Critical Step On the Journey toward the Private Cloud: Analyzing the future

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1 Critical Step On the Journey toward the Private Cloud: Analyzing the future Dr. Madhumita Dash, Mr. R N Panda, Assistant Professor, DSMS[rnpanda2007@gmail.com] Abstract I. INTRODUCTION The concept of Cloud revolves around having a pool of resources that can be used across multiple applications which can be achieved if resources are of the same type. Depending on the original design, age and limitation of the current data center with a view on new business needs, one can look at a steady migration from a data center to a private Cloud in an optimal manner making the best possible use of available resources. This might involve some tradeoffs, which can be debated and decided on in a conscious way based on business need and affordability. The private Cloud includes readiness for radical change and discipline for data movement and security. Private Cloud has a dynamic environment (test & development Cloud)and they need to create new IT environments on the fly because of the number of test requests that keep coming in. Private Cloud can act as aggregators helping reduce the gap between the public and the private Cloud by operating in a hybrid manner. This paper provides a high-level overview of cloud computing models, outlines some of the important benefits of using private cloud and also suggests some steps that can be taken toward its adoption.. Key Words: Hybrid Manner,Private Cloud, Tradeoff. Cloud computing provides innovative options to collaborate at work with social networking, micro-blogging evolving from a traditional theme of enterprise portals, identity, and content management. It opens up newer options on how data is handled with ability to mine sources of data previously not feasible to provide "business intelligence, analytics, and data warehousing" as-as-a-service. It provides cheaper options for high performance computing leveraging the commoditization of Infrastructure. With the automation that it brings in, it provides better efficiency and cost savings on application maintenance and infrastructure management. Cloud-based computing is the end state when developing or evolving an enterprise's architecture and cuts across various spheres of IT architectures. It is taking service orientation of applications and infrastructure to the next level. Three steps in the Cloud journey IT production: get into basic virtualization and server consolidation; target test & development applications; Business production: target mission-critical applications; if a company is using Oracle for financials or SAP for order-entry, convert into virtual environments using pools of resources; IT-as-a-service: In the final stage all IT things would be served from an SLA perspective gold, silver, bronze etc. The cloud space is rapidly adopting a plethora of new acronyms and phrases to describe different aspects of the offering, which is the next evolution of the Internet. 17

2 Cloud Computing has kicked off the next big wave in business computing, namely Private Cloud Computing. It is offering many benefits including business agility, security, scalability and reduced administration resulting in a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for any size and type of company. The recent innovations in mobile device and virtualization technologies, including today s comprehensive wireless access to high-speed Internet, have all contributed to the acceleration of Cloud Computing. Fueled by the rapid growth of Social Computing, mobility and availability has become a key factor for the hardware and software industry, with mobile devices and applications (apps) accessing the web set to be bigger than traditional desktop computing by 2015.The number of employees using their own smart phones and tablet devices to access both, Private/Corporate and Public Cloud Services is fast increasing. This recent development has forced decision makers in most IT departments to make business applications available in similar ways.cloud Computing began with the Public Cloud where a service provider makes resources available to the public either for free or with a pay as you go model. This can include computing services, applications and storage. This model is low cost and easy to set up with no need to worry about scalability as you only pay for what you use. Examples of the Public Cloud include Google Apps and Amazon Web Services. The Public Cloud addressed the needs of the market but it was not tailored to the needs of individual companies. While it offers many benefits, there are certain applications that require stricter control over data. This has lead to the evolution of Private Cloud Computing or delivering IT as a service securely within your own infrastructure. II. BENEFITS OF PRIVATE CLOUD COMPUTING A private cloud is built specifically to provide cloud services internally to an organization. Private clouds can be in a co-located facility or in an existing data center. A private cloud gives a high level of control over the cloud services and the cloud infrastructure to an organization. The Private Cloud is essentially a Cloud Infrastructure that operates solely for a single organization or where the service access is limited to a specific group of people. Private Cloud Computing is comprised of networking, server hardware (which usually provides server virtualization), storage and management tools. This is most often managed internally but also can be hosted externally by a Managed Service Provider (MSP), which is then known as a Virtual Private Cloud.To summarize the 12-Step Private Cloud Computing comparison chart shown above, the most compelling benefits of Private Cloud Computing are as follows: Mobility / Access provides simple and secure access whenever you want, wherever you are. 18

3 Scalability allows seamless scalability for your business. Data Security the security concerns around Public Cloud computing by allowing companies to maintain sovereignty and control of access to data. Offsite Data Backup ensures your data is safely backed up on an offsite location. Universal Printing & Scanning Private Cloud Computing provides easily accessible printing and scanning from any location. Client Device Independent enable the use of employees own mobile device without compromising security. Resource Sharing a Private Cloud solution ensures organizational efficiency through effective resource sharing. Reduced Workload for IT Administrators by using built-in automation tools for Private Cloud solutions, the workload for IT administrators is reduced. Business Agility using virtual servers instead of physical servers, IT administrators can quickly scale-up capacity as required, and deploy new applications quickly without the need to build and test hardware. Uptime & High Availability the systems management tools of Private Cloud computing can detect when the infrastructure supporting an application is about to go down, and launch a new virtual machine to shift the load over. Uptime & Reliability business critical applications can be kept within the Private Cloud by applying SLA s so they continue to operate in an outage, while less important services can be supported cost-effectively to the Public Cloud. Capital Expenditure eliminates the cost for constant hardware and software upgrades, therefore reducing IT related capital expenditure. ROI a Private Cloud solution provides a fast ROI, as IT costs are reduced while IT processes are improved, making the organization run more efficiently in a secure environment. Control over Regulatory Environments the Private Cloud allows for adherence to regulatory constraints around data locality, disaster recovery and privacy. III. WAY TO CREATING A PRIVATE CLOUD Once the benefits of Private Cloud computing are understood the right model must be selected to fit the business needs. There are several questions that have to be answered in order to setup a Private Cloud. Should you build your own Private Cloud or use an MSP and a Virtual Private Cloud? What platform will be used to create the infrastructure? Can security threats be contained? How will it be managed? Network links and network components to include failover techniques Security devices or implementations Least critical application(s) with the least number of users Compare productivity results (before and after the Cloud deployment) Fix and tweak Continue migrating applications and users at a pace acceptable to your risk assessment Choosing a Public or a Private Cloud solution requires significant due diligence before a decision can be made. Using Public Cloud may seem like a logical choice but may be more costly than Private Cloud in the end. Public Cloud promises to be efficient, scalable and 19

4 reliable but has fallen short on more than one occasion. The main problem with Public Cloud computing is the shared infrastructure environment that creates security exposure and potential hardware issues from other customers. Private Cloud on the other hand has dedicated resources that can be managed by the customer and provide greater reliability and higher security. IV. ANALYZING THE FUTUE /PLATFORM FOR CLOUD COMPUTING One of the main goals of cloud computing is to provide uninterrupted service to users. Virtual servers provide administrators with tools to minimize server crashes and provide failover capabilities that are built into the hypervisor. There are numerous hardware and hypervisors available to choose from and build a platform from. In a Private Cloud solution choosing the right platform is not only a matter cost but the skill set of the team. The major hypervisor platforms (VMware, Hyper-V and Citrix) merits are largely considered based on cost and features. With Public Clouds like EC2 the platform is the product the provider is selling so then it s a matter of choosing the right product. Evaluating the product based on price and performance will be the main focus but there are other factors. Some other factors to consider are network security, storage, disaster recovery procedures, service-level agreements (SLA), and the location of the facility. When dealing with Public Clouds it s imperative to choose the right provider because contracts with the provider and the difficulties involved in changing providers can be considerable. Cloud Storage is usually in the form of a SAN which provides flexibility and scalability for customers. Other advantages of Cloud Storage are continuity of service, disaster recovery and security depending on the cloud model. These features may help customers meet regulatory requirements and provide access to resources that are costly and a skilled staff to implement. Providers may also offer backup services that can be replicated to alternate facilities. The traditional benefits of cloud computing will be experienced initially through the adoption of private and community clouds internally or by a group of public-sector institutions. Hence, the benefits of cost efficiencies, agility to adapt to mission demands, improved automation, focus on core competency, and sustainability will be achieved in private clouds first. As hybrid and public clouds mature for adoption by governments, these benefits will be achieved 20

5 in parallel with hybrid and public clouds. Coming to Security part, While choosing the right platform is imperative securing the data in the cloud also requires substantial planning. Security is an issue that has similar concerns for both Private Cloud and Virtual Private Cloud. While the provider will be responsible for network security in the Virtual Private Cloud model, in both models server security is the responsibility of the server administrator. Again this demonstrates the need to thoroughly pick a provider or have staff with the necessary skills to effectively secure corporate data. A provider should be able to produce a comprehensive security strategy that meets industry standards such as PCI and other specific standards related to the business such as HIPPA. This may be a difficult challenge for staff to create in a Private Cloud due to the knowledge and equipment that may be required to achieve PCI compliance. V. CONCLUSION The evolution of Private Cloud computing is beginning to deliver on its promise, and many organizations have started to capitalize on the benefits. The cloud paradigm has some constant factors to account for in any scenario, such as Scalability, Security, Availability and Cost Transparency. Proper planning, through the implementation of concepts discussed in this whitepaper, will ensure that organizational investments in Private Cloud computing are not crippled by unexpected downtime, sky rocketing costs or security breaches. REFERENCES [1 ] Mariana Carroll, Paula Kotzé, Alta van der Merwe (2012). "Securing Virtual and Cloud Environments". In I. Ivanov et al. Cloud Computing and Services Science, Service Science: Research and Innovations in the Service Economy. Springer Science Business Media. doi: / [2] Strachey, Christopher (June 1959). "Time Sharing in Large Fast Computers ".Proceedings of the International Conference on Information processing, UNESCO. paper B.2.19: [3] Cloud Computing Grows Up: Benefits Exceed Expectations According to Report. Press Release, May 21, [4]Andreas Tolk What Comes After the Semantic Web - PADS Implications for the Dynamic Web. 20th Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS '06). IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA. [5] King, Rachael ( ). "Cloud Computing: Small Companies Take Flight". Business week. Retrieved [6] Mao, Ming; M. Humphrey (2012). "A Performance Study on the VM Startup Time in the Cloud". Proceedings of 2012 IEEE 5th International Conference on Cloud Computing (Cloud2012): 423. doi: /cloud ISBN [7] He, Sijin; L. Guo, Y. Guo (2011). "Real Time Elastic Cloud Management for Limited Resources". Proceedings of 2011 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cloud Computing (Cloud2011): doi: /cloud ISBN [8] : Changing the mobile landscape.ieee Pervasive Computing, 10:4 7, [9] B.-G. Chun, S. Ihm, P. Maniatis, M. Naik, and A. Patti. Clonecloud: elastic execution between mobile device and cloud. In Proceedings of the sixth conference on Computer systems, EuroSys 11, pages ACM,