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The Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Server Farm
Large CSPs such as SalesForce, Microsoft, Amazon, VMWare, and
others provide public cloud computing services on large server farms
that have hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of rack-mounted servers.
These servers are used to run a variety of metered services including
SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. The Cloud Computing business model is based upon
the premise that the law of "economies of scale" will ensure that major
unit cost reductions can be achieve by aggregating the Service,
Infrastructure, and/or Platform requirements of hundreds of small
businesses across a single CSP server farm. |
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Cloud Computing
Services
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Cloud
Computing |
Cloud Computing is the
fastest growing segment of the IT industry.
According to a 2010 IDC report there are now
more than two thousand Cloud Service Providers
(CSPs) offering three cloud services:
- Software as a Service
(SaaS)
- Infrastructure as a
Service (IaaS)
- Platform as a Service
(PaaS)
It is also referred to
by other
complex, and sometimes confusing, terms such as
Virtualization and Utility Computing. Regardless of the
definition that you choose to use, Cloud
Computing is a metered, web-based distributed
processing service where resources are allocated
and deliver on-demand. Important charactistics
of Cloud Computing include scalability,
high-availability, agility, multi-tenancy, and
load-balancing. The Cloud Computing model is based upon the premise that
economic economies of scale can be achieved by
building a large, secure, robust, and scalable
server farm, and then sharing the processing
resources of this farm with a large number of
users. Users access the shared applications
located on these server farms via of the
Internet using a standard web browser.
If you
are considering migrating some or all of your
company's business applications and databases into
a cloud computing environment, we can help you
select the CSP that
meets your company's current and future business requirements.
We can also assist in the development of a
detail cloud
computing migration plan. This migration project
plan will include all tasks required to
successfully complete the migration plus
identify business-critical performance and continuity
requirements such as:
-
network-related
Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
-
traffic and activity
reporting requirements,
-
application and
database
backup & recovery,
-
disaster recovery planning, and;
-
business continuity
plans.
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Ensuring that Your
Technology
Infrastructure is
Cloud-Compliant
During
the next eighteen to
twenty-four months,
many small business
owners will
literally "bet the
future of their
companies" on Cloud
Computing. These
business owners will
make this decision
because cloud
computing has the
potential to
dramatically reduce
IT costs and at the
same time provide a
rich, robust
processing
environment that
enables small
businesses to
compete with larger,
more established
corporations.
Unfortunately in
many instances, the
decision to move
business-critical
applications and
databases into "the
Cloud" will be made
without
investing any
appreciable time,
effort and resources to ensuring
that the company's current
technology
infrastructure is
cloud-compliant.
However after the
"die is cast", and
these small business
owners have started
down this
irreversible
migration path, they
will discover that
dozens and sometimes
hundreds of changes
have to be made to
their technology
infrastructure
before their new
cloud-based
applications and
databases can meet
the Reliability,
Availability, and
Security (RAS) and
Service Level
Agreements (SLAs)
requirements of
their employees and
customers. In
hindsight, they will
realize that the
decision to migrate
business-critical
applications and
databases into a
cloud computing
environment must
include a thorough
analysis of their
technology
infrastructure. In hindsight,
these small business
owners will
realize that the decision to migrate business-critical applications and
databases into a cloud computing environment did not include the thorough
cost-benefit analysis
that is required
before making a
decision that
will impacts their
business for many
years in the future. In today’s new cloud-based world, the
technology infrastructure becomes the umbilical cord that links end-point
devices such as PCs, iMACs, iPads, tablets, and smartphones to the cloud
computing infrastructure. Our Technology Infrastructure Management Services can
perform an in-depth analysis that can determine if your current technology
infrastructure can support the RAS requirement of the cloud computing
environment. If not, we help you design, configure, and installed a secure, robust,
and scalable technology infrastructure that will include multiple layers of
redundancy. In many instances, we will be able to use virtually all of your
currently-installed networking components with the single exception of a new
enterprise router that will become the underpinning of this new cloud-compliant
infrastructure.
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