Week 5 - Hybrid Cloud

Greetings Bloggers!

Welcome to the thrilling Week 5 Blog for Cloud Computing & Governance with  Bellevue University.  This week we are going to talk about the Hybrid Cloud.  We will discuss what it is and how it is used within an Enterprise for an Organization.

First by definition, a Hybrid Cloud is the type of cloud that utilizes the public and private cloud simultaneously for better effectiveness of infrastructure and data management.  In most cases the private cloud must be constructed by the organization itself.  An example of this would be an expanding company that wants to keep all of its files secure and private.  They would keep the cloud servers "on premise" and maintain them themselves but would construct a Wide Area Network (WAN) to connect their network to their Public Cloud provider.

The Public Cloud would more than likely be utilized for the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to where they will operate their applications through a Cloud infrastructure to utilize virtual servers, memory and storage for certain types of data that are not private or critical information.

We discussed Cloud Bursting last week, to where operating in their own Private Network, the organization can opt to freely "burst" into the Public Cloud for added processing power, or set it up for a critical back up option in case there is a critical failure on the on premise Private Cloud.

Used in tandem and reliant on the other, this can be a successful implementation for any organization that is looking to keep some of their operations on premise, but also accessible through a URL in the Cloud from anywhere in the world.

That is all I have for you this week Bloggers!! Until next week!

Week 4 - Risks of the Cloud

Hello Bloggers,
Welcome to Week 4 of my Cloud Computing journey with Bellevue University.  This week we are talking about the dangers of Cloud Computing and what it means to the Organization making the transition. 

The one hazard that I would like to talk about is the action called "Cloud Bursting".  This is the event that when a Private Cloud setup reaches capacity but it needs to complete its function, it will "burst" through the Private Cloud resource and begin using Public Cloud resources to accomplish the task.

There is a HUGE risk in doing this.  The foremost is that there is a drastic difference between Private and Public Clouds when it comes to encryption.  Naturally, the Private Cloud due to the sensitive nature of the data would want to protect their data.  When Cloud Bursting into the Public Cloud, you lose this encryption, or the extra you get from Private encryption.  If a cyber criminal knew the threshold of the company and the IP to their domain...they could force traffic onto the companies services and force them into the public cloud and then begin to take their data.

In my opinion this is a huge threat to private data and should only use Cloud Bursting if you have data that is not sensitive and is a critical application that can have the need for more processing power during peak hours.

Short post this week team, but important nonetheless.

Have a great week! Talk to you all soon.

Week 3 - Outsourcing or Cloud?

Greetings Cloud Computing Bloggers!!

Welcome to another week of my Cloud Computing and Governance Blog to track my learning as I take this journey with all of you.

This week our reading within the course book is the topic of Traditional Outsourcing or Cloud Computing solutions for an organization.  In essence a Traditional Outsourcing is taking what a company is doing and paying for another company to do it.  The most common example of outsourcing is that a company has a product that they offer to its customers, but they cannot afford the manpower to run the Help Desk/Call Center.  This is service that the company could outsource to another organization that specializes in it.  The downside is that this is usually along term contract that the organization must commit to and could be very expensive through the course of the contract.

Secondly, the Cloud Computing solution is as we discussed the last couple weeks.  When this solution is selected, the company can be certain that they are only paying for what they are using.  Unlike the Outsourcing solution that will pay for their Help Desk whether they are getting high numbers of phone calls or not.  With Cloud, if you wanted to decrease the amount of storage space or computing power, it is as easy as a phone call and the changes are instantaneous and your savings can be seen immediately.  The same goes for if your organization goes through a rapid expansion, you can all and ask for more processing and storage and it will be immediate.  With Outsourcing, if you went through this expansion but are under contract, you more than likely would not be able to expand the aforementioned Help Desk until that contract expires or re-enter contract negotiations would cost you even more.

Overall I think that both solutions can be utilized efficiently.  Outsourcing, in my opinion, is more for well off companies that cannot sacrifice the money they put into their own data center.  Cloud is for smaller companies that do not already have the financial obligation of their own data center.

That is all I have today everyone!! I hope you learned something! I did!!

Until next week!

Week 2 - Pros/Cons of Cloud Computing

Hello Cloud Bloggers!
Welcome to Week 2 of my BSIT 400 - Cloud Computing and Governance Course at Bellevue University.  This week we delve into the Cloud Models that are available to organizations.  The options that are available are Public Cloud, Community Cloud, Private Cloud, and the newer Hybrid Cloud.  These are options for organizations to take to host their data in different configurations based on the data they are planning to store.  Most of the cloud storage that users mingle with is on the Public Cloud.  These are usually where users find their Google Docs, Office 365, etc where their data is hosted by another company and you trust that company to protect your assets.

The most interesting Service that is offered in my opinion is the Hybrid Cloud.  This allows organizations to utilize both the Private and Public Cloud to their needs.  An example is utilizing the Public Cloud to host unclassified data and use that Cloud space as an authentication source for approved users to then access the Private Cloud where the more sensitive data is hosted.

Regardless it is very interesting how the Cloud realm is developing and essentially providing an a la carte solution to the average user and the corporation equally.

Until next week bloggers!!

Have a great week!!