Will Cloud Computing Turn Us Into Dinosaurs?

Dispelling the Myth of Cloud Related Job Loss
Among the concerns with cloud computing, most of which we at ReliaCloud are happy to dispel, is the idea that it will lead to the loss of jobs in data centers. At least, that’s the fear spreading throughout IT circles in the UK.  This excellent piece from Kelly Fiveash published in The Register UK helps to dispel that myth.

Across The Pond, A Different View of the Cloud
Unlike our colleagues in the UK, IT professionals in the United States see cloud computing as creating more jobs while making prospective job candidates more employable.  See the survey results in this article in Business Computing World.

With the 4^th of July holiday over, it’s back to work where we can keep our heads in the clouds. Following are cloud news bites you may have missed over the relaxing holiday.

Cloud Computing Taxonomy
From Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to Software as a Service (SaaS), Forrester visually places cloud providers in its updated Cloud Computing Taxonomy.

The Cloud Could be a Substantial Part of the Way Britain’s National Health Service Will Operate

Britain’s National Health Service predicts that deploying a G-Cloud (Government Cloud) could offer a huge opportunity for very large savings. Imagine 82 million patient records floating in the cloud.

Science Clouds. Have you heard of them?
These informal clouds are making it easy for scientific projects to experiment with IaaS-style cloud computing. Access to a Science Cloud is provided voluntarily. Here are a few links to available science clouds:

Nimbus @ University of Chicago
Stratus @ University of Florida
Wispy @ Purdue University
Kupa @ Masaryk University

Uncovering the newest and most pertinent Cloud Computing news can be a challenge. Let ReliaCloud be that little bird in your ear. We’re monitoring blogs, forums and social media to bring you the best Cloud Computing news and resources each week.

Cloud Computing Mind Map
The Cloud Computing Mind Map from George Reese helps you get your brain around today’s Cloud players.

Serious About the Cloud? Read up on Cloud Thoughts from the Great Minds at Berkeley
Seeking Supernovae in the Clouds: A Performance Study, by Berkeley Lab team, wins best paper award at first Scientific Cloud Computing workshop.

Government Straddling the Line on Cloud Computing
U.S. Government agencies move data to the cloud – Lawmakers Debate the Security.

What Does Infrastructure, Demand, Scalability, Pricing & Accessibility all Have in Common?
Must read: Network World Key Concepts of Cloud Computing.

With the prevalence of Internet exploits, securing your business has come to mean much more than a lock on the door. ReliaCloud Servers are connected to a private cloud network, and this network is by default inaccessible via the Internet. Therefore, a brand-new cloud server is generally not accessible via the Internet because it is produced with these default settings. To allow Internet access to your cloud servers, you need to explicitly set up port following rules.

ReliaCloud recommends applying security patches to your cloud server soon after provisioning the new server. We apply security patches to our software templates at least once every three months, and we also make updates any time a major security patch is released.

For more information on the security of cloud servers, visit the ReliaCloud Knowledge Base. Click on “Browse by Category” and select “Security” from the drop-down menu.

Phrases like “cloud server” and “cloud computing” are tossed around so frequently these days, you could be forgiven for thinking that they might be little more than water cooler buzz words. However, cloud servers and cloud computing represent a major paradigm shift, and organizations all around you are benefiting from hopping on the cloud.

So what’s this all about?

A cloud server is essentially raw computing power delivered as a metered service. This computing power is encapsulated within a cloud server instance. Each cloud server instance runs on top of a hypervisor within a physical computing infrastructure. A cloud server has a specific amount of computing (CPU and memory) and storage resources that can support an operating system and run applications.

Customers build their own cloud servers by selecting a specific cloud server model and a software template. The software template is a bootable image that contains an operating system and a set of applications. Customers pay for their cloud servers on an hourly basis, and customers are responsible for the provisioning and maintenance of their Cloud servers.

Now that you’re in the know, find out how cloud computing can work for your business.

Now that almost every company has a website, it’s sufficed to say that companies are looking for a competitive advantage on the web.  As a result, the need for an optimal hosting environment has become more important than ever.

The usage of cloud hosting is increasingly popular and the benefits easily outline why.  The scalability, cost-efficiency and velocity of cloud hosting continue to drive the popularity of this technology.  Cloud hosting and cloud computing yields overall faster loading pages, and sites with faster loading pages yield profitability.

Here are 3 of the reasons cloud hosting creates a more profitable website:

1. Positive User Experience - Cloud hosting enables faster loading pages by utilizing multiple load balanced servers.  When end users experience faster speed times, they’re more likely to click through pages or return to the site.  This also helps to reduce bounce rates.  Just last June, Google conducted an experiment testing the affect of speed levels on the end user.  Slowing down the search results page by only 100-400 milliseconds impacted the number of searches per user of -0.2% to -0.6%. What may appear as miniscule numbers actually amounts to 0.2% to 0.6% fewer searches for changes under half a second!  Even the slightest delay can negatively influence a user’s decision to continue accessing a site.

2. Reduce operating costs –Cloud hosting already can save you money with a pay-as-you-grow usage model, but the ability to increase page loading speeds can save you even more.  Last summer Shopzilla reported the results from a year-long performance study stating a 5 second speed-up resulted in a 25% increase in page views, 50% reduction in hardware, and 7-12% increase in revenue.  This stat not only demonstrates the obvious profitability from speedier pages, but also the operational cost savings from a reduction in hardware.

3.  Web Search Ranking – The latest announcement from Google stated site speed will factor in to the search ranking algorithm.  Google states, and Google software engineer, Matt Cutts, reiterates that page relevance will still carry more SEO weight with less than 1% of queries affected by site speed, at this point.  This is not to say that site speed can’t positively impact your site, however.  Cutts also states the importance of embracing this change and turning it into an opportunity – the opportunity to improve your site speed thus improving your site.

Most websites are still limited to a single server through dedicated or shared hosting.  For companies seeking a positive end user experience, lower costs, and potential higher search rankings, opt for hosting in the cloud with a company such as ReliaCloud.

Learn more about ReliaCloud cloud server costs.

Curious about your site’s speed?  Try a free test.

When it comes to cloud computing, flexibility is priceless. The right cloud provider will accommodate and grow with its users, so that a client never pays for more than they need at any time.

ReliaCloud prioritizes not only flexibility, but also transparency. A cloud server calculator on ReliaCloud’s web site allows anyone to price out a potential service package. On the cost estimator, clients can select a package, a service time frame, the number of cloud servers, a software template, the GB of outgoing bandwidth, and the number of IP addresses used.  In return, you are given an hourly, daily or monthly cost estimate.

A cloud server has a specific amount of computing (CPU and memory) and storage resources that can support an operating system and applications. ReliaCloud customers build their own Cloud Servers by customizing a package that best fits their needs based on the amount of computing and storage resources they need. When their business grows, clients can upgrade their computing and storage resources to match.

Visit the cloud pricing calculator or contact us today to learn more.

New study links cloud computing to huge cost savings

A new study conducted by The Brookings Institution, a heavyweight think tank based in Washington, D.C., suggests that increased reliance on cloud computing could result in substantial cost savings for federal institutions. Though the study relied on existing research and case studies involving government agencies in particular, the implications are far-reaching.

The study’s findings were published this month in a report by Brookings Vice President and Director of Governance Studies Darrell M. West. West found that the government agencies in his study “generally saw between 25 and 50 percent savings in moving to the cloud.” West highlights a number of potential reasons for the cost savings, including cloud servers’ customizable service levels as well as the fact that use of remote file servers de-emphasizes users’ geographical location.

Based on his findings, West advises the government to “redirect greater resources to cloud computing in order to reap the efficiencies represented by that approach.”

The entire report is available for download through The Brooking Institution’s web site (PDF).

To learn how cloud computing can increase the efficiency of your organization, contact us today.

With all the information available about different server options, how do you decide which type is best for your company? You may have heard about both cloud servers and virtual private servers (VPS). Cloud servers and VPS both provide a virtualized application environment for customers, but that’s essentially where the similarities end. Four important factors distinguish cloud servers from VPS:

First, in a VPS environment, many different customers share the same computing resources and operating system kernel. In the cloud platform used by ReliaCloud, each cloud server customer has their own unique operating system.

Second, it is very common to significantly oversubscribe computing resources in a VPS environment. In our cloud server environment when we say your cloud server has 2GB of RAM, we mean that your server actually has 2GB of physical RAM.

Third, cloud servers are billed based on hourly utilization. Most VPS services bill based on monthly utilization.

Last but certainly not least important, our cloud servers include features such as firewall security, high availability, and load balancing that are rarely found within a VPS solution. For example, if the physical computing node on which your VPS is hosted fails, it may take hours to restore your VPS on another computing node. In comparison, your cloud servers would fail over in minutes.

To learn more about cloud servers, visit our Cloud Knowledge Base.

If you’re looking to put enterprise applications into the cloud — you’ll want to check out enStratus’s cloud management solution. enStratus provides a cross-cloud management solution delivering governance for the cloud. What does that mean? It means you can utilize a third-party vendor (enStratus) to manage the cloud instances you deploy with national cloud providers (such as ReliaCloud, Rackspace and others). With enStratus, customers gain an additional layer of security, reliability and cloud independence.

Their latest release includes enhancements in the following areas:

• Role-based security
• Financial Controls
• Firewall and Alerting
• SAML 2.0 Integration (Beta)
• Staging Environment

You can read the full press release online at http://www.enstratus.com/NewReleaseWebinar.  You can also attend a webinar presented by enStratus on April 6th to learn more.