Tag Archives: Hybrid Cloud

Cloud Computing Compliance and Industry Standards

October 12, 2015 Kris Price

Though cloud computing is known as a trendy technology, it is not in any way new in the computer networking field. The truth is that telecommunication companies were the first cloud service providers and they established some expectations for customers as well as industry standards for the past decades. Fast forward to 2015, the expectations remain unchanged; the standards of the cloud computing industry has been similarly modelled as in the Telcos, with some additions that are triggered by nature of operations and the transaction types that occur in the new cloud applications.

Definition of standard may be linked to the type of cloud computing in use. The cloud may be public, hybrid or private clouds. Also, the mandate around the private clouds requires loyalty to defined process and well established control frameworks. Documentation, backup controls, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), as well as infrastructure libraries for service management and business integration must be made available. In the public cloud, there must be adherence to established frameworks as well provision for audits under various compliance acts.

Standards adopted may be determined based on the type of industry. The industrial standard may be dictated by the country or segment of operation and industrial vertical. For instance, the health care industry will be governed by HIPAA, while Sarbanes Oxley governs the financial industry in the USA and Canada. There may be sets of requirements and regulation by the industry itself for access control, security, protection of data, segregation of duties and lots more. The requirements for SLA may differ from one segment to another based on the amount of data processed, company size, and the kind of data. The regulation of the country, where the the company (or industry and/or service provided) is located may have an influence on the kind of standards adopted. Current tools and the available processes will also affect the standards adopted for the cloud. Implemented standards. You will need to consider customers and/or industry practises inside and outside the company / industry at the same time to refine the standards that should be implemented.

The current standards or requirements already established by vendors globally will have a huge impact on the standardisations and expectations. This is always obvious when software usage and licensing is involved. Industries need to always be mindful of the restrictions as well as the components that are not defined clearly; and also create practises that will not lead to unforeseen expenses, any kind of violations or breaches. For the fact that cloud is a combination of variety of technologies, standards need to be followed strictly, along with integrated compliance standards that may come up in the context.

In fact, cloud computing service providers must always investigate important areas for compliance and determine the minimum expectations from the regulatory authorities, clients, and competitors within the industry vertical.

Are You SaaS Ready?

June 26, 2015 Rob Mackle

Experts state glibly: “SaaS is ready for you, even if you are not yet ready for SaaS!” But, what does “being ready for SaaS” imply? More important “What is SaaS?” Let us answer the second question first.

SaaS is the abbreviation for “Software as a Service”. SaaS service providers deploy industry specific or generic web browser based applications on a subscription basis, over the Internet, to multiple enterprises or employees within an enterprise using shared public/private/hybrid cloud architectures.

SaaS readiness enforces due diligence for functional fit and data strategy. It highlights support requirements and draws attention to economics of the cloud. It is evident that SaaS readiness has a potential to transform thinking on information technology and to create a service centric approach to computing within the organisation.

Functional fit due diligence begins with an understanding that SaaS applications are built on generic business concepts and the process of getting the business SaaS ready presupposes that the business processes will be subsumed to generic pre-defined processes albeit compromises. However, the SaaS typicality can be cost effective and process standardisation may bring in reshape the experience curve for the enterprise. The opportunity cost of using enterprise expertise elsewhere may far outweigh the cost of employing them in designing on premise, differentiated applications.

Due diligence for data fit ensures that the criticality of data conversions and system interfaces are not underestimated. Getting ready for SaaS may involve getting the enterprise familiar with unfamiliar challenges. SaaS tools are typically Wizards that guide the user through a task and are generic constructs. Extraction, transformation and load options may be limited and overnight conversions may present difficulties that are associated with bandwidth availabilities. However, if the enterprise is looking for integrative processes, SaaS tools are most suitable. They blend with diverse systems such as Oracle and SAP or heavy duty enterprise resource planning software.

SaaS readiness acknowledges that the benefits of SaaS are important for the organisation growth strategy. IT infrastructure abstraction is not the only reason. The enterprise can now shift the risk of software acquisition and convert IT from a reactive cost centre to a value generating catalyst of growth. They can take advantage of SaaS Continuum in exchange for a small fee that can be budgeted for as operating expenses rather than as capital investments with long run implications. It is a decision point where political, technological, financial and legal considerations come together for the betterment of the organisation.

Top Ten Reasons to Leave your Cloud Backup Service Provider – Part II

April 29, 2015 Damien Garvey

In Part I, we discussed the five reasons that would make you leave your cloud backup vendor. They included:

1/ The lack of all operating systems support, mobile device support;
2/ Too much focus on appliances;
3/ Agreements not being executed as per SLAs;
4/ Confusing pricing structures; and
5/ Treating archived data and active data same way.

Continuing on this list, the remaining five reasons are:

6/ Bandwidth – Does your vendor throttle your bandwitdth connections? Remember that it takes days and weeks to recover data from an online depositories; and your Internet connection should be fast. Your backup vendor needs to optimise their bandwidth using the latest technologies for better data transfer in your network.

7/ Data Centre Location – At least one copy of your data should always be stored far away from your primary source data. It is recommended that your secondary storage to at least be 2,000 miles away from your primary location. Does this vendor have a geo-dispersed secondary data centre?

8/ Vendor Lock – Is there flexibility for your data? Do you have the ability to backup your data in private, public, or hybrid or a combination of two or more? Is it possible to deploy a third party solution as add on, for instance, salesforce.com, Google Apps, etc?

9/ DRaaS – Disaster Recovery as a Service is not offered by this vendor due to the limitations of the software. In case of a disaster, you need to make sure that your data becomes available quickly and that you are covered for disaster recovery and business continuity. Your vendor always talks about backup and avoids discussing recovery. If DRaaS is not provided, how are you going to recover after a disaster hits? You must be able to instantly access critical data within minutes of a disaster.

10/ Periodic Research of the Vendor – Relationship stays healthy if it is monitored. You need to research about your vendor periodically. If too many complaints are published on the web, or at the local better business bureau (BBB) or at the consumer protection agency, it is a clear indication what is happening at the company. Check to see if the vendor is engaged in the industry. Does the vendor issue frequent meaningful press releases? Does it participate in forums and webinars? Does the vendor post educational blogs and articles on a regular intervals? How about case studies and whitepapers? Any social media activities?

Conclusion
Business relationships are critical for both a vendor and a client to be happy and stay in the relationship. Vendors should be responsible to delivering quality services as agreed to in the SLAs. Service providers should be able to deliver the same quality service to all clients no matter how small or big an organisation is; especially, in the case of a disaster or a virus attack. The vendor should try their best to understand the clients business needs, goals and challenges (including the IT competency levels) and work with you efficiently.

Functionality, Quality, Price—The Evaluation Parameters for the Cloud

April 10, 2015 Damien Garvey

IT budgets do not scale in proportion to IT needs. Data growth outstrips infrastructure and headcount growth. The CIO is forced to compromise.

What if the enterprise could become instantly IT enabled with very little investment in infrastructure, software or HR?

Utility computing in the cloud serves the enterprise with what they need, when they need it, through any channel and any kind of device. The technology integrates and automates the value chain, adapts easily and innovates constantly. Risk and environmental responsibilities are well orchestrated and everything is streamlined to deliver ‘best fit’ services. Functionality, quality and price are definitely attractive.

Cloud computing enhances the efficiency and functionality of the enterprise. Cloud storage systems are developed to support “on demand” utility computing models — SaaS, PaaS and IaaS — with intent to deliver IT as a service over the Internet. Users can scale up or scale down on infrastructure or space instantly and pay only for what they use. Mobile and remote computing technologies are made available for disparate parts of the business and mobile workers can synchronise their activities with that of the parent business from wherever they are. Employees can collaborate with each other or access business applications from the central server. User and usage management policies can be implemented by exploiting the functionality inbuilt into the cloud application.

Quality of service delivery is the unique selling point (USP) of cloud vendors. QOA distinguishes them from the competition and builds trust in business relationships with their customers. Cloud vendors are conscious that their services are evaluated on the basis qualitative factors, such as design and delivery of security systems, compression and de-duplication of data or speed of backup and recovery. The way the services are packaged together also makes a difference.

Economies of scale, deriving from multi-tenancy computing models, make the cloud attractive to cash strapped enterprises. The pay per use model, typical to the utility services sector enables small and medium enterprises with small budgets garner and use resources that were earlier only available to their larger brethren. Additionally, CAPEX vanishes and is replaced by OPEX. This makes it wholly attractive to managements who do not want to invest scarce resources in IT infrastructure to the detriment of other business activities.

Support services provided by the cloud shrinks IT expertise requirements within the enterprise. Hardware and software maintenance in the cloud is the responsibility of the cloud vendor. The vendor is also committed to ensuring high availability of customer information and 99.9% uptime. Responsibility for mirroring, replication, de-duplication, compression and secure storage of information is transferred to the cloud vendor. A single IT Administrator can manage the database and maintain offsite copies of the data for additional data availability.

We at Backup Technology, offer the best of the breed public, private and hybrid cloud services to our customers unfailingly. We anticipate customers’ every need and work towards providing them with the functionalities they require without compromising on quality. Our pay per use pricing model is economical and wholly affordable. For more information, please do visit our website: www.Backup-Technology.com.

“Right” Cloud Services—The Identification Problem

April 1, 2015 Stewart Parkin

Every business considers itself unique, with a unique set of problems and concerns. The cloud considers every business generic, and builds its services around the “generic” needs of the business. Therefore, it is no wonder that businesses find it extremely hard to find a cloud solution that fits in with their every need!

Given the fact, how does a business identify the “right” cloud solution?

The nature of a particular business has a very important bearing on the kind of cloud services that the business should select. Businesses that deal with large volumes of confidential information (government bodies, health care units or advocates) cannot afford to lodge their information in a public cloud. They would do well to consider a private cloud or at best a hybrid cloud that enables them, create data repositories online and offline simultaneously for instantaneous recovery.

Businesses that cannot afford downtime (e-shops, travel agents or service centres) without huge loss of revenue should go in for hybrid clouds that permit them to switch from onsite data repositories to online repositories, and vice versa, quickly and seamlessly. Small and medium businesses that generate large volumes of data (that are neither private nor confidential) and would like to store them for data mining and data analysis purposes may consider public cloud stores.

But, whatever the nature of the business and type of data generated, no business likes to have its information hijacked by malicious elements. Data security protocols implemented by the cloud vendor can influence” right” choices. All types of businessmen want to be sure that their data is protected during transmission and in storage. They want to be assured that the data cannot be accessed by anyone other than those authorised to access the data. They want to know that the remote server is physically secured against intruders. They make the effort to scrutinise data encryption algorithms, user management systems, Log maintenance systems or activity monitoring and reporting systems. Certifications received, market reputation, past history of breaches or even word of mouth can have an impact on the selection process.

Aspiring cloud users like to know that they can retain control over their data even though it resides in a third party repository. They may like to implement the enterprise specific policies in the cloud. The customisation options and administrative flexibility provided in the cloud will have a positive impact on the vendor selection process. Points that may be taken in to consideration include: disaster recovery, failover architecture and availability of fully functional trial versions for testing.

Of course, costs make all the difference. Cost comparisons will be made and will be used to clinch the selection of the successful cloud service vendor.

We, at Backup Technology, are on standby to help our potential customers understand their requirements and match it with the features we offer. A fully functional trial version can be set up for you to test drive our services before you sign up. We can help you get a feel of our services before you firmly commit yourselves to a service. Our support team is ever ready to handhold you and guide you through the process of trying out our services via telephone or email.

Hybridisation for Business Advantage

January 26, 2015 Damien Garvey

Hybrid clouds straddle the chasm between public and private clouds. The conceptualisation is highly recommended for small and medium organisations as–will be admitted—not all business data is mission-critical warranting the use of highly expensive private storage facilities that small organisations can ill afford. Most of these businesses may draw upon and use repeatedly, bits of information that may exist in the public domain or can comfortably exist in the public domain without compromising the security, integrity, and privacy of the enterprise customers. Storing such data in the public cloud is a reasonable and cost effective option.

When questioned, almost all small and medium enterprises agree that a hybrid cloud strategy is what they would like to look at. The hybrid cloud can be built up from either end—the public end or the private end. If the enterprise has been using a wholly private solution, change can be efficiently managed by gradually migrating non-mission critical information to the public cloud while continuing to operate the purely private bits as before. If end users have been working with the public cloud, more private, mission-critical information can be gradually privatised without creating unnecessary ripples in the production environment.

From the above discussion, it is clear that there is a need for a closer look at how the small and medium organisation works across cloud boundaries. The relationship across the public-private cloud boundaries will determine how they will proceed with the hybridisation of your cloud.

If most of the enterprise applications burst across private to public cloud boundaries, hybrid cloud solutions will have to begin at the SMB data centre and pan out to the remote cloud server. They will have to look at public cloud resources that will run these applications on similar configurations even when the operating system used is different.

If the enterprise applications are designed to permanently reside in a public cloud, but are expected to burst through the private cloud, it is imperative that the SMB start the cloud saga by focusing on the public cloud end and then integrating it across the boundary with the help of the cloud service provider.

Moving on to a discussion of the economics of hybridisation, it must be pointed out that the SMB budget has a deterministic role to play in decision making in context. Organisations with a large budget, can afford to splurge on a private cloud and move out to the public cloud in stages. Organisations that are budget constrained may prefer to reverse the option with an emphasis on consolidation and cost effective redeployment of existing resources. A validation exercise with budgetary focus is a must in strategy formulation. Detailed planning will reduce risks involved in migrating data across cloud boundaries, and making appropriate hosting choices for their applications.