Advantages Of Virtualization

We do love a good disk expansion

Tuesday, January 19, 2010 by Greg Cripe

Having worked in IT for over 10 years, I've seen my share of ugliness. It generally has taken the form of botched configuration files or ill conceived program interfaces. Looking back, though, nothing could top the server hardware upgrade for sheer wretchedness. Coordinating the downtime necessary to start the upgrade required gargantuan effort and endless compromise. Finding the correct parts sent the technician through an endless maze of charts and arrays of compatibility. Performing the actual upgrade was at least interesting and sometimes fun. Praying for the server to power up without a hitch afterwards was not. And still, the job wasn't quite done. Little tweaks were needed here and there, then we had test to ensure the server was ready to reenter the world of the living. All told, a weekend was probably shot and a few gray hairs were earned in the process.

Welcome to the virtual world, where we have left most of that nonsense behind. Businesses can now rely on a well-trained team of engineers to build a thriving environment of servers, each capable of hosting dozens of virtual machines. It's not hard to tout the benefits of cloud computing. Just look at the ease of a disk expansion.

At BlueLock, we can turn around a non-system disk expansion request in minutes. When a client needs more space, the system administrators need only a few clicks to make it happen. No more downtime or worry about compatible parts. Even a system-disk (boot disk) expansion requires only a single reboot and a few extra minutes of work.

Having this kind of flexibility allows a client much more freedom in the planning process for a new server. The focus returns to the core function of the server rather than the hardware, which is Bluelock's concern. With full monitoring in place, our team of administrators and engineers strives to be proactive. A client may receive a call about a potential problem long before they would have noticed any performance degradation. It's about uptime and performance. And that's just the beginning.

The ease of expanding drive space barely scratches the surface of the benefits of working in the cloud. I plan to outline many of those benefits in subsequent posts. Communicating the advantages of virtualization is one of the easiest and most enjoyable jobs I've had since jumping into IT head-first a decade ago.

Our goals at BlueLock include staying in the vanguard of cloud hosting, so we work hard every day to set the bar higher. I hope this blog will help explain some of the nuances, many of the developments, and most of the benefits of life in the cloud.

My Favorite Virtualization Myths.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by Alicia Gaba

I'm sure you've heard a lot about the many advantages of virtualization, but what are the drawbacks? Can you believe everything you hear about the technology? Well, a recent post on Forbes dove into a number of virtualization myths, and debunked them.

Here are my favorites:

Virtualization is only for large companies.
False. Virtualization can be used in almost any company, as long as you have more than one server. In addition to workload consolidation, other benefits of virtualization include high availability, live migration, streamlined backups and fault tolerance – all of which can benefit any organization by simplifying maintenance and lowering infrastructure costs.

Virtualization is expensive.
Most likely false. Virtualization is somewhat expensive on the onset, but it will pay for itself. The cost savings come over time from using fewer servers, less power, cooling & operating system licensing and reduced maintenance. TIP: Do a ROI calculation from the beginning to see how much virtualization will really cost you.

Virtualization is not secure.
Any type of software can be found not secure. In every circumstance, virtualization included, it is always important to follow best practices for network, storage and operating system configurations to produce a secure environment. If your company has its own security requirements, it obviously smart to follow those as well. In short, security measures should be followed no matter what – virtualization is no less secure than any other technology.

Interested in learning more about virtualization? Read these other posts. Or contact us.

To read the full list of myths click here.

Virtualization – The Cloud Computing Enabler

Thursday, July 30, 2009 by Brian Wolff

The technology that makes cloud computing possible is virtualization. The main objective in cloud computing is to improve resource utilization by sharing available resources to multiple on demand needs. Virtualization abstracts the underlying resources such as the memory, storage, network so that multiple operating systems (Windows, Linux) can be run on a single physical system simultaneously. This improves resource utilization – traditional servers utilize about 20% of its resources, whereas a virtual machine (these individual operating system instances we referred to above) uses an average of 80% of its resources.

The cloud is proving to be the future medium to deliver technology. Today, cloud service companies are a dime a dozen – they’ve all spun up to capture some of the large cloud market. The advantages of virtualization go beyond just resource utilization - virtualized servers consume less power, have lower cooling costs and require less space (all great things for the environment). And virtualization is the underlying technology that allows for rapid provisioning, on demand resources, utility-based cost structure, and the reduction of capital expenditures.

To learn more about virtualization and cloud computing, click here.

Security: Enabling Cloud Computing by Managing Risk

Thursday, June 11, 2009 by Alicia Gaba

Jaikumar Vijayan wrote an article yesterday in ComputerWorld on why IT security managers should be enabling cloud computing by learning how to manage risk rather than simply saying “no.” The report that he refers to specifically was released by RSA, the security division of EMC Corp.

The report says that the traditional enterprise network models are vanishing which means that many IT managers will need to understand the associated risks with cloud computing and learn how to manage them and help their companies realize the advantages of virtualization technologies that are continually proliferating.

In my opinion, those professionals will be the people who will ultimately help provide a competitive advantage for their organization. Understanding cloud computing risks will enable IT professionals to better decide which tasks should be sent to a public cloud or private cloud. Cloud environments don’t have to be all or nothing, and I believe that many companies will find that a hybrid cloud approach will work best for them, putting their dollars to work for them most appropriately. This means that an intricate knowledge (or an expert partner) in the cloud technologies will prove very vital in terms of understanding the specific risks involved with internal clouds and external clouds, what should go where and why.

Will you be able to explain to your boss why your test-dev should go offsite and why you feel your production environment shouldn’t, or vice versa? Those will be some of the many decisions that will need to be made, and security will play a huge role. What type of security protocols does your provider follow? What type of software and technology are they using to protect your data and environment? Your knowledge on the internal side will also help you to better choose a qualified provider and will allow you to have more knowledgeable conversations proving for a better stronger relationship.

To read Vijayan’s summary of the report, including recommendations for what companies should do to enable cloud computing and other security-related cloud information click here.

Innovative Cloud Computing...or else

Friday, May 22, 2009 by Alicia Gaba

Jake Sorofman, our friend at rPath, wrote an interesting piece in Dr. Dobbs. He sings Amazon praises, and says, "today, EC2 may well be the truest expression of cloud." Yes, according the numerous definitions of cloud, Amazon most always fits the description. And Jake states, its "just a darn good example of what a cloud should be."

But in the cloud computing realm, there needs to be competition and innovation and choices among cloud computing providers that can drive the messages and solutions around the advantages of virtualization.

Jake writes:

For cloud to marute into mainstream and potentially transformative alternative to traditional computing, there must be many players -- each contributing their own unique value to the marketplace. Luckily, we've seen innovators like Rackspace, GoGrid, BlueLock and private cloud infrastructure like Eucalyptus deliver their own unique pieces to the cloud puzzle. We'll also see major platform vendors like IBM, EMC, and Oracle/Sun with their own cloud offerings.

I thnk its becoming more and more accepted that virtualization and cloud computing will become more of the norm, and what will matter the most during that "switch" is the ability to control and deploy the systems that run the infrastructure. What Jake doesn't mention is that rPath is innovating ways to do this every day. Without the virtual appliances they are creating like the rBuilder and the competition that will come their way, he's right, the cost and risk of cloud "may actually wash away the benefits of this new computing model itself."

Click here to read the full article.

The Advantages of Cloud Computing - Portability

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 by Brian Wolff

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?

SMBs Are Prime to Benefit from Cloud

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 by Alicia Gaba

In a recent article in InfoWorld, Zia Khan examines the hype on cloud computing. He argues that while there may be more hype than reality for the enterprise sector, it’s not that way for smaller organizations (SMEs/SMBs). Khan states:

“…but the SME and the organizations that are already strapped for cash, they really have no option other than the cloud.”

I think they have other options, but not if they want to stay competitive or even sometimes stay afloat in this economic climate. Enterprises many times have the economies of scale to handle a DIY virtualization process…they’ve got the people and the bandwidth. But startups, such as new software-as-a-service companies, don’t have the manpower to build their own infrastructure, manage it and have time to focus on their own core business processes, like updating their code and optimizing their products for the people who matter, their clients. That’s when Infrastructure as a Service companies like BlueLock make perfect business sense.

The advantages of virtualization are endless, and for many small companies the route to virtualization is through a trusted hosting partner. Rather than investing tons of capital in hardware, software and infrastructure people, SMBs can move their infrastructure to a virtual cloud, enabling them to focus on improving the features and functionality of their software to beat out the competition. For those companies who like the idea of having their own private cloud, we’ve got a solution for you too and we can link it up to spill over to our cloud if necessary to give you even more bandwidth to work with.

I’ll wrap this up with one more quote from Mr. Zia Khan:

“One thing is for certain – in times of an economic downturn, cloud computing is ideal – it will just take a while for companies to get there.”

Let’s just hope your competition doesn’t get there first.

Cloud Computing: First Movers Have an Edge

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 by Alicia Gaba

A recent post by EDL Consulting comments on what kind of an edge the first movers in the web-based hosted software solutions will have in regards to the cloud computing market. Will they have an edge or will they be swept up by larger companies with large existing client bases like Microsoft?

With the advantages of virtualization becoming more and more widely known, companies are jumping on the cloud bandwagon quickly. Reuters has suggested that even those cloud companies that got on the bus early will still face fierce competition from larger companies that will come in later with huge databases of trusting customers.

While the post is focused on the Software as a Service aspect of cloud computing, I think that the discussion rings true among cloud computing hosting providers as well. BlueLock has been doing infrastructure-as-a-service for two years now, before the big cloud boom hit. Suffice it to say, we definitely feel that we were one of the first movers and shakers when it comes to managed cloud hosting, especially considering the fact that when we first started talking about the value of virtualization our prospects looked at us like we were crazy. Crazy or not, BlueLock was built around the value of virtualizing IT infrastructure to shift capital expenses to a monthly operating expense that's a fraction of the cost (plus we could throw in virtual disaster recovery for almost a 3rd of what it would cost in a traditional model). So maybe we were crazy, but the idea has caught on.

In terms of advantages and disadvantages of being a beginning mover and shaker in the cloud computing arena, we'd have to say that BlueLock has definitely found some advantages. We've seen our competition try to add on cloud services to their traditional hosting services, and in many cases its a difficult transition. How do you know what to tell your salespeople? Sell cloud or sell traditional colocation? The companies had worked for years building a business on traditional hosting services and then virtualization comes along and shakes everything up - its less expensive, there's more space and compute to work with at a fraction of the cost, etc etc. Your margins and MRC start to decrease, but you need to keep up with the cloud competition. Not only that, but you don't really specialize in virtualization, the traditional way was your thing.

Well at BlueLock, we started with virtualization and that's what our engineers specialize in so its a no brainer for us what we should sell and its a no brainer for us on how to provide the biggest bang for our prospect's buck. As for the bigger companies cramping our style - the Rackspaces and GoGrid's of the world aren't really our direct competition anyway.

We surely feel we've got an edge.

Security and Compliance: What Cloud Clients Want

Monday, May 4, 2009 by Alicia Gaba

Jian Zhen wrote an interesting article about Cloud Computing – stating that “You can outsource responsibility, but you can’t outsource accountability.” At the top of most cloud customers/prospects minds is the issue of security and compliance - but when you give the cloud computing provider the responsibilty of protecting your data and environment, how do you know they'll take on accountability as well?

Zhen states that it doesn’t matter if data is in the cloud or on-premise, what matters is that the there is control and transparency on the client’s data, applications and identities. Every client, no matter what their industry or specialty, must be compliant with whatever regulations and mandates they’re responsible for. So this not only means that a cloud prospect looking to outsource their IT infrastructure must find a reliable cloud provider – they must also do their due diligence to make sure that the provider will go to any length necessary to build an environment that is not only secure but fully compliant.

Zhen states, “If you look across all of the regulations and mandates out there, like SOX, PCI, HIPAA, COBIT, ISO, etc etc, they all require essentially two things: transparency and control.”

Does your cloud computing provider allow you to see who’s accessing what data, when and where with documentation? Are your data, applications and identity protected?

This image shows the three primary focuses when it comes to control and transparency – identity, applications and data. If any of these come under attack, your entire business could falter.

Zhen argues that enterprises are better off in their own environment where they can “do many things…to ensure they are ‘as compliant as possible’” but in the cloud “they lose that control.” However, it’s important to note that he’s mainly referring to Google App Engine and Amazon’s AWS. He says that the problem is not necessarily that the clouds aren’t secure; it’s that the enterprise loses control and transparency when they move to those clouds.

So what if you want to outsource your IT and get into the cloud - but you don’t want to lose control or transparency? You want enterprise level IT security and compliance. You want an IT environment that can withstand audits and attacks.

You look for an enterprise-level cloud provider who has clients who came to them because they could build a secure and compliant environment that cost a fraction of what it would cost for that company to do it themselves – plus the provider has 24/7/365 management and monitoring (we call this full-service offering managed cloud hosting). You don’t lose control and transparency. That cloud provider takes on the responsibility of protecting your environment, data, applications and identities, all the while being accountable for what goes on in the environment. You won’t get that in a GAE or AWS cloud, but you just might find it somewhere else…like the BlueLock Cloud.

The way we see it enterprises shouldn't feel like they can't reap the advantages of virtualization and managed IT hosting because of security and compliance. If they want to virtualize and need security and compliance, it's just the beginning of a great conversation.