Cloud Computing and Software-as-a-Service

Cloud computing is an outcome of efficient IT automation, and is a model that is only possible by standardizing core elements of computing and the automation of their operation. The cloud cannot be a self-sustaining platform without automation, nor can it scale to very large numbers of customers or systems.

As the modern IT landscape becomes more concentrated, new computing complexities begin to surface. Although this has occurred in the past with evolving programming languages, computer networks, software design architectures and system virtualization, IT automation has raised the bar on that concept more than any other.

By most industry estimations, we are only at an early stage in the grand scheme of operations automation, just the second or third of several unavoidable evolutionary stages in the growing capability of systems to stand on their own in a global IT ecosystem.

Organizational Automation
Organizational automation of server deployment is the first stage of automation. When the server is the unit of deployment, server automation is a prime idea. Each server can host a single operating system, creating that OS and formatting to apps to include is an ideal method of streamlining operations of a single server.

The difficulty of this method is that it’s difficult to execute efficiently at large scales because the system administrator is still burdened to make operational decisions on behalf of the application. You may now be wondering about the number of servers is an ideal amount to deploy? And, which types of servers should you should add instances to in order to meet peak loads and what the time-frame should be for doing that? The result of this method of operation is a significantly cumbersome manual operations environment, with most organizations Nubifer has Consulted with at this stage and scale, implementing strategic capacity planning and erect a system for expected peak.

Application Implementation
The implementation of a sectioned distributed application where the different data-sets of the application are aimed for a deployment location is a significant upgrade to single server deployment. This type of automation essentially ensures that each set of data ends up where it’s supposed to be stored and that it’s configured correctly.

Standards in Source Code
We also noticed that standardized operations code adds important functionality to simple distributed deployment automation which shifts capacity consumption based on application needs in real time. This type of scaling automation ensures that your organization pays only for what you use.

Implementing Cloud Automation
Nubifer has noticed that modern scaling automation has one primary limitation: the fashion in which the health of the application is determined has to be built into application OS’s ahead of time. The developer has to determine what conditions to examine, what state requires an adjustment to scale and what layers of the application are scaled in response. This all has to be effectively architected prior to the application being deployed into your organization’s IT environment.

Interop and Identity Management
Leveraging the interoperability and intelligence of behavior learning algorithms enabling cloud systems to receive a wide variety of monitoring data is the next logical step, followed by picking through that data to determine normal and abnormal behaviors and to determine appropriate ways to react to any anomalies. These forms of learned behavior turn the application system an adaptive system which becomes increasingly better at making efficient choices the longer the application is in production.

Even though the issue discussed above is a complicated one, successful migrations will be exceedingly important as they will continuously evolve strategies for dealing with app performance, security and cost management.

Why Give Up Control?
You may be wondering why you want to give up control over operations of your key apps to an automation system. The reasoning lies under the same motivation for turning over of your operating systems to virtual machines, your phone systems to managed service providers or your compute resources to cloud environments: agility, interoperability, scalability and cost.

The Take-Aways
Companies that adopt one or more cloud models for a large percentage of their workloads will see key advantages over those that don’t, and cloud providers that adopt the best infrastructure and service automation systems will improve their chances in the marketplace. Visit Nubifer.com to learn more about the past, present and future states of cloud computing and to gain insights and key research into the field of cloud computing, software-as-a-service, platform and infrastructure-as-a-service.