Paper sobre cloud computing

Cloud computing: resilience is the key to success

white paper

Our 21st century society has become so used to change and new developments that genuinely progressive concepts are initially not recognised by many people. There is then a rush to implementation once the benefits become obvious. Virtualisation is a good example of this, with the technology being around for a decade before itsbenefits really became understood and appreciated. We are now on the cusp of a significant evolution in information technology, one which has the potential to completely change how organisational IT is provisioned, managed and protected. Welcome to cloud computing. This white paper will briefly explain what cloud computing is; will look at the facts which underlie the hyperbole; and will considerboth the benefits and challenges that it brings to organisations. What is cloud computing?
There is some confusion, even amongst IT professionals, about what cloud computing is, but from SunGard Availability Services’ point of view it is a network which uses Virtualisation technologies to allow computing applications and data to be flexibly provided from a pool of hardware resources. With cloudcomputing there is no longer a point-to-point connection between the user and the computing infrastructure. Data and applications are not held on one PC or one server or one network; they are held on a disparate conglomeration of computing resources. Advantages for businesses include: Resilience One big advantage that all types of cloud computing offer is that, by its nature, cloud computing removessingle points of failure. The failure of one node of the system has no impact on Information Availability and does not result in perceivable downtime. Cloud computing provides a highly resilient computing environment. The one major weak point is the network itself. If this fails then cloud computing fails. It is therefore essential that cloud suppliers and private cloud developers consider networktopology and ensure that redundancy is built into the entire network. Scalability Cloud computing enables organisations to quickly scale their operations. Provisioning of new resources and software applications can be delivered at a pace that does not hold back the rest of the business. This means that businesses do not need to pay for services which are not being utilised, unlike conventionalcomputing where enough computing resources to meet peak requirements must be pre-purchased.
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Flexibility and efficiency Cloud computing allows businesses to expand or contract computing power as required and allows ‘bursts’ of computing power to be utilised on an on-demand basis. Virtualisation has enabled organisations to increase the utilisation of the server environment, cloud computingtakes this step further by taking over the management of server utilisation thus reducing ‘wasted’ compute power. It also allows very effective load balancing. This flexibility helps ensure that resource-intensive processes don’t slow down other business processes whilst they are running and that computing services are always at their most cost-effective. Outsourcing non-core activities Cloudcomputing makes outsourcing of non-core activities relatively simple and very controllable. For many basic business applications outsourcing becomes a simple process, with payment only being made for the computing power or data storage that is used, with no hidden extras and management fees.

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Cloud computing: resilience is the key to success

white paper

What is cloud computing?continued
Whilst it took virtualisation many years to be widely accepted by businesses, cloud computing will have a much shorter acceptance period. Virtualisation was viewed by many as a ‘disruptive’ technology. It went against the accepted way of provisioning computer systems and therefore visionaries who saw the advantages had to push against the forces of conservatism. With cloud computing,...