Category Archives: Cloud computing

advanced virtualization, Cloud computing, Featured, transformation services

Launching GreenPages’ Transformation Services Group

GreenPages' Transformation ServicesI am excited to announce that today, with the launch of GreenPages’ Transformation Services Group, GreenPages took a major step in the continuing evolution of our company. This evolution was done for one reason, and one reason only –to meet the needs of our customers as they strive to compete in today’s rapidly-changing business and technology environment.

GreenPages’ new Transformation Services Group is a practice dedicated to providing customers with the agility, flexibility and innovation they need to compete in the modern era of cloud computing.  We see the establishment of this focused practice area as a way to help clients take a revolutionary, accelerated approach to standing up New World, Modern IT architectures and service delivery models that enable business agility and innovation.

Disrupt or be Disrupted

With each day’s latest business headlines we learn of new ‘up-start’ companies that are finding a new way to compete in what was once a mature market.  You know the names – its Uber, it’s Airbnb.  These companies have found a way to leverage advanced technologies as a strategic weapon and were able to completely turn existing industries on their heads without even owning cabs or hotels (respectively).

How’d they do it?  They were agile enough from a business standpoint to understand the disruptive force that technology can play, and they were fortunate enough not to be encumbered by existing infrastructure, policies and procedures.  While these companies clearly were smart and innovative, they were also fortunate — they had a blank slate and could start from scratch with an offensive game plan capable of delivering value to customers in new ways.

These market disrupters share the benefit of not being encumbered by legacy technologies, platforms and processes and as a result, are out-performing and executing their larger competitors.  These companies were born to be agile organizations capable of “turning on a dime” when their competitors could not.

To compete effectively in today’s environment, every company needs to find a way to become more agile.  Business leaders have the choice, play defense and respond to disruption, or play offense and become the disruptor.  The need for business agility has never been greater.  To support this needed agility and innovation, enterprises need nimble, agile IT platforms, as legacy platforms cannot meet this need.

If it were just about technology, modernizing IT would be a more straightforward situation, but it’s about more than that. This is more than a technology problem. This is a people and process problem. It’s about command, control and compliance… Needless to say, “high velocity change” is no walk in the park.

Fortunately, helping companies achieve transformational change is something we have been doing for many years and is an area where we have deep domain expertise.  Throughout our history as a company, we have become adept at guiding companies through IT and business transformation.  What we are doing today is formalizing this expertise—which has been forged working with our customers in the trenches and in the boardrooms—into a unique Transformation Services practice.  Transformation Services represents the next logical evolution of GreenPages and builds on our prior legacy of high quality and competency deploying advanced virtualization and cloud solutions.

Our Approach

We have always believed that while many companies face similar challenges, no two scenarios are identical. Through our more than 20 years of experience we have established a methodology that we use in each engagement, regardless of the challenge, that allows us to identify the best solution for each customer, drive organizational and technical change, and create positive outcomes for the business.

We hope that you share our excitement about this unique moment in the IT industry and our continued evolution as a company.   We all know that technology can produce tangible benefits, but sometimes the road to deployment can be daunting.  Transformation Services was founded to ensure our customers are able to successfully navigate that road with agility and velocity.

If you’re interested in learning more about our new Transformation Services Group, please reach out!

 

By Ron Dupler, CEO

Cloud computing, cloud security, Cloud Services

Army Increases Its Cloud Computing Usage

The US Army has begun to use IBM’s hybrid cloud technology to process their transactions, the amount of which surpasses the amount of transactions performed on the New York Stock Exchange. This occurred last year when the Army switched its Logistics Support Activity system to a hybrid cloud.

 

The hybrid cloud system is used by more than 65,000 personnel to obtain, manage and maintain inventories of products needed by the troops out on the field. Utilizing a cloud to perform these functions allow the Army to better utilize the data it collects, which in turn will provide better insight and service to members. IBM claims that since the switch, the Army has seen savings of up to 50%.

 

CloudStrategy_announcement_slider

 

With the success of the use of a hybrid cloud, the Army has now set eyes on introducing new analytical services, such as data mining, that can be rolled out to all parts of the organization. Anne Altman, general manager for US federal at IBM, has said that hybrid cloud implementation has enabled the Army to keep its existing investments in on-premise technology while also benefiting from a hybrid cloud, such as security, scalability and being able to connect to existing infrastructure.

 

The Army has always been a progressive adopter of promising information technologies, and other agencies and organizations are following in their footsteps. For example, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) signed a $600 million cloud contract with Amazon Web Services, which IBM lost out on. After this loss, IBM went on to gain momentum in the federal space and signed other cabinet agencies and pushing forward with a cloud data center targeting defense department workloads. This center is housed in the Navy-owned Allegany Ballistics Laboratory in West Virginia.

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Cloud computing, Featured, hybrid cloud, Public Cloud, vCloud Air

vCloud Air: Helping a customer move to a hybrid cloud environment

As you most likely know, vCloud Air is VMware’s offering in the hybrid/public cloud space. In my opinion, it’s a great offering. It allows you to take existing virtual machines and migrate those up to the cloud so that you can manage everything with your existing virtual center. It’s also a very good option to do disaster recovery.

I worked on a project recently where the client wanted to know what they needed to do with their infrastructure. They were looking for solid options to build a foundation for their business, whether it was on-prem, a cloud-based offering, or a hybrid approach.

In this project, we ended up taking their VMs and physical servers and put a brand new host on site running VMware that’s running a domain controller and a file server. We put the rest of the production servers and test dev environment in vCloud Air. Additionally, this helped them address their disaster recovery needs. It gave them a place where they could take their systems without a lot of upfront money and have a place where they could recover their VMs in case of the event of a disaster.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP3qO-SI6SY

 

Are you interested in learning more about vCloud Air? Reach out!

 

By Chris Chesley, Solutions Architect

Cloud computing, Cloud Hosting, Cloud Server, Cloud Services

Hewlett-Packard Announces New Cloud Service: Helion Rack

HP announced recently a new preconfigured package of software and hardware targeted towards enterprises who want to adopt the cloud but also keep their computational resources in-house: the Helion Rack. It is designed to aid companies adopt a private cloud much faster.

The use of a private cloud allows organizations to use cloud services on an internal network. However, creating a private cloud network can be quite difficult, taking organizations months to do. With Helion Rack, HP creates each system in its facilities then sets it up at the customer’s location. There has been much done to secure the system and tune it for maximum performance.

Helion Rack is based on open source software; specifically HP used OpenStack for infrastructure services. HP is a large contributor to the OpenStack project, and therefore has expertise on hand to help with any issues. OpenStack is also used for HP’s Helion Public Cloud service.

hp-helion-neutron-openstack

On the platform services side, HP used Cloud Foundry software, also open source. HP has also installed their Helion Development Platform, which is simply a set of development tools. For the hardware, HP went with ProLiant DL servers, which includes storage and network components.

Helion Rack is a great platform for developing new applications, specifically those that will run on a cloud infrastructure. It is also designed to deal with heavy workloads like data analysis and hosting. Helion Rack will be available starting in April and pricing is based on configuration starting with a system that can support 400 virtual machines.

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Cloud computing, Featured, Microsoft, Windows Server 2003

Upcoming Live Events – Windows Server 2003…Does the Cloud Make Sense for Your Migration?

I just wanted to take a quick minute to let the readers of our blog know that GreenPages is holding a series of live events around migrating Windows Server 2003 Workloads. The events are free and will be held in Cambridge, MA, Portland, ME, Tampa, FL, and Alpharetta, GA. David Barter, our Practice Manager of Microsoft Technologies, will be hosting the events.

We decided to put these events together because of the impact Windows Server 2003 End-of-Life is having on IT professionals across the globe. As you are probably already aware, the End-of-Life date is July 14th. Needless to say, that is coming up pretty quickly. There are perceived, and often real, challenges involved in upgrading applications. However, there are some serious drawbacks if you do not migrate. First, no new updates will be developed or released after end of support. Not migrating could also cause compliance issues for various regulatory and industry standards. Furthermore, staying put will cost more in the end. Maintenance costs for outdated hardware will increase and there will be additional costs for security measures that need to be taken.

On the flip side, benefits of migrating include reducing operational costs and increasing efficiencies, improving employee productivity, the ability to be cloud ready, and increasing business agility. There are different paths you can take, such as migrating to Windows Server 2012, Azure, or Office 365 as an individual product or as a Platform as a Service.

During the events, David will cover:

  • Developing an action plan and ways Azure and Office 365 can be part of it.
  • Potential migration pitfalls
  • Determining which applications will run “as is” on new platforms and which won’t
  • The areas of your infrastructure that will be affected by End of Life.
  • Examples of GreenPages’ customers going to the cloud, including how they approached the decision process and what their experiences were like.

You can register here. If there isn’t an event near you but you’re interested in learning more on the topic, I would highly recommend downloading David’s whitepaper.  These should be great events (plus you get a free lunch and entered to win an Xbox One)! Below is some more information on event locations.

Portland, Maine

  • March 26th from 10am-11am at the Portland Harbor Hotel

Tampa, Florida

  • April 1st from 10am-2pm at the Microsoft Campus

Alpharetta, Georgia

  • April 2nd from 10am-2pm at the Microsoft Campus

Cambridge, Massachusetts

  • April 7th from 10am-2pm at the Microsoft Campus

 

If you have any specific questions about event logistics, feel free to reach out to Kelsey Barrett, our Marketing and Event Coordinator.

 

By Ben Stephenson, Emerging Media Specialist

 

Cloud computing, Cloud Services

HP: New Server Line For Cloud Computing

Many computer technology companies have already begun to shift their focus to cloud computing, and Hewlett-Packard is among them. HP has recently said that they are creating a server family whose purpose is to build systems for cloud providers.

 

This move is part of a joint venture with Foxconn, which was announced last year, to create cloud-optimized servers. Since the announcement, HP has been making servers with the Taipei based electronics company, and it now has a name: Cloudline. They have also announced several server products.

 

foxconn

 

Cloud based servers are designed for hyper scale environments with thousands of servers. HP’s systems are based on standards-based principles and use rack-scale computing. With this system, functions previously located in the server, such as cooling and power, are now part of the rack. They will likely be used in multi-vendor situations.

 

HP is planning on using Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), which is an open management platform, along with other systems that provide a uniform way to manage hardware. The hyper scale x86 server market has been growing fast, which has led to an increase in numbers of original design manufacturers (ODM).

 

HP’s partnership with Foxconn puts it on the same level as the low-cost providers but HP can also leverage its breadth, reach, and services it can add.

 

The cloud hardware appeals to enterprise clients, like financial firms trying to build out a cloud network, and HP is trying to adapt their services and products to meet this demand.

 

mmmm

 

HP will begin to take orders at the end of the month, after announcing their OpenStack systems at the Open Compute Summit. The systems available use Intel Xeon E5 v3 processors and come in five configurations, including a two-socket (2P) server sled configuration and 1U configurations. No pricing has been announced.

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Cloud computing, Cloud Services

IBM’s Cloud Services

IBM has been restructuring its business to accommodate better growth opportunities by boosting profitability and focusing on new ventures. This includes expanding their cloud services. Recently, IBM announced their hybrid cloud technology, which extends client control, visibility, and security into the private cloud as well as allow developers to work across any IT cloud. By 2018, the company hopes to see $40 billion in revenue from services such as the cloud, big data, security, etc.

 

Cloud computing gives way for convenient, on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources, such as servers, storage, applications and services. These can quickly be released with minimal effort on the managerial or service provider side. Cloud computing is made up of three main services: software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). SaaS is expected to grow the fastest, followed by IaaS, though all three categories are going to be in high demand in the near future. Growth is expected due to the global demand for technology-based services. The global cloud computing market is expected to reach almost $200 billion by 2020.

 

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The three services previously mentioned are interconnected and dependent on one another in order to provide a cost effective solutions for clients. Most cloud services are providing a multitenancy structure, which represents a shared infrastructure with many locations in a topology that leverages advantages of remote access to deliver new businesses and services. SaaS software is positioned on the internet. A software company licenses an application to customers through a subscription based model. Another approach that recently popped up is one that gives users free access to the most basic functions, and requiring payment for more advanced ones. IBM has 120 SaaS offerings that cover a wide array of capabilities. They cover everything from big data analytics to human resource administration.

 

IaaS delivers on-demand cloud computing infrastructure through the use of secure IP-based connectivity. Clients can buy resources such as servers, software and data center space as a fully outsourced on-demand system. IaaS is based on creating a virtual version of something, and users are responsible for managing the applications, data, and middleware. IBM’s lead IaaS service is based on a global cloud infrastructure called SoftLayer. This program provides different machine virtualization services that can run both advanced operating systems and analytics software. This program is based on a pay-as-you-go model.

 

PaaS is the most complex layer. PaaS is a computing platform that allows creation of applications of software fast without the complexity of buying and maintaining it or its infrastructure. The software created is then delivered over the internet. In this layer, IBM has the Bluemix platform, which offers developers a single solution environment to develop and deploy application across many domains.

 

Cloud services have come to the front end of companies of all sizes that are looking to improve their business through the use of IT solutions or services. The advantage of this approach is the scalability and accessibility of new applications, resources and services. Also, the initial cost of this method is lower. IBM’s cloud service vision allows customers to subscribe not only to standalone applications, but also to interact with Softlayer’s infrastructure with ease as well as on-site applications and SaaS offerings. IBM has invested over $1 billion to expand their footprint in cloud centers that are accessible to every major financial network around the world. These investments should lead to big revenue in the

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Cloud computing

InterConnect 2015: Focusing on Cloud Technology

IBM’s annual InterConnect corporate convention is currently going on at the MGM and Mandalay Bay resorts in Las Vegas. The IBM sponsored convention is covering the cloud, mobile, DevOps, security, asset management, application integration and smarter processors. However, the main focus is expected to be the hybrid cloud. This will give IBM’s individual companies an opportunity to discuss how they can leverage each other’s technologies and capabilities.

 

IBM’s InterConnect is a combination of three events: Impact, Innovate and Pulse. Its purpose it to create a collaborative and comprehensive event.

 

Much of the new software and services being presented at the convention are designed to ease the work involved with connecting the public and private clouds. IBM has provided a service that allows data to be drawn from external API’s as well as a brand new system that allows organizations to move their workloads into the cloud easily.

 

Worldwide, about $80 billion has been spent to build and maintain hybrid systems annually. IBM is one of these companies, making the hybrid approach a major part of its cloud computing strategy. Most companies are already following suit and pushing for hybrid systems. Customers and service provider companies each have their own cloud, and the goal is being able to transfer information between them.

 

IBM’s BlueMix platform offers basic software functionality and management tools for those building cloud applications. BlueMix Local is a software package that promises a subset of these services. Companies can use the Local version to build in-house services and move them to the BlueMix hosted service to run in production.

 

IBM has recently developed a new API service called API Harmony. This service aggregates a range of public APIs that developers can then intertwine into their own applications. IBM’s Enterprise Containers service offers an entire system for managing virtual containers. This service is based on the Docker open source container, but with more security and management tools. Through API Harmony, users can move containers based on workloads between the IBM cloud and their own.

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Cloud computing, Cloud Services, Cloud Technology

Tech Companies Competing To Be The Leader In Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a technology that allows centralized data storage and online access to computer services and resources through remote servers and networks. Many technology companies have begun to transition from IT resources into cloud computing and are competing to become the world leader. The better-managed companies will be able to make this transition more successfully than those who lack decent management. Here is a description of what some tech companies are doing to make this transition.

 

Cisco

cisco

Cisco’s transition into the cloud has allowed the company to grow further than its traditional routers and switches. Cisco has seen a dramatic increase in earnings from data relevant products and services. They also reported that its Unified Computing System data platform had a surge in users. Cisco is transitioning into software-defined networks (SDN), which will force current models to change their models. However, this will take a long time.

 

IBM

 imb

IBM’s cloud revenue shot through the roof last year, and this month its investors are planning on discussing the next steps to take for its hybrid cloud options. IBM hopes to make all the separate clouds act as one. They believe hybrid cloud arrangements are more appealing to companies and enable connections between new wave Web applications and traditional backend operations.

 

Oracle


oracle 

Oracle’s earnings from cloud growth grew by almost 50% last year. This includes their Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) services. Oracle’s focus has been on growing their cloud business, and its been showing. Mark Hurd, the CEO of Oracle, recently said that within 5-6 years cloud applications will take up to 60% of the total enterprise application market due to the development speed of new functional and easy upgrades.

 

VMware

 vmware

VMware was late to the cloud transition because they were profiting from server virtualization. This creates multiple operating systems on a single computer server. In 2013 they began to transition into the cloud and quickly started to distribute its own products. Like IBM, they went with the hybrid cloud idea so businesses could use private and public clouds depending on the level of security they want. They updated their vSpehere platform and the foundation on which its cloud service is built on in order to provide the hybrid cloud resources without change to any standard customs the customers use.

 

Workday

 workday

Workday builds and provides cloud applications for finance and human resource departments and is one of the fastest growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud space and big data business. Their revenues have been consistently increasing by more than 50%.

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Cloud computing, Cloud Hosting, Cloud Server, Cloud Services, Cloud Technology

Contemplating the Cloud

Cloud computing is being adopted at an exponential rate, with software-as-a-service (SaaS) arrangements being the leader. In the corporate sphere, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is leading. IaaS offers virtual hardware, storage capacity, and network connections. Another type of service is the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) which allows users to build applications on the internet.

 

Utilization of the cloud promises savings, flexibility, and ease, which is why many companies have begun to implement it. There are some big decisions to make before they can successfully apply cloud computing. These include: public, private, or hybrid clouds; cost-benefit analysis, and risk assessment.

 

cloud puzzle

 

Scenarios

When a company is considering a SaaS arrangement, the motivation is hardware or software upgrades. Usually a company has an old on-site application and they need to upgrade because the old system is running out of support. Since the cost of an upgrade may be comparable to a replacement, cloud computing should be seriously considered. If they opt for a private cloud, they are the only tenants and they own the license or software. This may be favorable for a company who wishes to cut costs and runs a tight IT division. A public or hybrid approach would be better suited for a company who experiences spikes in application usage or who wants their resources spent elsewhere.

 

Prominence of SaaS

SaaS has become the leader in the market for customer relationship management, supply chain management, payroll benefits, time and attendance, and ERP software. Since 2000, it has grown from being virtually nonexistent to accounting for just over half of all software deals last year. SaaS is beneficial for small companies due to its replacement cycle of only two to three years versus nine years with licensed software. Next, companies look towards IaaS and PaaS.

 

ERP Resistance

ERP systems are the last thing to be sent to the cloud. Integration of applications, data stewardship and governance all has higher priority than replacing or updating ERP systems. This is because ERP systems are high customized. Manufacturing companies have been the most resistant to adopt ERP SaaS solutions because the customization and integration it requires make it difficult for on site cloud systems to compete. Other highly regulated industries have also been reluctant to implement cloud arrangements due to burdensome compliance requirements.

 

Capital vs. Operating Expenses

One factor to consider when looking into cloud arrangements is capital vs. operating expenses. Cloud arrangements are more attractive to companies whose performance is measured return on assets deployed. On the other hand, regulated companies aren’t interested in cutting fixed assets, so they might be more likely to hold onto their data centers and other IT infrastructures and build out private clouds within these systems to reduce operating expenses. New companies and startups will most likely implement SaaS applications.

 

Other Considerations 

The cloud could potentially impact worker productivity, security issues, privacy issues, interdependency, and compatibility with other applications. Issues can arise when a security breach occurs, when the contract ends, and ownership issues. These risks need to be evaluated individually to come to the best conclusion for the specified use of the cloud.

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