Clouding computing, or “The Cloud” as it is also known by, has become a huge buzzword over the past year. But don’t feel bad if you’re not really sure what the term really means, because you’re not alone. People interpret the cloud in many different ways.

The questions you’re probably asking are: “why should I care in the first place” and “exactly how will it impact my business?” Our goal within this site is to clearly answer those questions for you, so you can determine for yourself if cloud computing is everything it’s cracked up to be, and more importantly, is it right for your business?

But make no mistake about it…cloud computing is here and it’s here to stay. “The Cloud” is currently making a tremendous impact on businesses around the world that understand it and are leveraging it to its fullest.

But that also doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s limitations, and to make the best use of the cloud and to educate yourself on whether “The Cloud” makes sense to your type of business, we recommend you take some time and read this information thoroughly.

First let’s look at …

What is “The Cloud?

There are no shortages of opinions in the IT world regarding the definition of “cloud computing.” But in a nutshell, “cloud computing” is a new way of delivering IT services for businesses in a way that are scalable and affordable–end users can deploy the services they need, when they need them. Many of those services are available over the internet and users are only charged for what they consume.

The Cloud Computing market is typically segmented into public clouds (services offered over the internet), private clouds

(internal enterprise) and hybrid clouds (a mix of both). The Public Cloud market is often sub-segmented into IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service), PAAS (Platform) and SAAS (Software).

What’s in the cloud?

The cloud that is used by most small to medium sized businesses is considered a public cloud, and is referred to as “The Cloud.” Users contract for services at three levels:

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Like Amazon Web Services provides virtual servers with unique IP addresses and blocks of storage on demand. Customers benefit from an API (Application Programming Interface) from which they can control their servers. Because customers can pay for exactly the amount of service they use, like for electricity or water, this service is also called utility computing.

Platform-as-a-service (PaaS): is a set of software and development tools hosted on the provider’s servers. Developers can create applications using the providers API’s. Google Apps is one of the most well known Platform-as-a-service providers.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS): This service offers the broadest market. In this case the provider allows the customer only to use its applications. The software interacts with the user through a user interface. These applications can be anything for web based Email, to applications like Twitter or Facebook.

What can you do in the cloud?

Pretty much anything and everything … from Email, websites, databases, project management, snail mail, online storage of documents, voicemail and more.

What makes the cloud so different?

• No infrastructure; If you have access to the internet, you have access to the cloud.
• Quick start: Try before you buy, and get up and running very quickly.
• It’s open: Internet standards and web services allow you to connect services to each other.

Brief history of cloud computing

Since the 60′s, cloud computing has developed along a number of lines, with Web 2.0 being the most recent evolution. However, since the internet only started to offer significant bandwidth in the 90′s, cloud computing for the masses has been something of a late developer.

One of the first milestones for cloud computing was the arrival of Salesforce.com in 1999, which pioneered the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple website. This services firm paved the way for both specialist and mainstream software firms to deliver applications over the internet. The next development was Amazon Web Services in 2002, which provided a suite of cloud-based services including storage, computation and even human intelligence through the Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Then in 2006, Amazon launched its Elastic Compute cloud (EC2) as a commercial web service that allows small companies and individuals to rent computers on which to run their own computer applications.

Another big milestone came in 2009, as Web 2.0 hit its stride, and Google and others started to offer browser-based enterprise applications, through services such as Google Apps. “The most important contribution to cloud computing has been the emergence

of “killer apps” from leading technology giants such as Microsoft and Google. Once these companies delivered services in a way that was reliable and easy to consume, the knock-on effect to the industry as a whole was a wider general acceptance of online services.

The 10 Benefits of “The Cloud”

1. Flexibility: Scale up and down to meet your organization’s requirements. In today’s economy this agility is critical. You can adjust your IT expenditures to meet your businesses immediate needs. You no longer have to build for the future or be constrained by decisions or contracts you made in the past.

2. Cost: “The Cloud” can greatly reduce capital expenditures on things like servers. Instead this money can be used for operational expenditures that will benefit you immediately. The Cloud will lower barriers to new technologies, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent computing tasks. It is basically pay-as-you-need.

3. Scalability: IT departments that anticipate an increase in user load need not scramble to secure or pay for additional or upgraded hardware or software if they are in “the cloud”. Instead a business can add and subtract capacity as its network load dictates. Again meaning; pay-as-you-go.

4. Security: In “The Cloud,” there is a higher investment in state-of-the-art security. The large companies that offer you ‘cloud” services like Amazon, Salesforce.com and Google spend millions of dollars on infrastructure to secure your data. These providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that most small to medium sized business can’t afford. The $50.00 lock on the door that stands between a thief and your data, can’t compete with the security investment made by these companies. But that being said, companies have legitimate concerns regarding loss of control over certain sensitive data.

5. Reliability: Reliability improves through the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery.

6. Human resources: In the past you had to spend a lot of your IT budget on internal or external human resources to manage your software and hardware. With “the cloud”, that’s no longer an issue. Instead, you can focus on how the solution will help you make your business more profitable. The IT piece belongs to someone else, allowing you to focus on what you do best—your business.

7. Maintenance: Cloud computing applications are easier to maintain, since they don’t have to be installed on each user’s computer. They are easier to support and to improve since the changes reach the clients instantly.

8. Quality of Service: Network failures or problems can send an IT department or individual scrambling for answers. In ‘the cloud”, your vendor can offer 24/7 customer support and an immediate response to emergency situations…often times eliminating those problems before they even occur.

9. Frees up Internal Resources: By placing storage and server needs in the hands of an outsourcer, a company essentially shifts the burden placed on its in-house IT team, to a third-party provider. The result; in-house IT departments can focus on business-critical tasks without having to incur additional costs in manpower and training.

10. Easy Implementation: Without the need to purchase hardware, software licenses or implementation services, a company, through the cloud, can get its IT solutions off the ground in record time—and for a fraction of the cost of on-premise solutions.

Cloud Computing: Hype versus Reality

The 2 main concerns about cloud computing are security and privacy. The thought of handing your important data over to something called a “cloud” can be daunting. Nervous business owners and IT personnel might hesitate to take advantage of a cloud computing system because they feel like they’re surrendering control of their company’s information. Data inside the ‘cloud’ is outside a company’s firewall and that makes company’s nervous. Some of their fears include:

• Risk of data breaching
• Appeal to cyber crooks
• Lack of specific standards for security and data privacy
• Questions about jurisdiction
• Data location. Users probably do not know exactly where their data is hosted

Other issues with cloud computing are more philosophical. Who owns the data: the company who places their data with the cloud computing service or the cloud computing service itself? Can a cloud computing company ever legally deny a client access to their own data? Companies, law firms, and universities are currently debating these issues and others.

There is also growing concern about how cloud computing could impact the business of computer maintenance and repair. If companies make the leap to centralized computer systems, they will have less need for internal I.T. support. By removing infrastructure ownership from I.T., suddenly I.T. no longer has control over key business resources, which makes it feasible for someone concerned with a cost/benefit approach, like a CFO, to start limiting I.T.’s control. It is doubtful that this will have much of an impact on the cloud computing industry; the same concerns were no doubt raised when inventions like the cotton gin, assembly lines, and, well, computers first appeared

Security Issues In “The Cloud”

There is no question that the number one issue with companies considering moving their IT services to “The Cloud” is security. However, cloud security is not the big scary monster that people are making it out to be. With a few sensible precautions and some understanding of the environment you can transition data to the cloud now with a reasonable degree of safety.

Over the years your organization has made the transition from the filing cabinet in the corner, to the computer with all the files stored on it, to a network of PCs throughout the business, and maybe even to hosting some applications with a provider. So why on earth would you trust this precious data that you have nursed all the way through those painful transitions to be thrown into the cloud and risk it vaporizing?

Just remember that most of the fear and doubt about cloud computing is being driven by hardware and software vendors who would really rather you kept paying for boxes and license fees to keep all of your data within your own environment. The current serious concerns about cloud security are actually common to almost all IT environments today, not just the cloud: confidentiality of data, integrity of data and availability of data.

Once data is out in the cloud, only authorized users should have access to it, to ensure its confidentiality. Then only authorized transactions from those authorized users will ensure the data’s integrity. Also, availability really speaks for itself: there’s no point in having the data if you can’t access it! Availability and ownership of data across geographically distinct areas and different legislative environments is usually the main argument raised about cloud computing security.

The security benefits of cloud computing

Security testing: Because you are using shared infrastructure, you will be getting exceptionally high-quality security testing done by your cloud provider, but only a fraction of the costs will be passed on to you. You will also get better, faster reporting and incident logging to go along with that.

Centralized data: If your data is in one spot, it can’t really go wandering. Most security breaches happen through simple theft of laptops and PCs, or internal breaches when staff download software or computers become infected by viruses. Can you really be certain that every machine with data on it is completely clean and has only the approved software on it? If your data lived in the cloud, this would reduce the risk of it disappearing as easily as a laptop off a desk or out of a car. Central storage of data also means you have just one place to focus your monitoring. Would you rather defend just one castle or spread yourself over several? Monitoring is much easier when you have a narrow focus.

So how should you go about ensuring you are getting the best security features out of your cloud provider? Keep an eye on organizations like the Cloud Security Alliance, which provides independent security best practices for cloud computing. . If you have data that is regulated, like HIPPA or Sarbanes-Oxley, we advise you to be very careful in your plans to place data on a cloud … it may be necessary to tag data with metadata tags describing where it can and can’t reside within the wider cloud model.

Cloud computing is not a fringe discussion any more; it’s an emerging technology practice, so questions about security are perfectly reasonable. Don’t be put off by the scaremongering that exists in an early market. Take time to consider the security issues that keep you up at night at the moment, and how moving some of your data to the cloud could lead to a more restful sleep!

What is the future of Cloud Computing?

The next phase of IT services will be dominated by Cloud Computing, together with the “always available” clients such as the Netbook and SmartPhones, that are providing a world in which the end-user has complete control over their client-server, web based, and computing solutions - allowing them to choose what they use, where they use it, and where they get solutions from.

Each phase of the end-user revolution has created terrific efficiency gains and cost reductions for businesses in rapid fashion, moving from the mainframe to the PC, from the PC to Client/Server, to the Web and now to the Cloud. With this phase we are seeing the many year battle between the end-user and IT nearing an end and IT will either evolve by becoming a strategic partner with its customers or be relegated to the occasional helpdesk call.

The Cloud is the next natural step for the industry because it enables the end user to simplify the typically complex nature of working with IT. The ability of the Cloud to solve the challenge of allowing end users to fully leverage the benefits of technology while lowering costs to the business is a game changer.

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A Break From Dependence On IT To Solve a Business Problem

The biggest change the Cloud provides is that the end-user or the consumer can now simply select the type of IT service they want much in the same way you might purchase a book from Amazon.com. Whether it is a wiki, Email, or custom program, the end-user does not have to worry about involving IT to scope the hardware and maintenance needs allowing for focus on the business problem being solved.

The innovation of the Cloud opens a market where neither the end-user nor the business needs to be dependent on a specialized and trained IT department or a specific vendor. Cloud services are easily outsourced to a Cloud provider, reducing the business costs associated with maintenance, data centers, servers, compliance, backup and recovery, security, patching, virus protection, configuration management, bandwidth, and on-site support.

Now instead of a business hosting servers locally in a controlled server room where their capacity is often not fully used, the Cloud provider can reduce the total server count and make sure end users are always running the latest configuration. And if something does break or the business wants to roll out a new version, the Cloud provider can update a desktop image for the end-users who need it.

The Cloud puts the control of IT back into the hands of the Owners

By choosing a Cloud provider, the small business no longer has to worry about lining up IT to scope the hardware needs, buy servers, set up web services, and provide the on-going maintenance including patching, security, backup and recovery, and product upgrades. In minutes the business can have their software running on all devices at the company without the need for a large capital expense. The business takes on a services contract but no longer has to worry about keeping IT staff expertise current or keeping multiple IT expertise in house for different systems. Less is needed for energy and hardware costs, and resources are more efficiently utilized as they are not wasted spent scoping, purchasing and setting up equipment.

The only consideration for the business is to assure that the selected vendor has valid security processes and to keep an on-going watch to assure that the security is managed.

Are You Ready For The Cloud?

Not every business is ready to make the transition to the cloud, but many are. DuraLogic is offering a comprehensive evaluation of your company’s IT infrastructure to determine if and when you might make the most out of transitioning some or all of your technology to the cloud. This Evaluation is provided at NO COST TO YOU. This offer is valid for new or existing clients.