1. Practical IT Research that Drives Measurable Results Select the Right Cloud Infrastructure Service Partner

2. Introduction External public compute clouds are expected to play a major role in hosting selected application workloads in the near future. With cloud hype growing, so to is the number of potential cloud computing partners. Most enterprises are in early stage evaluation of various cloud-based options including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds (for both processing and storage). Success in IaaS partner selection depends on careful assessment of what workloads and data are best candidates for the cloud followed by assessment of vendor offerings and total cost of solutions. This solution set will help you: Understand and Assess Cloud Computing Opportunities Identify Leading Vendors and Compare Capabilities Select an Appropriate Vendor

3. Executive Summary Smaller enterprises should take advantage of compelling opportunities in infrastructure-as-a-service. Take advantage of lower financial and technical barriers to entry to accomplish what otherwise would be cost-prohibitive. Evaluators and implementers say up front capital cost savings and rapid deployment are strong positive reasons for adopting cloud solutions. Consider appropriateness of each candidate application. Few expect the cloud to be the home for all application workloads and data. The critical exercise will be to identify those applications and data which can be moved to a public cloud and then selecting a service provider that best meets the needs of IT for that particular workload. Navigate an increasing number of cloud service options. With “cloud” being slapped on just about any service by marketing hype machines, it is important to be clear about the kind of cloud service being sought and the requirements of a specific service. Infrastructure-as-a-Service vendors will be evaluated on: – Available features – Affordability – Usability – Vendor viability, including geographic presence – Support Compare against total cost of internal hosting. A key advantage of Infrastructure-as-a-Service is that an initiative in the cloud can be provisioned rapidly and at low cost (do it fast and do it cheap). Longer term total cost savings are not as clear. In selecting a cloud service, consider both the relative upfront costs and longer term costs of hosting a given workload and/or associated data on internal infrastructure.

4. Infrastructure Cloud Service Selection Roadmap Strategize Separate the Opportunity from the Hype Assess Applications Workloads, Service Providers, Total Costs Compare Identify Service Providers and Compare Costs/Capabilities Select A Deeper Look at Risk and Total Cost for Small Enterprises

5. Beyond the hype: third party compute clouds will be a significant part of enterprise computing A significant majority see the Cloud becoming a place for the efficient deployment and hosting of selected key applications and processes. Few see the cloud as an eventual wholesale replacement for internal infrastructure; however, even fewer see the cloud as not playing any role. n=124 n=123 Source: Info-Tech Research Group Cloud Computing is the future for the next 3-5 years, as it empowers the business to deploy and integrate applications faster than with traditional models.” ~ Director, Finance “ But these are the early days... n=123... A majority have yet to deploy Clouds and enterprise IT in three to five years

6. Using “the Cloud” instead of onsite servers and storage is an infrastructure service rental decision. A cloud is not a product. Abstracted compute resources (processor cycles, memory, storage) that are typically derived from aggregated and virtualized commodity hardware. This aggregated and virtualized infrastructure is typically owned by an external third party (outside IT). Application workloads are provisioned by these abstracted resources which are elastic (they scale up with need). Cloud service customers share access to these resources (typically via the Internet) in a multi-tenant environment. What is a compute cloud?  The three types of cloud-enabled service are Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).  Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) involves direct rental of abstracted compute services such as processing and storage.  Typically these services are packaged and accessed as virtual entities (virtual machines, virtual storage targets).  Examples: Amazon EC2 (virtual server computing services) and S3 (storage services). See Info-Tech’s solution set “Use Cloud Computing to Achieve Small Enterprise Savings” for more information on opportunities with the three types of cloud enabled services.Use Cloud Computing to Achieve Small Enterprise Savings Info-Tech Insight: Infrastructure as a Service is but one cloud-enabled service.

7. A clear majority (more than 70%) are evaluating, planning to deploy, or have deployed cloud-enabled IaaS solutions. n=123 Source: Info-Tech Research Group Most of those who say they have already deployed a “cloud” solution are likely using SaaS (such as Saleforce.com). IaaS and PaaS solutions are mostly in early evaluation stages. This solution set is part of the servers and storage virtualization research map. IaaS is infrastructure rental of external virtual servers and storage. Selection of SaaS solutions is selection of software (the first S in SaaS). Cloud is only part of the cost evaluation. Selection of PaaS is primarily driven by the developer’s choice of platform. Evaluating Cloud-enabled solutions Why focus on Cloud IaaS partners? It’s not for lack of interest in SaaS and PaaS: Info-Tech Insight:

8. Substantially lower infrastructure capital cost and rapid deployment are what make clouds an attractive opportunity Cloud-based services have significantly lower capital cost barriers to deployment than deployment scenarios involving in-house infrastructure. The on-demand nature of cloud infrastructure means that, in addition to solutions being deployed more cheaply, they are also deployed faster. The business is as positive as IT when it comes to attitudes towards the cloud’s potential to save both time and money. n=109 Source: Info-Tech Research Group Lower entry costs can get cloud-enabled infrastructure projects under the budget wire. Large upfront capital spend will likely trigger an approval process where a cloud project can be started with ongoing discretionary funds. Info-Tech Insight: Agility, Low Capital Costs: The Business “Gets It”

9. Small enterprises are pursuing Infrastructure-as-a-Service clouds for both processing (servers) and storage advantage. Source: Info-Tech Research Group Enterprise storage has a capital cost barrier to deployment. Costs are driven not by disk costs but by the need to provide resiliency, recoverability, and rapid scalability. Small enterprises are ahead of large enterprises in deployment of all cloud solutions and are significantly ahead in IaaS storage. n=105 Source: Info-Tech Research Group n=123 The small businesses I work with are increasingly looking towards the cloud to get Enterprise grade quality and performance without having to pay big business dollars for it.” ~ Operations Manager, IT Consulting firm “ Case in point, storage cloud deployment

10. For evaluating all cloud-enabled services, use Info-Tech’s three rules of cloud investment to identify what really matters. Are the business requirements of the software being met? A cloud is abstracted shared infrastructure but it is the application hosted in the cloud that enables the business. If the software is not meeting requirements it does not matter where it lives. This is especially true for SaaS. Evaluate SaaS as an application product, not as a cloud product. How does cost per unit of capacity compare? If the application meets requirements, it now needs to be provisioned with cloud resources. Particularly in IaaS, resources are normally sold on a metered basis. Compare cost per unit between providers. How are service levels ensured and risk mitigated? Start by assessing risk tolerance for the candidate application. What kind of downtime can be tolerated? How sensitive and valuable is the data? Beyond raw capacity what kind of assurances of security, privacy, and availability does the provider make? Do they have SLAs? What additional premiums, per unit of capacity, are there for higher levels of assurance? Alignment is Software IT must align with business goals and objectives. Applications are the intersection point between the strategic and operational goals of the enterprise and IT. Infrastructure is Capacity Applications in the cloud are provisioned with processing, memory, and storage. The important business measure is cost per unit of capacity as well as the value added cost per unit of capacity of risk mitigation and service levels. Management is the Differentiator Software that efficiently manages the utility infrastructure for business processes is a key value add. Management software can also provide visibility into the cloud for compliance and performance monitoring purposes. 1 2 3 The Three LawsCritical Questions

11. Security and accountability Data is a critical resource. In the cloud, data is entrusted to a third party and shared tenancy with other people’s data (including competitors). Legal and regulatory compliance may also require visibility into where data is stored and who has access – difficult in an abstracted cloud environment. Data and application mobility There is no one cloud but rather multiple cloud services. In an ideal world, workloads and data would move to the cloud with the best cost/service. This is not currently the case. Availability and reliability Availability and reliability are typically best effort. But best effort may not be good enough for critical application loads. Also, the enterprise needs to have continuity plans in place if the service were to cease permanently. Location of data Location of processing and data remain an important consideration. Latency is an issue if the data is located a significant distance from the user. If the data is located in a different country, there can also be jurisdictional issues. Consider four classic caution flags in evaluating cloud services and the potential effect on your enterprise 3 4 2 1

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