Cloud Computing Archives

Rethinking the Outsourced Cloud, Part III: Expected Benefits of Cloud Applications

September 28, 2011

Microsoft’s SMB Cloud Adoption Study 2011 (Global Report) collected survey results from more than 3,000 small, mid-sized and large companies from 16 different countries. Expected benefits of using cloud applications include the ability to have up-to-date software, remote access, reduced costs and access to new services and applications not normally available in-house. Up-to-date software – When outsourcing a managed cloud, SMBs can benefit from fully managed services including updated software patches, firewalls and antivirus. Remote access – Increased mobility of employees and customers as well as the changing workplace require more access to applications from a variety devices, and from anywhere. As businesses hire more contractors and grow in regional target audiences, they require the ability to log onto a web-based resource to work and reach critical applications. Reduce costs – No hardware costs, and no capital investments in building a data center. SMBs can benefit greatly from taking advantage of an SSAE 16 or SAS 70 audited IT vendor for not only their certifications and experience, but their research and investment in new technology. Access to new services and applications – Limited resources can mean limited investments in IT services and applications, if in-house. Outsourcing the cloud can open…

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Rethinking the Outsourced Cloud, Part II: 2011 Benefits of Cloud Adoption

September 26, 2011

A recent Wall Street Journal article reporting on cloud security details the trends of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) when it comes to benefits of cloud adoption and the overall trend of outsourcing the cloud. Cloud adoption statistics show 7 percent of small companies and 17 percent of mid-sized companies showing some kind of cloud activity in early 2010, which quickly doubled just 18 months later to 13 percent and 36 percent, respectively. Benefits of adopting an outsourced cloud (running applications and storing data on a managed data center’s servers) for small to mid-sized businesses: Higher levels of security by trusting your IT services to an experienced vendor. They can provide a greater level of service to support a more complex IT infrastructure due to the amount of capital invested in new technology and facilities. Small and mid-sized businesses likely do not have the budget or time to build or support in-house IT. Leveling the playing field – cloud computing gives small and mid-sized businesses access to an IT infrastructure normally only available to large companies. The drastically improved efficiency of faster application deployment from days or weeks (spent acquiring server hardware, software licenses, installing, testing, etc.) to just minutes…

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Rethinking the Outsourced Cloud, Part I: 2011 SMBs’ Cloud Security Concerns

September 23, 2011

This is the first post in a three-part blog series on Rethinking the Outsourced Cloud for SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) – check back at our blog for Part II and III coming soon next week. A recent Wall Street Journal article on cloud security details the trends of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) when it comes to concerns about security in the outsourced cloud. In 2008, 72 percent of small businesses (less than 100 employees) flagged security as the main reason they were not outsourcing their IT infrastructure to the cloud, while 63 percent of medium-sized businesses (100 to 999 employees) echoed their concern. But mid-2011 trends show a decrease in worries, to 50 percent for small businesses and 47 percent of medium-sized. These statistics translate to an overall 22 percent decrease in cloud computing security concerns of small businesses since 2008, and a 16 percent decrease for mid-sized businesses. What do these trends mean when it comes to cloud security? SMBs are starting to rethink and trust the outsourced cloud – one benefit may actually be higher levels of security. Outsourcing to an experienced IT vendor means taking advantage of their capital investments in their data center and IT…

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Wall Street Journal: SMBs moving to Colocation and Cloud Computing

September 22, 2011

Something we’ve seen for a while at Online Tech is the rapidly progressing movement of small and mid-size businesses to outsource their data centers. Last week, the WSJ highlighted the growing adoption of outsourced data centers by small and mid-size businesses to colocation and cloud computing. The WSJ points out that colocation services have been around for years, used mostly by larger enterprises. Now smaller firms are increasing attracted to outsourcing their data center to trusted hosting providers driven mainly by 2 factors: 1) cost savings and 2) security. We can attest to the cost savings. It’s almost impossible for small and mid-size businesses to match the level of security and availability for mission critical applications by building their own data centers and server infrastructure. The cost for redundant power, cooling and Internet is dramatically lower when shared in a multi-tenant environment. In addition, the expertise available to small businesses through a hosting provider typically far exceeds what their onsite staff can provide. Our engineers work on broader set of systems and issues in a single day than most in-house IT staff see in an entire month. This allows us to hire the best and apply that experience across hundreds…

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Benefits of Private Cloud Computing: Compliant & Cost-Effective

September 15, 2011

When it comes to security and compliance, private cloud computing trumps the public cloud. According to a 2011 study by the Aberdeen Group, the private cloud saves a total of 12% combined annual cost savings over public clouds on a per-application basis. When it comes to computing costs, everything adds up fast – including personnel and training, process and technology, hardware, software, services and support. Companies that implemented private clouds also incurred 38 percent fewer costs related to security and compliance events in the past year compared to public cloud users. Public cloud users suffered from an overall 25 percent of incidents related to audit deficiencies, data loss or data exposure, and unauthorized access. Compliance in the Cloud However, national industry compliance standards, such as PCI or HIPAA compliance remain concerns of mid and large-sized companies. While many industries are hesitant to adopt the cloud due to security concerns, the private cloud offers a cost-effective, streamlined and secure option. The healthcare industry in particular has been known as late-adopters of new technology, but the latest incentives for implementing an electronic health records (EHR) system have trended toward demands for a secure, reliable and compliant data hosting solution. With HIPAA violations costing healthcare…

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Breakdown of Federal Cloud Computing

August 25, 2011

The problem with the old IT infrastructure, according to Federal CIO Vivek Kundra in Federal Cloud Computing Strategy: “…low asset utilization, a fragmented demand for resources, duplicative systems, environments which are difficult to manage, and long procurement lead times.” With a focus on improved operational efficiency and government service delivery, Kundra intends to allocate $20 billion of the U.S. government’s total $80 billion IT budget for cloud computing migration. His Cloud First policy requires government agencies to move at least three current projects to the cloud by mid-2012, and encourages the use of cloud services for any new projects. The intent behind the cloud computing strategy is to consolidate and reduce nearly 2,100 data centers by 40 percent by 2015 – resulting in an estimated $5 billion annual savings and a major reduction in energy expenditure (NYTimes.com). In his Federal Cloud Computing Strategy document, he outlines the numerous benefits of moving to the cloud, including efficiency and agility – in their current IT environment, it would take years to build data centers for new services and months to increase the capacity of existing services. But with the cloud, they would experience almost immediate scalability with increases and reductions in capacity….

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High Availability Private Cloud – Part II

August 17, 2011

Part II of a 3-part series – Mike Flaherty of Online Tech describes how to create local high availability in the cloud, virtualization and redundancy. Included is an overview of the components of a fully managed private cloud architecture.

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High Availability Cloud Computing

August 8, 2011

Online Tech Systems Engineer Mike Flaherty discusses creating a high availability cloud hosting environment. Key components of a reliable infrastructure, offsite backup, IT disaster recovery plan and high-availability will be discussed as well as the migration of data from its existing environment to a high availability environment.

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Data Backup in the Cloud – Keeping it Safe

August 5, 2011

Mike Flaherty, Systems Engineer of Online Tech, discusses how to keep data safe with cloud hosting, including offsite backup, potential data security threats, IT disaster recovery options and information on secure data center qualities.

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Navigating the Private Cloud

August 3, 2011

Mike Flaherty, Systems Engineer of Online Tech, discusses the different types of cloud hosting as well as advantages and disadvantages of each kind with a focus on private cloud computing.

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