As a boy, I always wonder what it is like to be a meteorologist on TV. I’m sitting with my mom and dad watching local news from San Francisco and wondering how Pete Giddings on channel 7 always seemed to know exactly what was going to happen. I thought it would be great to know the future ahead of time! More than two decades later, I actually did to be able to be a television meteorologist, although just like filling for holidaymakers regularly at a tiny station in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in my former life as a sports reporter. Of course, by that time I realized that in foresight there is not so much magic, but a lot of science. Nevertheless, I was still fascinated by the science of weather, and especially found the variety and function of clouds most interesting.
Now, about 25 years later, the clouds have reached a completely new level of significance in my life as a technology adviser and consultant. Like the influence of natural tepok in the sky, the appearance of a cloud in the computing world seems to signal a change in business computing climate. But what is it? And what are the good and bad sequences of taking this growing trend towards your business, especially with a tenth economy and a more pronounced effect for small business medium-sized businesses.
First of all, we need to understand exactly what “cloud computing” is. Since the early days of ENIAC, man has been craving ways to get more and more computing power to perform complex tasks in stages. Early machines relied on faster interior work for this, until the trend brought together many different machines in a cluster on one site to maximize load distribution. But in the 1990s, Jan Foster and Karl Keselman made another decision. They suggested that setting the “grid” on many machines that are remotely connected to each other may be the best way to share the load on many other processors. Unfortunately, since machines can be separated by vast distances, delays in accessing data stores or delays forced the concept to get any major transaction in the business world.
Thus, the acceleration of the Internet and its adoption made it possible to take the logical next step in cloud computing. It is believed that the phrase comes from the long use of the symbol in flowcharts and diagrams that used the cloud to design the Internet. Thus, cloud computing uses the concept of grid computing and adds the level of decentralization typical of the Internet. Cloud computing can be both private and public. Private clouds are built, used and maintained by a separate organization for internal use or private resale. Public cloud computing sells services to anyone on the Internet. Amazon’s web services, called S3 (Simple Storage Service), are currently the largest cloud service provider, although the Microsoft Azure platform is growing rapidly, as well as EMC.
The public cloud market was divided into three types: Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). In the cloud model of software as a service, the supplier delivers the hardware infrastructure, the software product and the user interfaces through the external interface. SaaS is a very wide market. Services can be anything from email over the Internet to inventory management and database processing. Infrastructure-as-a-Service, including Amazon S3, provides virtual server instances with unique IP addresses and on-demand storage units. Clients use a supplier application program interface (API) to start, stop, access, and configure their virtual servers and storage. The third menu item “Platform as a Service” is a set of software and development tools for products located in the infrastructure of the provider. This allows developers to create applications on the provider's platform via the Internet, rather than creating and maintaining test cost environments. PaaS providers can use APIs, web portals, or gateway software installed on the client’s computer. Force.com, developed by Salesforce.com and GoogleApps, are examples of PaaS. Potential client developers should be aware that there are currently no standards for compatibility or portability of data in the cloud. Some of the providers will not allow the software created by their customers to move from the provider platform. Some kind of defeat goal, is not it?
Recently, improvements to several key factors have accelerated the concept of general computing to what cloud computing is today. The ever-increasing availability of high-speed connections, as well as advances in data storage and improved I / O efficiency, have allowed this previous Grid computing notification to evolve. Today, cloud applications and storage are advertised as the next wave of business tools to jump over us well when we are today. Many larger enterprises have already used cloud concepts to achieve significant savings, as described in the applications in the previous paragraph.
How does the cloud create these savings and improvements? There are several technologies and applications. One of them is the ever-growing implementation of virtualization in the data center. Due to the fact that many or even thousands of servers are not serviced, replaced by "virtual" servers in a larger host environment, more and more become the standard with which data centers are built or rebuilt. For mathematicians, fewer servers mean less equipment and power to run, and smaller rooms require less cooling. All this costs money, so there are built-in savings. In addition, with fewer hardware, fewer problems with failure and lower purchase and license renewals appear. Not to mention improved disaster recovery with more reliable off-site storage options.
Although customizing the internal structure of clouds is the preferred method for some, there are large and small organizations that have chosen a more radical transition to third-party cloud service providers, such as Amazon, etc. In many cases, why create your own if you get all the perks for a monthly fee? Of course, there are tradeoffs in that using the Internet does require data and applications for potential violations, but safer tunneling methods make these problems minimal. And with more powerful endpoints, the computing power on the desktop can handle the load.
Of course, for the largest enterprises and government agencies, it is advisable to use these technologies in a more severe economic situation in which we live. But the real question is, can the SMB market ride their goats? The answer is "definitely, maybe." Of course, also the name of a completely mediocre recent romantic comedy in theaters, but also indicates a split between the opinions of experts. A Forrester Research study conducted in May 2009 found that about 2% of small businesses (in the category of less than 100 employees) use cloud computing. But with the ever-growing selection of prime providers and regional options, it looks like this number will tend to soar.
In our own practice in the Philadelphia area, we use cloud services in all areas of our business. For a small client with a limited budget or a new launch without a huge amount of initial capital, we can manage them in Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite or BPOS. This recent offer from Microsoft provides everything from simple email hosting to instant messaging and a SharePoint site. And mobility, which is paramount to many, these solutions can be integrated with the choice of a smartphone to make it accessible from anywhere.
In some cases, a more traditional approach to the server / client is needed, and we provide either a local implementation at the client’s site, or a completely cloudy environment with virtual servers in our hardened data center. We revolutionized this concept with our flagship Managed Environment program. All necessary hardware, software and labor services provided for each user are based on a user solution. This allows the client to avoid significant capital expenditures, create operating expenses that are beneficial for taxation, and eliminate the need for expensive IT staff. There are firms that have abandoned the aging network infrastructure and moved the lock, stock and barrel to this model. In many cases, they added services that did not make sense with their old solutions, including internal instant messaging and presence, hosted VoIP telephony, multi-level backups and disaster recovery. In fact, small businesses now have access to technology and enterprise-class security without astronomical investments.
Whether it’s a specific cloud service or a full-scale, all-encompassing solution, it’s clear that this revolution is only in its infancy. Despite recent market failures, such as Amazon’s downtime for many days, it would seem clear that the direction of both small and large organizations is clearly headed in the cloud. Potential cost savings, increased productivity and increased mobility and employee satisfaction will lead to an even greater level of supplier reliability. And although the Jetson air cars are “far from reality,” it would seem that in the near future the future of IT infrastructure will be clearly reflected in the air above. Who knew? What is even more surprising is that I do not even need Accu-Weather to predict this!
