Cloud Computing - In A Nutshell

1
Cloud Computing - In A Nutshell

• Paul Chen

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Materials Extracted From the Following Books

• Cloud Computing A Practical Approach
• By Anthony T. Velte, Toby J. Velte, Robert
  Elsen
• Cloud Computing Principles, Systems and
  Applications
• By Nick Antonopoulos and Lee Gillam
• Cloud Computing Principles and Paradigms
• by Rajkumar Buyya, James Broberg and Andrzej M.
  Goscinski
• Cloud Computing Strategies
• by Dimitris N. Chorafas

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Part IV Planning for the Cloudand Cloud
Resources Caveats

• Topic 13 Migrating to the Cloud
• Topic 14 Best Practices and the Future of Cloud
  Computing
• Topic 15 Ten Swell Client Computing Resources
• Topic 16 Ten Cloud Dos and Donts

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Topic 13 Migrating to the Cloud

• Cloud Services for Individuals
• The most basicand the easiestway to move to the
  cloud is at an individual or small business
  level. There are a growing number of popular
  applications out there, and they tend to be free
  or offered at a very low cost. Lets take a look
  at some services that you may or may not have
  heard of, and talk about how they can help you.
• Take, for instance, Gmail. Its a free, online
  web mail application. And probably the reason you
  signed up for it is the reason many of us doits
  convenient to be able to check your email from
  any computer.

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The Most Popular Cloud Applications

• Apple Mobile Me (http//www.me.com/)
• Google Docs (http//docs.google.com.ezproxy.kcls.o
  rg/)
• Adobe Acrobat (http//www.acrobat.com/
• Jooce (http//www.jooce.com/)
• Evernote (http//www.evernote.com/)
• Microsoft Live Search (http//www.live.com/)
• Twitterfone (http//www.twitterfone.com/)
• Blist/Socrata (http//www.socratablist.com/)

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The Most Popular Cloud Applications

• Picnik (http//www.picnik.com/)
• Adobe Photoshop Express (http//www.photoshop.com/
  express)
• G.ho.st (http//g.ho.st/)

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Skytap Virtual Lab
Cloud-based virtualization solution company
Skytap (formerly known as illumita) offers Skytap
Virtual Lab, a virtual lab automation solution
available as an on-demand service over the
Web.

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Customers using Skytap are able to access the
following

• Virtual infrastructure on-demand
• Automated setup and tear-down of environments
• Skytap Library
• Collaboration in a virtual environment

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Skytap Migration API

• The Skytap API enables customers to blend
  Skytaps cloud-based Virtual Lab platform with
  their existing on-site IT infrastructure. Rather
  than using cloud resources in a silo, Skytaps
  Web Services API and one-click VPN functionality
  allows organizations to create a hybrid IT
  model whereby cloud resources can be used as an
  extension of existing on-site IT environments.

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Cloud Services Aimed at the Mid-Market

• Force.com
• The Force.com Migration Tool is more of a
  roll-up-your-sleeves-because-youre-going-to-get-y
  our-hands-dirty thing, compared to being able to
  point and click your way through a GUI. The
  Force.com Migration Tool is an Ant library that
  lets you migrate metadata (code and settings)
  from your organization to Force.coms cloud.

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Force.com

• The Force.com Migration Tool is especially
  useful in these scenarios
• Development projects When you need to populate a
  test environment with large amounts of setup
  changes. If you were to make these changes using
  a web interface, it would take a large amount of
  time.
• Multistage release processes Most development
  processes run in iterative cycles of building,
  testing, and staging before they are released to
  a production environment. Scripted retrieval and
  deployment of your components makes this process
  easier and cleaner.
• Repetitive deployment using the same parameters
  You can retrieve all your organizations
  metadata, make changes as needed, and deploy that
  metadata. If you need to do it again, you just
  have to call the same deployment target.

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Force.com Apps

• The following are some of the (currently) most
  popular apps on
• Force.com
• Appirio Calendar Sync for Salesforce.com and
  Google Apps
• Gmail to Salesforce.com browser button for
  Firefox
• Lead and opportunity management dashboards
• Appirio CRM Dashboards for Salesforce.com
  Google Apps
• Sales Activity Dashboard
• VerticalResponse for AppExchange
• Appirio Search for Salesforce.com Google Apps
• Salesforce.com for Google AdWords
• Astadia Report Collaboration for Google
  Spreadsheets
• Conga Merge

13
Enterprise-Class Cloud Offerings

• Moving to the cloud gets more complex as your
  organization grows in size. Enterprise-class
  organizations should follow the same sorts of
  guidelines as the mid-market groupthat is, try
  out new things, figure out what to move, and then
  move over timebut their scope is entirely
  different. For instance, part of your migration
  might include moving a branch offices
  application to the cloud.

14
MS Exchange

• A cornerstone of most enterprises is the
  Microsoft Exchange service for email. Microsoft
  now offers Exchange Online and Microsoft
  SharePoint Online for businesses of all sizes.
  These subscription services offer businesses a
  new way to purchase, deploy, and manage the
  industry-leading email and calendaring solution,
  and the industry-leading solution for portals and
  collaboration.

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MS Exchange

• Between July 2008 and November 2008, more than
  1,500 companies have enrolled in the Microsoft
  Partner Program for Microsoft Online Services,
  with 100 more joining every week. These companies
  are realizing a wide range of revenue opportunity
  that spans reselling, migration, customization,
  consulting, training, support and application
  development, and integration services.

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VMotion

• The main tool for migrations in VMwares arsenal
  is VMotion. VMware says that VMotion leverages
  the complete virtualization of servers, storage,
  and networking to move an entire running virtual
  machine instantaneously from one server to
  another. The entire state of a virtual machine is
  encapsulated by a set of files stored on shared
  storage, and VMwares vStorage VMFS cluster file
  system allows both the source and the target
  VMware ESX server to access these virtual machine
  files concurrently. ns.

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VMware vCenter Converter

• VMware offers its vCenter Converter to migrate
  physical servers to virtual servers. The
  application can be run on a number of different
  types of hardware and supports most versions of
  Microsoft Windows operating systems.

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Hyper-V Live Migration

• Migration is accomplished through Live Migration,
  a tool part of Windows Server 2008 R2. Live
  migration utilizes the integrated hypervisor
  technology and high-availability features of the
  server operating system so that customers can
  move running applications between servers to
  accommodate changing, dynamic computing needs
  across a datacenter. In addition to other
  features, the next version of Microsoft Hyper-V
  Server will have live migration capabilities.

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Topic 14 Best Practices and the Future of Cloud
Computing

• So now youve moved to the cloud, and you want to
  ensure a continued good experience. There are a
  myriad of things you should address when seeking
  to optimize your cloud efforts, ranging from the
  technical side to the human side. In this
• chapter, well look at optimizing your cloud
  experience and talk about what things you can
  adjust and what tools you can use to tweak them.

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Analyze Your Service

• Once youve selected a cloud vendor, you should
  perform some tests and make sure youre still
  getting what you are paying for. In this section,
  well talk about some tips and techniques for
  checking up on your vendor to make sure
  everything is still up to par.

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Establishing a Baseline and Metrics

• Here are some variables to check
• Connection speed The speed at which you connect
  to the vendors cloud.
• Datastore delete time How long it takes to delete
  the datastore.
• Datastore read time How long it takes to read
  data.
• Deployment latency The amount of latency between
  when an application is posted and ready to use.
• Lag time How slow the system is.

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Tools

• The market hasnt been saturated with performance
  monitoring tools for cloud computing yet. There
  are only a couple, but look for the market to
  broaden in the months and years to come. Here is
  a rundown of some tools you can use to check your
  cloud performance.

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Hyperic HQ

• Hyperic Inc offers its Hyperic HQ 4.0, the latest
  version of its systems monitoring and management
  application. The release addresses the needs of
  businesses embracing Amazon cloud services to
  create scalable IT deployment strategies. Hyperic
  HQ enables the modern enterprises to monitor
  their Amazon Web Services securely alongside
  internal infrastructure. It is also the first
  enterprise-class monitoring and management
  software offered for deployment and payment
  directly through Amazon Web Services.

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Hyperic HQ

• Hyperic HQ 4.0 was designed to address
  next-generation monitoring and management to help
  enterprises adopt cloud computing strategies, by
  better equipping operations teams to perform
  repetitive management tasks more efficiently.
  Traditionally, installing a new server and
  deploying it into production was a lengthy
  process that took place over days or weeks. Now,
  with cloud providers like Amazon offering the
  ability to rapidly deploy servers in minutes and
  pay by the hour, companies need a way to ensure
  consistent monitoring oversight of their web
  operations that is just as fast and flexible.

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Hyperic HQ for EC2

• Also part of the 4.0 release Hyperic HQ
  Enterprise 4.0 is available as a fully configured
  system on Amazon Web Services. An Amazon Machine
  Image (AMI) preconfigured for Amazons Elastic
  Block Storage (EBS) is available. The
  distribution will be available directly on
  Amazons DevPay service for an initiation fee and
  a monthly charge based on the amount of
  management data being collected to the HQ Server.
  This is a familiar arrangement to businesses
  looking to embrace the cloud there will be no
  contract term and users will simply pay for how
  much value they are deriving from the Hyperic HQ
  Enterprise application.
• Hyperic HQ 4.0 is available at www.hyperic.com.
  Hyperic HQ for EC2 is available through Amazon.

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CloudStatus

• Hyperic also offers a free cloud monitoring tool,
  CloudStatus. Their most recent addition to the
  tool is continuous monitoring of Google. Google
  App Engine is the second significant cloud
  service to be monitored by CloudStatus, which
  launched in June 2008 with support for Amazon Web
  Services.

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CloudStatus

• Hyperics free CloudStatus service delivers
  real-time, independent insight into the health
  and performance of the App Engine, giving users a
  greater level of confidence in the reliability,
  availability, and scalability of web applications
  running on Googles infrastructure.

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Cassatt

• Cassatt Corporation offers several products to
  help internal cloud computingan IT approach that
  delivers the benefits of cloud computing using
  the resources that organizations already have
  inside their datacenters.
• To address these problems, the Cassatt offerings
  help customers implement cloud-style computing
  environments using their existing systems, inside
  the firewalls of their datacenters without having
  to modify their current hardware or software. The
  resulting internal cloud can provide the same
  operational efficiency, fault tolerance, and
  energy savings promised by external clouds, but
  without the worries over security, compliance,
  lack of control, or the need or delay required to
  change or replace their current applications.

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Best Practices

• When you plan to move to a cloud solution,
  there are good ways to go about making the change
  to ensure an optimal experience while paying less
  than a colossal price. It starts with your
  analysis and selection of a vendor, and continues
  with your day-to-day usage of that service.
• A. Finding the Right Vendor
• B. Phased-in vs. Flash-cut Approaches
• C. Be Creative in Your Approach

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A Finding the Right Vendor

• You have to weigh such issues as
• Does the provider support me the way I need
  support?
• Are they easy to work with?
• Will they charge me a crippling amount of money?
• What is their support like?
• What is their track record for uptime?
• Can they give me some references?

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B Phased-in vs. Flash-cut Approaches

• IT administrators tend to be control freaks, and
  the thought of giving control of their systems to
  someone else is difficult. One of the mental
  hurdles to overcome is being willing to give up
  physical control of some of your systems. And
  while you dont need to put everything on the
  cloud (nor should you), use a phased-in approach,
  rather than moving everything, all at once.

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C Be Creative in Your Approach

• Just because a cloud is normally used one way,
  doesnt mean you cant think outside the box. For
  example, S3 is normally considered a way to store
  server data, but theres nothing saying you cant
  use it for general backup purposes.
• Also, if your organization has busy times during
  the year, you can use the cloud to supplement
  your need. For example, if you get really busy
  during Christmas, using cloud computing means not
  having to buy servers to simply deal with demand.
  Have prebuilt image instances that you can use
  whenever you want to add capacity.

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Future How Cloud Computing Might Evolve?

• As cloud computing changes, so must your
  relationship with it. In this section well look
  into our crystal balls and see where it might go.
  Well also look at the opinions of researchers
  who get paid lots of money to make the right
  predictions.

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Researcher Predictions

• Gartner sees cloud computing as an evolution of
  business that is no less influential than
  e-business. Gartner maintains that the very
  confusion and contradiction that surrounds the
  term cloud computing signifies its potential to
  change the status quo in the IT market.
• Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of
  computing where massively scalable IT-related
  capabilities are provided as a service using
  Internet technologies to multiple external
  customers.

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Salesforce.com and Customer Service

• Cloud evolution will not just take place in a
  technical realm. Also affecting how cloud
  services will change is how customers interact
  with the cloud. Salesforce.com is addressing
  customer service needs with its Service Cloud
  program.
• Built on the Force.com platform, the Service
  Cloud transforms customer service through the
  power of cloud computing, and brings together
  industry-leading cloud computing platforms like
  Google, Facebook, and Amazon.com to capture every
  conversation and leverage every community expert
  in the cloud.

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The Service Cloud

• The Service Cloud is the first customer service
  solution that empowers companies to join and
  manage all service conversations happening in the
  cloud, said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of
  Salesforce.com. This has been made possible
  through the emergence of native cloud computing
  platforms like Force.com that are built to
  harness the power of other clouds like Facebook,
  Google, and Amazon.com.

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The Service Cloud

• The Service Cloud is made up of six main
  components around the knowledge base to gather,
  distill, and disseminate the expert knowledge
  found in the cloud to customers, agents, and
  partners
• Community
• Social
• Search
• Partners
• Phone, email, and chat
• Force.com

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Community

• Developing an online customer community is an
  integral part of the Service Cloud. The Service
  Cloud represents a fundamental shift in how
  companies approach their online presenceits not
  just a place to post information, but a community
  where customers can interact with each other and
  have conversations with the company at large.
  Companies can easily set up and maintain an
  interactive cloud community for their customers
  by leveraging new Salesforce.com technologies
  such as Salesforce CRM Ideas and Force.com Sites
  as building blocks.

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Social

• The Force.com platform enables the Service Cloud
  to connect to leading social networking sites
  such as Facebook, community forums, blogs, and
  more. Through these connections, companies will
  be able to funnel this information directly into
  their knowledge base. The Service Cloud ensures
  that the companys knowledge base has the most
  up-to-date support information sourced from
  community experts.

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Search

• More times than not, customers begin with a
  Google search to find answers to their questions.
  By creating an active online community with the
  Service Cloud, companies can ensure that their
  site is one of the top results returned in a
  customers search. It is through the power of
  Force.com Sites that the expert knowledge of the
  community is made available in search engine
  results.

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Partners

• Using the Service Cloud, companies can now share
  all of the information in the knowledge base
  quickly and easily with their partners. Cloud
  computings unique model has enabled
  Salesforce.com to easily and securely connect
  separate Salesforce CRM deployments, allowing
  companies to share cases, contacts, and company
  information, without the need for complex
  integration software.

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Phone, Email, and Chat

• The Service Cloud will give agents access to
  knowledge in the cloud, regardless if they use
  phones, email, or chat to service customers. By
  providing the contact center with the same
  knowledge found in the community, the Service
  Cloud ensures that the quality and cost of
  service across every channel is strengthened by
  the expertise of the community.

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Force.com

• The Service Cloud utilizes the latest Force.com
  capabilities, including Force.com Sites,
  Force.com for Facebook, and more to uniquely join
  together knowledge and conversations regardless
  of where they take place online. The Service
  Cloud also taps into the power of more than 100
  customer service extensions on the Force.com
  AppExchange for areas like chat, field service,
  and CTI. Additionally, customers using the
  Service Cloud gain all the benefits of the proven
  security, reliability, and scalability of
  Salesforce.coms trusted global infrastructure.

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Responding to Change

• Keep up on apps. You have the ones that you want,
  and they were serving your organization well, but
  its worth it to see what others are developing.
  For instance, if you go to Force.com, you can
  search through apps that others have shared. You
  may find one that does the job better than the
  one youre using now, or you may discover an
  application that does the job in a different way.
• On a deeper level, analyze the applications to
  see if there is some fundamental, philosophical
  change to understand how apps are revolutionizing
  your industry.

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Get Ready

• Cloud computing is in its infancy. Think of it
  like the Internet back in 1995it wasnt very
  glamorous, somewhat clunky, but still useful. As
  more people have gotten their hands into it, it
  has evolved and changed (and will continue to do
  so). Look for more evolution of cloud computing
  and look for more ways that it can benefit your
  organization.

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Topic 15 Ten Swell Client Computing Resources

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology
2. CloudCamp
3. SaaS Showplace
4. TechTarget
5. The Cloud Standard Wiki
6. Finding OASIS
7. The Eclipse Foundation
8. The Cloud Security Alliance
9. Open Cloud Manifesto
10. Vendor Sites

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National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST)

• NIST is a U.S. government agency that focuses on
  emerging standards efforts. This organization has
  done a considerable amount of work defining and
  providing good information on cloud computing.
  Check out their website at
• http//csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/in
  dex.html.

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CloudCamp

• Through a series of local CloudCamp events,
  attendees exchange ideas, knowledge, and
  information in a creative and supporting
  environment, advancing the current state of cloud
  computing and related technologies. To become a
  member, simply register online.
• Check for a Cloudcamp near you at
• www.cloudcamp.com.

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SaaS Showplace

• The SaaS showplace was started by Jeff Kaplan,
  president of THINKStrategies, a SaaS consulting
  firm. The firm provides a consistently updated
  list of up-and-coming SaaS vendors. See a listing
  at www.saas-showplace.com/home.html.

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TechTarget

• TechTarget.com (www.techtarget,com) is a
  comprehensive online resource for all sorts of
  IT-related information, providing links to IT
  communities that focus on different areas of
  interest.
• SearchCloud.com, for example, is a TechTarget
  site with lots of information about products,
  services, and software vendors targeted at the
  needs of chief information officers and senior IT
  executives.

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The Cloud Standard Wiki

• The single place gives you access to lots of
  groups working on cloud standards. Check out
  their site at
• http//cloud-standards.org/wiki.

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Finding OASIS

• OASIS, the organization for the advancement of
  Structured information Standards
  (www.oasis-open.org) is a global consortium
  forcued on the creation and adoption of standards
  for electric business.

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The Eclipse Foundation

• The Eclipse Foundation is a open-source community
  focused on providing a vendor-neutral open
  development platform and application framework
  for building software. The EcLipse platform is
  written in Java and runs on most popular
  operating systems, including Linux, HPUX, AIX,
  Solris, QNX, Mac OS X, and Windows. Check out the
  Eclipse Foundation at www.eclipse.org.

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The Cloud Security Alliance

• The Cloud Security Alliance was established to
  promote the use of best practices for providing
  security assurance within cloud computing, and to
  educate people about the uses of cloud computing
  to help secure all other forms of computing.
  Check out their Web site at www.cloudsecurityallia
  nce.org.

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Open Cloud Manifesto

• Open Cloud Manifesto is a community of more than
  250 vendors intended to establish a core set of
  principles for cloud standards. The group has
  published several white papers that are worth
  reading. You can find them by clicking the blogs.
  Wikis, and More links at www.opencloudmanifesto.or
  g.

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Vendor Sites

• All the major cloud computing vendors provide
  great resources online. Please check out vendors
  such as Google, VM ware, EMC, Amazon, IBM, HP,
  Cisco, and Oracle.

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Topic 16 Ten Cloud Dos and Donts

1. Dont Be Reactive
2. Do Consider the Cloud a Financial Issue
3. Dont Go It Alone
4. Do Think about Your Architecture
5. Dont Neglect Governance
6. Dont Forget about Business Process
7. Do Make Security the Centerpiece of Your Strategy
8. Dont Apply the Cloud to Everything
9. Dont Forget about Service Management
10. Do Start with a Pilot Project

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Dont Be Reactive

• Many businesspeople who want to save money fast
  are tempted to throw out the data center and put
  all computing into a public cloud. It isnt a
  thoughtful approach. In the end, you might decide
  which capabilities that you should put into the
  cloud, but you need to do your homework first.
  For example, do you have compliance issues to
  consider? What is the difference in cost between
  a public, private, hybrid, or even a traditional
  data center? You need to make sure that all the
  possible impacts have been considered before you
  spring into action.

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Do Consider the Cloud a Financial Issue

• Before you jump in, do the math. How large is
  your company? Whats the nature of your computing
  environment? How many applications do you
  support? How much does your current environment
  cost? Are there applications that can cost
  effectively be moved to a Software as a Service
  model?

60
Dont Go It Alone

• Most companies need help, so dont go into this
  alone. Talk to your peers who have done some
  early cloud projects. Consult with systems
  integrators, technology companies, and other
  consultants who have solid experience with best
  practices. Some cloud Web sites and organizations
  have great ideas and collaboration opportunities.
  

61
Do Think about Your Architecture

• Just because youre thinking about moving into
  the cloud doesnt mean architecture is no longer
  important. In fact, its more important than
  ever. Youll probably have business services that
  are designed for reuse that should be stored in a
  private or public cloud that need to be designed
  for reuse. You will likely have a hybrid
  environment that needs to be well planned to
  conform to your companys service level agreement
  and performance requirements.

62
Dont Neglect Governance

• If you dont pay attention to compliance and
  governance, youre putting your company at risk.
  For example, some countries require that your
  customer data never is stored outside of its
  territory. You still have to comply with
  government regulations. These issues dont
  disappear into a cloud.

63
Dont Forget about Business Process

• Start with the business process that you want to
  automate with your cloud initiatives. If you
  havent figured out how business processes will
  be managed in this new distributed world, your
  business could be at risk.

64
Do Make Security the Centerpiece of Your Strategy

• Pay close attention to the security implications
  of moving to the cloud. You still need a
  well-planned
• Security strategy.

65
Dont Apply the Cloud to Everything

• Not everything belongs in a cloud. For example,
  your data center might have a large, complex, and
  customized application used by a dozen people.
  Its critical to your business. You have no
  economic or business reason to move that
  application to the cloud.

66
Dont Forget about Service Management

• Its easy to make the assumption that if
  something is in the cloud, you dont have to
  worry about managing it. This isnt true.
  Although many cloud providers allow you to have a
  portal view of their own service levels, its
  your responsibility to keep track of any service
  you have put into either a public or a private
  cloud. Because many companies inevitably have a
  hybrid environment, you need to manage your
  overall service level.

67
Do Start with a Pilot Project

• Start with a pilot project. For example, you
  night want to start with a Software as a Service
  platform. You might use a public cloud for
  testing a new application before it goes into
  production. This gives you a feeling for what it
  means to give up this level of control.