Do You Think You Have A True Cloud Infrastructure? Let’s Learn
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| Let's shed some light on Cloud Computing |
So What’s your Virtualization Technology?
Cloud
Computing definitions are widely available on the Internet. You can read all about
Logging as a Service (laaS), which allows users to remotely access the system
logs in a cloud environment and stores the logs in a central location. And
there is Platform as a Service (PAAS) where you rent hardware, operating
systems, storage and network capacity over the Internet, basically renting
virtualized servers and its associated services online. We also have Software
as a Service (SAAS) in which software are hosted by service providers and made
available to customers over a network or the Internet. And the list goes on
with NAAS, DAAS, BAAS and so on.
Basically,
Cloud Computing mainly refers to Virtualization Technology, which means how to
approach your customers with your virtual services, and what do you offer them,
virtually. When we talk about Virtualization Technology, we will refer to a piece of
computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual
machines or better known as Hypervisor. Some of the commonly used hypervisors include Hyper-V
(Microsoft), vSphere Hypervisor (VmWare), KVM hypervisor (Redhat) and Xen
Hypervisor (Open Source). There are many more in the market and each of them
provides its pros and cons for your consideration when deciding your own Cloud
Computing architecture.
Does your Cloud match High Availability and Scalability?
More terms that
we always relate to when it comes to Cloud Computing are High Availability and
High Scalability. Ensuring your system’s high availability would mean that
whatever that you discussed in the contract in terms of the prearranged level
of operational performance, needs to be met. It is one of the most important
reasons for IT industry players to migrate their existing system to a Cloud
infrastructure. Virtual Machines (VM) can be created instantly and its hardware
requirements can be scaled up or down seamlessly based on the system’s compulsory
requirements. By running redundant VM as well, cloud service suppliers would
not need to worry about VM failures which could cause system downtime.
High
speed Internet is not just a possibility, it’s mandatory
Internet
connectivity is another key factor in implementing cloud. A reliable and high
speed Internet connection must be deployed to your Cloud infrastructure to make
sure that the network latency is low to most of the targeted destinations and the
service is always available. Bandwidth guarantee is vital if you are serving
large contents like video streaming websites, gaming websites and online
broadcasting.
So,
how can we differentiate a truly Cloud Infrastructure and leverage its benefits?
A typical
server-hosting application cannot be categorized under Cloud Application
because it only depends on a dedicated machine and its resources. Any single
hardware or system failure will bring the entire application to a halt and the
service goes kaput. Hence, we will
need to make sure that our solution provider is Cloud Computing-ready to ensure
no or minimal interruptions during its services. This factor needs to be
stressed on while creating a robust business continuity plan for an organization.
For TimeTec
Cloud, it is a completely Cloud-based solution. Leveraging on Amazon Web
Services, we have fully incorporated our Domain Name Service, Web Server, Database Server, Cloud Storage, Emailing service, and Load balancer on its platform. With
all the redundant services and multiple availability zones being implemented on
our TimeTec Could, we can rest feeling assured that the TimeTec Cloud service is
a stable system available to the user at all times.
To
indulge yourself in TimeTec Cloud implementation, please feel free to read my article “Taking Attendance to a Higher Platform with TimeTec Cloud” in Beyond Biometrics 2013, the official FingerTec magazine.
By Daryl Choo, Chief Information Officer,
FingerTec HQ
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