Public or Private Cloud that is the Question!

davidp — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:05:17 +0000

It would appear that people are still arguing over definition of what cloud computing actually is or should be, however this year there has been a fair degree of momentum in the technology sector both from the hardware leaders through to the tech guru’s, the vast majority of the IT sector is getting on board and bringing out their own products to tackle the any obstacles that a new model might face. So maybe the big question now is – “Public” or “Private” Cloud?

Public

The Public Cloud is essentially outsourcing (can I say this word!) your data centre. An external vendor offers up their data centre for rental and you can chose the number of servers or the amount of storage you want to run out there, as well as the applications. You can then access it remotely from a PC’s or other devices.

The key selling point of this model are the significant cost savings and of course the environmental impact. Not only does it mean you don’t have to pay for all the hardware yourself, but you don’t have to pay for the maintenance and staffing costs as well. There is also a widely adopted “pay as you go” model with public clouds, allowing you to rent the space from as little as an hour – often used by developers testing applications – up to months or years but paying by the month rather than in a big lump.

The Public Cloud space is dominated by players like Microsoft, Amazon and Google, although smaller companies like Elastic Hosts are getting in on the act too whilst firms like Salesforce.com offer the ability to run a single application in the cloud.

Private

To many companies and organisation’s however the Public Cloud is probably still a big no no, especially when you look at larger institutions such as banks or the public sector – i.e NHS and Local/central government, as they are concerned about the security of letting what could be very confidential information out from behind their own firewall and this is of course a valid concern and can in some cases be a complete show stopper.

The Private Cloud model therefore keeps all of your physical hardware within your own location, meaning the day to day running of the systems, maintenance, and – most importantly – security aspects, are run in house. However, and here is the big change it is a highly virtualised environment, using additional software to optimise your internal hardware to its fullest potential and ease the transactions of data and information between servers both in one office or to other locations that your company/organisation might have.

EMC for example is a large advocate of this but many of the other hardware vendors such as HP, IBM, Dell, and now Oracle offer software solutions and specifically designed products to cope with the new environment.

Pros and Cons?

Both are accepted and workable models but they also come with their own positives and negatives to contend with. Businesses that use public clouds will enjoy the benefits that come with any large scale deployment such as highly available, enterprise class infrastructure, at a fraction of the cost that you would face if it was managed and there would be reduced costs server deployment and storage. There is also the additional cost reduction in having to pay for the staff to keep a data centre running.

Also when a data centre is set up with your required products a organisation can end up locked in and stuck with those products for a very long time. Therefore the pay as you go model adopted within the public cloud means if you aren’t happy with the service you are receiving there is no such thing as vendor lock in and you can simply move provider but only if such clouds work on the same standards and are interoperable. This all might sound great, however there is a flipside if a business is concerned about the security of their data, for some companies the idea of letting anything out from their perimeter is a terrifying prospect. In a large scale data centre owned by a public cloud company you would not know whereabouts your data was held and who else had their data running on the same machines. The companies insist that there is strong security measures put in place but this means you would need to have a lot of trust in whichever vendor you went with.

On top of that we know some providers look at this data – Google has admitted publicly it looks at data for marketing purposes – and if yours is stored in the US (EU legislation is different however), where many of the big time public cloud data centres are, the federal authorities can seize those servers at anytime to inspect. (EU legislation is different however so ask where your data will be stored).

Finally despite the claims of high availability, public cloud vendor’s data centres are just like any other and can do down. It may not be often and also may be fixed quickly but your business could be left without accessibility to the core functions it needs to run.

So what about the Private Cloud? There is a lot of control when building a private cloud within your own data centre. The hardware chosen, the software chosen and of course the staff, all by you and your organisation (however if you outsource your IT this is not always the case). Private Cloud also makes sense if you have bespoke (or legacy) applications or want that extra layers of security to adhere to what your organisation requirements. Also a fully functioning virtualised data centre can really take advantage of those boxes and get the best out of them. Fewer physical machines still means many virtual ones and as well as lowering your total cost of ownership, the simple yet expensive elements of power and cooling take a considerable cut too.

But (and it’s a big one) you have to balance the pro’s of private cloud with the cost factor - If done correctly it can be cheaper and more productive than your traditional data centre and certainly more secure, but the costs are still pretty high compared to the alternative cloud solution. Also an organisation will be forced to purchase the entire infrastructure themselves to put a private cloud in place, possibly forcing them into a vendor lock in with little avenue of escape or deviation, having said this if you are currently looking for a refresh you infrastructure this may not be a massive problem if you have budgets in place already. If not, new hardware needs to be bought to replace elements not built for virtualisation, new software needs to be paid for to make the machines run to the best of their ability and, sometimes most expensively, well trained staff who know how all the latest technology works need to be recruited to ensure everything carries on running smoothly day by day.

Summary

Despite the to-ing and fro-ing between the two models, or even a hybrid option of the two, it all depends on what your individual business requirements are. If you are a small business that doesn’t want to become your own IT administrator with a server to run, then perhaps you should head for the public cloud. If you are an established business that has just invested in tons of infrastructure, maybe the private is best for you. But before leaping into any new model it important that you consider....

1/ What your budget is?

2/ The amount of data and applications you need to run?

3/ What type of data will be in the cloud?

and, most importantly of all.....

4/ What model you feel is right for your organisation?

If you would like to know more about how the cloud can benefit your organisation please call us on 0161 906 2233 or email me david.poole@salfordsoftware.co.uk

IDM 4 - slide set

davidp — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:13:28 +0000

Handy link to Novell's slide deck on their new IDM 4 products - "Capricorn" this is now know as Identity Manager 4.0 Advanced Edition and "Dorado" will be known as Identity Manager 4.0.

Slide deck

some interesting things here and definately worthwhile looking at - for existing customers upgrade paths will be available and of course we will keep you updated when these are released.

If you would like a workshop on IDM 4 please call us on 0161 906 2233 or email me david.poole@salfordsoftware.co.uk

Simon Burns Health Minister "impressed" with Salford's work in the NHS

andyo — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:42:17 +0000

I recently sent a letter to Simon Burns re the many projects that Salford Software is delivering into the NHS and the cost savings that are being achieved as a result. See the response below:.

NHS Ring Fenced - gaps identified

andyo — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:31:34 +0000

Whilst the NHS in the emergency budget last week was "ring fenced" from any spending cuts, we are starting to see more and more Trusts drastically reduce the capability they have do deliver real services,

In a recent decision one PCT have slashed £4.8 million from this years budget. Out goes technology such as Single Sign on which would speed up access to applications and ZENworks that would effectively manage a PC estate of several thousand units over 8 or so sites. So it's back to a man in a van to look after those remote sites.

What next the string and two plastic cups?

Salford Software Identity Specialists

Public or Private Cloud that is the Question!

IDM 4 - slide set

Simon Burns Health Minister "impressed" with Salford's work in the NHS

NHS Ring Fenced - gaps identified