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Public, private clouds disrupt future data centers

Thursday, April 11th, 2013 by Dr. GoGrid

In the past, small businesses and large enterprises both solely used on-premise data centers because they were the only real technology available for decision-makers looking to improve operations through the use of digital technologies. Today is much different, as many organizations are now migrating massive workloads to external cloud computing environments in an attempt to reduce costs, relieve internal stress and ensure individuals have access to mission-critical resources from virtually anywhere at any time.

Public, private clouds disrupt future data centers

Public, private clouds disrupt future data centers

Yet decision-makers are still unsure which route to take in their deployment of the “next-generation data center.” In some cases, executives will continue migrating operations to external cloud-based environments, while others will keep sensitive information on internal clouds. Others still will adopt a hybrid approach, in which both internal and external clouds are used. The question remains, which method will be the most effective for 21st century companies?

In reality, this question can only be answered when decision-makers understand how their organization works. If an enterprise is pursuing teleworking trends, which enable employees to work from anywhere, the public cloud can introduce significant benefits. Because the hosted environments are managed by a third party, they are accessible via any device from any location. This means individuals in a coffee shop down the street can access the same resources as colleagues working inside the office – if they are authorized to view the same content, that is.

Conversely, if an organization is charged with managing highly sensitive information that can cause substantial problems if released, the private cloud may be a better option. Private services are not multi-tenant environments like their public counterparts, making it less likely that confidential data will be exposed.

Still, companies often take various approaches when augmenting their data center.

(more…) «Public, private clouds disrupt future data centers»

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Posted in Cloud Computing, General, News, Private Cloud, Public Cloud | No Comments »

Riding for a Cause – AIDS/LifeCycle

Monday, April 8th, 2013 by Barbara Jurin

You might call Mark Kratt a “driven” man, especially when you see him riding the custom-built bike on which he logs 300+ miles every week. He’s driven by his dedication to a cause: to raise money and awareness for HIV/AIDS outreach and services throughout California. For the second consecutive year, Mark will participate in the AIDS/LifeCycle (ALC) ride, joining more than 2,000 other cyclists who’ll make the 545-mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles in June 2013.

Mark-Kratt_ACL-prep

“I’d been a biking fanatic and a volunteer with the Stop AIDS Project and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation for years, so participating in ALC-11 in 2012 seemed like a natural next step,” Mark recalls. “And it really helped that GoGrid supported me. More than half my pledges last year came from a corporate donation and my coworkers. The company culture really focuses on giving back to the community.”

In addition to supporting Mark’s ALC participation, GoGrid works with Family Giving Tree and the San Francisco Food Bank every year to collect and share much-needed items during the holidays. The company also sponsored a “team in training” to help fight cancer by raising money for every mile walked or run during the Nike Marathon in San Francisco last October, with donations going to support the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS).

Mark, who started at GoGrid in 2002 as a billing and accounting associate, recently celebrated a decade with the company and now manages GoGrid’s billing team. Every day before he starts work, Mark takes a ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and to the top of Conzelman in the Marin Headlands. He also regularly takes part in ALC training rides helps with reaching out to new riders. “I’ve gotten more involved in motivating and mentoring first-time riders this year,” he said. “ALC is a signature biking event because it’s meant for recreational riders rather than professionals or racers. Even so, a 7-day ride is a huge commitment—and can be intimidating.” That’s one of the reasons Mark’s also on the planning committee for the 2013 Jonathan Pon 2-Day Memorial Ride, which takes place in May. “The Jon-Pon gives first-time riders a taste of what it’s like to ride 2 days back to back and camp overnight with other cyclists,” he said. Not to mention that the 150-mile ride through Marin and Sonoma counties, with an overnight beside the Russian River, is just plain gorgeous.

Mark explains, “ALC is a wonderful experience because for 7 days, the people involved behave the way you wish everyone would behave every day. It’s an open, honest, and trusting environment where no one complains about standing in line for food or the bathroom. The shared experience of the ride creates such a secure community; we don’t even worry about locking stuff up at night. And the mutual support for how tough the ride is—and how much we’re all challenged physically—is unbelievable.”

(more…) «Riding for a Cause – AIDS/LifeCycle»

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Posted in Corporate, General, GoGrid | 2 Comments »

The Top 3 Private Networking Use Cases for CloudLink

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013 by Michael Sheehan

Public clouds are fantastic for a majority of infrastructure use cases. And interconnectivity between clouds enables myriad solutions to empower businesses to have multiple synchronized points of presence across the world. Companies can easily set up connections that traverse the public Internet as a means to transmit and potentially synchronize data between cloud data centers. But these connections need to be reliable and more often than not, private.

CloudLink private network between cloud data centers

CloudLink private network between cloud data centers

With public network connections between clouds, users are at the mercy of hops and latency. For example, data may take one route with a particular number of hops, and a second later, may follow a completely different path and take a longer or shorter amount of time based on the connection.

In terms of securing the transport, some companies rely on point-to-point VPN connections using a hardware or software solution or some combination of the two. However, these solutions are also constrained by the connection and have limited speeds.

There are some scenarios or use cases that warrant using dedicated private networking to join geographically dispersed clouds. This is where GoGrid’s CloudLink service comes into play.

GoGrid’s CloudLink is a data center interconnect product—a redundant 10 Gbps pipe that is isolated to GoGrid traffic only. CloudLink enables private network traffic between different servers in GoGrid’s US data centers. As part of our “Complex Infrastructure Made Easy” mission, we designed this service to be basic yet powerful and still meet the needs of demanding organizations. Because this is a private network, much like the private network within GoGrid’s standard cloud infrastructure, there are no bandwidth costs. You simply decide on the connection speed (10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or 1 Gbps), configure your connection, and pay for just the dedicated connection. (more…) «The Top 3 Private Networking Use Cases for CloudLink»

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Posted in Big Data, Cloud Computing, Cloud Security, Datacenter, Features, General, GoGrid, Iaas, Promotion, Public Cloud, Security | No Comments »

Convincing the Workforce to Get On Board with Cloud

Thursday, March 28th, 2013 by Dr. GoGrid

As the cloud computing market grows, business decision-makers around the world are recognizing the potential benefits associated with leveraging the services in the workplace. By using the cloud, companies of all sizes can reduce costs, improve operations and enhance collaboration between off-site employees, road warriors and the increasingly popular teleworkers. Despite these advantages, some individuals are still hesitant to adopt the cloud, largely because it is unfamiliar territory.

Convincing the workforce to get on board with cloud

Convincing the workforce to get on board with cloud

The cloud represents major change for all businesses, enabling organizations to do more with less. While some companies experience implementation challenges, many of these obstacles are associated with people and processes, not necessarily the technology itself, according to a report by ReadWriteWeb. This means that the cloud is relatively easy to deploy in the workplace – once executives get employees on board.

Overcoming resistance to change can sometimes be difficult. By demonstrating to individuals that the way they currently work is outdated and inefficient, decision-makers may have better luck convincing the workforce that implementing a cloud infrastructure can be extremely effective.

The old ways no longer work
The saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” rings true in the enterprise, as many employees cling to outdated practices, despite the presence of advanced technologies capable of improving efficiency. The emergence of cloud services in particular offers businesses the chance to automate processes and implement new best practices that will augment operations, ReadWriteWeb noted.

Other employees will stick with the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” routine, noting that the presence of tools used to improve efficiency doesn’t mean companies have to conform. Unfortunately, the real problems lie with apathy and not doing anything, the news source said. If an organization neglects the cloud, it will become increasingly difficult to stay competitive in today’s economy, especially because that firm will have trouble capturing, storing and analyzing big data – one of the key differentiators between a successful enterprise and one that is doomed to experience challenges.

(more…) «Convincing the Workforce to Get On Board with Cloud»

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Why SMBs love the private cloud

Friday, March 22nd, 2013 by Dr. GoGrid

The emergence of cloud computing has forever changed IT, allowing decision-makers to have more control over their infrastructure than ever before. In the past, teams had to wait weeks for a new application to be developed, tested and launched throughout the company. This delay meant mission-critical tasks may not be completed in time and executives were forced to pay out of pocket for projects that didn’t meet deadlines.

Fortunately, the private cloud has changed all of that by giving internal IT departments more robust administrative capabilities and the ability to perform critical tasks more efficiently without interruption. Today, end users are given the power to manage applications moving between servers without those solutions being impaired or experiencing a decrease in performance, according to a report by the Aberdeen Group.

Why SMBs love the private cloud

Why SMBs love the private cloud

Analysts said this ability to reduce the complexities associated with traditionally challenging tasks has made it easier for firms to compete, reduce costs and meet short- and long-term demands. For this reason, organizations of all sizes are making the migration to the cloud to experience a wide variety of benefits and introduce new growth opportunities.

The current private cloud landscape
The Aberdeen Group said more organizations than ever before have implemented cloud servers and server virtualization. Although only about 40 percent of applications were implemented on virtual servers in 2010, approximately 55 percent were in 2012. In many cases, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are deploying the cloud more than larger enterprises because the hosted technology gives the former group the unique ability to gain a competitive advantage over rival firms that have more exhaustible resources.

A separate report by IDC noted that spending on global private cloud computing services will increase at a compound annual growth rate of more than 50 percent between 2012 and 2016, eventually exceeding $24 billion. Organizations are deploying the private cloud to have more choices with access control and resource allocation.

(more…) «Why SMBs love the private cloud»

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