Cloud Computing and Virtualization

According to IDC, the IT industry as a whole is moving toward the mobile/social/cloud/big data world of the 3rd Platform much more quickly than many realize. They predict that from 2013 through 2020 these technologies will drive around 90% of all growth in the IT market. According to IDC's Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst, "Companies that are not putting 80% or more of their competitive energy into this new market will be trapped in the legacy portion of the market, growing even slower than global GDP."

As the 3rd Platform, as IDC refers to it, takes off in 2013, the cloud component will manifest itself in four distinct deployment models:

• Private cloud - The cloud infrastructure is operated solely for an organization. It may be managed by the organization or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.
• Community cloud - The cloud infrastructure is shared by several organizations and supports a specific community that has shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be managed by the organizations or a third party and may exist on premise or off premise.
• Public cloud - The cloud infrastructure is made available to the general public or a large industry group and is owned by an organization selling cloud services.
• Hybrid cloud - The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load-balancing between clouds).

Each of these cloud deployment models, as well as integrating existing physical and virtual infrastructure assets, present today’s enterprise or government agency with a distinct set of challenges. As a result, a well-defined and managed Infrastructure Provisioning and Management business process is essential, ensuring sufficient infrastructure availability and capacity to meet demand, while integrating with other elements and processes of the IT enterprise.

Leveraging our copyrighted Framework for IT Success^SM, ISM’s cloud computing consulting services and solutions begin with the planning components needed to develop the required strategies and plans to provision an infrastructure of integrated physical and virtual devices (servers, networks, storage, clients, and software) and on-boarding contracted cloud computing services. With the required strategies and plans in place, our Infrastructure Provisioning and Management process manages the provisioning and de-provisioning of cloud services and deployment and re-deployment of virtual machines to meet demand requirements. The infrastructure and cloud elements of the Framework for IT Success also facilitate audits and measures delivered business value for the entire enterprise or agency infrastructure.

The primary goals of our Infrastructure Provisioning and Management process, as part of ISM’s cloud solutions consulting services, include:

• Provide governance for the infrastructure provisioning activities, ensuring that infrastructure virtualization and cloud computing activities support strategic and tactical plans;
• Provide appropriate production environment capacity on-demand when needed, with proven technologies and ease of implementation;
• Increase the availability and capacity of IT services and their supporting infrastructure with minimal cost, while maintaining information security, confidentiality, accuracy and integrity;
• Improve the service continuity capabilities and performance of the IT organization; and,
• Reduce capital outlay and on-going expenses through platform and resource virtualization and strategic utilization of cloud computing services.

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