Speed & Access: Are They Opposite Goals?

The economic slowdown has not dampened the IT world’s enthusiasm for fast computing and fast start-up

Speed, speed, speed. The economic slowdown has not dampened the IT world’s enthusiasm for fast computing and fast start-up.

Today, Steria, a European-based IT services company, joined forces with Cisco to create a solution that claims to give users access to the cloud in about 30 minutes. It’s called Infrastructure on Command, to debut around June, and it’s a Platform as a Service (PaaS) product that’s built on Cisco’s Unified Computing System and supported by Steria Advanced Remote Services (STARS).

Users will be able to access Infrastructure on Command through an online portal, and they can purchase additional computing power and infrastructure services on a pay-as-you-go basis. Companies – and this sounds like it would be perfect for small and mid-size firms – can scale up or down depending on what they need.

What’s so attractive about this is not only that they can adjust supply depending on their demand, but it also allows them to simply pay for the computing power they use.

While this is certainly good news for IT folks (especially at smaller companies) who want to get their apps and data on the cloud quick, and keep within their budget guidelines, too, quick access doesn’t necessarily address some of the major worries about cloud computing these days – especially who within a company should get access and how to control that.

A recent poll by the Ponemon Institute, called the “2010 Access Governance Trends Survey,” asked 728 IT practitioners about their procedures and outcomes in setting up access to information resources. The survey found that 87% thought individuals had too much access to information systems, up 9% from 2008.

Meanwhile, 73% said adoption of cloud-based applications is allowing users to circumvent existing corporate policies on access. This is clearly a problem for companies that want to tighten information control and security. And the study says that lack of central control over access to the cloud and online information “can contribute to excess user access and generally decrease the ability to apply policies and processes consistently across the enterprise.”

So, if you consider the first bit of news, that is, a way to get access to the cloud in 30 minutes, and then juxtapose it against the second, that is, that IT executives are unhappy about a lack of control over employees gaining access to the cloud, it seems we’ve got a problem here. Is cloud development moving too fast for IT folks concerned with governance?

This makes an even more compelling argument for monitoring services, especially the monitoring of networks, and even more especially, multi-site networks. If more and more people are accessing information services, whether it’s done via internal servers or virtual servers at remote sites, you’re bound to worry more about keeping it all running smoothly. What kind of monitoring can Monitis do for you? Here are some services for network monitoring:

* Native agent for Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD and Mac
* Computer configuration monitoring
* SNMP monitors, SNMP traps, MIB Browser with local infrastructure
* Internal telnet checks for switches, routers and other network devices
* Internal http check for intranet and extranet applications
* Office and cross-office WAN connectivity checks
* Ad hoc monitoring locations
* Expandable with custom scripts

Now is the time to consider letting a third-party monitoring system, like Monitis, do the tracking—and worrying—for you!

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