrate’ the configuration of many separate technologies into a single process.
Let me ay that last bit again ” ‘orchestrate’ the configuration of many separate technologies into a single process.” Thats is the first part of Cloud Computing right there.

What does VFrame do?

So if I have Cisco VFrame, a software tool that automates the following tasks:

allocate and create a storage capacity and storage network from my existing storage system
allocate and create CPU / RAM resources in the form of a VMWare ESX hypervisor
creates the network modifications for firewalling and application acceleration

then that smells lot like Cloud Computing to me.

I am going to forward this entry to a few people i know and get their opinions on using VFrame for building a Cloud Computing environment.