2011 Prediction: Virtustream
Virtual infrastructure was considered a disruptive technology as recently as two years ago. Yet in 2010, we saw some major global enterprises move beyond virtualizing IT environments to adopt cloud computing, off-loading management of their virtual infrastructure to cloud providers. For instance, in October, Domino Sugar (American Sugar Holdings, Inc. and its affiliates), the world’s largest producer and distributor of refined sugar products, successfully implemented a multi-thousand seat enterprise application production system running SAP solutions onto an off-premise cloud platform.
Businesses clearly understand the benefits of cloud computing, but because many cloud environments are multi-tenanted, they are still hesitant to make a move. However, we’re at a tipping point where the performance and cost benefits of the cloud are beginning to overwhelm the concerns of cloud adoption.
What’s to come in 2011? We expect greater adoption of cloud computing through the emergence of a true private cloud within a multi-tenanted environment. Historically, the industry has defined a private cloud as a virtual environment or cloud that is on-premise and managed internally. While an on-premise private cloud yields some costs savings associated with hardware consolidation and reduced energy consumption, in these tight economic times, global enterprises demand more. System and data center administrators – and the c-level – are looking to gain the efficiencies of the public cloud yet are hindered by concerns around security and data protection. There will be increased demand for solutions that can offer the performance and security of the private cloud solution while also delivering the cost efficiencies and the economies of both scale and skill in the public cloud.
How will the industry get there? It’s all about proof of security backed by service level agreements.
A 2010 InformationWeek Analytics survey ranked security issues as the top three cloud computing concerns for enterprises. As a result, enterprises continue to look for innovative approaches to the protection and security of their data in the cloud. Again, cloud providers have an opportunity in 2011 to meet demand by offering an off-premise private cloud.
What features of an off-premise, private cloud ensure critical corporate data is secure? The isolation of data, “Swim Lanes” and other innovative approaches to security and compliance within a multi-tenant private cloud deliver the security standards enterprises expect. In a multi-tenant private cloud, enterprises can access shared pools of resources as their demand dictates, much the same as in a public cloud, but these compute resources will be provisioned from isolated disk pools that have been allocated specifically for them. Also in the multi-tenant model, though enterprises may share the same network resources, customer data is physically isolated on separate disks and dedicated, isolated network segments, or “Swim Lanes,” effectively separating sensitive customer traffic from the rest of the network.
For companies considering a move to a cloud computing environment, there are several points to consider that will help ensure that data within a virtual data center in the cloud is safe:
