HYBRID CLOUD KARMAS PATH TO RAPID GROWTH

Transcription

1 White Paper Hybrid Cloud Karmas Path to Rapid Growth HYBRID CLOUD KARMAS PATH TO RAPID GROWTH Cloud Karmas Karma : From Cloud to Clouds Cloud Deployment and Migration

2 Abstract Cloud adoption continues to expand beyond the base of cutting-edge early adopters and is now reaching the "early mainstream" stage, increasingly being looked at by enterprises as a viable model for agile, cost-effective IT delivery. However, the prevailing binary paradigm of cloud infrastructure (public versus private) limits the extent to which enterprises can fully leverage the ondemand, self-service, elastic resource provisioning attributes of public cloud while maintaining the same security, reliability, performance, and management frameworks present in current private cloud implementations. Hybrid cloud solves this problem. In simple terms, hybrid cloud is a unified IT environment encompassing both public/offsite and private/onsite cloud resources. Virtual machines, applications, and workloads operate seamlessly across different types of IT environments. Yet there are many questions that require answer before embarking on a hybrid cloud strategy. As a part of this whitepaper, we question those challenges. So what are the key considerations prior to moving to a hybrid cloud and is it really worth the hype? Page 2

3 Cloud Karmas Question #1: Cloud is infinite: How much control do you have on the cloud? Enterprises are increasingly engaging with cloud models in their businesses due to which managing business critical workloads has become way too simple. However, workloads that drive business processes cannot afford downtimes. Above that they are infrastructure-dependent and very hard to mobilize. In spite of the infinite arms open up by the cloud, the degree of control over the resources is hazily defined. Management of data in different spaces, integrating clouds with existing infrastructure is quite a task. The nature of cloud service to be provided needs to be backed up by specific data. It lies with the organisations to choose to cast data on the public or private clouds by sharing space or securing it in -house. The decision to choose cloud models is based on various business valuating factors such as criticality, regulatory compliance concerns, service levels agreements, workload usage patterns and the degree of integration required. Deployment, integration, casting and maintenance are human-driven and also critical decisions that drive the need for a concrete cloud solution. Often information on cloud is a result of enterprise analytics, BI or CRM etc. Integration of data is of core business processes and doesn t include that of on -premise hardware. Internal information from fax machines, printers, scanners etc. cannot be embraced by public cloud and needs a private space. How do we transform the business on to the cloud? Question #2: The Security Paradigm Enterprises on cloud are constantly fiddling with data lakes to organize, manage and optimize capacity. Data is tagged and shared intensively and is continuously interacting with other software components. While data storage on the cloud is quite flexible, scalable and agile, organizations are not really able to vouch on security of data. Private cloud is thus an answer to serve security of data by hosting Page 3

4 sensitive data in-house. IT infrastructure services are extending themselves across locations by storing data in specific premises, hosting data on third party provider s space, integration and so on. Public and private cloud models are individually contributing in the infrastructure service space with their own advantages. However, public cloud seems to be too loose in space such that security concerns are gravelling. Third party providers- cloud service providers and internet service providers interfere with enterprise data systems to control data transfer rate and accessibility. Whereas puffing all the data within a firewall is an intensive job involving huge upfront cost of server hardware and maintaining an entire server onsite with on-going expenses. Quite an investment, isn t it? Question #3: The balance of extremes Organizations are fairly responsible to install the hybrid solutions and state the hosting decisions as to what should be dealt with in premise and what can be shared on public grounds. It is not always easy to predict the vulnerability of data and thereby cater to exceptions in extending resources at the nook of the situation. Immediate requirements follow crisis. It may require resource purchases, licensing, compliance issues and other operational costs that cannot be served in a short span. As a result, the cloud solution provides less than the ideal flexibility for not being able to accommodate impulse requirements. In certain cases, the requirements may be such that public cloud is a mere storage platform while sensitive data explodes the available private infrastructure. Resources are inevitably idle and not utilized to the fullest. How do we make the best of the infrastructure? Page 4

5 Karma: From Cloud to Clouds The lingering questions of the enterprises w.r.t cloud adoption in hesitating to outsource their IT operations entirely to the public or protecting massive stores of data within the enterprise premises have a stand on the cloud. Companies shall be obligated in resource sharing and socialising with other business systems in holding onto cloud-only strategy. There is a trade-off in security and performance when confining operations on a single cloud. To serve complex needs, enterprise data can be broadly classified as sensitive/critical and be placed in different buckets or clouds. Data can be tamed for accessibility and transparency based on its nature. Data from various clouds may even be integrated as required. This is precisely a hybrid solution of the cloud models without getting into exclusive advantages scalability and cost of public cloud, security of the private cloud. Hybrid cloud is thus a balance of public and private clouds. Industry Impact Typical nature of data is that it works in spikes and demands on going capacities. Hybrid cloud flexibly accommodates data centres for application demands without asking for investments in huge infrastructure. This is especially relevant in mobile commerce, where data is massive and needs rigorous maintenance. Hybrid cloud in mobile retail runs workloads at ease while utilizing scalable cloud benefits and performing secure payment transaction through dedicated servers. It improves application performance by instantly scaling up and responding to traffic. At Sensiple, we believe that in order to optimise cloud resources and reduce idle time and space of resources, it is good to have hosted hybrid solutions. Instead of holding private cloud within the premise, the power of flexibility of the cloud can be reaffirmed by hosting the private cloud at the organization data centre. There is room for two cloud service providers who coordinate and scale the resource requirements dynamically. This reduces management effort of the organization to predict adhoc requirements and standardize the components to be used in either platform Sensiple s active concern on the cloud suggests that before setting the cloud stage and employing composite infrastructure, organizations need to be cloudready. Page 5

6 Being cloud-ready essentially requires evaluating the risks, challenges and complexities in installing a cloud and planning the viability to shift business goals on to cloud space. The decisions are to be aligned with organizations strategy analysing the possible pitfalls and returns in moving to cloud. This calls for expert advice that is versed with the benefits of cloud adoption as well as enterprise strategy. The knowledge to differentiate sensitive and critical data to declare boundaries or open doors of accessibility; accountability of workloads, define total cost of ownership, business objectives and so on are not system generated and requires expert intervention. Therefore a Cloud Advisory Service is the top dog in transforming business over cloud. To drive the point better, consider a banking environment where workloads are pretty complex. It finds an obvious need for banks to move to the cloud and invest heavily in IT infrastructure to help transactions quicker and better. The servers need to function efficiently by furnishing resources on demand, cater to scaling up and down during peak periods and stiller times and so on. But how much does it cost to scale up or down in a particular platform? Which is the ideal space to migrate my applications? What are the implications of hosting or migrating data onto a private/public cloud? The questions call back an expert or so called cloud advisory who thoroughly evaluates the status of the specific enterprise to make it cloud ready. For instance, cloud advisory service suggests applications that need to be inevitably secured inhouse or extend opportunities in potential platforms, employ pilot projects and so on. Expert knowledge has exhaustive understanding of data privacy and regulatory requirements. Banks need to strictly secure client data and may entail the prominence of private cloud model over public to hold trust of its consumers. The decisions are subjective and sensitive to deal with even before occupying the clouds. Cloud Deployment and Migration Having set to flap your wings in the cloud, deployment of infrastructure takes the stage. Sensiple believes that cloud infrastructure should be centrally managed by holding down network configurations. Data needs to be managed effortlessly with the same ease on public and the private grounds. Page 6

7 Cloud deployment serves the organization to leverage the right infrastructure for the right need and at the right cost. Different clouds and infrastructures are mounted onto a single domain wherein organizations run workloads all over the cloud capacity. Business requirements are varying and accordingly caseloads are moved to and fro within the cloud models (public and private) for organizational operations. Cloud migration solutions check for compatibility of environments and effortlessly activate and shut down resources which result in reduced costs and idle time of resources. Result: High performance infrastructure with minimum organization intervention. Hosted hybrid solutions are flexible and ease of migration is effortless. Any amendment or intermediate frills are accommodated. Spending decisions can be firmed by making educated decisions on the usage rate and returns on investment in cloud services. Page 7

8 Conclusion Evolution toward cloud-based IT is not an either-or proposition (i.e., public offsite cloud or private onsite cloud). Hybrid cloud introduces additional options to the cloud deployment menu for organizations. Hybrid cloud is becoming a more viable option for enterprises as cloud service providers step up to the plate and serve up solutions that leverage rather than replace internal IT frameworks, tools, and processes. Hybrid cloud offers a way to satisfy the resource requirements of line-of-business managers, application developers, and IT operations personnel, with on-demand access, self-service rapid provisioning, and scalability combined with the need to maintain a secure, reliable, policy-driven IT infrastructure. However, not all hybrid cloud service providers are created equal. IT buyers should look for solution partners that can facilitate a seamless transition to the hybrid cloud world by bringing the outside in. Extending the reach of existing datacenters to the cloud with minimal impact on current operations, tools, and applications is the right approach to enterprise-oriented cloud. The journey to the cloud should not force organizations to rewrite their applications, redesign their IT architectures, and abandon their existing management tools. Interoperable hybrid cloud services provide the most cost-efficient, most operationally efficient, and least disruptive path to the cloud for enterprises seeking a fast track to business-driven dynamic IT environments. Author Padmaja Bandi Digital Consultant, SENSIPLE Padmaja is part of Digital Consulting Group at Sensiple. She consults organizations on embarking their digital strategies. Padmaja has completed her Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunications and is a management graduate from IIT Madras. Her areas of interest are in innovation of new products and services in the Digital space which can optimize costs and build organizations for future challenges. Page 8

9 @2015 SENSIPLE Software Solutions, Chennai, India. SENSIPLE believes that the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date; such information is subject to change without prior notice. SENSIPLE acknowledges the proprietary rights of the trademarks and products names of other companies mentioned in this document. SENSIPLE is a premier IT solution provider headquartered in the United States and with delivery centers in India, SENSIPLE has extended its services across the globe. SENSIPLE has evolved from being a business consulting company in its early stages to a one stop IT solution provider over the years. Its service lines are Customer Experience, Digital Enterprise, Enterprise Applications, Testing and Infrastructure Services with clients across the globe. CORPORATE OFFICE 1000 Route 9 North, Suite 303 Woodbridge, NJ Phone : Fax : , OMAHA OFFICE Scott St, Omaha, NE Phone : Fax : OFFSHORE OFFICE Plot No: 9/A15, SIPCOT IT Park Padur Post Siruseri, Tamilnadu India Phone : Fax : SINGAPORE 662, Woodlands Ring Road #5-226 Singapore Phone :