Adam Stone over at Software CEO wrote a very timely article compiling the opinions of several respected industry experts into 15 tips for understanding cloud computing. 
I thought Adam’s article highlighted several ways that BlueLock thinks about the cloud differently (or the same in some instances).  I plan to break the 15 tips down into three blog posts providing my perspective on each point he makes.

Tip #1:  Be Careful how you use the term. 

Adam’s point is that “cloud is not cloud is not cloud” – so it’s best to think about what you need most for your applications and then look for cloud computing service(s) that solve those specific needs.  For example, if you need a better CRM system – you’re probably looking for a SaaS (software as a service) application.  If your developers are spending way too much time writing code for functionality that is not core to your software package – you’re probably looking for a PaaS (platform as a service) – an opportunity to use someone else’s code to extend your core software’s functionality (billing comes to mind).  If your developers or infrastructure team are spending too much time managing failed servers, network or patching OS’, or if they can’t keep up with the growth of your very successful company – you’re probably looking for IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).

Tip #2:  Make the Trendy Pitch. 

The din of people talking about Cloud Computing is deafening, even Dilbert has gotten into the act.  No doubt, your CEO and CFO have even been thinking about the proposed advantages of cloud computing and how they might help the business.  There are ways for almost every company to leverage cloud computing.  There are most likely servers or processes in your company that could be improved by a provider of SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, so take a look around, find a business need and explore ways that a cloud provider might be able to help cut costs and increase efficiencies - this should make your CEO and CFO happy.

Tip #3: Take One Step at a Time. 

One misconception/mistake that I see over and over again is that companies evaluate sending their most mission critical systems to the cloud first.  You should think about your IT environments and applications plotted on a graph of concentric circles with your most critical environments/applications in the middle.  As the number of users goes down or the criticality of the applications or the amount of attention an application receives from your IT staff goes down, move those applications to the outer circles.  The applications in the outer rings should be the ones that are evaluated for cloud first.  There’s less risk, less integration (maybe) and a higher chance for success with these environments.  We’ve built a very crude tool (that will be refined over time) to help you evaluate your applications and where they fit on the “circle of risk."

Tip #4: Keep Your Eyes Wide Open. 

I agree, due diligence on the provider is key.  As the gold rush continues, there are many companies rushing into the space to claim their fortune.  Many will come up with sand and dirt when they realize there’s a huge difference between running a data center and running an entire infrastructure with many, many clients.  In addition to all the points that Adam made about the questions to ask, my experience tells me that time in the market as a cloud provider (not just a co-location provider) is one of the best indicators of stability and staying power.  You’ll want to choose a provider with minimum of three years of success as a cloud hosting provider.  It was around the 2-year mark when we really started to hit our stride around managing the scale of our cloud environment, stabilized implementation and refined the management of our capital effectively, proving we could run a profitable business in the cloud.

Tip #5:  Make sure to get live support.

We’re a live support kind of company – because it’s relationships with our clients that matter, however, I would take a slightly different angle on this.  This is where I’m back to the criticality of the environments/applications.  If you’ve chosen a system that is less critical to the business, it might be perfectly acceptable to use chat, email or other means to get support from your cloud vendor.  Of course, they have to be responsive, that goes without saying.  But if you’ve chosen wisely, you may not need to talk to someone in order to get your problem resolved.  One caveat of course is that if you’re going to run mission critical applications in the cloud – then live support is a must.

So that’s the first five points around understanding cloud computing – stay tuned for the next five.  If you’re interested in learning more about how we do things at BlueLock  - send us a note here.

Coming in future posts:

Tip #6:  To avoid vendor lock-in, stick to open standards
Tip #7:  Location, location, location
Tip #8:  Consider using a middleman
Tip #9:  Monitoring uptime isn’t enough, you need an action plan
Tip #10:  A clause may look good in the contract, but be useless in the real world
Tip #11:  Set financial penalties for downtime
Tip #12:  It takes time to see ROI on SaaS development
Tip #13:  Savings are not in the cloud, but in headcount
Tip #14:  Follow the cloud into new markets
Tip #15:  Let the cloud lead you to new innovations

*If you’d like to read the original post by Adam Stone go here.

So what is enterprise cloud computing?  How is it so different from (regular) cloud computing?

Jill Tummler Singer explains that enterprise cloud computing is "a behind-the-firewalls use of commercial, Internet-based cloud technologies specifically focused on one company’s or one business environment’s computing needs." 

It's a "a controlled, internal place that offers the rapid and flexible provisioning of compute power, storage, software, and security services to meet your mission’s demands.  It combines the processes of a best in class ITIL organization with the agility of managed, global infrastructure to make your IT faster, better, cheaper, and safer. Enterprise cloud computing gives your business agility, survivability, sustainability, and security."

Many enterprises with highly secure data and strict up-time and performance needs feel that cloud computing is out of the question.  Most of these companies questioning the abilities of cloud computing services are companies in the government, life sciences and financial services industries.  Enterprise cloud computing is the answer for them.  They need tailored, dedicated high performance environments to provide the benefits of cloud computing with the security and assurance of enterprise-class platforms.

BlueLock is a top VMware hosting provider - we use proven enterprise-class VMware virtualization technology to serve our clients no matter what industry or need level, but we are able to tailor and architect high performance, secure and compliant cloud computing environments specifically for our enterprise-level clients.  BlueLock has been extremely successful serving clients in the government, life sciences and financial services, helping them to realize the advantages of cloud computing.

To learn more about BlueLock's enterprise cloud computing services contact us here.

All schmoozing and business-card-swaping aside, there are some fantastic advantages of attending cloud computing conventions and expos. I've found meetups like Cloud Camps, ITEC, TechPoint Summits, and Cloud Users Groups to be a fuel source for both professional and personal growth.

Assimilation of knowledge through osmosis is simple.
There are usually tons of super-smart people at events like those listed above. Whether these people are cloud computing providers, vmware virtual server specialists, or others utilizing a cloud computing platform; just standing b and listening in on conversations can be a learning experience. Be curious, pay attention, and ask questions.

Networking -- the interpersonal relationships kind -- reaps rewards.
Meet some new people, nd expand your network. How can you help event attendees? I always make it a goal to make at least three connections that don't immediately benefit me in any way. While you should never help someone with the intent to gain something in return, the law of reciprocity always pays dividends.

Fluency increases competency.
The simple repetition of explaining the advantages of cloud computing has helped me build a certain level of confidence and competence around the benefits of virtualization, vmware hoted environments, and SaaS irtualization. Join in the conversation and learn to talk the talk. The act of speaking about cloud computing platforms, helps to organize thoughts, enhance comprehension, and vet new ideas.

Bottom line: get out of the office and learn somthing from somebody -- including yourself. Find the next cloud computing meetup in your area. Hope to see you there.

Cyber Black Friday is right around the corner - the infamous day that gives those of us who hate long lines and packed malls a much better alternative - online shopping exclusives. 
Online shopping should give buyers the ease and convenience they're looking for, but in the wake of a huge rush of traffic, sometimes it just doesn't work that way (just like when you're out in the brick and mortar shops).  Why?  Because even today many e-commerce sites aren't built with hosting in place that allows for the site to expand and scale based on the amount of traffic coming to the site.  The advantage of cloud computing is that websites are able to scale on demand, depending on the amoung of traffic it is experiencing, and they pay for that increase in infrastructure as they go.  So for instance, they only pay for the spikes as they happen, rather than all year long like with traditional hosting solutions.  

A couple tips for e-commerce sites on Cyber Black Friday from BlueLock:

- Take an inventory of the amount of traffic increases you've seen in past years on Cyber Black Friday.  Are you paying for the infrastructure necessary to handle that spike all year long? If so, its time to switch to the cloud.

- If you're an e-commerce site, you most likely need to be PCI compliant with whichever hosting solution you choose.  Did you hesitate to realize the benefits of cloud computing because PCI compliance wasn't available?  Look at your options again.  BlueLock has many clients in our secured PCI compliant cloud.

Cloud computing continues to gain popularity, and with that more options, advances and opportunities will arise.  E-commerce sites are prime targets for cloud computing simply because they will see immediate benefit from switching to the cloud due to the peaks and valleys they see each year around the holidays.  What company wouldn't want to save all excess IT costs to put towards something else that will increase their bottom line?

Now to the shopper's bottom line...

CyberBlackFriday.com already has exclusive Black Friday coupons available and hundreds more will go live on November 27th.

Tips for shopping on Cyber Black Friday from cyberblackfriday.com:

    * Some brick and mortar stores will have exclusive online only specials not available in stores.

    * The US has three different time zones, each an hour apart. If an online store also has brick and mortar stores, the online store will usually operate in the time zone of the company's headquarters. Depending on where you are, an online store's 12:01AM may arrive early or late.

    * You could stay up late to wait for Cyber Black Friday specials to go live but instead enjoy time with your family, wake up early on Friday and get all your Christmas shopping done from your computer.

    * Shopping early ensures getting items in stock and free shipping with guaranteed Christmas delivery.

This November 27th (Black) Friday most certainly means two things: crowded malls and crowded e-commerce sites.  Every year we hear about sites not being able to handle the rush of shoppers at their online venue.  Will the growth in cloud computing during 2009 make a difference in this year's Black Friday news?  I sure hope for my own shopping pleasure, companies like Sears, Saks and Kohl's learn from their lack of website performance on last year's "Cyber Black Friday."

In 2008, Black Friday Looked Grey Without Cloud Coverage.  There was news of e-commerce sites going down or simply being way too slow.  Nothing is more annoying to the online shopper (who shops on line for convenience, ease and quickness) than a slow website - except for a downed website... and in today's world, with cloud computing services that are there to make life for ecommerce sites so much easier come Black Friday with advantages like scalability, elasticity and pay-per-use, there's almost no excuse for an under performing website. 

Cloud computing is economical for any site that experiences peaks and valleys b/c the company no longer  has to purchase loads of IT capital that can meet that peak (which can easily be exceeded on a day like Black Friday anyway) all year long.  The site simply puts their website in the cloud and pays for whatever traffic they experience as they go which can amount to immense IT savings.  What e-commerce site would hesitate to experience the vast advantages of cloud computing? 

Guess we'll find out come Cyber Black Friday...

What makes education different from any other business with hundreds or thousands of users?  The economics are all the same, so why wouldn’t the education industry be able to benefit from the advantages of cloud computing like other organizations?  A recent article in Campus Technology entitled, “Is Cloud Computing a Credible Solution for Education?” visits that subject.

Bruce Schneier points out that cloud computing is really nothing new.  Hotmail and Gmail have been doing it for a long time; social networking sites, remote backup companies and remote email filtering companies have also been in on the game.  Schneier says, “Any IT outsourcing—network infrastructure, security monitoring, remote hosting—is a form of cloud computing.”

Cloud Computing provides computer applications to users without the need to purchase, install or support those application.  The software and data is hosted on a remote computer.  Infrastructure-as-a-service providers such as BlueLock are able to provide substantial financial advantages as well as increased IT agility, improving collaboration and innovation within that organization.  And we’ve done that for higher education organizations already.   

Gartner Group blogger Thomas Bittman said this: "The Web, social software and cloud computing will definitely have an impact on enterprise IT--but the impact on our educational system will be astounding, and many in our educational system don't see it coming."

But the downside…

Schneier also cautioned that cloud computing forces reliance on a third party, which may not always be the best idea.  Why? Because when the computer is outside your network, you’re not able to protect it with security systems like firewalls and IDSs.  Not only that but you have to trust your vendor completely – its security, reliability, availability and business continuity.

That’s not a downside at BlueLock.

So yes, you’ll have to rely on us, a third party.  But we install firewalls and IDSs and most likely take more security precautions than you are already taking.  We are SAS 70 and PCI compliant.  Not only that, but we provide SLA with promised uptimes of 99.99%, in case you’re worried about availability.  As for business continuity, we’ve got that too, and at a fraction of the cost.  You can click here to learn more about our virtual disaster recovery solutions.  And most importantly, the trust issue.  Our clients view us as a trusted advisor.  We don’t want to be just another vendor; we want to be an extension of your organization, a partner.  That’s our goal (and we tend to hit goals over here).

And when it comes right down to successes in the education industry, just click here to read our case study on Marian University.  You could say they were more than pleased with what we were able to do for them.

A recent email industry survey shows how businesses are reacting to email infrastructure being migrated to the cloud.  Osterman Research found that security-related email functions are dominating the software as a service market today and that the functions most likely to be outsourced in the future, if not already, include anti-spam, bulk email, anti-virus an anti-malware.

What factors are holding companies back from migrating to the cloud?  Findings show that more companies haven’t migrated to the cloud because of privacy concerns, data retrieval concerns (will they be able to grab that data back once it’s in the cloud?), because of regulatory compliance issues and because some companies are just plain scared of losing control.  However, upon a closer glance at cloud computing - a full-fledged look at what cloud hosting can do would show that cloud computing advantages include more choices, agility, control and protection than what a standard IT infrastructure environment can provide, which is why more than 20% of the users surveyed have outsourced their email functions to the cloud already.

Here are some of the results of the survey:

• 40% of companies surveyed are outsourcing some or part of their email infrastructure
• Anti-spam (64%) and bulk email (46%) are being outsourced by most companies
• Today:
  •  20% of users are served by a SaaS solution
  • 22% of email servers run as virtual servers
• In two years:
  •     38% of users will be served by a SaaS Solution
  •     49% of email servers will run as virtual servers

I think the two year projections are somewhat low, but the general growth towards using cloud hosting for email functions and/or using virtual servers is evident.  At BlueLock we’ve seen great success in migrating email to the cloud.  For many companies it makes the most sense to get email off of their machines freeing up space for them internally and getting their IT people working on more strategic applications.  Contact us today to learn more about migrating email to the cloud. 

Read the original post about the survey.

Take Inventory of your infrastructure and its needs.

Getting started in cloud computing can be scary.  The advantages of cloud computing are aplenty, but if there isn’t enough forethought, it could take much longer to get the ROI you’re looking for.   With the right amount of thought and preparation, any organization can make use of the technology.

The best place to start is to get an inventory of your IT infrastructure, what you need and what you’re currently using.  It’s always helpful in any scenario to figure your current costs of running your infrastructure environment, but keep in mind the costs that there will be to scale (as if you had the advantage of cloud computing).  That’s a great way to get a feel for where you stand doing everything on your own (if you’re still trying to figure out if the cloud makes sense).

When I say to tally up the current costs of your infrastructure, I mean EVERYTHING that goes into running that IT infrastructure – the power, cooling, space, FTEs, training, anything that goes into making sure the infrastructure is running and working correctly.  Once you’ve got that, make a list of what you need from your infrastructure and/or the cloud.

Do you need testing and development capabilities, a production environment, what kind of service level agreement do you need?  What data or application(s) do you want to store in the cloud, and what are their needs?  Does it make sense to have more than one cloud b/c your needs differ so between application?

Taking a complete inventory of you infrastructure and its needs is the best way to figure out where you stand and what kind of cloud vendor(s) is/are right for you (which is step two, coming soon.)

As Microsoft announced their intention to begin testing Office as a cloud-based offering we are seeing two things happening: cloud computing getting a little more mainstream and Google seeing a little competition against Google docs.

Though cloud computing is more mainstream than some would argue, this announcement brings a little more buzz and noise into the cloud (specifically software-as-a-service) than there was before, no question about it.

The new version of Office - which is expected to be released early next year - is said to heavily focus on web-based versions of some of its most popular services, like Word and Excel, which appears to be directly aimed at cutting off users from adopting similar features being offered in the cloud from Google.

In making its announcement today, Microsoft said that when Office 2010 is officially launched, half a billion people will have access to its applications in the cloud.   This should prove to make some people very happy, and others very weary…you never know when a system could go down, and there goes that spreadsheet you’ve been working on all day (or all month).  However, I’ve got faith that there are people at Microsoft thinking about that very same problem.

And there’s always good things that come out of friendly competition like that of Microsoft and Google – better solutions, something we should all be happy to see moving forward.

Other posts about Google:
Google is not the only cloud
Google sees advantages with cloud computing

More info on cloud-based Office: click here

In a time when companies are already looking for steps to reduce costs and overhead related to IT, (an obviously imperative business function) the economic outlook is calling for even more of a reality check.  Companies are going to have to do much more than simply shave costs by consolidating their applications and databases; they’ll have to focus on the infrastructure that supports those things as well.  Part of being financially savvy in the IT area means you must be continuously engaged in spending your IT dollars in the most effective ways.  Infrastructure is a great place to start that trend. 

Most organizations spend about 60-80% of their IT budget on maintain existing infrastructure.  So get rid of that.  One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is that you don’t have to maintain the physical hardware related to the infrastructure. 

Not only that, but you get a pay-as-you-go, utility-based cost structure that transfers all of your infrastructure costs to operating rather than capital expenses.

Our clients are continually finding savings and cost benefits related to their switch to the cloud.  Take for instance, Marian University (formerly Marian College) whose aging infrastructure needed refreshed, they had no DR plan because of tight budgets and their SAN leases were coming due.  With no plan for their storage and compute moving forward, they were stuck in a rut.  BlueLock was able to create a private cloud (the BlueLock Box) located at their own office that communicates with the BlueLock Cloud for fail-over and excess compute when necessary and was even able to offer a state-of-the-art virtual disaster recovery plan at a fraction of the cost, something they weren’t even planning to be able to afford until later that year.  Talk about impressing your CFO! 

Another circumstance where a company was able to save big bucks on IT infrastructure was when Right On Interactive (ROI) chose to come to BlueLock.  ROI was a new company at the time, facing lots of high growth.  They either had to build their own SAS 70 compliant data center or outsource the work.  Building a facility of that nature is highly cost-prohibitive.  ROI decided to outsource their IT infrastructure and head to BlueLock.  After saving lots of money they were able to focus their smart IT people on maximizing their software product rather than dealing with infrastructure all day.

At BlueLock, we’ve got lots of stories like this…cloud computing makes perfect sense when you need to shave off costs.  Between the cost of the hardware and licenses, the warehouse to house the infrastructure and the people to manage it, IT surely isn’t cheap.  You can shave off a huge chunk of those costs with a full-service cloud computing solution.  We’ve got hundreds of clients already doing it.

Read the Marian University Case Study.

Read the Right On Interactive Case Study.

The advantages of cloud computing include making IT more flexible, efficient and easier to use.  While the key benefits of cloud computing are the ability to pay as you go or pay per use, capacity on demand and rapid provisioning, some may say that the current lack of interoperability is a detriment to the growing cloud computing industry.  Many are asking for a set of standards that let cloud networks talk and work together.

The talks of interoperability open a can of worms for those companies who aren’t exactly “excited” about allowing that kind of technology to be incorporated into their offerings.  The main thing that cloud interoperability creates is an environment where vendor lock-in is basically obsolete.  If your clouds can talk – say your BlueLock, Amazon and Skytap environments – then there’s no reason that everything would have to say at the same space forever.  If you all of the sudden decided that BlueLock was perfect for your production environment and Skytap was all you needed for test/dev, you could just have your Amazon stuff “talk” to your other environments and just move everything to those two, no longer requiring any engagement with Amazon.  That is, in a perfect interoperable world.  So what that means is that you’re no longer locked in at Amazon, or any other firm.  This is perfect for a client, but not particularly for the vendor who doesn’t want to risk losing you or simply losing out on a chunk of money they’re already getting.

So where will the cloud computing industry go?  Ultimately, I believe that for anything to succeed you must follow what the users/buyers want and therefore we’ll see more and more interoperability technologies emerge.  Earlier this year, BlueLock partnered with rPath in a webinar focused on blending clouds with the rPath Management Console (formerly called the rBuilder) and in the webinar we demoed movement between Amazon EC2 and the BlueLock Cloud.  So I think the technology is getting there – at least there are some smart people out there working on it.

What exactly is cloud interoperability? John Brodkin recently wrote a post in Network World on cloud interoperability and discussed some of the goals on the subject:

• Moving virtual machines and workloads from one cloud compute service to another
• Single sign-on for users who access multiple cloud services
• Ability to deploy and provision resources from multiple cloud services with a single management tool
• Letting one application span multiple cloud services (such as a storage service from one cloud provider and compute capacity from another)
• Allowing data exchange between clouds
• Letting a private cloud application seamlessly obtain resources from a public cloud when excess capacity is needed

I think what rPath is working towards with their Management Console is addressing many of these things and in time we’ll see more and more of what “the people want.” 

Last week with the death of megastar Michael Jackon, news sites and social media outlets posting the earliest reports of the death of Jackson experienced availability problems as web users around the world sought to confirm the tragic news.  TMZ.com was the first site to post the news and was soon kicked off line due to the immense amount of traffic that hit the site.  Twitter struggled and even turned off search features to slow the load.  Many of the other large news sites were slowed as well including ABC, NBC, AOL, CBS, and Yahoo! News. 

Reuven Cohen of Elastic Vapor jumped right in arguing that there is no longer a reason for sites to experience this type of slow-down with cloud computing available.  One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is capacity on demand.  With capacity on demand, these sites can access almost infinite supplies of compute, leaving the end users with no experience of failure or slowdown.  Cohen says, "Not having a cloud bursting strategy in the age of cloud computing isn't just wrong - its idiotic."

Cohen is obviously very blunt with his feelings, but honestly its true.  These sites have no doubt experienced these huge traffic loads before so either they aren't worried about their end users or they just aren't keeping up with technology enough to make use of the cloud computing solution.

Over the last year, I have read a number of discussions about the advantages of cloud computing. While many of the discussions center on the ability to scale, manage costs, and the intrinsic disaster recovery aspects as the primary advantages of virtualization there are other benefits as well. 

One of the benefits often overlooked is the data portability and remote access.   Here are links to two articles with good overviews of the portability topic: 

• In January 2008 Benn Konsynski, a chaired professor of business administration for information systems and operations management at Emory University said:
  • One of the biggest advantages is that a user may no longer have to be tethered to a traditional computer to use an application, or have to buy a version that’s specifically configured for a phone, PDA [personal digital assistant] or other device. It’s likely that at some point any device that can access the Internet will be able to run a cloud-based application. Application services are available, independent of the user devices and network interfaces.
• In October of 2008, Brandon Wybenga argued the key advantage of cloud computing was not scalability, but portability.

As the discussion continues, how important is portability to your decision?

In his annual founder’s letter, Sergey Brin, reflects on the past, discusses the current state of Google as well as a glimpse of where he expects his firm to go in the coming years. Generally upbeat, he sees a stronger company emerging as the economy recovers:  He says:

Nonetheless, I am optimistic about the future, because I believe scarcity breeds clarity: it focuses minds, forcing people to think creatively and rise to the challenge.

Featured in his discussion of their product categories were comments about Google Apps, which leverage cloud computing and a future with more computing power for less. Brin says:

The benefits of web-based services, also known as cloud computing, are clear. There is no installation. All data is stored safely in a data center (no worries if your hard drive crashes). It can be accessed anytime; anywhere there is a working web browser…

Given the tremendous pace of technology, it is impossible to predict far into the future. However, I think the past decade tells us some things to expect in the next. Computers will be 100 times faster still and storage will be 100 times cheaper.

While the full featured BlueLock Cloud offers a very different level of service for our clients, the core benefit, as outlined by Brin is very similar, no infrastructure costs, built-in disaster recovery and remote access are the same, and we share his perspective on the accelerated adoption of cloud computing.   The advantages of the platforms allow people to do more with less, focusing their resources on innovation, not infrastructure.

As the Obama administration begins to develop strategies to reduce operating costs and improve the technology on which the government runs, it is likely Cloud Computing, and Software-as-a-Service will be at the center of their plans.  

The new White House CIO Vivek Kundra has already demonstrated his preference for this technology in his previous role as CTO for the District of Columbia.  

Despite strong opposition, he led the charge to transition many outdated, desktop applications to web based programs.  In an interview last year with the Wall Street Journal, he described his frustrations with the state of technology in many offices under his authority when he said:

“If I went to the coffee shop, I would have more computing power than the police department.  Consumers had better technology than the government did.”

Leading this same transition at the federal level will not be easy, as Mr. Kundra faces stiff opposition from bureaucrats and security professionals within the government.  There will be concerns and even standard policies which prevent the government from storing data on tech equipment operated by private companies, but I think Mr. Kundra may be just the man for the job.  

 “I’m all about the cloud computing notion,” he said. “I look at my lifestyle, and I want access to information wherever I am.” He added that “I am killing projects that don’t investigate software as a service first.”

Mr. Kundra has been the subject of a number of interviews recently.  For more about the man leading the technology transition of the us government go to:

http://govcloud.ulitzer.com/node/867540
http://seekingalpha.com/article/124686-cloud-computing-gets-some-lofty-new-support
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/03/05/inside-the-head-of-obamas-cio/
 

As part of our partnership with rPath we will be participating in their webinar and live demonstration entitled “Blending Clouds: Avoiding Lock-In and Realizing the Promise of Hybrid Compute Environments — Today”.

Our CTO Pat O’Day, along with experts from rPath and VMware, will discuss the key use cases for hybrid compute environments and how companies can take advantage of cloud computing without sacrificing control to vendor lock-in.  During the webinar the presenters will demonstration of a real application moving seamlessly between BlueLock, Amazon EC2 and a VMware ESX server.

Attendance for this event is free but registration is required.  For more information or to register please visit http://tinyurl.com/rpathwebinar.
 

In a recent post Nicole Schepker  asserts, “Cloud computing makes modern, world-class IT infrastructure available to companies of all sizes regardless of the economic condition." 

To support her assertion she cites seven reasons cloud computing reigns:

• Lower Up Front Costs
• Faster Time to Market
• Reduced Financial Risk
• Lower Capital Expense
• Lower Operating Expenses
• Decreased Downtime and Costly Delays
• Additional services most mid-sized businesses can not afford on their own: high levels of security, redundancy, and bandwidth

Individually, each of the elements offers a compelling reason to strongly consider making the transition from traditional data centers to cloud computing. Collectively cloud computing and the benefits of virtual servers are too good to ignore.

As companies evaluate Cloud Computing there are advantages, from both economic and performance perspectives, to push them to make the transition decision.

From an economic perspective, companies have no capital requirement when moving into the cloud. No need to invest in dedicated servers, which they may outgrow. Instead computing companies gain performance capabilities with access to a plethora of hosting or Virtual servers which provide unlimited capacity, bandwidth, increased security and a solid disaster recovery solution.

In the coming months, as companies look for ways to manage costs and clean up their balance sheets, a transition from capital expenditures to monthly operating expenses will make sense for many. In addition to a reduction of infrastructure investment, they will experience a corresponding reduction in human resource expenditures as manpower, once dedicated to managing the company network, can be deployed elsewhere.

As the economy continues to struggle we have seen an increased interest in Virtualization in Indianapolis and around the country.