Business Technology?s US blogger Keil Hubert continues with his popular Grounds for Dismissal series. This week he takes a look at cloud computing and breaks down the technobabble.
If you?ve spent any time reading business press over the last year, you?ve probably seen adverts for ?cloud? services, ?cloud computing,? and the like. If you spent any time around your IT shop last year, you probably heard at least someone exclaim ?To the cloud!? as a nonsensical answer to a perfectly mundane question.[1]
Up in the sky: when the IT department talk about ?the cloud?, they aren?t talking about these.
Normal people can be excused for not necessarily knowing what in blazes we?re all talking about down in systems. Truth be told, most IT people don?t actually know what all the ?cloud? nonsense means either; it?s a marketing term that has very little to do with the actual technology or its function in the enterprise. It?s catchy, though.[2]
Here?s the thing: as far as most folks care, ?cloud? computing refers to the use of virtualization technology to separate your software (the operating system, applications) from your hardware (the physical computer). That?s it. There are a lot of ways to virtualize things, from individual functions all the way up to corporate data centers.
When you hear someone from another company bragging about having a ?private cloud,? most likely he or she is proclaiming that the company has spent a bunch of money on technology that allows them to fit a whopping great number of servers in a much smaller amount of space, thereby saving money over the long run on power, cooling, space, etc. in the server room.
Server space: The cloud takes the worry of maintaining servers away from your company.
When the bean-counters come round asking slyly if the company couldn?t save some money by shifting resources to the ?public cloud,? what they?re really saying is ?can we get someone else to host our computer and/or network services on their site, giving us access to our stuff from across an Internet connection. Yes, it can be cheaper. And it can also be a potentially catastrophic mistake, depending on your industry and how trustworthy your ?cloud provider? is.[3]
When you ask your IT folks to explain it all to you, they usually get enthusiastic and start prattling on about ?hypervisors? and ?SANs? and ?switch fabrics? and then eventually you tune them out like you would an annoying mosquito. I?ve been there, and I?m a professional nerd.
For normal people, it?s easiest to ignore all this ephemeral ?cloud? nonsense and think of it all in terms of lorries.
No, really. Stick with me, here.
Imagine that instead of computers and applications, we?re talking about lorries and cargo. A lorry has a certain maximum carrying capacity, in terms of volume and weight. A small utility truck like the Ford Ranger can carry around a ton of anything you can shovel into the back. A large commercial hauler can carry up to 60 tons. Military haulers can carry ? quite a bit more.
Information superhighway: cloud servers automatically share their loadings to ensure a smooth flow.
If you have stuff to haul, you have to buy ? at the very least ? the minimum sized lorry that can accommodate your load; the more lorry you buy, the more ability you have to accommodate larger loads in the future, and to deal with changing road conditions. The more your lorry can handle, the more expensive it is to buy and to maintain.
Computers are similar, in that certain operating systems and applications demand a minimum amount of processing power, memory, storage and the like, or they just won?t function.[4] So, you buy as much computer as you can afford in the hopes that you?ll run your OS, Microsoft Word, Angry Birds and whatever else as swiftly and as trouble-free as possible.
Of course, computers are like lorries in that they break down frequently, get less efficient over time, and eventually have to be replaced. That?s where this whole ?cloud? business comes in.
Now, imagine you have a motorway full of lorries. To be cost-conscious and efficient, you want to have the absolutely minimum number of lorries on the road, each one loaded to the point where it?s getting everything done without struggling.
Efficiency: A good cloud host will keep your office ticking over smoothly like this one.
On our virtual motorway, there?s a bunch of inspectors checking every lorry every second to see if it needs some of its load shifted to a different hauler or if it can handle some of another lorry?s load. The inspectors then move cargo around within the fleet so that everyone is moving at best speed, best economy and best utility.
That?s it, save that it?s in your server room rather than out on the street.[5] Your IT people are trying to get maximum utilization out of the minimum number of resources. It?s expensive and complicated to set up, and it introduces new security considerations,[6] but once your infrastructure is up and running correctly you gain tremendous resiliency, since any host in the pool can take over running a machine at any time from any other.
You?re protected against breakdowns and might never even notice that your ?cargo? jumped from one lorry to another in a fraction of a second and kept on hauling. Imagine if your personal Mondeo could do that!
One word of warning, and this applies to nearly every technology on the market: don?t buy something because a salesman promises you that it?ll be the Greatest Thing Ever! Remember that salesmen are not usually engineers, rarely understand your business and can?t possibly know what?s best for your organization just because they have a nifty new widget.
Inspect every aspect of a new technology cynically before you commit to it. Better yet, ?test-drive? in the lab first. After all, you wouldn?t buy an unproven new car without seeing it, would you?
View the first of Keil?s excellent ?Ground For Dismissal? series.
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?[1] Honestly, after the ad campaign got going, those of us in nerd circles started abusing that phrase at every opportunity, and then laughed ourselves nearly unconscious afterwards. Sorry about all that.
[2] For many companies, the ?cloud? is both as infectious and as welcome a thing as influenza. Cloud computing technology has its place ? but it?s often far more trouble and expense than its worth for small and medium businesses.
[3] How much do you trust someone else to hold all of your critical information? What could happen to your reputation if your outsourced service provider accidentally let your competitors, the general public or cyber criminals have access to your sensitive stuff? How much risk are you willing to accept in exchange for a decrease in IT operations spending?
[4] Want to absolutely ruin your weekend? Find an old Pentium PC that meets the ?minimum? specifications for running Windows Vista and try to get it running. Go on. I?ll wait.
[5] Unless you own one of Google?s mobile data centers, in which case both situations might apply. Also, you might have too much money.
[6] If you?re going to experiment with or actually deploy your own ?cloud? services, you really must send your IT and Security teams to SANS?s SEC-579 course (?Virtualization and Private Cloud Security?). Accept that security planning and monitoring are essential parts of any cloud deployment and build the cost of training into the service deployment plan.
Keil Hubert?is a business, security and technology operations consultant in Texas. He?s built dot-com start-ups for KPMG Consulting, created an in-house consulting practice for Yahoo! Broadcast, and helped launch four small businesses (including his own). His experience creating and leading IT teams in the defence, healthcare, media, government and non-profit sectors has afforded him an eclectic perspective on the integration of business needs, technical services and creative employees. He currently commands a small IT support organization for a military agency, where his current focus is mentoring technical specialists into becoming credible, corporate team leaders.
Source: http://biztechreport.co.uk/2012/10/grounds-for-dismissal-demystifying-the-cloud/
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