Cloud Computing - Is it raining?
Yesterday, I had a customer call me and inquire about cloud computing. Cloud computing, as I define it, is the ability for organizations to rent computer time and space from the "cloud computing" services such as those from Amazon and Google. It is generally viewed as an alternative from either hosting your own infrastructure yourself, or even outsourcing your infrastructure, but managing it yourself (in essence, a private "cloud").
Here at DonorPerfect, we employ the private cloud strategy, because we feel that we are experts in software management, but not hardware. As such, we manage the software, and rely on expertise from our hardware infrastructure service provider, Peer1. Together, we deliver our solution as "Software as a Service", or SaaS, which is one of the techno-buzzword-bingo words you'll find today in our industry.
But are we going far enough??? There's even more buzz in the industry that one shouldn't have to rely on physical servers at all, and place all of the software and data in "the cloud". This way, you only pay for what you need, like water or electricity, and you never have to worry about pesky hardware or software updates, and you experience 100% uptime.
Or do you?
Lately, there's been some problems with this idea, including security concerns and outages, so once again, a new technology may not be all what it's cracked up to be.
Not all new technologies pan out. Time will tell if cloud computing is one of them.
Here at DonorPerfect, we employ the private cloud strategy, because we feel that we are experts in software management, but not hardware. As such, we manage the software, and rely on expertise from our hardware infrastructure service provider, Peer1. Together, we deliver our solution as "Software as a Service", or SaaS, which is one of the techno-buzzword-bingo words you'll find today in our industry.
But are we going far enough??? There's even more buzz in the industry that one shouldn't have to rely on physical servers at all, and place all of the software and data in "the cloud". This way, you only pay for what you need, like water or electricity, and you never have to worry about pesky hardware or software updates, and you experience 100% uptime.
Or do you?
Lately, there's been some problems with this idea, including security concerns and outages, so once again, a new technology may not be all what it's cracked up to be.
Not all new technologies pan out. Time will tell if cloud computing is one of them.
Labels: Cloud Computing, SaaS
posted by Jon Biedermann at
10:37 AM
2 Comments:
I am also curious about the future of "The Cloud". While the answers today seem to scream, "cloud is the way to go!", I'm finding it hard to follow.
"Only pay for what you need, like water or electricity." Unfortunately, this isn't how it works with the utility companies. Whether you use it or not - there is always a cost, perhaps a smaller cost, but a cost nonetheless.
"Place all of the software and data in the cloud." I'm not sure about others, but I've always been taught to never put all of your eggs in one basket.
There are so many definitions of 'the cloud' or 'cloud computing' and most of what I'm reading always comes back full circle around "cost". Other definitions are:
- cost
- reliability
- scalability
- pay-as-you-go billing
- live phone support
- a vendor that cares about their success
- SLA (service level agreement)
- availability of knowledgeable consultants or outsourced operations services on the platform
- suitability to their existing application
- built-in high availability or DR architecture
- availability of add-on services such as monitoring, performance testing, backup, security audits
- certification compliance (such as SAS70)
- flexibility and/or partnership orientation of the cloud vendor as a long-term business partner
- vendor lock-in issues
- level of access to control logic
- hands-off operation of the cloud
When running a business, I'm just not sure I would want to "put all those eggs into one basket."
The future of the cloud will be an interesting one to watch.
Also, your private cloud strategy clearly works well. PEER 1 takes the complexity out of running your online business, so that you can focus on your core competencies that you are the expert at.
This is possible by letting the experts at PEER 1 take care of your IT infrastructure 24x7x365 to ensure your mission-critical sites are running online all of the time.
A GREAT example of success.
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