As discussed in Part One, public clouds provide many benefits in terms of fast deployment and lower costs.  But, when companies migrate services to the public cloud they assume additional risks as previously noted.

The Private Cloud

Because of these risks, private cloud computing technologies will become more and more prevalent.  Outsourcing to a data center with a solid virtualization strategy allows companies to allocate and scale resources as they need them.  Services are delivered on-demand.

The private cloud provides all the benefits of the public cloud, but without the risk level. By leveraging the private cloud within a data center, businesses save money and increase the efficiency of their operations.

Also, data center service providers are in the best position to offer hybrid solutions.  In other words, they can use the public cloud when it makes sense and a private cloud when risks must be reduced or eliminated.  An accomplished service provider will have extensive expertise in-house to operate hybrid clouds and take advantage of new technologies as they surface.

Cloud computing will continue to provide new and exciting ways to conduct business.  As with all innovation, changes will come rapidly.  Developing partnerships with data center providers will help companies prepare for new cloud computing and virtualization technologies coming down the pike.

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Cloud computing is another hot topic in IT circles.  The technology has emerged as a viable solution in the past couple of years with more and more companies adopting, or planning to adopt, a cloud computing strategy.

“Cloud” refers to a dynamic pool of shared resources and applications which can be accessed on demand.  Clouds are described as public, private or hybrid (a combination of public and private).

The Public Cloud

In a public cloud architecture, resources are accessed through the Internet.  Many high profile public cloud applications have come to the forefront recently.  Google, Amazon and Apple have all offered services using the public cloud.  These services are very affordable and provide several benefits for both the companies and their customers.

By using the public cloud, business can establish their services at a fraction of the cost of designing an in-house network.  They can also be up and running in a much shorter time.

Although the business case for adopting a public cloud strategy is attractive, companies must thoroughly evaluate their applications along with the drawbacks of using the public cloud.

For example, the public cloud lacks security capabilities, management tools and guaranteed service level agreements.  If a company processes and stores critical information, the public cloud environment may cause some concern.

Continue to read the Part Two for a continued discussion on private clouds.

Although virtualization has recently gained traction, it’s not a new technology.  In fact, for years companies have been using virtualization to consolidate servers and cut data center expenses.  The latest gain in adoption is a result of businesses expanding virtualization beyond just servers and realizing the technology’s full potential.

As data center managers migrate to more virtualized environments, they create a more nimble infrastructure.  The nature of virtualization increases performance and reduces costs.

For example, virtualization allows data center operators to decrease hardware requirements.  With fewer components deployed within the infrastructure, outages from equipment failures are minimized.

Despite the known benefits and the increasing transitions, many companies have not adopted a complete virtualization strategy yet.  A 2010 CDW survey found 78 percent of responding companies graded their IT director an “A” or “B” for virtualization projects conducted thus far.

The successes noted involved enhanced productivity and flexibility, as well as decreased costs and energy consumption.  Even with these successes, companies are still concerned about virtualization and security and support for all hardware and applications.

The groundwork has already been laid for expanding virtualization strategies across the data center.  Recent virtualization advances will help alleviate the few concerns companies still have and should accelerate the expansion.

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As companies are learning quickly, virtualization provides many benefits.  Virtualization has gained ground because IT departments have come under fire to deliver higher service levels without adding substantial cost.  And any new technologies implemented to improve service require stringent return on investment numbers.

Not too long ago, virtualization was used primarily as a means to enhance physical server operation.  Now, however, virtualization has been expanding to more and more aspects of the data center.  Data centers are being transformed into more agile, responsive and service-oriented areas of the business.

The cost economies associated with virtualization remain significant and are increasing as more and more data center equipment and functions evolve virtually.  For example, virtualization allows efficient sharing of resources such as physical servers, storage and networks.

Plus, data centers continually are expected to support more applications.  Data center virtualization is the first step for a data center to build its own private cloud.

Companies begin virtualization by starting with a comprehensive and formal strategy.  This is one way companies can meet business demands.  A sound plan can deploy virtualization throughout the data center without the risk of creating inefficiencies in any area.

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Many people believe the terms power and energy can be used interchangeably.  But, the words do not mean the same thing in a data center operation.

Power is a measurement taken on the spot and is expressed in watts or kilowatts (KW).  Energy, on the other hand, is measured over time and expressed in kilowatt hours (KWH).

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began providing guidelines for data centers, they originally used the term energy usage efficiency (EUE).  The agency later decided to change the term to power usage effectiveness, or PUE.  Today, PUE is the accepted industry terminology.

In terms of power usage in the data center, a recent study found servers comprise the majority of electricity costs.  The 2007 study done by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory showed data center servers account for approximately 55 percent of the electricity costs. The remaining 45 percent of power used in the data center is consumed by the supporting equipment.

Therefore, consolidating servers can provide the biggest savings for data center operators.  Steps including virtualization and newer blades can provide real savings.  Plus, consolidating servers reduces heat generated within the data center.  With less heat, data centers don’t require as much cooling capability.

By carefully analyzing all equipment and functions within a data center, companies can keep a handle on costs.  In addition, IT data center managers can continually look for ways to improve power usage without affecting overall service levels.

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Because IT is a cost center for most organizations, several challenges exist.  IT supports the company’s efforts to generate revenue and maximize profits.  But the support often comes with a heavy price tag.

In today’s businesses, IT managers are constantly trying to reduce costs without degrading service levels.  They’re expected to provide more services and resources while maintaining or cutting capital outlays and operating expenses.

The growing number of applications is also putting pressure on IT physical resources.  IT managers have to optimize server, storage and network resources to accommodate all applications.  Virtualization technologies and strategies can help improve efficiencies and reduce related application costs.

Energy is another costly area of data center operations.  It takes a lot of energy to power and cool a data center infrastructure.  Not surprisingly, energy costs make up a large part of any IT and data center budget.  And unfortunately, utility costs keep rising year after year.

Data center managers must continually search for new ways to reduce energy costs and still provide the required level of energy to power operations.  In addition, green initiatives put additional strains on data center managers to conserve energy without reducing the level of services required to run efficient operations.

Delivering applications quickly and efficiently represents another challenge for data center managers.  With each new application, IT managers must install, configure, patch, debug and release to production.  Because new applications and tools become available regularly, businesses must find a way to deliver them quickly.

All departments within a company are expected to show an immediate return on investment.  Data center operations are no different. Virtualization is an area of interest for many data center operators since it has the potential to reduce expenses and improve operations.

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