Thursday 29 July 2010
The problem is that the speed and agility we’ve achieved in the domain of “apps” hasn’t crossed over into the domain of “ops,” which is where application value is realized. This is because of a longstanding “deployment gap” that exists between apps and ops. At its most basic level, this gap is a result of conflicting motivations. Apps is about speed, while ops is about control. Apps folks focus on delivering solutions to the lines of business as rapidly as possible. Ops folks focus on operating stability, compliance, and cost control through standardization and stringent change management. The gap between them can inhibit business responsiveness, delay deployments and cause organizations to miss opportunities. It can take months and sometimes even years to deploy an enterprise application - and this stands in the way of business value.
Application virtualization can close the deployment gap by separating applications from their operating infrastructure. The virtualized application contains just enough operating system (JeOS), databases, and middleware required to run the software in production. These bits travel with the application package and allow it to run as an image on any operating infrastructure without any manual setup, tuning, configuration or certification. Suddenly, the deployment gap disappears, applications are set free, and deployment cycles are compressed from months to minutes. This approach closes the deployment gap, finally aligning apps and ops by combining speed and flexibility with control and predictability. It becomes the bridge between apps and ops - and the bridge between application innovation and the realization of business value.
Many organisations are starting to adopt cloud computing services in order to realise efficiencies and to relieve pressures in data centre management. However, for many that utilise could services, they are uncertain of where their information is held and indeed who owns and can access that data. Furthermore, data that is considered secure in one country may not be secure in another. Currently in the process of trying to harmonise the data laws of its member states, the EU favours very strict protection of privacy. In America laws such as the US Patriot Act invest government and other agencies with virtually limitless powers to access information including that belonging to companies. In a number of cases jurisdiction was the main factor for organisations in rejecting cloud computing solutions.
All this confusion and risk means that it is important to be particularly vigilant about information security both in your own organisation and at the cloud service provider’s site. Information security is a system of policies and procedures designed to identify, control and protect information and any equipment used in connection with its storage transmission and processing.
The Government has asked all public sector bodies to make future IT purchases consistent with cloud computing so that it can move all its digital services into a private, secure ‘cloud’ called ‘G-cloud’ for government bodies. In its Digital Britain report the Government said that it wanted the public sector to reap the benefites of scalable, speed of provisioning and flexible pricing that it says cloud computing can bring. While it consults with an IT trade body the Government has told all departments to make sure that all IT procurement from now on is compatible with cloud computing. “All those Government bodies likely to procure ICT services should look to do so on a scaleable, cloud basis such that other public bodies can benefit from the new capability,” said the Digital Britain report. Cloud computing is the use of massive central computing resources for IT work, with more modest computers connected to servers by networks. With the increasing ubiquity of broadband internet access cloud computing has become increasingly widespread.
The Digital Britain report outlined the phenomenon as has been observed in the consumer world. “The ‘public’ cloud – where services can run on any server anywhere in the world – has attracted attention from industry commentators,” it said. “Achieving it, would be a first around the world for Digital Britain.”
The strategy study has established a route-map towards the creation of a G-Cloud, as part of the rationalisation of data centres used by Government and the wider public sector,” it said. “This would both allow Government to benefit from the core attributes of Cloud Computing e.g. enhanced user experience, flexible pricing, elastic scaling, rapid provisioning, advanced virtualisation while also maintaining the appropriate levels of security, accountability and control required for most Government systems, and lead to substantial savings in costs
