31 July 2010
Saturday
Cloud computing in measured steps
By Joseph Rebeiro | Feb 26, 2010
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Curtin University of Technology (CUT) has become Optus Business’s first customer to sign up to a beta cloud-based service. The beta service – which utilizes technology from Cisco, EMC, and VMware – will provide Curtin with an on-demand access to a fully virtualized private data center.
The move to cloud computing has not been easy. To begin with, there are many iterations of the cloud. The better-known ones are Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Then we have the choice between a ‘Private’ Cloud and a ‘Public’ Cloud.
Throw into the mix one of the many permutations in-between where both types come into play, such as Curtin’s own private cloud that interfaces with the public cloud infrastructure provided by Optus Business and Alphawest, and we’ll have one very complicated installation.
Getting it right the first time
Optus Business and Alphawest for instance took about a year to help define Curtin's cloud computing road-map. They realized that it was really important that they get it right from the get-go.
While Curtin has already deployed sever virtualization across much of the organization, they are currently deploying an internal private cloud, based on the Cisco Unified Computing System.
Once implemented this private cloud will allow the University to provision and upload virtual machines into the virtual private data centre, or enterprise cloud, which will initially be piloted by Optus Business via the Evolve IP MPLS network.
The benefits of Cloud computing
In Curtin’s case, a common CISCO Unified Computing architecture across the internal private cloud and the beta Optus Business hosted cloud service is expected to increase IT staff productivity and business agility through rapid delivery of services, which according to Peter Nikoletatos, Curtin’s CIO, will take hours instead of weeks.
One of the biggest problems with traditional IT infrastructure, is that companies had to invest heavily in building their own IT infrastructure – the entire investment had to be paid for whether it’s used to capacity or not. There is no concept of partial payment for partial use of existing infrastructure, or a temporary increase of capacity when needed.
With Cloud Computing companies pay-as-you-go. One would also enjoy elastic, scalable, and on-demand computing power and services.
You can’t do it alone
Defining the ‘Cloud Computing’ infrastructure for your business is only the first step. Implementing the ‘Cloud’ brings together, storage, networking, virtualization, hardware, and software, to name a few. It is no small matter, and therefore essential that the right partners are roped in.
For storage, EMC will help Curtin reduce data traffic with its Avamar data de-duplication technology. Avamar identifies redundant data at the source, minimizing backup data before it is sent over the network. For its network infrastructure, CISCO will provide seamless connectivity throughout its cloud infrastructure, with VMware virtualizing the data centre into the ‘Cloud’.
“With facilities in a diverse range of locations across Asia, including Singapore and Malaysia, and more than 43,000 students and 3,200 staff, we need a technology environment that can adapt to our changing needs,” Nikoletatos said. “As such we’ve opted for a simpler, flatter network which will allow us to concentrate on delivering outcomes for our students, teaching and learning, and research colleagues.”
Managing change
“The key to managing a Cloud-based infrastructure is the ability to manage change,” says Nikoletatos.
For Curtin, the most crucial concern in moving towards the Cloud-based infrastructure is the security of their unique data which resides in three of their systems; the Students systems, Finance systems, and HR systems. To protect and preserve this data they were careful in mapping the Cloud architecture to their enterprise architecture.
They were also careful in that transition to the cloud-based architecture from the perspective of governance. For that, they had to think differently, in the sense that they had to move away from managing assets to managing information.
Information had to be classified, so that they can be put into the cloud safely and securely in modules. It was important that every step of the transition of information had to be accounted for, and should it ever be necessary reversed.
Other issues that had to be considered include data security, risk management, compliance and privacy. Also, having 43,000 students in 16 campuses across Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia brings up the ‘onshore vs. offshore’ implementation questions as well.
Trust
For such a complex transition, it is crucial that you choose the right partner. According to Peter Nikoletatos, it is all about trust, for your IT assets are now managed by your partners. You are only managing the information that resides within.
Scott Mason, director for enterprise fixed marketing at Optus Business, which is providing the Public Cloud component of Curtin’s hybrid Cloud Computing system, said that 18% of its customers have already implemented SaaS, a form of the Cloud infrastructure, while 47% are considering moving towards that. It speaks volumes of what is to come in the year ahead.
