Transcript
Hello, this is Kris Mathasen and welcome to ‘3 Minutes to Better Technology,’ – a series of podcasts and videos that addresses both fundamental and more advanced topics as they relate to today’s technology and its impacts on enterprises… in three minutes or less. It is about turning your Cloud Vision into Cloud Value. But first, we need to eliminate cloud confusion.
“It’s in the cloud.” I am sure you have heard that many times. But what does it really mean? Where exactly are your sensitive applications and data, going? Especially the mission-critical ones? Are they somewhere in cyberspace? Who has access to them? As an executive, you should know where your systems are and how they are being managed. In many cases, providers say they are putting you into the cloud, when in reality, they are not. By educating yourself on these terms and staying tuned in to this video series on ‘Curing Cloud Confusion’, you will be able to tell the difference between “being in the cloud” and being managed by a services provider. I’ll begin by giving you the official definition of cloud computing according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST for short) and then I am going to simplify that definition into what I hope is easily understandable language.
Let’s get started. NIST defines cloud computing as “a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” What a mouthful! Let’s break that down into the 5 characteristics of the cloud.
Number one, “On-demand self-service” – Authentic Cloud does not require people to provision computing capabilities. An end-user of the cloud environment does not need external human interaction in order to begin using the cloud. Press a button and away you go. It’s that easy!
Number two, “Broad network access” – A consumer of the cloud can access the environment from anywhere (e.g. mobile devices, tablets, laptops, workstations etc.). This does not, however mean that your data is available to everyone. It’s safe, generally speaking.
Number three, “Resource pooling” – Simply put, the cloud has the ability to be used my many people or organizations (e.g. Multi-tenant) where the storage, processing, memory and network bandwidth are shared and dynamically assigned – independent of the consumers’ general knowledge of where those resources are located. It is true: you really do not know where the cloud resides.
Number four, “Rapid elasticity” – You do not have to define the size of the environment and it is able to scale up and down as well as shrink or expand on demand consistent with your business needs and cycles. Its flexible!
Number five, “Measured service – The cloud must be monitored, controlled and reported on based upon the services utilized and therefore could be charged-back to the consumer either corporately or individually. You get what you pay for!
Now that we have reviewed the fundamental characteristics of the cloud, you may find that the challenge is in the planning, design and implementation of your enterprise cloud. It is easy to acquire, measure, grow, and access but if it is not implemented correctly, it can quickly lead to cloud dysfunction. If your organization needs help. Check out our Cloud Services on this website and explore how we can help you create a strategy, migrate to the cloud without interuption, and implement your enterprise cloud.
This is Kris Mathisen with DKG IT. Till the next in the series…and remember: ”Don’t be Cloud First: be Cloud Right.” Cloud Right is our methodology for delivering cloud services.
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