Advanced Cloud » Cloud Services

Demystify your migration to cloud

Yousef — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:44:22 +0000

I originally wrote this article for focus.com

New cloud technology is here. Microsoft is ‘all in,’ Google always has been and what remains of IBM is plowed into cloud services through LotusLive. Independents like Cobweb and Rackspace (who provide 1.7 million business users with cloud email and storage) have been making large amounts out of this for a while. The cloud means massive savings for all businesses on hardware and software. Some of the biggest companies are taking these savings and putting them into more (expensive) technology such as iPads for employees so they are always on the same hub. Companies like Outsourcery provide these solutions for big business, and the solutions come at a premium. Large details of this nature make a lot of money for providers like Outsourcery.

Unfortunately, this means smaller businesses (not necessarily financially but based on number of employees) are left behind as such companies believe there is not enough profit in providing them with cloud systems. The existing support companies for smaller businesses are adverse to the idea of providing cloud services because they will decrease their profit margins in the way they are currently set up. In part this is due to the price war going on between Microsoft and Google; prices for base packages are very low. IT companies providing for small business make a lot of money out of selling software and hardware. They currently have to overcompensate and sell companies more than they need, so if and when such companies grow, the IT structure can cope with it. They also make a lot of money out of maintenance when these systems fail.

Cloud systems basically remove these factors and thus a large amount of charges small business providers can justify. The cloud systems are based on massive, backed up infrastructure, meaning if there are any errors then systems are automatically rerouted and email, shared drive storage and collaboration tools will not go down. Microsoft and Google guarantee a 99.9 percent uptime which equates to eight hours and 46 minutes a year downtime (24/7), and any business will tell you that this is a vast improvement on in-house systems. Also, if your system were to go down in the middle of the night or on a weekend, it will be fixed before you even find out, rather than discovering the problem when you are due to start work and then having to wait for it to be fixed. Security en masse is better too. If someone wants to hack your in-house system they will find it a lot easier to do than hacking Microsoft, then finding your system within the cloud (a needle in a haystack), then hacking that.

All other independent providers (such as Cobweb, Rackspace and 1&1) are providing their own systems based on Google or Microsoft offerings. With no clear definitions yet in place, it is a minefield for anybody who is not an expert to know which service provides what, with endless technical jargon specific to each provider.

Cloud Hypermarket has grouped such technical jargon into specific fields so companies can compare and contrast the features offered by each one. You can buy direct services with Google and Microsoft or go to an independent vendor — they provide a gateway to any of these services. They offer telephone advice as they may still have questions regarding each service. One of their important selling points is that they are completely impartial — comparing Microsoft and Google services, as well as services of independent resellers such as Cobweb, Rackspace and 1&1.

The biggest stumbling block so far has been the amount of confusion surrounding the ‘Internet cloud.’ Most people have heard of it but are not sure exactly what it is and why it is to their advantage to use it. During recent user testing, several testers stated that they were IT savvy and knew about the cloud — but they came up with some extremely variable definitions. Reports from certain providers and reports suggest that around 60 percent of small businesses have not heard of the cloud, or have no idea what it is.

Put simply, cloud computing will save companies money, provide unlimited scalability, provide better security and better availability. If your in house server or email goes down, then there’s nothing you can do about it until it is fixed. If your Internet connection goes down, then you cannot send email from your in house system as it has no way of communicating. With a cloud system, you can still access your email, share drives and send email by using another connection via 3G, mobile phone or local wireless connections. It is no longer a question of ‘Will all companies move their systems to the cloud?’ It is a question of how long it will take them to do it.

IBM lessons learned on the cloud

Yousef — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:32:16 +0000

Learn about the valuable lessons IBM has learned as we have worked with customers over the past nine months on cloud computing initiatives. These insights are designed to help you understand some of the challenges and help you outline the criteria/service levels you should be asking your cloud service provider about.

The Pros and Cons of Cloud Computing

Yousef — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:46:13 +0000

Why would you choose to develop new applications using the cloud services model? There are several good reasons to do—and a few reasons to be, perhaps,a bit more cautious.

Advantages of Cloud Development

One of the underlying advantages of cloud development is that of economy of scale. By taking advantage of the infrastructure provided by a cloud computing

vendor, a developer can offer better, cheaper, and more reliable applications than is possible within a single enterprise. The application can utilize

the full resources of the cloud, if needed—without requiring a company to invest in similar physical resources.

Speaking of cost, because cloud services follow the one-to-many model, cost is significantly reduced over individual desktop program deployment. Instead of

purchasing or licensing physical copies of software programs (one for each desktop), cloud applications are typically “rented,” priced on a per-user basis.

It’s more of a subscription model than an asset purchase (and subsequent depreciation) model, which means there’s less up-front investment and a more

predictable monthly expense stream.

IT departments like cloud applications because all management activities are managed from a central location rather than from individual sites or workstations.

This enables IT staff to access applications remotely via the web. There’s also the advantage of quickly outfitting users with the software they need (known as “rapid provisioning), and adding more computing resources as more users tax the system (automatic scaling). When you need more storage space or bandwidth, companies can just add another virtual server from the cloud. It’s a lot easier than purchasing, installing, and configuring a new server in their data center.

For developers, it’s also easier to upgrade a cloud application than with traditional desktop software. Application features can be quickly and easily updated by upgrading the centralized application, instead of manually upgrading individual applications located on each and every desktop PC in the organization. With a cloud service, a single change affects every user running the application, which greatly reduces the developer’s workload.

Disadvantages of Cloud Development

Perhaps the biggest perceived disadvantage of cloud development is the same one that plagues all web-based applications: Is it secure? Web-based applications have long been considered potential security risks. For this reason, many businesses prefer to keep their applications, data, and IT operations under their own control.

That said, there have been few instances of data loss with cloud-hosted applications and storage. It could even be argued that a large cloud hosting operation is likely to have better data security and redundancy tools than the average enterprise. In any case, however, even the perceived security danger from hosting critical data and services offsite might discourage some companies from going this route. Another potential disadvantage is what happens if the cloud computing host goes offline. Although most companies say this isn’t possible, it has happened.

Amazon’s EC2 service suffered a massive outage on February 15, 2008, that wiped out some customer application data. (The outage was caused by a software deployment that erroneously terminated an unknown number of user instances.) For clients expecting a safe and secure platform, having that platform go down and your data disappear is a somewhat rude awakening. And, if a company relies on a third-party cloud platform to host all of its data with no other physical backup, that data can be at risk.

What is Cloud computing and how does it work?

Yousef — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:47:44 +0000

How Cloud Computing Works

Sun Microsystems’s slogan is “The network is the computer,” and that’s as good as any to describe how cloud computing works. In essence, a network of computers functions as a single computer to serve data and applications to users over the Internet. The network exists in the “cloud” of IP addresses that we know as the Internet, offers massive computing power and storage capability, and enables widescale group collaboration. But that’s the simple explanation. Let’s take a look at how cloud computing works in more detail.

Understanding Cloud Architecture

The key to cloud computing is the “cloud”—a massive network of servers or even individual PCs interconnected in a grid. These computers run in parallel, combining the resources of each to generate supercomputing-like power. What, exactly, is the “cloud”? Put simply, the cloud is a collection of computers and servers that are publicly accessible via the Internet. This hardware is typically owned and operated by a third party on a consolidated basis in one or more data center locations. The machines can run any combination of operating systems; it’s the processing power of the machines that matter, not what their desktops look like.

Understanding Cloud Storage

One of the primary uses of cloud computing is for data storage. With cloud storage, data is stored on multiple third-party servers, rather than on the edicated servers used in traditional networked data storage. When storing data, the user sees a virtual server—that is, it appears as if the data is stored in a particular place with a specific name. But that place doesn’t exist in reality. It’s just a pseudonym used to reference virtual space carved out of the cloud. In reality, the user’s data could be stored on any one or more of the computers used to create the cloud. The actual storage location may even differ from day to day or even minute to minute, as the cloud dynamically manages available storage space. But even though the location is virtual, the user sees a “static” location for his data—and can actually manage his storage space as if it were connected to his own PC.

Cloud storage has both financial and security-associated advantages. Financially, virtual resources in the cloud are typically cheaper than dedicated physical resources connected to a personal computer or network. As for security, data stored in the cloud is secure from accidental erasure or hardware crashes, because it is duplicated across multiple physical machines; since multiple copies of the data are kept continually, the cloud continues to function as normal even if one or more machines go offline. If one machine crashes, the data is duplicated on other machines in the cloud.

Understanding Cloud Services

Any web-based application or service offered via cloud computing is called a cloud service. Cloud services can include anything from calendar and contact
applications to word processing and presentations. Almost all large computing companies today, from Google to Amazon to Microsoft, are developing various types of cloud services. With a cloud service, the application itself is hosted in the cloud. An individual user runs the application over the Internet, typically within a web browser. The browser accesses the cloud service and an instance of the application is opened within the browser window. Once launched, the web-based application operates and behaves like a standard desktop application. The only difference is that the application and the working documents remain on the host’s cloud servers.

Cloud services offer many advantages. If the user’s PC crashes, it doesn’t affect either the host application or the open document; both remain unaffected in
the cloud. In addition, an individual user can access his applications and documents from any location on any PC. He doesn’t have to have a copy of every
app and file with him when he moves from office to home to remote location. Finally, because documents are hosted in the cloud, multiple users can collaborate on the same document in real time, using any available Internet connection. Documents are no longer machine-centric. Instead, they’re always
available to any authorized user.

Excerpt from Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online

Smart Analytics Cloud

Yousef — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:40:06 +0000

During IBM’s Q3 earnings call a few weeks ago, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge highlighted business analytics as a sector where Big Blue is investing significant amounts of cash. The company recently acquired data analytics company SPSS for $1.2 billion and business analytics firm RedPill. Tonight, IBM is unveiling a new internal analytics product that the company is touting as the “largest private cloud computing environment for business analytics in the world,” which launches internally with more than a petabyte of information. Along with this internal product, IBM will launch a companion product for clients to build upon this cloud-based architecture, called IBM Smart Analytics Cloud.

The internal product, dubbed Blue Insight, will provide 200,000 employees in IBM’s sales and development department with the ability to extract data and information to make decisions and gain further insight at the point of sale. Blue Insight will gather information from nearly 100 different information warehouses and data stores, providing analytics on more than a petabyte (1,000 terabytes or 1,000,000 gigabytes) of data. For example, sales execs may use customizable queries of real time data to understand revenue opportunities and how many sales in their region are closing to help improve prediction. Or a manufacturing process engineer can evaluate real-time data on the plant floor to identify trends and data to improve yield and reduce shipment delivery times.

IBM Smart Analytics Cloud offering for clients will similarly deliver powerful business intelligence via the scalable, private cloud. The product will lets the client import data and than transform this information into insights to develop strategies and decisions. The service sill offer the ability to create reports, analysis, dashboards, and scorecards to monitor business performance and measure results.

IBM has been shifting its focus towards software and services as opposed to hardware and Big Blue’s strong earnings are an indication that this strategy is paying off in a big way. It’s not surpising that company is continuing to invest in R&D in cloud computing and business analytics, which seems to be the future for both Big Blue and other enterprise-focused tech giants like Oracle.

MindTouch Cloud: The Open Source Alternative to Sharepoint and Salesforce.com?

Yousef — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:37:48 +0000

Sharepoint is the big giant in the enterprise collaboration space. Salesforce.com is now in the market with Salesforce Chatter, a service that embraces Facebook, Twitter and the applications within Force.com.

MindTouch has the potential to compete with the large market players. Today they are announcing MindTouch Cloud, an open-source, SaaS service that integrates business data from any number of sources, including Oracle, Sugar CRM and Salesforce.com.

MindTouch Cloud is meant for a business community to create their own dashboards. It allows users to collaborate with a familiar wiki environment with the capabilities of an enterprise platform.

It’s also another example of how enterprise technologies are increasingly designed so the average business user may perform tasks that have traditionally been the domain of the IT department.

What differentiates MindTouch from Sharepoint and other services is its emphasis on the data. Users may collaborate across multiple enterprise systems and web applications.

MindTouch Cloud is an enterprise mashup service. Business critical information can be exported from enterprise systems and mashed up to create reports and build applications. It has the requirements for the enterprise, including authentication using LDAP, single-sign on security. Role management is built into the service with the capability to create new users, roles and groups.

Compare that to Salesforce Chatter and you see some similarities in how applications can be integrated to create an intelligent dashboard environment that fits into an enterprise environment.

MindTouch does need some work on its user interface. But it has all the features that can make it a valuable service for a business looking to build dashboards that can mashup enterprise data and external applications.

This is MindTouch’s first cloud computing effort. Pricing starts at $7 per user per month.

Kyle Gabhart Launches "Cloud Matters" Magazine on Ulitzer.com

Yousef — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:30:30 +0000

Cloud Computing and its related initiatives (Virtualization, SaaS, Grid, SOA, Web 2.0 / WOA) hold tremendous potential for modern enterprises. This e-zine will aim to explore the economics of Cloud, the business implications for various industries, and the technology enablers that make Cloud Computing a reality.

Sun's Glenn Brunette to Present at Cloud Computing Conference in NYC

Yousef — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:30:30 +0000

Glenn Brunette, Chief Distinguished Engineer and Chief Security Architect for Sun Microsystems, will be presenting at SYS-CON’s 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo in New York City this coming March 30-April 1, 2009. Security is consistently rated as a leading customer concern impeding the full scale adoption of Cloud Computing. At the same time, security is viewed as complicated and painful. In this session, Brunette will address how to help to ease the pain by focusing on the key issues to be considered along with specific best practices for deployment. This session will share a number of security models for IaaS machine images based upon these best practices to illustrate how we can improve upon the security state of the art in cloud computing today.

RightScale and New Relic Deliver Ruby on Rails in the Cloud

Yousef — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:30:30 +0000

RightScale, the cloud manager, has integrated its platform with New Relic’s real-time RPM Ruby-on-Rails application performance management software. So RightScale users should be able to detect, diagnose, and fix performance problems with their cloud-borne Rails applications. CEO Michael Crandell says, “Ruby on Rails has always been one of the most popular development frameworks for web applications on the RightScale platform.” RPM

Arista Networks Drops "Cloud Networking" Trademark

Yousef — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:30:30 +0000

In a follow up to my October 23rd post on Arista Networks attempting to copyright / trademark the term “Cloud Networking” The companies CEO Jayshree Ullal has stated that they will no longer be attempting to trademark the term. (Mission accomplished). In a recent post she shed some light on the topic saying “It has been 100+ days since Arista Networks formally unveiled our new name, Cloud Networking mission and our much talked about leadership team. What is clear is more has been achieved in 100 days of Cloud Networking than is possible in 100 weeks.”