Saturday, June 11, 2011

“What planning is needed for initial cloud projects?” – Q&A from the Trenches Series

rganizations typically conduct a lot of research on cloud providers and enabling technologies before making the decision to embark on their first cloud project. However, sometimes this extensive research and vendor selection effort gets confused with the actual project planning required for success of that initial cloud project.
After the decision is made to move forward with a cloud initiative, sometimes the urge to get our “stuff” on the cloud quickly is hard to resist. There hasn’t been a time in recent memory with more opportunity for IT but, with great opportunity comes great risk! We’ve all heard the saying that goes something like “automate a bad process and make bad stuff happen more quickly”. Cloud brings a myriad set of options for improving how your enterprise utilizes IT and executes its business objectives, but implementing it without sufficient upfront planning can bring serious risk and bring it very quickly.
Some of the biggest gaps I see in cloud project planning occur in the areas of Security, Policy and Governance. These are important considerations everyone should include in the review and planning portion of any project, before moving applications and workloads on to a cloud.
First let me say that I’m not an expert in security, policy or governance. If I have to be classified as an expert, it’s on the ownership and management characteristics of IT infrastructure. So, I’m not going to give you a detailed technical strategy for implementing your security or policy framework. Rather I’m going to focus on the planning and “ownership” point of view, both of which encompass having a clear set of goals and objectives for its implementation, management, and lifecycle.
Security: Planning here should include a well understood set of security requirements and usage characteristics for the project:
Who uses it?
Where and how will data be stored, shared, backed up, etc.?
Who will be supporting it?
What are the individual roles required?
Will it be a private cloud, hybrid cloud, or public cloud?
What are the characteristics of the network?
What experience does your internal network team have with cloud or highly virtualized environments? What are the current skill gaps & where can you get help?
What tools do you already have? Have you compared them against newer products/services on the market that are focused on security in a cloud?
Do your tools allow for automated policy enforcement on new instances?
What type of reporting and auditing will you have?
What about identity management? Is it integrated with your cloud management platform?
What are the partner requirements? Do you have the right partners, with appropriate experience? Should you audit current and proposed service providers? Have you evaluated team skills to identify gaps and training opportunities?
Where and how has security been factored in to your business continuity planning? Security, like an earthquake or a hardware failure, can be a threat to your availability. As such, your security strategy should match enterprise objectives for availability.
Governance and Policy: This includes governing how an instance is created, why it’s created, by whom, and under what restrictions it operates.
Governance and approval work flows should be well understood.
Document and enforce regulations/restrictions regarding data availability, storage location, and performance.
Establish a governance lifecycle that includes the creation and enforcement of policies for cloud workloads as they are planned, built, shared, and deployed.
Where will your instances reside and under what context or situations while they be put there or moved?
What is the performance criteria to determine right placement of workloads?
Define role-based access to assets and environments.
Ensure that automated approaches to scale, distribution and shutdown encompass enterprise policy controls.
What are the guidelines for allowing scale? How is scale approved?
How are Business Critical priorities mapped against threshold limitations
Change management strategy.
Roles and ownership
Who’s responsible for the delivery of cloud services
Who’s responsible for the cloud environment?
Are all the roles well defined?
Many times, the most valuable time spent on a project is the time spent during planning. Moving to cloud is no different. Make your move in a well-planned and controlled fashion so you can more rapidly benefit from new services, while not putting your team or the enterprise at risk.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Live From NY it's Cloud Expo 2011!

WOW sorry folks i have not kept this site up and running properly I thought everything was feeding and wow what a suprise i got yesterday when I was told it was not...bad me I am sorry.

Well Cloud Expo 2011 is at the big J in NY.  great time seeing everyone and looking forward to day 3 today.  See you their for @andimann at 9am and @servicemesh at 135 for sure the rest of the time i will be speaking, meeting and taking in all the information i can to assist you the buyers...


After a jam-packed Cloud Tuesday here in New York, Cloud Wednesday now begins!

Cloud Expo New York presents just as full a program today as it did yesterday, perhaps even more so. Which I why I'm sending you this note to encourage you to plan your choices carefully amid the myriad sessions and activities going on at on Day Three.

Welcome too to all those who are at the Javits to enjoy the RightScale User Conference, which is also in full swing all day today.

Registration to the Largest Cloud Computing Event in the World, and to the User Conference,.is open from 7:00AM here at the Javits, at the North side of the building. Come early and avoid those inevitable last-minute lines!
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8:15AM

We begin with a round of technical sessions this morning, so you have a choice from seven different sessions across seven different tracks. There is also our signature Cloud Computing Bootcamp, led by our 2011 Bootcamp Instructor Larry Carvalho. (Bootcamp is located in the large room under the escalator, as it were - 1A03.)


9:05AM

In the main keynote room, join the ever-popular Andi Mann, of CA Technologies, for a General Session in which he will be advocating that you "Follow YOUR Path to Cloud Computing" - Should you take an evolutionary path and transform your existing IT environment to a cloud of service computing…or do you jump to the “head of the cloud”, and revolutionize your approach with a comprehensive cloud solution…or both?


9:45AM

Abiquo CEO Pete Malcolm then gives today's Morning Keynote. His theme: "Ops or Apps - Who Will Own the Data Center of Tomorrow?" - Until recently, he will be telling us, Apps have been at the mercy of IT Operations to feed their need. However, with the advent of public cloud offerings, Apps can bypass Ops entirely and get the resources they need with just a few clicks and a credit card. So what's next?


10:30AM

Our booming Expo Floor opens, along with the Demo Theater, SYS-CON.TV live interviews, and the largest collection of Cloud solutions and services providers ever yet gathered in one place at one time. Enjoy!

11:45AM

John Engates, CTO of Rackspace, puts open source in the spotlight when he gives a General Session in the main keynote room on "The Inevitability of an Open Cloud"

12:30PM

For our full Conference Golden Pass holders, Luncheon is Served! Cloud Expo luncheons are legendary - pace yourself, there is a lot of food! :)
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Wednesday,  June 8, 2:30 PM  RightScale User Conference, Multi-Cloud Track

Enterprise-Ready Private and Hybrid Cloud Computing Today, Dr. Rich Wolski - Founder and CTO, Eucalyptus

Learn about the use of Eucalyptus, Amazon Web Services,  and the RightScale Cloud Management Platform to build enterprise-grade hybrid cloud computing environments while effectively automating and managing this ensemble of technologies.
12:45PM

For those who like fast-moving content with the lunch we have a CEO Power Panel in the main keynote room. The question to be discussed, by some of the sharpest minds in the industry (if you ignore me for a moment, hehe!): "Enterprise-Level Cloud Computing: Far-Off Dream or Present Reality?"

1:35PM

In the first post-lunch General Session, Dave Roberts from ServiceMesh will be outlining what he calls "The Big Win" - put another way, he'll be telling delegates to "Stop Playing Small-Ball with Your Cloud Strategy." He'll offer some great perspectives on how leading enterprise cloud adopters are swinging for the fences and running up the score.

2:25PM-4:00PM  Technical Breakout Sessions

Again, remember, technical sessions will be taking place simultaneously on all seven tracks, with some great sessions to choose from - you will receive a handy Daily Schedule as you register.

4:00PM  EXPO FLOOR RE-OPENS
- complete with afternoon snack break!

5:35 PM

The final two rounds of technical breakout sessions round off the day. As ever at CloudExpo, there are great sessions right up to the last minute.

Enjoy Day Three of the show. Remember to tag it as #CloudExpo in your tweets. Enjoy your "Cloud Wednesday" in scorching hot New York City!

Jeremy Geelan
Conference Chair
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