Multiple Provider Cloud

Most companies are choosing multiple cloud providers and cloud configurations to best meet their needs: Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Software as a Service and so on.

Between the existing constraints (budget limitations, data privacy, limited bandwidth, lack of know-how) and the customer’s increasing demand of services, their best bet is to integrate such new and innovative technologies with the existing IT infrastructure in order to get more value.

The result is a mixed hybrid between Public Clouds – enabling them to quickly develop, test and deploy applications and Private Clouds – used to maintain the highest levels of security and availability for business processes and critical data. In many cases, traditional on-premises IT continues to be part of this landscape as there are still many legacy applications and processes to be handled in the old-fashioned way.

This multi-cloud approach and the adoption of Agile software development framework led to several innovations in the IT landscape:

• Changes in the way software products are designed (Micro-Services);
• Changes in the way software is tested and deployed (Continuous Integration);
• Changes in the way software is packed and deployed (Container Technology);
• Changes in the way software is managed (Dev-Ops);
• Changes in the way cloud platforms are managed (Integrated Cloud Management).

The general expectation is that the new approach will accelerate over the next decade due to its focus on business and customer requirements and due to the flexibility it provides.

The trends seem to be sustained by recent changes in the IT landscape:

1. The acquisition of GitHub by Microsoft completed on Oct 26, 2018:

“GitHub will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently, and remain an open platform. Together, the two companies will work together to empower developers to achieve more at every stage of the development lifecycle, accelerate enterprise use of GitHub, and bring Microsoft’s developer tools and services to new audiences”.

1. The acquisition of Red Hat by IBM agreed and announced on Oct. 28, 2018:

“This acquisition brings together the best-in-class hybrid cloud providers and will enable companies to securely move all business applications to the cloud. Companies today are already using multiple clouds. However, research shows that 80 percent of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud, held back by the proprietary nature of today’s cloud market. This prevents portability of data and applications across multiple clouds, data security in a multi-cloud environment and consistent cloud management.
IBM and Red Hat will be strongly positioned to address this issue and accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption. Together, they will help clients create cloud-native business applications faster, drive greater portability and security of data and applications across multiple public and private clouds, all with consistent cloud management. In doing so, they will draw on their shared leadership in key technologies, such as Linux, containers, Kubernetes, multi-cloud management, and cloud management and automation”.

The Public Cloud

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Last update: August 28, 2018

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The Public Cloud is a type of infrastructure owned by a third party, accessible remotely. It is physically controlled by its owner and it is available to the general public based on different pricing models.

This type of infrastructure is usually shared between several systems and customers, each having access to the desired resources based on their needs. It can be managed by a service provider (sometimes different than the owner).

The Private Cloud and Public Cloud are similar in terms of architecture, configuration, administration and offered services. The main differentiators are the security and privacy factors: a Public Cloud offers its services over public networks, while the Private Cloud is usually setup to work in a private network.

Some of the big players in the cloud market have developed and are currently offering secure (direct) connectivity services, but a customer would need to invest in secure connections up to the service provider’s connectivity hub.

Public Cloud services are usually preferred by small and medium size entities that lack the financial power to sustain the required infrastructure or by organizations that are less concerned by security and privacy.

Of course, the Public Cloud can be used in safe ways, too, usually as a mixture of existing infrastructure with Private Clouds and Public Clouds. This architecture type allows organizations to separate and secure data from processes while providing business flexibility.

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According to the NIST definition: The infrastructure “is provisioned for open use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government organisation, or some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud provider“.

Other information sources: Wikipedia, NIST.

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See also:

• Cloud Computing
• Mobile Devices

You might be interested in:

• Security and Privacy Education
• IT Education

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The Private Cloud

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Last update: August 23, 2018

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The Private Cloud is the type of infrastructure on premises that can be physically controlled. It enables an organization to easily switch from application level hardware and software provisioning, to information systems sharing the same hardware and software platforms.

This is considered the next step in the evolution of the infrastructure model, aiming to create a modern setup and to optimize the resource allocation and utilization while trying to minimize the hardware and software investment (acquisition, management, maintenance, etc).

The Private Cloud setup is usually preferred by large size entities, having the financial power to build and maintain such infrastructure, sometimes at global scale. These organizations value their business and their privacy and security more than the costs incurred by this type of setup.

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According to the NIST definition: The “infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organisation comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and operated by the organisation, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises“.

Other information sources: Wikipedia, NIST.

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Related posts:

• Cloud Computing
• Mobile Devices

You might be interested in:

• Security and Privacy Education
• IT Education

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Cloud – What is it?

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Cloud or Cloud Computing is “an Information Technology paradigm that enables ubiquitous access to shared pools of configurable system resources and higher-level services that can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort“, according to Wikipedia.

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Short history

In the beginnings of the computing era, infrastructure resources (typically called computer hardware) belonged to each individual or organization. The infrastructure management required professional skills which had to be hired for a price. The need for such skills led to the appearance of a new type of business: companies providing specialized infrastructure management services.

The evolution of the Internet created the need to be present on-line and, in some cases, to work remotely, to exchange information with others. Those needs first materialized in the early adoption of public e-mail service providers (e.g. Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, Google).

As technology evolved, increased file sizes and people’s need to collaborate translated into the need for on-line storage and sharing capabilities. As such, services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Box were made available to the public.

Also, as organizations (e.g. service providers, shopping stores, etc.) and individuals (e.g. artists, crafts-mans, etc.) needed to make themselves available to the public via Internet, specialized companies offering hosting services and platforms emerged (e.g. WordPress, Blogger, etc.).

Over time, such companies and platforms evolved, others were newly created and most of them offer now integrated capabilities, usually purchased as a subscription:

• Managed services – Software as a Service (SaaS);
• Managed platform hosting – Platform as a Service (PaaS);
• Managed hardware resources – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

 

What does it mean?

This means that a business or an individual can easily use existing services in order to quickly have a web page and its content made available to the public, in order to send an e-mail or to store and share documents with others.

All of that can be done without the need for advanced IT skills, for expensive hardware, for back-up solutions, for infrastructure management services or for additional software licenses.

Cloud Computing’s goal – as it was defined by Wikipedia – is to rely “on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a public utility“.

Professional infrastructure management services are still required, but they can be provided by the service, platform or infrastructure owner, depending on each individual’s or each organization’s needs, preferences or budget.

 

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Based on the technological landscape changes, NIST further refined the Cloud Computing definition in its Special Publication 800-145: “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”.

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