Archivo de la categoría: Cloud computing

Complicating Cloud- Yes You Can, But No You Shouldn’t

abril 23, 2013 Ben Sawyer

By Ben Sawyer, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne

As a software engineer it is very easy to, well, over-engineer something. But, just because you *can* do something doesn’t mean you *should* do something. For example, I can get a tattoo but I shouldn’t. That being said, I did get a tattoo a while back so don’t judge me. Okay, back to the point. In these days, where for almost any project it’s hard to control scope, it’s very easy for an engineer to go above and beyond what is required because often times they will build something because they think it’s cool. These ideas are often not vetted with the internal team or, even more tragically, the client. And, while the idea may actually be great, the engineer has unknowingly increased the duration of the project significantly because, now, not only will time be used to implement some feature but more time is needed to test how that feature may affect the many other “known” features of a product or service.

There is no better example of simplicity than Apple. Steve Jobs was fanatical about keeping its products as simple as possible. If you think about it, the more features and moving parts a product has can very easily lead to more confusion. There is a lot of up front work (a lot) that needs to be considered about how a user *should* (there’s that word again) use a product…in other words how to control their experience. My 3-year old son was able to navigate his way around my iPhone in a matter of days so that speaks volumes to its usability. My mom still calls me once a week with an iPhone question and that speaks to her age.

For anyone who builds a product or delivers a service, it is crucial to not only consider how someone should consume their product but also how they shouldn’t. In other words, don’t let them shoot themselves in the foot (sorry Plaxico Burress). In terms of configuring or customizing a piece of software, many have options that are grouped under a “Basic” or “Advanced” group. The goal is to protect the users from themselves because if my mom ends up in the “Advanced” settings, I will most likely get a phone call in a matter of minutes (unless she’s managed to disable her phone).

So what does usability have to do with the cloud? Lots. As companies expand their datacenters, move some resources to the public cloud, and in general add more moving parts, it’s crucial to make sure all those products work together nicely and, if possible, are able to be managed as easily and in as few “places” as possible. Think of the famous new buzzword, Single Pane of Glass. That very phrase implies that there is a bunch of stuff going on under the covers which therefore necessitates having an easy place to control, monitor, and use all the moving parts. Regardless of what products companies use, they need to make certain that it’s not just the guts and plumbing of the product that’s important, it’s how you may manage them. Simplicity is even more important as people move to the public cloud where in many cases a user has little control over the UI (user interface) which must be used to manage those resources. That’s why it’s key to find a tool which can not only integrate with a company’s existing private infrastructure but also any one of the many public service providers out there. Any large service provider will provide a public API (a way for your code to call their code) so that you can manipulate the underlying resources without having to use their front-end application.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a product out there that allowed people to monitor & manage their entire infrastructure from a single place? Well, it just so happens there is…GreenPages’ Cloud Management as a Service solution, a.k.a., CMaaS. This product takes all the hard work from thousands of hours of development & presents the abundance of information in a very easy to use interface. But don’t be fooled by its simplicity; Steve Ballmer said the iPhone would never take off. Appreciate the amount of work that went into understanding how someone would use it in addition to how someone could use it. Bottom line…don’t be a Steve Ballmer.

To learn more about Cloud Management as a Service and the importance of hybrid cloud management in today’s IT landscape, download this free whitepaper. To contact us for more information on GreenPages CMaaS offering, click here!

Cloud computing, IT Management, Shadow IT

Shadow IT Management – Which Pill Morpheus?

abril 16, 2013 Geoff Smith

By Geoff Smith, Sr. Solutions Architect

The term “Shadow IT” has gotten more and more people thinking about the challenges we all face as we try to reign in our IT management and operations. Recently, I caught a few minutes of the movie The Matrix…now, that movie is a bit of a visual trip, but once you get past the effects, the underlying dilemma it presents is intriguing.

It seems to me that if you accept the notion that people will gravitate towards the easiest ways to get their jobs done, than you have to wonder if the tools and procedures you have in place are likely to encourage compliance, or force rebellion. As in the Matrix movies, what appears to be happening under the surface may actually be something completely different once you have peeled back the false construct you assume is reality.

It has long been known that IT people are an innovative and, well, curious lot. We will try just about anything once, and if we find something that allows us to “better” manage our environments then we may cross over from the fringe into the shadowy world of the truly obscure in search of the truly arcane. It’s almost a badge of honor to demonstrate how to solve IT challenges without relying on the industry best practices or accepted solutions.

The real question is, is this really a bad thing? If you think back to The Matrix, the false construct did have its advantages. Sure, you were effectively enslaved by machines, but at least they gave you a good fantasy to operate within. You had juicy steak and cool clothes and the slickest cars (BTW that is a 1965 Lincoln Continental with the “suicide doors” in the movie). And as far as anyone else in that reality was concerned you were as legitimate as they were. So what’s wrong with that, especially considering everyone else is in the same boat?

Shadow IT, especially as it applied to IT Management, may have its benefits, but it also carries a lot of risk. For every off-the-grid tool that performs a function within IT, or for every service you rely on that may not be fully vetted, you may have exposed your organization to potential abuses, both internal and external. Where do these tools come from? How reputable an organization was it that developed them? Does their use create security vulnerabilities? Do they violate standing policies or put at risk compliance? And is the information you’re getting reliable? How critical are they to the underlying functionality of your business systems? Who on your team really understands their purpose and use?

So if we have accepted the fact that these tools and services exist, and that in all likelihood their use is prevalent in our industry, what do we do about it? To blunt their use is to shut the door on creative innovation within our teams. And frankly it’s not that easy to stop. To lower our standards and policies and embrace their use could lead us into situations where our lack of control and enforcement results in bad things happening.

Red pill or blue pill? Do we accept the risks, and tell ourselves that those bad things are so unlikely to happen that the benefits outweigh the risks (or – hey I might just be the equivalent of a Duracell battery but since I don’t know it I’m happy)? Or do we drop into a harsh reality where getting things accomplished might be more difficult and frankly less visibly rewarding (or – I’ve traded steak for Tastee Wheat but at least I know what I’m really eating). What if there were a “purple” pill available? An alternative to the options of pure fantasy or brutal reality?

There is a purple pill, and it’s not an answer but a question. That question is why? Why does my team feel they need to “jack-in” in order to accomplish anything in our environment? Why can’t they get done what they need to with the approved tools and service already at their disposal? Why do these policies and restrictions exist in the first place, and are those reasons still legitimate?

It’s about structured enablement and inclusive decision-making. Gather your teams and work from the inside out. Start with what they feel needs to be accomplished to meet the organizational needs. Understand the gaps between how they work and the policies and procedures that are in place today. Are there areas of consolidation or elimination of steps that can be taken to improve efficiencies and render some of the shadow services useless?

As you re-architect your approaches, also look for ways to improve the working environment for your teams. Are there tasks they are required to perform that have become so rote and uninteresting that they have fallen into the shadows? If so, rather than re-populate your teams with these tasks, look to move them into a more tightly controlled environment. This may be accomplished by automation or even by out-tasking to a provider (under a strictly defined and controlled contract with full auditing and reporting). And don’t forget that these “basic” functions are the foundation of a well-oiled IT machine.

In all transparency, I have watched The Matrix a number of times, and while my attempt to tie this concept of Shadow IT Management into the movie may have fallen short, I do think it’s not whether you choose the red pill or the blue one, but it’s the fact that you have the ability to make that choice at all. There is a difference, after all, in knowing the path and walking the path. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

Cloud computing, Featured, IT security, two-factor authentication

Cloud Security: From Hacking the Mainframe to Protecting Identity

abril 11, 2013 Journey to the Cloud

By Andi Mann, Vice President, Strategic Solutions at CA

Cloud computing, mobility, and the Internet of Things are leading us towards a more technology-driven world. In my last blog, I wrote about how the Internet of Things will change our everyday lives, but with these new technologies comes new risks to the organization.

To understand how recent trends are shifting security, let’s revisit the golden age of hacking movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s. A recent post by Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic sums up this era of Hollywood hackers by saying that “the mainframe was unhackable unless [the hackers] were in the room, in which case, it was simple.” That’s not far off from how IT security was structured in those years. Enterprises secured data by keeping everything inside a corporate firewall and only granting accessed to employees within the perimeter. Typically, the perimeter extended as far as the walls of the building.

When the cloud emerged on the scene, every IT professional said that it was too risky and introduced too many points of vulnerability. They weren’t wrong, but the advantages of the cloud, such as increased productivity, collaboration, and innovation, weren’t about to be ignored by the business. If the IT department just said no to cloud, the business could go elsewhere for their IT services – after all, the cloud doesn’t care who signs the checks. In fact, a recent survey revealed that in 60% of organizations, the business occasionally “circumvents IT and purchases technology on their own to support a project,” a practice commonly referred to as rogue IT, and another recent study found a direct correlation between rogue IT and data loss. This is obviously something that the IT department can’t ignore.

Identity is the New Perimeter

The proliferation of cloud connected devices and users accessing data from outside the firewall demands a shift in the way we secure data. Security is no longer about locking down the perimeter – it’s about understanding who is accessing the information and the data they’re allowed to access. IT needs to implement an identity-centric approach to secure data, but according to a recent Ponemon study, only 29% of organizations are confident that they can authenticate users in the cloud. At first glance, that appears to be a shockingly low number, but if you think about it, how do you verify identity? Usernames and passwords, while still the norm, are not sufficient to prove identity and sure, you can identify a device connected to the network, but can you verify the identity of the person using the device?

In a recent @CloudCommons tweetchat on cloud security, the issue of proving the identity of cloud users kept cropping up:

Today’s hackers don’t need to break into your data center to steal your data. They just need an access point and your username and password. That’s why identity and access management is such a critical component of IT security. New technologies are emerging to meet the security challenge, such as strong authentication software that analyzes risk and looks for irregularities when a user tries to access data. If a user tries to access data from a new device, the strong authentication software will recognize that it’s a new device and extra authentication flows kick in that require the user to further verify their identity.

What IT should be doing now to secure identity

To take advantage of cloud computing, mobility, and the Internet of Things in a secure way, the IT department needs to implement these types of new and innovative technologies that focus on verifying identity. In addition to implementing new technologies, the IT department needs to enact a broader cloud and mobile device strategy that puts the right policies and procedures in place and focuses on educating employees to minimize risk. Those in charge of IT security must also establish a trust framework that enforces how you identify, secure and authenticate new employees and devices.

Cloud computing, mobile devices, and the Internet of Things can’t be ignored by IT and the sooner a trust framework and a cloud security strategy is established, the sooner your organization can take advantage of new and innovative technologies, allowing the business to reap the benefits of cloud, mobile, and the Internet of Things, while keeping the data safe and sound. And to me, that sounds like a blockbuster for IT.

Andi Mann is vice president of Strategic Solutions at CA Technologies. With over 25 years’ experience across four continents, Andi has deep expertise of enterprise software on cloud, mainframe, midrange, server and desktop systems. Andi has worked within IT for global corporations, with software vendors, and as a leading industry analyst. He has been published in the New York Times, USA Today, Forbes, CIO, Wall Street Journal, and more, and has presented worldwide on virtualization, cloud, automation, and IT management. Andi is a co-author of the popular handbook, ‘Visible Ops – Private Cloud’, and the IT leader’s guide to business innovation, ‘The Innovative CIO’. He blogs at https://pleasediscuss.com/andimann and tweets as @AndiMann.

Cloud computing, Enterprise Cloud, Featured

Cloudviews Recap: The Enterprise Cloud

marzo 22, 2013 Journey to the Cloud

By John Dixon, Consulting Architect, LogicsOne

A few weeks ago, I took part in another engaging tweetchat on Cloud Computing. The topic: the enterprise cloud. Transcript here: http://storify.com/CloudCommons/cloudviews-tweetchat-enterprise-cloud

I’ll be recapping the responses to each question posed in the Tweetchat and giving an expanded response from the GreenPages perspective. As usual with tweetchats hosted by CloudCommons, five questions are presented a few days in advance of the event. This time around, the questions were:

How should an enterprise get started with cloud computing?
Is security still the “just because” reason for not migrating to the cloud?
Who is responsible for setting the cloud strategy in the enterprise?
What’s the best way for enterprises to measure cloud ROI?
What are the top 3 factors enterprises should consider before moving to a cloud model?
How should an enterprise measure the success of its cloud implementation?

Before we jump in to each question, let me say that the Cloud Commons Tweetchats are getting better and better. I try to participate in each one, and I find the different perspectives very interesting. The dynamic on Twitter makes these conversations pretty intense, and we always cover a lot of ground in just 60 minutes. Thanks to all of the regulars that participate. And if you haven’t been able to participate yet, I encourage you to have a look.

How should an enterprise get started with cloud computing?

I’m sure you’d agree that there are lots of different perspectives on cloud computing, especially now that adoption is gaining momentum. Consumers are regularly using cloud services. Organizations large and small are using cloud computing in different ways. Out of the gate, these different perspectives came to the surface. Here’s a recap of the first responses (with my take in parentheses). I don’t disagree with any of them; I think they’re all valid:

“Ban new development that doesn’t use cloud … as a means to help development teams begin to learn the new paradigm” (maybe a little harsh, but I can see some policy and governance coming through in that point – after all, many corporate IT shops have a virtualization policy that kind of works this way, don’t they?)
2. “Inventory applications, do some analysis, and find cloud candidates” (this is definitely one way to go, and maybe the most risk-averse; this perspective holds “the cloud” as a destination)
3. “Use SaaS” (certainly the easiest and quickest way to start using cloud, if that’s a mandate from management)
4. “Enterprises are already using cloud, next question” (I definitely agree with this one, enterprises are already using cloud for some things, no doubt about it)
5. “Look at rogue IT, then enhance and wrap some governance around the best ideas” (again, I definitely agree with this one as a valid method; in fact, I did a recent blog post on the same concept,
6. “Know what you need from a cloud provider and be prepared” (the Boy Scout model, be prepared! I definitely agree with this one as well! In fact, look here.)
7. “Partner with the business to determine how cloud fits in the COMPANY strategy, not the IT strategy” (this was from me; and maybe it is obvious by now that cloud has huge business benefits, not just benefits for corporate IT)

There was lots of talk about the idea of identifying the “rogue IT” groups and embracing the unique things they have done in the cloud. All in all, these are ALL great ways to get started with cloud. In hindsight, I would add in another method of my own:

Manage your internal infrastructure as if it were already deployed to the cloud. Some tools emerging now have this capability – to manage infrastructure through one interface whether it is deployed in your datacenter, with Rackspace, or even Amazon. This way, if and when you do decide to move some IT services to an external provider, the same tools and processes can be applied.

Your organization may have some additional methods to get started with cloud (and I’d love to hear about them!). So, why not use all of these methods in one concerted effort to evaluate cloud computing technology?

Is security still the “just because” reason for not migrating to the cloud?

The short recap on this topic: yes, organizations do use security as a convenient way to avoid acting on something. The security justification is more prevalent in large organizations, for obvious reasons. I’d like to point out one of the first responses though:

“…or is security becoming a reason to move to the cloud? Are service providers able to hire better security experts?”

I think this is a fantastic, forward looking response. History has seen that specialization in markets does occur. Call this industrial specialization: eventually…

“The price of infrastructure services will be reduced as the market becomes more competitive. Providers will compete in the market by narrowing their focus on providing infrastructure in a secure and reliable way – they specialize or go out of business.” To compete, service providers will find/attract the best people who can help them design, build, and test infrastructure effectively
Thus, the best people in IT security (a.k.a., the people most interested in security) will be attracted to the best jobs with service providers

Who is responsible for setting the cloud strategy in the enterprise?

Common answer was C-level, either CIO or even CEO. Cloud computing should enable the strategy of the overall business, not only IT. I think that IT should own the cloud strategy, but that more business-oriented thinkers should be in IT!

What’s the best way for enterprises to measure cloud ROI?

Lots of perspectives popped up on these topics. I don’t think the group stood behind a single answer. Here are some of the interesting responses for measuring ROI of cloud:

IT staff reduction
Business revenue divided by IT operations expense
Improving time to market for new applications

Measuring the value of IT services is, excuse the pun, tricky business. I think cloud adoption will undoubtedly accelerate once there is a set of meaningful metrics that is applicable across industries. Measuring ROI of a virtualization effort was fairly easy math – reduction in servers, networking, datacenter floor space, etc. Measuring ROI of cloud is much more difficult, but the prize is up for grabs!

What are the top 3 factors enterprises should consider before moving to a cloud model?

This goes back to the Boy Scout model of proper preparation, which I wrote about a few months ago. I saw a few responses that were especially interesting, and yet unsolved:

Repatriation, or portability of applications
Organizational change (shouldn’t cloud be transparent?)
Investments in legacy technology, goes to timing and WHEN to consider cloud
Security, location of data, etc.

At GreenPages, we think of cloud computing more as a management paradigm, and as a New Supply Chain for IT. Considering that perspective, the points above are less of an issue. GreenPages Cloud Management as a Service (CMaaS) offering was designed specifically for this – to view cloud computing as the New Supply Chain for IT. In a world of consumers (enterprises) and providers (the likes of Amazon, Rackspace, and Terremark), where competition drives prices down, cloud computing, like other supply chains, can be thought of as the way to take advantage of market forces to benefit the business.

Thanks to Cloud Commons for another great conversation…looking forward to the next one!

Cloud computing, cloud management

Breaking Down the Management Barriers to Adopting Hybrid Cloud Technologies

marzo 19, 2013 Geoff Smith

By Geoff Smith, Sr. Solutions Architect

It is inarguable that change is sweeping the IT industry. Over the last five years a number of new technologies that provide huge technological advantages (and create management headaches) have been developed. We have attempted to leverage these advances to the benefit of our organizations, while at the same time struggling with how to incorporate them into our established IT management methodologies. Do we need to throw out our mature management protocols in order to partake in the advantages provided by these new technologies, or can we modify our core management approaches and leverage similar advances in management methodologies to provide a more extensible platform that enables adoption of advanced computing architectures?

Cloud computing is one such advance. One barrier to adopting cloud as a part of an IT strategy is how we will manage the resources it provides us. Technically, cloud services are beyond our direct control because we do not “own” the underlying infrastructure and have limited say in how those services are designed and deployed. But are they beyond our ability to evaluate and influence?

There are the obvious challenges in enabling these technologies within our organizations. Cloud services are provided by and managed by those whom we consume them from, not within our four-walled datacenter. Users utilizing cloud services may do so outside of IT control. And, what happens when data and service consumption crosses that void beyond our current management capabilities?

{Download this free whitepaper to learn more about GreenPages Cloud Management as a Service offering; a revolutionary way organizations can manage hybrid cloud environments}

In order to manage effectively in this brave new world of enablement, we must start to transition our methodologies and change our long-standing assumptions of what is critical. We still have to manage and maintain our own datacenters as they exist today. However, our concept of a datacenter has to change. For one thing, datacenters are not really “centers” anymore. Once you leverage externally consumed resources as part of your overall architecture, you step outside of the physical and virtual platforms that exist within your own facilities. A datacenter is now “a flexible, secure and measurable compute utility comprised of delivery mechanisms, consumption points, and all connectivity in between.”

And so, we need to change how we manage our IT services. We need to expand our scope and visibility to include both the cloud services that are part of our delivery and connectivity mechanisms, and the end points used to consume our data and services. This leads to a fundamental shift in daily operations and management. Going forward, we need to be able to measure our service effectiveness end to end, even if in between they travel through systems not our own.

So the root question is, how do we accomplish this? There are four distinct areas of change that we need to consider:

Tools – the toolsets we utilize to perform our management processes need to both understand these new technologies, and expand our end-to-end visibility and evaluation capabilities
Techniques – we need to modify the way we perform our daily IT functions and apply our organizational policies in order to consider the new computing platforms we will be consuming. Our ability to validate, influence and directly control IT consumption will vary, however our underlying responsibilities to deliver effective and efficient services to our organizations should not
Talent – we are faced with adopting not only new technologies, but also new sets of responsibilities within our IT support organizations. The entire lifecycle of IT is moving under the responsibility of the support organization. We can develop the appropriate internal talent or we can extend our teams with external support organizations, but in either case the talent needed will expand in proportion to the capabilities of the platforms we are enabling
Transparency – the success of enabling new technologies will be gauged on how well those technologies meet business needs. Through comprehensive analysis, reporting and auditing, IT will be able to demonstrate the value of both the technology decisions and the management structures

First and foremost, we must modify our concepts of what is critical to monitor and manage. We need to be able to move our viewpoints from individual silos of technology to a higher level of awareness. No longer can we isolate what is happening at the network layer from what is transpiring within our storage facilities. The scope of what we are responsible for is expanding, and the key metrics are changing. No longer is availability the key success factor. Usability is how our teams will be judged.

In the past, a successful IT team may have strived for five 9s of availability. In this new paradigm, availability is now a foundational expectation. The ability of our delivered services to be used in a manner that enables the business to meet its objectives will become the new measuring stick. Business units will define what the acceptable usability metrics are, basing them on how they leverage these services to complete their tasks. IT will in fact be driven to meet these service level agreements.

Secondly, we have to enable our support teams to work effectively with these new technologies. This is a multifaceted issue, consisting of providing the right tools, processes and talent. Tools will need to expand our ability to view, interface and influence systems and services beyond our traditional reach. Where possible, the tools should provide an essential level of management across all platforms regardless of where those services are delivered from (internal, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS). Likewise, our processes for responding to, managing, and remediating events will need to change. Tighter enforcement of service level commitments and the ability to validate them will be key. Our staff will need to be authorized to take appropriate actions to resolve issues directly, limiting escalations and handoffs. And we will need to provide the talent (internally or via partners) necessary to deliver on the entire IT lifecycle, including provisioning, de-provisioning and procurement.

Last, IT will be required to prove the effectiveness not only of their support teams, but also of the selection of cloud-based service providers. Because we consume external services does not release us from the requirements of service delivery to our organizations. Our focus will need to shift toward demonstrating that service usability requirements have been met. This will require transparency between our internally delivered systems and our externally consumed services.

This is a transition, not a light-switch event. And as such, our approach to management change must mirror that pace. Our priorities and focus will need to shift in concert with our shift from delivered services toward consumed services.

Would you like to learn more about our Cloud Management as a Service offering? Fill out this form and we will get in touch with you shortly!

Cloud computing, colocation, Data center, Featured

Colocation: 55+ living for your IT equipment

marzo 7, 2013 Chris Reily

I recently sat on a planning call with an extremely smart and agreeable client. We had discussed a modest “data center” worth of equipment to host the environment he’s considering putting into production. I asked the simple enough question of “where are you going to deploy this gear?” I have to admit not being very surprised when he responded: “Well, I’ve cleaned out a corner of my office.” Having spent some early days of my IT career working in a server closet, I knew that if the hum of the equipment fans didn’t get to him quickly, the heat output would for sure. This is not an uncommon conversation. Clearly the capital expense of building out a “data center” onsite was not an appealing topic. So, if building isn’t an option, why not rent?

In a similar vein, not too far back I watched several “senior” members of my family move into 55+ communities after years of resisting. Basically, they did a “capacity planner” and realized the big house was no longer needed. They figured somebody else could worry about the landscaping, snow plowing and leaky roofs. The same driving forces should have many IT pros considering a move into a colocation facility.

The opportunities to move into a hosted data center (colo facility) are plentiful today. You simply don’t have as much gear any longer (assuming you’re mostly virtualized). Your desire to “do it all” yourself has waned (let someone else worry about keeping the lights on and network connected). The added bonus of providing redundant network paths, onsite security and almost infinite expansion are driving many “rental” conversations today. Colos are purpose-built facilities which are ideal for core data center gear such as servers, storage (SANs), routers and core switches, to name a few. Almost all of them have dual power feeds, backup battery systems and generators. HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning) units keep appropriate environmental conditions for the operation of this critical equipment.

Many businesses don’t fully realize just how much power consumption is required to operate a data center. The energy bills achieved for just the cooling component alone can leave many IT managers, well, frosted. Even still, the need to see the healthy status green blinking lights is like a digital comfort blanket. Speaking with many IT execs, we hear over and over “This was the best move we could have made.” From our own experience, we’ve seen our internal IT team shift focus to strategic initiatives and end user support.

While it is certainly not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, there is something for most organizations when it comes to colo. Smaller organizations with one rack of equipment have seen tremendous advantages as have clients approaching the “enterprise” size with dozens of cabinets of gear. Redundancy, security, cost control, predictable budgets and 7x24x365 support are all equally attractive reasons to move into a “colo.” Call it a “colominium” if you will. Colo could be the right step toward a more efficient and effective IT existence.

Cloud computing

Guest Post: Why Midmarket Business Needs Cloud Services in 2013

febrero 22, 2013 Journey to the Cloud

Guest Post: Grant Davis

This is a guest post and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of GreenPages Technology Solutions.

The global market is becoming more and more competitive by the second, thus requiring businesses to operate very efficiently with regards to organizational structure. Businesses, specifically midmarket size, are faced with tall tasks in 2013. With a growing enterprise, information increases as the operations do. A growing company requires higher level data management, and this leads to more intricate demands when it comes to IT organization and communication.

If a midmarket is firing on all cylinders, acquiring new clients and consumers by the day, there is only so much that an unorganized or incapable operations model can withstand. The IT department can only cope with so many networks and so much data. A commonality among growing business in America throughout modern society is the implementation of cloud services. Cloud offers a way to outsource data and network management with the ability to focus resources and time on more intricate and fundamental aspects of the business.

Below I list the main ways that midmarket businesses can benefit from the utilization of cloud services in 2013, and the critical reasons for the argument.

1. Cost.

Cloud services can be financially viable in the right situation. Using an outsourced data storage center can decrease the cost of real estate, software and employee payroll. For one, a midmarket that works with a cloud vendor does not have to physically house as much data. This is substantial benefit, mainly because of the physical space but also the operational costs of a larger company with high energy consumption.

Secondly, a cloud provider would be responsible for software agreements and also network operations. This is a huge burden off of a midmarket, as serious growth tends to take focus away from standard processing issues. This responsibility being shifted to the cloud provider alleviates cost in the sense that a business can reduce or relocate IT staff for better efficiency. It can also benefit an enterprise to not have to worry about multiple SLAs with various software providers. It can save money to have the agreement consolidated and maintained by the cloud vendor.

Why this is crucial: Midmarket business can only reach maximum efficiency if all of the parts are in place. Part of this is allocating resources in a way that gets the most out of each aspect of the company. If a Data Modeler or System Admin can be utilized more effectively in this crucial phase of business development, maybe it’s better to outsource their daily role to a cloud vendor. It’s possible that their creativity and focus needs to be distributed in another area of the business different than process management. Innovation is key right now, and this is part of the process.

2. Flexibility.

Cloud services may be a good idea for IT decision makers within a midmarket because employees are able to be more flexible. For instance, a cloud vendor allows for immediate access to business information from various portals, including mobile devices. In 2013 a typical cloud vendor seamlessly supplies business leadership and operations teams with the ability to access information from all angles of daily routines. This is a huge benefit in modern society where nearly everything is immediate and in constant real-time.

Also, because midmarket business is often trying to compete and outreach in a competitive market, traveling off location will be much less detrimental to work efficiency. If the company CIO is going to a tradeshow in Phoenix, they should still be able to access any processes being maintained by the cloud vendor.

Why this is crucial: Midmarket business in 2013 requires collaboration to be successful. With information being stored in a cloud storage center, information can be accessed from diverse locations. This increases both internal and external business collaboration. Modern society is far too demanding to have anything that is inefficient, and flexibility is directly related to efficiency when it comes to a growing business and data management.

3. Scalability.

IT is the backbone of most business operations. Modern information is too complex to handle manually, and we rely on computers and networks to transport and maintain data. An additional advantage of a midmarket acquiring cloud services is that the business can upscale or downscale IT services based on specific need. For instance, if the midmarket has stagnant growth over the holiday season, they can scale back their service agreement with the vendor to save money during that time. Similarly, if business continues to grow, the cloud service can easily expand and accommodate the new volume of data management that it performs for the business. This is not as viable with internal data management, as new software and hardware will need to be purchased with each major alteration in IT requirements. This can lead to wasted money and lost resources.

Why this is crucial: Business in general is too unpredictable in the current economy to assume anything, even when it comes to IT requirements. Cloud vendors allow for leeway with regards to data storage and this is important when a midmarket is concerned because often times these businesses don’t have the margin of error to make up for any inefficiency. They need the exact amount of storage they need, when they need it.

Conclusions

Midmarket business is important to the United States economy and affects the lives of many people. Usually these operations are on the cusp of doing something significant, and proper organization within IT can help allocate resources in the right areas for maximum production and business model maintenance. It’s time for IT and business leadership to make note of this and move to action in early 2013.

Grant Davis is a Data Modeler by day and a writer by night. His passion for computers started when he discovered instant messaging in junior high school. When Grant isn’t trying to climb through the computer screen he writes for BMC, a leading mainframe management provider.

Are you a midmarket organization looking to bring your IT environment to the next level? Click to learn more about how GreenPages can help!

Amazon, Amazon AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS, Cloud & IT Management, Cloud computing, Data center, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity, Hardware, James Hamilton, Networking

Wired Profiles a New Breed of Internet Hero, the Data Center Guru

febrero 19, 2013 Richard

The whole idea of cloud computing is that mere mortals can stop worrying about hardware and focus on delivering applications. But cloud services like Amazon’s AWS, and the amazingly complex hardware and software that underpins all that power and flexibility, do not happen by chance. This Wired article about James Hamilton paints of a picture of a new breed of folks the Internet has come to rely on:

…with this enormous success comes a whole new set of computing problems, and James Hamilton is one of the key thinkers charged with solving such problems, striving to rethink the data center for the age of cloud computing. Much like two other cloud computing giants — Google and Microsoft — Amazon says very little about the particulars of its data center work, viewing this as the most important of trade secrets, but Hamilton is held in such high regard, he’s one of the few Amazon employees permitted to blog about his big ideas, and the fifty-something Canadian has developed a reputation across the industry as a guru of distributing systems — the kind of massive online operations that Amazon builds to support thousands of companies across the globe.

Read the article.

Cloud computing, hybrid cloud, PaaS, Stratos, WSO2

WSO2 Opens Beta for Stratos 2.0 PaaS Offering

febrero 13, 2013 Richard

Today WSO2 unveiled the beta release of WSO2 Stratos 2.0. Newly re-architected, WSO2 Stratos 2.0 is a foundation for implementing a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that combines support for heterogeneous applications and service-oriented architecture (SOA) platform runtimes with native, secure multi-tenancy. WSO2 Stratos 2.0 also adds the capability to run on any cloud infrastructure, including VMware, Eucalyptus, Amazon and OpenStack.

WSO2 previewed the latest release of WSO2 Stratos at WSO2Con 2013, which runs February 13-14 in London. The company also announced that it has begun accepting customers for the WSO2 Stratos 2.0 beta program.

“Increasingly enterprises view the cloud as a platform for innovation. However, until now they’ve had to make trade-offs between using their favorite development tools and middleware or capitalizing on the multi-tenancy of a native cloud environment. With WSO2 Stratos 2.0, these organizations no longer have to compromise,” said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder and CEO.

The Stratos 2.0 approach to multi-tenancy goes beyond other PaaS environments to support multiple levels of virtualization—from standard virtual machines, via Linux Containers to intra-JVM isolation. This choice of sharing resources while providing the correct isolation level for multiple tenants is a significant factor in enabling lower costs, greater flexibility, and easier on-ramping into a private or public cloud environment.

The new tenant-aware elastic load balancer in Stratos 2.0 is a first-of-a-kind capability that allows the environment to provide highly tunable performance to different tenants, ranging from “economy class” for low priority workloads up to “private jet” mode for workloads that require dedicated resources.

At the heart of Version 2.0 is a new cartridge architecture for plugging software into WSO2 Stratos to take advantage of cloud-native capabilities, such as multi-tenancy, elastic scaling, self-service provisioning, metering, billing, and resource pooling, among others. As a result, WSO2 Stratos 2.0 is able to run, not only 13 WSO2 Carbon enterprise middleware products, but also a choice of frameworks, databases, and other application services.

WSO2 Stratos 2.0 also significantly enhances PaaS deployment through an integration layer that uses the popular jclouds technology to allow it to run on any infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) including OpenStack, VMware, Eucalyptus and CloudStack. Additionally, use of the Puppet open source tool for infrastructure deployment in this release makes it easier than ever to install and configure Stratos in a private or public cloud environment. Like all WSO2 software, WSO2 Stratos 2.0 is 100% open source and will be made available under the Apache License 2.0.

Ideal candidates for the WSO2 Stratos 2.0 beta program are enterprise IT professionals who are planning or evaluating ways to deliver new applications and/or migrate existing ones to the cloud. Participants also must be committed to participating and giving feedback. For more information and to contact WSO2 about joining the beta program, please visit the product Web page: http://wso2.com/cloud/stratos.

ICLOUD PE