Demystifying the cloud

The future of the data centre is the cloud. And in this cloud sits a world where computing processing, storage, networks and other resources, as well as the software (operating system and applications) are available reliably, securely and immediately as the user needs, how they need them and from any access point in the world.

This is the promise of cloud computing and the IT as a service model, where the ease of getting computing is much like turning on the tap or switching on the lights. However, what exactly makes up a cloud and how will CIOs integrate these clouds into their current infrastructure?

Basically there are two ways to deliver this computing power: through the public, external cloud or the private, internal cloud. Ultimately a combination of both will prevail.

The public, external cloud is where resources are dynamically provisioned on a self-service basis over the Internet, via Web applications/Web services, from an off-site third-party provider who shares resources and bills on a utility computing basis. Usually these resources are provided by harnessing the scalability and resilience of virtualisation.

The off-site or off-premise third-party provider will own and operate live cloud computing systems to deliver services to third parties. These providers will spend significant resources, expertise and investment in building and managing next-generation data centres.

It will mostly be small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that will get their computing power and resources from these external cloud providers, and which will drive the growth of the external cloud, along with the consumer. SMEs are a better candidate for the off-premise cloud because of convenience and economies of scale.

The private or internal cloud provides the same pool of resources as the public cloud, but on private networks, ensuring the security, corporate governance and reliability that most enterprises demand.

It is worth mentioning that they may not get the benefits of economies of scale they may get from an external provider, and they will still have to engineer for peak loads.

However, there is significant operational efficiency and agility advantages for the enterprise by creating internal clouds, and virtualisation technologies have been shown to be the underpinning infrastructure. Internal clouds give IT teams the cost savings and efficiency cloud computing promises with the flexibility, security and control needed for production applications.

Then there is the hybrid cloud environment, which is a combination of internal and external providers that will probably become the norm in the next five years. To get to this point, private, internal clouds become the foundation for the external cloud within the enterprise environment.

This is the promise of cloud computing and the IT as a service model, where the ease of getting computing is much like turning on the tap or switching on the lights.

Chris Norton is country manager of VMware Southern Africa.

Only by using reliable, proven internal cloud technologies can IT combine the cost savings seen from external clouds, with the security, compatibility and control needed for the enterprise as well as the ability and benefits of being able to leverage reliable cloud providers within the private cloud.

Many cloud providers are working closely together to deliver a reliable, enterprise-ready experience for their applications without the lock-in associated with many “disposable-cloud” options available today. The aim is to retain flexibility of choice - independent of hardware, OS, applications or providers - so they can feel confident about deploying current and future applications in either the internal or external cloud.

On premise, internal cloud computing lays the foundation for the aggregation of on and off premise clouds, as organisations transform their IT infrastructure into a private cloud - a pool of virtualised resources within a data centre, or internal cloud which they can federate on-demand to external clouds - delivering IT infrastructure as an easily accessible service. This cloud model enables IT to best align the service level agreement and the infrastructure to the needs of the business and the applications.

As the complexity of IT environments has continued to increase over time, the customer share of IT budgets is increasingly spent on simply trying to “keep the lights on”. With the promise of cloud computing, customers are eager to achieve the benefits, but struggle to see the path to getting there.

With the release of cloud infrastructure products and cloud operating systems, companies can now take pragmatic steps to achieve cloud computing within their own IT environments. With these “internal” clouds, IT departments can dramatically simplify how computing is delivered in order to help decrease its cost and increase its flexibility, enabling IT to respond more rapidly to changing business requirements.

* Chris Norton is country manager of VMware Southern Africa.