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2013-04-11T15:48:00.001-07:00

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What is Cloud Computing and how can Businesses reap its Benefits?

2012-02-09T12:15:00.000-08:00

Cloud Computing is a general term used to define an Internet Based Computing environment, which include provisioning of shared software, hardware and network resource, mainly for organization’s end users. Typically, CloudComputing providers host the general computing resources and they are accessed via internet as a service. For example, a user can access and utilize an application by using a normal web browser just like it’s installed on that particular system, while the application resides at remotes server and all the computations required running that application is done at that server.

Cloud Computing technology is a mixture or hybrid of few earlier computing paradigms, like;

Mainframe Computing: where powerful super computers (Mainframes) were used by large organization for critical applications.

Grid Computing: It is a form of computing in which cluster of computers combine their computing resources (idle resources), to form a super computer, performing large chunks of tasks.

Client-Server Computing: In this model servers responds to the needs of the clients as a service.

The underlying concept of Cloud Computing is in early nineties when the Telecommunication providers offered Virtual Private Networks to connect the remote offices of an organization together at a reduce cost with the same efficiency as of leased lines. Cloud was used to distinguish the physical premises of the VPN provider with that of the client. Cloud Computing further increased the service portfolio by providing many more services.

Amazon was the first provider to initiate Cloud Computing with its product Amazon Web Services, which was a collection of web services that all together form reliable, inexpensive and manageable computing resources over the internet. Since than Cloud Computing is the hottest buzz word among all the leading technology firms from Google, HP, and Microsoft.

Categories of Cloud Computing

There are many categories of Cloud Computing offering these days by many service providers such as storage, middleware and database but the most popular and common are Software as a Service (SasS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Desktop as a Service (DaaS).

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service or Cloud Application services, delivers complex mission critical turnkey application such as CRM or ERP over the internet to end user. It is the most common and popular application of Cloud Computing, where it simplifies management and support by removing the need to install and run the application on the customer’s computer.

It also eliminates the need of maintenance as the up gradation and installing patches is shifted at the providers end; the customer will always get the updated version of the software or application which is managed centrally by the service provider.

Platform as a Service

Platform as a Service delivers hardware, software, hosting or a computing platform as a service to facilitate the building and delivering web based application or services completely from the internet.

Platform as a Service differs from Software as a Service in this fashion that SaaS provided pre-built software with none or little customization available, whereas PaaS enables you to develop humongous web applications eliminating the need for specialized platform requirements to build those applications.

Infrastructure as a Service

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides operations oriented computing resources including storage, hardware, servers and networking components as a service over the internet. These services eliminate the need for an in-house data centre and the network equipment to access it. Sometimes it is also referred to as Hardwareas a Service (HaaS)

IaaS services are generally charged on utility computing billing model where only the amount of services used is billed. Infrastructure as a Service gives greater flexibility and elasticity to organization is scaling their computing requirements whenever they need it, thus giving an impression of unlimited infrastructure resources available.

Desktop as a Service

Desktop as a Service provides Virtual Desktop services through the use of Virtual Desktop Interface over the internet. It is based on Multi-tenancy architecture whereby, multiple desktops can be hosted on a single server and/or of different users. Virtual Desktop Services and Hosted Desktop Services are also classified as DaaS.

In this model an image of the user’s desktop image is saved on every Log On/ Log Off session onto the remote virtual machine and that can be accessed from anywhere in the world until you have internet connection. Service provider manages all the back-end so you need to worry about security and updates.

How Business can benefit from Cloud Computing?

There is no question in determining that business can reap a lot of benefits form Cloud Computing. When we review advantages of Cloud Computing, both, Provider and Customers, are winners. The most significant benefits are;

Cost – There is always cost associated with developing an in house Infrastructure especially for large organization with many users. Cloud Computing removes all the barriers by giving a substantially low cost entry and the best part is that you pay for what you use and disengage whenever you like without considering about capital invested.

Reliability- Cloud Computing gives reliability of the services as managing virtual servers is easier than physical servers. If the server or any hardware device is failed, the transition can easily be deployed to any available server as the service offers you greater flexibility.

Manageability - Cloud Computing gives you enhanced monitoring capabilities by centralizing all the resources keeping everything under your nose. Maintenance is eliminated because the end user is using simple user interface to access the service without installing it. Back-end engineering and constraints are always resolved and maintained by the provider hence freeing the customer for updating and maintaining the application.

Strategic Edge and Goal Orientation – The ever increasing and limitless computing resources gives a competitive edge over competitors where procurement time is virtually zero. So if you want to deploy a mission critical application that will give you significant recognition, up frontal cost or the access cost and the provisioning time to Technology is not a problem anymore. Thus the organizations can gain a strategic edge as well focus on their Goals and important business activities making businesses more productive.

Why Cloud Computing?

Today many organizations have taken advantage of the Cloud Computing in their data centre to avail the best it has to offer scalability, agility, automation, and resource sharing. Leading analysts like Gartner and IDC agrees that this new computing model has a lot of advantages for startups, SMB and large organizations. Cloud Computing enables the IT department focus on innovative application that can be beneficial to the business in many ways and at the same time reduce the Capital & Operational cost and automating complex technologies. Tech Giants like Microsoft, HP, and Dell etc are investing billions in Cloud Computing research and products. Microsoft alone set $20 Billion for Windows Azure, a cloud platform offering by MS which will enable to run almost any kind of language in it.

The on demand technology service model will suit any organization especially large, to accommodate any kind of computing requirements when and how much is required. Just consider this example that a Virtual server can replace up to 5 typical servers, which can save Capital and Operational expenses substantially and most of all, its Eco-Friendly. Thus considering this, Cloud Computing can have significant benefits and its here to stay!

5 Key Features to look for in SaaS Application Performance Monitoring tool

2012-02-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

Application Performance Monitoring is a critical function in keeping any software application fine-tuned for optimal performance within an on-premise infrastructure or a private cloud, and its importance grew even further if the application is hosted on a public cloud provider’s infrastructure, where the app owners control over the underlying architecture becomes limited. Businesses look for APM solutions to overcome the performance related issues but due to a large number of APM vendor’s segregation in the market, it is quite difficult to make a balanced decision. Selecting an Application Performance Monitoring and High-Level Server Management tools requires an organization to look down laser focused into their performance requirements, and identify the essential components, features and abilities which must be part of the Performance Monitoring tool. The cost economies, ease of management and integration, powered by Managed Service Platform makes SaaS Application Monitoring tools preferred choice for business buying decisions and many APM vendors have come with a Cloud version of their tool, delivered as a service yet equally powerful as an in-house installed solution. However, the core requirement for selecting an Application Performance Management tool remains particularly the same.

User Experience Monitoring

Identifying how the users are interacting with your application is the key feature any app developer would like to see in a monitoring tool, where real-time analysis and statistics into user-application interaction experiences, help in identifying performance issues. SaaS Application Performance Monitoring tools must equip application managers the ability to look inside their applications, with real time statistics on user sessions, user experiences with different web browsers, application response time in completing a query, application availability and other core performance centered figures essential in adjusting the application for top performance.

Easy to use and Low Complexity

SaaS based Web Application Performance Management and monitoring tools being provided as a service, must be easy to use for application managers and all other operations staff so that they can easily maneuver the tool to optimize for performance. Also the APM tool should bear low complexity in integrating and deploying within the application’s in-house data centre or a private/public cloud. Look for APM vendors which have collaboration with public/private cloud Infrastructure service providers for seamless integration into their computing resources.

Scalability Analysis & Projection

Scalability Analysis & projection mechanism in a SaaS Application Performance Monitoring tool gives application owners the ability to get insightful data on the utilization of compute resources by their application, frequency of input/output transactions server is handling over defined period of times, the application’s behavior with the increase in demand and covers the key statistics of application scalability with the growth in user base. Scalability Analysis & Projection aid businesses in planning key future enhancements for the back-end infrastructure resources, application rectification and in indentifying the potential operating environment of application in peak traffic scenarios.

Web Transaction Tracing and Application Analytics

SaaS Application Performance Monitoring tool needs to be smart in identifying the response time, error rates and other critical notifications to gain timely information on all the performance bottlenecks application is experiencing. The APM tool must investigate, analyze and audit every single transaction and compare it with the performance benchmark for continuous optimization of the managed application. Application Analytics on the other hand, should exactly pin-point the specific transaction, unclear SQL query or code causing the problem rather than application manager finding it by themselves.

Application Availability

Application’s Availability must be the prime concern for any application developer in ensuring that the application remains live even unattended round the clock 24/7/365. SaaS Application Performance Monitoring tool must routinely check your application for uptime availability and immediately reports the administrator through proactive notifications and alerts even the applications experience downtime for a single minute. Besides alerting the application managers, SaaS APM tools provide detailed event based reports on the transactions, code or server instance which caused the application downtime, for immediate remediation.

These features are a Must-Have for any SaaS Application Performance Management tool deployed by a business to control the performance of their application, gain more insight into their applications and take proactive actions to continuously tune application for desired efficiency and should be the key deciding and uncompromising factor in purchasing any APM suite.

AWs launched ElastiCache

2011-09-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

Amazon launched Amazon ElastiCache, a new web service that makes it easy to deploy, operate, and scale an in-memory cache in the cloud.

Amazon Web Services(AWS) launched toolkit for Visual Studio

2011-09-17T03:58:00.000-07:00

The AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio is an extension for Microsoft Visual Studio that makes it easier for developers to develop, debug, and deploy .NET applications using Amazon Web Services. With the AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio, you’ll be able to get started faster and be more productive when building AWS applications, all from within the context of Visual Studio.

This initial release has a number of features, including:

AWS Explorer – Easily access and administer your entire AWS infrastructure, including Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Amazon SimpleDB, AWS Identity and Access Management, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon SNS, and Amazon SQS.

Multiple AWS Account Support – Configure and easily switch between multiple AWS accounts (or IAM Users) during development.

AWS CloudFormation Deployment- Easily deploy your existing ASP.NET web applications to the AWS cloud using AWS CloudFormation. The included templates help you create a single instance application, or a load balanced, multi-AZ application, right from your Visual Studio environment.

Learn more at http://aws.amazon.com/visualstudio.

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What is Cloud Computing and how can Businesses reap its Benefits?

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