Virtualization, Cloud Computing Hosted Cloud Services – these aren’t just the buzz-words of today’s latest technology trends; they are the services that are transforming the marketplace for all types of businesses, in all verticals and all sizes. But what are they really, and why are colocation and data center facilities so important to their implementation?
First we should clearly differentiate Virtualization and Cloud Computing.
“Virtualization is a foundation of cloud computing – but they’re not the same thing,” says Lynda Stadtmueller, Senior Research Analyst, Stratecast, a Division of Frost & Sullivan. “What it means is that functions that were formerly dependent on certain physical machines are now encoded in software.”
Basically, physical machines are transformed to behave like software, which is more nimble and provides a greater cost savings. In a time when IT organizations are looking to do more with less, the ability to maximize utilization on servers is very appealing.
In order for a company to leverage the benefits of virtualization and cloud computing, it needs to be able to access the ‘cloud’ through high-availability Internet. These servers are typically colocated within data center or colocation facilities that provide access to a variety of service and network providers, with ample space and power to operate equipment within its facility – such as racks, cabinets or cages that hold server equipment, switches and routers. In essence, these facilities turn into hosts to ‘virtual data centers’ – data centers within data centers, serving as a safe-haven for equipment while connecting it to global network solutions.
Colocation Isn Just for the Networks
With virtualization and cloud computing literally changing the landscape of how companies manage its technical infrastructure, colocation and data center facilities play a vital role in enabling the technology? Not only do these facilities house carriers, network and content providers, but also application servers and software solutions that are enabled by the Internet. Businesses of all types can also benefit. Rather than storing important data equipment within a telephone closet in an office, more and more companies are outsourcing this aspect of their business, ensuring more redundancy, space, and power, in a conditioned environment that is optimal to operate equipment at the highest level of efficiency.
By outsourcing a company’s core communications equipment, companies could access a variety of network providers, closer to the middle of the network where most traffic is exchanged, benefiting by achieving lower latency on applications, higher availability and more efficient service. Many carrier-neutral data center facility operators support cloud computing initiatives including Interxion, a leading European operator of carrier-neutral data centers, and Telx, the Interconnection Company.
Telx sees cloud computing as another service that is enabled by its facilities. The company has recently extended its service offering from traditional colocation and interconnection services to include Internet Exchange services through its Telx Internet Exchange (TIE), Direct Internet Access solutions and direct network connectivity between some of its facilities within key metro markets. By adding these services, Telx’s facilities provide its customers a variety of options to enable cloud computing and virtualization of its core communications infrastructure.
Colocation and data center providers are vital to the virtualization and cloud computing world, providing a foundation for these services to build on. Virtual data center solutions focus on optimizing space and power to provide a high-availability platform directly connected to the cloud, extending huge savings to users in the process.
“Hardware is a lot more expensive, cumbersome and restrictive than software- which are really just digital pulses, endlessly replicable for little cost.” added Lynda Stadtmueller of Stratecast. “So, by decreasing dependence on physical appliances and machines, [we] make the entire data center and network environment more flexible.”
Justin Giardina, CTO of iland Internet Solutions agrees, putting it a little differently: “By virtualizing a company’s core infrastructure, it can consolidate servers, reducing costs in its core infrastructure such as space, power and cooling. In addition, prior to implementing an iland hosted-cloud solution, our clients typically use anywhere from 10-30% of any given server’s capacity. We can maximize server utilization by migrating customers over to our Hosted VMware VI Enterprise platform, providing customers with up to 90% server utilization, hosting a combination of different servers, storage devices and applications in one unit.”
iland Internet Solutions has also been successful in implementing customized hybrid solutions for the small and medium enterprise markets, providing a balance of virtualized solutions and traditional physical infrastructure, offering companies more flexibility, redundancy, resiliency and an easy to implement disaster recovery solution.
Jeffrey Breen, Chief Technology Office of the Yankee Group (News - Alert) observes that, “Embracing virtualization has allowed corporate IT departments to start to break away from their server-centric thinking. Viewing infrastructure more as a pool of resources – CPU, memory, storage – is the first step the embracing the cloud-based alternatives.”
Examples of Cloud Computing and Virtualization Implementation
Archivd, Inc., a company providing online research sources for implementation in team environments, depends on cloud computing to enable its service, running its online operations completely through the Internet. The company leverages virtualization because it provides more flexibility and cost savings.
“The other week I rearranged our server farm while sitting in a café. Five years ago that would have taken a week, $10,000 and a second person to hold the screwdriver,” added Carlos Bueno, CEO of Archivd. “Virtualization also makes it feasible to have geographic redundancy from the start -- something only the bigger guys could do.”
Storage software companies also rely on the cloud.
According to APTARE’s Vice President of Business Development, Robert Cordell (News - Alert), “Cloud computing provides enterprises the ability to use IT services in a utility model with software-as-a-service (SaaS) the delivery vehicle over the Internet.”
Mr. Cordell takes it a step further: “The notion that everyone has a desktop/laptop PC on their desk will be history. In its place will be a browser application that simply accesses the Internet by plugging into this cloud computing utility,” he said.
IDC (News - Alert) estimates that for every $1 spend on PC’s in the enterprise another $8 is required for administration support.
“We have already seen the beginnings of this cloud computing model in the CRM space from companies like Salesforce.com (News - Alert) that provide their value as a SaaS utility. Look at Google and their foray into business applications (Google Apps) simply accessible over the Internet. It’s not surprising that Microsoft is also busy readying its Office suite as web-based applications.”
CDW (News - Alert) Corporation, a leading provider of technology products and services to business, government and education companies sums up the topic nicely.
“Virtualization is simply the separation of components and removing dependencies, enabling the mobility of technologies between infrastructure platforms,” commented Nathan Coutinho, CDW’s national solutions manager for virtualization of CDW. “When implemented correctly, server virtualization can free up valuable financial and human resources for more strategic initiatives.”
Ilissa Miller is Executive Vice President of Jaymie Scotto & Associates.
TMCnet publishes expert commentary on various telecommunications, IT, call center, CRM and other technology-related topics. Are you an expert in one of these fields, and interested in having your perspective published on a site that gets several million unique visitors each month? Get in touch.
Edited by Erik Linask
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