Enterprise Cloud Computing Blog

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Why Cloud is at the Top of the CIO's Priorities

Posted by Ellen Rubin on Sep 30, 2009 at 7:20 AM

In the most difficult economic climate in decades, CIOs are reevaluating their strategies and looking for new ways to reduce data center costs and overhead while improving responsiveness to business requirements. Cloud computing has emerged as a much more agile and efficient approach than what companies have done in the past: adding more compute, storage and networking capacity or trying to get more out of what they already own.

Cloud computing did not emerge from a vacuum, but has its origins in three technology "megatrends" that most CIOs are already familiar with. These developments were all born out of the same need -- to drive down costs, simplify data center operations and allow IT to be as agile as possible. As these megatrends have become pervasive, they've helped put the cloud in the CIO's strike zone:

The drive to consolidate: Consolidating sprawling data centers has become a top IT priority as companies struggle with out-of-control costs for hardware, power, administration and service. Many companies have seen their data centers grow beyond anything they ever anticipated, with the result that in many cases they're not only running out of space, they're increasingly running out of power and cooling as well. In response, they look for innovative ways to reduce their data center footprints - to move out anything that adds cost and complexity, and takes up extra real estate.

The growth of virtualization: Many organizations now operate in virtualized environments, where applications can be quickly deployed to available resources, rather than assigning them to a specific physical machine. Not only does this optimize utilization of equipment, it allows IT to become much more responsive to the needs of the business.

Emergence of SaaS: The Software as a Service (SaaS) model has become widely accepted, in which applications are hosted by outside service providers that can apply specialized expertise, the right hardware and economies of scale. The idea of running certain apps outside the walls of the organization is recognized as not only acceptable but often preferable, where an external provider delivers the service just as well (if not better) than companies trying to do it themselves.

Cloud computing builds on these megatrends, and goes several steps further, providing new capabilities for enterprise computing:

  • Not just consolidating the data center, but creating the optimum environment both within the DC and in the external cloud, to match changing demands for computing resources
  • Not just virtualizing applications across internal systems, but across whatever environment is most appropriate and cost effective
  • Not just software as a service, but enterprise applications running in the cloud on the cloud provider's infrastructure

The ability to run applications in the cloud promises to radically alter the balance sheet by which IT projects are judged, where initial capital expense and ongoing operating costs are factored against value delivered and how quickly resources become available. CIOs now have the opportunity to do something much more significant than make small incremental improvements -- particularly as new cloud deployment and management tools come to market. That's why more and more IT executives are making cloud computing a top priority as they plan their strategies for 2010 and beyond.

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Amazon's VPC Opens the Door for Innovation and Enterprise Cloud Adoption

Posted by John Considine on Sep 24, 2009 at 2:20 PM

The recent announcement from Amazon of the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) represents the next big advance in the evolution chain for cloud computing. Enterprises can now integrate their IT infrastructure with Amazon's vast computing and storage resources, using a VPN connection from their data center to their own virtual private cloud which then looks like part of their internal network.

Until the release of VPC, companies were left to build applications and utilize the cloud as a separate and somewhat siloed portion of their computing environment. In addition to the VPN connection, VPC allows cloud users to control their IP addressing within the Amazon cloud (previously IT addresses were assigned randomly). This may sound trivial, but it solves some tricky problems that made it hard to integrate cloud and internal resources.

Prior to VPC, every time you started a server in Amazon, you would get a new, randomly assigned IP address for that server. This created a lot of issues with how typical applications operate, e.g.: how do you communicate the address of this new server? How do you run authentication/certificate processes with a changing address? How do you deal with identity when IP addresses change at every start? Add to this the fact that cloud servers were separate from internal servers, so internal services that you normally take advantage of (DNS, LDAP, etc.) were not available without a lot of work. VPC provides a way to connect cloud resources to your data center and start to smooth over the differences.

Okay, how does this work? A standard edge networking device in your data center is configured to connect with Amazon's VPC. You can create your own sub-nets within Amazon, and when you launch a server you assign it to one of them. You specify the IP address range for your servers, and VPC performs the "security dance" to build the VPN between the edge device and your private network in Amazon's cloud. All you have to do is update your routing tables so that processes in the data center can reach applications in the cloud and you're off to the races.

By allowing customers to integrate their data center networks with Amazon's cloud, VPC takes the first step in bringing the cloud and the enterprise data center together. While one large hurdle has been removed, there's still work to be done, as indicated in RightScale's blog. As enterprises review the VPC offering, there are things they need to consider as they determine how to deploy and use it.

  • Networking: VPC provides a layer-3 connection between the data center and the cloud, which means that traffic is based on IP address routing. You'll have some work to do to figure out things like managing addressing in the cloud, and the implication of MAC addresses changing on every server start. In contrast, the holy grail of this integration is based on the Ethernet level (layer-2), where everything "just works" -- allowing seamless migration of applications between the data center and the cloud (and back). Some applications require layer-2 connectivity (for broadcasting for example), which means they would probably need to remain in your data center.
  • Security: As the name indicates, VPC doesn't provide truly private infrastructure, but a virtually private infrastructure -- servers deployed into your virtual private cloud are allocated from the same shared resources that Amazon uses for all its customers. Thus, you still have to think about possible additional security measures in the cloud, both for networking (VPC doesn't allow for encryption between servers), as well as how to protect data in shared storage.
  • Management: Developers will have to deal with the "assembly required" aspect of mapping applications to Amazon's infrastructure. There's no simple way to move existing servers to the cloud, which means you'll have to determine how to provision and configure cloud resources, and how much custom work might be needed to interface with Amazon APIs. Deployment is complicated by Amazon specifics -- how to launch an instance, attach storage resources, reset applications to use the proper storage path, etc. You'll also have to address the fact that base servers run on "ephemeral storage", meaning that server outages cause the loss of all data/updates. (There are many blog posts on this topic; this one is typical.)
  • Flexibility and choice: Finally, while VPC solves some major headaches for companies that are committed to AWS, it is not applicable for those who want the flexibility of multi-cloud offerings. This is important because users have no control of a cloud provider's infrastructure. When a provider decides to upgrade or change anything, users must go along for the ride.

So to sum up, Amazon's VPC represents an exciting step forward along the road to making the cloud truly enterprise-ready. Cloud computing has come a long way over the last two years, and in many ways Amazon has been setting the pace. Their new offering lays the foundation for the next set of solutions for enterprise adoption from other companies in the cloud computing ecosystem. At CloudSwitch, we're excited to take advantage of the ongoing improvements by Amazon to their infrastructure, and working hard to eliminate complexity and make cloud computing simple, seamless and more cost-effective than ever.

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Has Virtualization Solved the Data Center Crisis?

Posted by Ellen Rubin on Sep 22, 2009 at 7:55 AM

Over the past several years, many IT departments have committed to virtualization as an antidote to the spiraling costs and inflexibility plaguing corporate data centers everywhere. By running applications on virtual servers and consolidating underutilized hardware, data centers can get maximum value from their equipment. Virtualization also makes IT more responsive to the needs of the business: rather than spending weeks or months to provision a physical server, a virtual server can be launched in minutes.

Virtualization was meant to be the solution to today's data center woes - but is it? While it brings much-needed flexibility and efficiency to an environment where these qualities were sorely lacking, virtualization alone doesn't cure the underlying problem and in some ways adds to it. Companies still have large data center infrastructure footprints to maintain, plus virtualization licenses, plus management issues introduced by virtualization - ironically adding cost as they try to reduce cost. Many IT managers report that the technical and management challenges associated with virtualization are hindering them from realizing its full cost benefits. They're still paying huge energy bills (those consolidated servers are working much harder than previously). They're still running out of capacity and need to keep buying more servers and storage. And over half of them are still building new data centers at enormous cost.

We're Not Done Yet

But virtualization is one step toward a larger goal, not the end of the journey. IT is in the middle of a fundamental transition from the rigid, siloed world of traditional data centers toward a more elastic, responsive model where needs are met far faster and more efficiently. And we're not done yet. While virtualization helps companies reduce cost and improve agility, the full promise of the new model plays out with the addition of cloud computing, delivering infrastructure on demand as an easily-accessible, cost-effective service.

Rather than perpetuating a bloated data center, the new model will allow companies to get out of the computing infrastructure business where appropriate, retaining only the portion that is essential to the enterprise. As the cloud environment becomes increasingly agile and secure, provisioning decisions will be framed by asking: Should we be really be doing this ourselves, or can someone else do it better and at lower cost? The majority of companies surveyed that are either using or actively planning to run at least some apps in the public cloud have started asking themselves the same question.

Some companies - particularly larger enterprises with the skills and scale to do it effectively -- are building on their virtualized environments to create private, or internal, clouds that deliver several of the benefits of cloud computing within the enterprise. Private clouds provide users with an elastic computing resource on demand and help make better, more efficient use of existing capacity. But IT departments still face many of the same fundamental challenges - they still need to buy, manage and grow the data center infrastructure on which the private cloud depends. As Gartner Group's Tom Bittman points out, for most enterprises, the private cloud is not the ultimate goal, it's another stepping stone to services available in the public cloud as they become available.

It's All About the Application

The real issue is determining where each application truly belongs. Some apps are simply not suitable for any cloud, while others, at least for the foreseeable future, belong in the private cloud. Some applications are candidates for the public cloud, but the appropriate services aren't ready yet. And some data center applications could be moved to a public cloud now or in the very near future.

While virtualization is a key step toward moving beyond the rigid data center, cloud computing takes you all the way there - which is why it's getting so much attention. With new technology from CloudSwitch under development, it may work for your enterprise faster than you think. Stay tuned.

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Moving to the Cloud: How Hard is it Really?

Posted by Ellen Rubin on Sep 17, 2009 at 9:40 AM

Many IT managers would love to move some of their applications out of the enterprise data center and into the cloud. It's a chance to eliminate a whole litany of costs and headaches: in capital equipment, in power and cooling, in administration and maintenance. Instead, just pay as you go for the computing power you need, and let someone else worry about managing the underlying infrastructure.

But moving from theory into practice is where things get complicated. It's true that a new web application built from scratch for the cloud as a standalone environment can be rolled out quickly and relatively easily. But for existing applications running in a traditional data center and integrating with a set of other systems, tools and processes, it's not nearly so simple.

What's really involved when moving an application from your enterprise data center to the cloud? Let's say you've decided on a particular cloud, and you've identified the application you want to run there - now what? You need to consider a range of issues which can potentially turn the migration into a complex engineering project.

Migrating to the Cloud

Today's cloud providers impose architectures that are very different from those of standard enterprise applications. As Bernard Golden explains in his in-depth look at cloud computing, difficulty in migration is holding back uptake, and there aren't yet any automated tools to smooth the way. The result is lots of manual configuring, complex engineering, and trial and error before the enterprise application is able to run in the cloud. A whole landscape of specifications for OS versions, storage, networks, integration with other applications and databases - all those configuration steps that normally happen behind the scenes - have to be mapped to a cloud environment that is probably very different from what your IT staff is used to. It's the type of project that can tie up a development team for weeks or even months.

Keeping Your Data Safe

When data moves to the cloud, it moves beyond the reach of tools and mechanisms put in place over the years to preserve its integrity. In an environment characterized by multi-tenancy and decoupling between hardware and applications, cloud users need to be vigilant and understand the risks. (For a good introduction to cloud security issues, see David Binnings' article, Top Five Cloud Computing Security Challenges.) In brief, you'll need to make sure that the cloud provider has a level of physical security and regulatory compliance that meets the needs of your business and the specific application (for example, those with public information vs. confidential vs. compliance-regulated). You'll also need to consider what additional measures might be necessary to protect against potential threats, including protecting data in transit as well as at rest. It may also be appropriate in some cases to keep the database within your data center and put the rest of the application outside in the cloud.

Managing Dual Environments

After you finally get your application running in the cloud, you'll find another big hurdle: how are you going to manage it? The cloud and the data center are currently two completely separate environments, each with its own set of system management tools, and no meaningful way to integrate the two. Accordingly, your IT staff will need to learn and use each cloud provider's management tools and policies, in addition to the ones they already have. They'll also have to give up some of the control and visibility into an application and its supporting infrastructure that's available in the data center, at least in current cloud environments. (More details about the challenges of managing enterprise applications in the cloud can be found in Peter Loh's article in Cloud Computing Journal.) And as the cloud provider makes changes to their underlying infrastructure (for example, patching a version of their OS), the cloud version of the application needs to be maintained to meet this new environment, so it becomes even more different from the local versions over time.

What if You Want to Change Clouds or Move Back to the Data Center?

All that effort was just for one cloud! What if another cloud provider comes along with lower prices or better service? Since you've invested all that time to set up the application for one cloud, you're going to be very reluctant to repeat all the development and integration work to meet the new provider's requirements. Many companies also wish they had the flexibility to use the cloud to develop and test a new application (leveraging the cloud's benefits in agility and low cost for early research/prototyping/development), before bringing it back to the data center to take advantage of the production set of data and their corporate processes and infrastructure. Today, it's not possible to move an application between different clouds or back to the data center easily, with a few mouse clicks. For many companies, the goal is to create a federated environment of their data center with one or more clouds, and to move applications and workloads wherever is most appropriate.

The cloud offers a great opportunity for enterprise applications, but it's important to understand the work required before embarking on a migration, and how the cloud environment will integrate with the existing data center. CloudSwitch has been working hard to address these issues. Stay tuned for further developments.

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New CloudSwitch Blog for Enterprise Cloud Computing

Posted by Ellen Rubin on Sep 15, 2009 at 1:55 PM

Welcome to our enterprise cloud computing blog where we'll share our perspectives on cloud computing trends and best practices for the enterprise. We're a team with extensive experience in IT software and systems (learn more about us), and we're passionate about the opportunity that cloud computing offers for fundamentally improving enterprise IT. However, we believe that before the cloud can reach its potential, some innovation needs to take place within the enterprise data center to make cloud computing simple, secure and tightly integrated with existing IT infrastructure. Our mission is to do just that. We tend to see the world from the data center out, unlike much of the innovation around cloud computing to date, which has focused on the cloud as a separate and silo'd environment.

Enterprise Cloud Computing Hurdles

We share the view held by many that the cloud will transform enterprise computing. Market analyst firm Gartner predicts that by 2012, 80% of Fortune 1000 enterprises will be paying for some cloud computing service. We also believe that there are significant hurdles to this transformation, including data security, application re-architecture, poor integration with the data center and lock-in to cloud providers.

Security Risks
Protecting data within the cloud is the biggest concern for most enterprises when considering cloud deployments. When security is partly out of enterprise control, it becomes difficult to know with confidence if sensitive information has been accessed or compromised.

Applications Re-architecture
Today, moving an enterprise application to a cloud requires re-writing software to adapt the application to a specific cloud provider's infrastructure. A whole landscape of specifications for devices, services, networks, storage and other components has to be mapped to the virtual environment. This can take weeks or months of development work, time that many companies cannot afford.

Data Center Integration
Once the application is running in the cloud, managing it requires adhering to the cloud provider's tools and policies, even if they conflict with those of the enterprise. The application also needs to communicate back to existing business processes, identity services, databases and management tools - all the underlying components on which the enterprise depends.

Cloud Provider Lock-in
Cloud lock-in is always a concern when a cloud environment is out of enterprise control. What happens if the cloud provider changes its terms or its underlying infrastructure? What happens if another cloud provider comes along with a more attractive offer?

Subscribe to this blog so that you can know when we address these hurdles in more detail. Please share your thoughts on these and other hurdles and how you're thinking about solving them.

Our Vision for Enterprise Cloud Computing

At CloudSwitch, we believe enterprise cloud computing must achieve certain core tenets in order to deliver on its potential:

  • Cloud resources should be secured end-to-end as an extension of the enterprise's security perimeter
  • Applications should be able to run in the cloud without modification
  • Users should be able to manage applications running in the cloud just as if they were running in the data center, using existing management tools and processes
  • The enterprise should be free from cloud lock-in, able to move applications at will whenever it is appropriate, to another cloud or back to the data center.

Our goal for this blog is as a resource to help enterprises better understand and overcome the challenges that stand in the way of simple and secure enterprise cloud computing. We look forward to sharing what we learn from our customers and partners with you.

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