E-guide

Cloud Computing Infrastructure Services Buyer’s Guide

Your expert guide to infrastructure services

E-guide

In this e-guide A primer on public cloud benefits A primer on public cloud Brien Posey benefits When used to extend existing footprints, public cloud Criteria for choosing a public can deliver big benefits for data backup and scalability. cloud provider With companies such as , , and Compare public cloud providers Rackspace offering the ability to create virtual machines in the cloud to support and replace physical servers, cloud virtualization services are being integrated Virtustream into data center infrastructures. But knowing which features to consider and which vendors to compare can be a daunting task. This article is the first in a series that walks through the buying process for Amazon Web Services public cloud virtual server services. Here we cover the major benefits of using SoftLayer public cloud services as an extension of your data center infrastructure.

Verizon Cloud The second article discusses the risks and costs associated with moving virtual machines (VMs) to the public cloud. The third article focuses on purchasing Rackspace criteria and preparing a vendor request for proposal (RFP). Finally, the series will compare market-leading services against established criteria and against each other to help you select the best public cloud service for your environment.

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In most cases, established organizations with IT resources on-premises should In this e-guide not dispose of existing servers and move everything to the cloud. It would be a waste of money, unless the local resources were scheduled to be retired. Even A primer on public cloud then, there may be some workloads, such as latency-sensitive ones, that should benefits run locally. Similarly, you might not want to put all of your domain controllers on a public cloud. Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Of course, this does not mean companies with established IT infrastructures cannot benefit from the cloud. The best approach is often to treat the cloud as Compare public cloud providers an extension to the organization's existing IT footprint. In this feature, we look at the benefits of using public cloud versus an on-premises data center. In the

Virtustream second part of this feature, we'll cover the disadvantages of public cloud.

Microsoft Azure Workload scaling Amazon Web Services There are multiple ways a data center benefits from being extended to the SoftLayer cloud, and one involves workload scaling. There may be times your organization Verizon Cloud needs to ramp up a production workload beyond what the local data center can comfortably handle. Rackspace For example, consider the way insurance companies operate. For most of the Google Cloud Platform year, insurance companies typically consume a predictable level of IT resources. However, there may be open enrollment periods that occur throughout the year.

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These enrollment periods are especially busy for insurance companies. As a In this e-guide result, existing servers may not be able to handle open enrollment workloads. Rather than buy new servers to accommodate temporary spikes in demand, the A primer on public cloud companies could use public cloud. benefits If the company's enrollment applications are Web-based, it would be relatively Criteria for choosing a public easy for cloud-based Web servers to accommodate the seasonal demand. cloud provider Once open enrollment is over, the cloud-based Web servers can be decommissioned. Compare public cloud providers

Virtustream Business continuity

Microsoft Azure Another advantage of cloud-based VMs is protecting businesses in case of equipment failures or physical disasters. Amazon Web Services To protect against data center failures, some organizations build geographic SoftLayer clusters that span multiple data centers. Then, if a natural disaster destroys an

Verizon Cloud organization's primary data centers, mission-critical workloads fail over to secondary data centers. Rackspace Building geoclusters, however, is expensive and complicated. Alternatively, Google Cloud Platform organizations can use public cloud to protect mission-critical workloads using guest clusters and VM replication.

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Guest clusters are clustered application servers that run on virtual hardware. In this e-guide Since all of the guest cluster nodes are VMs, it's possible to place some of the cluster nodes in the public cloud. That way, critical workloads can continue to A primer on public cloud function even if primary data centers go offline. benefits However, you probably can't include public cloud servers in existing hypervisor Criteria for choosing a public clusters. Public cloud providers typically don't give customers low-level access cloud provider to physical servers, which makes stretching an existing hypervisor cluster to the public cloud nearly impossible. Compare public cloud providers Another way to use public cloud for business continuity is through VM replication. Not every provider or server virtualization platform supports Virtustream replication, but some cloud and hypervisor combinations allow duplicate VMs to

Microsoft Azure be created in the cloud and kept in sync with on-premises VMs.

Amazon Web Services Similarly, there are solutions that allow public clouds to act as relays between private data centers for VM replication. If any primary data centers go down, VM SoftLayer replicas can be used.

Verizon Cloud Public cloud VM deployment can be simpler than on-premises deployment Rackspace because public cloud providers typically offer templates to generate new VMs. Templates are used to automate VM creation. And, because they don't require Google Cloud Platform manual installation of guest operating systems, templates cut down on administrators' work. Some templates even include pre-installed applications.

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Public cloud VM deployments are especially attractive for startups. Any new In this e-guide business incurs startup costs, but operating virtual servers in the cloud eliminates the capital expenditures associated with server hardware and A primer on public cloud software. benefits Cloud-hosted VMs are usually billed on a monthly basis. For a startup, this Criteria for choosing a public monthly charge is likely far less than the hardware and software costs required cloud provider to run the workload locally. A startup organization can first run a workload in the cloud, and then later bring network load on-premises.

Compare public cloud providers Next article Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Criteria for choosing a public cloud A primer on public cloud provider benefits Brien Posey Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider When it comes to choosing a public cloud provider, cost is often top of mind. But other factors, such as VM migration, storage and Compare public cloud providers autoscaling, should also be considered.

As organizations transition to public or hybrid cloud, they inevitably have to Virtustream choose a public cloud provider to host their cloud-based virtual machines. And Microsoft Azure while there are many infrastructure (IaaS) providers, each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, each public cloud provider has its Amazon Web Services own pricing structure, so the cost of running a VM in the cloud could differ SoftLayer substantially from one provider to the next.

Verizon Cloud This article is the third in a series that walks through the buying process for public cloud virtual server services. The first article described the benefits of Rackspace hosting virtual servers in the cloud, while the second detailed public cloud costs

Google Cloud Platform and risks.

This article outlines the purchasing criteria to include in a vendor request for proposal (RFP) to ensure you get the right services for your environment.

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The fourth article will compare market-leading public cloud virtual server In this e-guide services against established purchasing criteria and against each other to help you determine which service offers the best features and price for your needs. A primer on public cloud benefits Determining public cloud costs Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider New public cloud users are often surprised to learn that IaaS has a complicated pricing structure. You will rarely, if ever, find flat rate pricing for running a virtual

Compare public cloud providers machine (VM) in the cloud. And although cloud providers disclose their pricing formulas, they tend to be extremely complex, making it difficult to estimate the cost of running a public cloud VM. Virtustream

Microsoft Azure These formulas are complex because they're based on the resources VMs consume. Some of the factors included in public cloud pricing structures are Amazon Web Services CPU consumption, the type of CPU activity being performed, network bandwidth consumption, storage I/O consumption, operating system (OS) selection, SoftLayer storage type and storage consumption on a per GB basis. Verizon Cloud Before running a VM in the cloud, set up trial accounts with different cloud Rackspace providers. This will create identical VMs on each cloud, and track costs. You can then compare how pricing differs from one provider to another. Google Cloud Platform For this method to work, however, the VMs must be somewhat representational of what you will run in your production environment.

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In this e-guide VM migration to public cloud

A primer on public cloud Another important consideration is VM migration support. Most organizations benefits have on-premises VMs they will migrate to public cloud. Most of the major public cloud providers offer a mechanism for importing existing VMs into the Criteria for choosing a public cloud, but some are easier to use than others. Some providers will give you a cloud provider graphical interface, while others require the operation be performed programmatically. Compare public cloud providers Hypervisor support also varies widely among public cloud providers. For example, some providers make it easy to import VMware VMs, but do not Virtustream support Citrix VMs. Microsoft Azure Be aware of VM migration costs. Most public cloud providers charge you for the Amazon Web Services resources you use, including the storage space the new VMs occupy. Some cloud providers -- particularly the smaller ones -- may impose a surcharge for SoftLayer importing VMs. Verizon Cloud Rackspace Custom image support Google Cloud Platform Any public cloud provider allows you to create VMs based on precompiled generic images. But because they're generic, these images may not fully meet

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your needs. For example, you may want to create VM images that include your In this e-guide preferred antivirus software, or that adhere to specific security requirements.

A primer on public cloud These custom VM images make it easy to configure VMs to meet your specific benefits needs, and to reproduce those configurations on future VMs. However, if you plan to create custom VMs in the cloud, you need to make sure your provider Criteria for choosing a public supports that process. And while major public cloud providers tend to offer that cloud provider support, some make it easier than others to import those images. If you are considering smaller public cloud providers, make sure you understand their Compare public cloud providers custom VM image support before signing on.

Virtustream VM templates Microsoft Azure While any public cloud provider allows you to create generic VMs based on Amazon Web Services predefined templates, the complexity and number of those templates varies wildly. Generic VM templates typically include an OS and, possibly, the ability to SoftLayer build application servers. Providers don't always offer the same OSes or Verizon Cloud applications, if they offer applications at all.

Rackspace Most of the major public clouds allow you to create Windows and Linux VMs, although the Windows Server versions and the Linux flavors offered vary. If you Google Cloud Platform are considering smaller providers, confirm their template catalog allows you to deploy the computing environments and applications you require.

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In this e-guide Autoscaling

A primer on public cloud Another essential feature to look for when evaluating cloud providers is benefits autoscaling. The basic idea of autoscaling is that server workloads are rarely linear. Sometimes, there are performance demand peaks, such as insurance Criteria for choosing a public companies' open enrollment periods or online retailers' big holiday sales. At cloud provider other times, usage demand shrinks. Autoscaling allows VMs to deliver higher performance in response to heavier workloads, and to scale down when Compare public cloud providers possible to save money.

Autoscaling varies across different cloud platforms. Some providers only offer it Virtustream for web applications by bringing extra web servers online. Others increase VM Microsoft Azure memory and CPU resources to perform workload scaling. This can be done manually, or can be automated based on a set of rules, performance metrics or Amazon Web Services a schedule. SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud Network connectivity

Rackspace Every cloud service provider offers VM network connectivity. It's a given that

Google Cloud Platform your VMs will be able to access one another and the .

Even so, the larger cloud providers typically offer multiple network connectivity options. They vary between providers, but there are usually premium

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connectivity options that allow VMs to receive higher network performance In this e-guide levels. This is especially useful for VMs running applications that are sensitive to network latency. If you plan to run cloud-based, latency-sensitive applications, A primer on public cloud be sure to investigate your potential cloud provider's networking options. benefits

Criteria for choosing a public Storage choices cloud provider Just as every cloud provider allows for basic VM network connectivity, they also

Compare public cloud providers offer basic VM storage. After all, VMs use virtual hard disks, and you have to put them somewhere. Many cloud service providers also offer options beyond basic, entry-level storage. Virtustream

Microsoft Azure Storage services vary tremendously from one provider to another, but, at a minimum, there are usually standard and premium options. The larger cloud Amazon Web Services providers tend to offer a lot of customization as part of their premium storage. For instance, customers might be able to choose between rotational storage SoftLayer and solid-state storage, although solid-state storage is almost always more Verizon Cloud expensive.

Rackspace Premium storage may also include fault-tolerant options. Some cloud service providers allow you to replicate storage or build virtual storage arrays that boost Google Cloud Platform performance and ensure fault tolerance. Although somewhat rare, some providers also allow you to use premium storage to create VM snapshots or for backup targets.

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When evaluating service providers, it's important to pay attention to the storage In this e-guide types offered. Some providers only offer object storage, which is very different from the block and file storage normally used in local data centers. Similarly, A primer on public cloud some providers treat databases as storage options, while others treat benefits databases as VMs.

Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Regional support

Compare public cloud providers Pay attention to cloud providers' regional availability. Larger cloud providers establish data centers all over the world. If you have regulatory or business requirements that mandate your data be kept within a specific country, it's Virtustream extremely important to be able to choose which data centers will host your VMs. Microsoft Azure In the event of a provider outage, it's also critical to ensure your VMs will not fail over to unauthorized regions. Amazon Web Services Examine each cloud provider's specific regional offerings. Some providers use SoftLayer lower-end servers in certain regions. Likewise, some OSes or OS features, such Verizon Cloud as encryption, may not be available in certain regions due to regulations.

Rackspace Next article Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Compare the market-leading public cloud A primer on public cloud providers benefits Brien Posey Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider With criteria ranging from cost to connectivity, choosing a cloud provider can be tough. Here's how AWS, Google, Microsoft and Compare public cloud providers Rackspace stack up.

You've done your homework and determined you need to extend your data Virtustream center to the public cloud. You've researched the technology and determined Microsoft Azure the criteria you will use to make your purchasing decision. Now, it's time to choose the public cloud provider to host your virtual machines. Amazon Web Services But which provider offers the services and support that best matches your SoftLayer environment and needs? Verizon Cloud This is the final article in a series about cloud computing buying decisions. The Rackspace first article described the benefits of hosting virtual servers in the cloud, while the second detailed public cloud costs and risks. Google Cloud Platform

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The third article detailed the purchasing criteria to include in your vendor In this e-guide request for proposals (RFPs) to make sure you get the right services for your environment. A primer on public cloud benefits This article compares four leading public cloud providers -- Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft and Rackspace -- and how well they meet Criteria for choosing a public the following seven criteria: cloud provider  VM migration support

Compare public cloud providers  Custom image support

Virtustream  Image library

Microsoft Azure  Autoscaling

Amazon Web Services  Network connectivity

SoftLayer  Storage choices

Verizon Cloud  Regional support

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform 1. VM migration support

As public and hybrid clouds increase in popularity, it's important for organizations to be able to move virtual machines (VMs) from an on-premises

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hypervisor into the public cloud, and to bring those workloads back in house if In this e-guide necessary.

A primer on public cloud AWS offers the most seamless VM migration path of all the major cloud benefits providers, although Microsoft is not far behind. AWS provides a graphical interface called the AWS Management Portal for vCenter which allows Criteria for choosing a public virtualization admins to manage their Amazon-based resources through cloud provider VMware vCenter. The portal also makes it possible to migrate VMware VMs to the public cloud. Compare public cloud providers Microsoft built its Azure public cloud on top of Windows Server and Hyper-V. Because Azure runs the same software as many on-premises networks, it is Virtustream relatively easy to migrate VMs between local data centers and Azure. The

Microsoft Azure process isn't seamless, but is relatively easy once connectivity is established between Azure and a local network. Amazon Web Services Google does not support VM migrations into the Google Compute Engine cloud. SoftLayer However, there are third-party providers, such as Cohesive Networks, which

Verizon Cloud allows VMs to be imported into Google Compute Engine.

Rackspace Rackspace does not offer a way to migrate VMs to and from the cloud. It does, however, provide a service called RackConnect that's geared toward hybrid Google Cloud Platform clouds.

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In this e-guide 2. Custom image support

A primer on public cloud Cloud providers generally allow VMs to be built from predefined images, but benefits these generic OS images don't always meet an organization's needs. As such, a cloud provider should allow custom virtual machine images to be created and Criteria for choosing a public used. cloud provider AWS provides Amazon EC2 API tools which can be used to import VM images

Compare public cloud providers into the Amazon cloud. AWS allows for the importing of:

 VMware ESX and VMware Workstation VMDK images; Virtustream  Citrix XenServer virtual hard disk (VHD) images; Microsoft Azure  Microsoft Hyper-V VHD images for Windows Server 2003, Windows Server Amazon Web Services 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows SoftLayer Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2; and

Verizon Cloud  Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.1-5.11, 6.1-6.6 (using Cloud Access), Centos 5.1-5.11, 6.1-6.6, Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04, 14.10, Rackspace and Debian 6.0.0-6.0.8, 7.0.0-7.2.0. Google Cloud Platform Microsoft makes it fairly easy to create a custom image. The easiest way is to create a virtual hard disk file and import it into Azure. Although you can build

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VHD-based images from scratch, System Center can In this e-guide help with the image creation process.

A primer on public cloud Rackspace supports the creation of custom images, which can be imported and benefits exported from its cloud environment. Rackspace also provides a custom API that can be used to share custom images. Criteria for choosing a public Google supports the importing of raw device mapping images, Amazon Machine cloud provider Images and VirtualBox Images.

Compare public cloud providers 3. Image library Virtustream Although many organizations try to minimize the number of server operating Microsoft Azure systems they use, heterogeneous environments are becoming much more Amazon Web Services common, especially in the cloud. A good cloud provider should offer a variety of server OS choices. SoftLayer Rackspace offers a broad selection of server operating systems. It provides Verizon Cloud nearly a dozen different Linux variants, including Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Rackspace Linux and CentOS. In addition, Rackspace offers Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012. Windows Server images can be preloaded with SQL Google Cloud Platform Server or with SharePoint. The versions that are offered vary depending on the operating system you select. The available Windows Server 2008 images include Base OS, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2012, and SharePoint 2010.

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The available Windows Server 2012 images include R1 base image, R2 base In this e-guide image, R1 with SQL Server 2012, R1 with SharePoint 2013 and R2 with SQL Server 2014. A primer on public cloud benefits Microsoft provides a variety of operating system images including Windows Server, Ubuntu, CoreOS, CentOS, SUSE, Oracle and Puppet Labs. Windows Criteria for choosing a public images can be deployed using only the base operating system, or they can cloud provider include Microsoft server products such as SharePoint, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, Visual Studio or Microsoft Dynamics. Compare public cloud providers AWS provides Windows-based images, as well as a variety of Linux images. The available Linux flavors include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux, Virtustream Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Gentoo Linux, Oracle Linux and FreeBSD.

Microsoft Azure Google offers a collection of premium operating systems, including Red Hat Amazon Web Services Enterprise Linux, SUSE and Windows Server.

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud 4. Autoscaling

Rackspace Workloads do not typically experience linear demand; instead, demand increases and decreases over time. Ideally, a cloud provider should allow Google Cloud Platform workloads to automatically scale up or down in response to current demand.

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Rackspace provides an autoscale feature that expands or shrinks your cloud In this e-guide according to a set of user-defined rules. These rules can include a schedule allowing workloads to scale up just prior to an expected demand spike, and A primer on public cloud scale down when the event passes. benefits Microsoft includes a Scale page in the Azure interface. You can use this page to Criteria for choosing a public manually scale an application, or you can set parameters that will be used to cloud provider automatically scale the workload.

Google has an autoscaler that scales a workload up or down based on Compare public cloud providers changing demand, and can be used with a managed instance group.

Virtustream AWS provides autoscaling capabilities that can be enabled on a group basis.

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services 5. Network connectivity

SoftLayer Network connectivity is another important consideration when choosing a public cloud provider. There should be a way to connect your on-premises network to Verizon Cloud your cloud network, and the provider should offer various connectivity features. Rackspace AWS offers something it calls Enhanced Networking. This service is available Google Cloud Platform for Windows and Linux VMs, and offers higher-performance networking than what is delivered out of the . Enhanced Networking is specifically designed

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to provide low latency and low jitter, and is enabled by default for Amazon In this e-guide Machine Images based on Windows Server 2012 R2 and Linux HVM.

A primer on public cloud Rackspace offers several networking options. Extreme Networking, for example, benefits is Rackspace's high-bandwidth solution that uses twin bonded 10 Gbps connections. A more generic Rackspace option is Cloud Networks, which allows Criteria for choosing a public for multi-tier software-defined networks. Rackspace also offers cloud load cloud provider balancers and IPv6 support.

Google Compute Engine provides all the basic cloud networking capabilities, Compare public cloud providers but also cloud load balancing and cloud DNS. In addition, Google offers an interconnect feature that allows customers to establish connectivity to the Virtustream Google cloud either directly or via VPN.

Microsoft Azure Microsoft designed Azure to easily support hybrid clouds. Although you can Amazon Web Services define virtual networks within Azure, it is also possible to connect Azure to your corporate network through point-to-point VPN. By doing so, the Azure network SoftLayer acts as an extension of an on-premises network. For instance, a cloud

Verizon Cloud application might access a local SQL Server database.

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide 6. Storage choices

A primer on public needs vary depending on workloads. Some workloads can use benefits commodity storage without any issues, while others require high-performance storage. As such, a cloud provider should offer a variety of storage options. Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Amazon EC2 includes basic storage for VMs, but the service is really designed to connect to Amazon's Elastic Block Store (EBS) service, which is designed to

Compare public cloud providers be scalable, flexible and fault tolerant. For instance, storage can be provisioned as general purpose, with solid-state disk (SSD) and hard disk drive (HDD) options available, or Provisioned IOPS. Furthermore, Amazon EBS supports the Virtustream use of point-in-time consistent snapshots. AWS also offers a variety of fault Microsoft Azure tolerant storage configurations.

Amazon Web Services Microsoft provides basic storage for its Azure VMs. In addition, Microsoft offers premium storage for high-performance workloads. Premium storage is based on SoftLayer SSDs, while standard storage uses rotational HDDs. Premium storage Verizon Cloud allocation is flexible; you can define multiple disks per VM and allocate up to 32 TB of premium storage to a single VM. Premium storage can achieve up to Rackspace 50,000 IOPS per VM with extremely low latency, especially for read operations. Google Cloud Platform Google offers three different storage options. Cloud Datastore is a managed, NoSQL schema-less database for storing non-relational data. For database storage, Google offers a fully managed MySQL database. For more generalized

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storage, Google offers Cloud Storage, which is essentially object storage that In this e-guide can be managed programmatically through an available API.

A primer on public cloud Rackspace provides two main storage options: No Spinning Disks and Cloud benefits Block Storage. As the name implies, the No Spinning Disks option is a pure SSD storage solution, and is available for VMs and bare-metal cloud servers. Criteria for choosing a public Cloud Block Storage, on the other hand, is available only for virtual servers. cloud provider Cloud Block Storage can consist of SSD or spinning disks, and can be connected to VMs via a 10 Gbps connection. Compare public cloud providers

Virtustream 7. Regional support

Microsoft Azure Sometimes business or regulatory requirements mandate hosting resources in a specific geographic region. That being the case, a cloud provider should ideally Amazon Web Services give its customers a choice of where VMs will be hosted.

SoftLayer AWS allows VM instances to be hosted in specific regions. It also designates

Verizon Cloud various Availability Zones within those regions that are far enough apart from one another to be insulated against disasters. Rackspace Google allows you to choose the regions where your VMs are hosted. However, Google Cloud Platform there are some hardware differences between the various regions, and each has multiple zones. Google's available regions include locations in the U.S.,

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Ireland, Germany, South America and Asia. Some resources, such as VM In this e-guide images, are not region-specific.

A primer on public cloud Microsoft has defined 17 different regions for Azure, including locations benefits throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, South America and Australia.

Rackspace has cloud data centers in the U.S., , Hong Kong and Criteria for choosing a public Sydney, Australia. The company uses these data centers to provide redundancy cloud provider and guaranteed uptime. Rackspace does not offer the ability to confine a VM to a specific region. Compare public cloud providers Going with the right public cloud provider can make all the difference in Virtustream providing an effective extension to your on-premises data center. Examining prices and features may be difficult, so make sure you put together a solid RFP Microsoft Azure to compare apples to apples and select the right service for your environment Amazon Web Services and business needs.

SoftLayer About the author

Verizon Cloud Brien Posey is a seven-time Microsoft MVP with two decades of IT experience, with expertise in SharePoint administration. During that time he has published Rackspace thousands of articles and has written or contributed to dozens of IT books. Prior Google Cloud Platform to becoming a freelance writer, Posey served as chief information officer for a national chain of hospitals and healthcare facilities. He has also worked as a

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network administrator for some of the nation’s largest insurance companies and In this e-guide for the Department of Defense at Fort Knox.

A primer on public cloud benefits Next article

Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider

Compare public cloud providers

Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Management, analytics tools underpin A primer on public cloud Virtustream cloud benefits Valerie Silverthorne Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider In addition to providing a mix of public and private cloud services, Virtustream's cloud platform offers tools for analytics and resource Compare public cloud providers management.

While Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft Azure dominate the Virtustream infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market, there are a number of other options for Microsoft Azure enterprises to consider. Targeted at enterprises, government agencies and service providers, the Virtustream Enterprise-Class Cloud is an IaaS offering Amazon Web Services that provides a combination of public, private and hybrid cloud services. SoftLayer And, with the many other cloud services -- ranging from analytics to cloud Verizon Cloud resource management -- found in the Virtustream portfolio, it's important to review the platform carefully before jumping in. Rackspace At the heart of the Virtustream Enterprise-Class Cloud is the company's Google Cloud Platform xStream cloud management platform, which offers a number of integrated features. According to Virtustream, its µVM resource management technology -- or a "micro VM" that offers a standardized bundle of computing resources to

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enable cloud resource measurement -- creates a secure, multi-tenant In this e-guide environment. Additionally, the xStream platform offers:

A primer on public cloud  Security with encrypted resource pools benefits  Continuous security information and event management

Criteria for choosing a public  Private, public and hybrid cloud deployment modules cloud provider  Multi-level billing and chargeback Compare public cloud providers  Application-level performance service-level agreements

Virtustream  Advanced governance, reporting and compliance

Microsoft Azure  Multi-level monitoring and management

Amazon Web Services The xStream platform is available as software or a pre-configured hardware SoftLayer appliance.

Verizon Cloud Virtustream's monitoring and planning software, Advisor, is a proprietary analytics tool that helps enterprises build a financial business case for moving Rackspace applications and lines of business (LOBs) to the cloud. In addition, this software

Google Cloud tool analyzes usage, system performance and system utilization, as well as captures data from systems, applications and LOBs to determine the total cost of cloud ownership and expected cost savings.

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The Virtustream cloud platform is vendor-agnostic, and works with many In this e-guide popular enterprise applications in the following areas:

A primer on public cloud  Productivity and collaboration benefits  Enterprise resource planning and financial

Criteria for choosing a public  Accounting cloud provider  Customer relationship management Compare public cloud providers  SAP

Virtustream  Databases

Microsoft Azure Pricing for Virtustream's Enterprise-Class Cloud is similar to that found on a

Amazon Web Services typical electricity bill. Rather than pay for instances, users pay for their actual consumption of storage, networking, memory and computing resources. SoftLayer Users are charged by µVM metric, which is equivalent to 200 MHz of CPU, 768 Verizon Cloud MB of memory, 40 storage I/O operations per second and 2 Mbps of networking

Rackspace bandwidth.

Google Cloud Platform *Editor's note: Since publication, EMC has announced plans to acquire Virtustream. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015, and is valued at $1.2 billion.

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In this e-guide Next article

A primer on public cloud benefits

Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider

Compare public cloud providers

Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Exploring capabilities, costs of Microsoft Azure cloud A primer on public cloud benefits Valerie Silverthorne

Microsoft Azure targets enterprises that want to connect their Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider existing data centers to the cloud. But is Azure the best bet for your organization? Compare public cloud providers Despite facing tough competition from rivals like Google and Amazon Web

Virtustream Services, Microsoft Azure has become a major player in the enterprise public cloud market. But before making Azure the designated cloud platform for your Microsoft Azure organization, it's important to review its unique services, pricing structure and Amazon Web Services customer support model.

SoftLayer The Microsoft Azure cloud combines infrastructure as a service and platform as Verizon Cloud a service, which allows organizations to choose between public, private or hybrid clouds environments. Organizations can also opt to have Microsoft fully Rackspace manage those environments for them. Google Cloud Platform Azure was designed for enterprises looking to connect existing data centers to public or private clouds. The platform supports popular operating systems, tools,

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languages and frameworks, including Windows, Linux, SQL Server, C# and In this e-guide Java.

A primer on public cloud According to Microsoft, Azure has 99.95% availability, and the company offers benefits service level agreements to that effect. Azure is deployed through data centers

Criteria for choosing a public around the world in 19 regions, including mainland China. cloud provider Here's an overview of Azure's key cloud services to determine if it's the right

Compare public cloud providers cloud platform for your organization:

1. Compute: Azure gives customers the ability to provision Windows and Virtustream Linux VMs, run large-scale batch jobs, create scalable applications and Microsoft Azure deploy Windows client apps.

Amazon Web Services 2. Web and mobile: Users can deploy and scale websites in seconds on SoftLayer Azure, according to Microsoft, and developers can build and host mobile

Verizon Cloud app back ends on the cloud platform. Enterprises can securely share APIs with developers, partners and employees. Rackspace 3. Data and storage: Azure offers a managed SQL database as a service, Google Cloud Platform as well as a NoSQL document DBaaS called DocumentDB. Azure's StorSimple service is hybrid cloud storage for enterprise customers.

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4. Analytics: Using Azure HDInsight, customers can provision managed In this e-guide Hadoop clusters on Azure and tap into real-time stream analytics.

A primer on public cloud 5. Networking: Using Azure, customers can provision private networks and benefits connect to on-premises data centers. Azure Traffic Manager balances

Criteria for choosing a public incoming traffic loads. cloud provider

Compare public cloud providers Microsoft Azure pricing and support KNIME Analytics Platform is available as open source and is managed under Virtustream the GNU General Public License Version 3. Extensions and nodes are covered under section 7 of the license terms. Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services Azure is available for free as a one-month trial, and customers get an additional $200 to spend on Azure services. SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud After deploying Azure, customers pay per minute, and only for services they've Rackspace used. There are no upfront costs or termination fees. The cloud is available in a Google Cloud Platform pay-as-you-go model through Microsoft resellers, or through a special enterprise agreement involving upfront guarantees for usage and discounted prices.

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Azure prices vary depending on the type of service. Microsoft offers website and In this e-guide application hosting in four different tiers:

A primer on public cloud  Free tier: Free of charge for up to 10 sites or apps; benefits  Standard tier: An unlimited number of sites or apps for $0.10 per hour;

Criteria for choosing a public  VM pricing ranges from $0.018 per hour, or about $13 a month, for the cloud provider basic tier to $0.171 per hour, or about $127 per month, for optimized computing; and Compare public cloud providers  SQL database services range in price from $0.0067 per hour, or about $5 Virtustream per month, for the basic tier to $0.625 per hour, or $465 per month, for the premium tier. Microsoft Azure Microsoft offers 24/7 support and around-the-clock service health monitoring. Amazon Web Services There are four levels of support:

SoftLayer Developer support: $29 per month and offers a service dashboard, Web Verizon Cloud incident submission, 24/7 break/fix and a response time of less than eight hours; Rackspace Standard support: $300 a month and offers a response time of less than two Google Cloud Platform hours and three support phone calls per month;

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Professional Direct support: $1,000 a month and includes a response time of In this e-guide less than an hour, unlimited support phone calls, pooled service delivery management, priority handling, an escalation phone line and limited advisory A primer on public cloud support; and benefits Premier support: Pricing is not published, but it does include a response time of Criteria for choosing a public less than 15 minutes, full advisory support, onsite services and developer cloud provider mentoring.

Compare public cloud providers Next article

Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide A closer look at the Amazon Web Services A primer on public cloud cloud platform benefits Valerie Silverthorne Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Before deploying AWS, it's crucial to understand the public cloud provider's options for cloud storage, networking and more. Here's a Compare public cloud providers closer look.

Amazon Web Services is the leading cloud platform provider, offering over 250 Virtustream applications and services -- including some from third parties -- to deploy, Microsoft Azure maintain, monitor and run applications in the cloud.

Amazon Web Services However, before deciding whether Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the right public cloud provider for you, it's essential to examine its capabilities for SoftLayer computing, networking, storage and other components of cloud. Verizon Cloud Here's a closer look at the AWS public cloud. Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide AWS compute

A primer on public cloud AWS offers a variety of compute instances that allow companies to quickly benefits scale up or scale down based on need. Two of the most commonly used AWS computing services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Amazon Criteria for choosing a public Elastic Load Balancing. cloud provider Amazon EC2 targets system admins and developers. These IT pros use EC2 to

Compare public cloud providers quickly acquire and "boot" computing instances in the cloud.

Like many cloud services, EC2 pricing depends on usage. EC2 has a free Virtustream service that includes up to 750 hours of Linux or Windows EC2 service hours

Microsoft Azure per month for one year. Amazon offers three other pricing tiers: On-Demand, Reserve Instance and Spot Instance. Amazon Web Services On-Demand prices range from $.013 to $4.60 an hour depending on size, SoftLayer complexity and storage requirements, as well as location.

Verizon Cloud Reserve Instance pricing offers a discount of up to 75% for On-Demand pricing, Rackspace but requires users to reserve computing instances in advance for one- or three- year terms. It offers three payment policies: All Upfront, where users reserve Google Cloud Platform and pay for everything in advance; Partial Upfront, where users reserve and pay for some computing time in advance; and No Upfront.

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Spot Instance pricing lets users bid on unused compute instances. AWS sets In this e-guide the Spot prices, which vary based on usage, time of day, week or month. Detailed pricing information is available on AWS' EC2 pricing webpage. A primer on public cloud benefits AWS' Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) service automatically distributes applications across AWS EC2 instances for better fault tolerance and minimal Criteria for choosing a public human intervention. cloud provider The ELB service includes a free tier with up to 15 GB of data processing and 750 hours of service monthly for a year. Larger loads will be charged for each Compare public cloud providers hour or partial hour of use and each GB transferred.

Virtustream

Microsoft Azure AWS storage

Amazon Web Services AWS offers a variety of low cost storage choices, many of which have pay-as- you-go options for added flexibility. Popular storage choices include the Amazon SoftLayer Simple Storage Service (S3), Elastic Block Store (EBS) and Amazon

Verizon Cloud CloudFront.

Rackspace Amazon S3 is a fully redundant storage offering that can handle any amount of data at any time from anywhere on the Web. It can be used for backup, Google Cloud Platform archiving and disaster recovery, as well as content storage, distribution and data analysis storage.

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S3 is available as part of the free EC2 tier service for 5 GB of storage, 20,000 In this e-guide Get Requests or 5,000 Put Requests per month. Otherwise, standard storage pricing is $.0300 per GB up to 1 TB per month. A primer on public cloud benefits AWS' EBS service offers persistent block level storage for EC2 instances. With available encryption and automatic replication, Amazon touts EBS as a highly Criteria for choosing a public available, highly secure option to scale EC2 storage. Pricing is based on cloud provider geographic region, which disk technology users need -- solid-state or magnetic disk -- and per GB of provisioned storage. Users can also opt for Provisioned Compare public cloud providers IOPS volumes and purchase increased performance.

Amazon CloudFront is a content delivery service aimed at developers and Virtustream businesses. It works with other AWS applications, including CloudWatch, to

Microsoft Azure facilitate content delivery with low latency, high data transfer speeds and no commitments. Amazon Web Services CloudFront distributes cached content swiftly because it takes advantage of SoftLayer AWS' edge networks around the world, according to Amazon. CloudFront

Verizon Cloud pricing is on-demand and based on geographic region. The free EC2 tier includes up to 50 GB of data transfer out and two million HTTP and HTTPS Rackspace requests per year.

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide AWS databases

A primer on public cloud AWS has relational and NoSQL databases, as well as in-memory caching and benefits petabyte-scale data warehousing. Users can operate their own databases on AWS using EC2 and EBS. Two popular AWS database services are the Criteria for choosing a public Relational Database Service (RDS) and Redshift. cloud provider Amazon RDS creates, operates and scales MySQL, Oracle, SQLServer or

Compare public cloud providers PostgreSQL servers on AWS. Additionally, RDS handles software installation, backups and patches, as well as routine administrative tasks. RDS pricing is based on instance hours and the amount of storage used. Virtustream

Microsoft Azure Amazon Redshift is a data warehouse service that works with many common business intelligence tools. It also offers columnar storage technology for Amazon Web Services databases that store data in columns rather than rows. Pricing is based on the number of instance hours starting at $ 0.25 per hour. SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud AWS networking Rackspace AWS offers a range of networking services, including private network Google Cloud Platform connections to the cloud, scalable DNS and tools to create logistically isolated networks. Popular networking services include the Amazon (VPC) and Amazon Direct Connect.

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Amazon VPC creates a private cloud within AWS, while offering built-in security, In this e-guide including security groups and network access control lists. VPC is free when using Amazon EC2. A primer on public cloud benefits AWS' Direct Connect service allows users to bypass the Internet and connect directly to AWS' cloud. It is priced per port-hour in all Direct Connect locations. Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider AWS administration and security Compare public cloud providers Popular AWS administration and security products include AWS Directory Service, which links AWS clouds directly to on-premises Microsoft Active Virtustream Directory; AWS CloudTrail, which records API calls for user AWS accounts that

Microsoft Azure are delivered in log files for no charge; and AWS CloudWatch, which monitors AWS cloud resources including EC2. Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer AWS analytics Verizon Cloud From Hadoop to data warehousing, orchestration and real-time streaming data, Rackspace AWS offers services for all levels of data analytics. One of the most popular analytics services is Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR). Businesses, Google Cloud Platform researchers, data analysts and developers use EMR to process large chunks of data. Pricing is based on instance hours used.

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Amazon Redshift is also considered a data analytics service. In this e-guide

A primer on public cloud AWS application services benefits AWS offers a mix of managed services that work with applications on Criteria for choosing a public streaming, queuing, push notifications, email delivery and transcoding. Popular cloud provider application services include the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS) and the Amazon Simple Workflow Service (SWS).

Compare public cloud providers Amazon SQS automates workflow between different services by using SQS to host a queue for storing messages. It's free for up to one million messages a Virtustream month for a year, and $0.50 per one million above that level.

Microsoft Azure SWS is a task coordination and management service for the AWS cloud. Users Amazon Web Services receive 10,000 activity tasks, 30,000 workflow days and 1,000 initiated executions for a year. Above that, users pay $.0001 per workflow. SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud AWS deployment and management Rackspace Amazon has a host of applications to help with deployment and management, Google Cloud Platform including application monitoring and logging. Two popular -- and free -- services are AWS Elastic Beanstalk and AWS CloudFormation.

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Elastic Beanstalk deploys and scales Web applications using Java, .Net, PHP, In this e-guide Node.js, Python and Ruby. Users can monitor application health and access log files. A primer on public cloud benefits AWS CloudFormation helps developers and businesses gather and provision key AWS resources. Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider AWS mobile services Compare public cloud providers Two popular AWS mobile services are Amazon Cognito and Amazon Mobile Analytics. Virtustream Designed for mobile app developers, Amazon Cognito IDs users and syncs data Microsoft Azure across their mobile devices. Cognito's free tier offers up to 10 GB of cloud sync Amazon Web Services storage and up to 1,000,000 sync operations per month. Above that, users pay $0.15 per 10,000 sync operations. SoftLayer Mobile Analytics delivers user usage data within 60 minutes, and tracks Verizon Cloud application usage at scale. The free tier offers up to one million events per Rackspace month, and for every one million event above that, users pay $1.00.

Google Cloud Platform AWS enterprise applications

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Two popular AWS enterprise applications are Amazon WorkSpaces and In this e-guide Amazon WorkDocs.

A primer on public cloud WorkSpaces lets users access any data, documents or applications in the cloud benefits on any device, including laptops, iPads and Android tablets. The standard WorkSpaces bundle is $35 a month, but other options with more features are Criteria for choosing a public available. cloud provider Amazon WorkDocs is an enterprise secure storage and sharing service. Amazon WorkDocs is $5 per user per month for 200 GB of storage. There is a Compare public cloud providers 30-day free trial for up to 50 users. If users already use Amazon Workspaces, WorkDocs is free. Virtustream

Microsoft Azure Next article

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Guiding your enterprise to the SoftLayer A primer on public cloud cloud platform benefits Valerie Silverthorne Criteria for choosing a public With a range of service offerings, the SoftLayer cloud platform is cloud provider central to IBM's cloud strategy. But what options are under the SoftLayer umbrella? Compare public cloud providers  The highly competitive cloud market can be a daunting, and even humbling, Virtustream space. While IBM is a major name in any corner of the IT world, even Big Blue had to adjust its cloud strategy. SoftLayer cloud platform is an Microsoft Azure essential cog in IBM's cloud wheel.

Amazon Web Services  SoftLayer Technologies is an IBM company that provides cloud SoftLayer infrastructure services that range from bare-metal servers to turnkey managed services. With a variety of services falling under the SoftLayer Verizon Cloud cloud umbrella, it's crucial for enterprises to know all their options before

Rackspace venturing to the cloud platform.

Google Cloud Platform  The SoftLayer cloud platform open API is the company's foundation. It offers system-to-system access with more than 3,000 documented methods spread over 180 discrete services. According to SoftLayer, every

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customer has full access to its automated portfolio of services -- from In this e-guide accounting to DNS systems.

A primer on public cloud  SoftLayer's philosophy is to automate every service or not offer it at all. benefits Users can deploy and control every service -- including virtual servers, storage devices, account management and security infrastructure -- Criteria for choosing a public through a single management system via its own API, Web portal or cloud provider remotely with a mobile application.

Compare public cloud providers The SoftLayer cloud platform services include:

Virtustream Storage: Customers can choose from a range of scalable storage options on a

Microsoft Azure secure private network with available replication. Storage options are fully customizable and include object, SAN, NAS, CDN and QuantaStor. Amazon Web Services Networking: Users can update, provision or configure network resources as SoftLayer demands dictate. Customers can access the SoftLayer VPN using DirectLink or

Verizon Cloud through physical connections in 24 data center locations around the world.

Rackspace Security: The platform has a range of options for physical and operational security, including on-demand hardware-assisted security offerings. Google Cloud Platform

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Development: SoftLayer's development options include messaging and In this e-guide notification to make scalability and automation more straightforward, audio and video conversion for content delivery, and a scalable email relay service. A primer on public cloud benefits Management: Customers can use all SoftLayer management tools on physical and virtual servers. The server imaging, testing and recovery tools are all Criteria for choosing a public automated. Monitoring and reporting is built into the SoftLayer cloud platform, cloud provider as well as a customer portal with access to more than 200 services.

SoftLayer cloud platform support is available 24/7 with 100% uptime Compare public cloud providers guarantees, and the company claims to answer support tickets within 20 minutes. Virtustream SoftLayer is sold through a network of IBM Business Partners and service Microsoft Azure providers. Its pricing varies depending on many factors, including location, Amazon Web Services storage and computing instances. However, the base price for a single virtual server located in the central part of the United States is $.40 per hour. SoftLayer SoftLayer's startup incubator program, Catalyst, provides free cloud platform Verizon Cloud and consulting. The program is open to startups or early-stage companies Rackspace looking to create an Internet-dependent product or service. An application and recommendations are required. Google Cloud Platform

Next article

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In this e-guide

A primer on public cloud benefits

Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider

Compare public cloud providers

Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Getting reacquainted with the refocused A primer on public cloud Verizon Cloud benefits Valerie Silverthrone Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Verizon recently shifted its cloud focus to go beyond just public cloud. Enterprises can now choose between public, private and Compare public cloud providers hybrid cloud services.

Over the past year or so, Verizon has reshaped its cloud portfolio to focus not Virtustream only on public cloud, but on enterprise-grade private cloud services. And, while Microsoft Azure the vendor claims its cloud platform is a secure and flexible option for businesses, it's important to give Verizon Cloud a close look before deployment. Amazon Web Services The Verizon Cloud platform includes public cloud services, private cloud SoftLayer services -- on-premises and off -- and hybrid cloud services. With Verizon's on- Verizon Cloud demand public cloud offering, users choose among pre-defined VM configurations of virtual processors and RAM, and also have access to hard Rackspace disk drives and solid-state drives for block storage.

Google Cloud Platform Customers can oversee cloud operations through a single dashboard -- the Verizon Cloud Console -- and automation is available through the Verizon Cloud API.

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According to Verizon, its Virtual Private Cloud targets enterprises that need In this e-guide more flexibility. Features include reserved performance for granular configuration of VMs and network settings, elastic resources that allow A primer on public cloud customers to deploy VMs on demand and a resource pool for workloads that benefits don't change. Because Verizon's private cloud is an infrastructure as a service offering, Verizon manages and hosts the cloud whether it's inside a customer's Criteria for choosing a public data center or a Verizon facility. cloud provider Verizon partners with Oracle to offer pay-as-you-go, flexible licenses for Compare public cloud providers Oracle's database and middleware software. Customers can extend existing subscriptions with Oracle or choose a new option. The partnership covers

Virtustream Oracle 11g Standard and Enterprise Editions, as well as related add-ons, the Database 12c Standard and Enterprise Editions, and the WebLogic Server Microsoft Azure Standard Edition. Customers can choose between hourly or monthly billing options. Amazon Web Services Baseline Verizon public cloud pricing for a single deployed VPU ranges from SoftLayer $0.074 per hour running Linux to $0.513 per hour running Windows with SQL Verizon Cloud Server Standard Edition. The base price includes some additional services, such as data-transfer-in, a firewall and a single IP address. Rackspace Users can add block storage for $0.00021 per GB per hour, data-transfer-out for Google Cloud Platform $0.05 per GB transferred, and provisioned storage IOPS for $0.00014 per IOPS per hour with the first 100 IOPS free of charge.

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In addition to offering various types of cloud platforms, Verizon offers a platform- In this e-guide agnostic cloud consulting service to help customers choose options. The company offers a VM import and export service for $350 per VM, and can A primer on public cloud provide remote or on-site consulting for workloads, architecture planning and benefits designs. Remote consulting costs $1,000 for four hours, while on-site consulting is $4,000 for eight hours. Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Verizon offers 24/7 support and service for its cloud customers.

Compare public cloud providers Next article

Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Peeling back the layers of Rackspace A primer on public cloud managed cloud benefits Valerie Silverthorne Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Facing steep competition from the likes of AWS and Google, Rackspace distinguishes itself as a managed cloud services Compare public cloud providers provider.

Rackspace, a managed cloud services provider, has steadily built out its cloud Virtustream services footprint over the past year, with a specific focus on big data and hybrid Microsoft Azure cloud. Additionally, Rackspace offers public and private cloud services based on OpenStack, and fully manages those services for its enterprise customers. Amazon Web Services But, to determine whether Rackspace is the best cloud provider for your SoftLayer business, it's important to take a closer look at the vendor's services portfolio, Verizon Cloud pricing model and more.

Rackspace Rackspace managed cloud has three tiers of service:

Google Cloud Platform 1. Managed Infrastructure: Rackspace's basic level of service includes security guidance, 60 days of help launching in the cloud and architecture

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advisors. The Managed Infrastructure tier of service costs $0.005 per GB In this e-guide per hour with a $50 minimum.

A primer on public cloud 2. Managed Operations -- SysOps: Rackspace's recommended level for IT benefits operations includes everything in the Managed Infrastructure tier, as well as a number of additional services, such as backups, managed monitoring and Criteria for choosing a public response, and platform maintenance. The tier costs $0.02 per GB per hour cloud provider with a $500 minimum.

3. Managed Operations -- DevOps Automation: This is Rackspace's highest Compare public cloud providers tier of service, and includes everything in the first two service levels plus additional managed services, such as configuration management, on- Virtustream demand scaling and performance monitoring and response. It costs $2,500

Microsoft Azure per month plus $0.02 per GB per hour.

Amazon Web Services In addition to these managed cloud options, Rackspace offers a number of other cloud services, including: SoftLayer Cloud Servers: Rackspace offers managed VMs and bare metal servers, which Verizon Cloud costs $0.032 per hour for raw infrastructure. Sites: This is Rackspace's premium Web-hosting service that is scalable Google Cloud Platform and offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee. The company can work with any development platform and pricing starts at $150 a month.

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Cloud Databases: With on-demand provisioning and open APIs, Rackspace's In this e-guide Cloud Databases service allows customers to deploy MySQL, Percona Server or MariaDB for $0.05 per hour with no contracts or upfront costs. A primer on public cloud benefits Cloud Big Data: Customers who need access to big data processing can add Hadoop-powered analytics built on the Hortonworks Data Platform for $0.34 per Criteria for choosing a public hour with no upfront costs. cloud provider Cloud Files: Rackspace offers online object storage as an additional service. Cloud Files automatically makes three copies of everything stored and costs Compare public cloud providers $0.100 per GB per month for the first TB of data.

Virtustream Cloud Block Storage: Hosted on Cloud Servers, Cloud Block Storage is Rackspace's on-demand storage service for applications. Customers can Microsoft Azure choose between standard and solid-state storage $0.12 per GB per month. Amazon Web Services According to Rackspace, every customer has 24/7 access to customer service, SoftLayer 365 days a year, via phone, email or chat.

Verizon Cloud Next article Rackspace

Google Cloud Platform

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In this e-guide Getting a handle on Google Cloud Platform A primer on public cloud options benefits Valerie Silverthorne Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider With a range of options for big data, storage and more, Google Cloud Platform has become the public cloud of choice for many Compare public cloud providers enterprise users.

While Amazon Web Services dominates the public cloud market, Google Virtustream remains a popular alternative for many organizations, especially those with Microsoft Azure large-scale workloads and a focus on big data.

Amazon Web Services With the Google Cloud Platform, customers can choose from a mix of custom products and services, and Google will manage everything. SoftLayer is designed for customers looking to put applications in a managed cloud or a Verizon Cloud platform as a service environment. In addition to supporting all popular programming languages and development tools, the platform is scalable up to Rackspace seven billion requests per day.

Google Cloud Platform Another popular Google cloud service is Google Compute Engine, the vendor's infrastructure as service offering. Customers can deploy VMs using the RESTful API, a command-line interface and a Web-based console. Data is automatically

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encrypted and stored in that format, and incoming requests are automatically In this e-guide distributed through global load-balancing technology.

A primer on public cloud Here's a closer look at some of the key components within the Google Cloud benefits Platform.

Criteria for choosing a public cloud provider Management

With Google Deployment Manager, customers can use declarative templates to Compare public cloud providers build and link a variety of cloud resources, as well as streamline repeatable actions. Organizations can manage deployments using Google's scriptable Virtustream command-line interface, or use a RESTful API to integrate with their own tool

Microsoft Azure chain and workflows.

Amazon Web Services Storage SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud There are a variety of storage options on the Google Cloud Platform, including:

Rackspace  MySQL databases -- hosted versions start around $1 a month;

Google Cloud Platform  Cloud Datastore -- a NoSQL managed and schema-less database that is automatically scalable. This service is free up to 1 GB total per day, and is priced at $0.18 per GB per month after that; and

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 Cloud Storage -- Google's object storage service is available in two pricing In this e-guide options: standard pricing, which is $0.026 GB per month, and Durable Reduced Availability, which is $0.02 GB per month but has lower A primer on public cloud availability. benefits

Criteria for choosing a public Big data cloud provider BigQuery, Google's big data service, can operate in real-time or be streamed

Compare public cloud providers asynchronously in the background. The first 1 TB of data per month is free. After that, each 1 TB is $5 per month with on-demand pricing, or up to 70% less with advance reserved instance pricing. Virtustream

Microsoft Azure General Google Cloud Platform pricing Amazon Web Services The most basic Google pricing model is for the U.S.-hosted Compute Engine, SoftLayer which ranges from $0.045 to $0.063 per hour of sustained usage, with an Verizon Cloud average price of $0.049.

Rackspace Prices increase slightly with the use of premium operating systems, such as Red Hat, SUSE Linux and Windows. However, Google customers only pay for Google Cloud Platform the amount of time actually used in minute increments with a 10-minute minimum.

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All application services are free as long as they are within each application's set In this e-guide daily quota. Google also provides sustained use discounts for customers who use a computing instance for a significant portion of the billing month. A primer on public cloud Depending on volume, the sustained use discount can be up to 30%, and is benefits automatically applied once the customer hits the usage threshold.

Criteria for choosing a public Google offers a 60-day free trial and $300 to spend on any Google Cloud cloud provider Platform services.

Compare public cloud providers Customer support

Virtustream Google offers four levels of customer support for its cloud platform:

Microsoft Azure The Bronze level -- available to all customers and includes online Amazon Web Services documentation, billing support and access to community forums.

SoftLayer The Silver level -- $150 per month, and offers issue tickets, login access to the support center, architectural support and four-hour response times to priority Verizon Cloud one issues. Rackspace The Gold level -- starts at $400 per month, and adds 24/7 phone support, one- Google Cloud Platform hour response times and consultative tickets.

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The Platinum level -- pricing is not disclosed, but this level offers direct access In this e-guide to Google's technical account management team, as well as a 15-minute response times to priority one issues. A primer on public cloud benefits About the author

Valerie Rice Silverthorne is a site editor and writer for SearchSoftwareQuality. Criteria for choosing a public She has been a writer and editor for nearly 30 years, covering business, trade, cloud provider technology, real estate and lifestyle trends. She was an award-winning business writer for The San Jose Mercury News and was a Forbes Magazine top "30 Compare public cloud providers under 30" journalist. She was the editor of ZDNet.com and PC Week/Inside, and a senior executive editor of PC Week and Electronic Business. Virtustream

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

SoftLayer

Verizon Cloud

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Google Cloud Platform

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