CUMULUX

WHAT IS CLOUD COMPUTING?

What does it mean to Enterprises? | Ranjith Ramakrishnan

CUMULUX: Cloud Computing Discovery Series

What is Cloud Computing?

What does it mean to Enterprises?

Table of Contents
What is Cloud Computing?.............................................................................................. 1 What technologies constitute cloud computing? ............................................................ 2 Who are the key Cloud Platform Providers? ................................................................... 3 Does this mean the end of IT departments in Enterprises? ........................................... 3 What is a Cloud Maturity Model? ................................................................................... 4 Is Cloud Computing Enterprise Ready? .......................................................................... 4 About CUMULUX ............................................................................................................ 5

What is Cloud Computing?

cloud computing \noun;
style of computing where massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided as a service using Internet technologies to multiple customers

Cloud Computing is more than a technology. It is more than a platform. It is more than just a hosting provider. It is more than just an application hosted as a service. It is more than providing storage services on the Internet. It is a combination of all the above. In todays economic environment as Enterprises try to balance out and optimize their IT budgets, Cloud computing can be an effective strategy to reduce the IT operations and management costs and free up critical resources and budget
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CUMULUX: Cloud Computing Discovery Series

for discretionary innovative projects. Typically, Enterprises have a 80/20 split between regular ongoing IT operations cost which includes hardware, software licensing costs, development, data center maintenance etc Vs new investment for solving critical business needs which is critical for businesses to survive in these challenging times. Cloud Computing can have a significant impact in this by reducing the footprint of IT operations by taking out the upfront capital investments needed for hardware and software licensing. It enables a Use what you Need and Pay for what you Use cost model. This will enable businesses to invest on innovative solutions that will help them address key customer challenges instead of worrying about operational details. There is one thing that industry leaders and analysts agree on; Cloud Computing will be a transformative phenomenon in 2009. According to IDC, spending on Cloud Services is expected to grow over five times that of traditional On-Premise IT. Even though IT budgets are being slashed, enterprises cannot afford to stop investing in IT because IT is what helps them gain and maintain a competitive advantage. The Cloud offerings will help enterprises to continue to invest in IT without having to take up big budget and long term IT projects. Investment in IT changes from being a Capital Expenditure to Operating Expenditure. Enterprises can become agile and harness the power of Information Technology to drive unprecedented customer value.

What technologies constitute cloud computing?

Cloud Computing is a paradigm that is composed several Strata of Services. These include services like Infrastructure as a Service, Storage as a Service, Platform as a Service and Software as a Service. Different Cloud Providers have developed various access models to these services. The access to these Services are based on standard Internet Protocols like HTTP, SOAP, REST, XML and the infrastructure is based on widely used technologies including Virtualization, hosting. Cloud Computing is the maturation and coming together of several prior computing concepts like Grid Computing, ASP, Server Hosting, Utility Computing and Virtualization.

CUMULUX: Cloud Computing Discovery Series

Who are the key Cloud Platform Providers?

There are several large providers that offer different services as Cloud Offerings.
Company Rackspace IBM Google Amazon Microsoft Salesforce.com Offering Mosso Public & Private Cloud Google AppEngine Amazon Web Services Azure Services Force.com
Hosting Storage Platform App Svcs Tools

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Does this mean the end of IT departments in Enterprises?

Cloud Computing wont make IT redundant; IT wont be defined as the way we know it today. Instead of the CIO's core focus being the infrastructure and keeping it running, Cloud will truly empower the CIO to focus on Information management. IT departments will have to focus on developing solutions and supporting business functions rapid use information to react and develop new offerings, instead of managing servers and infrastructure. Information Technologists Enterprises will need to build architecture roadmaps and develop information strategy that IT can step up to handle. In essence, IT as we know will change to more business focused than being infrastructure focused. Cloud Computing will also allow CIOs to focus on translating the business metrics end-to-end and map that to technology metrics - meaning translating business goals into application and architecture goals. CIOs can have revenue goals instead of cost management goals. ROI of the application portfolio will become a key

CUMULUX: Cloud Computing Discovery Series

metric, and this is an area in which Cloud Computing will have a direct and pronounced impact.

What is a Cloud Maturity Model?

Cloud Computing is in its infancy today and it will take 5-10 years for this to be a reality - meaning, significant adoption in the Enterprises even for critical Line of Business applications. So we have developed a maturity model for how Cloud Computing will be adoption in different phases. Today the adoption has started with small and departmental applications experimenting with Cloud Services. In the next phase this will move to a Hybrid model, where the Cloud Services will integrate with Data Center applications or services for infrastructure capabilities like Security. This will mature to integrating with other Data Center based business applications. And in the final phase of model, Line of Business applications will migrate to the cloud tipping the adoption of Cloud platforms. From a client perspective as well, the application models will mature from today where they are only Web based applications to a combination of Web and rich client applications and finally reaching the state where Rich, Internet, Mobile or any other future applications types are all first class application models.

Is Cloud Computing Enterprise Ready?

As highlighted in the Cloud Maturity Model, Enterprises will start with small new departmental level applications or web applications that need to scale over time for Cloud adoption. These will also include a class of applications that are already external focused. The key requirements of these applications are abilities of rapid application development and the elastic nature of the Cloud. There are hurdles that need to be scaled for the successful adoption of Cloud at a level where it can be declared mainstream. At the base level, it is winning the mindshare

CUMULUX: Cloud Computing Discovery Series

and driving businesses to even experiment in this area. Issues like lack of Control, Security and Data Privacy, Service Level Agreements, Compliance, Data Loss and new application model costs/adoption are some of the requirements that need to be addressed. While it might seem that these are large and hairy issues, Cloud Providers are working to address these in collaboration with the eco-system. And there are already some shining examples of Cloud adoption within the Enterprise that can help set the tone for the future.

About CUMULUX
Cumulux offers comprehensive services and products to enable enterprises learn, strategize, develop and operationalize Cloud Computing applications. Our products and service offerings help Enterprises develop and deploy software that drive Lower upfront costs Shorter time to market Reduced operational overhead Elastic scalability

Please visit http://www.cumulux.com for more information.