Tag Archives: Microsoft

How To Harness the Hybrid Cloud

Posted on by

Hybrid cloud models have become even more prominent than ever before, with many companies demonstrating a need for both private and public clouds. As with any other IT solution, making a hybrid cloud viable is a question of integration. In this case, seamlessly transitioning between the two cloud models is the primary challenge. However, existing IT systems must often operate in conjunction with the cloud.

There’s no “one size fits all” solution for any business, but many cloud providers are starting to take the hint and adapt their services accordingly. Azure Stack is one of the newest hybrid offerings, intended to bridge the gap between public and private cloud services. Services such as these lower the barrier to entry for hybrid cloud adoption and may be what is necessary for this model to truly become mainstream.

The advantage of the hybrid cloud is flexibility. With private clouds hosting core applications and sensitive functions, companies can then use scalable public clouds as widely as their needs allow. This is the most efficient solution once implemented, but there’s a high level of logistics necessary to make it work. The data centers that provide the infrastructure necessary for the hybrid cloud will need to be customized in order to function properly. Specialized personnel will need to be on-site to test and reassess the service, and cybersecurity is, as always, paramount.

Service is another issue that needs to be addressed when working with a hybrid cloud. With the massive volume of data that needs to be transitioned between the two clouds, a quick response time from providers and high connectivity are necessary for success. Latency problems continue to be one of the largest issues when it comes to hybrid cloud adoption. Going forward, businesses will need to decide whether they can host this infrastructure on-site or outsource to IaaS organizations. It’s an expensive proposition, and one that many companies lack the funds to handle.

Networking between facilities is another challenge that Microsoft has tackled in the interest of improving their services. ExpressRoute is an interlink touted as a low-latency connection, though it is not available to all facilities. And, as a trunk connection, ExpressRoute does experience some latency issues with the last bit of distance that data must travel. Still, it’s the start of a future of trans-facility marketing. In the near future, as more of these connections become available, the hybrid cloud will become more of a practical option. Multiple connections to each facility and more robust data centers are the key to better hybrid offerings.

The idea of a hybrid cloud continues to become more popular as the need for scalability becomes more pronounced for IT departments. Companies such as Microsoft are now scrambling to meet these new needs, but delivering the necessary level of connectivity has proved difficult. Still, it is not impossible to strive for trans-facility networks that allow for better data delivery and provide organizations with the infrastructure that they need.

Cloud Computing is One of the Most Disruptive Forces in IT History

Posted on by

It’s no secret that cloud computing has revolutionized how businesses buy and use technology. This year alone, Market research firm Gartner Inc forecasts that $111 billion worth of IT spending will shift to cloud services. And that number is expected to grow. In fact, Gartner believes it will almost double to $216 billion by 2020. It’s no wonder Gartner’s analysts coined cloud computing as “one of the most disruptive forces of IT spending” in their report.

Companies of all sizes are being swept up in this shift. From startups all the way up to Fortune 500 companies, buying and maintaining in-house computer servers, storage, and networking gear is becoming a thing of the past. Most companies are finding they would rather have someone else handle it for them.

A number of companies have jumped at the call for cloud services, most notably Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, and IBM. Instead of businesses having to invest in expensive equipment that needs to be regularly updated, patched, or replaced, they can now pay more precisely for exactly the computing, storage, and networking power they use. Renting is the new buying.

“Cloud-first strategies are the foundation for staying relevant in a fast-paced world,” said Ed Anderson, Gartner research vice president. “The market for cloud services has grown to such an extent that it is now a notable percentage of total IT spending, helping to create a new generation of start-ups and ‘born in the cloud’ providers.”

Businesses can choose between public and private cloud models. The difference can be thought of similarly to renting an apartment in a complex vs a stand-alone home. Public cloud models are a multi-tenant environment, where you rent a portion of capacity alongside other clients. Private cloud hosting, on the other hand, is a single-tenant environment where the hardware, storage, and networking power are dedicated to a single client or company.

Public cloud models come with their own benefits and tradeoffs. Their multi-tenant nature allows for a pay-as-you-go model, where businesses can pay by the hour for resources without a contract. A notable limitation to the public cloud model would be that since ever server shares the same hardware, storage, and network devises as all other tenants in the cloud, meeting compliance requirements, such as PCI or SOX is not possible. For this reason, the majority of public cloud deployments are generally used for web servers or development systems where security and compliance requirements of larger organizations and their customers is not an issue. Also, you obviously don’t have control of the hardware performance, since this is managed by the provider.

Private cloud models similarly have their own benefits and tradeoffs. The most obvious differentiator would be the customizability. Because the hardware, storage, and network are dedicated to a single client, performance can be specified and customized to ensure certain levels of security and meet complex compliance requirements. Private models also allow for hybrid deployments for cases in which a dedicated server is required to run a high speed database application. Hardware can be integrated into a private cloud hybridizing the solution between virtual servers and dedicated servers. The tradeoff here for customizability is obviously that corporate customers must still own their own data center equipment.

AWS was one of the first major proponents of cloud-first strategies back in 2006. Today, they are the largest public cloud company following by big players like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and IBM. These companies have completely disrupted the traditional model selling operating systems and software to users on a one to one basis.

While companies of all sizes have been rapidly shifting towards cloud, we are beginning to see a backlash from larger corporations. Smaller companies, used to spending most of their funding on servers and software, see public cloud deployment as a blessing. Startups, typically strapped for cash, can now operate on competitive computing power for just a few cents an hour. However, the public cloud often loses its economic benefits once a company hits a certain size. Companies processing a lot of data might find their public cloud service getting so expensive in fact that they opt instead to go back in-house.

Dropbox has been a prime example of this contention. Earlier this year, they admitted that they have been progressively moving data to their own data centers, off of AWS, for the past few years. Akhil Gupta, Dropbox’s VP of Infrastructure, cited the need for more customization of hardware as a chief motivator. Mainly, the company wanted to change the proportion of storage to computer to networking in order to lower costs. Because the public cloud model doesn’t allow for these hardware changes, Dropbox decided it was time for a change.

Gupta told Fortune earlier this year, “We wanted to build jumbo super storage servers that could hold immense amounts of data with a small amount of compute.” For Dropbox’s, holding and routing user files requires a lot of storage, but relatively little computing power. It makes sense why then, they would benefit so greatly from this specific customization.

This doesn’t mean, obviously, that all companies of a certain size should or will move away from the public cloud. But it does point to an interesting case for a legitimate outlier that doesn’t fit the public-cloud-for-all discourse.

 

The Top 5 Cloud Skills You Should Acquire in 2016

Posted on by

 

The Top 5 Cloud Skills You Should Acquire in 2016 by Scott Maurice

LinkedIn recently cited Cloud and Distributed Computing as the number one skill that can get you hired in 2016.

LinkedIn members with skills like Hadoop, HBase, and Hive listed on their profiles increased dramatically from 2014 to 2015, making it jump from not even being rated (due to a low number of members adding these items to their profiles) to the #1 spot in 2015, and the best skill to get you hired in 2016.

As cloud computing has become a technological cornerstone for businesses across the globe, employer demand for cloud professionals has exploded. In 2015 alone, there were an estimated 18 million cloud computing jobs globally, according to WANTED Analytics.

Of those 18 million, 3.9 million of those jobs are in the U.S., with 384,478 in IT alone. And according to WANTED Analytics, the median salary for IT professionals with cloud computing experience is $90,950, and the median salary for positions that pay over $100,000 a year is $116,950.

Basically, it’s a great time to be working in cloud solutions, so let’s breakdown this flourishing industry into five popular skills required of the modern cloud professional.

Migration

It takes longer for some companies than others to get up to date with the latest tech standards. Millions of businesses are still in the process of planning and executing the migration their on-premise infrastructure. This means there is still a significant demand for professionals with the skills to facilitate the process.

If you’re put in charge of overseeing this migration, you will need a sound knowledge of the different cloud deployment models available to businesses. You’ll also need to understand the existing infrastructure of the organization you’re working with and the knowledge of how to map applications and workloads running on existing servers and relocate them to their cloud equivalent.

Looking for a course you can take to learn the ins and outs? Try Microsoft’s Private Cloud certification, Specialist certification in Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions, and MCSA: Windows Server 2012 course (which can be deployed across both public and private cloud offerings.)

Security

According to RightScale’s 2016 State of the Cloud Report, security is a top concern for companies using cloud-based platforms.

The top challenge cited for companies was is lack of resources/expertise (i.e. there’s a high-demand for skilled workers!) which remains a consistent concern across the levels of experience these companies have working in the cloud—experience was divided into 3 subcategories: Cloud Beginners, Cloud Explorers, and Cloud Focused. The second most important challenge (especially to Cloud Beginners): Security.

Security was ranked as the #2 challenge by Cloud Beginners (35 percent), the #4 challenge by Cloud Explorers (28 percent), and the #5 challenge by Cloud Focused users. While security concerns decrease as a challenge as users gain cloud experience, it is still a crucial concern for companies across the board.

To develop your cloud security skills, then (ISC)2’s Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) certification is for you.

Database Querying Languages + Platforms

The amount of data that we create today is almost incomprehensible. Each day, in fact, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, but this explosion of data is a very recent one. In fact, 90% of the data in the world today has been created in just the last two years. But all that data is meaningless unless it can be analyzed and accurate conclusions can be drawn from it.

Companies need employees with the skills to thoughtfully and meaningfully draw insights into their customers, the market, and their products as well as the ability to store and manage this data. This is where learning a database querying language and an associated database platform come in.

SQL is by far the most important language to learn, and there are courses all over the web that offer lessons in this. Start out with Codecademy, and from there you can see if you need to supplement other courses.

Popular database platforms include Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, and open-source platforms like MySQL, Hadoop and MongoDB. Oracle has their own certification courses, as does Microsoft. MongoDB provides their own MongoDB University and Oracle provides MySQL training. Cloudera can help you learn Apache Hadoop.

Linux

More than 25% of servers powering Azure are Linux based, which means there’s a very high demand for cloud professionals with Linux expertise in the market right now. Microsoft has been increasingly working in the open-source market, which means the demand is only set to grow.

Learn how to design, architect, build administer, and maintain Linux servers with the Linux Foundation Certified Systems Administrator course. Microsoft also offers a MCSA: Linux on Azure course that will help you develop the skills to create cloud-enabled Linux solutions that take advantage of the full potential of the Azure platform.

Programming languages

Everyone knows that developers are always in hot demand, and working in the cloud has only allowed developers to build, deploy, and manage applications more efficiently. Companies need talented developers to manage these efforts. Languages like Python, Perl and Ruby have become more popular in recent years, but traditional languages like .NET, Java, and PHP continue to have high demand.

Again, Codecademy is a great resource for learning many of these languages, and their courses are free.

Conclusion

As the world moves more and more into the cloud, the need for cloud professionals is only set to grow. No matter if you’re looking to make a career change, shift, or simply increase your value as an employee for a potential raise or promotion, learning these skills will make you invaluable to your employee and the team you’re working in. Don’t miss out on this essential technology shift that’s taking place all over the world.