CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE
Understanding the benefits of cloud computing When is the cloud not a cloud? By Stefan Haase, Divisional Product Director of Data and Cloud Services, InTechnology
If 2013 was the year that cloud went mainstream, then 2014 must be the year that cloud matures – or is it? The key question is where cloud
computing is heading, how networks need to be able to support the changing infrastructures, and the pros and cons associated with the different cloud models. Much has changed since the advent
Stefan Haase explains where cloud computing is heading…
of the cloud. Companies have fully embraced the new infrastructure model and vendors and cloud service providers spent the last year determining how to ensure that businesses saw the maximum benefit. In many cases that meant the co-
existence of legacy systems alongside cloud platforms rather than the wholesale rip and replace of old networks and technology and a 100 per cent shift to the cloud. This happy alliance looks set to
exist in near future. It’s unlikely that the majority of companies will be able to replace their entire application architecture, service models or even the interactions between components.
A hybrid future As a result, the future for cloud computing in the short term looks likely to be a hybrid of public and private. Ensuring that they are able not just co-exist but integrate fully without impacting network performance is key to its success. What also became clear in 2013
was that certain loud models work better depending on the scenario. For example the public cloud, which is
typically multi-tenanted, has become the accepted norm for those who don’t require high availability or a high level of customisation and integration. The rise of services, such as Amazon
Web Services, was driven by the consumer – whether at home or at work – and typically it’s those types of applications that have found themselves in the public cloud. On the other hand, the private cloud has begun to dominate where companies need security and performance on mission critical apps. With dedicated networks, data centre processing and resources accessed within the company firewall or via a secure VPN.
But giving up control of the network
and resources has proved difficult or in some cases simply unviable and this is why the hybrid model has started to see a rise in popularity. According to Gartner, nearly half of enterprises will have deployed a hybrid cloud environment by 2017. While the hybrid cloud doesn’t
present huge challenges technically to the IT department, the management of it still does. To be effective, deployment of a hybrid solution needs to include a strategy on how to manage, control, configure and change it. Typically the bigger the differences
between a public and private cloud solution the more difficult it is to manage. To meet the need of hybrid cloud
services, networks have grown in importance. In fact, it was the network’s ability to deliver quicker, faster, better services and experience that drove the popularity of the cloud as an IT model in the first place. Since the cloud is simply about
The cloud: running like clockwork 36 NETCOMMS europe Volume IV Issue 3 2014
moving processing power to someone else’s data centre, the efficiency and effectiveness of the network is of paramount importance, whether it’s dedicated or shared. Since a move to private or hybrid cloud models involves extending the current domain and IP range into a third-party data centre ensuring key elements such as MPLS delivery, high bandwidth services, QoS, network latency reduction, and active-active as well active-passive network design will
become critical in driving the Cloud as a viable infrastructure model. While hybrid cloud will dominate this
year, what’s next? The cloud world is so dynamic that it is inevitable that we’ll see its continued evolution.
SDN explained We’re already seeing the change in the network to support cloud, through the likes of Software Defined Networks (SDN) and this will continue in to the future. But it’s also likely that we’ll see a shift in the way that these cloud models and services are purchased. The IT department will stop focusing on individual cloud service elements such as the network, computing power, storage, application or data management and will increasingly seek to outsource the entire application stack. Cloud service providers will
need to ensure both availability and performance service levels for the entire stack for this type of sale to succeed. The cloud will also continue to deliver
all elements of the infrastructure – from storage, disaster recovery until we reach XaaS – where anything or everything is available in the cloud. It’s likely we’ll see the continued
growth in IaaS for commodity computing, storage and networks, and PaaS for standard applications but this may also extend to SaaS to support Big Data needs, and further to Business Process IaaS as the point of cloud interaction. This means that companies will be
able to simply pick and choose what suits their business’s need rather than a one-size fits all solution. Perhaps the biggest development in cloud may be the removal of buffers between the cloud service and the customer – the IT team itself. While customers continue to develop
their own knowledge of cloud services, their roles will develop away from service deliverables and into supporting business efficiencies. Today’s network manager may well
be tomorrow’s business process engineer.
www.intechnology.co.uk
www.netcommseurope.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44