Cloud computing has impacted many areas of society and the business world. In some cases, the benefits that organizations realize by using cloud services are transparent to the majority of the population. Most people are not overly concerned with how an organization designs its infrastructure unless they are directly affected by it. One industry that everyone interacts with at one time or another is healthcare. 

Requirements of the Healthcare Industry

The ways that the healthcare industry is using cloud services will change the way medical care and information are handled throughout the world. Healthcare is a highly regulated industry and has some specific requirements that must be met by a cloud provider. These are some of the most important characteristics that are essential components of cloud computing for healthcare.  

• High data availability is of primary concern to healthcare providers. This includes effective backup, recovery, and disaster recovery procedures that eliminate or minimize downtime. 

• Security is another factor that is critical to viable healthcare cloud solutions. Sensitive personal and patient data needs to be protected against unauthorized access and data breaches.  

• Data protection regulations such as the GDPR or HIPAA demand that providers demonstrate that their infrastructures and policies comply with the standards defined in the legislation. 

Benefits of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

There are potential advantages to both healthcare providers and consumers as more organizations make use of cloud computing. The following are some of the ways that the cloud services are transforming healthcare.

Increased Storage Capacity

The healthcare industry works with immense amounts of data that cannot easily be accommodated by in-house storage solutions. As big data is incorporated by healthcare organizations for analytics, storage needs rapidly increase. One of the overriding factors in all areas of healthcare is controlling costs, and the cloud offers a procurement model where you only pay for what you need and use.

In addition to keeping costs under control, the flexibility built into many cloud models enables organizations to rapidly scale up and down as their needs change. As new data channels open up and more health-related data needs to be analyzed, the ability to dynamically modify storage capacity can increase enterprise productivity. Backup, restore, and disaster recovery are standard offerings that accompany cloud storage.

Information Sharing and Collaboration

The ability to share electronic health records (EHRs) among healthcare providers and facilities results in better and more effective patient care. EHRs that are stored on the same cloud network are more easily accessible by multiple providers than those housed in a single facility. Healthcare organizations are moving toward better integration of EHRs in dedicated systems. Collaborative cloud analytics can help produce innovative medical techniques beyond the capability of individual institutions. 

Ensuring Security of Sensitive Personal Information

Public cloud providers can offer enhanced security over that which can be implemented by individual organizations. This is extremely important due to the focus that cybercriminals put on the healthcare industry. Ransomware attacks on healthcare providers were on the rise as 2019 came to a close.

Cloud security is a shared responsibility between the provider and customer. Healthcare organizations need to keep this in mind and fully understand the role each party plays in protecting the sensitive information they choose to keep in the cloud. 

Adoption numbers continue to increase steadily for cloud technology. To this end, Gartner recently predicted the public cloud market will grow 17 percent in 2020 to a total of $266.4 billion, up from $227.8 billion in 2019. The research and advisory firm also pointed out that because public cloud is now considered mainstream, the expectations for the outcomes associated with such investments are also higher.

Since adoption for the cloud is on the rise, let’s take a look at all three cloud types. What is the best solution for your organization? Hosted private cloud, public cloud, or a hybrid combination of the two?

Private Cloud
Private cloud hosting consists of hardware (servers, networking, storage) owned by the same company consuming the resources. This is typically hosted in a data center and connected by the company’s network infrastructure. The challenge here is the management and overhead that comes with a private cloud. You need employees or managed services to maintain, update and provision resources. Additionally, you must worry about refresh cycles of the hardware, hardware maintenance contracts, software licensing and physical space requirements. All of this can add up quickly from a cost perspective. Provisioning of services can take time as well, as resource limitations have to be considered, and outgrowing your infrastructure could cause another increase in capital spend.

Public Cloud
The biggest difference here in relation to private cloud is that with this type of hosting solution, you and your company aren’t responsible for any of the physical hardware management. Rather than being hosted on-site or on a private network, your data is stored in your provider’s data center and they are responsible for all management and maintenance. This is an attractive option for many businesses, especially small businesses, with limited IT resources and staff. The downside is that some feel that security can be lacking—depending on your provider. Many public cloud offerings outside of the hyperscale clouds also offer managed services and software maintenance.

Hybrid Cloud
A hybrid cloud is actually a mixture or combination of private cloud and public cloud, and it’s a nice middle ground for companies that are more comfortable storing sensitive data on a private server but are okay with using public cloud for daily operations. According to the RightScale 2019 State of the Cloud Report, a surprising 69 percent of enterprises are using a multi-cloud strategy, while hybrid strategy grew to 58 percent in 2019 from 51 percent in 2018. So, it is probably a pretty good assumption that more SMBs and other organizations will follow this path in 2020.

Cloud implementation is fairly straightforward. In just two steps, you can maintain business continuity and availability across cloud environments. The benefits are abundant (agentless backups, deduplication and compression, inexpensive offsite backups) and there also isn’t a need for an additional hardware appliance. Keep in mind that while cloud does require additional resources on the VM that’s running it, you’ll experience better control of the resources deployed when a restore is required. This can help organizations leverage the growing demand for modern data protection and also equip them with the resources needed to reduce expenses, mitigate risk and fully realize the promise of virtualization. This does require some technical knowledge and know-how, however.  

If you just aren’t up to the task of migrating your company to the cloud, consider managed cloud services. The same Gartner report referenced above predicts that by 2022 up to 60 percent of organizations will use an external service provider’s cloud managed service offering. This is double the percentage of organizations from 2018. The report also notes that cloud-native capabilities, application services, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud comprise a diverse cloud ecosystem that will be important differentiators for technology product managers.

Whichever cloud option you decide upon, such migration is a solid step forward for your business. With all the security concerns, having one server to do it all just isn’t feasible anymore. The cloud offers the ability to have multiple servers, redundancy and the flexibility to scale up or scale down as needed. It also provides you with additional capability to expand without making significant changes to your network. Overall, both the demand and strong support for strategic cloud services herald a shift toward a digital business environment, something that’s an obvious trend for 2020. What does the cloud hold for your organization in 2020? The choice is yours.

Tiffany Bloomer is the President of Aventis Systems, Inc., a leading provider of information technology hardware, software and services. Learn more by visiting

https://www.aventissystems.com/.

The IT world continues to migrate more of its workflow to cloud providers and there is no indication that this pattern will slow down anytime soon. A cloud presence presents a new avenue through which a corporation’s data resources can be attacked by cybercriminals. While some of the risks are essentially the same as with an on-premises data center, there are additional factors that need to be considered when cloud instances are in play.

Addressing the heightened risks associated with the cloud requires that they are understood and identified as potentially affecting an organization’s computing environment. Here are some things to watch out for if your enterprise is making use of public cloud services.

Container Vulnerability

Containers are lightweight virtual machines that enable faster deployment due to their speed and simplicity. The ease at which containers can be deployed may result in security gaps that are quickly replicated leading to more systems that are vulnerable to attack. Many companies are using containers extensively and they are becoming the foundation of many cloud offerings. A vulnerability in a container that is reused throughout an organization gives hackers a much broader target and requires remediation efforts to be enacted across multiple systems.

Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is a specific form of malware that compromises system resources and uses them to verify the transactions used to mine for cryptocurrency. It is an alternative method to ransomware with which hackers do not need to elicit a response from their victims. Rather than demand a ransom, they simply infect systems and use them to perform crypto mining in the background. The cost to the affected businesses is reduced computing capacity for which they are being charged by cloud providers. Cryptojacking malware has been observed that can uninstall cloud security programs and escape detection. 

Data Breaches

Data breaches afflicting cloud services can destroy the financial health of a business and cause irreparable harm to its reputation. The enormous data breach that affected Capital One in 2019 was the result of a known vulnerability revolving around a misconfigured system communicating with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Customers using AWS in the same way as Capital One are responsible for their system configuration. It is critically important that organizations using cloud services are aware of how security is being implemented to avoid this type of disaster.

Lack of Cloud Understanding and Inadequate Security Training

A thorough understanding of the underlying technology is essential for employees in organizations that make use of the cloud. Without being informed regarding the capabilities and potential vulnerabilities of cloud services, it is impossible for individuals to know if their behavior may be contributing to compromised enterprise security. Security awareness goes hand-in-hand with a knowledge of the systems that it is intended to address. It is up to upper-management to devise viable training programs that cover the way the cloud impacts security efforts. All employees need to refrain from acting in inappropriate ways that can threaten the organization.

The benefits offered by engaging cloud services are real and will continue to entice more companies to migrate some or all of their systems to avail themselves of the advantages. They need to be aware of the risks that may accompany their journey. 

According to research by the Gartner Group, the worldwide public cloud services market is expected to grow to over $266 billion in 2020. This represents a 17% increase compared to spending in 2019. While software as a service (SaaS) is the largest market segment, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is growing faster than any other component of the cloud computing paradigm. It is expected to reach $50 billion in 2020 with 24% yearly growth. These numbers illustrate the fact that many enterprises are trusting their infrastructure with public cloud providers.

IaaS implementations put more emphasis on customer responsibility than do other forms of cloud computing. When an enterprise moves their infrastructure to the cloud, they are still responsible for areas such as the operating systems, virtual network, middleware, and applications that provide its computing resources. This reliance on homegrown IT talent and procedures can lead to disastrous consequences if it cannot handle the complexities of properly configuring the cloud infrastructure.

The Many Manifestations of Misconfiguration

There are many different issues involved in the misconfiguration of cloud systems which threaten to account for the vast majority of security failures by 2022. The problem with cloud security is not inherently associated with the cloud. The issue lies with the technologies and policies that are used to implement its security and control access to an organization’s computing resources. Here are some of the most important points that need to be considered by enterprises when employing the IaaS cloud computing model.

• Understanding the division of responsibilities is vitally important when undertaking any move to a public cloud provider. Organizations may have begun their cloud migration by testing the water when using an SaaS offering that provides additional or new functionality to their computing environment. This can leave them with a false sense of security regarding the degree to which they need to be involved in system configuration. Whereas the cloud provider is charged with configuring and securing SaaS instances, this is not the case where infrastructure is concerned. The lines between customer and provider responsibilities need to be clearly understood and agreed to when implementing the IaaS model.

• Data access and security are of paramount importance in any IT system. These areas achieve even greater prominence in cloud implementations where there are additional entities who may come in contact with enterprise data. Mistakes such as allowing storage devices to be accessible through an Internet connection or failing to turn on encryption to protect enterprise information are examples of this type of oversight. The keys required to access encrypted data should remain with the organization when at all possible to eliminate potential security risks beyond its control.

• User interfaces and APIs are other areas that need to be addressed when adopting the IaaS cloud model. These interfaces warrant close scrutiny as they are often the only asset with public IP addresses that enable anyone to gain entry into the systems. Weak security regarding interfaces and APIs can result in confidentiality, accountability, and availability problems with the systems behind them. Using standard and open API frameworks can help minimize the complications involved in locking down these potential security gaps.

The cloud offers many benefits to organizations that choose to take advantage of them. Every enterprise that implements the IaaS model needs to acknowledge and address the issues that may lead to system vulnerability or risk catastrophic security breaches.

As businesses continue discovering the benefits that cloud computing can present with regard to efficiency and profitability, the use of cloud technologies continues to skyrocket. In the US for example, at least 70 percent of companies, whether public, private, or hybrid use cloud computing according to research done by IDG in 2016.

Owing to the evidence of the impact of cloud computing which has been seen over time, people are no longer talking about why cloud computing should be adopted. Rather, they now talk about how they can move operations and services to the cloud. These are the issues you need to consider before migrating to the cloud:

1. Make sure your cloud applications are an improvement to the on-premise applications you already have

Every business’ intention is to have systems that are better than what they already have in order to compete favorably in a highly competitive business landscape. This is no exception when migrating to the cloud. Your new cloud systems must give you the competitive edge you need as you cannot afford to lose anything when migrating to the cloud.  Ensure that you only pay for what you will use to avoid duplication and costs. You should ensure that you change everything to meet the shifting demands by improving the efficiency of your systems.

2. Decide where and what processes to start with

Moving to a cloud is not something you start and finish once. Rather, you need to have a concrete plan that involves moving operations in phases to avoid total disaster in case of a failure. Since it is new technology, it requires a phased approach where simple business processes are moved first and lessons learned from the previous phase applied to the next one. For a company that has subsidiaries or branches, you can start with one branch and scale your deployment to other branches.

3. Manage compatibility and interoperability with other vendors

Interoperability is perhaps one of the leading areas of concern when migrating to the cloud. As you select your cloud vendors, one of the leading areas you should investigate is compatibility of architecture and applications with other vendors. Incompatibility can cost your business a lot and can be the cause of problems when you want to migrate to another cloud service provider. You should also address integration issues that can create separate silos and affect operations.

4. Ensure the strategy of your vendor aligns to your company’s business strategy

Failure to align cloud strategy to business strategy remains the single most challenging area for many organizations and ends up jeopardizing everything. Before you commit to a cloud vendor, take your time to acquaint yourself with the architectural requirements of the service provider. Ensure that the service provider you choose offers all the capabilities that a company needs such as reporting options, budgeting features, and planning options as well as regulatory compliance. Most importantly, ensure that the vendor has integration and security strategies that can be verified by other businesses. Furthermore, inquire the investment of the vendor on future technologies such as blockchain, machine learning and IoT all of which signify intentions of the company to adapt to the future as you would always want your company to do.

IT departments responsible for facilitating the migration of companies’ cloud-based infrastructure often find themselves struggling due to the many issues they face. Most of these challenges are due to the complexity of managing different environments. The issues have been made even more difficult by the growing number of the new cloud initiatives which increases complexity therefore leaving the IT teams wondering about how they are going to update legacy IT environments and processes into a state that befits the prevailing digital space.

Mistakes are common in many IT projects. However, any project management professional will tell you that some mistakes are just too risky and some can even keep you from moving forward and succeeding. The same can be said about cloud migration. Cloud migration mistakes can be costly and companies can lose not only money but also time. If the company fails to identify these mistakes early, chances are that the mistakes can end up badly impacting not only the performance but may also damage confidence in your company’s cloud strategy. It may also lead to loss of confidence in the company’s IT team leaders which may hamper adoption of cloud strategy. As an IT team leader therefore, you should identify the potential issues that you can encounter while implementing cloud strategy and address them to ensure that your cloud deployment is successful. Here are three crucial issues that you need to watch in migrating to the cloud.

1. Failure to analyze your apps before the migration

Failure to analyze the company’s applications before migrating to the cloud is an issue that has bungled many cloud strategies. Before any kind of movement, you will need to do an analysis of applications to determine whether they are good for migration or not. For instance, you can do this by splitting the apps into two groups of apps – one listing the apps which will be replaced and the other of those which will be migrated. For example, you can replace on-premise email application with a cloud app like Microsoft’s Office 365. As an IT manager, you should consider checking how sensitive the application is to compliance. Companies on the other hand should be aware of apps which are sensitive to workloads. Initial app analysis enables a company to identify the attributes of all apps and enables one to avoid potential issues during the migration phase.

2. Not carrying out business analysis before migration

Embarking on migration without a clear business case is another issue which sees companies trying unsuccessfully to migrate to the cloud without understanding the benefits of it. Although some may think that migrating to the cloud is as easy as picking an application and moving it, the truth actually is that lack of business analysis may jeopardize everything. The analysis should include financial implications of migration, requirements, space required and the benefits that migrating to the cloud brings.

3. Inadequate training

 Although you might be in charge of many IT personnel, there are chances that most of them don’t know a lot about the cloud. This might be worse when it comes to cloud migration which makes the whole thing more complex. Since finding cloud-savvy employees can be expensive, you will have to train your personnel to reduce problems that are encountered and increase speed. You might need to find some consultants who are experienced in this area to train employees on the correct cloud migration strategies and how the it can be used in general. Inadequate training may cause legacy knowledge to be brought into the cloud which in the end may impact productivity and strategy in general. This has been one of the biggest challenges that many companies encounter during cloud migration.

Going by the discussions that are happening in the corporate world and the evident influx of new technologies, it is clear that businesses are changing their approaches to computing. Businesses have gone digital. It’s impossible to talk about computing without mentioning cloud computing, which is perhaps the leading buzzword in the world of technology. It’s promising to alter the corporate landscape for the better.

A critical factor to consider is how it can be used best and managed appropriately to achieve the needs of a company and explore cloud computing’s full potential. Here are the 4 most important things that companies need to understand about cloud computing and its management.

Performance

It is true that cloud computing can offer enhanced performance. However, it is important to note that there are instances whereby erratic performance can be experienced. This, of course, depends on the vendor. That’s why selecting the right vendor is critical. Before making a long-term commitment, make sure that you have a service level agreement (SLA) which guarantees all services required and which you are paying for. You also need to ensure that the services will always be available and verify the guaranteed availability before initiating the agreement

Security

For any company security of information is the most important aspect that must be guaranteed by a cloud service provider. It is not always easy to keep the systems secure as this requires investment in both technical and non-technical resources. Public cloud service providers are often highly secured and have cutting edge security mechanisms making them highly protected. Ensure you have highly trained employees to handle all emergencies with regard to security and be aware of the cost associated.

Portability

Before making a commitment to sign for a particular vendor, always take into account interoperability and portability. Many companies struggle with vendor-lock after signing up with some cloud companies. Among the leading issues which have been reported are setups of architectures and tools that some cloud vendors use which make migrating to another provider expensive and difficult. When looking for a vendor and during configuration, you should always make sure that industry standard settings such as APIs, data formats and protocols are used. This makes migration from one vendor to another not only less complicated but also less expensive.

Expertise

With the ever-changing technological landscape, new challenges associated with having the right expertise crop up. Consequently, managing services driven by technologies such as cloud computing require the right human resources to ensure operations run efficiently. This has become a huge challenge to organizations as experts in cloud computing are few and cloud technologies change constantly. So, IT staff must be trained adequately and regularly to handle different aspects of cloud computing. Also consider getting outside help to fill the existing gaps.

Government and private agencies are now shifting their computing operations to the cloud. This has been accelerated by the huge advantages that the cloud has over legacy IT because of its effectiveness, cost efficiency, scalability, and performance. However, various cloud computing issues still haunt its users. These challenges are mostly associated with the increased levels of complexity that demand that the CIO identifies the right vendor for the applications to run on and the features available from the stated vendor. These are some of the most important issues you need to address when planning to move your operations to the cloud.

Have a well-defined strategy and a business objective

There are various reasons why you should consider migrating to the cloud which includes agility, cost, scalability, digital transformation and flexibility. However, many people don’t get it right when it comes to aligning the cloud strategy with the business strategy. Your organization’s business strategy must dictate the cloud strategy. This may be complex in many instances as many companies may face problems due to lack of alignment of cloud strategy with the existing business objectives.

Security, time and cost

Cost is a significant issue faced by companies, but cost, security and time are also major stumbling blocks. Transferring data to the cloud is often a slow process that can take both man hours and bandwidth to succeed. Moreover, cloud computing being a new technology raises some security doubts which need to be understood and addressed accordingly. Overcoming these challenges is often one of the biggest hurdles but must be addressed regardless.

Get people and processes right

The biggest challenge when it comes to the adoption of cloud is not technology. On the contrary, it is usually people and processes. These two must change to adapt to the new needs and changes in the organization. However, this may end up taking a lot of time therefore negatively affecting cloud adoption. For you to manage transition easily, consider adding tech innovation test centers to make the entire process easier. Large companies are likely to face massive challenges when it comes to adopting the cloud fully as a result of complications which may come up in the transition process.

Select the right platform

Among the leading cloud computing issues is the failure by companies to pick the right platform. CIOs should always take their time to compare platforms and choose the most appropriate one that meets the technical requirements for each workload. The chosen platform should also meet the unique needs of your firm and suit its line of business. A smart company performs a comparative analysis of the existing platforms and chooses the one which fits all its business needs.

In summary, cloud transformation is a long process that can be simplified with the right expertise. To effect a successful cloud adoption, you should always keep in mind that selection of cloud vendors is a process and not an event and a process is a step by step undertaking.

Mainframe Industries seeks to develop cloud native video games, reports Venture Beat. 

Mainframe Industries has raised $8.3 million to develop cloud-native games in a financing led by Andreessen Horowitz, with additional investment from Riot Games.

Read article on Venture Beat

While other industries face the economic impact of Covid-19 Amazon, Microsofit and Google remain in good financial position, reports Business Insider. 

The coronavirus crisis is ravaging the stock markets as businesses shut down or figure out how to work remotely. But cloud providers, particularly Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google Cloud, should be relatively safe from this turmoil, experts say.

Read article on Business Insider

With cloud based labs scientists have the ability to work from home, reports IEEE Spectrum.

Working from home is the new normal, at least for those of us whose jobs mostly involve tapping on computer keys. But what about researchers who are synthesizing new chemical compounds or testing them on living tissue or on bacteria in petri dishes? 

Read article on IEEE Spectrum

According to SDX Central, AWS has pledged $20 million dollars to help fund research into Covid-19.

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the world’s largest cloud companies and chipmakers are giving researchers massive compute power for free — and, in some cases investing millions of dollars — to help them better understand the coronavirus, advance testing efforts, and find a cure.

Read article on SDX Central

Cloud computing platforms have been marketed for years as a cheaper option. However, despite the popularity that the cloud has gained, the truth is that organizations still face challenges as they try to manage costs. According to a study by Flexera, a company that offers IT management software, 84 percent of companies find optimization of cloud costs a challenge, while a survey in 2019 also revealed that organizations underestimate their wastage when it comes to cloud computing. This shows that the advantages of using cloud are not always clear, and the cost ends up being more than what companies anticipate.

Migrating from on-site storage to the cloud is one of the top aspects that make cloud expensive. As companies look for cloud applications and infrastructure during their migration, they may find themselves incurring high costs. When organizations are analyzing the cost of cloud platforms, some often assume that the cloud is the same as on-premise deployments. The reality, however, is that cloud platforms provide enterprise-grade applications, networks and servers that mean high upfront costs. They also enable organizations to deploy in minutes with little expertise that would otherwise be required in case of in-house servers.

Bigger gets better

The issue of cost control comes from the ability of organizations to exploit the standard pricing structures of prominent cloud vendors. Doing so helps them get value for their money and gives them the capability to negotiate their own deals with cloud vendors out of the existing standard pricing strictures. Mature organizations have an advantage when it comes to getting better bargains for their money, according to KPMG. Cloud computing service providers such as AWS seem to favor such organizations if they commit to a specific level of compute with incremental discounts. However, companies that have limited resources and cannot commit to high computing power will not get these discounts and end up spending more.

While mature companies have experience and tools to help them plan better, small organizations on the other hand may encounter various challenges mainly due to poor planning. Better planning may translate to better deals depending on how companies reserve their computing power. Proper planning means that a company can understand what they need, when, how and in the process make a good bargain that is devoid of wastage. Large companies can also offer creative deals to cloud service providers. An example of a good deal is between BP, an energy company and AWS, who reached an agreement where BP can offer 170 MW of renewable energy in exchange for cloud computing services.

Making the deal

Although creativity can be critical in such negotiations, companies in need of cloud services must prepare adequately. How they manage cloud consumption is a challenge in getting value for the investment. Identifying what your company needs and what it does not require for its operations is crucial to maintaining the operational costs and ensuring there is value out of services that you get from service providers. You have to look at early adopters and learn from their mistakes since going to the market with enough knowledge gives your company room to negotiate. Similarly, companies must forecast demand to ensure that cloud applications and databases are configured to meet any possible event in the market and minimize consumption. Leaving everything to the service provider is also not worth it.

The bottom line is, if properly managed, cloud can offer capabilities that would otherwise be too expensive and highly labor intensive when done in-house. However, the ability to scale up and down is an aspect that many organizations fail to capitalize on that leaves cloud expensive for some. Using this flexibility of the cloud as required will make it economical and equally effective.

When an organization decides to move some or all of its computing environment to the cloud, selecting the right provider is of paramount importance. Making the right choice can lead to a fruitful relationship with a cloud partner that benefits your business. Selecting the wrong provider may result in unfulfilled expectations regarding the financial and operational implications of the move.

There are many cloud providers from which to make your choice. While Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure are currently the biggest players, many smaller and more specialized providers exist that may make sense for a particular implementation. This post offers some guidance as to what to look for in a provider and some questions to answer before entering into a contract with one of them.

Differentiating Characteristics of Cloud Providers

Getting past the marketing hype can be difficult, as every provider believes they have the best solution for your needs. Here are some specific factors that should be considered before committing to a cloud provider. 

Security and compliance - The security of your systems and data are critical no matter where they are located. Trusting them to the cloud requires you to determine how basic security will be provided and if there are additional protections that can be obtained at an extra cost. There are shared security responsibilities in a cloud implementation, with both customer and vendor sharing the burden of protecting the environment. Compliance is also performed in a shared manner and the details need to be fully understood to avoid the inability to provide evidence that your systems are complying with security and privacy regulations.

Management responsibilities - Varying degrees of customer involvement in managing the cloud platform result from adopting different cloud models. A Software as a Service (SaaS) implementation will usually require very little customer management, whereas they may have significant responsibility for a move that employs the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model.

Architecture and storage - The underlying architecture used by the provider may influence your decision to use them for your cloud computing needs. Certain providers may use tools and applications that facilitate integrating your environment into their infrastructure. For instance, if your business relies heavily on Microsoft products, you may benefit from discounts and licenses offered through Azure. The method used to store your data and the flexibility afforded in how and when you can access it are other factors that need to be clarified.

Pricing structure - Billing may be done in a variety of ways and some of them may work better in a particular situation. Most providers offer on-demand payment plans with some also providing discounts for long-term or volume usage.

Other considerations - You may also be concerned with the physical location and safety of the data center that will house your environment. Other important factors include the history of downtime and level of support you can expect from the provider when a problem arises. 

Putting it All Together

A thorough investigation of the factors outlined above will help your organization make a good choice when selecting their cloud provider. You need to enter the relationship with a full understanding of what you are getting, how much it will cost, and the expectations that will be placed on your team. Taking the time to determine these facts before the engagement begins makes it much more probable that your journey to the cloud will return the benefits you desire. 

Rackspace recently rebranded and is focusing on providing unbiased managed cloud services. CEO Joe Eazor stated the rebranding of the company is intended to emphasize that “the primary goal is to accelerate the allure of the cloud for customers.” Rackspace is meeting customers where they are currently at with their cloud systems and assisting with the roadmap. The timing of this is very good as the adaptation of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud becomes the norm across the enterprise landscape. According to a Forrester research report, 74 percent of enterprises have added the hybrid cloud to their organizational roadmap.

New offerings from Rackspace include:

Managed VMware Cloud

VMware Cloud features VMware’s enterprise grade SDDC software in the AWS Cloud with access to native AWS services. VMware Cloud on AWS integrates VMware products (VMware vSphere, VMware vSAN and VMware NSX)  and VMware vCenter Server management that is configured to run on dedicated, bare-metal AWS infrastructure. VMware Cloud on AWS provides services between VMware datacenters and the AWS cloud, which integrates environments for easier management and better security. Having access to AWS services extends the value of enterprise programs over their product life cycle.

Kubernetes and Container Services

Rackspace launched its first managed Kubernetes service as part of the rebranding effort. Ramakant Pandrangi, Vice President of Product Management for managed hosting and private clouds at Rackspace, says “Rackspace will offer a managed service based on a handful of distributions of Kubernetes running on public clouds and on-premises IT environments. Initially, the focus will be on the Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) from Amazon Web Services, the Anthos platform from Google and the Pivotal Container Service (PKS) from VMware.” Kubernetes will be supported for both virtual machines and bare-metal servers.

Cloud-Native Support

This service will include Cloud Reliability Engineering. A Rackspace team of cloud infrastructure engineers will work with an organization’s internal IT team on cloud projects. This includes planning and deploying cloud infrastructure and optimizing cloud-native capabilities.

Rackspace Managed Security (RMS) Service Blocks 

The current product line, which includes managed security has been expanded to include proactive detection and response. Customers on VMware private clouds can also receive assistance with compliance. Managed public cloud customers will also receive support for native cloud security utilities on all the leading public clouds, starting with AWS.  This will help organizations integrate their managed cloud security into a single pane of glass.

Integration and API Management Assessment

Software purchasing decisions usually involve input from multiple decision makers across multiple departments. Often the opinions from users in departments are much different than the IT teams who are responsible for integrating and deploying these applications. The Rackspace Integration and API Management Assessment is designed to evaluate the current status of software integration. This is done from multiple perspectives including data, process analysis and current applications. From this assessment Rackspace will recommend integration strategies that align with company objectives and goals. This unbiased expertise and evaluation is outcome focused instead of product focused to narrow in on the best overall solution for the organization.

Developments in cloud computing have spurred many businesses and organizations to leverage the power available in this 21st Century technological paradigm. Cloud providers are constantly honing their offerings and introducing new methods to attract and serve their customers. They are also jockeying for position as they strive to increase their share of this very lucrative market. Amazon currently leads providers with 33% of the cloud infrastructure services market. Google, Microsoft, IBM, and AliBaba are the other large players in the field. They all are following accepted business practices and searching for ways to bolster their customer base.

The Big Get Bigger

One of the strategies that companies use when attempting to expand control over a market segment is to engage in mergers and acquisitions. This behavior is evident in the realm of major cloud providers. Here are some recent examples. 

• IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat, a developer of open-source enterprise software, is designed to strengthen the company’s cloud offerings as they compete with other market leaders. The deal cost Big Blue $34 billion in cash and stock. 

• Google Cloud acquired Elastifile to bolster its storage capabilities. Elastifile provides a software-based technique for managing network-attached storage (NAS) which Google plans to incorporate into its cloud storage offerings. 

• Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub will enable the company to strengthen its relationship with the developer community. The $7.5 billion deal will facilitate the use of Microsoft tools and services by the over 28 million GitHub developers and their products. 

These moves by some of the giant cloud providers are concentrating resources and intellectual capital within a small pool of corporations. In the opinion of corporate management, due to the economies of scale that their organizations provide, they can achieve the greatest benefits from these technologies. Believing that altruism is the complete rationale behind the mergers is foolish. All of these companies are driven by the need to continuously generate profits, and acquiring new skillsets contributes to that goal.

The Dangers of Too Much Consolidation

While consolidation may be attractive to the giant cloud providers, the practice may expose customers to some potential issues. As with any industry, consolidation in the cloud will undoubtedly lead to fewer alternative solutions for prospective and current clients. Monopolization of any market segment presents the prospect of price-fixing, taking advantage of the lack of competition for a particular service. The cloud will not be immune to this ailment. 

This absence of competitive alternatives ties in with the concept of cloud vendor lock-in. In this scenario, a vendor employs proprietary technology solutions that make it difficult for customers to adopt a new provider. This can be problematic for financial reasons if better deals for the equitable services can be obtained elsewhere. It can also result in the inability to optimize your cloud environment by migrating to advanced technologies that better serve your needs.

There is not much that the average IT professional can do about this phenomenon. It is something that you should be aware of and keep in mind as you plan to move your business-critical applications to the cloud. Your future choices may be more limited than they are today, so make them wisely.