Bull Bullion Cloud Platform
Putting Simplicity and Security at the Heart of Private Clouds

Overview:

Bullion cloud platform is a complete solution combining the power of high-end servers designed and manufactured, with the best technologies from highly respected partners such as VMware’s vCloud, EMC storage and Brocade networking solutions, and Bull’s own well-regarded security technologies. The result? An infrastructure that meets even the highest demands in terms of security, scalability and performance.

Bull offers three bullion cloud platform configurations. Each configuration is pre-defined, optimized, validated and pre-packaged, for a rapid and risk-free deployment that precisely reflects your individual situation. These configurations can easily evolve in the future, depending on your changing business needs.

• Discovery: this configuration is particularly well suited to organizations that want rapidly available resources, available on a pay-as-you-go basis, for their software testing and development. It is designed to cut support costs and maximize server utilization rates.
• Department: this configuration is especially designed for small and medium-sized organizations that have to host numerous applications on a simple infrastructure. It meets all the service levels demanded by businesses, for their applications and their security.
• Enterprise: even the most demanding service level agreements can be met with this configuration. It is ideal to support mission-critical applications and databases, and protects private Clouds with the kind of security levels usually demanded by the banking industry.

Bullion Cloud Platform Features

• Consultancy, to help you define the Cloud architecture and services that most closely match your needs
• Pre-integrated virtualization functions, based on market-leading VMware technologies
• Ultra high-performance, reliable technologies based on bullion, Bull's x86 server specifically designed for critical application virtualization
• A comprehensive range of expertise, for a successful, well-managed implementation
• The highest guarantees of security, thanks to the integral use of Evidian's security software suite and VMware's vCloud Network & Security solutions

Functionalities:

Bullion cloud platform is a complete solution combining the power of high-end servers designed and manufactured in Europe, with the best technologies from highly respected partners such as VMware's vCloud, EMC storage and Brocade networking solutions, and Bull's own well-regarded security technologies. The result? An infrastructure that meets even the highest demands in terms of security, scalability and performance.

Simplifying private Cloud infrastructures
Rather than using more and more small-scale blade servers to meet the growing need for power, bullion cloud platform offers a modular architecture that can host thousands of applications and even the most resource-hungry databases. The secret? bullion: the fastest server on the market today, with record-breaking performance, unbeatable robustness and scalability thanks to the use of VMware vSphere5. bullion cloud platform delivers twice the ‘scale-in’ and ‘scale-out’ capacity of any of its rivals. Delivered in a single rack, bullion cloud platform offers a ‘plug and play’ solution for any organization that wants to avoid the nightmare of managing hundreds of networked servers and peripherals.

With bullion cloud platform you can:

• Keep the administration of your Data Center as simple as possible
• Let your infrastructure evolve at a pace to suit your needs
• Run the most sought-after applications and databases
• Host over 500 applications on the same server!

Managing the Data Center efficiently 
VMware vCloud provides secure, on-demand access to shared resources. The solution uses Vcloud director, vCenter Chargeback and vCloud Network and Security, and extends VMware technologies to other Data Center resources such as processing power, storage, networks and security, all brought together into virtual Data Centers. These resource containers are highly secure and scalable, and are shared between users, who have self-service access to them. What’s more, because they are completely hardware-independent, applications can easily be moved between compatible Clouds.

With bullion cloud platform you can:

• Take advantage of highly secure access controls
• Protect yourself against data leakage/loss
• Encrypt your data and provide defense-level protection for your transactions

Protecting information with the highest levels of security
Thanks to the proven and certified technology developed by Bull, bullion cloud platform offers the highest levels of security in terms of access control, security of connectivity and control over data protection. Access to systems is protected by Evidian I&AM9, which authenticates every person who connects to the system, manages their access rights depending on their role and responsibilities, and verifies their connections to ensure regulatory compliance. bullion cloud platform also capitalizes on Bull’s expertise in data encryption with its TrustWay solution, which is especially well suited to securing information in hybrid Clouds.

With bullion cloud platform you can:

• Systems administration and security are based on service level agreements (SLAs), for totally secure management of shared infrastructures
• Agility and rapid access to Cloud infrastructures are guaranteed
• Units of work can be implemented in private, public or hybrid mode, for maximum flexibility

Manage huge amounts of data in a secure environment
Bullion cloud platform incorporates EMC VNX and VMAX storage systems, for unified, automated storage that is fully optimized for virtualized applications. The solution provides overall visibility of the environment thanks to the excellent interoperability between the EMC and VMware technologies. And because implementing a private Cloud involves modifying your data back-up strategies, bullion cloud platform also features a solution that optimizes storage and protects applications so you can manage and secure very large amounts of data within a private Cloud.

With bullion cloud platform you can:

• Your storage solution is a unified and automated for optimum cost control
• You can take advantage of the most powerful network storage solution currently available
• The same solution not only optimizes your storage but also protects your applications

Three Configurations:

To meet the needs of development teams as well as those related to the implementation of mission-critical applications, Bull offers three bullion cloud platform configurations. Each configuration is pre-defined, optimized, validated and pre-packaged, for a rapid and risk-free deployment that precisely reflects your individual situation. These configurations can easily evolve in the future, depending on your changing business needs.

• Discovery: this configuration is particularly well suited to organizations that want rapidly available resources, available on a pay-as-you-go basis, for their software testing and development. It is designed to cut support costs and maximize server utilization rates.
• Department: this configuration is especially designed for small and medium-sized organizations that have to host numerous applications on a simple infrastructure. It meets all the service levels demanded by businesses, for their applications and their security.
• Enterprise: even the most demanding service level agreements can be met with this configuration. It is ideal to support mission-critical applications and databases, and protects private Clouds with the kind of security levels usually demanded by the banking industry.

A Managed Transition to the Cloud:

Ensuring the widespread adoption of private Clouds and virtualization may seem like a huge task. Security issues, as well as the complexity of hardware and software infrastructures, present real challenges for organizations. They must be able to call on a partner with a perfect understanding of how to integrate mission-critical applications into a private Cloud – in terms of flexibility, agility and security – so as to fulfill service level agreements.

If the Cloud is to truly create value for the business – and not just add extra complexity, tensions or insecurity – IT departments must prepare to embrace it. That is why Bull offers its customers dual expertise in the Cloud: high-level technical assistance with the specifics of bullion cloud platform on the one hand and, on the other, Bull's full range of Cloud services, from consultancy right through to hosting.

To support IT Departments in their transformation towards the Cloud, Bull has established a team of specialist consultants, Bull Advisory Services, who help to assess the complexity of the information system and evaluate its organization and level of maturity. The team helps IT Departments take on their new role, as providers of shared infrastructure services: choosing the most appropriate services to meet business needs, optimizing demand and capacity management, implementing detailed financial management…

And, using its network of industrial-scale Cloud Centers and its experience of hosting sensitive applications, Bull can provide flexible and secure outsourcing of its customers' private Clouds on bullion cloud platform.

Key Challenges of the Enterprise Cloud:

Bull’s approach confronts the four key challenges that the cloud poses to business – strategy, future proofing, sovereignty and security – enabling organizations to tackle the journey towards the cloud in a pragmatic way:

	The Structured Cloud To make sure that the Cloud is a positive driver for value creation – rather than adding complexity, tensions or insecurity – IT Departments have to get ready to welcome it. That involves instigating, structuring, planning and securing an enterprise Cloud transformation project, to gradually raise service levels and cut costs, step by step.
	The Agile Cloud To become part of the age of industrial-scale, instantly adaptable and business-oriented IT, the cloud needs a flexible and scalable technological platform: One that contributes to simplification and can support different types of architectures on heterogeneous technologies. Only under these conditions can infrastructures offer the highest levels of security and service for critical applications.
	The Secure Cloud Whatever the cloud environment – public, private or hybrid – information is still organizations' most important asset, and protecting it is a vital issue. So security is a central concern, whether it is approached globally – data protection, access control, vulnerability management, service availability – or in response to specific organizational, business, operational, geographic or regulatory questions.
	The Controlled Cloud In a services-oriented organization, new rules are being written to cover the offering, billing, instantiation and supervision of services, resource provisioning and process automation. Defined by SLAs, measured and audited, service levels are at the heart of a new form of governance, aimed at guaranteeing totally transparent management of the cloud.

Documentation:

Download the Bull Bullion Cloud Platform Datasheet (PDF).