Thursday, May 21, 2009

Is cloud computing the answer?

What is cloud computing?; The siloed vendor offerings
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Spotlight Story
Is cloud computing the answer?

In recent newsletters we began to address the challenge of fitting the various vendor offerings (e.g., LAN switches, WAN services, virtualized servers, virtualized desktops, SOA based applications, unified communications, etc.) together into a synergistic system. In this newsletter we will begin to look at whether or not cloud computing is the answer to that challenge.

Read full story

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Security promises in the cloud
A survey released this week at RSA is troubling in that it says businesses using cloud services are concerned about security, but don't verify what providers do to meet the security promises they make.

What is cloud computing?

The last newsletter featured feedback from one of our readers - Dennis Hollarn of Erie Insurance. Dennis pointed out the challenges associated with fitting the various vendor offerings together into a synergistic system. He also brought up the possibility that the solution to this problem may reside in the cloud - with offerings from the cloud computing vendors. In the next two newsletters we'll discuss cloud computing and invite our readers to share their opinions on the topic.

The siloed vendor offerings
In past newsletters we commented on the fact that IT organizations are typically organized around silos of technology. We recently received some e-mail from our readers who acknowledged the fact that IT organizations are siloed, but also drew our attention to the impact of the silos that surround vendor offerings. We will use the next few newsletters to talk about those siloed vendor products and services and to begin a discussion of cloud computing.

What is a cloud?
The term cloud comes from the old WAN diagrams that show the service provider's network as a puffy cloud that all the access lines run into. The point of the metaphor is that you plug into an entity whose inner workings are obscure, but you believe it will do what you want it to do. (The leap of faith for a transport service provider was scary enough, but with cloud computing, it's even scarier. Your data isn't just passing through, it lives there.)

Cloud computing explained in easy to understand terms.
Oddly enough, I've been spending a lot of time explaining what cloud computing is.  So considering that there are some really good explanations out there... I decided to share two of my favorite.  The first one is from salesforce.com, and is pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_DKNwK_ms The second one is made by... well, I'm not really sure, but I think this one is pretty cool:  

A framework for a WAN architecture

The last couple of newsletters looked at some of the risks associated with architecture. In this newsletter we will discuss the fact that in spite of those risks we believe that this is a very important time for IT organizations to develop a WAN architecture. To put that last comment in context, we believe that the need for an architecture increases when there is a lot of change in the environment and we are currently seeing a lot of change underway in the WAN environment.

What belongs in a WAN architecture?

In the last newsletter, we began the discussion of what topics need to be included in a WAN architecture. We discussed the fact that Cisco's Application eXtension Platform (AXP) allows IT organization to embed applications into their Integrated Services Router. This is an option that has not been available previously and IT organizations need to make a decision as to whether or not they want to make use of this new capability.

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