Data storage and synchronization in private cloud

Usage of cloud systems for data storage has many advantages over the traditional approaches. It is already widely used and its popularity is still fast-growing. The systems must be implemented and maintained in a way that not only satisfies the performance and resource availability requirements, but also fully addresses the questions of security, privacy and data ownership. However, concerns related to those questions very often lead to considerations of a private cloud implementation. In this paper, we explore a private cloud implementation suitable for small to medium businesses. We introduce main types of cloud computing as basic service models and analyze private cloud systems features. Advantages and disadvantages in comparison to public cloud services are considered. Implementation of private cloud solutions in a lab environment allowed us to examine the ease of the setup and maintenance as well as the usability of the chosen solutions and their applicability for the target user group.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a process that entails accessing of services, including, storage, applications and servers through the Internet, making use of another company's remote services for a fee. This enables a company to store and access data or programs virtually, i.e. in a cloud, rather than on local hard drives or servers. 

Cloud Computing has its roots as far back in 1950s when mainframe computers came into existence. At that time, several users accessed the central computer via dummy terminals. The only task these dummy terminals could perform was to enable users access the mainframe computer. The prohibitive costs of this mainframe devices did not make them economically feasible for organizations to buy them. That was the time when the idea of provision of shared access to a single computer occurred to the companies to save costs. 

In 1970s, IBM came out with an operating system (OS) named VM. This allowed for simultaneous operation of more than one OS. Guest Operating Systems could be run on every VM, with their own memory and other infrastructure, making it possible to share these resources. This caused the concept of virtualization in computing to gain popularity. 

The 1990s witnessed telecom operators begin offering virtualized private network connections, whose quality of service was as good as those of point-to-point (dedicated) services at a lesser cost. This paved way for telecom companies' to offer many users shared access to a single physical infrastructure.

The other catalysts were grid computing, which allowed major issues to be addressed via parallel computing; utility computing facilitated computing resources to be offered as a metered service and SaaS allowed subscriptions, which were network-based, to applications. Cloud computing, therefore, owes its emergence to all these factors. 

The three prominent types of cloud computing for businesses are Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), which requires a company to subscribe to it and access services over the Internet; Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is a solution where large cloud computing companies deliver virtual infrastructure; and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) gives the company the freedom to make its own custom applications that will be used by all its entire workforce. 

Clouds are of four types: public, private, community, and hybrid. Through public cloud, a provider can offer services, including storage and application, to anybody via the Internet. They can be provided freely or charged on a pay-per-usage method. 

Public cloud services are easier to install and less expensive, as costs for application, hardware and bandwidth are borne by the provider. They are scalable, and the users avail only those services that they use.

A private cloud is referred to as also internal cloud or corporate cloud, and it called so as it offers a proprietary computing architecture through which hosted services can be provided to a restricted number of users protected by a firewall. A private cloud is used by businesses that want to wield more control over their data.

As far as the community cloud is concerned, it is a resource shared by more than one organization whose cloud needs are similar. 

A combination of two or more clouds is a hybrid cloud. Here, the clouds used are a combination of private, public, or community.

Cloud computing is now being adopted by mobile phone users too, although there are limitations, such as storage capacity, life of battery and restricted processing power. 

Some of the most popular cloud applications globally are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Compute Engine, Rackspace, Salesforce.com, IBM Cloud Managed Services, among others. Cloud services have made it possible for small and medium businesses (SMBs) to be on par with large companies. 

Mobile cloud computing is being harnessed by bringing into existence a new infrastructure, which is made possible by getting together mobile devices and cloud computing. This infrastructure allows the cloud to execute massive tasks and store huge data, as processing of data and its storage do not take place within mobile devices, but only beyond them. Mobile computing is getting a fillip as customers are wanting to use their companies' applications and websites wherever they are. 

The emergence of 4G, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wimax), among others, is also scaling up the connectivity of mobile devices. In addition, new technologies for mobile, such as, CSS3, Hypertext Markup Language (HTML5) hypervisor for mobile devices, Web 4.0, etc. will only power the adoption of mobile cloud computing.

The main benefits of using cloud computing by companies are that they need not buy any infrastructure, thus lowering their maintenance costs. They can do away with the services used when their business demands have been met. It also gives firms comfort that they have huge resources at beck and call if they suddenly acquire a major project. 

On the other hand, transferring their data to cloud makes businesses share their data security responsibility with the provider of cloud services. This means that the consumer of cloud services reposes lot of trust on the provider of those services. Cloud consumers control on the services used is lesser than on on-premise IT resources.

Article Source - http://goarticles.com/article/Cloud-Computing/9206938/

Top 5 Reasons Why Your Company Should Transition to Private Cloud Computing

One of the biggest IT buzz words of the few years, ‘cloud computing’ has brought incredible promise to the world of information technology. Cloud computing interest has lead to widespread curiosity and awareness of public cloud services.

Pooled computing resources, divided and allocated to different users, have been proven in the development and testing realm of IT to have tremendous benefits. Those benefits however have been overshadowed by concerns of a lack of security and uptime assurances among Enterprise IT executives.

The private cloud aims to lessen, if not eliminate, those concerns by dedicating exclusive hardware to each user. Instead of your data being stored off “in the cloud” somewhere, one can point to a group of servers in a data center and say, “that is your data, and only your data, on those servers,” alleviating security concerns. It is a “best of both worlds” solution that can bring important benefits like improved uptime and reliability at a lower cost than on traditional IT infrastructure.

In fact, according to Yankee Group’s recent survey on Cloud Computing, private cloud computing is preferred 2:1 over fully managed public cloud solutions. 67% of respondents preferred the private cloud, whereas only 28% preferred a fully managed public cloud, 21% preferred an unmanaged public cloud, and 8% were looking to a hybrid cloud solution.

That is why we compiled the top 5 reasons why your company should rethink your IT infrastructure and look into the benefits of private cloud computing.

5. Dedicated hardware means increased security. Much like a dedicated or colocated server, the security of your private cloud depends on a variety of factors. However, if you have the proper physical security, anti-virus software, and firewall rules in place, you can rest assured your data as safe as if it were sitting right next to your desk. With a private cloud, you know where your servers are located and that the proper physical and network security is in place. You can meet and talk to those in charge of providing support for your hardware and come visit it if you like.

4. The transition from physical to virtual servers leads to better flexibility. This is one of the most alluring benefits of cloud computing. The ability to spin up and tear down a server in a matter of minutes is incredibly powerful and useful. No longer is there any wasted effort in trying to size a server beforehand when you can create a server on the fly. Need more disk space? More RAM? More CPU? No problem. With private cloud computing, you can reallocate resources in moments without worrying about finding a physical server that will have the resources your new server needs.

3. Fully utilize your hardware with better resource management. Virtualization significantly increases the value of your physical server hardware. Instead of having 5 servers that average 10% CPU utilization, you can virtualize the 5 servers on one physical server, sharing the resources. This decreases rack space, power usage, and is easier to manage. This also allows you to create copies of your servers and have them up and running very quickly, now that they have been virtualized. If you have the proper resource management tools installed on your server, you can automatically allocate the appropriate resources to a server when it needs it or turn off unused servers during low usage; an extraordinarily powerful and efficient way to manage your servers.

2. Virtual servers combined with a SAN allow for improved protection against disasters. When you connect a SAN to your private cloud, incredible redundancy can be achieved. Not only can you load balance between servers, automatically shifting server resources between servers on the fly, but in an N+1 environment (having at least 1 extra server than absolutely necessary), you can shut down one server without causing downtime. Imagine performing maintenance on your server like adding more RAM, replacing a hard drive, or upgrading software, without experiencing any downtime. When configured correctly you could power off one server and it would automatically shift the virtual servers over to an available server in your cloud. Taking your disaster protection up one level, you could have another SAN in another data center and perform SAN to SAN replication for a hot site DR environment capable of full recovery in less than an hour.

1. Switching to private cloud computing will save you time and money. The best part about a private cloud is that not only do you get all of the great benefits of virtualization and security, but it can be cheaper and less of a hassle then hosting your own servers or buying dedicated servers. If your company has more than 2 servers, it could benefit from virtualization. If your company has more than 10 servers, it could benefit from private cloud computing with a dedicated SAN and multiple physical host servers. The public cloud revolutionized Information Technology forever; the private cloud brings the benefits to the masses.

Conclusion: Save Money, Save Time, Sleep Easy: Transition to Private Cloud Computing.
The private cloud is still a relatively new concept, but is based on some technology that has been around for a while and has proven itself for years. Besides providing some tremendous benefits of pooled computing resources and virtualization, it maintains the security and reliability of a normal dedicated server. The private cloud is not for everyone but a managed data center operator can make the transition to private cloud computing an affordable process and enable you to fully experience all of the great benefits of the private cloud.

Article Source – http://www.onlinetech.com/resources/references/top-5-reasons-why-your-company-should-transition-to-private-cloud-computing