cloudynamics

Trending TV Shows

2015-10-31T22:08:00.002-07:00

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Comparing open source cloud platforms: OpenStack versus Eucalyptus

2011-12-15T13:08:00.000-08:00

Rackspace and NASA recently launched OpenStack, a cloud software stack that has already generated significant buzz in open source and cloud computing circles. What it offers, in a nutshell, is an entryway for hosting providers that want to provide a cloud service to their customers, much like Parallels Virtuozzo opened up virtual private servers to Web hosting companies.

OpenStack offers the promise of do-it-yourself clouds in a secure, private test lab before moving to either private cloudor public cloud, along with insight into the real security issues behind cloud computing and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). OpenStack has been hailed as the most significant development in cloud computing to date. What doesn't it offer?

A tie-in to the number-one cloud provider, Amazon, for one. For that, you'd have to turn to Eucalyptus, the other open source cloud computing product on the market. Eucalyptus has been around for nearly three years, a long time in terms of IaaS products. It was founded out of a research project in the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and became a for-profit business in 2009.

The benefits of Eucalyptus
One benefit of Eucalyptus is that its open source software components are used without modification, meaning that they can run on unmodified GNU Linux kernels with relative ease. Ubuntu's baked-in cloud computing is Eucalyptus-based and is ready to be installed right after download, making it very convenient.

But that doesn't compare to Eucalyptus' biggest benefit: It is designed to be application programming interface (API)-compatible with Amazon's EC2 platform. That means that a company evaluating EC2 can use freely available software on freely available operating systems to build a compatible test lab. That same company, once they are an Amazon customer, can then use Eucalyptus for development work before pushing to the ever-live world of the real cloud. Eucalyptus is, at the moment, perfect to soothe the cloud angst in decision-makers everywhere.

Interestingly enough, Eucalyptus was also put to use by NASA at their Ames Research Center in California, on the Nebula platform project, until issues stemming from the partially-closed pieces of Eucalyptus forced their hand. It was originally only an issue of scalability, a problem most products suffer from at their inception, but the rift between Eucalyptus and NASA became irreparable when NASA found it could not contribute scalability-resolving code to the project without running afoul of Eucalyptus Systems Inc., the corporate entity behind Eucalyptus.

This is because Eucalyptus is not fully open source. The company behind Eucalyptus maintains some code for commercial Eucalyptus Enterprise Edition (E3) featureslike management, SAN integration, a better back-end database and compatibility with VMware -- necessary functions that the company either can't or won't open source. OpenStack, being 100% open source from the ground up, does not yet offer these features, though they are supposedly on the roadmap.

Eucalyptus is also not a full, 100% implementation of Amazon EC2. While it does implement most of EC2's APIs (and some of the E3 APIs), it is not, nor is it intended to be, a complete carbon copy. What it does well is instant provisioning -- taking the process behind the creation of new servers and automating it to be nearly instantaneous. This is meant to ease the burden on IT resources and improve efficiencies to meet spikes in demand. So long as the server being provisioned is of a supportable type (and that is the main goal in using EC2), all is well with using Eucalyptus either in place of EC2 or as a test zone before moving servers or templates into EC2.

Right now, Eucalyptus has the only fully-functional cloud product that adheres to any standards aside from its own, and it has chosen to align that compatibility with Amazon, the largest player in the market. Eucalyptus' ties to the biggest name in IaaS stand to help its product gain significant market share.

How OpenStack will affect open source
Historically, the open source community has impacted both the economics and the innovations of the computer industry. Open source software is known for causing previously monolithic applications to become commoditized. In the database space, one only needs to look at MySQL andPostgreSQL. In the Web server space, there is Apache, and in application servers, there are Tomcat, JOnAS, JBoss, Jetty andGlassFish. In programming and scripting languages, there are the likes of Java, Perl and PHP. GNU Linux, in particular, has done so much to commoditize the operating system market that even phones use it.

What OpenStack promises to do is to make the technologies behind the cloud a commodity. While markets will always have room for closed source projects, the impact of open source on those markets is profound and deep, driving innovation and making systems that were previously unable to communicate with one another become interoperable.

In theory, the OpenStack project offers this and much more, by virtue of being completely open. While it has attracted top-tier support (Citrix, Dell, NTT, etc.), it is still only available as a feature-limited "developer preview" with clear disclaimers about its maturity and stability. It also remains to be seen what Eucalyptus will do with its dominant position in the open source cloud platform market. Will it adapt to the change in the market, playing to strengths while minimizing weaknesses around compatibility and openness, or will the platform remain as it is and risk fading into the background?

What admins need to know about Windows Azure services

2011-12-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Microsoft is famous for saying it’s "all in" with cloud computing, and for developers, there’s been a lot of information, code and features to sink their teeth into. But as an IT administrator, the cloud represents something outside of your boundaries -- something your company pays for, but you don’t directly control.

The truth is, there hasn’t been a lot of really good messaging around what Windows Azure means for IT professionals. So let’s take a look at the Azure lifecycle from an IT perspective and try to piece together how the worlds of cloud computing and IT departments come together.

First, understand the essentials of Azure
Windows Azure, put very succinctly, is an environment run by Microsoft that lets developers create applications that will run anywhere without worrying about things like specifying hardware, dealing with demand, or acquiring management teams to take care of the bells and whistles. Azure basically abstracts the layers of service provisioning and computer management from the developer, so he or she can write an application to the Azure platform but not be concerned with resources, machines, state, and so on.

Companies supposedly benefit because you only pay for what you use (i.e. the time Microsoft’s resources are used on your company’s behalf), which minimizes capital costs to run your Internet-connected applications.

The Azure platform consists of three main parts:

The fabric. The fabric is basically a network of all the Microsoft machines that are dedicated to running the Windows Azure platform. Now I hesitate to use the term “network” because within the Azure feature set is the ability to set up virtual networks between Azure instances and virtual machine roles. For now, however, picture the fabric as the vast swath of machines in Microsoft’s data centers across the world that are dedicated to servicing the platform.
The storage. Storage in Azure can be represented by tables, queues and binary large objects (BLOBs), as well as a unique feature called Windows Azure Drives.
Tables are simply containers used to hold structured data, much like what you’d find in a traditional database. Queues are useful as messaging components where an application can place a message on a queue and then remove it to act on the contents of the message at a later time -- in effect, enabling asynchronous communication. Finally, storage can contain BLOBs, which can be anything from media, images, text, documents, programs, or anything else you can imagine. The Windows Azure Drives feature essentially lets you mount NTFS volumes like disks, so IT pros are likely already familiar with how this works.
The APIs and SDK. This is the layer that developers work in; the hooks to the customizations that run on the underlying fabric that allow apps to seamlessly work across all of Windows Azure. (Think about it -- part of an application might be running on a machine in Redmond while another thread from that same application might be running in Chicago. That would be a nightmare to program against in any other situation, but with Azure, the distance is abstracted away.)

Azure responsibilities for IT pros
Even with the cloud taking care of a lot of the heavy lifting, IT pros and admins have to set up and deploy those custom-developed applications and constantly monitor their health. They also need to forecast and manage the demand for the applications, both customer-facing and internally-facing, that are hosted on the Azure platform. Finally, admins need to make sure data is secured, access is secured and the applications and data are backed up -- just like with on-premise systems.

IT pros also need to set up and configure the application in Windows Azure, mainly using the Azure control panels and utilizing technical support as necessary. In addition, the applications themselves usually don’t self-manage (unless your development team is a class above the rest of the planet), so as with on-premise line of business applications you still have to administer that code as well.

The only part of the equation that Windows Azure changes is in the area of personnel resource usage. With Azure in play, administrators are freed up from managing industry hardware and software and are proportionately available to manage and enhance the service delivery and quality of IT specific to their businesses. (Since when has Active Directory been a profit center, for instance?) Therein is the exact appeal for the business decision maker of Windows Azure and why you’re probably going to hear about it very soon, if you haven’t already.

Of course, Microsoft’s not the only game in town here; both Amazon and Google offer similar services and platforms on which to develop, run and manage applications. Therefore it’s best to understand how the various cloud computing platforms can affect your role and responsibilities as an IT professional.

The cloud is here to stay, so bring your umbrella.

Microsoft sets Azure free; Appliance flutters to Fujitsu

2011-12-15T13:03:00.001-08:00

Almost a full year after a giddy, typically early Microsoft announcement, Redmond's Platform as a Service technology has left Microsoft's data centers and is running at giant IT supplier Fujitsu.

Microsoft Azure is available on Fujitsu hardware in the company's Tokyo data center, and customers can interact with it just like Microsoft's U.S.-based Azure services. The Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform/A5 (FGCP/A5 or Fujitsu Azure) will be live in August; users will have to sign up with Fujitsu to access the service, and pricing is expected to be the same as current Microsoft Azure pricing.

Users are by and large enthused, since this announcement cuts the Gordian Knot of enterprise IT security and public cloud services. Fujitsu says that, as a longstanding colocation and hosting provider, users can be assured their data is somewhere familiar, although it does not address concerns about multi-tenancy. Fujitsu Azure users will share data space on the platform within Fujitsu's environment, just like Microsoft Azure users do in Microsoft's data centers.

"This latest development is a significant milestone in making Windows Azure a ubiquitous enterprise solution," said Brian Fino, an IT consultant specializing in Microsoft development.

He said there was an intense dichotomy in the enterprise at the moment, between the almost-absurd ease with which Azure could be used and the need for IT shops to maintain control over infrastructure and data, still by far the biggest roadblock to cloud.

Fino said he spends the majority of his time developing demonstration apps and mobile apps on Azure, but he believes that Microsoft enterprise users will come over to Azure in bigger ways as they get the security guarantees they need. He added that the consumption model and programming model were also quite novel to most IT shops, in part because it is so streamlined and standardized on Microsoft's best practices ideas.

"When I look at that commonality and the standardization, it's relatively antithetical to the way most enterprise organizations work," he said.

Fujitsu's Azure to start cloud trend?
Some think cloud services like Azure are actually reshaping the way IT shops are going to work. Azure MVP and consultant Brent Stineman says he's watched firsthand as exposure to Azure and other public cloud services have made the earth move in an IT department. Stineman works for Minnesota based IT consulting firm Sogeti.

"Eventually the programming models we're pioneering in the cloud will come back on premises," he said, like readily consuming bits and pieces of an app from wherever it is most efficiently run; a little bit of SQL from here, storage from there, a runtime from somewhere else, and so on.

He said the Fujitsu announcement is a part of that trend, since it's going to give users more flexibility in consuming Azure. But the real movement for Microsoft shops will come later, as their private cloud products mature.

Stineman feels Azure is at its best when somebody else runs it for simple economies of scale. He added that it's still early days for the service.

"The key points that people running into are they can't quite understand the pricing model and they jump in assuming they're doing things the way they're used to," he said.

There's still confusion at Microsoft and with partners and customers, Stineman said, over exactly where Azure fits and how it's going to get integrated with other enterprise IT. That may be because it is such a novelty for Microsoft; Azure was developed as an almost-independent, skunkworks project that suddenly got a lot of exposure and users when it launched last year.

That is certainly reflected in the arduous tale of getting Azure out of Microsoft's environment and into Fujitsu's. Dell hardware ran the original Azure environment, although Microsoft takes pains to say that it is hardware-agnostic, software-only technology. Jeff Stucker, director of the Azure program for Fujitsu America, said that software was not the problem. Instead, it was sorting out exactly how data center operations were going to run. An x86 CPU is a CPU and Windows is Windows (Azure is, in part, a customized Windows Server 2008), but the monitoring, management and administration tools Fujitsu uses all had to be integrated and tuned, a non-trivial undertaking.

"What we've done is basically replicate the architecture that Microsoft used…the other piece was the management; the cloud stuff, monitoring, patches, upgrades," Stucker said. He wouldn't say exactly which parts of Azure Microsoft is still responsible for, but Fujitsu does operate all the hardware and data storage.

Fujitsu's infrastructure provides cloud confidence
One major thing Fujitsu has going for it is its size: It's the third largest IT vendor in the world, behind HP and IBM. The company owns extensive infrastructure that goes beyond compute and storage.

"Microsoft service-level agreements stop at the edge of the data center. Fujitsu's don't have to," Stucker said. SLAs are a key concern of enterprise IT that cloud computing hasn't sorted out yet. Fujitsu can also do inter-data center connections and backhaul links between colo users and Fujitsu Azure, something Microsoft cannot do.

Stucker said this was a very attractive quid pro quo for both firms. He noted that Microsoft has no data center presence where Fujitsu operates; notably, Japan, Australia and Europe. Microsoft runs data centers in Singapore and Ireland but has nowhere near the footprint Fujitsu does in the Asia Pacific region. Stucker also said that Fujitsu was the single largest consumer of Azure compute time amongst Microsoft partners, largely through its channel, so there was a real demand.

He noted that cloud consumption was ramping up more slowly than anticipated -- there's a certain level of math on ROI that needs to be met in the enterprise -- but the size of the market is exactly what was expected.

"There are some very basic problems to solve around data protection and security, and as we solve them, we're seeing more demand," he said.

Microsoft has not announced any progress for Azure Appliances for non-service providers, as other vendors have done with Cisco's UCS platform and Oracle Exalogic, but Stucker said that, as far as he knows, that is still the goal. HP, Dell and eBay are the other announced Azure Appliance resellers, but there is no word on when those firms will open up Azure shops, presumably because they are battling the same operation gremlins Fujitsu and Microsoft had to iron out. As always, it seems the devil is in the details.

Hybrid cloud: The best of public and private clouds

2011-12-15T13:00:00.001-08:00

While the term “private cloud” means custom cloud technology for enterprises, most believe their own data centers already provide private clouds services. Since these companies also expect to adopt at least some public cloud services, the next step clearly is to build a hybrid cloud.

But if hybridization isn’t a partnership between a public cloud and a private cloud that are built on common technologies, how does it happen? Companies expect worker application experiences to be transparent to where the application runs, which means either the experiences or the applications must be integrated in a hybrid cloud regardless of how the “private” portion is created.

A hybrid cloud’s success begins by selecting the right integration method.

Building a hybrid cloud with a front-end applicationThe dominant strategy in creating a hybrid cloud that ties traditional data centers with public cloud services involves the use of a front-end application. Most companies have created Web-based front-end applications that give customers access to order entry and account management functions, for example. Many companies have also used front-end application technologies from vendors like Citrix Systems Inc. to assemble the elements of several applications into a single custom display for end users. You can use either of these front-end methods to create a hybrid cloud.

In front-end application-based hybrid models, applications located in the cloud and the data center run normally; integration occurs at the front end. There are no new or complicated processes for integrating data or sharing resources between public and private clouds.

The application front-end integration method can be used with all three public cloud models—Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). If a new application is cloudsourced or an existing application is moved from the cloud back into the data center, you can easily alter the front-end application and transfer data from the new location.

Using the integrated workflow model for hybrid cloudsThe front-end application-based hybrid cloud model has some limitations; it doesn’t allow for resource sharing between the data center and the public cloud. A user sees a composite view of applications, but each runs independently. If an admin wants the public cloud to back up critical applications or provide overflow capacity in peak periods, admins should use the integrated workflow model.

To create an integrated workflow model, you can use either enhance virtualization software with cloud resource management components such as vCloud from VMware, or expand the resource-allocation tools associated with most SOA platforms -- Microsoft, Oracle and IBM offer this capability -- to recognize cloud-hosted resources as well as those located in the data center.

All distributed-workflow models for hybrid cloud presume that some element monitors resource availability and assigns resources to tasks as needed. This process will move applications and components within and between the cloud and data center, so it requires a directory function to link a dynamic application’s location to end users.

It’s also essential to ensure the data that applications need is available in the data center and the cloud. This, according to enterprises, is the most problematic issue with distributing workflow in hybrid clouds. Relatively static data can be hosted in both locations, but dynamic data access requires that data center applications and cloud applications are connected to a common repository.

Tightly coupled workflows magnify any delays the communication connection creates between the enterprise data center and the public cloud; this connection will be more costly if you need to improve performance and reduce delays. Any additional costs could limit the value of a hybrid model for some companies; however, Windows Azure is moving toward an integrated workflow model, and it is likely that most PaaS clouds will follow suit.

Nontraditional hybrid cloud: VPN-integrated accessA third way to build a hybrid cloud is by using a VPN-integrated access mode in which public cloud and data center resources are connected to the corporate VPN, allowing end users to access them independently. For some, this isn’t a true hybrid cloud model because the cloud and the data center remain completely independent. But many businesses don’t provide an integrated view of their internal applications, and the VPN-integrated hybrid cloud model replicates their current practices.

VPN integration is usually the cheapest and easiest of the three hybrid cloud models. When enterprises examine the practical business costs and benefits of public cloud, they often find it’s most suitable for niche applications that don’t access the company’s core data.

Hosting customer relationship management (CRM) applications as well as payroll, personnel, communications and collaboration apps in the cloud doesn’t require admins to integrate any data or application. It allows companies to focus IT hardware and software investments on core, business-critical applications.

Picking the winning hybrid cloud model
To choose the most appropriate hybrid cloud model, you need to determine which applications can be cloudsourced from a financial perspective. If these applications don’t use large quantities of mission-critical data, then any of the three hybrid approaches will work. However, either the front-end model or the VPN-integrated model will be the most effective, quickest to adopt and least expensive option.

The workflow integration model is a better choice for enterprises that have cloud applications that must access core data. In such instances, this option can be more cost effective and secure.

All three of these hybrid cloud models will work with any data center applications -- whether or not they use cloud-specific technology. Enterprises could safely adopt either model and develop it as the company advances its private cloud strategy and expands public cloud usage. That’s a win-win for the cloud.

Cloud predictions for enterprise IT in 2012

2011-12-15T12:59:00.001-08:00

Ask around and you’ll hear it over and over again: Enterprise IT shops are worried about using the cloud. They’re concerned about the security, privacy and governance risks of moving their data and applications outside their four walls. Cloud vendor lock-in and job security are also major worries for these guys, though few IT pros will admit to the latter.

Next year will be no different. But instead of keeping the cloud at arms’ length, which many enterprise IT shops have done this year, 2012 will be the year for taking the plunge. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, here are some thoughts on what to expect next year that might push you over the edge.

The following are my predictions based on current trends and where I see them leading us. Just some observations; I have no crystal ball.

Cloud hype ends, disillusion begins
After several years of megalomania, cloud vendors finally settle down and stop trying to prove cloud computing is real. Enterprise IT gets it: We’re looking at the next model for IT delivery and consumption. The adoption process becomes a long-term “roadmap” and a slow and safe transition touching every part of the business. It’s going to be a bumpy road. Watch out for the vendors with professional services arms who are rubbing their hands together with glee, claiming to you show you the way forward. And channel guys: Your time is now!

Private clouds create more headaches
To build a private cloud you have to build Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and a component of that is self-service automation. But how do you architect and govern this? Can anyone jump on your portal and start knocking out virtual machines (VMs)? How do you control access and manage assets and ownership? And who in his right mind actually wants chargeback and billing for IT resources? Does that mean you have to give back the budget you saved?

All these tedious procedural changes still are not as scary as the nasty potential for security breaches in the public cloud, so enterprises will keep going with private clouds until public clouds become less frightening. Job protectionism is at play here, too.

Hybrid cloud gets real
Tightly integrated public and private cloud infrastructure becomes possible in 2012, and many enterprises will try it. VMware just released vCloud Connector 1.5, which lets users running workloads on internal VMware infrastructure slide all or part of those workloads into a leased public cloud running the same infrastructure. With the lions’ share of the enterprise virtualization market, VMware is best positioned to push this hybrid cloud model into the enterprise.

IaaS wars: AWS vs. VMware vs. OpenStack
And the winner is? We won’t find out in 2012. Amazon will make gazillions more revenue from cloud computing services than anyone else next year, but VMware and OpenStack public clouds will start to nip at its heels, especially as enterprise IT heads into cloud.

Consumerization of IT and cloud converge
The bring your own trend entering the workplace is changing the economics of IT by shifting IT assets from inside the data center, outside, to the cloud -- whether it’s apps like Salesforce.com, Dropbox, WebEx or Google Analytics or devices like smartphones and tablets. Figuring out the total cost of ownership and management for these new modes of IT consumption will keep forward-looking CIOs on their toes in 2012.

Expect more cloud security challenges
There will be security breaches in public clouds, but nothing will be big enough to kill the shift toward this model of computing. There will be no standards next year for security or SLAs. Standards development organizations move slowly. The best we have to go on is the recent guidelines from NIST.

On-premises email becomes archaic
Software as a Service (SaaS) dominates the technology market now, and in 2012, if you still haven’t outsourced your email, you are well behind the times. Vendors that provide integration tools to connect on-premises apps with cloud apps, like Dell Boomi, will soar next year.

Windows 8 is released
But nobody cares that much as we get tired of watching Microsoft struggle to drag its legacy customer base into the cloud.

London hosts the Olympic Games
London hosts the Olympic Games for the third time -- the most of any Olympic host city in history. The two-week event takes place amid the largest security operation ever seen in peace-time Europe. The event is awesome, passes without incident and begins a transformation that will make London once again the greatest city on Earth. This last item has nothing to do with cloud computing, but it will be something to which millions are glued next year.

And in case you missed it, this list does not include anything on Platform as a Service (PaaS)or big data, as these trends have been well documented and do not affect our core audience of IT infrastructure and operations pros.

Checklist: Managing applications in the cloud

2011-12-15T12:58:00.000-08:00

Moving applications to the cloud is not for the faint of heart. Issues can crop up that may force you to re-architect the application, compliance requirements can create roadblocks, and bandwidth problems can occur if your cloud provider does not support low-level networking services such as multicasting.

After you’ve assessed which applications can run in a public cloud, there are other factors to consider -- configuration, data migration and monitoring. What are some of the most common configuration tasks you need to keep in mind when migrating an app to the cloud? This checklist outlines key points:

Service catalogs may contain older versions of virtual machines (VMs) that are not sufficiently patched for your needs. Use base images that have the latest security and functional patches.
Review all daemons and services running on an image and shut down all images that aren’t needed. This will reduce the attack service of all VMs.
Configure firewalls between application layers to minimize network traffic between layers. For example, you should only open ports that are needed to accept and respond to queries and support management protocols.
If you require strong encryption, such as PCI DSS, ensure your SSL/TLS encryption is strong. The client and server in an SSL session negotiate which cipher suite to use; they may not use strong encryption if not configured to do so.
When using a hybrid cloud model, configure a virtual private network (VPN) to secure communications between internal and external resources.
Use SSL server certificates to authenticate servers and support encrypted communications. Depending on your architecture, you might be able to use domain level or subject alternate name (SAN) certificates to help minimize the number of certificates you have to manage.
Use configuration tools such as Chef or Puppet to automate cloud management tasks.

Methods for moving data to the cloud
In addition to configuring cloud resources, you’ll need a plan to move data from the existing system to the cloud-based system. There are several approaches to migrating data; the best option will depend on your enterprise’s requirements and architecture.

One approach is to use database replication to establish a copy of your database in the cloud before moving the system. If you’re using the cloud for disaster recovery (DR), a replica may already exist in the cloud. With this method, your production system remains live while changes are written to the replica. The time needed to switch from the current production system to a cloud-based system is minimized.

Bulk back and restore is another approach to data migration, which fits with non-transaction-based systems, such as data warehouses and other business intelligence (BI) databases used for data mining. However, this approach can delay the initial loading of the cloud-based database as well as incremental updates.

In addition, not all data is stored in relational databases. For file-based data stores, you may want to use rsync , a synchronization utility often used for mirroring and backup. Rsync is available for Unix/Linux and Windows platforms.

Effectively monitoring cloud-based appsMigrating applications to the cloud will extend your infrastructure and create additional resources you must monitor and manage. To keep all applications running properly, you should:

Include logs from cloud servers in the central log management repository. You may want to maintain a separate log management repository in the cloud to reduce network traffic and changes from the cloud to your internal centralized log management repository. Remember, though, this can undermine some benefits of having a single point of access to log data.
Use event triggers to generate alerts about significant events on cloud servers.
Regularly use vulnerability scanning tools, such as Tenable’s Nessus, to check for security weaknesses on cloud-based VMs.
If you are using a pay-as-you-go model of cloud computing, automate the tracking of CPU use across servers and shut down servers when usage rates drop below a defined threshold. Dynamically add servers when demand surpasses threshold rates.
Use spot-pricing instances to save money. Amazon EC2 offers unused capacity at varying prices, depending on demand. For example, you make a bid to pay a particular price per hour for a VM, and as long as your bid remains above the set price, you can continue to use the VM. This model works well if you don’t need the job to be complete on a set date or time. Spot pricing also requires that your job recover without losing too much work if a bid falls below the spot price and your VM is shut down.

Before migrating applications to the cloud, review your system architecture. Pay particular attention to network services and traffic volume between internal servers and potential cloud-based servers. When it makes sense to move certain apps to the cloud, carefully consider system configuration, data migration processes and ongoing monitoring and management procedure.

Mashup (web application hybrid)

2011-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services. The term implies easy, fast integration, frequently using open APIs and data sources to produce enriched results that were not necessarily the original reason for producing the raw source data.

The main characteristics of the mashup are combination, visualization, and aggregation. It is important to make existing data more useful, moreover for personal and professional use.

To be able to permanently access the data of other services, mashups are generally client applications or hosted online. Since 2010, two major mashup vendors have added support for hosted deployment based on Cloud computing solutions; that are Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid.

In the past years, more and more Web applications have published APIs that enable software developers to easily integrate data and functions instead of building them by themselves. Mashups can be considered to have an active role in the evolution of social software and Web 2.0. Mashup composition tools are usually simple enough to be used by end-users. They generally do not require programming skills and rather support visual wiring of GUI widgets, services and components together. Therefore, these tools contribute to a new vision of theWeb, where users are able to contribute.

The term mashup is also used to describe a remix of digital data.

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Near field communication

2011-10-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

Near field communication, or NFC, allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in close proximity to each other, usually by no more than a few centimeters. It is expected to become a widely used system for making payments by smartphone in the United States. Many smartphones currently on the market already contain embedded NFC chips that can send encrypted data a short distance ("near field") to a reader located, for instance, next to a retail cash register. Shoppers who have their credit card information stored in their NFC smartphones can pay for purchases by waving their smartphones near or tapping them on the reader, rather than using the actual credit card. Co-invented by NXP Semiconductors and Sony in 2002, NFC technology is being added to a growing number of mobile handsets to enable mobile payments, as well as many other applications.

The Near Field Communication Forum (NFC Forum) formed in 2004 promotes sharing, pairing, and transactions between NFC devices and develops and certifies device compliance with NFC standards. A smartphone or tablet with an NFC chip could make a credit card payment or serve as keycard or ID card. NFC devices can read NFC tags on a museum or retail display to get more information or an audio or video presentation. NFC can share a contact, photo, song, application, or video or pair Bluetooth devices.

The 140 NFC Forum members include LG, Nokia, Huawei, HTC, Motorola, NEC, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, AT&T, Sprint, Rogers, SK, Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Intel, TI, Qualcomm, and NXP.

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Developments in the Azure and Windows Server 8 pairing

2011-09-19T08:00:00.001-07:00

The shroud of secrecy has been lifted surrounding Windows Server 8 and Azure. What lies behind it is greater symmetry between the cloud computing and virtualized HA infrastructures, improved storage and an Azure toolkit that promises to help enterprises easily develop an Azure service and deploy it to end users.

This means DevOps teams will need to gain expertise with Window 8's new features to obtain maximum return on investment with public cloud computing as well as with private and hybrid clouds.

Windows 8 ultimately will provide the underpinnings of the Windows Azure platform with the intent to democratize high availability (HA) clusters to push the "scale-up envelope" with features previously reserved for high-performance computing Windows Server 2008 R2 versions.

Windows 8 will include new alternative disk storage architectures called Storage Pools and Spaces, Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft's servers and tools business, said here in his BUILD conference keynote. Storage Pools aggregate commodity disk drives into isolated JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) units and attaches them to Windows for simplified management. Storage Spaces do the same for virtual machines.

Azure also saw its share of storage improvements, which team member Brad Calder outlined in the "Inside Windows Azure storage: what's new and under the hood deep dives" session:

Geo-replication helps with disaster recovery and a new version of the REST API to enable some functionality improvements for Windows Azure binary large objects (blobs), tables and queues.

Table Upsert allows a single request to be sent to Windows Azure Tables to either insert an entity, if it doesn't exist, or update and replace an existing entity.

Table Query Projection (Select) allows a client to retrieve a subset of an entity's properties. This improves performance by reducing the serialization/deserialization cost and bandwidth used for retrieving entities.

Improved blob HTTP header support aids streaming applications and browser downloads.

Queue UpdateMessage allows clients to have a lease on a message and renew the lease while the system processes it as well as update the contents of the message to track processing progress.

Queue InsertMessage with visibility timeout allows a newly inserted message to stay invisible on the queue until the timeout expires.

Windows 8 client development tools
Details about programming Windows 8 applications with Visual Studio 2011 Express also were previewed in Windows 8 client developer tools. MSDN subscribers also can download the Window 8 Server from the Developer Network. In addition to OS bits, both developer previews include the following:

Microsoft Visual Studio 11 Express for Windows Developer Preview

Microsoft Expression Blend 5 Developer Preview

Windows SDK for Metro style apps

28 Metro style apps including the BUILD Conference app

"This toolkit has all the tools to make it easy to develop a Windows Azure service and deploy it to your users. In addition to documentation, this toolkit includes Visual Studio project templates for a sample Metro style app and a Windows Azure cloud project. This tool is designed to accelerate development so that developers can start enabling Windows 8 features, such as notifications, for their app with minimal time and experience. Use this toolkit to start building and customizing your own service to deliver rich Metro style apps."

Windows Azure developers probably will want to download and install the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 from CodePlex. According to CodePlex:

Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus and TFS on Azure also include the following improvements:

Asynchronous Cloud Eventing allows developers to distribute event notifications to occasionally connected clients, for example, phones, remote workers, kiosks and so on.

Event-driven Service Oriented Architecture enables you to build loosely coupled systems that can evolve over time.

Advanced Intra-App Messaging provides load-leveling and load-balancing, so developers can build highly scalable, resilient applications.

Developers and operations folks were enthusiastic about new Windows 8 Server features and their potential contribution to future Windows Azure upgrades.

Microsoft sharpens Windows Server 8, Azure cloud story

2011-09-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

If IT managers in Windows shops had any doubts about Windows Server 8 and Azure serving as fundamental building blocks for their company’s cloud strategy, they don’t have any now.

From dawn to dusk at the BUILD conference here this week, Microsoft executives pounded home the message that Server 8 and Azure will have a hand-in-glove relationship that will anchor most of the company’s enterprise platforms and applications.

They also consistently pushed the cloud platform as a scalable, highly available option for application developers and IT shops, emphasizing the company is also building features into the server product that are informed by its experience engineering and managing the hosting service.

Al Gillen, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass., commented on the increasingly strong relationship between Azure and Windows Server 8.

“We expect customers will increase their usage of Windows Azure due to synergies that Microsoft is building into both products, easing the adoption of a hybrid computing model,” Gillen said.

Azure is expected to serve as a platform for supplying data and services for Windows-based applications, as well as an identity manager for helping federate identity across a variety of Web services, according to Microsoft.

Satya Nadella, president of Microsoft’s Server & Tools Business division, said the availability of several new releases, including the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8, the September release of Service Bus, and Windows Azure Storage, and said they were on pace for updates on a monthly basis.

The Azure Toolkit for Windows 8 contains code samples, documentation and components for building Metro style applications that use Windows Azure for connectivity and notifications.

At BUILD, Mark Russinovich, a Microsoft Azure technical fellow demonstrated the basics of Azure's Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model and how it can best be leveraged to build applications in the cloud. Because Azure handles resource management, provisioning and monitoring, he said, developers and IT pros need only worry about what they produce.

Russinovich also noted the durable, scalable and high-availability nature of Azure storage. Data is replicated three times, and reflected to multiple data centers via "geo-replication" – so even if one goes down, the data is backed up elsewhere, he said.

Driving home the point about how far reaching cloud computing would influence its business, president and CEO Steve Ballmer said Microsoft’s major businesses -- Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox, Office, Bing and Dynamics -- would all be redesigned to work better with the cloud.

“You [Windows developers] need to think about the business opportunities cloud can offer,” Ballmer said. “Windows Azure, Windows Live and cloud all working together is an area where developers can add a lot of value," Ballmer said.

Securing virtual machines in the cloud

2011-08-04T08:00:00.001-07:00

Choosing protection for a virtual infrastructure is a lot like buying an antivirus product for the Mac OS: most people would wonder why you bothered. Nonetheless, as more IT shops migrate their servers to virtual machines and cloud-based environments, it is only a matter of time before protecting these resources becomes considerably more important.

However, you can't just install your firewall or antivirus software on a cloud-based virtual machine (VM). Physical firewalls aren't designed to inspect and filter the vast amount of traffic originating from a hypervisor running 10 virtualized servers. Because VMs can start, stop and move from hypervisor to hypervisor at the click of a button, whatever protection you've chosen has to handle these activities with ease. Plus, as the number of VMs increases in the data center, it becomes harder to account for, manage and protect them. And if unauthorized people gain access to the hypervisor, they can take advantage of the lack of controls and modify all the VMs housed there.

As enterprises move toward virtualizing more of their servers and data center infrastructure, they need specialized protective technologies that match this environment. Luckily, there are numerous vendors who have stepped up to this challenge, although the level of protection is still nowhere close to the depth and breadth that is available for physical server protective products.

Types of protective features

There is no single unified threat management tool for the virtual world; anyone seriously invested in a VM collection is going to need more than one protection product. There are roughly four different functional areas that these products cover:

Compliance and auditing. This includes the ability to produce reports on various compliance requirements, such as Payment Card Initiative standards, and the ability to audit access and administrative logs.

Intrusion detection (IDS) and firewall features. These are the features most people think of when thinking about VM-themed security.

Access controls. This includes being able to restrict users from stopping or changing VMs on any protected host machine. Some products have the ability to tie access control roles to particular Active Directory users, making policy deployments easier and more powerful.

Antivirus/anti-malware protection. Similar to antivirus tools in the physical world, these provide protection against exploits inside a VM.

Over the past year, the pace of mergers and acquisitions has picked up as the major virtualization and security vendors try to augment their offerings and integrate products. VMware purchased Blue Lane Technologies and incorporated its software into its vShield line; Juniper Networks purchased Altor Networks; and Third Brigade is now part of Trend Micro's Deep Security line. There are a number of other smaller players, too.

Here is a list of typical VM protection products:

• Beyond Trust Power Broker Servers for Virtualization

• Catbird vSecurity

• CA Virtual Privilege Manager

• Centrify Direct Authorize

• Fortinet FortiWeb VM

• HyTrust Appliance

• Juniper/Altor Virtual Firewall

• Precise for the Cloud

• Reflex Systems Virtualization Management Center

• Splunk for Virtualization

• Third Brigade/Trend Micro Deep Security

• The VMware/Blue Lane vShield family

These products all protect different parts of your virtual infrastructure, so they are not directly comparable. Couple that with the active mergers mentioned above and you'll find that the VM protection market is very dynamic and should undergo more changes.

When you're finally ready to make a VM-themed protection purchase, be sure to pause one second and ask these questions of your vendor:

What specific versions of hypervisors are protected? All of these products work with particular VMware hosts, and some only work on more modern (v4 or newer) versions. Some also work with Xen hosts (and, by extension, Amazon Web Services, which is built on top of Xen). None currently work with Microsoft Hyper-V technology.
Do you need agents and, if so, where are they installed? Some products install agents on the hypervisor itself, so no additional software is needed inside each VM. Others work with the VMware interfaces directly, and still others require VMware's vMA or vShield add-ons. Since VMs can be paused and restarted often, the goal here is to provide instant-on protection and avoid the traditional boot-up checks of physical antivirus products.
Can I email reports to management, and can they make actionable decisions from those reports? Some products produce reports that, if printed out, would resemble phone books. This level of detail is mind-numbing and not very useful. Others do a better job of presenting dashboards or summaries that even your manager can understand.
How granular are its policy controls? How easy is it to add elements to existing policies or create entirely new ones? This is the bread and butter of these products; make sure you're familiar with this information because it could be where you initially end up spending most of your time.
Finally, what is the price? Each product has a complex pricing scheme: some charge by VM, socket, protected host or appliance.

Three questions to ask when considering Microsoft Azure

2011-08-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Cloud computing is, for some, a means of escaping from the clutches of traditional computer and software vendors. Most enterprises realize that the value of cloud will depend on how well services integrate with their own IT commitments and investments.

Because Microsoft is so much a part of internal IT, Microsoft's cloud approach is especially important to users. Many will find it compelling; others may decide it's impossible to adopt. Which camp are you in?

The foundation of Microsoft Azure's value proposition is the notion that users must design their enterprise IT infrastructure for peak load and high reliability operation, although both of these requirements waste a lot of budget dollars. The Azure solution is to draw on cloud computing to fill processing needs that exceed the long-time average. It also backs up application resources to achieve the necessary levels of availability, if normal data center elements can't provide those levels.

This means that Azure, unlike most cloud architectures, has to be based on elastic workload sharing between the enterprise and the cloud. They accomplish this by adopting many service-oriented architecture (SOA) concepts, including workflow management (the Azure Service Bus).

Within Azure, there are multiple sub-platforms that Microsoft calls "Roles." The Web Role provides Internet access to Azure applications and thus allows Azure apps to function essentially as online services. Based on scripting and HTML tools, it is hosted on Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS). The Worker Role is a Windows Server executable task that can perform any function desired, including linking an Azure cloud application back to the enterprise data center via Azure Connect. The Virtual Machine Role provides a host for any Windows Server applications that aren't Azure-structured.

This illustrates the Microsoft vision clearly: develop applications that are Azure-aware and exploit the most architected hybrid cloud IT architecture available from a major supplier. Unlike most cloud services that try to create hybrids by joining together resources not designed to be linked, Azure defines a linkable IT architecture. Users who want to deploy that architecture within their data centers would use the Azure Platform Appliance, which makes data centers operate in exactly the same way as Microsoft's. This provides a private cloud and virtualization architecture rolled into one, along with creating a highly scalable and manageable way to improve server utilization and application availability (even if the services of the Azure cloud are not used).

Is Azure for you?

If your data center is substantially based on Windows Server, if you keep your Windows Server licenses current, and if your Windows Server applications are integrated (functionally and in terms of data) largely among themselves, there's a good chance that your whole Windows Server operation could be migrated to a Virtual Machine Role within Azure. From there, it could evolve into a set of Azure-compliant applications.

For most users, this is the basic test: how much of my IT application base is Virtual Machine Role-compatible? If the answer is none, or very little, you probably won't be able to justify an Azure migration. And obviously, a major commitment to Linux or another operating system within the data center will also make Azure unattractive.

A corollary to this: if you have already made a significant commitment to virtualization within your data center, you may find Azure benefits less compelling. Because Azure can improve in-house efficiency as well as provide application backup and offload to the cloud, it can draw on a double benefit case. In-house virtualization, however, may have already captured one of those sets of benefits. Virtualization is also often linked to Linux use, which may mean you don't have a nice Windows Server community to migrate.

The second question to ask is, how much of your application base is either self-developed or based on Azure-compliant software? The presence of a large number of Windows Server applications that can't be made Azure-compliant will erode the value proposition. Azure is unequaled in its ability to flexibly transfer work within an "Azure domain" that includes both your data center (via Azure Connect or the Azure Platform Appliance) and the cloud. The more you can exploit that ability, the better Azure will serve your needs.

The third and final question is, how committed to SOA is your current operation? Azure's AppFabric is essentially a SOA framework, with the Service Bus being equivalent to a SOA Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) extended online. If you've already developed or obtained Microsoft-compatible SOA/ESB software products or components, you're further along toward Azure-specific applications and the optimum Azure benefit case. If you have no SOA implementation or knowledge, the learning curve and software refresh may complicate Azure adoption.

Microsoft's Azure is not an Infrastructure as a Service-like general-purpose cloud platform; it's more like Windows Server in the cloud . For Microsoft shops, that alone is a benefit in terms of skills transfer. By extending the basic Microsoft SOA principles into cloud computing, it may very well provide the best cloud option available.

Why is cloud computing so hard to understand?

2011-07-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

Why is cloud computing so hard to understand? It would be an equally fair question to ask why today’s Information Technology is so hard to understand. The answer would be because it covers the entire range of business requirements, from back-office enterprise systems to various ways such systems can be implemented. Cloud computing covers an equal breadth of both technology and, equally important, business requirements. Therefore, many different definitions are acceptable and fall within the overall topic.

But why use the term "cloud computing" at all? It originates from the work to develop easy-to-use consumer IT (Web 2.0) and its differences from existing difficult-to-use enterprise IT systems.

A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change content, in contrast to non-interactive Web 1.0 sites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information. Although the term Web 2.0 suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to new technology but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web.

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee clarifies, "I think Web 2.0 is, of course, a piece of jargon; nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is 'people to people.' But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along. The Web was designed to be a collaborative space where people can interact."

In short, Web 2.0 isn’t new technology; it’s an emerging usage pattern. Ditto for cloud computing; it’s an emerging usage pattern that draws on existing forms of IT resources. Extending Berners-Lee’s definition of Web 2.0, the companion to this book, Dot Cloud: The 21st Century Business Platform, helps clarify that cloud computing isn’t a new technology: “The cloud is the 'real Internet' or what the Internet was really meant to be in the first place, an endless computer made up of networks of networks of computers."

"For geeks," it continues, "cloud computing has been used to mean grid computing, utility computing, Software as a Service, virtualization, Internet-based applications, autonomic computing, peer-to-peer computing and remote processing -- and various combinations of these terms. For non-geeks, cloud computing is simply a platform where individuals and companies use the Internet to access endless hardware software and data resources for most of their computing needs and people-to-people interactions, leaving the mess to third-party suppliers."

Cloud’s birth in the new world

Again, cloud computing isn’t new technology; it’s a newly evolved delivery model. The key point is that cloud computing focuses on the end users and their abilities to do what they want to do, singularly or in communities, without the need for specialized IT support. The technology layer is abstracted, or hidden, and is simply represented by a drawing of a "cloud." This same principle has been used in the past for certain technologies, such as the Internet itself. At the same time, as the Web 2.0 technologists were perfecting their approach to people-centric collaboration, interactions, use of search and so on, traditional IT technologists were working to improve the flexibility and usability of existing IT resources.

This was the path that led to virtualization, the ability to share computational resources and reduce the barriers of costs and overhead of system administration. Flexibility in computational resources was in fact exactly what was needed to support the Web 2.0 environment. Whereas IT was largely based on a known and limited number of users working on a known and limited number of applications, Web 2.0 is based on any number of users deploying any number of services, as and when required in a totally random dynamic demand model.

The trend toward improving the cost and flexibility of current in-house IT capabilities by using virtualization can be said to be a part of cloud computing as much as shifting to Web-based applications supplied as services from a specialist online provider. Thus it is helpful to define cloud computing in terms of usage patterns or "use cases" for internal cost savings or external human collaboration more than defining the technical aspects.

There are differences in regional emphases on what is driving the adoption of cloud computing. The North American market is more heavily focused on a new wave of IT system upgrades; the European market is more focused on the delivery of new marketplaces and services; and the Asian market is more focused on the ability to jump past on-premise IT and go straight to remote service centers.

How the cloud shift affects front-office activities

There is a real shift in business requirements that is driving the "use" as a defining issue. IT has done its work of automating back office business processes and improving enterprise efficiency very well, so well that studies show the percentage of an office worker’s time spent on processes has dropped steadily. Put another way, the routine elements of operations have been identified and optimized. But now it's the front office activities of interacting with customers, suppliers and trading partners that make up the majority of the work.

Traditional IT has done little to address this, as its core technologies and methodologies of tightly-coupled, data-centric applications simply aren’t suitable for the user-driven flexibility that is required in the front office. The needed technology shift can be summarized as one from "supply push" to "demand pull" of data, information and services.

Business requirements are increasingly being focused on the front office around improving revenues, margins, market share and customer services. To address these requirements, a change in the core technologies is needed in order to deliver diversity around the edge of the business where differentiation and real revenue value are created. Web 2.0 user-centric capabilities are seen as a significant part of the answer.

The technology model of flexible combinations of "services" instead of monolithic applications, combined with user-driven orchestration of those services, supports this shifting front office emphasis on the use of technology in business. It's not even just a technology and requirement match; it’s also a match on the supply side. These new Web 2.0 requirements delivered through the cloud offer fast, even instantaneous, implementations with no capital cost or provisioning time.

This contrasts to the yearly budget and cost recovery models of traditional back office IT. In fact many cloud-based front office services may only have a life of a few weeks or months as business needs continually change to suit the increasingly dynamic nature of global markets. Thus the supply of pay-as-you-go instant provisioning of resources is a core driver in the adoption of cloud computing. This funding model of direct cost attribution to the business user is in stark contrast to the traditional overhead recovery IT model.

While cloud computing can reduce the cost and complexity of provisioning computational capabilities, it also can be used to build new shared service centers operating with greater effectiveness "at the edge" of the business where there’s money to be made. Front office requirements focus on people, expertise and collaboration in any-to-any combinations.

According to Dot Cloud, "There will be many ways in which the cloud will change businesses and the economy, most of them hard to predict, but one theme is already emerging. Businesses are becoming more like the technology itself: more adaptable, more interwoven and more specialized . These developments may not be new, but the advent of cloud computing will speed them up."

Hybrid cloud deployment

2011-07-23T08:00:00.002-07:00

A hybrid cloud is a mix of both private and public clouds. This allows the organization to gain the benefits of cloud computing only where it makes sense. A common scenario is for an organization to keep its data in its own data center and then use a public cloud service to perform whatever computation tasks are required. A hybrid cloud allows an organization to leverage its current investments in compute infrastructure and augment it with a cloud-based service. Because this model allows organizations to migrate to cloud computing at their own pace, hybrid clouds will be the path most will choose to begin their cloud deployment.

At first glance, it appears that hybrid clouds provide the perfect mix of private and public, but that’s not necessarily the case. Ideally, in a hybrid environment, a portable computing resource, or workload, would be able to move seamlessly between the organization’s private and public cloud service. But the network will need to play a key role to secure and optimize this movement as it traverses the Internet. To do this, the network needs to provide the necessary security as well as QoS.

Security considerations

Securing the workload is difficult to do in a hybrid environment because the organization will lose full control of the workload when it traverses the Internet. Security needs to be addressed at all layers of the cloud environment, including the network. Most traditional compute resources are secured by external systems. In a hybrid cloud model, the workload itself will need to maintain a state of security while being migrated from the private to public cloud. The network needs to know when the workload is moving from the private to the public cloud and then apply the security to the workload as it leaves the private cloud. The best practices put in place in the public cloud model should be applied to the public portion of the hybrid cloud.

In a hybrid environment, QoS needs to be applied at the workload level to prioritize it over other network traffic. Without prioritization of the workloads, it’s nearly impossible to understand how long the actual workload migration will take, and a service-level agreement (SLA) cannot be determined. To accomplish this, the network and virtualization layers need to be unified to ensure that when the workload moves, all the necessary network configuration parameters move with it. This is the basic concept behind the vision of unified computing, which is a relatively new concept that will continue to evolve as organizations build out hybrid clouds.

Regardless of whether the organization chooses to deploy a private, public or hybrid cloud, it’s critical that the network play a key role in securing and delivering the cloud resource to ensure optimum performance and maximum return on investment.

Deploying private clouds

2011-07-23T08:00:00.001-07:00

A private cloud -- also known as an internal cloud -- is the model in which an organization builds a data center using cloud computing principles. The private cloud is really virtualization technology reaching its full potential and vision. A data center designed as a private cloud would look like a public cloud from the perspective of applications and services. The compute resources are “pooled” to create on-demand access to applications and services. The only difference is that the compute resource pools are available from the organization’s own data center rather than over the public Internet. This means that the compute resources need to be virtual and portable, allowing them to move across the network in real time.

Private clouds are highly disruptive to the data center network and break down most traditional network best practices. Traditional network design principles follow a common three-layer topology: an access layer, aggregation layer, and core. In addition, many networks are built at Layer 3 (IP Layer) because this provides the most flexibility. This type of architecture, while ideal for current data centers, will not allow organizations to migrate to a private cloud model.

The three-tier architecture typically has servers connected to a top-of-rack switch, which is then aggregated in an end-of-row switch and connected back to a core switch. In a private cloud, the compute resources need to be fluid and move across a rack, across a data center or even between data centers in as short a time as possible. The multiple hops that the virtual workload would make add a degree of latency that degrades the performance of the private cloud.

Instead, network architects have been building much flatter Layer 2 networks using horizontal stacking technology, a relatively new development. In this case, the top-of-rack switches connect with one another and then are directly connected back to the core switch, effectively removing the end-of-row switch and one hop from the architecture. At Layer 2, this will minimize the amount of latency involved in moving a cloud resource, such as a virtual server, across the network. This puts an emphasis on low latency 10 Gigabit Ethernet and keeps us watching for true 40 Gigabit (not multiplexed) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet.

Desktop virtualization

Another disruptive force in private clouds is the increased use of desktop virtualization. In a virtual desktop environment, the user’s session is run on a centralized server located in the data center and then streamed to the user’s desktop and run in a secure, sandboxed environment. All of the applications are run in the data center, and the endpoint simply displays the desktop or applications. Anyone who has seen a demo of this realizes that it has the power to change the way users work. One could be working at the office, turn off the PC, go to an Internet kiosk at an airport and log in, and the session would be restored exactly as it was left.

When the worker shuts down, there’s nothing left on the endpoint. The endpoint itself really doesn’t matter, as a worker could use a standard windows PC, Mac, laptop, Netbook or smartphone and have the same experience (at least, as the device permits).

In many ways, desktop virtualization is the rebirth of the mainframe, except instead of seeing a green screen, the worker has a multimedia experience wherever they are connected. It’s easy to confuse this with the old “thin client” technology, but desktop virtualization is almost indistinguishable from traditional computing and has full audio and video capabilities.

However, the performance of desktop virtualization depends on the organization’s network architecture and configuration. Many organizations do not treat the tiers of the network equally, and this needs to change. The edge of the network, or wiring closet, often has lower-end devices, some of which cannot be managed, while the quality and reliability of the network infrastructure increases the closer it is to the data center. This means that some features that are available in the data center may not be available in the wiring closet. With desktop virtualization, the entire network is the delivery mechanism for the desktop, and a consistent feature set is required from the data center, through the aggregation layer, out to the wiring closet. This will ensure a consistent user experience. Also, placing desktop virtualization traffic in its own virtual LAN or quality of service (QoS) queue will guarantee that the additional network traffic will not interfere with other mission-critical traffic.

Public cloud deployment: Planning for the network impact

2011-07-22T19:30:00.000-07:00

Cloud computing promises to be one of the most dramatic transformations in technology since IT shifted from mainframes to client server systems. However, cloud computing comes in different shapes and sizes, and the type of architecture used will have an impact on the network. Network managers must be involved with the decision about which cloud architecture is used and must understand the impact that private, public or hybrid clouds will have on the network. For the majority of cloud computing deployments, network optimization will be the key determining factor for the performance of “the cloud.”

Public clouds

A public cloud is a compute model where a cloud service provider makes resources such as applications, computing power and storage available to organizations over the Internet. With public clouds, the compute resource is located in the network, and the deploying organization pays only for what it consumes. In this model, if an organization needs more compute power for a short period of time, it can order more from the service provider, utilize the service for as long as necessary and then return to normal operations.

This model appears to be a simple one, but even the most basic of cloud services can fail if the key network considerations are not taken into account along with the deployment. There are two main areas of focus for the network when it comes to public cloud deployments: bandwidth and security.

Bandwidth considerations

Because public clouds will be provisioned over the Internet, performance of the network that connects to the cloud service can be as unpredictable as the Internet itself. The Internet is a complex mesh of interconnected nodes, so connecting to a cloud service could involve many hops across many service provider backbones. One way of optimizing the performance is to minimize the number of network hops between the organization and the cloud computing provider. To do this, some research is needed. Network managers must understand how the cloud providers their company is considering connect to the Internet and make one of two choices: either connect to the Internet with the same network operator that the cloud provider uses, or choose a cloud provider based on the network connectivity they currently use. Buying a service that includes network connectivity would be a viable way to ensure that the number of hops between the organization and the cloud is minimized.

The other way of optimizing bandwidth is through the use of a WAN optimization device that optimizes the network connection to the cloud computing provider. For example, if an organization were to purchase a computing service from a public cloud provider, it might need to move a large amount of data between the organization and the public cloud. A WAN optimizer would significantly reduce the amount of traffic sent across the wire and, in effect, would make the connection seem faster. Most cloud providers won’t allow an organization to deploy its own hardware in the cloud, but many WAN optimization vendors are developing solutions that are designed to be deployed remotely into a cloud environment, which will resolve this issue.

Security considerations

Since many of the cloud services will be accessed directly over the public Internet, security concerns are one of the biggest deterrents to the use of cloud service for critical information. One possible solution is to use a virtual private network (VPN) to connect the cloud provider to the organization, but that can affect performance; and, as mentioned earlier, making the network part of the decision is critical to success. Another solution is to use cloud services for noncritical information in order to minimize risk, but it is likely that most organizations will eventually want to expand their deployment. Network professionals researching public cloud services need to keep in mind these security issues:

An audit of your cloud computing service provider’s security processes must be performed to ensure that they are at least as good as the processes in your organization -- preferably better. Then repeat this audit periodically, with no more than six months between audits.
The proper authentication audit trails must be in place so it’s easy to understand who made what changes and when. These audit trails need to be in place for both the cloud customer and the cloud service provider.
If security and privacy are absolute deal-breakers, be sure that infrastructure and data isolation is in place. This will ensure that the information between the multiple tenants of the cloud provider will be kept apart from one another. Some cloud providers may balk at this initially because it benefits the cloud operator to have multiple tenants on the same hardware platform. Be aware that separate physical servers will cost more than a shared server model.
Because cloud services run over the public Internet, the cloud provider needs to support security services that will prevent malicious traffic such as DoS attacks from degrading the performance of the service. This includes technology such as firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems.

Security concerns will be the most difficult part of the connectivity chain to handle, so it’s extremely important that all the right steps are taken and all these matters are discussed before a cloud operator is selected for your public cloud deployment.

VMware vCloud Director 1.5: Small but definitive step forward

2011-07-22T08:00:00.002-07:00

Along with the release of vSphere 5, widely acclaimed as a technical success and a potential licensing crisis, VMware has unveiled vCloud Director 1.5 Both are not available yet, but the details have been released. Users hail it as a great start to getting a viable private cloud from VMware.

Overall, however, vCD deployment remains very low, with lighthouse cases in some enterprise test and dev environments and most traction at service providers. Private organization adoption is sparse; one person listed as a vCloud Director customer by VMware and contacted for this story did not know if they were using the product and thought a former graduate student may have experimented with it at some point.

That might begin to change since, most importantly, deployment options for vCloud Director (vCD) have changed. It still needs to be deployed to a dedicated server host running RHEL, but it now supports Microsoft SQL 2005 and 2008 databases for a backend, and VMware promises more database support to come.

"To be honest, the biggest thing that stopped us going forward was the Oracle licensing," said Gurusimran Khalsa, systems administrator for the Human Services Division of the State of New Mexico. He said his agency had already endured several years of consolidation and virtualization and vCloud Director looked attractive. HSD even bought a few licenses to experiment with but never used them because the requirement for Oracle was something the division had successfully dodged in the past and wasn’t about to sacrifice for vCD.

Khalsa, who oversees about 300 VMs on 4 or 5 physical hosts, said vCloud Director looked like a great idea on paper. He wants to use it for development and said his division had looked at VMware Lab Manager in the past but hadn't bought it in. With the new features, HSD will begin using those old vCloud Director licenses and begin testing its capabilities in short order, said Khalsa. "We're really interested in it from a lab manager standpoint," he said. "We've got a lot of development going on and a lot more coming.”

Steve Herrod, VMware’s CTO said setting up big labs was the most popular use case for vCloud Director among enterprise IT organizations thus far.

Khalsa said much of his workload is running SQL servers, Web applications and Web servers. He said the biggest potential pain in the neck when implementing vSphere 5 and vCloud Director is going to be making sure his third party management tools, HyTrust, Altor and Xangati, don't come unglued. vCloud Director and vSphere 5 aren't anywhere close to replacing the functionality of those tools, said Khalsa.

He also thinks VMware missed an opportunity on vRAM licensing for private cloud implementations: The new scheme requires licenses based on how much vRAM is allocated to each VM, but Khalsa wants to be licensed based on how much is actually used. Imagine 100 Windows SBS VMs, each allocated with 4GB vRAM from a pool, but the running servers typically only use 1GB in operation, said Khalsa. "If you're getting all the benefits of consolidated RAM, it'd be nice to pay only for what you were using," he said.

Other users rebel against vSphere 5 pricing

"I understand their desire to move to a charge model of pay as you go as that's one of the basic tenants of cloud computing, I'm just not convinced they got some of the parameters set appropriately," said Matt Vogt, systems administrator for Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., in an email. Vogt, who also blogs about his tech work, said vCD was interesting but probably not necessary to his organization; he's not spinning up VMs all day, so he doesn't need the capabilities or the added expense.

Vogt is jazzed about vSphere 5, though, and said that he'd love to see some of the vCD features as part of the base vSphere package. "Linked clones, though, is super intriguing. This concept has been around on the SAN side for a while (we're on EqualLogic), so it's nice to see it come to the vSphere side of things, just wish it were a part of the base suite," he said.

vCD 1.5 now supports linked clones, meaning virtual machines can be quickly provisioned from a master template instead of creating full copies for each new instance. Lab Manager could do this, and from a developer's perspective, that meant very flexible experimentation and provisioning of test environments. On the storage side, as Vogt refers to, it means significant savings in infrastructure, since each clone can draw on a master template and not store redundant information for each and every VM. vCD can store clone information across multiple "virtual data centers," which are discrete networks of virtual resources.

vCloud Director’s public cloud potential

BlueLock, a hosting and managed service provider, said the most common request it gets is how to connect its environment to its customers, according BlueLock CTO Pat O'Day.

BlueLock operates one of the larger vCloud service provider environments in the U.S. But connecting users' VMware environments to Bluelock's vCloud, even in the same data center, has not been simple.

O'Day said this release will perk up fence sitters, since the vShield integration means connecting two vClouds is a matter of entering a few pieces of information instead of the messy effort it had been, requiring support personnel at both locations to coordinate and execute many steps.

vShield and vCloud now have better integration through the vCloud API, so users can effectively manage perimeters and connect virtual data centers from vCloud directly. It also now supports third party virtual networking technologies. VMware has made a vCD 1.5 technical overview available for further explanation.

"Once it becomes simple to connect to a public vCloud or two private vClouds, federation becomes much more interesting," O'Day said. He sees gradual progress on making a truly seamless, hybrid cloud out of VMware for enterprises. Right now, you either put a lot of equity into patching together a private cloud with vCloud Director or you outsource, using vCloud services from somebody like BlueLock. As the technology advances, said O'Day, it's eventually going to live up to the promise of cloud computing in the Amazon-style, only enterprises will get their familiar VMware tools and support.

He compared the technical features to how Microsoft gradually made clipboard data available to many applications. Back in the dark ages (the 1990's), cutting and pasting from a document to a spreadsheet or another application simply wasn't possible.

Then, almost overnight, it was, and that small advance in Windows was incredibly valuable to end users. Who could imagine not being able to cut and paste one app to another today? That's kind of what the linked clones means to vCloud and vSphere, said O'Day, and it's symbolic of the trend, and the promise, of cloud computing overall.

That said, he's pretty sure neither vSphere nor vCloud Director qualify as the full blown cloud utopia, at least, not yet. "You're seeing it more on the PowerPoint slide rather than in the engineering, but it's slowly becoming a cloud infrastructure," he said. vCloud Director 2.0, perhaps?

A really useless Cloud Computing Index

2011-07-22T08:00:00.001-07:00

Investment firm, First Trust Portfolios' Cloud Computing Index is an interesting sign of the times in cloud computing and the surest sign that we're in a cloud bubble, according to many analysts.

The bubble hype is neither here nor there, but looking at the description of the fund, the key question is whether its top 10 holdings appropriately reflect leaders and bellwethers of the cloud computing landscape. Here's the list as of July 21:

Google, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc.

Open Text Corporation

VMware, Inc.

Salesforce.com, Inc.

Blackboard, Inc.

Netflix, Inc.

Teradata Corporation

TIBCO Software Inc.

F5 Networks, Inc.

A good number of companies here do represent trends in cloud computing, but others don't exactly fit the bill.

For instance, Open Text is still largely viewed as enterprise content management. The company is shifting to Software as a Service (SaaS) based versions of its software, but it's still largely an on premise, license-based business. Teradata fits more into the big data trend with its Aster Data SQL MapReduce Developer Portal, a Platform as a Service for SQL MapReduce analytics. It's possible to make the connection between cloud and big data, but it's possible to make a connection between cloud and just about anything these days.

HP's Application Lifecycle Management software is apparently also cloud computing, although not cloudy enough to make the top 10 holdings. But Blackboard, Inc., an online learning tool, did make the top 10 list. Then why not other SaaS companies out there? Workday is one of the fastest growing enterprise SaaS companies and is nowhere to be found on this list.

VMware is in the top 10, but Microsoft isn't and Citrix didn't make the index at all. That's really odd given the company's recent $200 million+ acquisition of Cloud.com, one of a handful of actual cloud computing infrastructure software companies in the market.

Looking at First Trust's weighting and inclusion criteria just about any technology company on the planet today could be included in their index:

Pure Play Cloud Computing Companies: Companies that are direct service providers for "the cloud" (network hardware/software, storage, cloud computing services) or companies that deliver goods and services that use cloud computing technology.
Non Pure Play Cloud Computing Companies: Companies that focus outside the cloud computing space but provide goods and services in support of the cloud computing space.
Technology Conglomerate Cloud Computing Companies: Large broad-based companies that indirectly use or support the use of cloud computing technology.

Suffice it to say, this is an interesting list of companies that build, use or buy technology, but it is not an indicator of the key companies in cloud computing. That makes it both useless from a fund perspective, since these companies aren't going to rise or fall based on trends in cloud computing specifically, and useless from an analysis perspective.

This fund will generally do about as well as any tech fund will but it's not going to tell us anything interesting or useful about the cloud computing market, because half these firms aren't cloud providers or enablers. Put one together based on how VCs are investing, and people might look twice. Put one together based on actual companies involved in cloud computing at a fundamental level, and somebody might actually make more money than other tech funds (Equinix dropped a senior note worth $500m last week, hello…).

HP CloudSystem: What exactly is it?

2011-07-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

HP claims to have put private cloud, hybrid cloud and possibly public cloud in its pocket to sell to enterprises and service providers. But CloudSystem, as it is known, isn't so much a platform as a collection of intersecting HP products and roadmaps to get cloud capabilities -- elastic, self-service provisioning, storage and metered use -- into your data center.

There's CloudSystem Matrix, CloudSystem Enterprise, CloudStart Solution, Cloud Service Automation, Cloud Service Delivery, CloudMaps, Cloud Matrix Operating Environment, CloudSystem Security, CloudAgile, and on and on. HP suddenly has a lot of stuff stamped "cloud." What's more, there's no shrink-wrap; you pick bits here and there, and HP helps you install and tune it. Fortunately, there's at least one example in the wild to see what actually constitutes an "HP cloud."

"Yes, they do have an awful lot to look at," said Christian Teeft, VP of engineering for data center operator and services provider Latisys. Teeft said Latisys may well have the first live CloudSystem environment at an HP customer. Latisys is using the system to sell cloud infrastructure services, which come in "private" and "semi-private" options; dedicated clouds for customers, as it were.

Teeft said Latisys deliberately leaned away from startups and smaller cloud platform vendors, talking to enterprise vendors and other service providers like NewScale, Joyent, BMC and others about automation, but HP had the country club marquee customers and Teeft liked the integration with HP's hardware.

"There are synergies with HP around hardware blade systems and ISS," he said.

Industry Standard Server Technology Communications (ISS technology communications) is HP's way of distributing technology guides and techniques to users, a bit like Microsoft's TechNet.

Teeft said cloud computing for enterprise customers was becoming a fairly mainstream request, although actual usage might be exploratory or limited to certain workloads, all new customers wanted to see the capability available.

"It's a checkmark on a lot of RFPs and RFIs these days," he said.

HP also touts the ability of CloudSystem to use external public cloud services. Teeft said he was aware of the ability to do hybrid clouds but that wasn't relevant to him. Latisys' cloud is unequivocally staying high and dry from melding with other services.

"Our workload is going to stay within our four walls for now," he said.

Teeft said CloudSystem had two other key advantages for a service provider. It is hypervisor agnostic, meaning they can serve more than just VMware users, and unlike cloud-in-a-box solutions like the vBlock or Oracle's Exalogic or Cisco's UCS, it can run off a small hardware allotment at first.

"It allowed us to do a unique scale… we didn't have to sink a few million dollars into a vBlock or whatever," he said.

So what exactly is CloudSystem?

The central component of CloudSystem is the Cloud Service Automation software, which is based on Opsware. HP is selling three core components: HP Converged Infrastructure (running something called the Matrix Operating Environment), Cloud Service Automation (CSA) and HP's own support services to keep it running.

The Matrix OE is HP Insight, basically, and handles low-level provisioning, monitoring and management for physical and virtual resources. It also helps with network management by hooking into HP Virtual Connect Enterprise Manager (VCEM). Cloud Service Automation is mostly Opsware, which HP acquired in 2007. That provides everything else needed to turn your infrastructure into a cloud -- the user interfaces (and user management), provisioning tools, configuration and workflow tools, and management/monitoring displays -- a front-end resource manager and orchestration tool. It can tap into HP's own Infrastructure as a Service offerings when those come online and with other public cloud services like Amazon Web Services, according to the literature.

HP says that HP blades and 3PAR storage are the hardware component for CloudSystem, but say most x86-based servers and SAN storage can work with the Cloud Service Automation software.

"They also sell that separately, so you can just buy the software solution and put it on your hardware," said Forrester analyst Lauren Nelson, who has spoken to a handful of CloudSystem early adopters.

Nelson said that the CSA cloud platform provides all the necessary components to turn a bunch of servers into something comparable to Amazon Web Services or Rackspace Cloud. The user interface isn't polished, according to Nelson, but the functionality is there; it is on par with products like Eucalyptus, Abiquo and Cloud.com.

"With Abiquo, you can change the color of the interface background, I think," said Nelson.

The reason HP is selling the software separately instead of an exclusive hardware/software bundle is that it wants to please all sides: providers like Latisys, and also the customers who are on the fence about running their own infrastructure or outsourcing. There's a strong impulse in enterprises to do something in the way of private cloud this year, said Nelson, but users want to start small if they possibly can.

"If your infrastructure is really behind, you're going to be looking at a hardware/software solution or hosted private cloud," she said. "If you're not quite as worried about the hardware, you might be looking at just the software this year."

HP has a number of additional software enhancements for the base platform, like Tipping Point, which gives some network security, intrusion detection and traffic management features. CloudMaps are templates for the platform based on common enterprise application stacks, HP ArcSight can be used for compliance, HP Storage Essentials and so on. Aggregation Platform for SaaS (AP4SaaS) has billing and templates for Software as a Service providers baked in. All of these are sideshows to the Cloud Service Automation software.

IT giants compete for cloud dominance

Nelson said that, right now, only HP and IBM have a complete package to offer enterprises around private cloud, meaning fully integrated hardware and software to run and support it. Dell's partnerships with Joyent and Microsoft (Hyper-V Fast Track) and its own Virtual Infrastructure System (VIS) weren't at the same level, and the pure-play cloud platforms require a lot of work to tune for various kinds of infrastructure. They are also a riskier bet, as the companies have an uncertain future.

HP has put up a big tent for its private cloud products and piled it full of bric-a-brac. At heart, however, it's the Cloud Service Automation software that makes or breaks the HP cloud. Experimenting with and adopting cloud products in house is quickly becoming a reality for many enterprises, and the big vendors are clearly trying to step up to the plate. But if nothing else, this is yet another way to show that cloud computing is not just more of the same old data center operations.

What 'rogue' cloud usage can teach IT

2011-07-21T08:00:00.005-07:00

The use of cloud computing to work around IT shines a bright light on what needs to change
Many people in enterprises use cloud computing -- not because it's a more innovative way to do storage, compute, and development, but because it's a way to work around the IT bureaucracy that exists in their enterprise. This has led to more than a few confrontations. But it could also lead to more productivity.
One of the techniques I've used in the past is to lead through ambition. If I believed things were moving too slow, rather than bring the hammer down, I took on some of the work myself. Doing so shows others that the work both has value and can be done quickly. Typically, they mimic the ambition.
The same thing is occurring in employee usage of cloud services to get around IT. As divisions within companies learn they can allocate their own IT resources in the cloud and, thus, avoid endless meetings and pushback from internal IT, they are showing IT that it's possible to move fast and quickly deliver value to the business. They can even do so with less risk.
Although many in traditional IT shops view this as a clear threat and in many cases reprimand the "rogue" parties, they should reflect on their own inefficacies that have taken hold over the years. Moreover, the use of cloud computing shines a brighter light on how much easier IT could do things in the cloud. It becomes a clear gauge as to the difference between what IT can do now and what technology itself can achieve when not held back.

I'm sure reader comments will be full of security, governance, and responsibility issues that most IT pros believe is a burden that they, and only they, must bear. They'll say that although they might seem like the bad guys, they're taking on important responsibilities for everyone's good, and that those who work around them are not helping. That might be a comforting view, but it's also self-defeating.
The truth is that those who create "rogue" clouds demonstrate what is possible and perhaps raise the bar on how fast enterprise IT should be moving these days. IT should use those efforts as a sort of mirror; sometimes looking at your reflection shows flaws that are easily fixed.

Hybrid clouds: Three routes to implementation

2011-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Hybrid clouds come into play when traditional storage systems or internal cloud storage are supplemented with public cloud storage. To make it work, however, certain key requirements must be met. First and foremost, the hybrid storage cloud must behave like homogeneous storage. Except for maybe a small delay when accessing data on the public cloud, it should otherwise be transparent. Mechanisms have to be in place that keep active and frequently accessed data on-premises and push inactive data into the cloud. Hybrid clouds usually depend on nimble policy engines to define the circumstances when data gets moved into or pulled back from the cloud.

There are currently three routes you can take to implement hybrid clouds:

Via cloud storage software that straddles on-premises and public cloud storage
Via cloud storage gateways
Through application integration

Cloud storage software implementation

Combining private cloud storage (on-premises) and public cloud storage into a single heterogeneous storage cloud without custom integration or gateways is only possible today if the internal and external storage clouds run the same cloud storage software. While there are standardization initiatives in progress, such as the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI), a lack of standards has prohibited out-of-the-box integration between heterogeneous storage clouds. So what we're seeing is cloud software vendors selling their offerings to corporations and service providers to create the prerequisite for hybrid clouds. And some cloud storage providers are offering their storage stacks as internal storage clouds that provide easy integration with their public storage cloud services.

An example of the latter is Nirvanix Inc. Until recently, Nirvanix was only available as a public cloud service, but with the Nirvanix hNode internal cloud storage introduction users are now able to run Nirvanix cloud storage internally and complement it with Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network cloud storage as needed.

Rackspace has been offering its Cloud Files as a public cloud storage service, but it has now open sourced Cloud Files and formed OpenStack.org to drive standardization. The intent is to enable hybrid clouds between service providers and corporate customers, as well as Rackspace Inc.'s public cloud storage service.

Until recently, cloud storage service providers had to either use one of the open source cloud storage products, such as Luster and MogileFS, with their idiosyncrasies and limitations, or develop their own solutions. In the past couple of years, however, cloud storage software has become available as a commercial product from several vendors who sell it to both enterprises and service providers.

Among the commercially available products, EMC Corp.'s Atmos is the most prominent. It's a software-based, hardware-agnostic, object-based storage stack that consists of three loosely coupled services: a presentation layer that handles interfacing to clients via REST, SOAP and traditional file-system protocols; a metadata management layer that manages where data objects are stored and how they're protected and distributed on storage nodes; and a storage target layer that interfaces with storage nodes. It can run on dedicated hardware or on VMware virtual machines. Architected as a scale-out system, it's able to scale to petabytes of storage by simply adding nodes. EMC sells Atmos to enterprises and providers, so on-premises Atmos deployments can federate with Atmos services in the cloud.

EMC's most prominent customer is AT&T. The AT&T Synaptic Storage virtual private cloud, however, is a hybrid storage cloud offering that's quite different from others. It runs in AT&T data centers, but is accessed by customers through AT&T's MPLS network. As a result, it combines security and performance of private clouds with the economics and scalability of public cloud offerings.

Besides EMC Atmos, there are several other cloud storage software products. Caringo Inc. brought CAStor Content Storage Software into this market by repositioning its content addressable storage (CAS) product as a cloud storage solution. Cleversafe Inc. offers a cloud storage platform that leverages information dispersal algorithms (IDAs) that slice data across nodes in the cloud, eliminating the need for replication; Cleversafe claims it has achieved substantially higher storage utilization than products that have to store multiple copies of data on storage nodes for redundancy.

Cloud storage gateways implementation

Cloud storage gateways sit between on-premises storage and public cloud storage. They translate between traditional storage protocols and the more esoteric cloud storage protocols and APIs. Historically, public cloud storage could only be accessed via custom integration. Furthermore, cloud gateways perform data migration of information from on-premises (private) storage into public cloud storage and vice versa, usually via policy engines.

Cloud storage gateways differ in several key areas. They're either block or file based; and they present themselves within the data center as block-based storage or NAS devices. Data deduplication and compression are critical cloud gateway features, as both features significantly impact cloud storage cost. Encryption of data in-transit and while stored in the storage cloud is a must. Some gateways are designed and optimized for backup and archival, some are closely integrated with applications like Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, and others are targeted as a transactional cloud storage tier to supplement internal storage tiers.

Application integration implementation for hybrid clouds

All public cloud storage services offer APIs to interact with internal cloud storage software and cloud gateways, but these APIs can also be used to directly integrate applications with public cloud storage. Cloud storage APIs enable custom in-house and commercial applications to tap into public cloud storage via REST interfaces.

For instance, backup application vendors have started to add public cloud storage support to their backup suites. Symantec Corp. offers cloud storage support for NetBackup and Backup Exec. Similarly CommVault's Simpana backup software integrates with public storage clouds.

Whether you choose to implement hybrid clouds via cloud storage software, cloud storage gateways or through application integration, all are viable options with several providers and products to choose from. Be sure to weigh your options and choose the hybrid cloud approach that best suits your storage environment.

Why Microsoft's 'cloud bribes' are the right idea

2011-07-20T19:30:00.004-07:00

Although many view cloud migration fees as payola, the charges are exactly what's needed from cloud computing companies

InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard uncovered the fact that Microsoft is paying some organizations to adopt its Office 365 cloud service, mostly in funds that Microsoft earmarks for their customers' migration costs and other required consulting. Although this raised the eyebrows of some bloggers -- and I'm sure Google wasn't thrilled -- I think this is both smart and ethical. Here's why.

Those who sell cloud services, which now includes everyone, often don't consider the path from the existing as-is state to the cloud. If executed properly, there is a huge amount of work and a huge cost that can remove much of the monetary advantages of moving to the cloud.

Microsoft benefits from subsidizing the switch because it can capture a customer that will use that product for many years. Thus, the money spent to support migration costs will come back 20- or 30-fold over the life of the product. This is the cloud computing equivalent to free installation of a cable TV service.

The incentive money does not go into the pockets of the new Office 365 user; it's spent on consulting organizations that come in and prepare the organization for the arrival of the cloud. This includes migrating existing documents and data, training users, creating a support infrastructure, and doing other necessary planning and prep work.

Others should follow Microsoft's lead, and some cloud vendors are doing so already.

As a rule of thumb, I would allocate about one-eighth of the first year's service revenue to pay for planning and migration costs. If it's a complex migration, such as from enterprise to IaaS (infrastructure as a service), I would budget more. Budget less if you're dealing with a simple SaaS (software as a service) migration.

Migrating to cloud computing requires effort, risk, and cash. Although the end state should provide much more agility and value, many steps separate where you are and where you need to be. Considering that the cloud providers like Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Google will benefit directly from our move to their cloud services, let them pay us to get there.

Beware the oversimplification of cloud migration

2011-07-20T19:30:00.003-07:00

Many cloud vendors' oversimplified approaches are more likely to hurt than help

I get a pitch a day from [enter any PR firm here]. The details vary, but the core idea is the same: "We have defined the steps to migrate to the cloud, so follow us."

To be honest with you, I often bite. If nothing else, I'll take a look at the press release, white paper, or website. Often there is a list of pretty obvious things to do, such as "define the business objectives" and "define security," but the details are nowhere to be found. Why? Because the details are hard and complex, and the vendors would rather that their steps seem more approachable by the IT rank-and-file than ensure they will actually work.

Moving applications, systems, and even entire architectures to cloud-based platforms is no easy feat. In many cases it requires a core understanding of data, processes, APIs, services, and other aspects about the existing state of IT before planning the move. Yes, the details.

For those in IT who are charged with migrating to the cloud, this is often where they drop the ball. They jump right into standing up cloud instances and try to make the move without a full understanding of the project. Failed cloud project after failed cloud project can be attributed to this error being made by people who followed stepwise processes outlined by a cloud provider, technology vendor, or big consulting organization.

By the way, although it's more complex than most people understand, migrating to the cloud is not at all difficult. You need to understand this process for what it is: An architectural problem that requires both the as-is and to-be states to be defined so all issues are understood, including metadata, performance, security, compliance, and governance.

Understanding your problem domain leads to the right process for migration. If you know what you want to move and why you want to move it, you know how to test for security and compliance, and you understand how to create an effective migration plan that sweats the details rather than ignores them.

Building an IT infrastructure roadmap to the cloud

2011-07-20T19:30:00.002-07:00

Infrastructure is where the public cloud model can offer the biggest benefit for startups. Public clouds allow startups to spin up their businesses quickly without eating into smaller cash flows by wasting dollars on building their own internal IT infrastructures.

Some employees may be using the cloud right now without even knowing. This represents a hidden "iceberg" of cost, where employees may be spending their organization’s money on virtual machines (VMs) with providers like Amazon EC2. This not only circumvents the standard operating procedures of many organizations but also their accounting and auditing systems as well.

But there is an unhealthy assumption that by merely adopting a public cloud strategy, organizations will automatically save money. This is not necessarily true.

For two major reasons – to guarantee that commercially sensitive content remains private and to ensure the application of proper accountancy practices -- it may be time for organizations to legitimize public cloud for certain types of work. Costs will be incurred, but they should not be hidden from the business like a dirty little secret.

Managing the cloud
The two main areas of the cloud that users interact with are the service catalog and the self-service portal. It’s important to remember that having these features doesn't equal having a cloud; these are just the elements that are visible in the user interface.

There are management tasks that need to be carried out before users can even log on and start working. Envision the service catalog as the storefront or shop window from which the business offers pre-packaged and configured applications that consumers can use.

The vApps in this catalog should represent the applications that business units want and need. Consider an audit of these applications to make sure that they are what different business units require. The service catalog needs to be presented in an attractive and simple way via the self-service portal.

The real management challenges involve trying to integrate a cloud automation system on top of an existing virtual and physical infrastructure. Just as virtualization introduced new changes at the network and storage layer, so does the cloud.

Private clouds may introduce new requirements that are go beyond normal virtualization needs. On the network side, you will need to ask your network team to create a significant number of VLANs on the physical switches to offer up pools of networks that cloud users can address. Typically, users creating new vApps initiate these requests.

Network teams may react negatively to the idea that countless dormant VLANs are being created without knowing when they will be used. Therefore, the cloud and virtualization administration teams will have to explain, and justify in detail, the need for this configuration.

Storage in the cloud
Similarly, even larger pools of storage will need to be created, often using other tiers of arrays as well as different types and numbers of spindles, capacity and redundancy. These will then be displayed to users as data stores offering gold, silver and bronze classes of storage. Technologies such as thin provisioning and data deduplication may elevate this anxiety, but the main concern will be that the storage team is losing control of its part of the physical infrastructure.

The way most clouds present storage is at odds with the best practices of virtualization vendors. The general recommendation is to split the virtual disks across different classes for optimum performance -- fitting the demands of each virtual disk against its IOPS needs.

The cloud doesn’t currently offer this level of granularity, with the boot OS, log files and data all being dumped on the same class of storage. Thus, it is possible for ancillary log files to be stored on some of the most expensive storage available. So there is tension surrounding the attempt to simplify the virtualization environment without losing the granularity that application owners have come to expect in recent years.

Securing the cloud
The focus of cloud security has been multi-tenancy, which can be compared to an office block that is shared by many different businesses: Businesses rent the space and services they need without the burden of managing and maintaining the physical infrastructure. Security practices must ensure that any shared-access model does not allow for one business to intrude upon another. After all, you might be sharing the office block with one of your competitors.

One area of concern is whether the cloud security model allows for these organizational units to be secured from unauthorized access by a cloud provider. Who polices the police?

If the cloud administrator has access to the underlying virtual infrastructure, then there is little to stop him or her from duplicating the data that resides inside a VM’s virtual disks and attaching that data to a VM for which they have system-wide administrative privileges. So one major challenge of the cloud model is ensuring that correct role-based access privileges have been assigned in such a way that one individual does not hold all the keys to the kingdom. In the case of the public cloud, it means trusting your provider to apply appropriate security procedures in its delegation process.

Overemphasis on multi-tenancy unduly places focus purely on the network layer, often at the expense of analyzing how raw data is secured and protected. For this reason, it is worth investigating private key encryption of data balanced against the regional laws that govern the physical location of the cloud.

Before adopting any cloud automation layer, it’s necessary to conduct a root and branch audit of your existing virtual infrastructure. Whereas virtualization was a tactical solution that evolved into a strategic model, the cloud represents a strategic shift. Even more so than virtualization, cloud technology needs backing from senior managers and a project manager who is dedicated full time to delivering it.