Is the Cloud as the vendors are claiming?

Posted on August 28, 2009 by pcalcada

IT news from Australia is presenting a work made by the UNSW School of Computer Science. In this study they try to verify if the Cloud is as the Vendors are claiming that it is: elastic, reliable, dynamic, fault tolerant, high available..

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/153451,stress-tests-rain-on-amazons-cloud.aspx

These are very interesting points and independent tests are fundamental to create trust among Cloud users and providers.

Although I think this kind of test should be more focused on specific applications. As studies show, some of the potential problems found on the Cloud could be solved by the developers.

Using these ideas as starting point I’m working on a project that should be presented as a parallel event on the CloudViews.Org Cloud Computing Conference – 2010. This project, and the whole CloudViews.Org Cloud Computing Conference 2010 will be presented very soon, but If any one is interested in these topics, feel free to contact me directly.

Amazon introduces the AWS Private Cloud, and the question that arises is if this new service enables the deployment of real Private Cloud..

Posted on August 26, 2009 by pcalcada

Amazon has introduced today the new AWS Virtual Private Cloud service, more details on it could be found here: http://aws.amazon.com/vpc

On the follow up of this new service, some doubts have arisen about the real type of the cloud built with this new service, and also if this kind of cloud could even be difined as Private Clouds.

Using the NIST definition:

” Private cloud. The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise. ”

It’s very clear, a Private Cloud could be on premise or off premise. The next question is what should be considered the premises of the cloud. Should it be the wall of the datacenter, the box of the server or the VM where the OS is running? For one company their premises could be a single room, whereas to another it could be the entire building, in the cloud computing paradigm the private cloud is, in my perspective, a sandbox, which has boundaries well definite and on which we trust. These boundaries are the set of features that are available (CPU, network, storage, development API, etc) and the trust comes by means of contracts, cloud provider reputation, etc…

It’s easy to understand that this kind of definition are not closed to discussion, but in my prespective, the service introduced by Amazon should be consider a very interesting tool to build effective Private Clouds.

Cloud Computing Views: Week 20 to 26 July 2009

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Maria Spínola

This list is a summary of Cloud Computing news that I posted during the past week on Twitter :

- Unisys & #CloudComputing: Exclusive Q&A with Rich Marcello http://bit.ly/JmBad (via @cloudnomics) #Security & #Privacy are big concerns…

- Sun Microsystems view on #CloudComputing: http://bit.ly/1cm61n

- List of advantages of #CloudComputing http://bit.ly/X8mKB (via @CloudMarkets) ME: and list of advantages vs risks: http://bit.ly/oBwga

- How is Your Cloud Computing Provider Doing? http://bit.ly/nXWYM (via @cloudysaas)

Continue reading →

White Paper: An Essential Guide to Possibilities and Risks of Cloud Computing

Posted on July 19, 2009 by Maria Spínola

Cloud Computing is quite possibly the hottest, most discussed and often misunderstood concept in Information Technology (IT) today.

In short, Cloud Computing proposes to transform the way IT it’s deployed and managed, promising reduced implementation, maintenance costs and complexity, while accelerating innovation, providing faster timeto-market, and the ability to scale high-performance applications and infrastructures on demand.

But business managers know that in spite of the benefits of every new technology/business model there are also risks and issues (like for example: trust, loss of privacy, regulatory violation, data replication, coherency and erosion of integrity, application sprawl and dependencies, etc.) and that rushing things when it comes to Cloud Computing can be a very bad decision, but blowing off Cloud Computing all together because you think you can secure your own stuff better than a service provider or because many claims, made about Cloud Computing, have lead you to the point of “irrational exuberance” and unrealistic expectations, isn’t smart, either.

The goal of this White Paper is to provide a realistic perspective of the possibilities, benefits and risks of Cloud Computing; what to look for, what to avoid, and also some tips and best practices on implementation, architecture and vendor management strategies. It is important to consider all those aspects before you decide either to move (but without putting the carriage before the horse) or not to move your systems, applications, and/or data to to the “Cloud”, in a “hype free” approach.

Click here to download the White Paper (or click on the image at left side)

Thanks and please let me know how I can help you.

P.S. And of course your comments, feedback’s and thoughts are always welcome.

CloudViews.Org

Cloud Computing as a business innovation catalyst

Category Archives: News

Is the Cloud as the vendors are claiming?

Amazon introduces the AWS Private Cloud, and the question that arises is if this new service enables the deployment of real Private Cloud..

Cloud Computing Views: Week 20 to 26 July 2009

White Paper: An Essential Guide to Possibilities and Risks of Cloud Computing