Hybrid cloud: The best of public and private clouds

While the term “private cloud” means custom cloud technology for enterprises, most believe their own data centers already provide private clouds services. Since these companies also expect to adopt at least some public cloud services, the next step clearly is to build a hybrid cloud. 

But if hybridization isn’t a partnership between a public cloud and a private cloud that are built on common technologies, how does it happen? Companies expect worker application experiences to be transparent to where the application runs, which means either the experiences or the applications must be integrated in a hybrid cloud regardless of how the “private” portion is created.

A hybrid cloud’s success begins by selecting the right integration method.

Building a hybrid cloud with a front-end applicationThe dominant strategy in creating a hybrid cloud that ties traditional data centers with public cloud services involves the use of a front-end application. Most companies have created Web-based front-end applications that give customers access to order entry and account management functions, for example. Many companies have also used front-end application technologies from vendors like Citrix Systems Inc. to assemble the elements of several applications into a single custom display for end users. You can use either of these front-end methods to create a hybrid cloud.

Cloud predictions for enterprise IT in 2012

Ask around and you’ll hear it over and over again: Enterprise IT shops are worried about using the cloud. They’re concerned about the security, privacy and governance risks of moving their data and applications outside their four walls. Cloud vendor lock-in and job security are also major worries for these guys, though few IT pros will admit to the latter.  

Next year will be no different. But instead of keeping the cloud at arms’ length, which many enterprise IT shops have done this year, 2012 will be the year for taking the plunge. If you’ve been sitting on the fence, here are some thoughts on what to expect next year that might push you over the edge.

The following are my predictions based on current trends and where I see them leading us. Just some observations; I have no crystal ball.

Cloud hype ends, disillusion begins
After several years of megalomania, cloud vendors finally settle down and stop trying to prove cloud computing is real. Enterprise IT gets it: We’re looking at the next model for IT delivery and consumption. The adoption process becomes a long-term “roadmap” and a slow and safe transition touching every part of the business. It’s going to be a bumpy road.  Watch out for the vendors with professional services arms who are rubbing their hands together with glee, claiming to you show you the way forward. And channel guys: Your time is now!   

Three questions to ask when considering Microsoft Azure

Cloud computing is, for some, a means of escaping from the clutches of traditional computer and software vendors. Most enterprises realize that the value of cloud will depend on how well services integrate with their own IT commitments and investments.

Because Microsoft is so much a part of internal IT, Microsoft's cloud approach is especially important to users. Many will find it compelling; others may decide it's impossible to adopt. Which camp are you in?

The foundation of Microsoft Azure's value proposition is the notion that users must design their enterprise IT infrastructure for peak load and high reliability operation, although both of these requirements waste a lot of budget dollars. The Azure solution is to draw on cloud computing to fill processing needs that exceed the long-time average. It also backs up application resources to achieve the necessary levels of availability, if normal data center elements can't provide those levels.

This means that Azure, unlike most cloud architectures, has to be based on elastic workload sharing between the enterprise and the cloud. They accomplish this by adopting many service-oriented architecture (SOA) concepts, including workflow management (the Azure Service Bus).

VMware vCloud Director 1.5: Small but definitive step forward

Along with the release of vSphere 5, widely acclaimed as a technical success and a potential licensing crisis, VMware has unveiled vCloud Director 1.5 Both are not available yet, but the details have been released. Users hail it as a great start to getting a viable private cloud from VMware.

Overall, however, vCD deployment remains very low, with lighthouse cases in some enterprise test and dev environments and most traction at service providers. Private organization adoption is sparse; one person listed as a vCloud Director customer by VMware and contacted for this story did not know if they were using the product and thought a former graduate student may have experimented with it at some point.

That might begin to change since, most importantly, deployment options for vCloud Director (vCD) have changed. It still needs to be deployed to a dedicated server host running RHEL, but it now supports Microsoft SQL 2005 and 2008 databases for a backend, and VMware promises more database support to come.

"To be honest, the biggest thing that stopped us going forward was the Oracle licensing," said Gurusimran Khalsa, systems administrator for the Human Services Division of the State of New Mexico. He said his agency had already endured several years of consolidation and virtualization and vCloud Director looked attractive. HSD even bought a few licenses to experiment with but never used them because the requirement for Oracle was something the division had successfully dodged in the past and wasn’t about to sacrifice for vCD.

HP CloudSystem: What exactly is it?

HP claims to have put private cloud, hybrid cloud and possibly public cloud in its pocket to sell to enterprises and service providers. But CloudSystem, as it is known, isn't so much a platform as a collection of intersecting HP products and roadmaps to get cloud capabilities -- elastic, self-service provisioning, storage and metered use -- into your data center.

There's CloudSystem Matrix, CloudSystem Enterprise, CloudStart Solution, Cloud Service Automation, Cloud Service Delivery, CloudMaps, Cloud Matrix Operating Environment, CloudSystem Security, CloudAgile, and on and on. HP suddenly has a lot of stuff stamped "cloud." What's more, there's no shrink-wrap; you pick bits here and there, and HP helps you install and tune it. Fortunately, there's at least one example in the wild to see what actually constitutes an "HP cloud."

"Yes, they do have an awful lot to look at," said Christian Teeft, VP of engineering for data center operator and services provider Latisys. Teeft said Latisys may well have the first live CloudSystem environment at an HP customer. Latisys is using the system to sell cloud infrastructure services, which come in "private" and "semi-private" options; dedicated clouds for customers, as it were.

Teeft said Latisys deliberately leaned away from startups and smaller cloud platform vendors, talking to enterprise vendors and other service providers like NewScale, Joyent, BMC and others about automation, but HP had the country club marquee customers and Teeft liked the integration with HP's hardware.

"There are synergies with HP around hardware blade systems and ISS," he said.

Industry Standard Server Technology Communications (ISS technology communications) is HP's way of distributing technology guides and techniques to users, a bit like Microsoft's TechNet.