The use of information technology as a competitive advantage is already out of the question because of its efficiency and necessity. Another issue now demands the attention and decisions on the part of CIO’s – the profound transformation experienced today, where the traditional models of provision are to live with offers based on cloud computing. The avalanche of new solutions and services available via the Internet and cloud model puts more “connected” new services, new lines and granular cost (or demand) into the hands of users. These services are noted for their ease of acquisition and speed of activation. Curbing the use of these solutions in the cloud means showing the user that the company or its governance processes in information technology are late and are very conservative.

The solution to meet the demands of internal customers with the speed and cost is appropriate to adapt the processes and solutions for use in cloud computing model. This is something similar to the services that the user already uses, but within the processes and security policies and provisioning defined by the company. Once that is done, control of the use of IT is to be rescued by CIOs and security mechanisms will regain their efficiency.

In this scenario, IT departments are looking for implementations of cloud applications customized to your environment. This migration planning for part of their environment or implementation of new applications in the cloud requires a use prior here consulting and provisioning prior to ensure lower costs, greater speed and efficiency in project implementation. This is where the Cloud Facilitators comes come in, companies specializing in analysis of the current scenario, considering the complexity of the production environment of IT companies. The Cloud Facilitators know how to turn this environment, or a portion thereof, for use of cloud-based models.

In addition, Cloud Facilitators are responsible for ensuring the security of information that travels on the corporate network and are now, in part, acting in an external environment (even in private cloud). Cloud Facilitators also manage the environments and provisioning between the traditional atmosphere and new environment implemented in the cloud. This process of outsourcing creates a new model of outsourcing that we are calling CloudSourcing.

Rather than make use of information technology, the implementation and use of cloud solutions by enterprises is changing the methods and processes of acquisition and deployment of IT. This happens primarily because the mechanisms for provisioning, purchases are made in periodic demands and are geographical (by area of interest). A second issue to be addressed is the fact that the cloud solution is governed by its acquisition contracts and at the same time, strict service levels (SLA).

Thus, today’s IT managers must have specialized tools to manage traditional contracts, outsourcing contracts and contracts for CloudSourcing. We are living in a transitional phase in which all these models can live together in harmony. One way the corporation meets the challenges of the present moment is to rely on the expertise of cloud facilitators. People ahead of these companies can help the CIO to carry out environmental management. This is done to ensure IT staff to deliver essential and summarized information that may allow monitoring of what happens, even to the point to understand what impact does the use of new technologies and providers make to increase efficiency of business results.

With regard to services, at the present time, the concept of cloud computing involves the provision of the following types of services to its users:

Everything as a Service : This type of service is provided to all users of the software and hardware to control the business processes, including the interaction between users, the user only needs to have access to the Internet.

In my opinion, this kind of service is a general concept with respect to the services. Below mentioned are some of the more special cases.

Infrastructure as a Service : The computing infrastructure is given to the user, typically virtual platforms (PCs) connected to the network. It adjusts itself to suit your purpose.

Platform as a Service : The computing platform is given to the user, with the operating system and required software.

Software as a Service : This type of service is usually positioned as “software on demand“, this software is deployed on remote servers and the user can access it via the Internet, and all updates and licenses for this software is governed by the service provider. Payment in this case is made for actual use of the software.

Hardware as a Service : In this case, the user of the service leases the hardware for his own purposes. This option allows you to save on maintenance of the equipment, but in essence little different from “Infrastructure as a Service” except that you have the bare hardware on which you can deploy your own infrastructure using the most appropriate software.

Workplace as a Service : In this case, the company is using cloud computing for the organization of employment of its employees by setting up and installing the necessary software required to operate personnel.

Data as a Service : The main idea of this type of service lies in the fact that the user is provided with storage space, which may be used to store large amounts of information.

Security as a Service : This type of service enables users to quickly deploy, allowing products to ensure the safe use of Web technologies security of electronic communications, as well as the safety of the local system, which allows users of the service to save on deploying and maintaining their own security system.

The real protection depends on having the right architecture for the right application. Organizations must understand the individual requirements of their applications.

An excellent starting point for an organization wishing to implement a cloud computing platform is to examine the current IT architecture. Only by aligning the applications architecture – computers, network, data center and storage resources, do you get to keep the company on track to achieve the reliability and performance necessary for a good cloud environment?

In the area of cloud computing, real protection depends on having the right architecture for the right application. Organizations must understand the individual requirements of their applications and, if already using a cloud platform, understand the corresponding cloud architecture. With this knowledge, you can make decisions about what cloud platform responds to the needs of reliability and performance of your applications.

Listed here are five points to consider when evaluating cloud computing architectures:

Availability : Not all applications are equal, as all platforms are not on the same cloud. Organizations have to prioritize their applications, identifying those that must always be available and that may have breaks in service, and service breaks are acceptable. They must understand the risks associated with the unavailability of data. For applications that must always be available, it is necessary to consider high-quality technology and business class have been rigorously tested at the expense of developing an internal solution. It is also important to seek solutions for multi-site planning and disaster recovery / business continuity. For most organizations, this means working with a service integrator or a consulting firm, which includes these services in its core business.

Security : Security remains the primary concern for organizations looking to the cloud. Among the main concerns are loss of control of sensitive data, the risks associated with multi-user environments, and responding to various standards and compatibility needed. You must know how a multi-user shared environment is segmented in order to avoid overlapping customer service and breaking the boundaries that must be established between them. As the solution is architected, and the infrastructure of the Cloud service provider (network and virtualization platforms and storage) is secure.

Management : Organizations must understand what are their obligations, rather than just knowing what to expect from a service provider. Most solution providers of cloud do not support public administration. Or potential customers of these solutions have the expertise to design the right solution at home, or should seek the services of an outside vendor. There must always be an understanding of the level of management that their applications need and the identification of a process of changing management.

Performance : As in traditional hosting models, it is important to understand the requirements of workflow that will lie in the infrastructure. Organizations must also understand what their problems are and how is the cloud architecture that they have, or want to purchase. They must make their own tests to understand how a cloud environment can affect the computational resources, network and storage.

Compliance : Organizations must understand where their data is and who interacts with them, and how. They must understand the areas of compliance that the service provider controls and compare with the standards and regulations that they aim to join.

Often we discuss technology trends and the changes they cause. We debated the technological complexities involved and estimated its rate of market adoption. But most of the technical articles forget one key factor: the driving force behind the adoption of any technological change is the economic factor.

When looking at the future of IT, we can learn something from the past and how organizations and society invested in these technologies. In the past, a few mainframe companies had access to computers (the computers were too expensive) and the expectation was that IT would enable them to automate their business processes, to make them faster and cheaper. Later we saw the emergence of the distributed model, client-server, which cheapened the cost of acquisition of technology, allowing you to create solutions aimed to generate more speed and functionality demanded by specific Departments. However, the rapid proliferation of different systems has created a demand for integration that culminated in the emergence of the ERPs.

The situation today is very different from years ago. The Internet is already a part of our daily life and is ingrained in the IT business. The companies did not begin to settle more in just reduced costs. This is “business as usual”, the duty of every self-respecting manager. IT has already done much in this sense, “how to create shared-services center and consolidate its data centers?“. IT now has the opportunity to be looked at from the perspective of revenue generation and as a platform for creating new business and support growth strategies and not just an operational area.

To view IT as revenue generator is a different “mind-set“, because IT was always seen as supportive for the business, but now, it generate new revenue. Now IT can be seen even as its source of income. The adoption of IT cloud computing allows you to generate revenue and profits. We can start talking at the end. Cloudnomics.

Cloudnomics can be translated as a new economic model for IT, where metrics like TCO lose enough of its importance and IT begins to be seen through the eyes of a business case. In fact, any business is started to go forward, generate revenue and profitability!

As cloud computing enters this process?

With public cloud. IT will no longer install, configure and upgrade physical servers, and the standardized and automated processes that characterize a cloud environment, the number of technicians dedicated to support greatly decreases. IT can focus on innovation and value creation for the company. The cost models also change with cloud and its concept of elasticity. You pay for the use of resources consumed, which can be directly linked to revenue generation, increased use of IT, more revenue generation. It is an economic model that changes the rules of the game. It costs the same to rent a server for 1000 hours to 1000 servers for one hour.

A practical example of how the current IT model limits the generation of significant revenue: To explore new business opportunities that have a short life. In the current model, it is not economically justifiable to purchase a technology platform and put it into production (with high up-front investment) for it to operate for only a few months, taking advantage of a unique business opportunity. The bill probably will not close. With this cloud, it is perfectly possible. A simplistic example, but it shows the idea: producing an animation, where the defendant is a huge computing power to render final film, much more than the sum of all previous months of production and that after the closure dispensing with all computers. Cloud computers are allocated as they are needed and that there is no turning off computers . The provider, in turn, also enjoys economies of scale, keeping thousands of servers to be shared by hundreds or thousands of customers.

The conceptual shift is much larger than technological change. Comes the entrepreneur CIO, attached directly to the CEO. A profile is much less technical and more focused on business and entrepreneurship. In fact, a suggestion of an MBA could be “Entrepreneurship in IT” .

Among the structural changes to IT, we see the start of an organization aimed at supporting other sectors of the company to a revenue-generating industry and the transformation of an organization focused on building activities and support systems and computing power for an organization aimed at creating a computing platform where new businesses will be generated. The choice of applications and consequent utilization can be moved to their users.

This new IT may act as an incubator for business start-ups within the company.

Finally, IT is a business unit which is simple to write, but hard to put into practice. Sure, it’s not going to happen from one day to another, but a process that will happen over the next year. But can get started today.

While in recent months, access to applications is offered in pay per use model,  being hosted on shared data centers (which is known as cloud computing), (arguments) continue flying over the issue of security as a recurring objection to the general expansion of the use of the cloud.

Without wishing to deny the existence of risks, try to propose the following hypothesis: will have to set optimal levels of security that do not impede or complicate access and use of software applications and services.

There is a maximum security level, which is credited with 100% confidence that there will be no risks: always keep your computer off.

Most studies conclude the existence of quasi-apocalyptic risks that are computer security companies or service providers that impact on their levels of safety and business case.

Those who seem to have the most spyware code distributed around the world are governments, who in turn create the laws for the security checkpoint.

The group of non-internet users is precisely the one that seems to have security issues.

The setting of restrictions on access to internet sites has meant that, in most large organizations, employees have not been able to access critical information necessary for their work when they are needed.

The use of antivirus, antispam, … and other security services consume much resources and slow down the PC so that large numbers of personnel management and maintenance of networks and teams in organizations chose to uninstall them and have a copy of their data and their applications, which are  immediately restored on regular basis.

While centers reported that high level of security has localized malware code, which is not on specific devices, internal network or don’t know what type of malware it is, so presumably it exists, but their relation to any risk of physical security is virtually nonexistent.

The greatest risk for loss of information lies in overheating of the machine where it is stored. I would not be mistaken if I say that the control measures and physical security of any data center operating internet is much higher than any company that maintains the machines on their premises.

The above statement is also valid for the control and limitation of physical access to machines.

To maintain the technology infrastructure at home is a decision being reconsidered by the companies, particularly small and medium-sized. Apparently, the computing power is no longer attached to a box, and has jumped into the clouds. The investment in solutions for the data center is high and pay per use is very attractive. This is an important lever in the model of public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

This year, growth will be even greater. The average expansion year after year is 64%, which has hooked more users so far.

In addition, 41% believe that infrastructure as a service model will be growing more in the coming years. IaaS will reach maturity in the next two years, but must go through a phase of cultural change to take off. There are vendors that point cloud as a form of outsourcing. But it is not. It takes a break from that thought.

The difference lies in customization. Cloud mass is the solution that is equal for all, not outsourcing. That’s why cloud is half of the value of outsourcing. Another point of attention in the industry is in relation to the offer. While security is still pointed out by companies and analysts as a red alert for the adoption of cloud.

Today, we have more than 33,000 customers worldwide, including users of dedicated servers, cloud computing, e-commerce and etc. The offer we have today is focused on large companies and have service level agreements that monitor downtime, response time, etc. However, the use of public cloud is still low, but the trend for the next year should be a combination of private and public cloud.

We believe in the growth of hybrid clouds. It includes mobility products, software, service, and we are increasingly following the path as a service. In November 2011, we launched eNlight Cloud Computing Solution that deliver Cloud Computing Services around the world.

The cloud computing is based on a delivery model technology in which the infrastructure is not the client, but on remote servers that offer large capacity processing and data storage resources that may be shared (in the case of smaller customers) or be of use only if the contractor needs.

In theory, this ‘cloud‘ eliminates the need for companies to have to worry about the acquisition and maintenance of application specific hardware, or group of applications. Resources are acquired (hire as a service) as the need arises and paid as per use of resources.

This business model is still in its infancy. The expert says that over the next few months, companies will focus on three points related to the cloud : understanding how to store static files; testing services and try to get some applications to the cloud without having to change them.

Listed below are four questions that often arise when talking about cloud computing. Check the answers.

Does the adoption of cloud computing affect the obligations of companies regarding the preservation of data?

Companies must follow specific policies for the preservation of their sensitive data. This is because, especially in sectors that deal with sensitive information of customers, you need to store data that can be used in the future, in the case of a judicial investigation. So, before sealing agreements for cloud with a supplier, you must ensure that such service providers are able to store confidential files. All specifications relating to protection policies, storage and retrieval of data should be expressed in formal contracts between the parties.

Stored data in “cloud” is more vulnerable?

When a company is using cloud computing services, it is creating another source of access to their data. But it does not necessarily mean that information security is impaired.

Can you preserve the confidentiality of any data?

Yes, the rights of providers to access customer information may be limited by contractual clauses. However, it is necessary that the provider has a minimum level of freedom to act efficiently and therefore extremely sensitive data should not be in the cloud, and yes, the company’s internal infrastructure.

What steps should be followed after the choice of a reliable cloud service provider?

Adopting the model of cloud computing can be a good opportunity to structure a program for data retention. That is, after choosing a service provider, the company has no policies for storage, query and retrieval of information should set them to map all of its assets. This step is important to create an inventory that indicates where and how each corporate information is stored and manipulated.

The topic cloud computing, still demands a lot of debate and conflicting opinions, it is already becoming reality. Every day we see the ecosystem built around cloud computing and to consolidate, more and more success stories are published.

I will not quote statistics and forecasts that always come from industry analysts, who provide these stats and estimates agree with each other in numbers.

The three layers of cloud, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS can be viewed as a hierarchy, where the lower layer has IaaS, above it we have the top SaaS and PaaS. The upper layers are built upon the layers below. The benefits obtained are directly related to the layer. That is, the higher the layer, the greater the potential benefits. IaaS can be considered as the commoditized layer, as it basically provides a virtual infrastructure, the users are abstracting the physical equipment. But offers no content. SaaS, in turn, enables a higher level of abstraction, because the User sees only the features of the software without needing to know what technology it uses and need not even bother with version upgrades.

The most emblematic example is the force.com that lets you create applications that extend the functionality of the salesforce. We will see later PaaS is consolidating itself, with its own technologies, separate from SaaS vendors. This will happen with maturity in the use of cloud services, when companies use the SaaS PaaS coupled to identify who will be imprisoned on these platforms.

But it is indisputable that we are still learning to exploit the potential of cloud computing and we will learn much more in the coming years. The first projects have been exploratory, which is natural. What we will see this year? Clouds filled with typical workloads to be outsourced via SaaS and on-premise applications transferred to IaaS clouds. But, although limited in their impact, are paving the way for the full adoption of the model. In fact, the cycles of technological change takes take several years to mature in 2020 and probably cloud computing is commonplace. But if this will happen in 2020, the first steps should be taken now in 2012. Cloud computing is a reality now and should already be on the radar of the IT managers of all firms.

Less well-known technologies like IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, the DaaS or Desktop as a Service, opens the way for a new generation of working environment uncorrelated positions and physical devices.

1. What is behind the acronym DaaS?

Acronym Desktop as a Service (or work environment seen as a service), the DaaS is part of the family of bricks supplied as computer services, alongside the IaaS-Infrastructure as a Service, the PaaS-Platform as a Service, and SaaS-Software as a Service. The DaaS is to deport the management and delivery of work environments (but sometimes applications) in the Cloud Computing.

2. The DaaS is it totally paperless?

Indeed. In this model it comes to providing a work environment (including both the OS, applications, and also the parameters and user preferences) on demand. This is totally uncorrelated from the terminal on which it will be displayed. Thus, a working environment like DaaS will also be distributed on traditional workstations (PCs, laptops), on a smartphone or a tablet.

3. What is the point of DaaS?

It is equivalent to that of the IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. The DaaS avoids the company to acquire assets (servers in the case of IaaS, software in the case of SaaS) recorded in the balance sheet in the form of requiring CAPEX and depreciation. It can instead be accounted for as operating expenses, thus providing flexibility for the accountant (OPEX).

4. What are the differences between the DaaS infrastructure and virtualized desktops (VDI)?

Chronologically, the concept of VDI is before DaaS that appeared over the last three years. As part of an offer to DaaS, the virtualized environment of work is provided by an operator or third party vendor responsible to host, manage and integrate the applications desired by the company. They will be provided in a secure manner from a multi-tenant Cloud, in the form of a subscription to the use of work environments.

For its part, the VDI (for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure ) is a virtualization technology designed to allow the company to virtualize its own working environments, in its own data center for example.

5. The future is in the DaaS?

In the same way that the is software provided on request in the form of services, work environment “as a Service” are required to grow strongly by various research firms, including IDC. If only because they are an opportunity for the company to better control costs and to refocus on business. In addition, unlike the traditional VDI or deployment in workstations, the time of implementation is also very short, which of course will interest companies.

And cloud computing as described in a word, “the other side of the cloud world (at the side of the Internet) using the huge processing facility provided. Generic term for technologies that is, Cloud computing is classified into three types.

SaaS : A service that provides software services
PaaS : A service that provides a platform
IaaS  : To provide infrastructure services

Cloud Computing and BCP (Business Continuity Planning)

Cloud computing is one of the solutions to support the implementation of the organization’s business continuity.

All you need to achieve your organization’s business continuity, “responsiveness” and “resiliency”. “Responsiveness” refers to the ability to minimize the impact on business itself when damaged. For example, a large earthquake going on, etc. Perhaps it reduces the damage to the system. In addition, “resiliency” refers to the ability of the business to quickly recover even if it is affected by the disaster.

“Responsiveness” in order to avoid the disaster after earthquake, for example, base isolation system (is suppressed without affecting the equipment to absorb the shaking of an earthquake) will include measures such as using some non-combustible building materials in the server room.

In addition, “resiliency” as an example for a fast recovery solution using data replication technology. Should also have disrupted the original data, in that they allow activities that will be made available to recover data quickly.

Thus, the key to achieve the organization’s business continuity, “responsiveness” and “resiliency” is right in the improvement of cloud computing, this “responsiveness” and “resiliency” contribute significantly to have the power.

The second, Cloud computing, DR services are combined to provide a backup system (Depending on the IT service provider).

BCP is the answer to cloud computing?

Cloud computing is not a valid BCP, it is one of the options for establishing a highly effective disaster recovery service.

However, cloud computing is also a universal need that you do not know. The biggest concern is the black box of IT Services.

Organization, therefore, after considering the advantages and disadvantages of cloud computing carefully, we think the key is to consider the best measures.