Deep Thoughts on Supply Chain

As with any new technology offering, new terminology runs rampant and leads to confusion. Before we tackle the question above, a quick refresher about cloud computing. Cloud computing is defined by the Burton Group as “The set of disciplines, technologies, and business models used to deliver IT capabilities (software, platforms, hardware) as an on-demand, scalable, elastic service.” Now that we have level-set on that definition; let’s dive into the above terms for some clarification.

Private Cloud – if you already run VMware, Xen or another virtualization technology then you are already familiar with one of the key technology enablers of cloud computing. If you have virtualized your server farm to get better utilization out of existing servers and scale applications as needed then you could be considered to running a private cloud.

Public Cloud – I have already discussed the different types of public clouds available in a previous post. These are clouds outside of your corporate network and can be used for excess computing capacity, direct access to operating systems, development environments or on-demand business applications.

Hybrid Cloud – now that we have tackled the two easiest definitions, what is a hybrid cloud? As you might guess a hybrid cloud is a mix of the above. You might want to interlink your private network and public cloud if you needed additional computing capacity and could tap a hardware infrastructure public cloud as needed. This concept of handling spikes in computing capacity is known as ‘cloud bursting’. There are some technology considerations such as running the same hypervisor on both environments and matching-up server chip sets that can make this challenging, but improvement is expected in this area. Another reason to consider a hybrid cloud approach is to move new applications to the cloud while keeping legacy applications internal. For older systems that have several components and touch points to other systems it can be very tricky to successfully move that to a public cloud. In addition security is still a big concern with many companies, and some will opt to move certain pieces of an application to a cloud while keeping all the sensitive data behind the company’s firewall.

Hopefully that helps give you a little better understanding of which cloud is right for you. As you start to look at it in the context of your organization you will probably find that all of the above could be applicable depending on the specific business problem you are trying to solve. As a reminder our user conference is next week in sunny Orlando, and I would welcome the chance to sit down and discuss your company’s approach to cloud computing.