Cloud infrastructure

ZDNet – Cloud will account for 92 percent of datacenter traffic by 2020

Businesses are migrating to cloud architectures at a rapid clip and by 2020, cloud traffic will take up 92 percent of total data center traffic globally, according to Cisco’s Global Cloud Index report.

The networking giant predicts that cloud traffic will rise 3.7-fold up from 3.9 zettabytes (ZB) per year in 2015 to 14.1ZB per year by 2020.

“The IT industry has taken cloud computing from an emerging technology to an essential scalable and flexible networking solution. With large global cloud deployments, operators are optimizing their data center strategies to meet the growing needs of businesses and consumers,” said Doug Webster, VP of service provider marketing for Cisco, in a press release. “We anticipate all types of data center operators continuing to invest in cloud-based innovations that streamline infrastructures and help them more profitably deliver web-based services to a wide range of end users.”

Breaking things down, Cisco expects business workloads to dominate data center applications by 2020 but that their overall workload share will decrease from 79 percent to 72 percent.

More of the ZDNet article from Natalie Gagliordi

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15
Nov 16

Continuity Central – Enterprises struggle with increasing complexity of IT systems

Enterprises today are employing hybrid IT as they struggle to keep up with digital transformation, according to the recently released Harvard Business Review Analytic Services report ‘Hybrid IT Takes Center Stage’.

Sponsored by Verizon Enterprise Solutions, the report presents the results of a survey of 310 business and IT executives worldwide which found that most say their organizations are struggling to keep up with the pace of change in business today while working to ensure the complexity of their IT systems do not jeopardize performance, agility or security.

In fact, 63 percent of respondents indicated they are pursuing a hybrid IT approach to keep up with their existing infrastructure that consists of a mix of private clouds, public clouds and legacy data centers / centres – either on-premises or managed by service providers.

To enable hybrid IT, the report singles out the need for a secure, high-performance network architecture that can deliver the kind of security, flexibility and responsiveness required to stitch all these systems together.

“The vast majority of CIOs and line of business owners are working within the constraints of legacy apps, networks and investments,” said Chris Yousey, vice president of managed services for Verizon Enterprise Solutions. “And while the move to hybrid IT is about protecting their investments, it’s really more about improving performance, availability and above all, agility in today’s business climate.”

CIO.com – The long, slow death of private cloud continues

This article offers great perspective on in-house private cloud, not IaaS private cloud.

I must have touched a nerve with my last post, as I was contacted by two vendors that wanted to share their perspective on private cloud computing. Even though I don’t consider myself an analyst and therefore typically avoid “briefings,” I thought it would be interesting to see what they had to say.

Both vendors covered what I consider well-trod ground: Organizations use private clouds for reasons of security/compliance, data sovereignty, data gravity (i.e., there is lots of data on-premises and it would be very difficult to migrate it to a public cloud provider), application inflexibility, and so on.

However, one also identified another reason that organizations choose to use private clouds: cost. This vendor asserted that IT organizations can operate a cloud environment less expensively than what a public cloud provider charges for the same capability.

More of the CIO.com post from Bernard Golden

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09
Nov 16

Continuity Central – ISACA looks at the advantages and risks of application containerization

Application containerization is gaining traction given its potential to increase efficiencies and data security options, and decrease cost, according to new expert analyses from ISACA; but it also brings its own risks.

A pair of new ISACA white papers offer insights and guidance on containerization. ‘Understanding the Enterprise Advantages of Application Containerization: An Overview,’ provides a summary of the rising popularity of containers; and ‘Understanding the Enterprise Advantages of Application Containerization: Practitioner Considerations,’ offers practical guidance for assurance, governance and security professionals.

ISACA defines an application container as “a mechanism that is used to isolate applications from each other within the context of a running operating system instance.” Containers let data centers / centres deploy business applications more rapidly. Increased business agility, lower costs and more efficient use of resources are among the other factors sparking increased global adoption.

Digital McKinsey – Leaders and laggards in enterprise cloud infrastructure adoption

Investments in organizational capabilities rather than specific technology choices separate the leaders from the laggards.

There is a lot of hype and hoopla about the cloud but few reliable facts and benchmarks about the adoption of this technology. CIOs, CTOs, and heads of infrastructure at large enterprises have shared with us their frustrations about adopting cloud-based platforms and migrating processing workloads to virtual environments. To address those frustrations, between 2014 and 2016 we surveyed senior business and technology leaders in more than 50 large organizations in Europe and North America to find out about their adoption of cloud and next-generation infrastructure.1 We focused on the structure and management of their cloud programs, the technical capabilities they’ve implemented to this point, the benefits realized, and their future plans.

More of the Digital McKinsey post from Nagendra Bommadevara, James Kaplan, and Irina Starikova

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04
Nov 16

IT Business Edge – Digital Transformation Starts with Infrastructure

Business models around the world are rapidly shifting from selling products to monetizing services. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, if you are not generating revenue by digitally connecting to consumers, the future of your enterprise is in doubt.

While this digital transformation requires new approaches to organizational structures, workforce skillsets, business processes and customer relationships, it all starts with infrastructure. Static, silo-laden data systems are out; agile, software-defined architectures are in.

But how, exactly, are traditional enterprises supposed to implement such a radical upgrade in time to ward off competition from digitally driven upstarts who are unburdened by legacy infrastructure? To be sure, it will take a concerted effort, and a clearly defined strategy as to how digital transformation can be optimized for the enterprise’s unique market strengths.

More of the IT Business Edge post from Arthur Cole

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26
Oct 16

Baseline – Mobility is at the Center of Digital Business

Mobile 2.0 has arrived, so organizations must develop an enterprise mobile strategy that extends beyond smartphones and tablets and into the IoT.

Only a few years ago, a mobile strategy focused mostly on arming workers with phones and laptops that would allow them to call the office and work remotely from home or while on the road. File sharing was difficult, collaboration was challenging, and staying in sync as an organization was next to impossible.

However, as enterprise mobile technology has advanced and clouds have made data more accessible, organizations are learning that basic communication and collaboration, while vitally important, are only part of the picture.

“As mobile devices have evolved into powerful computers and the definition of mobility has expanded, organizations are recognizing that mobile is now at the center of a successful business strategy,” observes Abhijit Kabra, managing director at Accenture Mobility, part of consulting firm Accenture.

More of the Baseline article from Samuel Greengard

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20
Oct 16

The Register – Internet of Things will turn up the compute heat for data centres

IPExpo The Internet of Things will put more demand upon mid-range and co-lo data centres, according to the marketing manager of data centre kit firm Minkels.

Speaking at London’s IPExpo conference this morning, Minkels’ Niek van der Pas explained how, in his view, the explosion of IoT device usage will push more and more workloads into smaller data centres.

Highlighting how IoT devices, by necessity, spend their time talking to what he called the “edge layer”, comprising “metro/local” data centres – as opposed to core layer “public cloud and hyperscale” data centres – Van der Pas said the main effect of this is going to be to scale up the age-old problems of cooling and power demands.

Two graphs on one of his slides illustrated the problem. LINX handles just under 3Tbps of internet traffic at 9pm. While the graph showed the usual peaks and troughs during the day, a similar graph showing power drawn by LINX was almost flat.

More of The Register post from Gareth Corfield

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19
Oct 16

SearchCloudComputing – Optimize your enterprise network design for hybrid cloud

Public and hybrid cloud adoption has a major ripple effect on enterprise network design. New bottlenecks arise, and some businesses need to alter their network configurations — particularly those for wide area networks — to ensure they get the performance they need.

With hybrid and public clouds, in particular, the networking focus shifts heavily to wide area network (WAN) connections. Businesses need to link their data centers to their public cloud provider’s sites, and often rely on their existing internet lines to do so. But this approach has shortcomings.

First, bandwidth is an issue. Traffic that used to roam about the data center now needs to move off-site, often increasing WAN traffic. Consequently, organizations may need to upgrade their internet lines, which can be expensive; pricing depends on a business’ location and amount of bandwidth needed.

More of the SearchCloudComputing article from Paul Korzeniowski

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18
Oct 16

Continuity Central – Many organizations mistakenly leaving cloud business continuity to third-party cloud providers

According to new research published by CTERA Networks, while enterprises continue to migrate workloads to the cloud at a rapid pace, protection of cloud-based servers and applications has not fully evolved to meet enterprise requirements for business continuity and data availability.

CTERA’s new eBook, ‘Game of Clouds’, showcases the findings of CTERA’s inaugural cloud backup survey, and presents a deep look at the state of enterprise cloud data protection. A CTERA-commissioned study was conducted by independent research firm Vanson Bourne to examine the data protection strategies of 400 IT decision makers and IT specialists in organizations using the cloud for application deployment at US, German and French organizations. The study analyzes the benefits and pitfalls of current backup strategies, offers key considerations for organizations moving to the cloud, and looks at the impact of poor backup practices on business continuity.

Doug Theis Leave your comfort zone.