2012: Top 5 Trends for Cloud Computing
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Bangalore: The Cloud, though still in nascent stages of implementation has impermeated deep into the corporate structures. As the time passes by, so does the transformation of cloud in an expansive way, emerging out as a cost-effective business need. These are a few game changers for Cloud solutions during the year 2012: The Cloud Outages will Propel the Organizations to Forage for Better Quality Service Providers. A pertinent example is the outage of Amazon's Web services, which caused colossal losses for its corporate clients, in spite of the high budget spending on upgrading infrastructure among varied others. More instances of such breakdown of IT systems through erroneous software and unreliable hardware could be an eye-opener for the organizations wanting to tread the Cloud way. It demands more peruse choice in opting for a provider who can actually deliver the promises of the Service level agreements (SLA). A low budget cloud solutions does exist, but requires an overhead such as the implementing and coding the cloud services right from the beginning. The Key Player: Hybrid Cloud Computing There will be a steep rise in the usage of hybrid clouds, which could satiate the company's need to deal with securing the data and privacy concerns associated with the Public cloud. Interestingly, the Hybrid cloud serves the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where the computing powers are leveraged to its image processing tasks for celestial bodies. The dependence on mere Public clouds could prove fatal for more real-time processing tasks, which could also make the organization, a potential prospect for data thefts and increase the vulnerability. As a way of clear demarcation of business data, the critical and most valued data could be stored on the Private cloud premises, while the huge repertoire of less prominent information could go on to Public cloud. Nevertheless, the regulations and curtailing factors across the demographics are ruled out in a hybrid model. The Cloud Bursts as the Global Economic Crisis Swell As more financial markets continue to rumble persistently, the Cloud gets luckier. Its necessity will be insurmountable as the need for Data Analytics and storage of colossal information by the public sectors will be in multiples. The scalable feature of public cloud could be a savior for business houses and other establishments at occasions such as IT system shutdowns and sudden outbursts in sales. The Cloud could play as backup computing device during such catastrophe and also to store sudden bursts of data. According to Ovum, the leading technology adviser, though there is a natural inclination towards Cloud during such times of uncertainty, it also underlines the call for prudent evaluation of the perils along with the merits. Research Director, Ovum, Dr Steve Hodgkinson said "Governments need to look beyond the hype and see the reality of both the opportunities and risks of cloud computing and factor these into both their industry development policies and their internal IT strategies." The Rapid Demand for Cloud Security The reliability factor is a decisive player in the success of a cloud implementation across corporate houses. People find it hard to transgress from the notion that Public clouds are less secure than the Private clouds. However, a further in-depth analysis has revealed that proper security mechanisms and designs, tools are of paramount significance, regardless of the data location. A security service such as Identity management is preeminent in multi-tenant cloud providers, where a single instance of an Operating System runs on Cloud premises, delivering services to multiple clients, offering differentiated services. For security reasons, documenting the access of some of the key business data is quintessential along with the creation and maintaining logs; which aids the administrator in monitoring and audits. Furthermore, the service should be available for the stipulated or the agreed time. The masking of personal data using robust Cryptographic methods is an imperative task for a cloud implementation. In addition, the Cloud system should be well-provisioned to automatically generate warning messages and failure notifications. OpenStack: the Future of Open Source Cloud Solutions OpenStack, the Open Source cloud project initiated by NASA and RackSpace, has massive support from IT big-wigs across the globe. The platform comprises of two components: OpenStack Compute and OpenStack Storage. True to its name, the former maintains a pool of servers for scheduling and assign jobs dynamically to cloud subscribers, while OpenStack Storage runs the task of storing huge chunks of data, which could be terabytes in length. The OpenStack makes full usage of the scalable feature of Cloud while constantly releasing the updates and patches for the software.

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