Cloud, Infrastructure and Security

It was an interesting question by one of our Manufacturing clients, when we were discussing an opportunity to leverage Microsoft Azure .Net Service Bus for their innovative SaaS product offering.  The intent of the question was loud & clear from the tone backed-up by the data-points from recently published, highly debated McKinsey report – Clearing the Air on the Cloud – where the cost effectiveness of cloud for large enterprises was questioned.

We presented a bunch of case-studies to our client - some executed by Infosys and some publicly available on internet. As a most trusted transformation partner & technology advisor, we shared our viewpoints on each-one-of-them.

We also presented the counter argument from Booz Allen Hamilton on the referred McKinsey report. It helped turn the table – we were able to shape the discussion in the comfort zone to every stakeholder on the call – you know how difficult this is in short meetings!

NASDAQ

• The NASDAQ case listed on AzureJournal titled “NASDAQ is using Amazon for Data Storage”. It says NASDAQ stores lots of terabytes of NASDAQ, NYSE and Amex data using Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), it adds 30 GB to 80 GB data everyday! 
• We also found another similar article on WallStreetAndTech titled “Cloud Computing Begins to Gain Traction on Wall Street”, saying that the initial monthly bill received from Amazon Web Services were as low as $5 when NASDAQ launched a product called Market Replay using S3.

We constructively debated with our client about using cloud storage, the pros & cons and enterprise concerns on data security and ownership. The client was finding this case-study most innovative, we had interesting technology oriented and pricing model related discussion on it.

Eli Lilly

• The InformationWeek listed an article titled “How Eli Lilly Taps into the Cloud” to help support and accelerate the pharmaceutical research by provisioning on-demand servers and storage.
• Another article on InformationWeek titled “Eli Lilly on what’s next in Cloud Computing” articulates how Eli Lilly was able to provision on-demand servers in just few minutes which were initially taking few weeks. 

We presented to our client our viewpoint on how Eli Lilly was able to accelerate deployment time multi-fold using on-demand infrastructure provisioning without any large CAPEX investments.

We had an interesting exchange of ideas around the concepts of virtualization and cloud computing in context of this case study to see which one is most cost effective in client’s IT infrastructure (datacenter) environment.

GlaxoSmithKline

• We also cited a recent Microsoft Press Release titled “Microsoft signs agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to deploy Exchange Online” it was one of the large deployments of Microsoft Cloud offering Microsoft Online.
• We also cited experienced shared by the GlaxoSmithKline VP of Information Technology Strategy on Microsoft Online Team Services Blog titled “GlaxoSmithKline standardizes on Microsoft Online Services”, where he mentions ~30% cost reduction IT operational cost.
• The most credible one was from the GlaxoSmithKline Annual Report, 2008 pointing out financial savings, productivity improvement and enhanced collaboration through Microsoft Online.

With this context, we presented our viewpoint on Lean IT Transformation for realizing IT cost savings leveraging cloud computing. The client was instantaneous to react to this one – “Yes; we know about it, it is on the roadmap”.

Federal Agencies

• We also talked about latest buzz by the Obama’s TIGR (Technology, Innovation and Government Reform) team on cloud computing as a catalyst to reduce cost on YouTube - Inside the Transition: Technology, Innovation and Government.
• We highlighted the availability of Federally Compliant Trusted Cloud Computing offering by ServerValut and Apptis as FedCloud to various Federal Agencies for IT compliance.
• We also shared a case-study for Open Government Data Initiative (OGDI) where Federal Agencies are using Azure to store publicly available data. The developers, ISVs or enterprises can use APIs to consume these data and build mash-up for better citizen services, improve collaboration & networking.

We were able to answer many of security and privacy related questions by presenting the FedCloud and OGDI case-study, we acknowledged the current perceptions and limitations w.r.t security on the cloud. We also highlighted data ownership, penalty on SLA, cloud interoperability and cloud service provider lock-in related issues.

Microsoft & Amazon Case Study Depot

We also presented few more selective case-studies from Amazon and Microsoft to showcase the applicability of cloud computing technology, related solutions & services in different business scenarios. At broad level we briefly covered the business scenarios where cloud computing can be used for hosting, storage, content delivery and commerce:

• Infrastructure as a Service
• Platform as a Service
• Software as a Service
• Storage as a Service
• Datacenter as a Service
• Private Cloud as a Service

Personally, I am impressed around storage service offerings from cloud, especially the digital media content stored on cloud delivered to various subscribers creating a next generation content delivery architecture for e.g. read Sony Pictures Imageworks case study. You can find similar case studies on Amazon (Content Delivery / Media Hosting section) and Microsoft Azure Case Study Resources.

What Infosys is doing?

We also discussed the Infosys capabilities with the client in terms of various case studies, credentials, IP (solution accelerators), solution and service offerings and Cloud Computing CoE activities - some of these are published on Infosys web site and some I cannot share it here, respecting the Infosys IP. You can reach-out to us for more information through our micro-site feature request for services.

We did not discuss the below over the short meeting, but shared URLs offline with our client to support our claims with specific data-points. This is the mantra of success from our Chief Mentor - “In God we trust, everybody else brings data to the table”.

• Infosys Case Study published on Microsoft Azure Case Study Resources
• Forrester Report - Should Your Email Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis
• Cost Benefit Analysis of On-premise Vs Cloud Hosting Vs Managed Hosting for Microsoft SharePoint, read my blog titled Business Case @ Cloud
• Cost Benefit Analysis of On-premise Vs Cloud Hosting Vs Managed Hosting for Enterprise Datacenters, read my blog titled You gonna buy a house, or rent one?

What your enterprise is doing?

Tell us what you think about cloud computing, what your enterprise is doing or planning? Share your thoughts with us.

Cloud technologies being fairly nascent and the space evolving rapidly with the emergence of new players and re-positioning of leading platform players honing their products for the cloud has given way for several new and innovative opportunities to be explored but then its rapid adoption is being hindered due to several concerns primarily revolving around data privacy, loss of control, reliability etc... I shall touch upon reliability here.Read on.

What makes up the cloud? Is it a product or a technology? What are the catalysts that have hastened the formation of the cloud?

Continue reading here

Concepts of private and public clouds came into existence when cloud computing was an emerging trend trying to lay its roots into the large scale enterprise’s IT environment. The multi-tenant model of public clouds succeeded in attracting numerous small-scale organizations, which found the CapEx savings and reduced development time as alluring.

But large-scale enterprises see the public nature of cloud as a potential issue for adoption.  Moreover, the fact that the IT is out of the limits of their control further alleviates the threat to public cloud’s adoption.

With an aim to tackle the challenges of public cloud a concept of in-house private clouds caught pace. However though private clouds are supposed to emulate the public cloud functionalities, they introduce their own shortcomings of scalability and up-front costs.

Hybrid model combining best of both worlds can be a solution.

Hybrid be the way:

What can help enterprises is a hybrid approach that allows them to adopt the public clouds partially, deploying only those services which they see suitable. No doubt, the success of this hybrid approach is, defined by how seamlessly the underlying public and private clouds can interact and work together in unison.

One typical use case where the hybrid approach does sound beneficial is in making sure the performance is unaffected in case of sudden load spikes. Instances of same application can reside on both private and public cloud. A cloud integration manager directs the request to the public cloud the moment internal infrastructure underlying the private cloud fails to handle the increased load. This allows the limited usage of the massively scalable environment of public clouds. At the same time, it also allows enterprises to use their existing infrastructure.

Simple it may sound but..

Although this integration of public and private cloud looks alluring, it brings forth some of its implementation challenges. Moreover the basis for this integration is how close the private clouds can emulate the public clouds. As put forth by Google's Vinton Cerf, cloud-to-cloud (be it public or private ) computing remains a challenge to overcome.

In my first blog Down pour or Drizzle to Enterprise?   I wrote how large enterprises can take a drizzle in the Cloud.

In this let us look one of the Cloud providers – Google App Engine (GAE).

Is Google App Engine ready for the Enterprise?

Where enterprises can start the adoption?

Google App Engine was launched in Apr. 2008. New Biz start-up and Small & Medium enterprises were the early adopters.

The initial version had only support for Python programming with Non relational database support.
Recently Java support has been added and this can accelerate the enterprise adoption.

The question now, where enterprises can start taking a drizzle in the GAE cloud?

1. Lite weight applications which involves enterprise customer/consumer participation.
   One good example is Giftag a Web 2.0 gift registry sharing application by Best Buy, Consumer electronics retailer.
2. Applications which mainly involves Mash-ups and Aggregations (programmable web kind of stuff) and also, requires millions of users scaling in quick time.
   BuddyPoke a start-up was able to provide 3-D avatar creation environment which can be used in social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace.
3. Application which would have limited shelf life with higher scalability need with consumer participation (e.g. a social marketing campaign application around Christmas event)

Applications which are more Intranet & B2B in nature with higher data, transaction and security management needs are not suitable as on now.

Is your enterprise using Google App Engine to any of the above scenarios?