Taking the Cloud Apart: What Works for Your Business?

The Cloud has multiple service offerings, find out everything you need to know.

The Cloud has multiple service offerings, find out everything you need to know.

Just like real clouds ‘The Cloud’ is made up of many clouds, some overlapping and some merging into others with no obvious boundaries. Mouse-Over each for an explanation.

SOE/MP

A Standard Operating Environment (SOE) and a Management Platform (MP) are at the centre of modern IT. With an SOE you can provision new servers in seconds and remove them when you no longer need them. An MP is essential for controlling an infrastructure that may run into thousands of virtual machines.

Private Cloud

A Private Cloud is IT architecture that’s isolated to an organisation. It’s favoured by organisations that need more control over their data than can be achieved by using Public Platform-as-a-Service. An organisation with multiple sites may use a Private Cloud based at any one of them or a Cloud provider.

On Premise

An organisation operating its own data centres may keep its compute on their premises in those data centres. (Designer, can this be a subset of Private Cloud?)

PPublic Cloud

A Public Cloud is one based on the standard Cloud computing model, in which a service provider makes resources, such as compute and storage, available. Public Cloud services  are consumed via a pay-per-usage model from organisations such as Amazon, Claranet and Google. Where it is essential for compliance, organisations can be guaranteed  that their data is held in a specific location from an organisation such as Skyscape or Rackspace.

PaaS

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is a Cloud service that allows organisations to develop, run and manage web applications on a standard platform without the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure themselves. Users need to be aware that  it can be inflexible with its offering.

IaaS

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is the most basic Cloud service model providing organisations with raw compute and storage. There may be additional resources available, but no Management Platform.

SaaS

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provides access to certain applications running as a Cloud service on a subscription basis. This is payable on a consumption model.

Strategy

Cloud strategy is the overall plan consisting of business objectives, principles and tactics. Cloud specialists can help organisations align their business needs with service provision.

Service Management

Progressive Managed Service Providers charge organisations for the services they use and need for allowing the provision to change as the organisation develops.

Systems Management

Systems management of on-premise and Cloud computing benefits from automation and continuous delivery. It is imperative that organisations apply best practice systems management to their environments wherever they are presented.

Architecture

Architectural design is fundamental to creating an optimal Cloud environment, reducing the pitfalls of unstructured growth.

Takeaways:

Knowing which Cloud service offering is best for you is crucial for your business. You’ll need to take into consideration:

• The cost of usage per user

• How the service offering will help you to achieve your business objectives

• Whether you need access to raw compute and storage.

   

Start making your move to the Cloud today and find out how to avoid downtime when moving. Get the Business Continuity Guide

This post first appeared on the LinuxIT blog.