The cloud - ULTIMATE GAME CHANGER ===========================================

The cloud - ULTIMATE GAME CHANGER =========================================== When it comes to emerging technologies, there is one word that has drawn more controversy than others: The Cloud. With cloud replacing infrastructure, hardware and software, it is ultimately changing the face of IT. It is a game changing phase of IT that is not just a passing phenomenon but a reality that has just begun to realize its potential. 1

CONTENTS Cloud-the game changer...3 Anatomy of the Cloud..3 What is cloud/ Cloud computing...3 Cloud computing service models.4 Cloud computing deployment model.5 Advantages and challenges of cloud computing Advantages 6 Challenges.6 Embracing the Cloud.7 Tips to keep your data safe in the cloud 7 Migration 8 Key Consideration before migrating data to cloud 8 Moving apps to cloud. Why, when and how?...9 Tips for migrating applications to the cloud 10 Impact of Cloud in the industry..11 Conclusion..11 2

Cloud-the game changer The Cloud has become a game changing phase of IT that it is not only impacting the way computing services are and will be delivered but also the way in which users will use IT. It has a profound impact on business operations in almost any industry today, allowing companies of all sizes to more effectively serve customers, perform risk-analysis and create new revenue streams. Cloud assures immense benefits in both commercial and technical terms. It promises to be a computing services model that is not restricted to a particular industry. Its ability to access, analyze, store and share information could not just change business but our personal lives too. Anatomy of the cloud What is Cloud / Cloud Computing? Though there are numerous definitions of the cloud, what exactly is cloud? Internet based access to low-cost computing and applications and the internet-based data and access can be together termed as a cloud. In order for any offering to be termed as a cloud it should have few characteristics like On-demand self-service, internet accessibility, pooled resources, elastic capacity and usage based billing. When the term Cloud combines with computing, it becomes bigger and fussier. Cloud Computing is typically defined as a type of computing that relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. So the phrase cloud computing means a type of internet based computing, where different services such as servers, storage and applications are delivered to an organizations computers and devices through the internet. Further, Cloud Computing can be defined in terms of the different service models and the deployment models 3

Cloud Computing Service Models Cloud computing usually delivers their service through 3 different models: The three service models are geared for different purposes Service Model Software as a Service (SaaS) Who uses It? Agency staff members Available Services Email, word processing and customer relation management tools Why use It? Business tasks performed locally on a computer Platform as a Service (PaaS) Developers and application managers Services for creating, testing, managing and hosting software applications Establish a common and consistent platform for application development Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) IT system managers Virtual machines, storage services and backup services Build a customized computing environment In SaaS model cloud providers install and operate application software in the cloud and cloud users access the software from cloud clients. Typically the user access the software on demand using a browser on a computer or mobile device. They manage the cloud infrastructure and platform where the application runs. SaaS is referred to as on-demand software and is usually priced on a pay-per-use basis. 4

In PaaS, Cloud service providers provides an online software development platform for an user and the application developers can use the provider s computing environments, tools and libraries for their applications. In IaaS, Cloud service providers provide the necessary hardware and software upon which maintaining all the physical equipment whereas the user is responsible for configuring and maintaining the operating system and the associated applications and resources. Cloud Computing Deployment Models A cloud deployment model represents a specific type of cloud environment, primarily distinguished by ownership, size and access. Basically there are four cloud deployment models: Public Clouds: A public cloud is a publicly accessible cloud environment owned by a third-party cloud provider. The cloud provider is responsible for the creation and on-going maintenance of the public cloud and its IT resources. The IT resources on public clouds are usually provisioned via the previously described cloud delivery models and are generally offered to cloud consumers at a cost or are commercialized via other avenues. Community Clouds: A community cloud infrastructure is procured jointly by several agencies or programs that share specific needs such as security, compliance, or jurisdiction consideration. The providers manage the community cloud and may keep it onpremises or off-premises Private Clouds: A private cloud is owned by a single organization. Private clouds enable an organization to use cloud computing technology as a means of centralizing access to IT resources by different parts, locations, or departments of the organization. Hybrid Clouds: Hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community or public) that remain distinct entities but are bound together, offering the benefits of multiple deployment models. A cloud consumer may choose to deploy cloud services processing sensitive data to a private cloud and other, less sensitive cloud services to a public cloud. Advantages and Challenges of Cloud Computing Recent years witnessed an increasing popularity of cloud computing and more business firms are migrating to cloud to improve speed, agility and scalability. Though the cloud promises several benefits in commercial and technical terms, but the challenges too need to be considered when planning for cloud adoption. 5

Major advantages Cloud Computing is undoubtedly the most cost-efficient method to store and process data. In the traditional method adding up the licensing fee for multiple users seems to be very expensive. Cloud offers an in-built feature, scalability, where you pay only for the application or data storage required. Clouds can be scaled to change your IT system demands Cloud offers more business agility by allowing lower switching costs from one tool to another. The automatic software integration system allows the user to pick their desired services and applications Another advantage of cloud computing is it does not require any on premise hardware or software distribution, ensures better protection from malware, and tracks external interference into your network No complaints about low storage space anymore! Cloud offers unlimited storage capacity People worldwide can access the cloud. Once registered with the cloud, data can be accessed from anywhere, anytime, provided you have a net connection Cloud offers increased collaboration. Employees anywhere can sync up and work on documents and shared apps Automatic software updates Quick deployment. Once a user registers, his entire system can be fully functional within minutes. Don t worry about the data when something happens to your machine. You can retrieve the data, which is safe in the cloud Not only its cost efficiency and flexible computing resources, cloud computing also holds the potential to redefine the relationship between corporate IT departments and business units. It is these very drivers that made cloud computing shift the paradigm of how Information Technology is used nowadays. Challenges Though the cloud service demand is growing exponentially, still there are widespread concerns about, how safe our data in the cloud? Is there any chances of hacking the cloud services? Major cloud challenges include: Privacy and security Reliability and availability Transition and execution risks Limited scope for customization Cultural resistance Regulatory ambiguity Issues of taxation Different data privacy standards Non availability of a standard code for cloud Lack of technical person 6

Embracing the cloud Before venturing to embrace the Cloud, organizations would need to evaluate a number of concerns. At first glance, though a cloud computing application may appear to be a lot cheaper, need to be sure you are doing a total cost comparison. Before you leap into the cloud, think how the drawbacks could affect your business. Many organizations today lack the necessary visibility of their application connectivity requirements and underlying security policies. Here are some key integration considerations before you embrace the cloud. Security & Compliance: While talking about the cloud, the major concern is the security of data. It is critical that you take every precautionary step to secure data from increasingly sophisticated data threats like cyber surveillance, data breaches etc. Security and compliance issues should be given the top priority as it can affect the business critically. Make sure to find a provider who has a policy driven approach to where IT policies are automatically enforced. Cost & Performance: The cost and performance should be perfectly balanced while choosing cloud. Cost has to be correctly measured and analyzed. The key factors that impact the performance of cloud includes type of media used, access protocols, and the access between storage and applications. Customers should analyze these before opting a provider. Network Vulnerabilities: Organizations should prioritize network vulnerabilities by business application. Applications can run the risk of being under performed and low availability while undergoing some reconfiguration. Business owners can opt for services such as automated replication and high availability of their application without any code changes. Key barriers to cloud adoption: Lack of confidence in ability to cloud vendors to perform IT governance Regulatory/compliance Difficulty in integration with existing systems Security Availability and Recovery capabilities: Enterprises need to have clear IT solutions that are vigilant because interruptions in computing services cause increased costs and can sometimes contribute to a loss of consumer confidence. Opt a provider who works closely with an IT consulting firm that can show them ways to organize bandwidth levels that will be sufficient to meet their IT needs. Always procure cloud service providers who offer a service level target with penalties for noncompliance. Risk of Decommissioned Applications: Decommissioned applications often lead to security risks. IT professionals have to manually identify firewall rules each time to fix the issue. In doing so, many unnecessary access rules are left creating security risks. Always use firewall rules to identify network components and applications that can effectively block unauthorized access. Complexity: The sheer complexity of any given network can lead to a lot of mistakes, especially when it comes to multiple firewalls with complex rule sets. Simplifying security management processes through automation and an application-centric approach is a must. 7

Tips to keep your data safe in the cloud While using cloud, the first thing you should do is to define the level of privacy you need and thus a level of protection for it. Data can be successfully protected through certain proper steps. Choose the right vendor Select the most reliable service provider Be clear about how the cloud service works and the user agreement of your provider Always back up your data in the cloud Make sure that you are using a very strong password Choose a vendor who offers a high level of physical security a network of fully protected secure data centers and a multi-element security system in the cloud that isolates and safeguards your important company data with firewalls, log and threat management The IT staff should constantly test all layers of protection, ensuring that systems are up to date. Migration The immense benefits of cloud made many organizations think about the decision to migrate to the cloud. However, due to the rapidly evolving Cloud market and dynamic technical information, most organizations are unsure on how to proceed with the migration into the Cloud. One of the biggest challenges organizations contemplating Cloud adoption face is where to start and what to focus on. Further, depending on the type of enterprise e.g. SMEs, government or large corporations, the challenges and migration process would vary. Key considerations before migrating data to cloud All applications as well as the supporting network infrastructure may not be suitable for migration onto the Cloud. There are both business and technical factors to consider while evaluating the suitability of an application and infrastructure for Cloud migration. Key factors to consider when moving cloud are: Security & Compliance: While talking about the cloud, the major concern is the security of data. It is critical that you take every precautionary step to secure data from increasingly sophisticated data threats like cyber surveillance, data breaches etc. Security and compliance issues should be given the top priority as it can affect the business critically. Make sure to find a provider who has a policy driven approach to where IT policies are automatically enforced. Cost & Performance: The cost and performance should be perfectly balanced while choosing cloud. Cost has to be correctly measured and analyzed. The key factors that impact the performance of cloud includes type of media used, access protocols, and the access between storage and applications. Customers should analyze these before opting a provider. Network Vulnerabilities: Organizations should prioritize network vulnerabilities by business application. Applications can run the risk of being under performed and low availability while 8

undergoing some reconfiguration. Business owners can opt for services such as automated replication and high availability of their application without any code changes. Availability and Recovery capabilities: Enterprises need to have clear IT solutions that are vigilant because interruptions in computing services cause increased costs and can sometimes contribute to a A typical cloud migration loss of consumer confidence. Opt a provider who approach involves: works closely with an IT consulting firm that can Planning, Migration, Golive and monitoring show them ways to organize bandwidth levels that will be sufficient to meet their IT needs. Always procure cloud service providers who offer a service level target with penalties for noncompliance. Risk of Decommissioned Applications: Decommissioned applications often lead to security risks. IT professionals have to manually identify firewall rules each time to fix the issue. In doing so, many unnecessary access rules are left creating security risks. Always use firewall rules to identify network components and applications that can effectively block unauthorized access. Complexity: The sheer complexity of any given network can lead to a lot of mistakes, especially when it comes to multiple firewalls with complex rule sets. Simplifying security management processes through automation and an application-centric approach is a must. Moving apps to cloud. When? Why? How? Moving an application to the cloud simply means running the app somewhere on the internet other than on your own servers. This can be done either through SaaS, PaaS or IaaS. But why put apps in the cloud? Moving the apps to the cloud is a business decision which represents a spectrum of benefits and trade-offs. The business advantages of moving to the cloud are numerous and compelling. In the broadest terms, there are three key categories of business benefits: Agility, Focus and Cost. The cloud model keeps your business more agile over the lifetime of the app. Deploying apps to the cloud lets you focus on higher-value activities. Enterprises often confused on how to choose which app should be moved to cloud. It often makes sense to start with the lowest-risk, lowest-value apps those with minimal customer data and other sensitive information or apps that take maximum advantage of the cloud s elasticity. Start your foray into the cloud with your least bandwidth-hungry apps, or apps that don t 9

require five-nine availability, so you can get a feel for how your apps run in the cloud. Carefully consider the capabilities of prospective cloud service providers before moving forward with any specific app development projects. As organizations gain experience with migrating to the cloud, new opportunities for increasing agility, focus, and cost savings will emerge, and forward-looking companies will find new ways to transform them into competitive advantage. Tips for migrating apps to the cloud When deciding to migrate an application from on-premises to the cloud there are several aspects of the application architecture like the Application Management, Application Security, Application Compatibility and Database Compatibility need to be considered. Pointers for a successful data base migration: Assess database size Application test before migration Data confidentiality Design the service level agreement document Ensure scalability Fix the right operating system Eliminating garbage Application Management: For the effective running of the app, operation management team needs data that will enable them to make effective decisions. Before the application is deployed to production, issues like service-level agreements, capacity planning, customer billing, auditing, application monitoring, traffic analysis and managing cost need to be resolved for better results. Application Security: Mission-critical applications with high-availability and compliance are not suitable for running on public clouds or external private clouds as there are issues around resource control and geographic location of data. Since security being the top concern many companies have invested substantial amount of time, money and engineering to develop security models Application Compatibility: If you have the ability to run native code and you can run applications with full trust, you must package your application before deploying it to the cloud, which means it s important to evaluate your application to see if it s a good fit. Database Compatibility: Database sizing will determine what hardware is required, and how much storage and what instance will be needed after migration. This can be undertaken by the internal IT team itself. Data confidentiality is also a deal maker. Migrate only those databases or applications which are not mission critical. First migrate those databases which can be hosted in environments that may not be trusted. Impact of Cloud in the industry Cloud has now become the way that people live. It has already made huge waves in the technology industry. Consumer cloud services such as icloud, Google Drive and Dropbox have changed the way people think about digital content and how to use it. In the enterprise sector, cloud deployment is increasingly the preferred option, no longer the niche use case. Cloud computing involves the shift from IT-based products to business-oriented services. An 10

increasing presence of services such as Microsoft s Office 365: instead of needing to buy and maintain software for every PC in the organization, companies now have access to alwaysupdated office software through the cloud. Cloud Computing allows businesses to experiment with and to implement new services faster because there is no time needed to deal with computer hardware a lot, it is easier and faster to rent computing power via a cloud service than to buy the needed servers. Cloud computing has not only impacted the IT industry but also it changed the society and economy as a whole. Conclusion Cloud Computing is the next big wave in computing. It has several benefits such as better hardware management, better and easier management of data security. To summarize, the Cloud holds promise for all types of organizations, SMEs, large corporations and government firms. Cloud computing infrastructure are next generation platforms that can provide tremendous values to companies of any size. They can help companies achieve more efficient use of their IT hardware and software investment and provide a means to accelerate the adoption of innovations. Cloud computing increases the profitability by improving the resource utilization. However, different approaches are required by each organization to leverage the Cloud effectively Stylus Cloud enabled services Stylus cloud portfolio transparently integrates all the three service models: Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and Software as a Service. We follow a structured approach to establish our client s business needs, assess the underlying technology components like infrastructure, application, processes, policies etc and then deploy the appropriate cloud computing components. We were successful in analyzing current state to identify opportunities for leveraging cloud computing, assess and recommend the optimal cloud orchestration solution set, migrate cloudready applications and data to cloud environment, management of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS components, managed services for a cloud environment etc. For best output we do the required changes across people, process and technology, and accelerate the transformation of IT to an ondemand, service-oriented environment. # 924, 5 A Cross, 1st Block, HRBR Layout, Bangalore 560043 11