Tech Lover 9

One of the primary characteristics of cloud computing is the virtualization of IT resources, network servers in particular – running multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine. Delivering economical, virtualized, elastic and utility based, or pay-as-you-go, services is in essence what cloud computing is. Many organizations are already using virtualization in their data centers to rationalize and support optimal utilization strategies. The dynamic and transparent allocation of IT resources through virtualization and monitoring using “hypervisors” are indeed fundamental, although not prerequisite, technologies of todays data centers for many businesses. Some large public cloud providers, like AWS, are utilizing heavily customized versions of the Xen open source virtualization hypervisor while others, including regular businesses, use less customized or out of the box solutions like the VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer.

Still, virtualization and cloud computing should not be used as synonyms, as seems quite common. On the contrary, there is a lot more to be added, as pointed out in my previous post “Characteristics of cloud computing“, for a true cloud computing adoption. Other key issues, such as automation of services, e.g. service provisioning and support/troubleshooting and utility based, or pay-as-you-go, pricing mechanism are also key parts of cloud computing. Specific cloud computing software solutions, such as the open source Eucalyptus, can be built on top of virtualization supports this type of functionality that enable organizations to create multiple clouds inside and outside of their data center environment and even support integration to third-party public cloud providers, e.g. AWS EC2, for a hybrid cloud layout. Antoher example is the VMware vCloud Express IaaS offering that is in many ways similar to Eucalyptus, providing on-demand, pay-as-you-go infrastructure.

Finally, is should not be forgotten that doing cloud computing is usually an evolutionary process rather than revolutionary. Businesses can start out taking small steps without unreasonably risking their sensitive data or systems.