What is Cloud?
Private Cloud
The Private Cloud allows IT organizations to create an application deployment environment that delivers efficiency and flexibility within their own data centers. Virtustream xStream™ Cloud Management software enables enterprises to securely build and manage IT-as-a-Service in the enterprise, using existing hardware and virtualization. Enterprises may move their mission-critical business and web-scale applications to the cloud with SLA guarantees, cloud efficiency, and consumption-based pricing that is managed remotely or by the customer.
Public Cloud
The Public Cloud delivers enterprise-class managed cloud services from the Virtustream enterprise IaaS cloud. Businesses can move an application, an IT environment, or entire data centers to the cloud. Public cloud may be managed or self-managed, with cloud efficiency, cloud bursting, backup and disaster recovery already built in.
Hybrid Cloud
By seamlessly combining Private and Public Cloud, businesses can utilize the IT and application resources that best align with their business objectives.
What is an Enterprise Class Cloud?
Is it just another cloud with a marketing spin? Absolutely not!
Commodity Public Clouds are designed to offer simple infrastructure services (e.g. compute, storage) as a service via the Internet, emphasizing attributes such as cost, scale, and self-service. They're well suited for test/dev and non-critical applications as performance is only offered on a 'best-efforts' basis. An Enterprise Class Cloud, on the other hand, is designed to meet or exceed the security, performance, and business SLAs of the infrastructure it replaces while delivering the benefits of a cloud-based approach — multi-tenant isolation, on-demand delivery, and dynamic scale.
Key Attributes of an Enterprise Class Cloud when Compared to a Commodity Public Cloud
Enterprise-Class Security
Enterprise Class Cloud security must meet (or exceed) existing enterprise security standards. In a cloud environment, this means additional protections must be put in place to isolate sensitive information in shared environments. Cloud Infrastructure must be designed so that only well-known users and systems have visibility. Business entities must be screened and vetted as legitimate prior to gaining access to the cloud.
Assured Performance SLAs
Applications require compute, storage, and network resources to process data and interact with other workloads across the corporate landscape. When resources are unavailable due to contention on a shared system, it typically has a very negative impact on the end user's experience. This is especially true of limited resources like storage I/O or network bandwidth, and usually rears its ugly head with highly transactional and mission-critical applications. Enterprise Class Clouds must ensure the application quality of service so that critical workloads are never compromised by the requirements of lower priority workloads on the same cloud.
Complex Network Routing
Once a trusted network is connected to the Enterprise Class Cloud, the client should be able to manage its networking, whether physical or virtual. Enterprise customers require extensive domain management up to, within, and across nodes of an Enterprise Class Cloud. This allows for a "virtual" extension of the trusted network all the way to the virtual machines and storage resources assigned to the client - enabling a trusted hybrid cloud.
Compliance
Business applications are typically subject to regulations and audits, whether driven by statutory, industry, or corporate governance requirements.
Resource Pooling
CIOs and IT Directors typically serve many masters. They're under pressure to deliver the efficiency of shared resources and cost savings. Within an organization, business leaders have individual budgets for funding both new initiatives and ongoing activities. In order to properly account for costs and efficiency across departments, an Enterprise Class Cloud needs to be able to group and charge workloads by both functional and physical pools. Enterprises and departments should also be charged only for what they actually use - in small time slices. This should be independent of virtual machines, as budgets are set by business result, not by the allocated virtual machine.
Business Continuity
Corporations are obligated to consider the implications of recovering from equipment failure or disaster.
White Papers
Security in the Cloud: Is It Pie In The Sky?
Security is one of the most commonly-cited reasons enterprises are reluctant to embrace cloud computing, despite the many benefits it offers.
This paper explores the challenges that an organization faces when embarking on an upgrade of this nature & how to overcome them.
This paper discusses virtualization & the implementation and management of best practice solutions to leverage optimal value within the business.