News & Events

August 26, 2010

Don’t look now but you may already be cloud computing.

If you use Skype or have a gmail account with Google, you’ve already experienced one of the most widely discussed trends.

So why all the hype? Why have companies such as Google and Amazon, as well as Coca Cola, Blockbuster and Energizer, migrated many of their IT needs to the cloud? And why does Gartner predict that half of corporate computing workloads will be running on virtual machines by the end of 2012?

Because while cloud computing delivers an identical experience to the end user as traditional computing, it has the potential to deliver enormous benefits to the businesses that adopt it.

So what exactly is cloud computing?

Google ‘cloud computing’ and you’ll find many attempts to define it but no one definitive explanation. Why? Because although cloud computing is underpinned by a technology that’s been around for a while – virtualisation – it still represents a major shift in IT as most people know it.

Yet the nub of it is quite simple. Instead of your company storing data and running applications on servers physically located on your business premises, you get someone else to do it. They store everything on their servers, which you remotely access and control via the internet – aka the cloud. Whenever and wherever you want.

It’s like using electricity

In order to turn a light, it’s not necessary to own the electricity grid. You just flick a switch and voila, you’ve got the results you were after.

Cloud computing works the same way. In order to run your business efficiently and provide your customers with a high level of quality service, you don’t need to buy the servers or run the applications yourself. You can let someone else (the cloud computing service provider) worry about the infrastructure. When you need to access your computer resources, you simply do so with a click of a computer mouse.

And just as you only pay for the electricity you use, with cloud computing, you only pay for the computer resources you use.

A self-service, instant and highly agile way of working that’s incredibly economical to boot. A model that liberates businesses from the physical burden of the traditional IT set-up. Small wonder ‘the cloud’ is causing so many companies around the nation and the world to sit up and take notice.

The benefits

As we’ve just seen, cloud computing can deliver significant cost savings.

A business no longer needs to invest in massive amounts of infrastructure – servers, storage and networking hardware – that needs to be paid for whether or not it’s actually used.

With the cloud, this infrastructure is now available as a service (known as Infrastructure as a Service, or IaaS), one that you only pay for what you use.

Similarly, platforms and software are also available as user-pays services (Platform as a Service, PaaS and Software as a Service, Saas). No need to invest in expensive PCs and software for every staff member – they simply access a ‘virtual’ PC using any terminal connected to their corporate network.

As Tarquin Bellinger from Harbour MSP explains, “Previously if you wanted to deploy a new application or additional capacity in response to a new business opportunity, it could take weeks or months to deploy the IT elements. New servers had to be purchased, shipped, installed and configured (and that’s if you had the space and power to support them). With cloud computing previously unused, spare capacity can be made available in days or hours for new virtual machine.”

To cloud or not to cloud isn’t the real question

By splitting cloud computing into three separate areas – infrastructure, software and platform – it means a business doesn’t have to adopt the cloud model all at once. For example, you can just move applications such as email to the cloud model. As you become more comfortable with how the cloud works, you can then migrate more of your business over.

As Tarquin Bellinger says, “It’s not a case of replacing traditional on-premise IT lock, stock and barrel. Organisations will evolve to have a mix of traditional and cloud based IT services. Businesses need to analyse what should and shouldn’t be ‘moved to the cloud’ based on what areas of their business are suited to the cloud.”

So what suits cloud computing? The short answer is, anything that requires speed and scalability.

For example, if part of your business is speculative or experiences spiky traffic as a regular occurrence, cloud computing is ideal – if demand suddenly peaks, you’re able to instantly increase your computer resources to cope with it, releasing those resources should the demand fall away again.

Another perfect fit for cloud computing is a business that requires increased levels of grunt from time to time, such a film studio carrying out rendering or simulation; the cloud is ‘on call’ to provide the extra resources for the period required.

Once you’ve identified that cloud computing would benefit some areas of your business, you can then set about determining the right balance of ‘old world’ on-premise IT and ‘new world’ cloud services.

Finding the right type of cloud

The other decision to focus on is which of the three types of cloud available suits you best.

With a Public Cloud your business is on the same server as a whole bunch of other groups. Examples of a public cloud include Salesforce.com, Gmail and Amazon web services.

Businesses that aren’t comfortable sharing the same infrastructure can opt for a Private Cloud, which operates within a company’s firewall and is for the exclusive use of that enterprise.

The third option is a Hybrid Cloud, which as the name suggests, includes aspects of both public and private clouds.

Many companies choose to go with a combination of both public and private clouds. This enables them to take advantage of the public cloud’s speed and ease of use, while reserving more sensitive data for the more secure private cloud.

You need to balance the pros and cons of each type of cloud to establish what mix is right for your business.

Next steps

Is all the buzz around cloud computing warranted? When you consider that it can liberate your organisation from the time-consuming, complex and costly headache that is IT maintenance – to focus on the actual running of the business itself, the answer may well be yes.

Frontline offers private cloud services from data centres based in Sydney, Singapore and Melbourne (launching January 2011). If you’d like to organise a visit to one of these centres or have any questions about cloud computing, please call 1300 362 610 to speak to a Frontline specialist.