Friday 8 May 2015

What You Should Know About Cloud Computing


How and where do I get started on private cloud? The roads to cloud computing from the existing client-server computing are many. There are at least three major paths are available and followed by business users:

o Organizations that run applications hosted in VMs on servers can consolidate these servers to form a VM cluster. Adding automatic resource allocation, load balancing across VM clusters, and self-service access to resources results in a private cloud run by the IT department.

o Organizations that operate distributed systems on grids, managed by IT staff and shared by technical applications that are typically compute- or data-intensive can deploy cloud management software to generalize the grids to support more types of applications. Incorporating VM technologies and application environment provisioning tools from Data Center Automation products transforms the grid into a private cloud.

o Finally some organizations move directly from their desktops or any client devices allowing users to access applications hosted in cloud computing centers run by internal or external service providers.

An organization may choose to follow one path to cloud or another, and often several at the same time for different applications or parts of its business. To ensure success, the adoption of cloud computing should follow a sequence of evolutionary steps rather than an overnight revolution. Motivation for the use of cloud computing comes from users and progress is driven by the needs of specific applications for scalability, cost-effectiveness, or capabilities such as business process automation. Platform believes the best approach is to start small and build a private cloud using internal resources as a first step that can be used in a Test/Dev, HPC, or other specific application environment for example and then expanded.

Why should I work with Platform?

As the global leader in grid computing, Platform has leading technology and extensive experience in infrastructure sharing and workload scheduling, the two key capabilities that are required for the adoption of private clouds. Platform also has experience in deploying large scale distributed computing environments that leverage both physical and virtual resources, clusters and grids. Platform is one of the few vendors that deliver a cloud computing management platform (Platform ISF) which is technology agnostic supporting the leading hardware, OS and VM offerings. This means that existing resources can be leveraged to deploy a private cloud.

What are the common concerns with respect to the adoption of cloud computing?

Typically business users are reluctant to give up their dedicated resources and pool them in a shared environment due to concerns of resource availability, service levels and the responsiveness of a cloud computing environment. Also, in many organizations IT has not developed into a dependable strategic partner. This is an evolution IT must take if cloud computing is to become less daunting. Platform ISF helps you start, or accelerate this journey.

From IT's perspective, concerns of security and compliance (even inside the firewall) remain, as confidential information does not usually reside on shared servers. It is a misconception that a private cloud is deployed across the entire organization. It is expected that you will have pockets of dedicated resources for some legacy applications and those with static workload using up all the resources on a server. Finally, fears of upfront investment costs and complexity can be addressed through the availability of packaged cloud computing management software (like Platform ISF) designed to leverage existing infrastructure.

What are the barriers to cloud adoption within the enterprise?

The greatest barrier to the adoption of private cloud computing is the existing mindset within organizations and within their IT operations. The role of IT must change; a challenge for both IT and the organization overall, which has a preconceived notion of the role and capabilities of IT. Once this hurdle is crossed other barriers include the lack of a proof point, IT maturity (even after the mindset issue has been tackled), the need for project investment, and application suitability.

What is the role of public cloud within an enterprise?

Public cloud represents an important resource available to the enterprise and should be considered by cloud developers as valuable computer resources within a private cloud construct. It provides rapid access to compute resources on demand within a cloud environment and can save organizations capital costs, especially for organizations with spikes in demand or cyclical resource requirements. Resources from external providers can be incorporated into your private cloud as needed.

What industries will readily be able to take advantage of private cloud?

IT environments with elastic or variable demands for infrastructure and multiple overlapping applications can readily take advantage of private cloud computing today. These demands are often driven by internal application development, simulation, testing and business processes which have spikes in demand as a result of business cycle or project demands. Initially these would likely be in the functional areas which leverage HPC, Web apps and SOA applications. However the private cloud computing paradigm is suitable for medium and large enterprise spanning many industries including Financial Services, Retail, Manufacturing, Energy, Healthcare, High-tech and the Government sector.




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