Cloud computing is definitely a getting some attention 2010.
Tons of investment is going into cloud computing infrastructure. Amazon Web Services is rumored to be a $500 million business. Microsoft, Google, and other players are investing vast sums to their solutions.
Deploying instances is getting easier which makes cloud management even harder.
Cloud management is the task of provisioning, managing, and monitoring applications into these infrastructure clouds. It is more than just monitoring the server usage. To accomplish this, it takes the right combination of people and cloud management software.
1) People – Although cloud computing makes it much easier to provision infrastructure, organizations still need system administration skills to deploy, manage and monitor the systems. If limited resources are available, they should use a Platform as a Service offering like Force.com.
A recent O’Reilly blog post by enStratus CTO George Reese on this topic sheds some light on the subject.
2) Software – Just like servers, storage and networks in your own datacenter require management tools, so does your cloud infrastructure. Because of the new paradigm of computing, additional controls and management capabilities are needed through cloud management software to:
· Make the underlying cloud easier to use
· Extend security policies into the cloud environment
· Protect from single cloud vendor lock-in to allow cross cloud operations and migration
· Mange to your service level requirements
· Provide for financial controls and tracking
· Audit and report for compliance
One of our clients recently described cloud infrastructure as a “developer’s dream, but an enterprise application and resource manager’s nightmare.”
A good cloud management software will take care of that….
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