Virtualization Remains the Key to Cloud Computing

All of the talk about Cloud Computing can obscure the role of virtualization. The concept, along with its sibling, abstraction, can be difficult to grasp, let alone implement. Yet it is the key to Cloud Computing. All else is mere server consolidation, the same old wine packaged in new, green-friendlier bottles.
Virtualization has been with us for a long, long time. Some old-timers will recall the time when it referred to memory, in a day when memory was still very expensive. Others can go back even further, and recall pioneering virtualization efforts involving the CP/M operating system and early Intel PC architectures.

Infinite, or Close EnoughNone of that is important now. What is important is the idea that unless your applications--and the data flows and processing loads associated with them--are decoupled (ie, removed) from specific pieces of hardware and from underlying operating environments, you don't have Cloud Computing. You don't get the efficiencies being touted for it, you don't get the true elasticity associated with it, you don't get the performance associated with it.

Yeah, OK, and...
And unless you, as a Cloud customer, perceive the Cloud to be infinite (or at least, larger than anything you'll ever need), then you're not really talking about Cloud Computing. You may be talking about server consolidation and saving a lot of money, which is a good thing. But you won't be talking about Cloud.
I say this as I read more and more, with some concern, about the notion of fixed, on-site hardware being called Private Cloud Computing.

If you are a customer who turns on the spigot to receive SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS from the sky, the supply seems unlimited to you. After all, that's the deal. Flexibility, scalability, an infrastructure set up so that you use what you need and pay for that only. Just like water or electricity.

I realize that at some point IT resources, specifically processors and storage, are finite. Just like water or electricity.


http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/1542484


Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Adopting Virtualization is Not Without Friction

This much is clear, advanced virtualization techniques are here. Some time ago, we moved beyond base operating system virtualization, towards virtualization approaches that render more functionally complete systems. From single virtual images that contain entire software stacks (i.e. LAMP, JEE servers, content management systems, etc.), to virtual appliances built to satisfy particular workloads, the functional encapsulation provided by various virtualization techniques continues to expand. On the surface, this is an obvious benefit to end-users, but that does not mean it comes without challenges.

Because of our IBM Hypervisor Edition offerings, I get the chance to talk to quite a few users considering or already starting down the path of advanced virtualization usage. Many of the challenges users discuss with me come down to a friction between standardization/commoditization versus customization. One of the main benefits of virtual images and appliances (besides server consolidation and rapid provisioning), is that they encapsulate the results of installation, integration, and configuration of a given set of software components. This eliminates processes that were, at best, tedious, and often times error-prone and nearly impossible to repeat in a consistent manner. Users get what they should be able to assume are best practice deployments for the software in question.

However, the same technique that eliminates tedious, human-driven, error-prone processes also results in considerable friction. By consuming this method of service delivery, users essentially agree to various degrees of commoditization or standardization in the software stack. Believe me, there are many opportunities for friction here, including:

- Type and version of software components: If anyone tells you about the commoditization of operating systems do not listen. For the most part, users are intensely loyal to their operating systems. Some times this is cultural, other times there is substantial business motivation (i.e. existing skills, type of physical infrastructure, etc.). Moreover, that's just the operating system.

- Configuration of installation: Beyond the type and version of installed software, many users need (or in many cases, simply want) control of exactly how it is installed. As hard as it may be to believe, some users can't live with software not installed to a particular file system location (Note: To be entirely fair, sometimes existing management script dictate this. Other time it's just senseless.).

- Configuration of integration: Given software component A and software component B, users will derive a myriad of ways to integrate the two components. There is absolutely no way to anticipate all of these integration configurations within a virtual image or appliance, much less allow for them.

http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/1496181

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Optimizing the Virtual Cloud

BURBANK, CA–(Marketwire – July 29, 2010) – Cloud computing is a revolution for corporate data systems. Instead of having to install and maintain costly server hardware on-site, enterprises can now subscribe to a cloud service and literally use computing resources as they are needed.

When they are no longer required, those resources are used elsewhere. The idea has firmly taken hold; a prominent motion-picture company recently turned to a cloud for their highly compute-intensive animation needs, and certainly saved major costs by not having to utilize in-house resources.

One element that makes cloud computing so attractive is its use of virtual servers. It boggles the mind to think that a user at a corporation can access the cloud and actually launch their very own complete server for needed tasks. When that task is done, that server is no longer needed and it simply ceases to exist. The incredible gains that virtualization has brought in hardware and space economics — to cloud computing and everywhere else — are still being realized.

But as we all know, while we all have our heads in the clouds it is important to keep our eyes on the ground as well. In the case of cloud computing, that "ground" is the hardware hosting virtual systems — hardware that is still subject to drastic system slows courtesy of file fragmentation.

All hard drives suffer from file fragmentation — and hard drives are the place that data for virtual systems, and hence a computing cloud, is stored. In comparison to a traditional server, a virtual environment has a few added steps to data storage and retrieval, however, and fragmentation can have even more of an impact. When a file request occurs on a virtual server, the I/O request is relayed, at the least, from the guest system to the host system — which means multiple requests are occurring for each file request. When a file is fragmented into hundreds or thousands of fragments, there are multiple I/O requests for each fragment. This operation creates an enormous amount of unnecessary overhead on disk subsystems.

Virtual disks also suffer from "bloat" — their sizes are dynamically set to grow, but they don't shrink when users or applications remove data. This wastes the space that could be allocated to other virtual systems.
The latest in technology automatically and invisibly prevents a majority of fragmentation before it occurs, totally negating the effects of fragmentation in virtual environments. Because free space is also consolidated as part of the process, virtual disk "bloat" is eliminated. Enterprises can now take full advantage of cloud and virtual computing without ever having to worry about the performance drain from fragmentation again.

http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2010/07/optimizing-the-virtual-cloud/

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Storm Clouds – Disruptive Technologies Creating the ‘New Normal’

As much as information technology has changed in the last 10 years, the next decade promises even more significant change.

And as cloud technology becomes more prevalent, IT enterprises will be driven to reconsider the status quo around just about everything we know including Physical Infrastructure, Virtualization, Automation, Service Management, and Security.

Cloud technology and virtualization of virtually everything means rethinking the economic models around physical infrastructure, the emergence of a new class of providers as well as a greater degree of standardization around virtualized OS and middleware configurations. There are increasing expectations from consumers of data center services - instant provisioning and de-provisioning, just for openers. And with a new generation of workers that expect anytime, anywhere access to corporate data, securing your data outside of your data center walls has become a greater business imperative albeit far more difficult.

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Cloud Computing: It’s all about the Software

While I have probably beat the definition of cloud computing to death, I want to spend some more time on where the magic really lies in Cloud Computing. 

Without going into a Ballmerellian rant, the key to unlocking the full potential of the cloud is developers, developers, developers. More specifically, software is what will define not only what cloud is, but also what cloud is capable of. The faster that CIOs and CTOs come to this realization, the better it will be for their organizations.

Figuring out ways to distribute applications across infrastructure is a difficult task that many CIOs are facing today. This is especially true in the financial industry where legacy applications and legacy systems (read mainframes) severely hamper flexibility and restrict high-availability. IBM long ago roped the largest financial institutions and locked them into the long term maintenance (and associated costs) of the mainframe. To this day it remains a huge cash cow for IBM. This is slowly changing, however, as these institutions make the crucial decision to re-factor applications for a dynamic data center infrastructure or private internal cloud.

When it comes to 'fixing' applications within an enterprise, often the right answer is to re-write the application. This usually comes at a significant cost and proverbial pain, so most CIOs shy away from doing the right thing. The financial justification, however, does not work in their favor when you take into account the long term savings that come from re-writing the application to layer over a dynamic infrastructure. Once off of legacy systems, applications can be written so that they are flexible, easily scalable, highly available and easily distributed across multiple geographic locations. This re-factoring process involves multiple steps in which application requirements are gathered, application patterns are developed, architectural reference guides are written and developers are given the tools to write applications that excel within this framework.

With all that said, how is cloud all about the software? As we have seen from Google's data centers, there is a fundamental shift in how we think about redundancy and high availability when we work from a cloud perspective. In a traditional application server model, there is redundancy at the hardware level with power supplies, memory banks, processor sockets, local RAID disks, expensive SANs, network adapters, etc. The architecture may provide for some basic clustering, but the idea is to keep the hardware from failing as much as possible. In the cloud computing data center architecture, the basic assumption is that the hardware is going to fail. The hardware is commodity now and we do not rely on it for redundancy. All redundancy and high availability is handled at the software layer. Through various methods of data and workload distribution, the hardware can fail and not have a negative impact on the cloud as a whole. The software can also handle multi-tenancy if so desired, although that is currently handled at the virtualization layer for the most part. I can guarantee that will shift over time, but the core concept is that the cloud is 'intelligent' and 'aware' and it is responsible for all functionality above the most basic commodity hardware layer.

I don't want to give the impression that the technologies that power the cloud today are set in stone. There are great opportunities for developers to create frameworks that underpin and power the cloud. Much like Ruby on Rails empowers developers and delivers impact in a 3-tier web architecture, a framework with similar focus can easily take the cloud computing world by storm. There are several frameworks out there today that offer great value as well. The core method of virtualization is also shifting as large enterprises are standardizing their technology stacks. When an enterprise standardizes on a technology stack with a single operating system, application server and coding language, products like VMware lose their attractiveness as container based virtualization is often cheaper and delivers better performance overall. It will also become easier over time to manage virtualization technology as part of the operating system rather than a separate entity altogether. Again, this shift will come over time as more enterprises give due diligence to the standardization process and seek to ease management of the infrastructure. I'm excited about all of the possibilities that cloud computing brings, and it is the software that will deliver what enterprises want.

Read the original blog entry...

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

How Many Virtual Machines Can Run On A Single Server?

How many user desktops can run on a virtualized server? From a structural point of view, this question has a lot in common with, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Nevertheless, I did my best to answer it in the new McGraw-Hill book, Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution. As it turns out, I was wrong.

In trying to convey the looming power of the cloud over end user computing, I attempted to address the question of how many end users might be served a virtual desktop from a remote point if only one server were available. The answer I came up with was based on a four-way server with each CPU equipped with four cores, a rather common configuration these days. I said such a machine based on Nehalem cores could satisfy the needs of 256 ends users at a time, no problem. In effect, a server built with basic PC parts can match what used to be 256 individual PC desktops.

I had misgivings that many people would believe such an answer. I was trying to push the envelope and worried last October that a commodity server like the one I was using in my example would be unlikely to support so many users in a real world setting. Nevertheless, in Chapter 3, "Virtualization Changes Everything," I stated one commodity server could host that number of end users without causing a serious degradation in the desktop experience they were accustomed to.

Now fast forward to May 17, 2010. It's CA World in Las Vegas, and 7,000 people have turned out to learn about the possibilities of using virtualized servers and cloud computing. On the stage was Edouard Bugnion, the Swiss computer scientist who was an original founder of VMware and until 2004, its first chief architect, now fully engaged as a VP in Cisco Systems effort to become a player in the blade server market. He probably had something to do with Cisco deciding to focus its Unified Computing System blades on the attributes of virtualized servers. He may even have suggested how Cisco could use its networking expertise to ease the impending, I/O bottleneck on servers densely stacked with virtual machines.

At the Las Vegas press conference, CA Technologies senior VP of virtualization Roger Pilc described how CA products can natively manage Cisco UCS blades. Then at the end of the press conference, I got my chance to ask Bugnion my version of "How many angels can dance…" question.

Bugnion paused to think. How many virtualized desktops could be supported by a UCS blade? He referred to the VMark benchmark that Cisco conducted to measure blade performance, which doesn't directly address the issue. Then he answered my question.

"UCS can drive the VM density to higher numbers. We know of instances where 330 desktops are supported on a single blade," he said.

When it comes to cloud computing, its advocates and thought leaders are often accused of distorting the facts and making exaggerated claims, both of which raise false hopes. I'm beginning to doubt that the advocates go far enough. Which would you rather pay for and administer? A single centralized blade and adjoining network fabric? Or 330 new laptops whose end users want to customize them with recently downloaded software every time you turn your back?

Server CPU cycles are proliferating in multi-core machines, tied to broadband networks connected by the Internet. A set of simple asynchronous Web conventions can get a powerful server halfway around the world to work with a laptop in your backyard, without any specialized knowledge. Virtualization may not change everything, but it is helping set loose forces that greatly extend the distribution of computer power -- in a new model with a drastically reduced price point. That model is "the cloud." Critics be damned.

Original Article - InformationWeek

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

The Next Chapter in the Virtualization Story Begins

Virtualization is almost too successful, says Abiquo's CEO - adding that "the infrastructure beast is becoming uncontrollable"

Cloud Computing Journal recently caught up with Pete Malcolm, CEO of cloud management innovators Abiquo - a major new player in the fast-emerging Cloud ecosystem and Platinum Plus Sponsor of 5th Cloud Expo held in New York April 19-21, 2010.

Malcolm keynoted personally at the event. His theme was what he called "The next chapter in the Virtualization story." As the CEO of one of Cloud computing fastest rising stars put it: "Virtualized or not, the infrastructure beast is becoming uncontrollable. But, as they say, big change is a-coming..."

Read more @ The Cloud Computing Journal

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

What IT Cares About: Key Technologies for 2010

A CIO.com survey released today of where IT pros are actively engaged confirms strong business interest in analytics, cloud, and collaboration technologies, but it also shows that open source and ERP are falling off their radars as key concerns. (The PDF report is available for download.)


The top 10 areas of interest are:

* Cloud computing: 57 percent of the 405 respondents surveyed have analytics on their radars or are piloting the technology, although only 15 percent have deployed it.

* Business process management: 46 percent are actively following the technology and 26 percent have deployed it.

* Web 2.0/social networking technologies: 45 percent are actively following the technology and 32 percent have deployed it.

* Desktop/client virtualization: 45 percent are actively following the technology and 27 percent have deployed it.

* SOA: 45 percent are actively following the technology and 26 percent have deployed it.

* Analytics: 44 percent are actively following the technology and 47 percent have deployed it.

* Storage virtualization: 44 percent are actively following the technology and 35 percent have deployed it.

* Enterprise data management: 43 percent are actively following the technology and 35 percent have deployed it.

* Software as a service and Web services: 40 percent are actively following the technology and 35 percent have deployed it.

* Collaboration technologies: 40 percent are actively following the technology and 33 percent have deployed it.

Mobile technology is not on the "active investigation" list only because IT has already begun deploying the technology in significant percentages: 52 percent of respondents say they have already implemented mobile initiatives, and another 29 percent are actively following the technology.

The top five areas of what's not on IT's radars, often because the technology has become a normal part of IT operations, are as follows: 52 percent aren't actively interested in supply chain management, 34 percent in printing and output, 33 percent in open source, 32 percent in ERP, and 30 percent in SOA. Of the technologies IT pros were asked about, SOA had the greatest split between those actively following it and those not following it.

Original Article - Here

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Wyse Strengthens EMEA Cloud Computing and Virtualization Team

Wyse Technology, thin computing and client virtualization company, on Tuesday announced the appointment of Karl-Heinz Warum as General Manager and Sales Director for Wyse Germany, Eastern Europe and Russia.

Warum has previously worked as General Manager and Senior Area VP Central and Eastern Europe at Citrix Systems GmbH for 12 years, growing Citrix in the region from a small organization to a major force in the fast growing desktop virtualization market.

The appointment supports Wyse’s aggressive cloud computing growth plans and ambitions for Germany and the extended Eastern European region where it is confident of replicating the success it has seen in other geographies around the world.

Speaking on his appointment, Warum said, “If one has watched the IT industry for the last years, it has become very clear that desktop virtualization will be the reigning topic of the next decade. With the further set-up and expansion of our region Central and Eastern Europe – also taking into consideration local customer needs – we will ensure Wyse a leading position in the areas of client virtualization and cloud computing while at the same time helping organizations utilize Green IT to meet the tough environmental targets we are already seeing from the European Union.”

Mark Jordan, Vice President EMEA for Wyse Technology, added, “Wyse is very pleased to have gained the talents and expertise of such a senior figure in the virtualization market. Karl-Heinz’s direct experience of driving and managing rapid growth will ensure a leadership position for Wyse in these important markets. Karl-Heinz takes over from Peter van Caspel who has achieved significant growth in this territory already and now takes on a new an exciting challenge within Wyse.”

Based in The Netherlands, Peter van Caspel will become Sales Director for a new Benelux and Nordic region for Wyse. Jordan adds, “Benelux has always been a strong market for Wyse as has Norway, but we have previously lacked the focus to really maximize our business across the whole of this region. Now with Peter’s leadership and strong track record, we have the right team in place to change this.”

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Cloud V In-House... Where to Run That App?

One of the biggest decisions IT managers have to make is how and where to run data center applications. Fortunately, there are multiple choices that lower costs and increase business agility, including server virtualization, internal clouds, public clouds and external private clouds.

Many IT organizations are taking advantage of these options. Server virtualization is currently being used by more than 70% of enterprises to reduce costs, and cloud computing is being used or planned for use by more than 10% of corporations, according to Antonio Piraino, research director at Tier1 Research.

Rolling your own cloud
Today, customers are leaning toward the use of internal clouds over external clouds because of the various risks associated with external clouds, including security, data privacy and SLAs. The significant downside, though, is that IT has to build this environment and no single vendor provides all the pieces.

"The data center staff will have to create the automation layer for their internal cloud because today no vendor provides a complete software layer," Swan says. "The staff will essentially have to buy the pieces and put them together." A large enterprise could spend millions of dollars over several years creating a full-blown internal cloud that produces the cost savings and exhibits the automation desired.

All in all, "decisions about the use of clouds versus server virtualization depends a lot on how heavily you have invested in your data center and whether you have sufficient capacity in your data center," says Verizon Business's Deacon. Most companies do not rip and replace; that is, they do not shut down their data centers and move everything to clouds, he says. Likewise, companies that have been outsourcing are not going to immediately start creating an internal cloud in their data centers.

"Clouds provide automation and orchestration not found with server virtualization," says Jeff Deacon, cloud computing principal for Verizon Business's internal applications.

What they do depends on what they have been doing and what they are most comfortable with, Deacon says. "Over time, enterprises that have traditional outsourcing contracts and managed hosting will convert to clouds, because it makes sense, is cost-effective and offers more flexibility."

Join Us: http://bit.ly/joincloud

Clouds Are Like Onions

Which of course are like Ogres. They’re big, chaotic, and have lots of layers of virtualization

In discussions involving cloud it is often the case that someone will remind you that “virtualization” is not required to build a cloud.

But that’s only partially true, as some layers of virtualization are, in fact, required to build out a cloud computing environment. It’s only “operating system” virtualization that is not required.

Problem is unlike the term “cloud”, “virtualization” has come to be associated with a single, specific kind of virtualization; specifically, it’s almost exclusively used to refer to operating system virtualization, a la Microsoft, VMware, and Citrix. But many kinds of virtualization have existed for much longer than operating system virtualization, and many of them are used extensively in data centers both traditional and cloud-based.
Like ogres, the chaotic nature of a dynamic data based on these types of virtualization can be difficult to manage.


Layer upon layer of virtualization within the data center, like the many layers of an onion, are enough to make you cry at the thought of how to control that volatility without sacrificing the flexibility and scalability introduced by the technologies. You can’t get rid of them, however, as some of these types of virtualization are absolutely necessary to the successful implementation of cloud computing. All of them complicate management and make more difficult the task of understanding how data gets from point A to point B within a cloud computing environment.
 

---

EIGHT KINDS OF VIRTUALIZATION

---

Yes, that’s right, eight kinds of virtualization exist though we tend to focus on just the one, operating system virtualization. Some may or may not be leveraged in a cloud computing environment, but at least four of them are almost always found in all data center environments.

1. Operating System Virtualization is what we tend to think of when we simply say “virtualization.” This is the virtualization of compute resources, the slicing and dicing of a single physical machine into multiple “virtual” machines typically used today to deploy several different applications (or clones of a single application) on the same physical hardware.
2. Network Virtualization is likely one kind of virtualization many don’t even consider virtualization, but it is and it’s even got standards that help ensure consistency across implementations. The VLAN (Virtual LAN) has existed since the early days of networking and is used in cloud computing environments to isolate customer data. VLANs essentially create a virtual network overlay atop an existing physical network, slicing and dicing the physical connections into multiple virtual (and hopefully smaller) networks that can be configured to provide security and network-layer functions like quality of service and rate shaping peculiar to the applications and users that are directed over the VLAN. VLAN tagging, used to identity traffic as “belonging” to a specific virtual network, is defined by IEEE 802.1q.
   
   Also a form of network virtualization is trunking or link aggregation as defined by IEEE 802.1ad. Trunking aggregates multiple physical ports on a switching device and makes them appear as one logical (virtual) link, providing additional bandwidth to high volume networks as well as load balancing traffic across the physical interconnects in order to maintain consistent network performance. Interestingly enough, VLANs are almost always used when trunking is used in a network.
   
   And of course there is NAT (Network Address Translation), which is also a form of network virtualization. Because of the dearth of IP addresses, most users internal to an organization are directed through a pool of one or more public IP addresses (routable, i.e. accessible by people across the Internet) to access resources external to the organization. The virtualization here again makes many IP addresses (internal, non-routable, private) appear to be one or a small number of IP addresses (public, routable, external). This process is also used on inbound connections, making one or a small number of external, public IP addresses appear to represent multiple, internal, private IP addresses.
3. Application Server Virtualization occurs when a Load balancer, application delivery controller, or other proxy-based application network device “virtualizes” one or more instances of an application. The process of virtualization an application server makes multiple servers appear to be one ginormous server to clients, and acts in a manner very similar to trunking in that this form of virtualization is about aggregation. When applied to application servers, this virtualization focuses on the aggregation of compute resources.
   
   This form of virtualization is almost always necessary in a data center, whether traditional or cloud-based. Application server virtualization is the foundation on which failover (reliability) and scalability are based, and one would be hard-pressed to find a modern data center in which this form of virtualization – whether provided by software or hardware – is not already implemented.
4. Storage Virtualization is another form of aggregation-based virtualization. Storage virtualization aggregates multiple sources of storage such as NAS (network attached storage) devices and NFS/CIFS shares hosted on various servers around the data center and “normalizes” them into a single, consistent interface such that users are isolated from the actual implementation and see only the “virtual” namespaces presented by the storage virtualization device.

There are four other “types” of virtualization, but it is these four that are primarily utilized today and with which most folks are already familiar – it just may be that they are using different terminology. Perhaps that’s because virtualization of the network and application server have existed for so long most people do not associate it with virtualization. All four of these kinds of virtualization end up forming layers of abstraction throughout the network, and like operating system virtualization introduce management and architectural challenges that are increasingly difficult to address as environments become more and more dynamic, a la a cloud computing environment.

Read more Cloud Distribution News @ http://bit.ly/5NMFEA

Data Center Virtualization: Cloud Computing Still a Work in Progress

The AFCOM association recently revealed the results of a survey of 436 data center sites that showed the following trends: Cyber terrorism is an increasing concern, mainframe deployment is declining, storage deployment is increasing, and "green" technologies are definitely happening. AFCOM found that there is a shift in data centers away from mainframe computers and toward other types of servers.

That makes total sense as virtualization is the mantra of the day for those companies that are interested in optimizing their power by having several operating systems function within just one server.
Data processing and storage is done within one server as opposed to a traditional system where the network is distributed in an elaborate design comprising of several servers and workstations all attached to their own separate hardware components.

Similar to a virtual environment, all the physical resources such as additional servers, PCs, storage, hard drives, processors, and mother boards are totally eliminated.
That way, not only are we saving big time in hardware investment (good for the planet!), we are also avoiding excess maintenance costs. That’s a big thumbs up!
The “not so thumbs up “ news is that even though 60.9 percent of data centers worldwide officially recognize cyber terrorism as a real threat, only about one-third of respondents included cyber terrorism in their disaster-recovery plans. The survey goes on to note that currently only about one of every four data centers addresses cyber terrorism, and one in five has procedures in place to prevent an attack. That means the remaining four out of five data centers are left dangerously vulnerable to sophisticated malwares and viruses.
The risk of cyber attacks becomes more critical as several data centers expect massive expansion due to dramatic increase in storage demands and aggressive business plans in the next five years. The AFCOM study finds that 22.0 percent will utilize a colocation center to meet their increased space requirements and 13.8 percent will use managed Hosting services. Companies will also rely more and more on cloud computing services to meet their increasing computing needs that cannot be totally met with onsite especially if they are cash strapped.
Cloud computing – cutting costs and energy
Enterprises are increasingly embracing cloud technology as a part of their initiative to cut costs and energy. How does it work? Computational power and storage borrowed from a third party decreases the power load on the home front. You pay for what you use and waste fewer resources in the bargain. You eliminate redundant power, redundant servers, spare capacity, fail-over processes, backup servers etc and equipment never gets outdated. Services on the host side, run on shared infrastructure at high utilization as not all users will be accessing service at the same time which means there is further potential for power savings.

CIO, CTO & Developer Resources

While some argue that cloud computing just shifts the energy consumption from the data centers to the hosts’ side, even with all the additional overhead costs and single computer power usage (on the host side) , there is a considerable decrease in net power as you take other systems offline and pay a whole lot less for cooling.
Highly specialized energy saving environments that are carefully cultivated by big players like Amazon and Microsoft are likely to waste considerably less energy than the clients who seek their cloud services.
Security concerns
But the big elephant in the room when it comes to cloud computing has always been security concerns as you let go of sensitive client data over an open network. Remote computing increases the risk of breaches. This was recently brought to the forefront with Google’s well documented case when a hacker got hold of confidential Twitter documents after breaking into an employee’s e-mail account. Certainly Google has been exceptional in embracing green computing and proclaims to run the most energy-efficient data centers in the world. But are we willing to ease up on the security of confidential data to get our carbon limits under control?

Organizations such as the Cloud Security Alliance, comprising of industry leaders, global associations and security experts, have published guidance to come up with secure cloud computing practices and have released guidelines that cover 15 security domains, ranging from computing architecture to virtualization for organizations. Just like any other emerging technology, there are certain matters that require meticulous ironing out. I’m optimistic that we will be able to make cloud work as we cannot ignore the business benefits that it brings us (lots of cash savings!) while keeping our individual and collective carbon limits under check.

Original Article - read more

Is There a Business in Physical to Cloud Conversions?

I have been thinking about if there is a place for some cloud computing vendors to come on the scene to handle what I call the 'P2C' conversion process-taking a physical machine and converting it to an image that can run on a cloud. If we look at the virtualization market, clearly P2V (physical to virtual) was an enabling technology that helped people migrate existing physical hosts into virtual machines, without having to completely rebuild systems from scratch. VMware had a product in the space (and still does) and there was also some popular products provided by 3rd parties like Platespin (who had a nice exit to Novell for ~$200MM).

Do we have the potential for the same story in the cloud?

Well, what’s the same this time around?  You have huge existing deployments of physical machines and virtual machines, some of which IT managers would like to move the cloud, just as you had IT managers who wanted to consolidate physical hosts by converting them to VMs.

But what’s different?  As I understand it, most of the cloud deployments are Linux based, and you’ve got a series of tools (Puppet, Chef, and the like) that allow administrators to very easily deploy cookie-cutter system templates very quickly.  So, the cost of migrating an existing system may be much higher than simply rebuilding through one of these systems and migrating data.

Maybe small environments are the sweet spot for a P2C product.  They are unlikely to have invested time and effort into deploying a configuration management system like Chef or Puppet, but may still want to move their physical systems into a cloud environment.   There is a consultant I know who was recently asked if he could do exactly this for a customer’s small LAMP infrastructure.  This is just one data point but I have a hard time believing there wouldn’t be other SMBs willing to pay for this kind of service.

Is there anything like this out there today?  Agree or disagree with my thesis?   Is there a business here?


Original Article - read more

Optimize While You Virtualize to Get to the Cloud at Cloud Expo 2010

By consolidating low priority applications onto shared resources, virtualization has enabled IT organizations to cut costs and improve efficiency, leverage new IT investment, and improve service. In his session at the 5th Cloud Expo, Rich Corley, Founder and CTO of Akorri, will analyze the steps IT managers need to take while they optimize their virtualization environment including: troubleshooting, optimization, capacity planning and service level management.

Original Article - Cloud Computing Journal - read more

Virtual appliances cure appliance bloat

Over the past few years hardware appliances have become the preferred form factor for deploying specialized IT solutions. Appliances are preconfigured, easy to deploy and simple to manage, and usually offer a compact form factor.

However, the rapid adoption of appliances, particularly for security solutions, has led to appliance bloat -- racks of multicolored boxes, each performing a specialized function. As enterprises deploy more appliances, the ease-of-use and management benefits that make security appliances popular are at risk of being overwhelmed by the complexity and cost involved with managing a large number of point solutions. 

One solution is to use virtual appliances. They let enterprises install hardware-free appliances on existing virtualized server infrastructure. Virtualization technology, such as that of VMware, transforms a mix of industry-standard x86 servers and their associated processors, memory, disk and network components into a pool of logical computing resources that can be dynamically allocated to different virtual machines (each of which might be running an entirely different operating system, applications and services).

Commercial virtual appliances are just starting to appear. VMware's virtual appliance marketplace lists commercial virtual appliances certified to meet VMware's production-ready criteria.

Many of today's hardware appliances are based on standard x86 server hardware running a customized operating system and specialized applications that lend themselves well to transformation into a virtual appliance. Everything about a virtual appliance -- operating system, application, user interface -- is the same as with a physical appliance, except that it requires no dedicated, physical infrastructure.

The benefits are the same as those realized by traditional server virtualization -- server and storage capacity can be increased without investing in additional hardware -- but virtual appliances can also take advantage of the data center's virtualized failover, backup, change management and disaster recovery features, generating further efficiencies. In addition, virtual servers can be deployed for scalability or redundancy purposes on an as-needed basis at zero incremental cost.

* Streamlined product evaluations: Instead of waiting to get hardware in-house for evaluation, you can download a trial virtual appliance and begin using it in a matter of hours without having to interact with the vendor or reseller.

* Simpler, more powerful lab environments: Virtual appliances make it easy to set up multiple appliances on a single server for testing purposes. You can try new products and modules, test configuration changes and evaluate different server configurations. You also can take a snapshot of your production environment and run it in a lab environment. Applying patches and upgrades can be performed at low cost in the lab environment on an identical snapshot of your production system.

* Lower capital expenditures: Virtual appliances can save thousands of dollars on initial purchase price vs. hardware appliances, and thousands more by utilizing existing data center failover and disaster recovery resources. But make sure your virtual appliance vendor has a virtualization-friendly pricing model that is tied to number of users, for example, rather than number of CPUs (which makes little sense when you can instantiate any number of virtual appliances dynamically).

* Increased performance and agility: Though there may be a small performance hit in running a virtual appliance on hardware that is otherwise identical to a vendor's hardware appliance platform, most servers used in virtual environments are more powerful than a single special-purpose appliance. So in practice, virtual appliances can offer superior performance in a cost-effective way.

While hardware appliances will remain the most popular deployment method for security applications in the near term, it's not a stretch to say that virtual appliances, coupled with commodity hardware, 
eventually will overtake customized, multifunction appliances. This will happen rapidly at enterprises with aggressive virtualization strategies in which the significant cost savings, coupled with benefits of using superior technology, will outweigh any perceived performance advantages of appliances, even those built on custom hardware.

Original Article - http://www.networkworld.com/news/tech/2007/042307techupdate.html?page=1