AVAILABILITY SERVICES
BUILDING A BETTER CLOUD Over the last few years, cloud computing has changed the face of business and IT. It has created new opportunities to manage technology resources, trim costs, and ratchet up productivity. Simply put: It offers an impressive framework for achieving bottom-line results. Yet achieving success isn’t as simple as deploying systems and software. The complex nature of cloud environments, combined with the fact that information stored in them is potentially accessible to a wide range of users—including people outside of the organization—translates into the need for a solid yet practical framework. It’s no small matter. An organization must confront issues centering on security and privacy, performance and service level agreements, who controls information, and how to best deliver services, all while managing practical and cultural changes. Assembling an effective plan for a cloud infrastructure is paramount. When organizations put the right strategic pieces in place the result is maximum return on investment and an ability to achieve competitive differentiation. CLOUDS TAKE SHAPE A cloud infrastructure is complex by design. It typically involves a service provider, multiple servers, virtualization software, security solutions, service level agreements and more. Clouds operate under three basic models: Infrastructure as a Service (computing resources are held in one location and available on demand); Platform as a Service (an organization can build and deploy applications to support its business needs); and Software as a Service (a business has the tools to fully manage its applications). Cloud environments are attractive for a number of reasons. First, they eliminate a single point of failure. If one node of the network fails, there’s no hit on overall performance and there’s no downtime. They also provide a high level of flexibility and agility. An organization can scale up capacity almost instantly rather than adding and provisioning servers over a period of days or weeks. Likewise, it’s possible to scale down once peak demand has passed. Whereas virtualization enables improved utilization of IT resources, cloud computing provides a tool for managing an environment at maximum efficiency. This high level of flexibility ensures that an organization operates within a least-cost model. An organization pays only for the resources and storage that’s needed at any given moment, which helps drive down CAPEX and OPEX costs associated with a variety of non-core activities. It allows a company to tap into business applications in a more efficient and cost effective way. As a result, a growing number of organizations are adopting cloud computing. An IDG Research survey of IT leaders found that 71 percent of organizations have cloud environments in place or will have a cloud operational within 18
BUILDING A BETTER CLOUD | 2
months. These clouds are being used for a variety of purposes: production application hosting; disaster recovery and business continuity; test/development app hosting; and back-up/storage. What’s more, organizations view clouds as ideal for e-mail and collaboration, CRM, business intelligence, business analytics, e-commerce, telephony, and financial applications. PUTTING CLOUDS TO WORK Developing an effective cloud strategy and transforming it into an actual infrastructure is critical. Organizations must confront and overcome a number of pain points to achieve success. Consider: 68 percent of the IDG respondents indicated that security is a primary concern; 57 percent worry about control over information; 43 percent grapple with cultural and mind-set shifts within the enterprise; 43 percent fret over SLAs; and 37 percent have concerns about system performance. One-third have concerns about the maturity of the technology.
percent are eyeing clouds for disaster recovery and business continuity, 12 percent for testing and development of application hosting, and 7 percent for backup and storage. CONCLUSION In today’s high stakes and cost-conscious environment, developing the right cloud strategy and infrastructure is critical. In the end, it’s essential to rely on an industry leading service provider with a track record of success and financial stability; tap into technology solutions that provide high availability and flexibility; and fashion a service level agreement that reduces risk and maximizes opportunity. Organizations that develop a cohesive strategy for cloud computing put IT resources to work more efficiently while simplifying their IT infrastructure. They’re poised for far greater success and improved ROI.
In fact, ensuring that data remains private and protected is the most important consideration for IT executives when deploying a cloud. Slightly less than one-third of respondents cited these two issues as top of mind. But an array of other factors also enter the picture. The list includes: regulatory and compliance issues, data location, application isolation, and an ability to perform disaster recovery.
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Addressing issues revolving around security, Internet resilience and bandwidth, and compliance is paramount. Resilience requires an infrastructure and services that are hardened against disruptions and failures. This environment must also provide adequate bandwidth—along with the ability to scale clouds up and down as needed.
• A proven track record for success, including references and reports.
Effective cloud security revolves around the right mix of security tools and technologies. The list might include intrusion detection, Web filtering, malware protection, encryption and Data Loss Prevention (DLP). Yet it also requires well-conceived security policies that match the organization’s requirements and direct employees appropriately.
• The ability to scale up and down as needed.
Compliance and regulatory issues also factor into the equation. The ability to manage and restrict data is critical. The open nature of clouds makes this task more challenging. Consequently, organizations must introduce policies, practices and protections that mesh with increasingly onerous and complex regulatory requirements—in some cases spanning states or countries. Armed with knowledge about benefits and challenges, the vast majority of organizations are moving forward with cloud deployments. IDG Research found that 71 percent of respondents have already built cloud environments or will do so within then next 18 months. Within this group, nearly two-thirds (66 percent) plan to build out production application hosting in clouds, 16
Here’s what to look for in a cloud services vendor: • A willingness to work with your business to custom design solutions. • Financial stability.
• Security and privacy protections that meet or exceed internal IT and data security policies. • Knowledge of compliance and regulatory issues.
• A clear explanation of where data is stored and how it is handled throughout its life cycle. • An SLA that meets your organization’s needs and requirements. • A clear explanation of costs and how much advanced notice is required for a price increase. • A comprehensive portfolio that gives your organization access to managed hosting, storage and recovery services for both virtual and physical environments. For more information, please go to www.sungardas.com
About SunGard Availability Services SunGard Availability Services provides disaster recovery, managed IT, information availability consulting services, business continuity management software to over 10,000 customers in North America and Europe. SunGard Availability Services | 680 East Swedesford Road | Wayne, PA 19087 | 800-468-7483 | www.sungardas.com © 2010 SunGard. Trademark Information: SunGard and the SunGard logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.