Cloudonomics

One of the lingering concerns about cloud computing is determining when it does or doesn’t make economic sense. There is certainly a crossover point at which either the requirements of scale or level of service are such that the cost of the cloud exceeds that of a more traditional approach. However, determining where that point lies and the specific drivers that influence it, has been a subject of much debate.

Earlier this year, McKinsey and Company published a widely reported and much debated discussion document “Clearing the air on cloud computing” (see http://uptimeinstitute.org/content/view/353/319/ - registration required) that included an analysis suggesting that the costs for many of Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services rather quickly exceeded those of a traditional IT infrastructure when scaled to mid- to large-sized environments.

Recently, my old friend Steve Duplessie of the Enterprise Strategy Group generated a lively discussion in the blogosphere when he re-visited the cloud economics issue in two very interesting posts (see http://www.thebiggertruth.com/2009/09/reverse-cloud-economics/ and http://www.thebiggertruth.com/2009/09/cloud-economics-continued/). He points out that while a terabyte of cloud storage at $150 GB/month seems pretty reasonable, when you get to 20TB at the same rate the cost comes to $36,000/year, representing a point beyond which buying storage outright may make more sense.

Beyond quantity, the crucial factor to consider in comparing any cloud (or non-cloud) option is to understand exactly what you are getting for a given price. Most cloud infrastructure vendors currently position their services in the range of three 9’s or so (99.9 to 99.95%) of availability. For most enterprises, availability expectations for production platforms are more likely to land in the five-9’s realm, which would make the cloud a non-starter in these situations. Can this level of availability be addressed by the cloud, and if so, at what cost?

A recent Network World article (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/100509-pentagon-cloud-computing.html?page=2) provides a somewhat startling answer. Detailing the Pentagon’s Rapid Access Computing Environment (RACE) cloud services, production servers offering 99.999% can be had at the seemingly not so bargain price of $1200/month! Now, to be fair, the article does not provide details about what specifically is included, and I would expect that a system providing that level of availability would be highly redundant, and considering the targeted user base, incorporate a high level of security, as well.

Determining whether this price is reasonable or excessive requires an understanding of what it would cost to deliver a comparable set of services in a traditional environment – price without context is meaningless. I have no doubt that cloud providers will continue to evolve services levels and improve efficiencies, but the reality is that making a smart cloud decision depends first and foremost on a strong understanding your own costs and delivery capabilities.

What is the Relationship Between Cloud and Virtualisation?

With tightened budgets, businesses are constantly looking for way to see a rapid return on investment (ROI). This has increased interest in the adoption of pay-as-you-go cloud services and virtualisation technologies where the ROI can be very attractive. To answer the question: “What is the difference between cloud computing and virtualisation?”

In order to answer this question it is first important to clarify what the two terms, cloud computing and virtualisation, actually mean: According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), cloud computing is a pay-per-use model for enabling available, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Virtualisation is a technique used to abstract the physical characteristics of computing resources from the systems, applications or end users that interact with those resources. Virtualisation technologies typically let a single resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device) appear as multiple logical resources; or makes multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource.

In analysing the definitions above, trying to compare cloud computing and virtualisation is similar to comparing a car to an engine respectively. A car is a complex system including parts, interfaces, inputs and an engine that function as one to provide the best and most efficient drive for the owner. Like the car, cloud computing (public or private) is essentially the coming together of technologies, operational processes and financial models to provide organisational flexibility with optimum cost-efficiency. Continuing with the automotive analogy, the engine of a car is a core component because without the engine, the car won’t move, regardless of whether there are any seats in it. With cloud computing, virtualisation is the core component enabling the majority of characteristics required to make any cloud computing model work.

Going one stage further, you can compare the cloud to a cost-effective metered taxi service, always at your disposal. You now have a range of highly efficient vehicles that can be requested whenever you need to travel. They are operated and maintained by someone else and you only pay for the length of the journey (paying-as-you-go) with the ability to get out whenever you like. Although cloud computing encompasses a large range of compute services, typically labelled as either infrastructure (IaaS) or applications (SaaS and PaaS), they all fit within the taxi model. End users only pay for the services or resources they use, the service and ability to provision is always available. Users have the flexibility to request different services however the underlying infrastructure is not their concern and cannot be modified. In summary, virtualisation improves IT efficiency - enabling traditional computing with fewer resources; whereas cloud computing improves IT effectiveness - empowering more people to build services with more flexibility and fewer experts. When implemented accurately, both technologies can provide attractive an ROI for the IT department.

The virtual data center: Understanding cloud computing.

I’ve been reading a lot of attempts lately to provide a real definition of just what cloud computing really is. I’m going to take a stab at providing the definitive answer to that question.

A cloud computing system consists of a collection of physical servers and storage that are closely tied together to allow resources to be efficiently shared and the entire system to be managed as one entity. A cloud computing system runs virtual machines which appear just like physical machines, except they don’t require an entire dedicated physical server to themselves.

This design allows a cloud computing system to be extraordinarily flexible and efficient. New virtual machines can be added quickly and easily when demand increases, under utilized virtual machines can be discarded, and much more work is accomplished for the same energy consumption, allowing for lower costs.

Cloud computing services come in 3 basic formats. In IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), the customer receives access to their own virtual machine. This virtual machine may run Windows, Linux, or any number of other operating systems and appears indistinguishable from a traditional dedicated server. SwiftWater Telecom’s Resilient Cloud Service currently is an example of IaaS.

PaaS (Platform as a Service) combines the virtual machine with a set of development tools and an interface that allows for the creation of cloud powered web applications. Google AppEngine is an example of PaaS.

SaaS (Software as a Service) provides cloud powered applications, typically accessible with only a web browser, with no access to a virtual machine at all. Google Apps is an example of SaaS.

All 3 service models allow the customer to avoid having to buy, operate, and support their own physical servers, converting a variable capital expense into a fixed operational expense.

There are a number of different pricing plans for cloud computing services, notably fixed and pay as you use. In pay as you use, the customer is charged for the resources their service actually consumes. This is a good model for very intermittent usage with high load spikes. In fixed, the customer pays a set price for a certain set of resources. This model is good for more consistent usage and is also easier to budget for, since the total cost is known in advance.

And that’s cloud computing, in a nutshell.

10 best IT jobs right now

IT professionals looking to find new employment or upgrade their current positions should investigate job opportunities that address growing demand for technologies such as virtualization, cloud, network security and social computing skills.

Industry watchers report that while an economic recovery won't guarantee that IT jobs return to pre-recession levels, increased interest in emerging and existing technologies will drive internal training and external hiring decisions.

"IT staffing got hit in 2009, but it didn't get decimated they way it did back in 2002. Companies were renegotiating contracts, freezing salaries and delaying projects, so this year we won't see a flood of IT employment back," says Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research, Gartner Executive Programs. "But we will see a skills shift from IT personnel that operates only in the old, slow expensive ways to IT pros that can adopt agile methods. There will continue to be opportunities in analytics, for people who understand lean IT, Six Sigma, business processes and improvements -- it's going to be about information, connectivity and collaboration."

Here we examine 10 IT job titles that could gain traction in 2010 as new technology demands require evolving IT skills.

1. Security specialist/ethical hacker

Disturbing new facts and figures appear almost daily about companies falling victim to hackers and experiencing security and/or data breaches. That won't change in 2010 and IT training and employment industry specialists report that interest in acquiring new security skills continues to grow among IT pros and hiring managers who seek the latest skill sets to better secure their environments.

"If you know how to keep your company's data secure, you were in demand yesterday, are in demand today and will be in demand tomorrow," Tom Silver, senior vice president with Dice.com, said in a recent interview with Network World.

The Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, in late 2009 polled some 1,537 high-tech workers and found 37% intend to pursue a security certification over the next five years. Separately, nearly 20% indicated they would seek ethical hacking certification over the same time period. And another 13% pinpointed forensics as the next certification goal in their career development.

"When you add the results, you will see that about two-thirds of IT workers intend to add some type of security certification to their portfolio," said Terry Erdle, senior vice president of skills certifications at CompTIA, in an earlier Network World interview. "This trend is driven by two factors: one, security issues are pervasive, and two, more and more people are moving to managed services and software-as-a-service models, which involves more complex networking. That level of non-enterprise data center computing has people looking more closely at their security infrastructure."

2. Virtual systems manager

While many systems managers might not yet have the word "virtual" officially in their titles, it is just a matter of time, according to industry experts.

"Virtualization and automation technologies are directly related to the cloud. Virtual servers comprise the computing environment and automation is responsible for the cloud being monitoring, management, secured and made compliant," says Andi Mann, research director at Enterprise Management Associates. "Virtualization is fundamentally mainstream now, and there is a lot of activity around virtual systems management."

Like high-tech vendors, IT pros will have to incorporate virtual systems knowledge into their repertoire in order to compete for open positions in 2010. Virtualization not only impacts current data center plans, but also future cloud computing efforts and while companies look to adopt such technologies, they will expect staff to be versed in the tools required to support new environments.

"We get several calls per week around SaaS, cloud and virtual skills that companies want guidance on, considering we are the vendor-neutral party," CompTIA's Erdle explained in late 2009. "CompTIA is working now on building certifications programs to release in 2010 and get in front of this growing demand."

3. Capacity manager

Companies that don't properly prepare for needed resources could lose money or fail to respond to business needs. That's why industry watchers from Forrester Research and Gartner have tagged capacity planning skills as in demand, especially considering the down economy.

Forrester says the role of capacity manager will be in demand for companies looking to optimize resources and accurately assign financial values to technology resources.

"Due to the current economic environment, downsizing (or rightsizing) of infrastructure, resources and capabilities is a top priority for IT," Forrester Senior Analyst Evelyn Hubbert stated in the Forrester Research report "Role Overview: Capacity Manager."

Gartner identifies a similar skill set in its IT resource planning position. By combining the tenets of capacity planning with financial management as well as usage and service measurement, IT resource planning experts will help IT departments understand how services and resources are consumed. This knowledge will help IT respond to business demands quickly.

"Capacity planning today is all about trying to ensure that you have enough capacity and memory cycles to meet workload demand. But virtualization causes new variables to be taken into consideration, and power consumption is just one among many," said Cameron Haight, research vice president at Gartner, in an interview with Network World. "For IT resource planning (ITRP) there are several more elements to consider and the process must become much more strategic within an enterprise."

4. Network engineer

As retro as it may sound, network know-how won't go out of style in 2010. According to Gartner, interest in networking, voice and data communications technologies increased for 2010, meaning skills in that high-tech area will also be in demand.

"The future of IT and enhanced competitive advantage requires social interactions and greater collaboration and that is why the importance of the network continues to grow," Gartner's McDonald says. "Even though revenue was down in 2009, CIOs reported that transaction volumes and communications requirements continued to grow, making it imperative to focus on network technologies."

5. Open source specialist

Companies keeping IT budgets lean but hoping to add services and help business return to growth will be considering open source software for more enterprise projects. And while several open source software maker offer commercial support packages, IT managers will want to have some skills in-house as well, according to IT talent experts.

"We are seeing a ton of demand for skills around open source technologies and frameworks. Demand for Python, Ruby on Rails and PHP development skills far exceeds the number of people available with skills," said Michael Kirven, co-founder and principal of IT resource firm Bluewolf, in a Network World interview.

"Hiring managers want to see more then people playing around with open source in a sandbox environment. People that get trained and certified in these open source technologies will stand out when their resumes fall on recruiters' desks."

Dice.com also reported seeing an increased interest in open source skill sites. Dice's Silver said in late 2009: "There are about 1,000 jobs open looking for such skills and we expect open source technologies are an area employers will be looking to hire."

6. Service assurance manager

IT specialists skilled at identifying potential problems and optimizing performance in IT domains such as network, systems, storage or applications should look to broaden their knowledge to encompass the entire IT service life cycle in 2010. As companies hope to bring down the last barriers between IT groups, they will also be looking to staff their teams with an IT service assurance manager.

The premise of IT service assurance isn't entirely new and until recently was more commonly a concern for service providers, but enterprise IT organizations have started to evolve into service providers in their own right. Vendors such as BMC, CA, HP, IBM and now EMC are touting the ability to provide insight into the life cycle of an IT service, and enterprise IT departments want to establish themselves as internal service providers. That means IT staffers would be wise to also embrace the skills required to track services from start to finish across a distributed and diverse environment.

In a research report, Forrester Research advises companies to: "Initiate a service management process by putting a service manager in place who focuses on the service life cycle to enable the business; through this role and its activities IT starts to align with the business and begins to run itself like a business."

7. Electronic health records systems manager

Specific vertical industries are expected to add IT positions in 2010, but healthcare is expected to bolster its IT numbers significantly, thanks to government economic stimulus plans.

CompTIA anticipates some 70,000 new IT positions in the next 12 months in the healthcare industry. The increase in open jobs is due in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which includes billions in provisions for healthcare IT. The expected uptick in demand is driving industry organizations such as CompTIA to find the best ways to educate and train IT workers on healthcare specific skills.

"We are working now to determine what kind of IT roles should be supported in certifications from CompTIA," said CompTIA's Erdle.

8. Sourcing specialist

Software-as-a-service, cloud computing, managed services, outsourcing and offshoring offer companies alternatives to hiring internal staff, and savvy IT managers will educated themselves on the various sourcing options to help their employers make the right choices for their business, industry watchers say.

For instance, IT candidates with expertise in areas such as software license management, contract negotiations and managing consultants or distributed teams could help a company determine which managed service offering could be a good fit or if cloud computing is a reasonable choice for a midsize or smaller company.

"Outsourcing is going to continue to be a trend, and the skill sets to manage vendor relationships and contract performance will be highly valued," said Lily Mok, vice president of Gartner's CIO Research, in a Network World interview."Companies will want to consolidate vendors, find better deals with existing vendors, really understand their contracts in terms of costs and performance, and renegotiate contracts to find better options."

9. Service catalog manager

As IT departments work toward becoming internal service providers to their companies, they will want to change their approach to meeting customer needs. Industry watchers and best practice frameworks such as ITIL detail how establishing an IT service catalog can help companies model themselves after service providers. And with an IT service catalog comes an IT service catalog manager, according to Forrester Research.

"The service catalog manager is responsible for producing and maintaining the service catalog. This includes responsibilities that fall into three categories -- planning and implementing a service catalog, financial management aspects of a service catalog, and rollout and maintenance of service catalog," reads a recent Forrester Research report. "A service catalog manager can play a significant role as a change agent from a utility IT organization to a service-focused IT organization."

10. Business process engineer

Demand for business-savvy technologists will drive hiring decisions in 2010, as companies look to evolve processes to align with leaner budgets and more streamlined operations. According to Gartner's Mok, companies will seek business process engineers for re-engineering projects in the coming year.

"We see a lot of people using ERP systems and engaging in business process re-engineering projects," she said. "Those coming from the business side or being very well versed in the business processes are in good positions. Combining the knowledge of the technical systems with business processes will help IT professionals get and keep key positions."

Cloud Computing use Cases Scenarios

Use Case Scenarios:

The Enterprise Cloud Usage scenarios are intended to illustrate the most typical cloud use cases and are not meant to be an exhaustive list of realizations within a cloud environment.

The graphics in this section have common elements throughout. If a given element does not apply to a particular use case, it is grayed out or drawn with a dashed line. As an example, the Private Cloud use case does not involve the End User or the Public Cloud, so only the Enterprise appears in color.

End User to Cloud	Applications running on the cloud and accessed by end users
Enterprise to Cloud to End User	Applications running in the public cloud and accessed by employees and customers
Enterprise to Cloud	Cloud applications integrated with internal IT capabilities
Enterprise to Cloud to Enterprise	Cloud applications running in the public cloud and interoperating with partner applications (supply chain)
Private Cloud	A cloud hosted by an organization Inside that organization’s firewall.
Changing Cloud Vendors	An organization using cloud services decides to switch cloud providers or work with additional providers.
Hybrid Cloud	Multiple clouds work together, coordinated by a cloud broker that federates data, applications, user identity, security and other details.

1. End User to Cloud:

In this scenario, an end user is accessing data or applications in the cloud. Common applications of this type include email hosting and social networking sites. A user of Gmail, Facebook or LinkedIn accesses the application and their data through any browser on any device. The user doesn’t want to keep up with anything more than a password; their data is stored and managed in the cloud. Most importantly, the user has no idea how the underlying architecture works. If they can get to the Internet, they can get to their data.

1.1 Requirements

• Identity: The cloud service must authenticate the end user.

• An open client: Access to the cloud service should not require a particular platform or technology.

• Security: Security (including privacy) is a common requirement to all use cases, although the details of those requirements will vary widely from one use case to the next. A full discussion of security in cloud computing is
beyond the scope of this paper.

• SLAs: Although service level agreements for end users will usually be much simpler than those for enterprises, cloud vendors must be clear about what guarantees of service they provide.

2. Enterprise to Cloud to End User:

In this scenario, an enterprise is using the cloud to deliver data and services to the end user. When the end user interacts with the enterprise, the enterprise accesses the cloud to retrieve data and / or manipulate it, sending the results to the end user. The end user can be someone within the enterprise or an external customer.

2.1 Requirements

• Identity: The cloud service must authenticate the end user.

• An open client: Access to the cloud service should not require a particular platform or technology.

• Federated identity: In addition to basic the identity needed by an end user, an enterprise user is likely to have an identity with the enterprise. The ideal is that the enterprise user manages a single ID, with an infrastructure federating other identities that might be required by cloud services.

• Location awareness: Depending on the kind of data the enterprise is managing on the user's behalf, there might be legal restrictions on the location of the physical server where the data is stored. Although this violates the cloud computing ideal that the user should not have to know details of the physical infrastructure, this requirement is essential. Many applications cannot be moved to the cloud until cloud vendors provide an API for determining the location of the physical hardware that delivers the cloud service.

•Metering and monitoring: All cloud services must be metered andmonitored for cost control, chargebacks and provisioning.

• Management and Governance: Public cloud providers make it very easy to open an account and begin using cloud services; that ease of use creates the risk that individuals in an enterprise will use cloud services on their own initiative. Management of VMs and of cloud services such as storage, databases and message queues is needed to track what services are used. Governance is crucial to ensure that policies and government regulations are followed wherever cloud computing is used. Other governance requirements will be industry- and geography-specific.

• Security: Any use case involving an enterprise will have more sophisticated security requirements than one involving a single end user. Similarly, the more advanced enterprise use cases to follow will have equally more advanced security requirements.

• A Common File Format for VMs: A VM created for one cloud vendor’s platform should be portable to another vendor’s platform. Any solution to this requirement must account for differences in the ways cloud vendors attach storage to virtual machines.

• Common APIs for Cloud Storage and Middleware: The enterprise use cases require common APIs for access to cloud storage services, cloud databases, and other cloud middleware services such as message queues. Writing custom code that works only for a particular vendor’s cloud service locks the enterprise into that vendor’s system and eliminates some of the financial benefits and flexibility that cloud computing provides.

• Data and Application Federation: Enterprise applications need to combine data from multiple cloud-based sources, and they need to coordinate the activities of applications running in different clouds.

• SLAs and Benchmarks: In addition to the basic SLAs required by end users, enterprises who sign contracts based on SLAs will need a standard way of benchmarking performance. There must be an unambiguous way of defining what a cloud provider will deliver, and there must be an unambiguous way of measuring what was actually delivered. (SLAs have additional implications for cloud security; see the discussions of SLAs, auditing and monitoring in Section 6 for more information.)

• Lifecycle Management: Enterprises must be able to manage the lifecycle of applications and documents. This requirement includes versioning of applications and the retention and destruction of data. Discovery is a major issue for many organizations. There are substantial legal liabilities if certain data is no longer available. In addition to data retention, in some cases an enterprise will want to make sure data is destroyed at some point.

3 Enterprise to Cloud

This use case involves an enterprise using cloud services for its internal processes. This might be the most common use case in the early stages of cloud computing because it gives the enterprise the most control. This use case involves an enterprise using cloud services for its internal processes. This might be the most common use case in the early stages of cloud computing because it gives the enterprise the most control.

In this scenario, the enterprise uses cloud services to supplement the resources it needs:

• Using cloud storage for backups or storage of seldom-used data

• Using virtual machines in the cloud to bring additional processors online to handle peak loads (and, of course, shutting down those VMs when they're not needed anymore)

• Using applications in the cloud (SaaS) for certain enterprise functions (email, calendaring, CRM, etc.).

• Using cloud databases as part of an application's processing. This could be extremely useful for sharing that database with partners, government agencies, etc.

3.1 Requirements

The basic requirements of the Enterprise to Cloud use case are much the same as those for the Enterprise to Cloud to End User use case. An open client, federated identity, location awareness, metering and monitoring, management and governance, security, a common file format for VMs,
common APIs for cloud storage and middleware, data and application federation, SLAs and lifecycle management all apply.

Other requirements for this use case are:

• Deployment: It should be simple to build a VM image and deploy it to the cloud as necessary. When that VM image is built, it should be possible to move that image from one cloud provider to another, compensating for the different mechanisms vendors have for attaching storage to VMs. Deployment of applications to the cloud should be straightforward as well.

• Industry-specific standards and protocols: Many cloud computing solutions between enterprises will use existing standards such as RosettaNet or OAGIS. The applicable standards will vary from one application to the next and from one industry to the next.

4 Enterprise to Cloud to Enterprise

This use case involves two enterprises using the same cloud. The focus here is hosting resources in the cloud so that applications from the enterprises can interoperate. A supply chain is the most obvious example for this use case.

4.1 Requirements

The basic requirements of the Enterprise to Cloud to Enterprise use case are much the same as those for the Enterprise to Cloud use case. Identity, an open client, federated identity, location awareness, metering and monitoring, management and governance, security, industry-specific standards, common APIs for storage and middleware, data and application federation, SLAs and lifecycle management all apply.

Other requirements for this use case are:

• Transactions and concurrency: For applications and data shared by different enterprises, transactions and concurrency are vital. If two enterprises are using the same cloud-hosted application, VM, middleware or storage, it's important that any changes made by either enterprise are done reliably.

• Interoperability: Because more than one enterprise is involved, interoperability between the enterprises is essential.

5 Private Cloud

The Private Cloud use case is different from the others in that the cloud is contained within the enterprise. This is useful for larger enterprises. For example, if the payroll department has a surge in workload on the 15th and 30th of each month, they need enough computing power to handle the maximum workload, even though their everyday workload for the rest of the month is much lower. With a private cloud, computing power is spread across the enterprise. The payroll department gets extra cycles when they need it and other departments get extra cycles when they need it. This can deliver significant savings across the enterprise.

5.1 Requirements

The basic requirements of the Private Cloud use case are an open client, metering and monitoring, management and governance, security, deployment, interoperability, a common VM format, and SLAs.

Note that a private cloud does not require identity, federated identity, location awareness, transactions, industry standards, common APIs for cloud middleware and lifecycle management. In many cases, consumers have to use a private cloud so that location awareness will no longer be an issue. Keeping the cloud inside the enterprise removes many of the requirements for identity management, standards and common APIs.

6 Changing Cloud Vendors

This use case involves working with a different cloud vendor, either adding an additional vendor or replacing an existing one. It applies to all of the other use cases discussed in this paper. Being able to work with other vendors without major changes is one of the main benefits of openness and standardization. There are four different scenarios here, each of which has slightly different
requirements. In general, changing cloud vendors requires an open client, location awareness, security, SLAs, a common file format for VMs and common APIs for cloud storage and middleware. The details of those requirements are discussed in each of the following subsections.


6.1 Scenario 1: Changing SaaS vendors

In this scenario a cloud customer changes SaaS vendors. Both SaaS vendors provide the same application (CRM, accounting, word processing, etc.). Documents and data created with one vendor's software should be importable by the second vendor's software. In some cases, the customer might need to use the two vendors interchangeably.

6.1.1 Requirements

• Industry-specific standards: Moving documents and data from one vendor’s application to another requires both applications to support common formats. The formats involved will depend on the type of application.

In some cases, standard APIs for different application types will also be required. It is important to note that there is nothing cloud-specific to these requirements. The standards for moving a document from Zoho to Google Docs are the same standards for moving a document from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.

6.2 Scenario 2: Changing middleware vendors

In this scenario a cloud customer changes cloud middleware vendors. Existing data, queries, message queues and applications must be exportable from one vendor and importable by the other.

6.2.1 Requirements

• Industry-specific standards: Moving documents and data from one vendor’s middleware to another requires both applications to support common formats. The formats involved will depend on the type of application.

• Common APIs for Cloud Middleware: This includes all of the operations supported by today’s cloud services, including cloud databases, cloud message queues and other middleware. APIs for connecting to, creating and dropping databases and tables. Cloud database vendors have enforced certain restrictions to make their products more elastic and to limit the possibility of queries against large data sets taking significant resources to process. For example, some cloud databases don't allow joins across tables, and some don't support a true database schema. Those restrictions are a major challenge to moving between cloud database vendors, especially for applications built on a true relational model.

Other middleware services such as message queues are more similar, so finding common ground among them should be simpler.

6.3 Scenario 3: Changing cloud storage vendors

In this scenario a cloud customer changes cloud storage vendors.

6.3.1 Requirements

• A Common API for Cloud Storage: Code that reads or writes data in one cloud storage system should work with a different system with as few changes as possible; those changes should be confined to configuration code. In a JDBC application, as an example, the format of the URL and the driver name are different for different database vendors, but the code to interact with the database is identical.

6.4 Scenario 4: Changing VM hosts

In this scenario a cloud customer wants to take virtual machines built on one cloud vendor's system and run it on another cloud vendor's system.

6.4.1 Requirements

• A common format for virtual machines: The VM format should work with any operating system. The assumption here is that the virtual machines themselves are running an operating system such as Windows or Linux. This means that the user of the virtual machine has chosen a platform prior to building a VM for the cloud, so there are no cloud-specific requirements for the software running inside the VM.

7 Hybrid Cloud

This use case involves multiple clouds working together, including both public and private clouds. A hybrid cloud can be delivered by a federated cloud provider that combines its own resources with those of other providers. A broker can also deliver a hybrid cloud; the difference is that a broker does not have any cloud resources of its own. The provider of the hybrid cloud must manage cloud resources based on the consumer’s terms.

It is important to note that to the consumer of a hybrid cloud, this use case is no different from the End User to Cloud use case discussed earlier. The user has no knowledge of what the hybrid cloud provider actually does.

7.1 Requirements

• All of the requirements of the previous use cases (except Transactions and concurrency) apply here, particularly Security, Data and Application Federation and Interoperability.

• SLAs: A machine readable, standard format for expressing an SLA. This allows the hybrid cloud provider to select resources according to the consumer’s terms without human intervention.

As mentioned in Section 2, the requirements for a community cloud are a subset of the requirements for the hybrid cloud. A community cloud has an infrastructure shared among enterprises with a common purpose. Here is the diagram for a community cloud:

Notice that the communication between the community and the community cloud is done across an intranet. This could be a VPN, but access is not via the public Internet.

2010 Will Be A Good Year For City IT Professionals

It's been a tough time for City IT professionals over the last couple of years, with several thousand being laid-off. The financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn has resulted in a number of firms putting a hold on major IT projects, and the demand for IT staff has fallen away. But all that looks likely to change in 2010.

City IT professionals, of course, are used to a boom or bust work environment. Recessions make life hard, but one off events like Big Bang and Y2K can result in IT staff being in big demand. 2010 is looking up, however, because many financial institutions are coming under pressure to upgrade their IT infrastructure to meet efficiency goals and to comply with regulatory requirements.

One IT professional told Here Is The City: 'Most firms are operating on lower headcount than 2 years ago, and the only way to deal with the expected upturn in volumes is the smart use of technology. In addition, as firms trade more and more complex products and require ever sophisticated risk management and reporting tools, many banks now have major IT projects that need to be quickly implemented'. Barclays Capital, for example, is rumoured to be hiring up to 1,000 IT staff in the first 4 months of next year.

And it is to help meet this pent-up demand for City IT staff that CareersIT has been launched. Co-founder Vic Daniels said: 'Being part of the Here Is The City network, and its 236,000 readers, will give CareersIT an advantage not enjoyed by any other recruitment business. We will be able to connect with candidates much more cost efficiently, and intend to pass these savings on to hiring institutions. We will be using the internet to build a comprehensive IT candidate database, and our own in-house recruiters will be working with some of the City's top financial institutions, interacting with registered candidates to help them find new opportunities in the traditional way. We are convinced that this exciting new initiative is the future of City IT'.

Please check the url "http://www.hereisthecity.com/" for more details.....

Virtual Machine Deployment: Seven Key Challenges we Can’t Ignore

There are seven areas of concern that accompany any major virtual platform implementation
or migration. These critical pain points directly impact two cornerstones of the data center:
network and storage.

1 Challenge: Performance and Availability Issues

Performance and availability issues—often created by a move from physical hardware to
virtual hardware—as well as VM saturation can cause your application networking resources
to be depleted at a much faster, and often unanticipated, rate. I/O intensive operations get
bogged down in the virtualization translation layer. Saturation of the network card and
software switch on the physical host might cause performance issues, reduced bandwidth,
and increased latency.

Solution: Offload Application Resources to a Purpose-Built Appliance
By offloading application networking resources onto a purpose-built appliance, your
organization can conserve bandwidth, reduce latency, and improve the performance of
I/O intensive operations. F5 BIG-IP® Local Traffi c Manager™ (LTM) uses SSL processing,
caching, and compression to dramatically improve application performance while keeping
VM resources focused on what they do best.

2 Challenge: OS Virtualization Fails to Virtualize the Application
Virtual infrastructure platforms include software that can migrate VM instances from
one physical device to another. However, there might be a lapse in the availability if the
connections to the application and application persistence for the user are lost during this
live migration.

Solution: Improve Application Performance with Automated Traffic Monitoring
By monitoring applications running on the VMs, and directing traffic to the appropriate
VM as application availability and response time fluctuate, your organization can improve application response times and availability while maintaining connection persistence.
BIG-IP LTM accomplishes all of this automatically; when application traffic is routed through
BIG-IP LTM, images are added to the pool and configured for the correct application before
they become available.

3 Challenge: Additional, Unanticipated Costs—the Virtual Solution May Cost More
than the Physical Problem

Additional costs often result from implementing OS virtualization; new hardware and
software licenses can be required to solve problems with availability, performance, and
management. What’s more, as VMs burden the existing infrastructure, requirements
grow for application and storage networks. Management of new tools requires increased
headcount and training. And VM sprawl can create orphaned virtual disk images that take
up critical storage space.

Solution: Optimize Existing Resources with Automatic Storage Tiering, VM Load
Balancing, and Virtual Infrastructure Scaling

Planning ahead and implementing strategies that make the most of your existing resources
can ensure a smooth deployment, reduce added headcount, and limit your exposure to
CapEx and OpEx overruns. With BIG-IP LTM already in place, there’s no need to buy new
gear because BIG-IP devices are just as effective optimizing virtual servers as physical
servers. An investment in BIG-IP LTM is also smart planning for future growth because it
helps optimize the virtual infrastructure and scales with it. In addition, using F5 ARX® file
virtualization solutions to virtualize the storage network enables your network to adapt to
VM requirements without re-architecting. Tiered storage with ARX automatically places
current or critical virtual disk images and data fi les on tier 1 and stores less frequently used
files and images on lower tiers—preventing sprawl and reducing backup costs.

4 Challenge: Advanced Virtualization Features Go Untapped

New virtual platforms include many advanced networking technologies, such as software
switching and support for VLAN segmentation. However, these features are localized and
isolated to the VM platforms. They are not integrated with the rest of the Application Delivery
Network because there is no sharing of information directly between VMware or Hyper-V
and the network. And in some VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) or VMotion
deployments, the current networking infrastructure might not be able to support live
migration or virtual software switching.

Solution: Integrate the Application Delivery Network and VM Platforms for Policy
and Information Sharing

Direct integration between Application Delivery Networks and VM platforms enables your
organization to get the most out of those platforms while reducing costs and management duties. The F5 deployment guides for VMware ESX/vCenter and Microsoft Hyper-V/System
Center help make BIG-IP LTM hypervisor-aware. They provide instructions for direct
integration between BIG-IP LTM with F5 iControl® API and the VMware vCenter and
Microsoft System Center API, enabling BIG-IP devices to feed networking and application
information to the respective VM management platforms. iControl integration also
enables configuration and policy information to be shared between BIG-IP LTM and
the management platforms, allowing configuration changes to be automatically passed
between the application network and those platforms.

5 Challenge: Managing Explosive and Unexpected Storage Growth While Maximizing Resources

Prior to server virtualization, OS and data files typically reside on internal storage in the
physical server. These files are moved to external shared storage in virtual environments.
OS drives are converted to fl at-file VM disks which consume 10 to 100s of gigabytes
of networked storage each. Little used or inactive virtual disks can remain on expensive
storage well after they are needed, driving up storage costs.

Solution: Move Virtual Disks to Lower-Cost Storage with Automated Storage Tiering

Storage tiering—the process of moving stored assets according to their value—can
dramatically drive down costs and improve resource utilization. Automating the process
takes it a step further, simplifying storage administration and freeing up IT resources. Using
ARX file virtualization solutions for policy-based storage tiering and centralized storage
management enables your “inactive” virtual disks to automatically and non-disruptively
move from expensive tier 1 storage to more cost-effective tier 2 storage. Virtual disks can
also be dynamically moved back to tier 1 storage without impacting users or applications.
Management of large volumes of virtual disks is simplified, enabling multiple, heterogeneous
storage systems to be merged into large, shared pools.

6 Challenge: Congested Storage—Data Pipes Can’t Handle the Volume

OS virtualization can dramatically increase data storage traffic. Passing large amounts of
data from multiple guests through one host storage network connection, such as network
file system (NFS), can cause instant bottlenecks and flooding. Moving large virtual disk
images outside the LAN causes extensive delays and floods the much smaller WAN
connections. And unplanned VM migrations resulting from VM sprawl can bring the
network to a standstill.

Solution: Reduce Data Volume with TCP Optimization, Data Compression, and
Automated Storage Capacity Balancing

By optimizing TCP connections, improving file transfer speeds, and effectively balancing
storage capacity, your organization can reduce bottlenecks, lower bandwidth costs, and
optimize its bandwidth usage. F5 WAN optimization solutions deliver TCP optimization, data compression, and intelligent byte caching—accelerating file transfer speeds by up to
three times and reducing bandwidth utilization. In addition, ARX file virtualization solutions
provide automated storage capacity balancing, ensuring that virtual disks are created on your
highest performing storage resource while balancing virtual disks across multiple storage
resources—eliminating bottlenecks, aggregating capacity, and increasing utilization.

7 Challenge: Management Complexity

Managing VMs as part of the complete management solution can be a struggle. This
includes managing the VMs themselves, as well as managing all parts of the data center
as one unit. The hypervisor and the host system are two new components that are not
part of existing data center management solutions; it is critical to be able to manage these
devices and understand their impact on performance. What’s more, built-in management
tools for VM platforms only manage the virtual resources and do not take into account any
external information.

Solution: Create a True Application Delivery Network

By managing VMs, the application network, and the storage network together, your
organization can dynamically provision resources, simplify administration, and free up IT
resources. F5 BIG-IP and ARX products help manage the virtual infrastructure by focusing
on application and storage networks. The F5 deployment guides for VMware and Microsoft
virtual platforms help make BIG-IP LTM hypervisor-aware, providing direct integration
between F5 solutions with iControl and the VMware vCenter and Microsoft System Center
APIs. This means you can dynamically provision resources by integrating information from
the network and the VMs, which enables your business to create and manage a true
Application Delivery Network focused on your applications.