When you talk to a bona fide cloud supplier, they speak in a straightforward, clear and non-technical way about the business benefits of cloud computing. But in the same way that two hundred jumbo jets landing safely at Heathrow is not news but one jumbo jet crashing is news, the cloud makes the headlines when it fails and for when people over-complicate it.
Cloud computing gives organizations an alternative way of obtaining IT services and offers many benefits including increased flexibility as well as cost reduction. Many organizations are reluctant to adopt the cloud, however, because of concerns over information security and a loss of control over the way IT service is delivered. These fears have been exacerbated by recent events reported in the press, including outages at Amazon and the three-day loss of Blackberry services from RIM. So what approach can an organization take to ensure that the benefits of the cloud outweigh the risks?
Before we demystify cloud computing, let’s first define it.
Different people interpret cloud computing as different things, so let’s settle on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST SP800-145) definition as the best one: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics (On-demand self-service, Broad network access, Resource pooling, Rapid elasticity, Measured Service); three service models (Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS), Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)); and, four deployment models (Private cloud, Community cloud, Public cloud, Hybrid cloud).” In addition, the cloud provides measured service (cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by using a metering capability. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled and reported to provide transparency).
What makes cloud computing so compelling to those who use it?
• Confidentiality—Cloud computing solutions provide powerful authentication and authorization layers. Ironically, since these solutions are used by many different organizations, the cloud solutions are more secure. The applications developed by a company on top of the infrastructure or platform remain the responsibility of the company.
• Privacy—Cloud computing solutions provide good protection of sensitive information.
• Integrity—Cloud computing solutions provide similar protection of integer data.
• Availability—Cloud computing suppliers produce the infrastructure and bandwidth to give companies real high-speed access, storage and applications. All organizations should still ensure that they have made arrangements for outages. Cloud computing even allows more-reliable backup and recovery.
• Resiliency—Cloud providers have disaster recovery equipment to ensure you will survive untouched by any type of negative event.
• Compliance—Every company has to comply with a huge range of laws, regulations and standards. If data is demanded by authorities, cloud computing service providers can provide it without compromising other information.
• Licensing—Cloud computing allows companies to only use those licenses needed at a specific point in time, removing any concerns about using illegal software.
• Reliability—Cloud computing provides solutions wherever people are.
• Monitoring—Solution providers offer measurable and transparent monitoring to companies.
• Integration—Cloud computing solutions provide the missing links to integrate with existing internal solutions.
• Network-centric—Cloud computing solutions are, by default, offered via the network.
• Transparency—Cloud computing service providers can demonstrate the existence of effective and robust security controls, assuring companies their information is properly secured against unauthorized access, change and destruction.
• Certification—Cloud computing service providers can provide proper assurance that they are doing the “right” things. Independent assurance from third-party audits and/or service auditor reports is a vital part of any service provider assurance program.
What Added Value Will You Get from Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing offers organizations the ability to scale without large upfront financial commitments for infrastructure acquisition and maintenance. Capital expenditure with cloud computing is much lower since services and storage are available on demand and offer pay-as-you-go pricing. Capital expenditure is largely replaced with operational expenditure. Savings on unused server space and licenses also allow companies to contain costs.
The cloud provides on-demand convenience, which is a core added value for many companies, since they can unilaterally provision computing capabilities automatically as needed without requiring human interaction with cloud services providers. Cloud services offer both increased flexibility and scalability for the evolving IT needs of companies, allowing for traffic spikes and reducing the time to implement new services, all while increasing innovation.
Companies can also focus on their core business, rather than being concerned about solving peak business demands for performance. One of the major added-value effects of cloud computing is that the business regains control of its solutions. Business departments can find their own solutions online and decide whether they want to go ahead with or without the intervention of others.
Cloud services allow organizations to better use existing infrastructures, increase productivity and transform business processes using methods that were prohibitively expensive before the cloud. Cloud computing allows business departments to detach their IT needs from their infrastructure, and it allows data to be stored in a centralized, easily accessible manner that the user finds simpler. Of course, virtualization has made it impossible to physically pinpoint the exact physical disk where data is stored.
Instead of extensive discussions, analysis and lots of people involved in developing and testing applications and data solutions, business units are able to activate and use practical solutions in days. This approach has a fundamental impact on the business’s agility and the reduction of costs associated with time delays. One of the cornerstones of cloud computing is automatic control and optimization of resource use through metering capability appropriate to the type of service. Resource usage can be monitored, controlled and reported providing transparency for both the provider and company of the service employed.
Another added value of cloud computing is lower energy consumption and transfer of energy usage to the cloud computing service provider, which might have different locations and thus the ability choose where energy is cheapest. Re-allocating IT operational activities to cloud computing offers companies the opportunity to focus on innovation and on research and development, thereby enabling growth.
The key premise of the cloud is that by outsourcing portions of information management and IT operations, enterprise workers will be free to improve processes, increase productivity and innovate while the cloud provider handles operational activity smarter, faster and cheaper. Assuming this to be the case, significant changes to the existing business processes will likely be required to take advantage of the opportunities that cloud services offer.
When moving to the cloud, it is important that the business requirements for the move are understood and that the cloud service is selected to meet these needs. Taking a good-governance approach, such as COBIT1, is the key to safely embracing the cloud and the benefits that it provides without fear, and with as many advantages as I hope I have demonstrated.
About the Author
Costas Galonis is Chief Technical Officer of Cirrus Stratus.
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