By Guest Contributor Frank Mobley | founder and CEO, Immedion LLC
As a cloud and data center services provider, the three most common questions we are asked from business owners and executives are: What is it? How do I use it? Is it safe?
As you might imagine, the answers to these questions differ from company to company depending on business size, internal IT resources and overall IT strategy. However, virtually every business organization either currently utilizes the cloud in some form or soon will. Cloud computing has become a necessary component of business operations.
What Is the Cloud?
In general terms, the cloud is the hardware, software and other computing resources made available as a service through the Internet. As high-speed data connections have become more affordable and more prevalent, cloud computing has grown in popularity and acceptance. Adopting a cloud environment allows businesses to reduce capital expenditures while increasing flexibility, by taking advantage of the scalability and on-demand features of a virtual environment.
Cloud computing is available in three primary service models: software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). This article will focus on SaaS and IaaS, the two most commonly used by small and medium businesses.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is the most common utilization of cloud computing, used for business applications and by general consumers. SaaS has eclipsed physical media, such as CDs, as the preferred model for distributing and maintaining software applications. Gmail, Google Apps, Dropbox, Office 365 and Salesforce.com are just a few examples of applications available over the Internet. Most “off-the-shelf” industry-specific applications are also available as a subscription via the Web.
There are many benefits to the distribution of software applications through the cloud:
The ability to quickly expand or contract monthly license scope as business conditions dictate.
Assurance of consistent and secure applications across the organization through uniform update and patching services.
Consistent software versions and access from geographically diverse locations.
Lower capital and labor costs due to external sourcing of disk storage, hardware components, and multi-site software deployment.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Because applications require integration, custom modifications and/or control that are not possible in the SaaS model, many companies elect to utilize cloud-based hardware resources, or infrastructure, as a service (IaaS). In this model, disk space, memory, CPU and other hardware computing resources are provided on an as-needed basis. Like the SaaS model, these resources are usually accessed by a high-speed connection to the Internet.
IaaS providers generally manage a large pool of disk, memory and CPU resources. These resources are separated into secure virtual machines (servers) by hypervisor software. Once implemented, the virtual servers operate and appear to applications like local physical servers.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and a number of other national providers offer commodity cloud servers. Immedion, a Greenville-based cloud and data center services provider, offers cloud infrastructure solutions customized to an organization’s specific business need. These solutions are often tailored to interface seamlessly to an organization’s existing applications and hardware infrastructure as a hybrid physical/cloud deployment.
Like SaaS, the cost of cloud infrastructure is usually on a subscription basis. Predictable monthly costs are determined by the amount of disk, memory and CPU utilized.
Advantages to the IaaS model include:
Rapid scalability to quickly meet business demands or seasonality. Disk space, memory and CPU can usually be added or removed in minutes and most always within a 24 hour period.
Cost-effective disaster recovery or data backup.
More control of applications as compared to SaaS.
Like SaaS, IaaS cloud infrastructure can be accessed anywhere there is an Internet connection.
Security
For obvious reasons, data security has been and will likely remain a prime topic of conversation. Most business managers want to ensure that their business’s lifeblood, its data, is secure.
As many of the recent well-publicized security breaches evidence, valuable data that is connected to the Internet or transferred electronically is vulnerable to some extent. While leveraging the public cloud introduces new security concerns, there is little evidence to suggest that adopting a cloud environment materially increases the risk that data will be compromised.
Organizations can minimize risk of data breaches by diligently addressing the following areas:
Encrypting data stored on drives and data being transferred from system to system or system to user.
Enforcing strong authentication (login) policies.
Ensuring the cloud provider has audited (SSAE-16) policies in place for secure provisioning of cloud servers, including strong separation between customers.
Performing in-place data backups with periodic testing of restorability.
Deploying these policies and processes, along with standard firewall and intrusion detection systems, will significantly reduce the risk of lost or stolen business information.
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Frank Mobley is founder and CEO of Immedion LLC, which owns and operates four enterprise-class data centers in North and South Carolina. Services include co-location, disaster recovery, managed services and cloud hosting. Immedion helps customers achieve full redundancy, compliancy and a level of up-time that they couldn’t achieve on their own. Immedion is the sponsor of the Technology Application Award for the InnoVision Awards.
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The InnoVision Awards Program, founded by Deloitte in 1999 and presented by McNair Law Firm P.A., is South Carolina’s premier organization dedicated to the advancement of technology in the state through communication, education and recognition of the spirit of innovation and technological progress.
