Simplify Your Journey to the Cloud

the way we see it Simplify Your Journey to the Cloud Cloud signals the advent of a fundamental revolution in the IT industry—promising infinitely flexible capacity, available almost instantly, and at very cost-effective prices. This enables organizations to differentiate fast and pursue opportunities at margins that previously could not be explored. All the major players in the IT This document clarifies the value industry, the pure Internet players and the impacts of Cloud Computing and telco operators have developed specifically—discussing technical their own Cloud offerings. Alliances and non-technical issues that have been formed to prepare and organizations face, and highlighting position for Cloud, which now covers the strategies that organizations the entire IT landscape and value may adopt during their migration to chain. This array of alliances within Cloud Computing. the industry has, along with the lack of an agreed definition, created a The Origins of Cloud diverse range of interpretations of the The underlying concept of Cloud terminology, purpose and benefits Computing can be traced back of Cloud Computing. This has led to to 1960, when John McCarthy confusion around the subject of the predicted that “computation may Cloud, and as a result, most CxOs do someday be organized as a public not clearly see the benefits and risks utility.” But it was not until the associated with the Cloud. However, 1990s that we started to see the first Cloud can bring a wealth of benefits adoption of Cloud—as a networking to the organization and provide the infrastructure resource. Telecom catalyst to bring the CIO closer to the companies replaced expensive point- business as a true business enabler, to-point Virtual Private Networks instead of traditional service provider. (VPNs)—enabling them to share the So is Cloud the promised ‘revolution’ available physical infrastructure with that will radically change the IT multiple customers. The customer services delivery model? What is benefited from economies of scale, clear is that Cloud Computing and and since their responsibility ceased the Cloud Services that it enables, at the boundary of the Cloud, they are here to stay and growing did not need to understand or know rapidly—both in the breadth of how the communications were services that are available and also in routed—that was the responsibility the number of adopters. of the telecom provider. Customers could therefore focus on ensuring In addition, new concepts (such that the correct service levels as Services Assembly) are helping were being provided rather than organizations evaluate and migrate devoting resources to understanding, to new Infostructure solutions that supporting and maintaining the are robust, secure and well governed, hardware and infrastructure. and that are financed from a more flexible operating budget, as opposed In the late 1990s and early 2000s, core to capital investment. servers and networks (the Internet) also began to be provided as a utility. 2010-03_TMP UK Services Assembly It was at this point that Cloud Defining Cloud describes bringing Computing and Cloud Services (as we In simple terms, Cloud could be know them today) were born, with together best-in-class described as delivering IT services companies like Amazon, Salesforce. on a subscription basis that can be SaaS providers on an com and Google using the term accessed from any Internet connection integration platform, ‘Cloud’ to describe how computing and offering customers the benefit of services could be delivered to multiple economies of scale. allowing them to customers simultaneously, with the be purchased in a only boundaries being the Internet There are five key attributes that compliant way by IT, connection at their desk or the define Cloud: socket on the wall. yet offered to business 1. Offered ‘as a service’—and ready to use; users as flexible, The key technological enabler for Cloud has been the advent and customizable Enterprise 2. Rapidly scalable—available on more recent rapid adoption of demand, with the ability to add or TM Application Stores . virtualization technologies. They remove resources as required; decouple the one-to-one relationship between applications and hardware, 3. Shared—multiple customers with grid computing enabling large sharing the same resources and numbers of servers to be banded underlying infrastructure; together. Services can be easily 4. Pay-per-use—a metered service and automatically provisioned that can be provided through on-demand from this virtualized different pricing plans; set of physical resources. The high utilization rate of these servers 5. Web-enabled—provided using keeps cost down and makes the Internet-based technologies. model economically possible, while Available Cloud Services innovative measurement and charging mechanisms have allowed the There are a wide range of Cloud significant cost savings to be passed Computing and Cloud Services on to customers. In addition, the options available, from very simple increase in Internet connection speeds consumer applications such as Twitter has enabled larger amounts of content or Google Mail, to the full range of to be sent to distant locations at low business applications, including CRM, cost. Now, for many organizations, ERP and HR solutions. Because of this Cloud Computing and Cloud Services wide range of options, organizations are viable and attractive options. can adopt Cloud across their entire IT landscape. To assist in trying to categorize these services, Cloud has been sub-divided in to three levels, which constitute ‘The Cloud Stack’—from visible software, to the platform on which software runs to the often invisible infrastructure (see Figure 1). These can be chosen by users as individual services (a piece of software, for example), or combined to form a fully Cloud-enabled environment. 2 the way we see it SaaS ACK Software as a Service Cloud Services PaaS Platform as a Service IaaS Cloud Infrastructure as a Service Computing THE CLOUD ST Figure 1: The Building Blocks of Cloud 1. Software-as-a-Service—SaaS: 2. Platform-as-a-Service—PaaS: 3. Infrastructure-as-a-Service— Corporations access applications Corporations use virtual software IaaS (or Cloud Computing): over a network. These applications, development environments to create Corporations access shared though shared between many and then run their own applications processing, network, storage and customers, are tailored to each on the Cloud. PaaS is particularly other fundamental computing client’s needs and priorities. beneficial, again for many of the resources, and these capabilities The focus being on tailoring the reasons above. However, its other are offered like a commodity over service to the client’s needs rather major advantage is the ability for the Internet. IaaS is attractive in than the service being tailored a CIO to provide a consolidated many instances, including when to the technology. SaaS, like the ‘store’ for development. In many large amounts of compute power other Cloud Services, is being organizations, small departmental are required for short periods adopted to avoid large-scale capital solutions, such as access databases, with little notice, or for temporary expenditure, to provide the ability Excel solutions, etc., are deployed project environments. In addition, for an agile and rapid deployment ‘under the radar’ of the CIO and the many organizations have huge and to pay only for what is needed, IT department. In addition, many amounts of archived data stored when it is needed. It is best used IT departments are simply unable to or backed up to expensive, when there is a demand for a service the seemingly never-ending dedicated systems (whether in- non-bespoke software solution, number of business requests. By house or outsourced). Online for which the demand may not providing a development service storage is an extremely economic be known, be unpredictable and where costs can be controlled and alternative. This model is best seen variable, or needs to be provisioned managed, an IT department can in services provided by Amazon very quickly. Examples: Salesforce. provide the organization with a (via Amazon Web Services), Sun, com, Microsoft BPOS, Netsuite, development environment that can and by solutions provided by the Eloqua (eMarketing), Demandware then be monitored and controlled. VCE alliance (VMware, Cisco, (eCommerce), and Crownpeak. Then, as and when appropriate, and EMC); alternative offers are Google Maps can be seen as some of these applications could delivered by companies such as an application and also as a be transferred to a SaaS solution or 3Tera and Liquid Computing. platform that enables usage in incorporated in an existing software other applications. solution. Examples: Microsoft Azure, Force.com, Google App Engine, and Yahoo Pipes. Simplify Your Journey to the Cloud 3 Understanding Which IaaS a group of organizations who Cloud Computing Architecture agree on common parameters and is Right For You membership share a private Cloud. It is important to carefully consider Organizations with sensitive data, or the right environment as part of concerns about other organizations any infrastructure upgrade. There and users they would need to share are three different models, through a public Cloud with, can reap many which Cloud Computing is provided of the benefits of Cloud by building to the customer: their own or buying capacity from a private Cloud provider. Public Cloud: Resources are shared and sold over the Internet among Hybrid Cloud: Mixing different all clients, who share the same Clouds, typically to adjust the level of mega-scale infrastructure. Users can service and security between different purchase a virtual computer and applications. An example of this could pay by the minute; they have no be using a private Cloud for highly sensitive mission-critical applications The term Infostructure knowledge of the computer’s physical location, the hardware that runs and placing less-sensitive applications describes the it, or the other users that share the on a public or community Cloud. The convergence of the hardware they are using.

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