Cloud Capacity Part 2: Plan Your Consumption

Cloud CapacityIn the first part I presented some basic concepts and an overview of cloud capacity management. cloud capacity discussion has two main aspects:

  1. Infrastructure capacity management by the IaaS vendor to plan capacity of the cloud data-center to optimize utilization and decrease operations costs.
  2. Cloud resources consumption by the cloud consumers  (any IT organization such as a SaaS vendor) including planning capacity demand in order to achieve efficient consumption of the purchased cloud resources. In this part I will discuss this aspect.

(more…)

Continue ReadingCloud Capacity Part 2: Plan Your Consumption

The Basics of Cloud Capacity

Cloud CapacityThe IT capacity plan is derived from the current and future resources utilization for holding, storing and accommodating the software services. It is a given fact that servers’ average utilization in the traditional data center is between 5% and 20%. By contract, when planning capacity in the cloud, the basic working assumption is that, utilization should match the demand at all times and support temporary demand peaks and future trends.
Capacity planning is described by Wikipedia as the

“process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products.” It is also given by the following formula:
(number of machines or workers) × (number of shifts) × (utilization) × (efficiency)

In his CIO’s article about cloud computing capacity, Bernard Golden wrote,
(more…)

Continue ReadingThe Basics of Cloud Capacity

Who Stole my CPU? A Few Basics on CPU Steal Time

One of the most important features of the cloud is the sharing of resources by multi-tenants.

Without sharing and being able to optimize utilization of resources, the cloud operator can’t provide scalability and support “economies of scale” for its business.

The IaaS public contains its “cloud magic” as well as real hardware such as computing, storage, and network devices. The utilization of these resources should be optimized by meeting demand (by time), hence they must be shared between the cloud consumers.

(more…)

Continue ReadingWho Stole my CPU? A Few Basics on CPU Steal Time

ClickSoftware – Great Case of an AWS Cloud Adoption: Part 1, Operations

imageOver the last year I had endless conversations with companies that strive to adopt the cloud – specifically the Amazon cloud. Of those I met, I can say that ClickSoftware is one of the leading traditional ISVs that managed to adopt the cloud. The Amazon cloud is with no doubt the most advanced cloud computing facility, leading the market. In my previous job I was involved in the ClickSoftware cloud initiative, from decision making with regards to Amazon cloud all the way to taking the initial steps to educate and support the company’s different parties in providing an On-Demand SaaS offering.
(more…)

Continue ReadingClickSoftware – Great Case of an AWS Cloud Adoption: Part 1, Operations

IGT: Story of a Leading Cloud Computing Institute

imageNext week, on Oct 23rd in Tel Aviv we welcome the annual conference of IGT – The Israeli Association of Cloud Computing. Started in 2008, this is the 5th year that this international conference takes place in the vibrant city of Tel Aviv located alongside the Jaffa coastline. This year the conference will no longer discuss what is the cloud and how it disrupting the IT world. This year the conference holds two themes: Big Data and SaaS business.

In a discussion I had with Mr. Avner Algom, Founder and CEO of IGT, he noted:

““Every year we strive to bring the international industry leaders and, as our community grows, it just becomes more appealing and it’s easier to get them to come. Without a doubt, the question “What is Cloud?” is behind us. This year’s conference focus is on Big Data and SaaS. These are important issues for cloud companies and cloud business as these are strongly tied together in the cloud”” said Avner Algom, IGT CEO.
(more…)

Continue ReadingIGT: Story of a Leading Cloud Computing Institute

Cloud Security Management – Overview and Challenges

What’s your first priority cloud security concern ?
From an attacker’s perspective, cloud providers aggregate access to many victims’ data into a single point of entry. As the cloud environments become more and more popular, they will increasingly become the focus of attacks. Some organizations think that liability can be outsourced, but no, it cannot! This presentation will answer questions such as what are the key security challenges for new cloud comers. What are the options and how you can start with a safe cloud deployment?
(more…)

Continue ReadingCloud Security Management – Overview and Challenges

Amazon Cloud and the Enterprise – Is it a love story? (Free Infographic Included)

As befitting any great online vendor, Amazon cloud product guys listen carefully to their market targets and ensure fast implementation and delivery to satisfy their needs. It is clear that Amazon cloud is eager to conquer the enterprise market, as I already mentioned in my past post, “Amazon AWS is the Cloud (for now anyway)”.
Cloud Reserved Capcity Card
(more…)

Continue ReadingAmazon Cloud and the Enterprise – Is it a love story? (Free Infographic Included)

Amazon Outage: Is it a Story of a Conspiracy? – Chapter 2

In April 2011, when Amazon’s cloud s east region failed. I posted the first chapter of theAmazon Cloud Outage Conspiracy – it was already very clear that the cloud will fail again and here it is… Chapter 2

Let’s first try to understand Amazon’s explanation for this outage.

“At approximately 8:44PM PDT, there was a cable fault in the high voltage Utility power distribution system. Two Utility substations that feed the impacted Availability Zone went offline, causing the entire Availability Zone to fail over to generator power. All EC2 instances and EBS volumes successfully transferred to back-up generator power.”

Continue ReadingAmazon Outage: Is it a Story of a Conspiracy? – Chapter 2

Amazon AWS is the Cloud (for now anyway)

Every day I talk, write and comment about the “Cloud”. Every time I mention the cloud I try to make sure that I add the name of the relevant cloud operator, “Rackspace Cloud, “MS Cloud” (Azure) or “HP Cloud”. Somehow all of these cloud titles don’t right to me – it seems the only title that really works for me is the “Amazon Cloud”. In this post, I will elaborate about the competition in the IaaS market and I will explain further why I think this is so.
(more…)

Continue ReadingAmazon AWS is the Cloud (for now anyway)

Consumption, Utilization and Elasticity: Cloud Basics

newvem cloud utilization heatmap
Cloud Utilization Heatmap by Newvem

Lets start with a basic scenario where there is a sudden peak in the demand for an application service as the amount of clients’ requests increase. This event leads to a direct and immediate impact on the load placed on the web servers that host the service. In the traditional world, the number of servers is fixed, therefore an overload adversely affects the application performance and the service may slow down or even be terminated. The IT team would want to restore the environment functionality and bring the service up as soon as possible. The immediate impact  of such an event on the business can be devastating. Starting with this simple understanding, we can move into the world of cloud computing use including resources consumption, while relating to the key differences between the traditional data center and today’s cloud technologies.
(more…)

Continue ReadingConsumption, Utilization and Elasticity: Cloud Basics