Capacity Management Important for Private Cloud

Read an interesting article Top tips for calculating the cost of a private cloud. It highlights the importance of capacity management in private cloud.

Accordingly to Dr. Owen Rogers, digital economist at analyst firm 451 Research, one of the most important tasks is to consider how capacity will be added over time, and how much it will cost. However, this is also one of the least considered areas when weighing up the costs involved in moving to a private cloud, he warns.

“A private cloud is ultimately a fixed capacity, and its utilisation will vary depending on the behaviour of its applications and the end-users using it,” he says. “From a cost-efficiency point of view, the best situation is when the entire capacity of the private cloud is utilised, so the unit cost per virtual machine is the smallest.”

It is really surprising to see organizations going ahead without much focus on proper capacity management process or plans as they go ahead with private cloud. But issues arise when they scale up and operations become massive, and that’s when the cost and everything spirals out of control. That is the main reason why organization should first make a proper capacity management plan, look at current capacity and prepare for the capacity that would be required in the future. It is imperative to remember that capacity management is not a stop gap solution but an end-to-end process.

Cloud makes Knowledge Management easy

Knowledge Management is of extreme important for the organization. Gathering, collecting, storing, managing, monitoring and controlling the knowledge data is crucial for an organization’s success. Accessing the appropriate data assumes importance today’s scenario where the speed to market while maintaining the quality defines the success of a product or service. Easy access to those data is the key.

Today collaboration and sharing of knowledge data/content assumes importance. According to a new study by IDG Research, the vast majority of knowledge workers (86%) placed a very high level of importance on collaborating with internal coworkers and external stakeholders, and having access to the most up-to-date corporate information. This kind of collaboration as sharing of knowledge happens only when information can be easily accessed internally and externally. Hence, Cloud-based delivery models are vital as they enable highly scalable document storage and makes seamless collaboration a possibility. Once you store the data in a centralized storage server in cloud, users can easily access, manage, share, view and update the data; in addition, the organization can easily monitor and control those data and used the storage system as a knowledge management storage system enterprise-wise.

Latest Threats to Cloud

CSA (Computer Security Alliance) recently came out with 2013 Top Cloud Computing Security Threats. Cloud security has improved a lot, but threats still lurk; and as the ease to adopt the cloud applications becomes easier, vulnerabilities also increases as organizations might unknowingly expose themselves to malicious threats. Hence, it becomes extremely important for the organizations to keep an eye out for the threats mentioned by CSA. Following are the nine critical threats to cloud security (ranked in order of severity):

1. Data Breaches 
2. Data Loss 
3. Account Hijacking 
4. Insecure APIs 
5. Denial of Service 
6. Malicious Insiders 
7. Abuse of Cloud Services 
8. Insufficient Due Diligence 
9. Shared Technology Issues 

To protect your organization, check out CSA’s best practices guides, “Security Guidance for Critical Areas in Cloud Computing V.3” and “Security as a Service Implementation Guidance.”


The permanent and official location for Cloud Security Alliance Top Threats research is http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/topthreats .

Reap ITaaS Benefits

The following excerpts, from “Don’t Get Stuck on Your Virtualization Journey: Where to Focus Next”, are to understand the ways to reap benefits from ITaaS:

 

Based on a collection of research from businesses that have reached the ITaaS phase of the virtualization journey, the following best practices emerge:

•  Secure executive approval and funding for the IT-as-a-Service or cloud computing journey and transformation.
• Develop a roadmap or strategy that covers: hardware, network, storage infrastructure, virtualization technology, and management of those moving pieces, as well as an outline of the service offerings for end users.
• Shift IT’s focus from managing technology tasks to delivering services that align with business needs; service-centric IT organizations take the time to start first with the business requirements and the end-user point of view.
• Reinvent your IT organization and processes to align with the technological changes of virtualization and cloud computing. 
• Replace manual IT processes with automated ones; starting with a “managed virtualization” platform early can relieve the pain of integrating automation technologies later.
• Create a self-service catalogue of IT services for users and lines of business.

• Give IT management control over third-party cloud service providers along with internal IT services.

Virtulization Phases

Read a rather interesting and valuable piece “Don’t Get Stuck on Your Virtualization Journey: Where to Focus Next”

 

The following excerpts, from the above, provide a valuable insight:

 A typical virtualization journey consists of three distinct phases:

• Phase I: IT Production. Virtualization is used primarily for server consolidation of IT-owned applications.
• Phase II : Business Production. Businesses begin using virtualization for business-critical applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Oracle, or SAP, and deploy more advanced virtualization automation and management features.
• Phase III: IT as a Service (ITaaS). All applications are eligible to run in virtual machines (VMs), advanced techniques are used to manage and monitor virtual servers, and IT organization and processes are updated to run efficiently within virtual infrastructure.

Points for successful Cloud adoption

A large number of cloud deployments seem to fail because it was not strategized properly, and was not done keeping the interests of both IT and Business. The following points seem to be popular and successful in the cloud adoption and integrating it with needs of the IT and business:

•  Identify your target audience
• Understand the customer’s requirements
• Understand the Cloud and choose Cloud solutions accordingly as per your need and requirements of your customers.
• Define your offerings
• Update your processes as per the Cloud requirements & offerings
• Never forget to create a dedicated Cloud team

Five Strategies for Cloud Adoption

If you are thinking about Cloud adoption but is apprehensive about its success, just follow the below listed strategies, as suggested by Gartner Inc, to weigh your option:

• Build the business case

Link the Key Initiative (cloud) to the overall drivers or objectives of the business. Gain support from senior business leaders and senior stakeholders. Set a baseline for assessing the impact of the investigation. Estimate costs and resource requirements.

• Develop the strategy

Align the investigation with the business strategy, and show how it can deliver business value. Show how the investigation might lead to changes that will affect your business environment. Work with key stakeholders to identify business needs.

• Assess readiness

Identify the budgetary, staffing, technology and other requirements necessary to prepare the business for the investigation. Develop a total cost of ownership analysis framework. Review established policies for assessing risk and managing governance.

• Pilot or prototype

Identify a group to pilot, or develop a prototype for the investigation. Develop and communicate detailed requirements. Manage the pilot/prototype. Assess and communicate the results.

• Gain approval

Analyze findings of the readiness assessment and pilot or prototype effort, and revise the strategy and business case accordingly. Present findings of the investigation to senior stakeholders and business leaders.

Get Secured via Cloud

Cloud is changing the way we consume/approach security. Gartner’s recent prediction buoyed the enthusiasm of the Cloud supporter, “Increased adoption of cloud-based computing is expected to impact the way security is consumed as well as how key government agencies will prioritize security of public cloud infrastructures”.

 

 

Now check out what Gartner has to say about the security solutions industry for 2013 and beyond:

 

• By 2016, public cloud infrastructure will include and be mandated to critical national infrastructure regulations by the U.S.
•  By 2015, 10 percent of overall IT security enterprise product capabilities will be delivered in the cloud.
•  By 2015, 20 percent of the VPN/firewall market will be deployed in a virtual switch on a hypervisor rather than a physical security appliance.

Cloud Changes the Game in Sourcing Market

Seeing the latest development around the world, specific to Cloud, I can’t help but agree with Gartner’s recent views, “Sourcing managers must consider the opportunities and risks presented by the convergence of social, information, mobile and cloud when re-evaluating sourcing options, delivery models and vendors.”

 

The following pointers definitely important and can be game-changers in the sourcing market

 

• Growing cloud adoption will force sourcing managers to reconsider sourcing governance techniques and contracting practices
•  Revised mobile strategies, such as bring your own device (BYOD) and mobile applications availability, will expand IT service sourcing requirements as users demand new services
•  New information channels, coupled with data management and reliability issues, will make sourcing options analysis and vendor evaluations more complicated and more critical
•  Social technologies will change the way that sourcing organizations interact with suppliers and customers, from requirements definition, through contract negotiation and vendor performance evaluation