Cloud computing from a user’s point of view

In previous videos I had tried to explain cloud computing, its benefits and risks, and why you may want to go for a public cloud. But recently I realized that all those terms such as public vs private cloud or platform-as-a-service or software-as-a-service, are just not relevant from the user’s point of view. That’s why I wanted to provide this brief description of cloud computing from a user’s point of view.


By “user,” I mean individuals like you and I as well as organizations. As far as you and I, as individuals are concerned, we have a laptop or a tablet, or a smartphone (or all of these) with some connection to the Internet (which is the “cloud”), and all we know is that when we need our email, it’s there, when we want to upload a video or share photos with family and friends, we can do it. We don’t care how Google or Facebook manage to store all this information that millions of users upload. That’s what is cloud computing to you and I - - to get access to our email, documents, Facebook, and Google+ etc. from any Internet-connected device, when we need it.


Now, if the user is an organization, they could, for example, go to Amazon Web Services and buy whatever computing services they need - - they can get database, storage, order fulfillment, payment service, or just plain computing platforms. That’s cloud computing to a corporation - - to be able to just go to the Amazon Web Services web site and order whatever type and amount of computing services they need. That’s what cloud computing is to organizations that need more computing than just the email, documents, etc. that we, as individuals need.


In summary, from the user’s point of view, it’s cloud computing if you can go to a vendor and buy whatever computing services you need and pay for just the amounts you use. All the technical definitions with jargon such as virtualization and elasticity are just technical explanations of how the cloud computing vendors do their magic, but that’s really not important to the users. What’s important to the users are: (1) a broadband connection to the Internet and (2) access their email, documents, etc from any device.

Here's some more information to help you...

You can find my previous posts on cloud computing on this blog, but here are direct links to help you get to specific posts: 

• Why public cloud  
• What are some of the risks of Cloud Computing
• Why you should consider cloud computing as an opti...
• What is Cloud Computing

Interest


Here are some interesting books related to cloud computing:

Tags: cloud+computing, virtualization, public+cloud, private+cloud 

Why public cloud

In previous videos I discussed what is cloud computing, why it’s important to consider as an option, and what are some of the risks.

Because of the risks, especially those relating to security and loss of control over where data resides, your organization may prefer the private cloud option, which, as I have said previously, is still a good option that provides you with the benefits of reduced number of physical machines along with lower electricity and cooling needs, as well as needing fewer staff to administer the machines.

However, unless your organization has hundreds of thousands of employees, a private cloud is not going to give you the cost savings that come from the economies of scale that public clouds enjoy.

To implement the private cloud, you’ll need upfront investment to virtualize your servers and add the software needed to operate it as a cloud. You are not going to just pay for what computing resources you need - - you basically still have to maintain the systems you need for your worst-case computing load.

Some go as far as to say that a private cloud is not a cloud at all because a cloud should have “elasticity” - - meaning you can create new virtual machines on demand and shut them down when you don’t need them. A private cloud cannot easily provide this elasticity, unless it’s for a huge number of employees.

With a public cloud, you can truly pay for computing as you go - - just buy what you need, when you need it. That’s why, unless you have hundreds of thousands of employees or information that’s very sensitive (like military information), you have to consider public clouds to get the benefits of cloud computing. If that’s not acceptable, you can consider a community cloud suitable for your organization. For example, government agencies could opt for a government community cloud where you could at least get some economies of scale.

Here's some more information to help you

Please see my previous blog posts on what is cloud computing, why you should consider it, and some risks of cloud computing.

Here are some books on cloud computing that you may consider:

Tags: cloud+computing, virtualization, public+cloud, private+cloud 

What are some of the risks of Cloud Computing

In other videos I explained what cloud computing is and why it’s useful. In this video, I want to mention some of the risks of cloud computing - - things that could potentially go wrong and affect your organization when you use cloud computing. Of course, if you implement a cloud in your own data center for your organization’s use, then the risks are similar to ones you already have - - security, privacy, disaster recovery, etc.

However, if you are planning to use cloud services provided by a third party, then you need to think of any new risks that may apply to your situation and that’s what I’ll cover.

First, the obvious risks - - security and privacy risks because of not knowing whether the vendor’s cloud is secure, that the staff who manages the facilities are trustworthy, that privacy protections are up to the level required by law.

Second, we have some management and oversight risks - - relating to potential lack of control in figuring out where data is stored and processed and how to get it back, if you change provider. The oversight risk is the possibility that your auditor cannot get access to the cloud provider’s systems to check them out.

Third, there are some technical risks, relating to lack of standard definitions of what a cloud service is, how are fees set, how to move data from one cloud to another, whether you can get reliable performance...

And, finally, a fourth set of risks may be relating to potential foreign laws and regulations that apply to your data because of where the cloud service is located.

Anyway, this is not an exhaustive list, but the point is that you should think what risks apply to you and then manage them, as is the prudent thing to do. Some risks already have mitigation approaches such as putting things in the contract and some have ongoing activities to help business mitigate those risks.

And, even if there is no mitigation for some, you may still decide to accept the risks and forge ahead with cloud computing. After all, that’s how we get the good things in life... by taking risks.

Here are some more things to help you...

Please see my previous post on "What is Cloud Computing" - - there I have a slide presentation on cloud computing that I used when I gave a talk in Seoul, Korea in Nov 2010 and the 30-minute video of the talk as well.

You may also want to read my post on "Why you should consider Cloud Computing as an option"


Tags: cloud+computing, virtualization, public+cloud, private+cloud 

Why you should consider cloud computing as an option

You might wonder why is “cloud” a big deal. First, and foremost, if you have a collection of servers for your business, once you use virtualization, you’ll be able to support many virtual machines on a small number of physical machines - - some experts suggest that for each “core” on an Intel or AMD processor, you can have 3 to 5 virutal machines. Many servers are 4- or 6-core, so you could have anywhere from 12 to 30 virtual machines on one server, but you’d need to have lots of memory and storage as well. Nevertheless, the ability to run lots of virtual machines on a physical server means that you reduce the number of physical servers and that translates to less space, less electricity, less heat, and less messy cables, etc. So these benefits make a cloud an worthwhile proposition for businesses, even if you were to convert your current server farm to a cloud.

If you can move on to buying the cloud services from a third party, the benefits are even more. Now you can simply buy the computing power you need, without having to spend money up front. You can benefit from the economy of scale, the cloud vendor would typically have better redundant power and network connectivity that you could afford. Even security may be enhanced because the cloud provider can afford to hire more experienced information security staff and apply patches across all virtual machines more efficiently and promptly than you could.

You’d notice that I have a lot of “may” and “could” in justifying the benefits of cloud, that’s because you have to check it out for yourself to see if it meets the needs of your business. What you don’t want to do is dismiss cloud as an option because of knee-jerk reaction from others inside your organization who may bring up risks relating to security, data ownership, and many other issues as reasons why you shouldn’t go the cloud. All of these may be valid risks, but they also have equally valid solutions that mitigate the risk enough for you to take the plunge. The savings in IT costs alone make it worth taking the step to, at least consider cloud services as an option.

Here are some more things to help you...

Please see my previous post on "What is Cloud Computing" - - there I have a slide presentation on cloud computing that I used when I gave a talk in Seoul, Korea in Nov 2010 and the 30-minute video of the talk as well.


Tags: cloud+computing, virtualization, public+cloud, private+cloud 

What is Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become a popular buzzword, but many managers find it confusing. Those old enough to remember time share computing tend to say, “oh, it’s just like timeshare systems we had in old days,” but cloud computing is more than that. It’s w-a-a-y more than lots of users logging into a mainframe through green-screen terminals.

You can understand “cloud computing” better by focusing on just the basics. Let’s start with the physical computer. Whether it’s a laptop, desktop, or a rack-mounted server, at its heart you have the processor, memory, storage, and network connection. On that physical computer you had an operating system -- Windows, Linux, etc. - - and many applications - - email, word processing, spreadsheet, databases.

Along comes the concept of “virtualization” - - the idea that instead of just running multiple applications on a physical computer, you can create “virtual machines”, each with its own virtual collection of memory, storage and network connection, RUNNING an operating system and set of applications. Thanks to the virtualization software, each virtual machine will be able to operate as if it had its own memory, storage, and network connection (or multiple network connections, for that matter).

So virtualization gives you the ability to run multiple “virtual machines” on a single physical machine. You can, in fact, have multiple virutal machines running different operating systems (Windows, Linux, what have you) irrespective of what operating system is running on the underlying physical system. The virtualization is possible through software, for example, VMware or .

There is another element as well - - management software that enables a system administrator to easily create virtual machines and “provision” them - - allocate memory, storage, install operating system etc. on the virutal machines.

Once you have the virtualization software with the management software to easily provision virtual machines, throw in Internet connectivity and you have a cloud - - the term is used because in network diagrams, the Internet is typically depicted by a cloud. You could say “virtualization + great Internet connectivity” = cloud computing - - BECAUSE now users can access your computing resources from anywhere and make use of the capabilities.

All the other terms you hear about cloud computing - - relating to types of service such as infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, or software as a service or <insert your favorite application name> as a cloud… AND terms relating to how they are deployed (read “for whom”) such as public cloud, community cloud, or government cloud or hybrid cloud or, again, insert <your favorite qualifer> cloud (such as Joe’s cloud or Jane and Mary’s cloud) are just qualfiers... at the heart, each must be a “cloud” as I explained earlier -- use virtualization, be able to create and provision virtual machines easily, and have great Internet connectivity.

Here are some more things to help you..

I had presented a talk on cloud computing (it was about IT and Network convergence, which, when I began developing became a presentation on cloud computing) that you may find helpful Below are the slides and then I have the 30-minute video in two parts (had to split into two 15-minute parts) of my talk based on the presentation.

Naba barkakati it solutions for new business - keynote - kisdi-global-conference 2010

View more presentations from nbarkakati

After you skim through the slides (there are only 15 slides :-) you can watch the videos below:

 

Part 1 of KISDI talk Nov 2010

Part 2 of KISDI talk Nov 2010

Tags: cloud+computing, virtualization, public+cloud, private+cloud