Category Archives: Cloud computing

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 Maintenance costs for outdated hardware will increase and there will be additional costs for security measures that need to be taken.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

March 11, 2015 Kelly

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.

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.

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

March 6, 2015 Kelly

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.

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

February 28, 2015 Kelly

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

February 27, 2015 Kelly

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’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

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’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 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 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%.

The post Tech Companies Competing To Be The Leader In Cloud Computing appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

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

Contemplating the Cloud

February 25, 2015 Benjamin

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.

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.

The post Contemplating the Cloud appeared first on Cloud News Daily.

Cloud computing, IT service management, Medical, Research

Global Healthcare Cloud Computing Market to Triple to 12 Billion in Five Years

February 18, 2015 Richard

According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research “Global Market Study on Healthcare Cloud Computing: Hybrid Clouds to Witness Highest Growth by 2020″ the global healthcare cloud computing market was valued at USD 4,216.5 million in 2014 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20.1% from 2014 to 2020, to reach an estimated value of USD 12,653.4 million in 2020.

Healthcare cloud computing refers to a process which involves delivering hosted medical services to the clients. These services can be classified into majorly three types: infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and software-as-a-service. A cloud can be public, private, hybrid or community in nature.

Globally, the healthcare cloud computing market is witnessing significant growth due to increased government healthcare IT spending and advanced features of cloud computing services In addition, rising demand for better healthcare facilities, increasing in popularity of wireless and cloud technologies are driving the healthcare cloud computing market. However, factors such as high cost involved in the implementation of clinical information systems and lack of security and privacy of patient’s information restrain the global market for healthcare cloud computing market. In addition, interoperability issues negatively impact the growth of the healthcare cloud computing market. The global healthcare cloud computing market is estimated at USD 4,216.5 million in 2014 and expected to reach USD 12,653.4 million in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 20.1%.

North America has the largest market for the global healthcare cloud computing market. This is due to technological advancements in the region. North American market for healthcare cloud computing is estimated at USD 1,857.5 million in 2014 and is expected to reach USD 5,757.7 million in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 20.7%. In terms of deployment model, hybrid clouds are the fastest growing segment. In terms of service model, software-as-a-service (Saas) is the largest segment of healthcare cloud computing market.

One of the latest trends that have been observed in the global healthcare cloud computing market includes increasing use of mobile devices for delivering healthcare services.

Cloud computing, Featured, vCloud Air, VMware

VMware’s Partnership with Google: vCloud Air & the Google Cloud Platform

February 13, 2015 GreenPages Blog

Following on from Chris Ward’s excellent blog coming out of VMware PEX 2015, I wanted to add some details to the recent VMware announcement (January 29, 2015) to partner with Google to “deliver greater enterprise access to public cloud services” via a combination of VMware vCloud Air and the Google Cloud Platform.

For those who are unfamiliar, vCloud Air (formally VMware vCloud Hybrid Service or vCHS) is a public Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud platform built on the same traditional VMware vSphere we are all used to but managed 24/7 by VMware and their public cloud partners. vCloud Air offers services such as infrastructure, disaster recovery and backups, and allows you to extend both your network and workloads from traditional on-premise to the cloud with relative ease.

For some time now, Google has offered broad cloud platform services in the following categories, but as part of the first wave of integration into the vCloud Air space, only the highlighted sub-set of (4) Google Cloud Platform services will be made available to existing VMware vCloud Air customers, using a PAYG consumption model:

Compute (no current/planned integration points)

Storage
- Cloud Storage – Google’s distributed low-cost object storage service
- Cloud Datastore – Google’s schema-less, document-based NoSQL database service with automatic scale and full transactional integrity.

Networking
- Cloud DNS – A globally distributed low-latency DNS service

Big Data
- BigQuery – A real-time big data analytics service suitable for running ad-hoc BI queries across billions of data points in seconds.

Services (no current/planned integration points)

Management (no current/planned integration points)

Additionally, while Google offers their own management framework, there are some rumors that the partnership could eventually mature to include integration with VMware’s own vRealize Operations management solution. This will most likely be offered via VMware’s vRealize Air platform (in beta), which currently offers both Automation and Compliance programs. To quote our CTO, Chris Ward, “VMware vRealize Air checks a lot of boxes for customers of all sizes seeking multi-vendor, multi-cloud provisioning and management of their infrastructure services.

Industry experts, including GreenPages, Forrester and Gartner, are calling this partnership a big “win” for VMware customers, especially enterprise customers. This relationship will help to truly legitimize not only the cloud, but also the place of the enterprise customer in the cloud. Specifically, it will allow enterprise customers who are looking for broader database, analytics, and storage options and support, beyond the current vCloud Air portfolio, to find a suitable and scalable landing place for their applications and workloads. This will build on vCloud Air’s current support for over 5,000 applications and over 90 operating systems.

This is also a strong move for both VMware and Google. This relationship will give Google much needed enterprise IT exposure, something that VMware has deep roots in, and accelerates VMware’s ability to offer tools to manage a public cloud, an area in which Google has developed a global dominate position.

As with the vSphere 6 announcement, there is no “official” release date, but rumors are suggesting everything from the “first half of 2015” to availability “later this year.” Additionally, VMware had no details to share around pricing, but as soon as we know more and have had a chance to sample the integration ourselves, we will share more details. However, if history is anything to go by we should likely expect something in place by VMworld 2015.

If you have any questions or would like any additional details around this new partnership, email us at socialmedia@greenpages.com

By Tim Cook, Practice Manager, Advanced Virtualization

applications, Cloud computing, Featured, IT services, ITIL

5 Ways to Understand Your Applications and IT Services

February 3, 2015 John Dixon

How do you view your organization’s applications and IT services? At GreenPages, we often suggest that organizations begin to conceptualize IT services as corporate IT evolves from a technology provider to an innovation center. Now, there are ways to establish and maintain a service portfolio through ITBM (IT Business Management or IT Financial Management) systems, but these are often out of reach for customers less than enterprise level. However, you can conceptualize IT services by looking at your applications from five different perspectives. Let’s use Microsoft Exchange as an example.

Exchange is an enterprise application that provides email and calendaring. If you’re reading this, there is a good chance that you own servers that host the various components that comprise Exchange. One way to think about cloud is to identify the Exchange servers, their operating systems, the application version, performance requirements, etc. and identify a “place in the cloud” where you can procure servers of similar specifications and migrate the instances. I consider this as the infrastructure perspective. When it comes to cloud computing, this is perhaps the least important.

To take full advantage of cloud computing, understand your applications and IT services from a few additional perspectives:

Functional
Financial
Operational (including lifecycle)
Organizational
Use-case

Hopefully, after looking at these different perspectives, you’ll see Exchange as part of an IT service that fits this description:

“In operation for over 20 years, E-Communications is a business service that allows each of our 1,200 employees to communicate through email, coordinate meetings, find coworkers’ contact information, and organize tasks using their PC, Mac, mobile device, or home computer 24x7x365. The service is supported by Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory, which both run under VMware vSphere. The service requires 1 full-time administrator who added 12 new users and logged 157 support tickets in 2014. In 2014, charges for software maintenance, personnel, infrastructure depreciation, and outside support services totaled $87,456. A software upgrade is planned for 2015. Users do not generally complain about the performance of the service, other than the size of their mailbox quotas (which are limited to 10GB per user). The company as a whole plans to offer telecommuting packages to more than 250 employees in 2015.”

Armed with this understanding of your IT service that includes Exchange, you might take the following action:

Fund an Office365 migration with capital you had allocated for the Exchange upgrade project
Provide copies of Office applications to telecommuters (without additional charge)
Expand the mailbox quota from 10GB to 50GB
Repurpose your Exchange admin to help telecommuters establish their home offices in 2015
Reduce your spend on E-Communications by more than 50% (from $72.88/user to $35.00/user)

Of course, not every application is easily identifiable as belonging to an IT service. The functionality or financial aspects of IT services are often difficult to quantify. However, at GreenPages, especially when looking at cloud computing options, we recommend examining all of your applications through these five perspectives. For this reason, GreenPages has embedded this process in a piece of software that can quickly build your services portfolio and recommend optimizations based on current offerings available – such as Microsoft Office 365.

What are your thoughts?

You can hear more from John in his eBook, “The Evolution of Your Corporate IT Department“

By John Dixon, Director of Cloud Services

Accountability, Area of responsibility, Chief information officer, Cloud & IT Management, Cloud computing, Collaboration, Internet Technology, Project management, Project management software, Start Up

Six Steps for Choosing a Software Vendor for your Start-Up

January 26, 2015 Benjamin

You’ve decided to take the plunge. Your dream business is on its way to make it big and you’re scaling up rapidly. As a startup entrepreneur you’re conscious of your costs – bottom-line matters the most to you and outsourcing is the answer.

For your business, every decision that you take not only affects you immediately but can have rippling effects. It is important then that these decisions are taken after carefully considering the impact, yet you may not enjoy the luxury of time in this competitive business landscape.

As a budding business house, there are a few challenges that you will face – tight budgets, short turnaround times, robust software support, right skills and people resources, high focus on business development and competitive pricing norms. Most of these challenges will remain, but when it comes to choosing your software vendors, here are six steps that can ease your decision:

Understand your requirements
An in-depth analysis of how software is going to support your business is most critical. You not only need to understand your current requirements, but as a start-up your growth curve is exponential. You would need to have a sense of direction of where the business is headed and how your requirements will change. This will then be helpful for you to match your needs with the offerings of the vendors you screen.

Is the vendor flexible enough?
Sometimes you will have to choose between an extremely well-known name that provides you with a standard set of software offerings or an isv that is more willing to tweak systems as per your requirements. This will probably give you much more flexibility as you grow, enhance or modify your software requirements in a dynamic business environment.

How open are communication channels?
One of the biggest challenges you may face with vendors is the lack of open channels that can help cater to fast moving changes in your systems. Transparent communication channels, no language barriers and 24 by 7 customer support should be top of your list when selecting vendors.

Do they have the right people?
Do they have the right skills and people resources? Are they able to retain these people? Are their teams able to provide expert counsel to you in matters of software, emerging technologies and project management?

Confidentiality and security?
Does your software vendor provide you with a sense of peace when it comes to managing your data? Look at testimonials from other users and conduct a proper survey on how vendors manage their own security, confidentiality and look at legal agreements carefully before signing on.

Expansion capabilities and hidden costs?
Will the software vendor be able to support rapid expansion, do they have open architectures that facilitate growth and revisions? Look at all hidden costs clearly; articulate as much as is possible at the outset. But also do a professional ethics check to see that the vendor adheres to corporate norms when unwritten requirements crop up.

To know more about software vendors please click here.

ICLOUD PE