The race to virtualize everything has created a host of unintended consequences, not the least of which is how to meet the SLAs (service level agreements) for application backup. As we move into cloud alternatives this problem will only grow since your cloud provider will have to provide this to you on an application by application basis. Every virtual machine is essentially a set of large files such as VMDKs in a VMware context. These large files are typically stored in storage arrays which can be connected via iSCSI or Fiber Channel or on NFS volumes. Traditional data protection techniques such as VMware's VADP, or VMware VCB rely on an agent to protect VMDK files associated with virtual servers.

In a traditional Information Technology (IT) model, new IT assets are acquired in support of specific applications. This model has had the unfortunate side effect of casting IT into the role of a cost center. As such, there has been little flexibility within IT to make broad platform changes such as the adoption and deployment of private cloud technologies.

Much ado is being made these days about consolidation and reducing the cost of IT, with virtualization being the drivers for storage management improvements. The truth is that storage management, as well as application management and OS management, has always been a critical component of data centers. The fact that virtualization puts more pressure on these tasks is no excuse for overlooking them to date. Virtualization and “cloud” initiatives are increasing the demand on data centers to the point that they have no choice but to seek efficiencies. Or perhaps it is budget pressure that offers no choice and the storage demands of virtualization and cloud initiatives are making it harder to realize the savings.

Symantec plans to release a full refresh of its Storage Foundation and Veritas Operations Manager software, which will include features allowing end-to-end management of private cloud infrastructures. Veritas Operations Manager (VOM) 4.0 is due out in May 2012. Storage Foundation 6.0 is planned for release in the second half of the year. One upcoming feature Symantec is planning is called Enterprise Object Store, which will use a global name space to offer a heterogeneous, enterprise-wide abstraction of all file data. According to Don Angspatt, vice president of product management for Symantec's storage and availability management group, the file system will be able to scale to petabytes in size and will be accessible through HTTP. "So this creates one common global repository. You can access data the same way you would [from a workstation] through your cell phone," he said.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. At DLT we’ve adhered to that popular Chinese proverb in order to better inform our customers about cloud computing solutions. While it is clear that cloud technology offers many benefits, it is often unclear for users and agencies to know where they should start in architecting cloud for their organization. There's a lot of messaging out there around cloud, some of it's rather conflicting or confusing, so at DLT we're trying to demystify some of the cloud marketing that's out there and separate reality from marketing, to enable our customers to leverage this technology to really draw better efficiencies within their IT.

A recent New York Times article spells out the issues around federal cloud computing adoption explaining “such high praise for new Internet technologies may be common in Silicon Valley, but it is rare in the federal government, where concerns about security are paramount”. Agencies are notably concerned about losing responsibility for managing and securing data as well as the possibility of cloud outages. However, there are agencies with fewer concerns about security breaches and they have been busy moving user accounts and email services to the cloud environment. For example, the Agriculture Department has already moved about 46,000 employee accounts and is in the process of adding another 120,000. NASA has also made the migration by launching their own internal Nebula cloud computing platform. This platform provides a range of services powerful enough to manage all of NASA’s large-scale scientific data sets.

DLT’s Chief Cloud Technologist David Blankenhorn touches on all of the basics in this Securing the Cloud webcast - the concerns, the cautions, the considerations, but he also discusses how trust and an understanding of responsibilities play into the mix. Check out this clip for an overview of what responsibilities fall on the agency versus the provider.

“If you are waiting until the market settles before making decisions, you are going to be waiting a long, long time.” (According to DLT’s CTO Van Ristau, in a recent Platform-as-a-Service webcast) Gartner, a third party analyst of the IT market, published a statement that by the end of 2011, the battle for leadership in Platform-as-a-Service and key PaaS segments will engulf the software industry. This particular segment of the cloud computing is moving very fast and there is a lot of competition- always a healthy thing for end users. Cloud providers are constantly delivering new or expanded PaaS offerings, and the market doesn’t seem to be settling anytime soon. If you are considering adopting a PaaS strategy, it is time to investigate the different offerings available, get your development teams involved, and begin using these services. Of course, by the time all of that happens in your agency, solutions offerings may have changed again! But, it’s better to figure out what you want, what you need and what’s out there in the market.

“Private cloud adoption is a journey both from a technical and business perspective.” At the recent AFCEA Cloud Lifecycle Management Symposium in DC, the discussion on government cloud computing ranged from acquisition policies to building the roadmaps in which NIST and government guidelines are being centered around. The vision of these roadmaps is to “easily locate desired IT services, rapidly procure access to the services, and use the services to deliver innovative mission solutions.” But with all of the service providers and offerings available, how can government standardize and corral all of these into one simple menu of options that meets individual agency requirements? How will agencies define a successful cloud program? What are the strategies to assure success?

To have a public cloud or not to have a public cloud- that is the question. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) comes with many choices for the customer, and deciding whether or not to make virtualized data centers public or private, is one of the largest ones faced by government agencies. In this clip from the Cloud Advisory Group’s webcast on IaaS, CTO Van Ristau provides some insight into determining your IaaS needs.