Private vs. Public Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has found its way into many organizations as business leaders and IT departments look to capitalize on the many benefits that cloud offers. As your company considers moving all or part of its IT operation to the cloud, a key decision is whether to rely on public cloud, private cloud, or a combination. Finalizing a cloud strategy must start with understanding your objectives and how they best align with the value each offering can provide.
The public cloud can be characterized by IT resources delivered via the Internet using a standardized, self-service, pay-per-use methodology. Public clouds are designed to provide compute resources virtually at will – similar to that of a utility. Public clouds are highly standardized, allow limited customization, and their respective resources can be oversubscribed and massively shared. Workloads requiring inexpensive storage or compute cycles where known response time to the user community is not critical can be a fit with the public cloud…
General Dynamics to Support Army Private Cloud
General Dynamics has been awarded two contracts by the United States Army to develop and implement fixed and mobile cloud computing capacity for the Area Processing Centers Army Private Cloud (APC2) initiative. These five-year, multiple-award, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts have a combined potential value of $249.8 million to all awardees.
Under the fixed Suite of APC2, General Dynamics will establish a secure, reliable and cost-efficient managed service cloud computing platform. Under the mobile Suite of APC2, General Dynamics will provide a mobile data center solution to meet urgent Army needs in contingency operations or where rapid or temporary computing is critical. In addition to providing strategic cloud computing direction, General Dynamics will manage network connectivity, information assurance, certification and accreditation, application migration, private cloud operations and maintenance and related aspects of the supply chain. The company will incorporate its field-proven design to deliver reliable, secure and transportable mobile data centers suitable for harsh conditions and remote locations…
Defining cloud computing, part one: Laymen’s terms
As I travel around the country meeting with IT professionals and attending or speaking at industry events, I am amazed by how many different versions there are of "cloud computing."
As the guy who wrote the Storage Area Networks for Dummies book, I have decided to take a stand and make known my simple view of what cloud computing really means to IT folks.
In this blog, let’s first start with the official geek version as a baseline. (My next post will provide insight into the actual financial and technology characterization.)
NIST definition of cloud computing:
The formal definition of cloud computing comes from the smart folks who make standards for a living. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) definition contained within special publications number 800-145 states, "Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models." …
Research Indicates That Cloud Increases Short Term Costs for Long Term Gains
IDG Enterprise — the media company comprising CFOworld, CIO, CIO Executive Council, Computerworld, CSO, DEMO, InfoWorld, ITworld and Network World — releases the results from the 2012 Cloud Computing survey examining cloud computing implementation, usage, investment plans and vendor requirements.
The survey, completed by more than 1,650 IT and security decision-makers from a range of industries, highlights the growth in cloud computing investments, demonstrating the value cloud computing provides to organizations. Respondents state that 34% of their current IT budget is allocated to cloud computing solutions and more than half (63%) expect to increase spending in the next 12 months. On average, organizations will increase cloud computing spending by 16%…
Charities Worldwide Flock to the Cloud
Martin Campbell won’t forget December 26, 2004. The UK managing director of cloud computing outfit Convio was all set to enjoy Boxing Day when word came that a massive tsunami had devastated coastal areas across South East Asia.
As details of one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history began to unfold, Campbell, who at the time was in charge of a hosted website platform for the British Red Cross, battled for two days to bring new servers online in time to deal with a flood of donations…
eMedia Unveils Content Curation & Promotion Website for Cloud-Based Technologies and Solutions
B2B lead generation services firm emedia introduces Cloud Computing Insights, a content destination site for developers, systems & applications specialists, and CTOs. Parties involved in the developer, platform, and client areas of the cloud market can access a range of relevant collateral and articles on the new site.
On the other hand, marketers targeting cloud audiences will generate demand, and sales leads in particular, with their offers…
Terremark Offers Private Clouds For Enterprises
Terremark is offering "single-tenant cloud computing," which until recently was known as dedicated hosted services–or some other name for outsourced system operation. But the times they are a changin’ and the formerly distinct lines of service providers are blurring.
Terremark will offer Enterprise Cloud, Private Edition, a cookie-cutter copy of its public infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), except it has additional isolation and security features. Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Cloud, and the Savvis unit of CenturyLink have already launched versions of "private" cloud operation as an auxiliary service of the public IaaS…
Cloud Will Influence Future Datacentre And Operational Models
Continual monitoring of cloud computing trends, with regular updates to the enterprise’s cloud strategy, will be essential to avoid costly mistakes or miss market opportunities over the next few years, according to Gartner, Inc. Although the potential for cloud computing is significant, the breadth and depth of the impact, as well as the level of adoption over time, are uncertain and will require frequent review.
"Cloud computing is a major technology trend that has permeated the market over the last two years. It sets the stage for a new approach to IT that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they’ll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models," said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "Cloud computing has a significant potential impact on every aspect of IT and how users access applications, information and business services."…
Red Hat: Amazon love ‘yes’, its own cloud ‘no’
Red Hat won’t spin up its own public cloud service but is getting serious with Amazon on OpenShift.
That’s according to Red Hat’s vice-president for cloud computing Scott Crenshaw who last week said the open-source biz has “no plans” to become a cloud provider.
Crenshaw told reporters in London that Red Hat wants to focus on areas where it believes it can “add value” – operating its own public data centre isn’t one of those areas. “We have absolutely no plans right now to become a cloud provider,” Crenshaw said.
“Red Hat wants to focus its resources in areas where can add the most value and we don’t think we add the most value in the operation of a data centre. We have hard skills in helping people do that but where we put our resources are on things that matter to developers and operations people.”…
Gartner outlines cloud computing strategy shapers
Analyst house Gartner has outlined five key trends that will shape cloud computing strategies between now and 2015.
Included in Gartner’s list is the growing importance of the hybrid cloud model and cloud-centric design. David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow, who put the list together, said cloud will signal a fundamental shift in IT.
"Cloud computing is a major technology trend that has permeated the market over the last two years," he said. "It sets the stage for a new approach to IT that enables individuals and businesses to choose how they’ll acquire or deliver IT services, with reduced emphasis on the constraints of traditional software and hardware licensing models."…