Cloud Computing - Revolutionize the way your IT department works (Part2)

Mar 7, 2012

Continue the previous article, this time I'll discuss a little about the private cloud. Cloud is an on-demand delivery of IT to standardize. Some characteristics of the cloud is dynamic, elastic, and self-service. If viewed from the keyword "standardize IT" and the characteristics of the cloud, there is a relationship between the two. Is the connection? Let us try a little analysis.

Companies that implement Good Corporate Governance (GCG) would have to pay attention to all elements within the company, one alias IT Governance IT governance. Probably not much I know about IT Governance, but based on my observation that the IT Governance regulate all matters relating to the governance of IT in order to function according to standard operating procedures in line with the vision and mission. IT Governance may not be separated from the IT Business alignment, where the resource (in this case can be either cost or HR) is issued to build the IT infrastructure must be in line with the needs of the company, supporting business processes, in line with the vision and mission.

There is a dilemma when implementing IT standardization when it will implement cloud computing. First, retaining the old IT policy so that the application of cloud computing have to adjust the old policy. Second, the IT policy long followed ayng solutions offered by cloud computing. Basically both have the same core, and the standardization of any policy that is applied, it should support the company's business processes and minimize the cost to achieve maximum performance. In my opinion, to choose one between the two dilemmas is no problem as long as the main purpose of the application of IT systems must comply with the objectives of the company.

Cloud consists of three types:

A. Software as a Service -> Cloud Service

2. Platform as a Serviec -> Public Cloud

3. Infrastructure as a Service -> Private Cloud

Already seems clear that the sort of IaaS private cloud, where companies, especially IT teams do not bother thinking about server farms provisioning, set-up datacenter, and others. In the presence of cloud computing, the IT strategic plan Professional enough to think in terms of IT services required by the company and its budget plan for a more efficient IT into a profit center of the company.

Many people are still confused between cloud computing and virtualization. Although both are identical, but have differences. Here are the characteristics of both.

Virtualization critical component

1.Server consolidation

2. Easy deployment

3. Elasticity and scalability

4. Multiple tenant

5. Huge availability and mobility

6. Cloud computing

Automated management

A. Pools and compute resources

2. Self-service provisioning

3. Usage-based changeable

Apparent difference between the two

Perhaps this is what can I write in this article. If there is any additional information I will write in the next section. Keep writing and sharing our knowledge.

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Cloud Computing - Revolutionize the way your IT department works

Mar 5, 2012

In this article I will attempt to review a little about the characteristics of cloud computing, some Microsoft products associated with the type of cloud service, Azure, and a little explanation about what I got from the seminar at the office of PT Microsoft Indonesia.

Basically cloud computing has five essential character:

1. On-Demand Self Service. Cloud computing service shall be controlled by the users themselves and in accordance with the needs / demands of the user. With a self-serving, expected user can define the limits of the resource used.

2. Broad Network Access. Access an extensive network is a necessity of cloud computing in order to provide a high availability service that allows users to access an unlimited resource without any decrease in performance.

3. Resource Pooling. Because cloud computing service is used by many users, why should the division of resources to meet needs that match the user. Each user will get a room (resource pool) which will be used as needed.

4. Rapid elasticity. This is one of the unique cloud computing where the user can define and change the resource requirements in accordance with the needs anytime and anywhere. Like using a water faucet, turn the faucet user to increase or decrease water flow. Users can freely adjust the resource usage needs anytime and anywhere.

5. Measured Service. Of course cloud computing needs to support scalability in which any use of the resource should always be measured to fit user needs. By measuring the resource usage effectively and efficiently, eating will be able to reduce operating costs (operational expenditure).

As it is known that cloud computing has 3 types of cloud service, namely Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS). There have been many articles that explain about three things.

Here are some Microsoft products associated with each type of cloud service.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

1. Microsoft Office 365. Integration of Microsoft Office and some of Microsoft's Server products like Exchange Server, Sharepoint Server, and Lync Server.

2. Microsoft Sharepoint Server. Web application platform for content management and document management. Sharepoint is designed to handle multi-purpose management and provisioning of intranet portals, extranets, websites, document and file management, collaboration spaces, social tools, enterprise search, business intelligence, process integration, system integration, workflow automation, and core infrastructure for third- party solutions.

3. Microsoft Exchange Server. Collaborative application that consists of email, calendar, contacts, and tasks can be synchronized with mobile device-based and web-based.

4. Microsoft Lync. Chat applications (instant messaging client) is used in conjunction with Microsoft Lync Server.

5. Microsoft Dynamics. Applications Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

6. Windows Intune. Apliaksi cloud service that is used to manage and secure the pc via the web so the user can use it virtually anywhere.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

1. Windows Azure. Microsoft's cloud platform used for building, hosting, and web scale application through Microsoft data centers.

2. Microsoft SQL Azure. Cloud based services from Microsoft that offers capabilities for data-storage (such as Amazon S3 and Amazon Relational Database Service) which is part of the Azure Service Platform.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

1. Windows System Center. Is a set of server products aimed specifically at helping IT administrators to manage the company's network of Windows Server and desktop client systems.

2. Windows Server Hyper-V. Is a hypervisor-based virtualization system for x86-64 systems.

Azure has three components:

1. Windows Azure

2. SQL Azure

3. App Fabric

For more details, I will write the next article.

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The Myth of Cloud Computing

Education about cloud computing is absolutely necessary to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing. In 2012, as predicted in Indonesia will be a year where people will want to know more about cloud technologies, including trying the service directly.

One thing is for sure, by diverting resources to the cloud technology that does not mean the owner of the data can get out of hand if there are things that are not desirable (eg, crashes, hacked) occurs with its cloud service providers.

A good service provider cloud from the initial contract would be invited to sit with my clients designing the system environment to obtain optimal results. This is the initial evidence of the seriousness of cloud service providers to really help us take care of over the entire resources of the company's computer system.

Here are the myths of cloud computing and how it actually happens in the real world:

1. Cloud Computing is not secure, reliable, and scalable

I combine these three things into one. The fact is that cloud computing may not be secure, reliable, and scalable. This could happen if we choose a service provider cloud that is not appropriate and we are not directly involved in designing the desired computer system architecture.

According to Francis, the use of cloud services does not mean the system is immediately 100% safe. We still need to install a security system such as SSL and all layers of security that a major factor in whether our system is easily penetrated or not. From the beginning, cloud service providers are supposed to give you advice on how best to ensure system security.

Meanwhile, reliable and scalable factors depend on the way we design computer systems that are owned in the cloud and how the backup plan that is owned by a service provider cloud. Thus, preparatory steps - both in choosing a cloud provider and architecture design of computer systems - is critical to determine whether the system will be secure, reliable, and scalable.

2. Cloud Computing does not save money

It could be that in fact the costs to divert resources to the cloud service is cheaper than making your own data center. The problem, making the data center itself is certainly needed a name space, infrastructure, and hardware are all assets and depreciation factors. Not to mention if we need to update it periodically.

In contrast with the technology transfer system cloud, only one thing we think of the financial side, the operating costs. There is no need of assets and depreciation are taken care of.  Think of it as a regular monthly payment is issued, such as electricity, water, or telephone. No need to bother with the update or how to dispose of the device technology is already obsolete.

3. Cloud Computing requires new IT skills

Is cloud technology requires a new skill? Now reversed, if you are engaged in the world of Information Technology, which is not new every day? In contrast to other techniques of the world, IT is a very fast world demand change. This includes the skills and knowledge required. What is the trend five years ago could have been no use at this time.

Especially for cloud technology, the system administrator at the company would have to know how to handle the technology applied by the cloud computing service. Continuous learning, especially for new technologies, is a must and it is not negotiable. Of course, cloud providers will always help if you need the transfer of science and technology.

That's a bit of a myth associated with cloud computing. The bottom line is cloud technology does help us take care of a computer system that is owned but the owner of the system remains fully responsible for ensuring that the systems have been really quite secure, reliable, and scalable. Update on the development of technology is also a must in this fast-paced world. Hopefully we can understand the cloud with better technology and can decide whether cloud computing technology is the best solution for our system.

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SLA creates a cloud of diagnostic data

Feb 24, 2012

As the CSO and CIO you may be wondering why I created a diagnostic test which deals with understanding the most important for your website. The original purpose of the diagnostic to see the application and how the application is ported successfully to Cloud service providers. Determine the diagnostic and IaaS Cloud products (storage components, network components, and machine virtualization) that required for an application. It addresses platform components (server / operating system and web server) in the PaaS layer. Finally, focusing on SaaS software applications.

Once, this analysis is done accurately, all the corporate top 10 applications that are mapped to a public cloud / private. Simple port (different versions of virtualization software or a newer release an operating system) can occur as long as they do not affect the software running in a layer of SaaS. A matrix can be made for all ten applications and it is possible to integrate more than one application on different parts of the infrastructure products. So what should be tested to ensure success?

I argued in a previous article that the disaster recovery test is the most important and difficult for service providers who can demonstrate to potential clients Cloud. Therefore, testing of disaster recovery plan is a very high priority. In addition, it only happens that the information collected for disaster recovery is a superset of the information necessary to port your application to a major web service providers Cloud. Depth analysis of each application showing service providers how to port and test it in the Cloud. This is a test basis in the configuration of application services provider Cloud (what is needed for all ten applications) as well as additional functions necessary for a successful disaster recovery of the same application.

More importantly, a diagnostic aid in determining what functions are needed for input into the SLA (Service Level Agreement) between a company and service providers Cloud. Accurate creation of the SLA is the ultimate goal of the analysis. How does one gain confidence that the SLA covers all different types of failures by the service provider? What should be analyzed first? Performance metrics are required for each application supported. Here are some other questions that need to be answered to determine correctly display the performance metrics. Again this is a representative list, it is not necessarily complete.

Lastly, information boxes, lines of each application, should be incorporated into the SLA. With the SLA, each application must have the functionality requirements, performance metrics and financial penalties for various types of errors downtime. Note the service provider is not required to deploy an architecture that is identical to the product and the same software release as an architectural model and the client. Service providers must meet the functionality and the same response time. Areas of risk architecture should also be noted in the SLA. For example, database products in the PaaS layer may be only one vendor. Weaknesses in the vendor database that was released by the software may have an impact on all applications that use a given database, the systemic risk. It should be noted and taken into account the cost of downtime. The cost of brand damage (if the application has a secret data) and potential lawsuits should also be included in the SLA for each application.

In summary, the diagnostic can be used to critically analyze the company's web-based application for consideration of placing the company in its application by Cloud providers. Providers do not need to use the same architecture or product but must meet the SLA for each application. In addition to a few diagnostic questions in part the performance data required for web applications that should be collected so that the SLA will be complete.

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CloudLinux is Top 10 Cloud Computing

Cloudlinux was asked as the best 10 Provider Cloud computing, I read this information on web hosting news and press releases on cloudlinux own website, but after searching here and there still does not find data about companies other than Linux Cloud 10 which entered into nomination the best cloud computing.

As the information itself is Cloud Linux-based operating system is centos linux its core offering and the pro forma increase server stability, density server capacity so that it can increase profit and decrease support costs.

Linux own the cloud services company focused on Shared Cloud Hosting and Data Center, while the profit for each provider are:

shared hosting

1. With CloudLinux the ability to increase the capacity of the server that originally could only accommodate 500 domains per server with linux cloud can be more

2. Ives insulation system that is virtual spaces where it will not happen due to overload a website

3. Security is assured because there is a central control server

4. 24/7 support

data Center

1. The operating system provides a high quality and low paid support

2. Server and operating system security is assured

3. Support is assured, if there is no need to exploration research maslaah pretty submit a ticket

4. Cloud linux can walk in a variety of application control panel so that it can provide variation control panel required by the customer

5. Cloud Linux has been tested and no doubt the reliability.

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