Moving into the cloud

A growing number of firms around the world are opting for a virtual framework for their storage and operations. With this trend prevalent in most developed markets, UAE-based IT professionals provide some insight into whether regional migration is well under way and what obstacles face those companies looking towards the cloud.

"Previously, applications were linked to hardware specifically designated for computers and storage," says Adrian Pickering, Area Vice-President, Juniper Networks. "With cloud computing, the functionality of software and hardware products is delivered in a more scalable fashion as services over a network. CIOs are looking to apply the lessons of the cloud to their own IT departments to optimise results. However, they are limited because as application architecture, server virtualisation and storage technology have evolved over time, innovation in the network has not kept pace."

Despite network needs and other infrastructural requirements, some statistics reveal a large-scale cloud migration is happening anyway. A 2010 Gartner survey forecast that 76 per cent of IT companies would be pursuing a private cloud computing strategy by 2012. By 2015, more than 25 per cent of those enterprises are likely to directly use cloud-based application infrastructure technology, up from less than 4 per cent in 2010.

In such a scenario, Deepak Narain, Manager, System Engineers Mena, VMware, says, "Businesses want the ability to choose the best deployment option — either on-premise or off-premise in a service provider's cloud — based on the business value of the service and the service-level agreement offered. They also want the ability to leverage the service provider's infrastructure during their peak load periods — aka ‘bursting'. But they want to make sure they can get the same controls and security, regardless of location. Businesses are concerned about the journey to the cloud being a one-way street — being locked into a specific application programming interface or platform or not being able to bring the service back into the data centre."

There is a large chunk of the corporate sector that is either already moving to or planning a move to cloud or hybrid cloud computing. "In terms of costs for a private cloud, customers might have to invest on hardware and software. But if we look at the total cost of ownership and return on investment I think majority of customers can realise a very fast return on investment typically in one year," says Ayman Dwidar, Blade System Business Manager and Cloud Team Lead, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa. "That's mainly from automation; the increased utilisation that private cloud implementation promises."

Cloud computing increases the agility of the organisation to respond to business demand by providing new services in a number of hours instead of weeks and months, he says, so businesses are in a much better position to seize opportunities.

Successful implementation also requires dependable infrastructure. "To use a cloud solution you need to have a reliable internet connection," says Martin Lee, Senior Analyst, Symantec Cloud. "The worldwide provision of faster and more reliable internet connectivity is one of the forces driving the provision and uptake of cloud solutions. The ISP market has matured massively over the past ten years [and today] if you can connect to the internet, then you can use a cloud solution. It is often no more complicated than connecting to a website."

Crystal clarity on data management

Data management is one of the key obstacles to cloud migration. It can get expensive, requires human expertise and the dramatic increase in data volumes requires large amounts of hardware and software to crunch through these data volumes.

"Cloud computing is equipped to deal with the last point: utilisation rates of these resources," Irfan Khan, Senior Vice-President and Chief Technical Officer, Sybase, tells GN Focus. "The main obstacles to date have featured around access and archiving (data life cycle and retention) of data. The data management approach to overcome these obstacles can be through selecting the right cloud model; private, public or hybrid."

While cost reduction is one of the main drivers for cloud computing, Khan says this is only partly compatible with guaranteeing service quality, security, high availability and backup capabilities. "For mission-critical systems and/or sensitive data, there is some hesitation to put systems in public cloud offerings for many reasons, not least legal. In such cases, customers have shown interest in private clouds, whereby the cloud infrastructure is managed within the customer's own data centre with all required guarantees, but the flexibility of clouds remains a benefit."