Before You Move to Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is a fundamental shift from the traditional client/server

architecture, and therefore requires a careful assessment of your IT
infrastructure before you walk this path

Anil Chopra

Sunday, August 01, 2010

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There is considerable interest amongst

organizations to move their apps to the Cloud. But, like any new trend or
technology, there are lots of doubts and questions in everyone's mind. We've
attempted to clear those doubts with the help of this story, in which we've
given a mix of both theory and practice. Before you dive into the story, here
are a few things that you must know about Cloud Computing:

There's more to Cloud Computing than a few Internet based services

Cloud Computing is more than a few applications you can access over the
Internet. It allows you to buy hardware resources online, take an entire
platform for software development, or setup a platform yourself inhouse.

Cloud Computing is a fundamental shift from how your current IT

infrastructure is configured
Most of the time, when people talk about cloud computing, they refer to the
public cloud and some apps you can use from it. But there's a lot more to
cloud computing than procuring a few online services. It's a fundamental shift
from the traditional client/server architecture. Instead of having multiple
servers, and even clients, all over the place, they're all consolidated into
fewer, powerful machines. That's going back to the mainframe days, you
might say, but back in those days, you didn't have mobile users carrying
laptops, netbooks, and smartphones, with Internet access. So Cloud
Computing is how your IT infrastructure will change in the near future, to
become more flexible, agile, efficient, cost effective, and accessible from
anywhere. This sort of tuning will require careful planning, and would need to
be done gradually in multiple phases over a
period of time.

Cloud computing is about reducing

wastage of IT resources & utilizing them
more effectively
Whether it's the service provider's cloud, or your own, it's all about utilizing
your IT infrastructure more effectively. Most cloud applications are built upon
virtualization of hardware resources. While virtualization let's you use the
hardware more effectively, other tools let you do the allocation and de-
allocation of resources dynamically. Cloud computing to users is what
electricity is to consumers When you plug an electrical or electronic device
into a wall outlet, you expect the device to work. You're not concerned about
how electricity is generated at the back-end. This in a nutshell, is what cloud
computing is supposed to do to your IT infrastructure. Why should users have
to know the complexities of the IT infrastructure at the back-end? They should
be able to access the services seamlessly without any glitches.

Cloud computing does not equal the Cloud

While the cloud is typically another name for the Internet, cloud computing is
goes much beyond that and defines your IT infrastructure. There are three
models of cloud computing-public, private, and hybrid, and three different
ways of implementing them-SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. All these have been
explained elsewhere in this story. If you do use the terms Cloud and Cloud
Computing interchangeably, then you have to be careful, to avoid confusing
others. In this story, we've covered everything you need to know before you
decide to move to the cloud. We've discussed the key trends and cloud
computing adoption scenario amongst Indian enterprises. We've explained the
different cloud computing models and modes of their implementation. We've
talked about how to build your own private cloud, we've discussed a few cloud
computing examples. Key Trends in Cloud Computing adoption amongst
enterprises, and finally, we've carried a whole table of the kinds of services
available in a public cloud.

Demystifying Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the key that opens the doors for enterprises to a more
efficient and cost effective IT infrastructure. Everything can be served through
cloud computing, and we discuss the various models you can choose from.

Madhur Chawla

Sunday, August 01, 2010

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 In 1960, John McCarthy predicted that
someday computing would be organized as a public utility. And then, in the
early 90s, the term 'Grid computing' was coined by Ian Foster, which talked
about technologies that would make computing power available 'on demand'
to consumers. Now, both these statements suddenly make sense when we
hear the word cloud computing and the technologies that have made it a
reality.

Just about every organization today is interested in using cloud computing,

but doesn't know how. Without knowing, it's impossible to make an informed
decision about how to move to it. Simply put, cloud computing is a set of
technologies that allows computing applications and data to be exposed as a
set of services from a pool of underlying resources. The user doesn't have to
worry about the technologies in the pool. This is similar to running an electrical
or electronic device by plugging it to a wall socket. You don't have to worry
about how the power is generated in the power plant. You just want the right
voltage to be made available so that you can power your device and use your
device. Similarly, in Cloud Computing, users simply focus on the services they
would like to use, and not worry about how to implement the software that
provides these services. Even the IT staff that provides these services can
easily pull out the resources required by the users from this pool of resources,
and put it back when the services have been consumed.
A typical cloud
computing model.

The foundation of cloud computing comprises of data centers (servers,

storage, networking), the business applications and middleware, virtualization
software and of course operating systems. This foundation provides all the
applications to the users on a 'pay as you go' basis. So the entire workload
shifts to the cloud, i.e. local computers are not burdened with running
hundreds of applications anymore. All that users need is a system interface
software, like a simple web browser to be run on their side.
The three different
types of clouds &
the relationship
amongst them

The benefits
The promise of cloud computing is to provide all that most organizations have
been wanting for years, but haven't been able to achieve.

Scalability: Cloud computing allows an organization to scale up or down their

IT requirements quickly and efficiently, without hampering productivity. It cuts
down the time involved in buying & setting up additional hardware, software &
other necessary resources everytime a new service is required.

Lower infrastructure cost: Pay as you go is the mantra of cloud computing.

You pay only for the duration that you use the service for. This helps cut down
unnecessary capital expenditure. Since the resources can be pulled out and
restored dynamically, a lot of cost related to maintenance, administration, etc
is reduced.

Better utilization: As the IT infrastructure is nothing but a pool of resources, it

reduces wastage and improves resource utilization. It also cuts down the
downtime.

Demystifying Cloud Computing

Continued from page: 1

Madhur Chawla

Sunday, August 01, 2010

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Cloud deployment models

Most of the time, the term cloud computing is confused with the Internet cloud.
It's very important to understand this difference if you want to be able to use
the cloud more effectively. There are basically three types of cloud-public,
private, and hybrid.

Public cloud: This is what people normally end up talking about whenever the
term cloud computing comes up. This is essentially an external cloud,
provided by a service provider. It refers to the resources (hardware, software,
applications) that a service provider offers you over the Internet. Email, if
hosted with an ISP is the most basic and oldest type of service offered on the
public cloud. Now, just about every kind of service you can think of is available
in the public cloud (whole list of these services is provided elsewhere in this
story). The public cloud follows the 'pay as you go' model. You only pay for
the services you consume. The benefits of moving to a public cloud are many,
with the key one being that you don't have to worry about managing the
underlying IT infrastructure-no security patches or updates to apply, no
software upgrades, etc. All these are the service provider's headache.
The three
components of a
cloud computing
network.

Private cloud: A private cloud refers to having your own, private cloud
computing infrastructure. So instead of relying on an external, public cloud
service provider's infrastructure, you would have your own. A private cloud is
more suited for a large enterprise because it has already invested heavily in
its IT infrastructure, data center, apps, etc. A private cloud typically involves
optimizing the existing IT infrastructure, so that it can deliver services to the
users faster and more effectively. A private cloud would allow the IT team to
provision for new hardware, software, and services for users as and when
required. It would provide better control over the entire process of information
processing. This helps reduce costs, improves response time, and provides
greater flexibility.

Hybrid cloud: As the name implies, it is a cloud computing environment that

consists of internal/ external providers, viz. a mix of private and public clouds.
Secure and critical applications are hosted by organizations in the private
cloud while not so critical ones are hosted in the public cloud. This
combination is known as a hybrid cloud. The cloud infrastructure remains as a
unique entity which is bound by a standard technology thus enabling data and
application portability. A very good example of this is cloud bursting, wherein
the organization for its normal usage uses its own infrastructure but moves to
the cloud for peak loads.

Types of cloud services

Whether it's public, private, or hybrid, you could run a range of services in a
cloud computing environment. These can be divided into three parts-SaaS,
IaaS, and PaaS.

SaaS: This is the most familiar and prolific cloud service of all. As the name
suggests, it provides any software application as a service through the cloud.
We've all been using software as a service for years in the public domain, with
the free email services being the most classic example. Today, there's a
whole range of software applications available through SaaS, be it ERP,
CRM, workflow systems, document management, and much more. The cloud
service provider offers these services, and the users pay as they use the
same. This could be on a subscription model, wherein they pay an annual or a
monthly fee for the services. Everything is accessible from a web browser, so
the users don't need anything more than that.

Infrastructure as a Service: As the name implies, IaaS is a service delivery

model in which an organization is given control over different resources and
applications. These resources comprise of storage, hardware, servers,
networking components, etc. The consumer need not manage or control the
underlying cloud infrastructure in this service model. On demand principle is
used in this case as the infrastructure is provided to the user as per his
requirements. It often takes the form of virtualized computing environment
thus giving freedom to consumers wherein they can configure & deploy the
applications in a virtual image locally. Then without the need to worry about
the network infrastructure they can also execute it within the remote
environment. Some of the prime examples of it are Amazon's Elastic Compute
Cloud [EC2] and Simple Storage Service.

Platform as a Service: This component of cloud computing can be defined

as a set of software and product development tools that allows developers to
create applications on the provider's platform. In other words it allows you to
build applications that are delivered to users through the Internet and are run
on the provider's infrastructure. Cost effectiveness is one of the prime benefits
of PaaS as organizations don't need to spend extra bucks for buying and
managing the underlying hardware and software. PaaS offerings include
facilities for application development and design, testing, deployment and
hosting. Web service integration, database integration, security, storage, etc
that comes under application services is also included. The prime examples
are Salesforce.com's Force.com and Microsoft's Azure.

Trends in Cloud Computing

We dwell on the trends that are currently shaping up the area of cloud
computing in India. Plus, we see what enterprises are currently moving
towards – private or public cloud

Amrita Premrajan

Sunday, August 01, 2010

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By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own

no IT assets. Several interrelated trends are driving the movement toward
decreased IT hardware assets, such as virtualization, cloud-enabled services,
and employees running personal desktops and notebook systems on

Of long, organizations have been stockpiling technology, with the

infrastructure revealing problems of under-utilization and existence of too
many silos. Information multiplying every single day is making things
increasingly challenging for the enterprises to manage them. IDC says that
during the coming ten years, data stored in various storage systems will
increase by 44 times, with the current rate of data growth. But it won't be
possible for enterprises to increase their IT budgets and scale up their IT
infrastructure in tandem with the information explosion that's happening.

Another point is the time to market, which has become significant for
businesses and they are looking at ways and means to minimize it. For eg , if
an enterprise wants to set up a collaboration service internally or develop
social networking capability, they would plan about the hardware, software,
service requirements, etc which might take a long time to market. But now
with the available cloud services, the same roll out is possible within much
shorter time.
Applications which are less critical to the
organization and for which there are alternate
ways of extracting data in the organizations are
the applications which enterprises are prefering
to move to Public Cloud. CRM is one such
application which enterprises are looking to
move on Public Cloud. The applications which
run the core-competencies of any organization
like Supply Chain for a distribution company,
production and MRP for a manufacturing
company, etc, organizations will not be
comfortable at all to move to Public Cloud as
of now.
Gurbir Singh Bhatia, GM IT, Redington
India.
Most Indian enterprises are fence sitters due to
their apprehensions. However, a metering
model as compared to licensing model have
found many takers and many enterprises have
started moving to cloud for basic services such
as patching from cloud, OS installation,
resource upgradation, email and web hosting
services etc. They are waiting for the cloud
service to become more mature and event-free
before they move their business-critical
application and data to cloud.
Kaushal Chaudhary, CISO, NIIT
Technologies.

In such instances, cloud computing is increasingly being looked at by the

enterprises as a great alternative as it lets them scale up or down, save
organizations money, decrease the time to market and shift their capex to
opex.

Who's moving to Public Cloud?

Currently the trend is that larger enterprises are exploring Public Clouds for
support applications such as Dealer Management Systems, Document
Management Systems, mailing, CRM and Learning Solutions, etc while critical
applications for which data has to reside within a firewall due to regulatory
requirements or have to be available physically from the audit point of view
are being reserved on the private cloud. Most enterprises want to move to the
cloud for the great cost advantage that it offers, but there are hardly few of
them who actually move to the cloud for the big security concerns that they
perceive in that.

For enterprises with many legacy applications Organizations will adopt hybrid clouds which
and systems, it is not advisable to move are a combination of public and private clouds.
everything at once. Most enterprises move They will have public clouds for the nomadic
more methodically by picking a diverse set of
initial applications to try as proofs of concepts
in the cloud. They run them from a few weeks
to a few months to see how the cloud is
different and understand how to operate in the
cloud before moving more of their
applications. This is followed by a 12-to-24-
month migration plan.
Dr Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer,
Amazon.  
users within the organization who interact with
data which is not so sensitive in nature, and
private clouds where they can predict usage,
have employees in a single location, have
knowledge of their branch offices and have
certain security concerns about the data.
Sanjay Deshmukh, Area Vice President,
Citrix, India Subcontinent.

SMBs where cash and people resource are scarce, a public cloud's flexibility,
reliability and scalability with no capital expenses, no upfront commitment, low
unit costs and pay-as-you-go model, is highly compelling . Also the application
development world is increasingly undergoing a significant change through
adoption of Platform as a Service as it is resulting in faster roll-out of
applications at lower costs. Public clouds are being used by companies
delivering products and services over the Web, with no captured set of users
using a single network and software developers with dynamic resource
requirements. Another aspect is the presence of a large mobile workforce in
organizations that need access to applications on-the-go. Depending upon the
criticality of the applications; organizations are hosting these applications on
the public cloud and are making them available to its mobile workforce via the
Web.

The SLA for a cloud service is more important

than SLAs for a non-cloud environment
because of cloud computing's inherent nature
We believe that Indian organizations will
that always arouses suspicion on the
follow a hybrid model as mission critical
whereabouts of data and various regulatory
applications are going to stay on-premise and
requirements of loss/disclosure of data by the
non-mission applications will move to the
service provider. Here, the data may be owned
cloud. This will give enterprises flexibility to
by one, processed by the other and under
reap benefits of cloud, while ensuring that their
custody of someone else. Binding all these
mission-critical applications stay with them
with risk transference to service provider is
only.
very important. A good SLA covering these
concerns will increase the confidence level of
Manish Bahl, Director India and Research
enterprises and may prove to be the key
Operations, Springboard Research.
success factor for the cloud service as a whole.

Kaushal Chaudhary, CISO NIIT.

Who's moving to a Private Cloud?
A private cloud can be set up either internally or by partnering vis-a-vis with an
external cloud service offerings vendor to identify which model is suitable. The
trend is that the larger enterprises having a substantial “On-Premise” IT with
many legacy applications and systems are looking to optimize their IT through
Private Clouds. Private Clouds are hosted inside enterprise firewalls and have
to be controlled by the enterprises themselves. Most enterprises have already
started their journey by virtualizing servers and some IT infrastructure.
Prospective consumers are being attracted by better automation and self
service for users, but these early adopters are facing challenging decisions
and integration headaches due to a general lack of standards.

As private cloud technologies get adopted, IT managers will start to grow

comfortable with the use of cloud technologies inside their walls. As a result,
they will start to look more seriously at the cost/benefit analysis of private
versus public clouds. More efforts will be taken to verify the promises of the
cloud in terms of cost savings and the ability to deliver functionality quickly.
Companies will start to take a more serious look at building hybrid clouds that
better integrate existing enterprise applications with cloud-based applications.
The proliferation of different services will lead to several models designed to
meet the needs of different companies. Most will not prove practical, but a few
models will emerge that help balance the needs of security, compliance and
cost savings in a practical way.

Trend towards Hybrid Cloud

"The concept of Hybrid Clouds, primarily for infrastructure is yet to gather
momentum. Over a period of time, this is set to change where larger
enterprises will increasingly focus on Hybrid Clouds in order to leverage the
best of both worlds. This will happen once Public Cloud providers begin to
follow open standards that will enable seamless integration between Private
and Public Clouds. With this the services oriented architecture would become
a focus point as the Hybrid environment becomes more and more
sophisticated with apps or services from cloud integrating with apps or
services running on premise; it would become necessary to have the
architecture in the right way so that they support these loosely coupled
models. This would make the hybrid environments to run optimally."
Before you think 'Cloud'
Amid an ever-increasing bevy of regulations that enterprises
need to worry about and a growing number of cloud service We believe that
providers to choose from, enterprises have a lot of options enterprises will
and a lot of questions to consider concerning cloud leverage and
computing compliance. adopt the private
cloud model
faster than other
 Evaluate existing IT infrastructure portfolio against organizational
models, because
requirements today and in the future, map on the service level
as a hybrid model
requirements and then arrive at what kind of future infrastructure is
of a public and an
required.
internal cloud, a
 Evaluate the future IT requirement against budget outlay and cloud
private cloud
vendor services and maturity levels available in the market to
model will utilize
determine which IT services need to be move to the cloud and which
resources from
need to remain physical.
both the internal
 Finally, identify an end to end vendor solutions provider that brings and external
together different pieces from the larger ecosystem together for pools.
simplicity and to avoid vendor lock-in.
Manoj
Moving to the Public Cloud Chugh,President
It is critical for organizations to fully assess vendors' security systems, as the , EMC India &
most critical element of their businesses-information is in the hands of the SAARC.
service providers. It is also important for them to avoid cloud lock-in. This
will help them switch providers. This approach will help them to retain
control over the company's IT processes. Beyond the data center, threats lie in connectivity to the
cloud. So, it is important to have an end point security mechanism in place. The need of the hour
is a smart choice of next-generation technologies, which are both effective and cost-efficient and
provide a proven way to prevent unauthorized access to critical data and applications.

Questions to ask before you move to the public cloud:

 Does the cloud offer a service level agreement (SLA) for services? If yes, how many 9's
does it have (look for 99.9% to 99.999% uptime guaranteed)?
 Does the Cloud have a public transparency site where the system issues or outages are
published for everyone to see?
 Does the Cloud offer compensation commensurate with any potential financial loss if my
business suffers due to lack of availability? Will I be compensated automatically or do I
need to ask for it?
 Does the Cloud have applications and data stored in several geographically separated data
centers? If yes, how many datacenters does the Cloud have? If geographically distributed
datacenters are used, what countries are involved?
 Is there a disaster recovery strategy in place? How frequently is it tested?
 How many copies of the data are backed up? How often is backup performed?
 Can I readily export my data in a usable format?
Security questions

 What are the security measures used to authenticate users?

 What level of encryption is offered to protect my data?
 How secure is the Cloud and is it certified with any independent security vendors to vet
the overall security of its services?

Moving to a Private Cloud

A private cloud can be set up either internally or by partnering vis-a-vis with an external cloud
service offerings vendor to identify which model is suitable. The process begins with
consolidation - storage, networks, applications, data centers.

Storage consolidation alone can realize 2:1 savings. The next step is virtualization, then building
in security through identity assurance & access control, encryption & key management,
compliance & security information management and fraud protection. Adoption of tiered
storage, data de-duplication and applying software and process automation for further benefits.

Create Your Own Private Cloud

We used Ubuntu's Enterprise Server, which is a freely downloadble solution

to let you build your own IaaS based private cloud in your data center.

Sandeep Koul

Sunday, August 01, 2010

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Most discussions around Cloud Computing

nowadays are either focused on the security issues associated with it, or
providing basic definitions of the three different types of Cloud based services
i.e SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. A third thing is of course the loud noise created by
all the vendors around their own cloud based offerings. There's hardly
anybody talking about actual usage of cloud computing. Which public cloud
service should you choose? What's a private cloud and how to get started on
it? What are the tools that would let me create my own private cloud? There

So while the public cloud based services have been covered elsewhere in our
cover story, in this story we'll focus on how to build your own private IaaS
(Infrastructure as a Service) based private cloud. For this, we've used
Ubuntu's 10.04 Server Edition, which is completely free. We've given it on this
month's DVD, else you can download it from ubuntu.com/cloud/private.
The benefits of setting this up are many. It has the elasticity to grow or shrink
your compute capacity based on your application's needs. You can rapidly
deploy new applications whenever required on your existing IT infrastructure.
This way, you don't end up investing in additional hardware resources. The
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud provides the same APIs as the popular EC2 cloud
from Amazon, so if you've worked with that, this should be a piece of cake.
What you create and run on Ubuntu, you can also run on EC2.

Let's Implement
You need at least two servers for deploying the Ubuntu Cloud. One (Machine
A) would act as the cloud, cluster, warehouse, and storage controller; while
the other (Machine B) would be the node controller. One thing to keep in mind
is that the node controller should support virtualization as virtual machines
would be running on it. By default a single virtual machine would run per core,
therefore having a multi-core node controller is highly recommended. We
configured Machine A on a Core2duo X6800 processor based machine with 2
GB DDR 2 RAM and 80 GB HDD. Machine B was running on an AMD
Phenome II X4 965 processor with 4 GB DDR 3 RAM and 250 GB HDD.

To install the
Ubuntu based
Cloud, select 'Install
Ubuntu Enterprise
Cloud' from the first
screen for
installation on both
Machines A and B.
 

Choose 'Select cloud

installation mode',
and then select
cloud, cluster,
warehouse, and
storage controller for
Machine A and
choose node
controller for
Machine B.

 
While installing on
Machine A, give a
range of available
Elastic IPs in the
window named
'configuring
eucalyptus-cc'.

You'll need to burn the Ubuntu server ISO on a CD/DVD and boot machine A
from it. From the first screen that pops up, choose 'Install Ubuntu Enterprise
Cloud'. The installer would automatically check for Eucalyptus components on
the network and recommend that you install the required components. From
the screen with 'Select Cloud installation mode' heading, select Cloud, cluster,
warehouse, and storage controller. Other Cloud specific inputs required during
installation are cluster name (cluster1 in our case) and range of public IPs that
can be assigned to instances. Once Machine A is up and running, you'll need
to setup the Node Controller. For this, boot Machine B with the Ubuntu
Enterprise Server CD/DVD and  select 'Install Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud'. This
would automatically detect the cluster1 and pre-select 'node controller' in
'Select Cloud installation mode'. Once the installation is done, reboot machine
B and we are done.

Configuring your Private Cloud

Before you can start using the nodes, they have to be registered. In our case,
registration is done automatically as we are installing Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud
using the ISO. To verify this registration, run following command on Machine
A:

cat /var/log/eucalyptus/registration.log
Next you need to  get credentials of the users. This can be done either
through a web browser or by using the command line. Just visit the IP address
of your Cloud controller (in our case, 192.168.2.10), login using 'admin' as
both user name and password. This action would prompt you to change your
password. Once done with these changes, click on 'Credentials' tab on the
top, and then click on 'Download Credentials' button on the top. Save this
zipped file to '~/.euca', then unzip this file using:

unzip -d ~/.euca mycreds.zip

To check if nodes
are properly
registered, run the
following command
on Machine A:
'cat
/var/log/eucalyptus/r
egistration.log'.

 
 You can install
sample images plus
create users using
the web interface of
the cloud controller.
For this, login as
using 'admin' as both
username and
password.

Credentials of users
can be taken either
from a web browser
or from the
command line. Just
 visit the IP address
of your cloud
controller and go to
'Credentials' tab.

Click on the
'Region'. This would
pop up a window
named 'Manage EC2
Regions'. Enter
region name and the
IP address
'http://192.168.2.10:
8773/services/Eucal
yptus'.

 
Click on
'Credentials' tab on
the top; this would
pop up 'Manage EC2
Credentials' window.
Get value of 'AWS
Access Key' and
'AWS Secret Access
Key' from
'http://192.168.2.10'.

Create Your Own

Private Cloud

Continued from
page: 1

Sandeep Koul

Sunday, August
01, 2010

P Co E D Del.i Re Tw
ri mm m ig cio.u ddi itte
nt ent ail g s t r
The other way of
achieving
credentials is by
running the
following
commands on the
cloud controller: 

mkdir -p ~/.euca
chmod 700 ~/.euca
cd ~/.euca
sudo euca_conf
--get-credentials
mycreds.zip
unzip mycreds.zip
ln -s ~/.euca/eucarc
~/.eucarc
cd –

To use your
credentials, install
the required cloud
user tools as
follows:

sudo apt-get install

euca2ools
And to check if
everything is
running properly
. ~/.euca/eucarc
euca-describe-
availability-zones
verbose

 Installing and
running an image
We have created our
infrastructure. Now
we show you how to
run applications on
top of this. You can
either create your
own image or get the
sample images from
the image store on
web interface.
Simply access
Machine A from a
web browser by
typing its IP address,
and login as admin.
From this interface,
click on 'Store' and
then click on
'Search'. Now
simply click on
install button
presented in front of
the available images.
Once installed, the
image would show
'How to run?' link in
front of it. This link
displays commands
to run the pre-
installed image. All
installed images can
be seen under the
Images tab.

Get
all
the
inst
alle
d
im
age
s
un
der
'Im
age
s'
tab
.
Sel
ect
the
list
ed
inst
anc
e
and
clic
k
on
'St
art
Ins
tan
ces
(s)'
on
the
top
.
Thi
s
wo
uld
imi
tate
inst
anc
e
and
 ass
ign
Ela
stic
IP
to
it.
 

In
Hy
bri
dfo
x,
go
to
'Vo
lu
me
and
Sn
aps
hot
s'
tab
.
He
re
yo
 u
can
cre
ate
vol
um
es;
clic
k
on
gre
en
plu
s
sig
n
and
fill
in
am
ou
nt
of
sto
rag
e
req
uir
ed
and
put
ava
ila
ble
zon
e
(Cl
ust
er1
in
our
cas
e).
 
In
'At
tac
h
Vo
lu
me'
po
p
up
wi
nd
ow
,
sel
ect
Ins
tan
ce
and
add
dev
ice
na
me
'/de
v/s
db'.
Yo
u
hav
 e
suc
ces
sfu
lly
cre
ate
d
and
atta
che
d
vol
um
e
to
yo
ur
run
nin
g
inst
anc
e.
Using Command
line to run image
To run images go to
Machine A and run
following
commands:

if [ ! -e
~/.euca/mykey.priv ]
; then
mkdir -p -m 700
~/.euca
touch
~/.euca/mykey.priv
chmod 0600
~/.euca/mykey.priv
euca-add-keypair
mykey >
~/.euca/mykey.priv
fi

These commands are

to create a keypair
(ssh key) that you
can use to log into
your instance as
root, once it boots.
As the key is stored,
you only need to
create them once.
You also need to
allow access to port
22 of instance. This
can be done using:

euca-authorize
default -P tcp -p 22
-s 0.0.0.0/0

Then create
instances of your
registered images as
follows:

euca-run-instances
$EMI -k mykey
emi-E1461079 -t
m1.small –
addressing private

You can get an

image id from the
web interface of the
Cloud controller by
clicking on 'How to
run?' under the
'Store' tab. You can
monitor state of
instance using the
following:

watch -n5 euca-

describe-instances

Output of this
command shows
information about
the instance,
including its state.
While first-time
caching is being
performed, the
instance's state will
be 'pending'. When
the instance is fully
started, the above
state will become
'running'. Look at
the IP address
assigned to your
instance in the
output and then
connect to it:

IPADDR=$(euca-
describe-instances |
grep $EMI | grep
running | tail -n1 |
awk '{print $4}')
ssh -i
~/.euca/mykey.priv
ubuntu@$IPADDR

To terminate
instance run

INSTANCEID=$
(euca-describe-
instances | grep
$EMI | grep running
| tail -n1 | awk
'{print $2}')
euca-terminate-
instances
$INSTANCEID

Using Hybridfox
extension to run
Images
Besides using
command line, one
easy and efficient
way to manage your
Ubuntu private
cloud is via Firefox
extension known as
Hybridfox.
Download this
extension from
http://code.google.co
m/p/hybridfox/.
Once installed, you
need to connect it to
Ubuntu private
Cloud. Click on 
'Region' on the top.
This would pop up a
window named
'Manage EC2
Regions' asking for
region name and
endpoint URL.
Name region (India,
in our case) and put
'http://192.168.2.10:
8773/services/Eucal
yptus' where
'192.168.2.10' is the
IP address of
Machine A. Second
important step to be
carried out is to add
credentials to
hybridfox. Click on
'Credentials' tab on
the top; this would
pop up 'Manage EC2
Credentials' window.
Get value of 'AWS
Access Key' and
'AWS Secret Access
Key' from
'192.168.2.10', click
on 'Credentials' tab
and then click on
'Show keys' button
under 'Query
interface
credentials'. Here
'Query ID' is 'AWS
Access Key' and
'Secret Key' is 'AWS
Secret Access Key'.
Now refresh your
page and you should
get all the installed
images under
'Images' tab. Simply
select the listed
instance and click on
'Start Instances(s)'
button on the top
(green start icon).
This would imitate
instance and assign
Elastic IP to it. You
can see the different
states of imitated
Instance; initially it
starts as 'pending'
then changes to
'running' and when
terminated changes
to 'terminated'.  To
get list of available
Elastic IP's, simply
click on 'Elastic IP's'
tab on the top.
Elastic IP's are
nothing but public
IP's that were
defined during
installation on
Machine A. These
are assigned to
instances for access
by users.

Allocate Resource
on the fly
To summarize IaaS
in plain English, it
gives the capability
of adding/
subtracting
resources to your
application on the
fly. Suppose you had
anticipated that x
number of CPU's
and y amount of
memory would be
enough to run your
application, but later
you found  that extra
memory/storage/pro
cessing power was
needed, you might
be in a fix. However,
if you are using
Cloud setup, it is
just a matter of few
clicks that would
add those extra
resources needed by
your application and
that too on the fly.
Here, I show you
how to create a
virtual storage unit
and then attach this
storage unit to
running instance on
the fly. In
Hybridfox, go to
'Volume and
Snapshots' tab on the
top. Here you can
create volumes,
click on green plus
sign and fill in
amount of storage
required plus put
available zone
(Cluster1, in our
case). Once volume
is created, it would
be assigned a
volume ID, now
select this volume
and attach it to
running instance by
clicking on green
button with tick
mark. In 'Attach
Volume' pop up
window, select
Instance and add
device name
'/dev/sdb'. With this,
you have
successfully created
and attached volume
to your running
instance. You can
also detach volumes
by clicking on red
button with cross
image.

All these steps show

how easy it is to take
the first step in
creation of your own
private Cloud and
that too with
minimal investment.

What to Move to
the Cloud?

On Cloud you
can host
anything from a
business app to
a full-fledged
data center. So,
does that mean
you should
move all your
activities onto
the Cloud?
What to move to
the Cloud is not
an all or nothing
proposition, but
should be a
balance of
activities that
can be on your
existing
infrastructure
and those that
can be put onto
the Cloud

Rahul Sah

Sunday, August
01, 2010

P Co E D Del.i Re Tw
ri mm m ig cio.u ddi itte
nt ent ail g s t r
IT experts,
analysts,
industry leaders
and everyone
else talks about
Cloud
Computing
today. While
some
peoplebelieve
that it is
Internet's next
evolution, others
say that it's just
hype. But what
one doesn't
argue about is
the business
benefit
proposition that
Cloud
Computing
offers to an
organization.
Both IT and
business
managers are
already
inundated with
information on
the benefits of a
cloud centric
infrastructure.
The question
now that they
seek an answer
to is not on
whether to move
to the cloud or
not, but how and
what to move to
the cloud. Let's
try and address
this issue.

Public or
Private?
A public cloud
will be like
services from
Amazon,
Microsoft,
Google or
Salesforce.com
that will drive the
costs down and
relieve you of
the management
of resources
burden but at
cost of losing
some control
over them.
Whereas a
private cloud will
be built using an
enterprise's own
resources in the
data center, will
reside within the
enterprise
firewalls, and
you'll have to
manage the
whole resources
while having full
control over
them. Making a
choice between
these two
adoption
approaches is a
third option of
hybrid cloud,
which is
leveraging some
of the services
on both private
as well as the
public cloud.
Private Cloud:
Enterprise's
choice
Any large
enterprise or
organization
would have a
clear choice of
adopting a
private cloud, as
they do not want
to compromise
on the critical
security policies
involved with
data and
information. The
main benefit of
private cloud
over a public
cloud that an
enterprise see is
that in a private
cloud all the
services, data
and processes
will be managed
within the
organization
without
restrictions of
network
bandwidth,
security and
legal
requirements
that using a
public cloud over
public network
could involve.
Also they have
the resources to
have virtual
infrastructure to
adopt the cloud
computing
model. While
small
organization or
SMBs won't be
having that kind
of virtual
infrastructure
that enables
remote
configuration of
a virtual network
involving
routers, firewalls
etc. Any large
organization,
say a bank,
would not port
their business
critical
applications like
core banking
solution onto the
public cloud.
They want total
control over their
business
applications and
related data,
therefore a
private cloud
infrastructure
suits them well.

But many
organizations
would have
already invested
on their own
data center for
next 4-8 years.
They cannot
abandon these
investments
overnight and
move towards
cloud. So what
is a viable option
for them?
Actually, the
idea of adopting
a private cloud is
to make use of
existing
virtualized data
centers. Since
virtualization is
just the base
layer for having
cloud
infrastructure,
and most data
centers would
already be
having servers
that support
virtualization.
The larger
organizations
with existing
infrastructure
can leverage
virtualization of
their servers so
as to enable
them to manage
peaks in
demand. By
consolidating
storage and
applications and
virtualizing their
infrastructure,
organizations
are beginning to
create their own
private cloud
services. They
are modifying
their physical
data centers by
changing the
way they
manage the
services that run
out of their data
centers. Doing
so they are
overcoming the
issues of
availability,
security, and
vendor lock-in
and are getting
benefitted with
easier
management of
resources.

But the question

about what to
move to the
private cloud
remains. IT
experts say that
almost
everything can
be moved to the
cloud. But the
advisable
approach is to
move those
applications that
are not
performance
centric to the
private cloud.
For instance,
storage, archival
applications,
NAS, etc can be
moved. Hitachi
Data Systems is
offering cloud
service for
private File
Tiering for
organizations,
wherein an
organization can
have their
storage in a
private cloud
within their own
data center and
managed by
Hitachi. For
instance, if an
organization is
having a NAS of
50TB, it is
unlikely that
more than 80-
90% of that data
would be active.
So an
organization can
opt for having a
NAS for 10TB
storage and
have rest on
their private
cloud storage,
which will be
setup and
managed by
Hitachi and the
organization will
be paying them
on what they
actually use.
Thereby, shifting
their capital
expenditure on
storage devices
towards
operational
expenses.
Similarly, apps
or processes like
email archiving,
document
management
systems, data
backup can be
migrated onto
the private cloud
initially. Then as
the model
stabilizes and
the organization
has developed
or modified their
existing
business
applications for
the cloud
computing
infrastructure, it
will be in this
phase that an
organization can
move some of
their business
critical apps on
the cloud
computing
infrastructure
within their data
center. This
gives
organizations to
deliver internal
IT services more
effectively and in
cost effective
manner.

Public Cloud:
For everyone?
While the cloud
service
providers like
Amazon,
Google,
Microsoft,
Salesforce.com
etc. are all in an
endeavor to
offer a one-stop
shop for all the
IT needs for any
particular
organization by
providing those
as services on
public cloud
model. The
cloud service
provider takes
the care of
deploying,
managing and
securing the
infrastructure,
and the
organizations
can consume
them on demand
with a pay for
what you use
model. Though,
the adoption
towards Cloud is
increasing, it can
be related to the
skepticism that
people had
earlier towards
online
payments.
During the
DotCom days
when people
were skeptic of
giving their
credit card
details online,
but now they are
using online
payment on a
daily basis
without second
thoughts. Exact
same ways will
happen with
Cloud. As issues
with SLAs, data
security, etc. get
worked out and
finalized and
standards are
adopted; a
Cloud business
model will
emerge which
will be 'pay as
you use' for
different
customers like
enterprise, end-
users etc.

Adopting a
public cloud
makes more
sense to smaller
organizations or
SMBs that can't
invest upfront on
hardware or on
licensing of
business
productivity
solutions like
ERP or CRMs.
Such
organizations
can opt for cloud
services
offerings ranging
from business
apps to having a
server on the
cloud. The only
thing that the
consumer has to
ensure is the
bandwidth
availability for
availing these
services.
Whereas, a
large
organization
won't be
adopting public
cloud
completely,
rather they
would be
adopting a
Hybrid cloud
approach,
wherein the will
host their non-
risky data and
resources onto
the public cloud
and have their
business critical
apps and data
within their
private cloud.

How to Move to
the Public
Cloud?

Some words of
advice before
you move to a
Cloud service
provider

Shikhar Mohan
Gupta

Sunday, August
01, 2010

P Co E D Del.i Re Tw
ri mm m ig cio.u ddi itte
nt ent ail g s t r
IDC predicts that
worldwide Cloud
services market will
be worth about $43
billion by 2012. And
Cloud service
adoption will grow
at 27% CAGR,
which is almost five
times that of the
traditional on-
premise IT
expenditure model.
Moving your data or
services,
applications, etc on
to the public Cloud
is a conscious yet
difficult decision to
take. The preceding
article on what to
move to the Cloud
will help clear the
air to a large extent.
After deciding what
you want to move to
the Cloud comes the
next big challenge
-how to go about it?
Though the
procedures and
practices involved in
moving to the public
Cloud infrastructure
are different for each
vendor or Cloud
service providers
(CSPs), there are
some common basic
steps to follow.
Here, we guide you
to cut through the
initial hiccups you
might face in
procuring public
Cloud offerings.

Moving to the SaaS

Availing Software as
a Service may be the
most difficult job to
decide, because it
has the maximum
number of options to
choose from. There
are some very
popular SaaS
providers out there,
including
Salesforce.com with
its CRM offering,
Google and
Microsoft with their
entire Apps
portfolio. Deciding
to use the services of
such established
players may only be
a matter of choosing
the right partner to
do it for you,
defining the SLAs,
and of course
negotiating on the
rates. Here again,
you would want to
calculate the savings
that would result
from moving to a
SaaS provider. A
few things to
consider here are:

 How much
are you
paying for
 the software
licenses
locally and
how much
would you
end up
paying by
moving to
the SaaS
model?
 How much
additional
Internet
bandwidth
will you need
for the new
service?
Your
bandwidth
requirements
would most
certainly go
up by
moving to
the SaaS
model. How
much would
they go up
by depends
upon the
number of
users and the
service itself.
On top of
that, you'll
need to
factor in the
cost of
providing
QoS and
backup links,
so that the
users get
uninterrupted
and quality
 service.
 Many SaaS
service
providers
provide their
services
through a
partner, and
not directly.
So, while the
SaaS service
itself might
be from a
reputed
brand, but if
the partner
isn't
competent
enough,
you'll be in
for trouble.
Hence, after
choosing a
SaaS service
provider,
you'll need to
choose the
right
implementati
on partner as
well.
 How easy is
the service to
use? Does
the SaaS
provider
offer a free
online demo
to give you a
look and feel
of their
offering
before you
decide to use
their
 services?

Th
e
use
r
nee
ds
to
pro
vid
e
bas
ic
inf
or
ma
tio
n
abo
ut
the
co
mp
 any
and
usa
ge
to
ava
il
the
fre
e
trai
l
per
iod
fro
m
Ra
mc
o.
Ramco's on
Demand ERP
We tried Ramco's on
demand ERP
solution from their
website,
ramcoondemand.co
m. The company
offers a 7-day trial to
give you a look and
feel of the solution
and its performance.
To register, it
requires you to fill
out a basic online
form to give Ramco
an idea of your
organization. You
need to specify your
industry, number of
locations, and your
contact info.
Registration doesn't
directly take you to
the 7-day trial,
instead, the
company gets back
to you to discuss
your requirements,
post which a demo is
set up.

Th
e
das
hb
oar
d
fro
m
Sal
esf
orc
e
pro
vid
es
use
r
var
iou
s
 opt
ion
s
lik
e
de
mo
s
and
get
tin
g
star
ted
gui
des
alo
ng
wit
h
te
mp
late
s to
hos
t
an
app
on
to
the
Clo
ud.
The on demand ERP
currently caters to
engineering,
automotive, travel
and transport,
industrial &
manufacturing,
power generation,
wholesale
distribution, and
dairy industries. It
offers an extensive
range of modules,
ranging from
financial
management,
accounts
receivable/payable,
manufacturing,
inventory
management, cost
planning and
control, CRM, sales,
purchase, business
analytics, reports,
human capital
management, fixed
assets management,
logistics, and service
management. There
is also the option of
getting to know the
solution, its
offerings, etc
through the info
available on the
website. The website
offers to contact the
desired for which
you have to provide
the contact number.
Once you provide
the contact number,
the people from the
Ramco company
will contact you and
you can take the deal
forward by
negotiating your
terms and
conditions.It would
have been nice if the
company had
provided a live
online system to the
users to play around
with. Currently, they
have some online
flash demos to give
you a look and feel
of the various
modules.

Ra
mc
o
off
ers
a
7-
day
tria
l to
giv
e
yo
ua
loo
k
and
fee
l of
the
sol
uti
on.
To
 reg
iste
r, it
req
uir
es
yo
u
to
fill
out
a
bas
ic
onl
ine
for
m
to
giv
e
the
m
an
ide
a
of
yo
ur
org
ani
zati
on.
Salesforce.com
This company
doesn't need an
introduction, as it's
one of the most
popular SaaS based
CRM service
providers. We tried
30-day free trail of
their services.
Registration was
pretty simple and
straightforward.
Moreover, unlike
Ramco, here the
company offers a
live demo to give
users an actual look
and feel of the
solution. After
registering, it makes
your email id as
your user name and
prompts you to
change your
password. After this,
it allows you to set
up your email to
work with
Salesforce. The
demo supports
Gmail account or
MS Outlook. You
can even import
your contacts from
Gmail, Outlook, etc.
Besides, it has
online video
tutorials built in so
that you can view
them anytime to
understand it better.
Sales Cloud, Service
Cloud, Chatter and
Force.com are some
of the offerings by
Salesforce, being
offered as a service
for different price
points.

Moving to PaaS
Some of the most
talked about entities
in the Cloud space
comprise big CSPs
providing various
platforms on to the
Cloud for the user or
developer
community to
develop their
applications on the
Cloud. Microsoft
Azure , Google
AppEngine and EC2
are some CSPs
providing PaaS
capabilities to
developers and
enterprises.

Google AppEngine
enables you to build
and host web apps
on the same systems
that power Google
applications.
AppEngine offers
fast development
and deployment,
simple
administration and
you don't need to
worry about
hardware, patches or
backups and
scalability. To use
the PaaS services
from the Google
AppEngine provider,
you need to sign up
for an AppEngine
account, download
the SDK and
proceed further by
reading the getting
started guide which
provides the user
basic info about
developing and
hosting apps on the
Google
infrastructure.
Microsoft Azure
works in a similar
manner. The user
needs to sign up
using his Windows
Live Id, download
the SDK tools and
register to gain
access to services to
the Microsoft
platform. We have a
separate article on
how to develop on
MS Azure platform
in the developer
section of this issue.
To read more about
how to use
AppEngine, you can
go to this
link: http://ld2.in/hu.

Moving to IaaS
As we know that any
new IT initiative
from an existing
enterprise or a
startup involves a
analysis of the cost
and manageability of
the IT infrastructure
which is required to
host the hardware.
Though IT hardware
infrastructure is
getting greener and
meaner but is not
getting any cheaper.
The huge costs
associated with
procuring and
managing the
infrastructure may
often lead to many
startup ideas
vanishing in the air.
This is where IaaS
(Infrastructure as a
Service) model
comes in. Using
IaaS has various
benefits like almost
zilch fund required
for setting up the IT
infrastructure which
generally amounts to
more than 80% of
the initial cost.
Subscribed and
scalable IaaS from a
renowned vendor
can help an
organization
function effectively.
CSPs providing IaaS
offer consultancy
and help set up the
server requirements
for an organization.
Dedicated
virtualized storage
and servers as a
service just mirror
the idea of an
outsourced data
center with the
organization having
to worry least in
their performance
and maintenance.
Maximum usability
and on demand
scalability are some
of the features being
provided by these
CSPs which make
the deals rather
lucrative.

Jamcracker's
Cloud Services

Instead of
chasing multiple
cloud service
providers to
avail their
services, you
can use
Jamcracker,
which puts them
all under one
roof, and let's
you purchase
their services,
just as if you
were doing
online shopping.

Sandeep Koul

Sunday, August
01, 2010

P Co E D Del.i Re Tw
ri mm m ig cio.u ddi itte
nt ent ail g s t r
Sere we would
be talking about
a service
provider that
does not provide
any cloud
service of its
own, but acts as
a broker and
let's you procure
the cloud
services of
others from a
single roof. With
a sudden burst
of cloud
services, cloud
service
providers are
providing almost
everything as a
service from
mail to security.
Now due to this
spurt in services
and ad hoc
adoption, many
organizations
are increasingly
facing difficulty
in managing
cloud services
from different
vendors. Add
management
issues related to
private clouds,
and an IT
manager has a
huge problem on
hand. To
address this
issue,
Jamcracker
comes to party.
It provides an
abstraction layer
on top of all the
cloud services of
your
organization
(both private and
public), and
gives a user
single interface
through which all
the existing
cloud services
can be
managed.
Jamcracker's
unified services
delivery and
management
architecture
aggregates
order
management,
security and
policy
management,
user and service
administration,
billing and
settlement,
usage reporting
and auditing,
and license
management
across internally
and externally
hosted cloud
services.
Besides these,
infrastructure,
security, data
backup,
messaging,
collaboration,
mobility and
business
productivity
solutions from
leading vendors
are available
through
Jamcracker
service delivery
network (JSDN),
which means
with a few clicks,
one can get the
required service.
This platform
was built to
accommodate
cloud providers,
service
providers and
enterprises. A
service provider
can bundle their
services with
JSDN for quick
delivery while
enterprises can
manage life
cycle of a cloud
service plus
enforce polices
across private
and public
clouds.

KB
Chandrasekhar,
Chairman and
CEO, Jamcracker
We had an
interesting chat
with the Chairman
and CEO of
Jamcracker, K B
Chandrasekhar on
the whole concept
of cloud
computing. He
illustrated it with
some very
interesting
examples. He
stated that any IT
infrastructure today
has become
extremely difficult
to manage, with so
many silos of
information,
software, storage,
and other
resources.
Everything is
scattered, so
introducing a new
service, or using
any of the services
is a task in itself.

On the other hand,

when you use the
services offered by
a telecom service
provider for
instance-Voice
calls, Voice mail,
Caller Tunes, VAS,
SMS, GPRS, etc,
you get everything
in one place as a
single bouquet of
services. You don't
differentiate them
as coming from
multiple sources.
As far as you, the
user is concerned,
all those services
are provided to you
by a single telecom
service provider.
Even your monthly
bill consolidates
the cost of all these
services, so you
pay also in one
place.

At the back-end
also, the telecom
service provider is
also running an
overall platform,
typically known as
the OSS/BSS,
which offers its
users seamless
services. How the
service provider
shares its revenues
with its partners at
the back-end is
none of the users'
concern.

Unfortunately, the
way IT
infrastructure is
managed in
organizations is
exactly the
opposite.
Everything is
scattered all over
the place. You have
to purchase
different software
and services from
different vendors.
They have to be
implemented
separately as well.
The trend in cloud
computing is to
change all that, and
provide a seamless
experience to both
the user and the
implementer of
those services.

Unfortunately, here
again, there are
multiple cloud
computing service
providers, each
offering a different
set of services. So
the user has to once
again run all over
the place, and deal
with multiple cloud
service providers
for his
requirements. If the
user could get all
cloud services
under one roof, and
buy them just as if
he/she were buying
an ordinary
commodity online
with a credit card,
then that would
truly make the
difference. What's
required is an
integration of
various cloud
services, so that
you simply add the
ones you like to the
shopping card and
pay for them as you
use them. This
could truly increase
the adoption of
cloud computing,
and it's also the
model around
which Chandra's
company,
Jamcracker
functions.

Anil Chopra with

inputs from K B
Chandrasekhar of
Jamcracker

Based on inputs
from K B
Chandrasekhar,
Chairman and
CEO, Jamcracker
On usage front,
Jamcracker is
quite simple and
straight forward
to use. Simply
login to the
Service
Management
Console (SMC)
through which a
user can do one
of the following
tasks: access
subscribed
services,
manage
subscription,
provision users,
and get new
services. This
interface also
includes
customization
according to
preference for
enhanced
efficiency:
options like bulk
upload of users
and visibility of
help desk cases
are a couple of
neat features.
Other noticeable
feature is the
simplicity to
subscribe for a
new service; just
go to
'Marketplace' tab
which lists most
of the leading
cloud services,
click on 'Service
Options' button
to get license
fee and 'Add to
Cart'. One more
interesting part
for higher
management is
comprehensive
reporting (click
on 'Report' tab
and select type
of report).
Overall, a simple
yet customizable
interface with all
the required
features to
manage cloud
services for your
organization.

 In
ter
fa
ce
of
Ja
m
cr
ac
ke
r
S
M
C,
thi
s
ca
n
be
us
ed
to
m
an
ag
 e
ex
ist
in
g
us
ers
an
d
ser
vi
ce
s
Bottomline: With
Cloud services on
the rise, this tool
serves future needs
by providing an
innovative platform
that abstracts cloud
computing
complexity.

Office
Infrastructure on
the Cloud

Microsoft
Business
Productivity
Online Services
is a cloud
offering that
manages your
network
infrastructure,
licenses for
each users,
security,
updates,
backups and
more

Vinod Unny,
Enterprise
InfoTech

Sunday, August
01, 2010

P Co E D Del.i Re Tw
ri mm m ig cio.u ddi itte
nt ent ail g s t r
Microsoft
Exchange and
Windows
SharePoint
Services/Micros
oft Office
SharePoint
Server
(WSS/MOSS)
have become
ubiquitous in
their usage in
most modern
tech-enabled
companies.
However, this
comes with its
own set of
issues – you
need to obtain
and maintain the
network
infrastructure,
manage licenses
for each user,
manage
security,
updates and
backups and
more. Not only
that, when a
new version of
the base
software comes
up, you need to
migrate the
servers,
increase
capacity/load
and more. This
requires an
entire team of
specialists on
call or on site for
ensuring smooth
operations.

This is where
Microsoft's IaaS
cloud offering
helps – whether
you are running
a 5 member
company from
your basement
or a 50,000
member global
conglomerate.
Microsoft
Business
Productivity
Online Suite or
simply BPOS is
a cloud offering
that takes care
of all the issues
mentioned
above of hosting
services for your
organization.

BPOS is actually
a suite of 4
different
products/service
s from Microsoft.
It comes with
Exchange
Online,
SharePoint
Online, Office
Live Meeting
and Office
Communications
Online. A quick
recap of each
are:

Exchange
Online: It is a
cloud-based MS
Exchange
offering in
BPOS. It offers
the full suite of
the product,
25GB of mailbox
size / user,
ActiveSync/Blac
kBerry support,
MAPI, POP,
IMAP, SMTP,
HTTPS based
access and free,
unlimited
resource (like
conference
room, item, etc.)
scheduling.

SharePoint
Online: MOSS
on the cloud, so
to speak. You
get all the
features of
SharePoint,
including
branding etc.
and comes with
a huge bunch of
pre-installed site
templates. The
only limitation
here is that you
cannot deploy a
custom
application on
top of this
hosted
SharePoint.

Live Meeting: It
is a cloud
offering to
arrange
voice/video
meetings,
trainings,
webcasts and
other events.
You can create,
attend, view and
manage any
kind of online
meeting with
this. The best
part is that you
can invite
attendees to a
live meeting
without requiring
them to have an
account in your
organization.

Communicatio
ns Online: This
is the corporate
IM service from
Microsoft that
allows users
within the
organization to
communicate
with each other
through text,
voice or video.
This feature
alone can help
reduce
telephone call
costs in your
organization
significantly.

Each of these
services can of
course be
purchased
separately.
There are even
more options in
the form of the
Deskless
Worker type
license that
comes at a low
price. If you
want more than
one service for a
user, it might
actually make
more sense to
simply purchase
the entire BPOS
suite.

The advantage
of these IaaS
services is that if
you're a small
organization,
you don't need a
dedicated IT
team to manage
servers,
updates, etc.
Simply
managing your
organization's
user accounts
from the simple
Web based
interface is good
enough. If you're
a mid-sized
organization, a
small IT team
can manage
things like AD
synchronization
with BPOS so
that users are
managed
automatically as
soon as
changes are
made in the
local ADS. Large
organizations
can opt-in for the
BPOS dedicated
offering where
MS will actually
setup dedicated
servers for you.

Apart from these

services, there
are a bunch of
“add-on”
services as well
that are
available for
purchase – such
as message
archival,
encryption,
advanced
filtering and
others. You can
even create a
setup where
only the top
management of
the organization
is on BPOS,
while the rest of
the company
uses normal
POP/IMAP/SMT
P accounts from
any ISP. This is
however a
slightly more
complex setup
and you will
require some
assistance in
setting this up
correctly.
There are other
messaging
solutions
available that
aim at the
corporate world
– such as the
Gmail Premium
services.
However, none
of these have
the integrated
experience as
well as the
plethora of
options and
features that
BPOS is able to
offer. For
instance, Gmail
doesn't have the
concept of
“Shared
Calendars” and
“Free/Busy” that
is important
when you wish
to setup
meetings or
appointments
with others.
There is also no
integrated
services such as
Live Meeting or
SharePoint to
further enhance
the messaging
and
collaboration in
the organization.
Overall BPOS
service – both
individually and
as a whole –
give a much
better cloud
based offering
for managing
infrastructure
than almost any
other solution
out there.

If you're sick and

tired of mail
outages, large
attachments on
email, high
telephone costs,
do take a look at
Microsoft's
Online Services.
You might end
up saving lot of
money.

Cloud Computing
and Project
Management

Transform India
into a global
leader in cloud
computing
services by
leveraging
project
management

Sunday, August
01, 2010

P Co E D Del.i Re Tw
ri mm m ig cio.u ddi itte
nt ent ail g s t r
The Indian IT
industry has
grown from $2
billion in export
revenues in
1998 to nearly
$50 billion today,
and the target
for 2020 is
nearly $175
billion. The last
decade was a
golden age for
India Inc, which
has seen more
than 30 percent
year-on-year
growth.
However, the
situation has
changed now,
and going by the
present
conditions of the
global economy,
industry experts
say that the
growth rate of
India Inc could
be in single digit
or at the most
slightly higher
than 10 percent.

India Inc has

been exploring
many options
and
opportunities to
accelerate the
growth in non-
linear mode by
delivering more
with less. Cloud
computing
seems to be a
promising
technology
platform and
delivery model
which might
accelerate the
non-linear
growth – deliver
more with less
resources
(human and
computing
resources).

Cloud
Computing
services would
impact the IT
services
business value
chain and
orchestrating
this business
value chain to
bring cloud
flavor is the
need of the
hour. The game
is on and India
Inc has to spend
considerable
amount of effort
and intellect time
to transform
India into a
global leader in
cloud computing
services Can
India become a
Global Leader in
Cloud computing
services?

Yes, India can

become a global
leader in offering
Cloud
Computing
services to
global
customers. The
two key
catalysts that
can make this
happen are:

1.  Assets

2.  Results

India has to invest in

building best in class
assets, which would
help achieve best in
class results in cloud
computing. To
become a global
leader, getting
revenue in short
term does not
suffice, so
considerable
investments have to
be made in building
these assets, which
would enable
transformation of
India into a global
leader In this article,
I will cover only the
ASSETS part. India
Inc has to invest
some percentage of
their revenue to
build best in class
ASSETS in Cloud
computing area

PMI's Cloud
Computing
Project
Management
Conference
PMI at India (PMI
India organization
http://pmi.org.in/ )
and its seven
chapters in India
(PMI Team India)
are arranging for a
multi-city round
table event on
“Project
Management for
Cloud Computing
services” on 7th
Aug 2010
(Saturday) at
Bangalore. The
objective of this is
to establish a
'Cloud Computing
Projects
Management
 Council” to
contribute for
building a Service
Delivery Engine by
involving Industry,
academia and
government. PMI
India also has plans
to invest on some
of the research
projects in project
management space
specific to Cloud
computing area.
ASSET 1: Cloud
Computing
Services Portfolio
Most of the debates,
discussions and
information about
cloud computing are
centered around
technology like
infrastructure
virtualization,
applications
virtualization,
service-oriented
architecture, multi-
tenant architectures,
grid computing, and
metering tools etc.
Understanding these
aspects is very
critical and
important. At the
same time service
providers like India
Inc have to spend
considerable time in
conceptualizing
different types cloud
computing services.
It is not just
conceptualization;
investments also
have to be made to
build robust assets
for each service.
Following are a few
representative
services for which
service providers
could invest. It is the
choice of the service
provider to choose
all three type of
services as
mentioned below or
any one or
combination of them
as appropriate.

ASSET 2: Service
Delivery Engine for
Cloud Services
In the IT Services
business for the last
three decades, India
Inc has evolved
from “people
provider” to “service
provider” to
“partner” to “trusted
advisor” (to global
customers). This is
quite a long journey.
To become a global
leader in Cloud
Computing services
space, India Inc has
to start providing
high-end services to
customers as trusted
advisor. This helps
is generating
considerable
downstream revenue
to India Inc and also
business value to
customers.
Project Management
acts as catalyst in
building the robust
service delivery
engine to deliver
BETTER, FASTER
and CHEAPER
services in the areas
of Cloud Brokerage
services, Public
cloud computing
services and Private
cloud computing
services to global
customers.

For any IT service

(including cloud
computing services)
if the supporting
project management
engine is not built,
probability of
success is very low
and there is no
assurance of repeat
success. It is
important for India
Inc to identify the
portfolio of different
services in Cloud
Computing space
and build the
necessary project
management assets
ahead of the other
countries. This is a
transformation
journey and which
country starts first
and move fast will
be the winner!
ASSET 3: Resource
Capability to
deliver Cloud
Computing
Services
All over the world,
IT service providers
have been facing
serious challenges in
getting best in class
talent in general.
Considering the
complexity and
emerging status of
Cloud Computing, it
is very important for
India Inc to put
innovative strategies
to build the best in
class talent.
Capacity building
and competency
building engines
have to be built to
offer best in class
cloud computing
services.

V. Srinivasa Rao,
Chairman – PMI
Team India, and VP
& Head– Oracle
Practice, Mahindra
Satyam, www.twitte
r.com/vsr111
Careers in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has created a lot of buzz lately and many companies have
started venturing in this domain and providing cloud-based services. Likewise,
most companies have also started moving some of their IT operations on the
Cloud. In this article, we look at the career opportunities available in this
domain for IT pros

Rahul Sah and Isha Gakhar

Thursday, September 03, 2009

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Looking at the benefits that Cloud Computing provides, enterprises are keenly
observing and devising strategies on how to move forward in this domain. Be
it as a provider of services on the Cloud platform or as an enterprise to
migrate its applications to the cloud, most organizations have started
venturing into this domain. Whatever be the benefits and adoption rate, there
shall be need for new talent to help companies adopt to this latest technology.
As can be seen from past experience, a new technology brings in new career
opportunities and also makes old technologies redundant, you can expect the
same from Cloud Computing.

IT professionals over the years have experienced how technologies evolve

rapidly and realized the need to keep themselves in sync with the latest to
survive in their careers. It is no longer sufficient to know the difference
between Windows or Linux-based architecture. As the industry is becoming
more service oriented, IT professionals have to learn about the various ways
in which services can be delivered to customers. Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) model has already proved a good value proposition for enterprises,
they just outsource their application requirement to a third party to manage
and provide them with that service. And SaaS is just a pre-cursor to cloud
computing. These days companies already use some form of the Cloud
architecture, like virtualization or SaaS offerings. Therefore, it would just be a
logical step for enterprises to move towards the Cloud architecture.

Cloud Computing is hot!

The likes of Google, Amazon, Microsoft have
already initiated efforts in Cloud Computing
and are betting big on its success and
eventual adoption. The reason is evident from the benefits that an
organization would accrue, like reduced start-up costs and investments,
scalability and ability to have flexible and powerful computing platforms with
no hassles of maintenance or licensing. Cloud Computing in coming years is
going to transform the IT infrastructure space. It is a platform where service
providers will deliver IT-enabled services to consumers just like a SaaS-based
platform, but with new benefits like built-in elasticity and scalability. As of now,
a SaaS-based service or application is on a hosted setup, where each
application has a defined IT resource.

However, Cloud Computing is based on a more virtualized environment and

there is no resource constraint for an application. An application hosted on
Cloud platform should be able to harness the computing power of the
resource with no constraints, ie if the requirement of an application increases,
the resource allocated will also scale up dynamically. The elastic capability of
Cloud Computing as an offering to enterprises should be of much sense to
them, as they will have to pay for the resource that their application would be
using, unlike a SaaS delivery model where they had fixed subscription fees for
the service. Also, since more and more applications for organizational
functions or processes are becoming standardized and less customized, there
are more possibilities for larger enterprises to adopt and benefit from cloud
computing.

Most organizations are now using Cloud as a hosting and deployment platform. But
once people realize how their applications grow in usage and consumption, they can
use the power of Cloud's elasticity and parallel computation. People will start moving
their applications on to the Cloud to do that. IT professionals cannot ignore Cloud
Computing, they should really consider how Cloud Computing can enhance the roles
they are doing.

Manish Rathi AVP - Services, GlobalLogic

Also, there shall be providers who will have the Cloud architecture-based
infrastructure for providing services and there will consumers, which shall be
organizations that will access services provided on the Cloud. Hence, there
would be two-faceted impact on career opportunities for IT professionals,
whether they are infrastructure engineers, software developers, networking or
security experts. The positive impact would be that there are opportunities for
them in organizations that plan to provide Cloud-based services. But the
negative impact would be for professionals in organizations that move towards
consuming Cloud-based services. Such organizations would focus on using
economic resources for addressing their business needs rather than
maintaining specialized personnel for running applications as they would use
applications hosted on the cloud, thus making some IT jobs in their
organizations redundant.

Opportunities for IT pros

As previously discussed, Cloud Computing involves two types of
organizations. One the supply side are organizations such as Microsoft and
Amazon, that offer IT services on the Cloud platform. The other is the demand
side comprising of companies that consume such services. For the supply
side, i.e. the service providers, there will be several opportunities created in
different areas.

Software developers: In an IT product development company there will be

need to create applications that would adhere to the Cloud architecture. As
these applications shall be available as services and accessible through
browsers, software development skills such as SOAP, AJAX, Web Services,
etc. would be required to develop the applications for the Cloud platform. The
difference would be that during project development one will have to remove
any constraints that would not work on the cloud platform. According to true
essence of cloud architecture, any application should be able to run on the
platform provided it is properly architectured. Similarly, for professionals in the
testing domain, performance testing would have to be done on applications
meant for the Cloud. As Cloud provides elasticity and scalability features, they
would have to conduct testing wherein they'll have to check whether an
application is meant for 100 concurrent users and whether it can scale up
automatically to cater to 10,000 users if there is sudden increase in traffic.
Certainly, for the software developers or testers, there will be plenty of
opportunities for Cloud Computing domain, provided they upgrade their
knowledge by having proper understanding of the Cloud framework pertaining
to their domain. Those having understanding of a content driven network, can
leverage their skills on product development for platforms like Amazon EC2
and Google AppEngine, that provide a platform as a service for developing
and hosting your application on their infrastructure. The application would be
using their environment for database, operating platform, etc.

Infrastructure engineers: Professionals who are into IT infrastructure creation

and management like networking professionals, virtualization and security
experts can render their skills to enterprises who are setting up their own
Cloud Computing framework. Cloud is an evolution of the Services Oriented
Architecture. So, solution architects who are working with Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA) would be able to catch on with the Cloud Computing
concept very swiftly. Another area where Cloud Computing is creating an
opportunity is within Security and Data Storage.

Skills required
If you look at job postings from enterprises venturing in the Cloud Computing
domain, you will notice that there is a new profile created known as 'Cloud
Architect.' But looking at the skillset for the job, you'll come to know that
there's no rocket science involved for this profile, what is required are
professionals who understand enterprise networking, security and
virtualization aspects. Cloud platform is a new architecture, the underlying
technologies for its usage are already existing. Likewise, for software
developers, .NET or Java, the development requirements for building the
application would remain the same, the only change would be that they have
to re-engineer their applications as per Cloud's Architecture. This requires that
both developers and the infrastructure engineers increase their understanding
of the Cloud platform. And when their organization plans to have a Cloud
Computing platform for their applications, then their understanding of the
Cloud architecture will prove to be invaluable for the organization.

With the advent of cloud computing some of the low level IT jobs may get automated,
there will be a need to manage more complex environments. For this, Cloud
Computing Architects will be in high demand. Where there might have been a glass
ceiling earlier in terms of technical growth, you will now see those open up. I would
not be surprised if a similar technical ladder that is today prevalent in the software
development side of things comes in place in IT as well.

Deepak Visweswaraiah Sr. Director – SSG Group, EMC India COE

Security professionals will find a major place in the Cloud Computing

environment. The reason is that with Cloud Computing what you are doing is
taking away all your IT needs and giving it to a third party to manage, so here
companies become a little sensitive about their corporate data being hosted
on third party servers as there is lot of sensitivity about data. The recent
Dynamic Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on some social networking sites
like Twitter and Facebook resulted in disruption of services for hours. If there
is a similar kind of an attack on a Cloud service provider's infrastructure, that
would result in disaster for those who are using their services. Therefore
security is a major concern and addressing these concerns would be a prime
job role for a security expert.
It is still early days for Cloud Computing and people are yet to understand the
concept. It's really an evolution of whatever exists today, there isn't a formal
curriculum out there. I think what you need to do is choose your stream between
software development, software architecture, testing, security or infrastructure and
learn the basics. The best way for this would be to pick this all while in job, because
there isn't any formal training available in Cloud Computing per-se.

Bhanu Chopra CEO, RateGain IT Solutions

There are multiple areas and disciplines in cloud computing. Virtualization is

the main theme that drives this technology. A good understanding and
expertise in virtualization, ability to consolidate server and storage
infrastructure, designing complex infrastructure environments, ability to handle
much higher scales of data can be summed up as some of the skills that
would be required in this domain.

Certifications
Having requisite certifications is one of the ways to convince prospective
employers about your efforts in a particular field. The hype around Cloud
Computing has been there for the last couple of years and whenever there is
a new technology, there are various organizations that start certification
courses. This is followed by professional institutes giving out certification
courses in that field. The same hasn't happened in the case of Cloud
Computing as it is still in a conceptual phase and organizations are using the
Cloud platform for hosting and deployment perspectives, which is the bare-
minimal usage of the real Cloud architecture. However, when adoption
increases, we may see a slew of institutes and organizations coming up with
Cloud Computing certifications. IBM has already taken initiative in this regard
and started a course on Cloud Computing.