This week, VMware released details on their public cloud offering, CIOs discussed best practices to survive in their roles and software promises to change the cloud landscape.

How VMware will try to shake up the cloud market this week

NetworkWorld

May 20, 2013

VMware released some details on their plans to launch a public cloud offering as many speculated what will happen to their customers and partners. John Considine, CTO of Verizon Terremark shares his thoughts with Brandon Butler from NetworkWorld.

 6 things every CIO should know (or at least think about)

GigaOm

May 23, 2013

The role of the CIO has changed dramatically over the last few years. Cloud, big data and BYOD have been key factors of the transformation.  Is there a way to succeed when the pressure to embrace innovation grows by the minute? Here are six areas to consider.

If Cloud Computing Is Here, Then Where Is My Jet Pack?

Forbes

May 22, 2013

Interest in “utility computing” continues to grow as CIOs around the world begin to realize that the building blocks of cloud differ dramatically from the building blocks of a data center. Many predict that the gaps will become closer as software technology matures.

Compliance in the cloud is an interesting, challenging, and recurring discussion for federal agencies. With shrinking budgets and ever-growing application needs, such as big data, agencies are making a faster push to the cloud. Whether this push to the cloud should be internal or external is a key question; and the ability to achieve, demonstrate, and maintain compliance with security requirements is paramount to the discussion.

Compliance in traditional hosting was always based around the concept of hardware completely dedicated to the project, application, and system.  In the cloud, agencies are being asked to share hosts, disks, network, and other infrastructure. Therefore compliance carries even greater importance. In this design paradigm, being able to properly segment and protect data while sharing the physical infrastructure but preventing data spillage, cross-pollination, or direct access is critical to move to the cloud. Cloud providers need to be able to demonstrate that an agency’s data is secure and protected, even while sharing physical resources.

The current working theory that many agencies act on is that operating an internal cloud allows for greater control and therefore allows for meeting higher levels of security compliance, though it’s clear there are no cost savings. When a cloud is operated internally, you still have all of the CAPEX, OPEX, personnel, licensing, space, power, tech refresh, and other costs. It does allow you to gain the “theoretical” control lost when outsourcing to a service provider, but is it truly making a move to the cloud then? Are you really gaining the control you think you are? Generally, the answer to both is no!

Verizon Terremark was the one of the first cloud providers to bring federal customers into the cloud. When one of the main US government public sites made the move to cloud, it moved more than test and development, it moved a highly-visible, public, production presence of the United States government to the cloud. It brought with it production-level needs such as CMS system, large databases, lots of disk IO, high-security needs, etc., and as a result, it also challenged the auditors. It was one of the first instances of a large government production site being moved to the cloud and sharing resources with other federal clients.

The legacy security compliance requirements did address virtualization, but only in the scope of a dedicated system. FISMA, at the time, and to this date DIACAP, do not address the concept of a service provider shared resource such as cloud. The concepts of shared storage network (SAN), or hosts was not addressed at all. In government hosting needs prior to now, every system (whether virtualized or not) was kept completely separate, as that is what the auditors demanded.

So how do you achieve compliance in the current system of FISMA? FISMA has three levels of impact: low, moderate, and high. Beyond the data center controls around physical security and access to infrastructure, there are several logical controls for which to be accounted. Careful logical separation designs are one of the fundamental areas to address, which start with tagging each client’s unique and distinct network segments all the way to the storage. Even though data may be on the same disks, it is now appropriately tagged and logically controlled and available to only the virtual hosts for that client.

Next, is the setup of hypervisors to meet hardened federal requirements. It should be set to prevent guests from talking directly to each other, promiscuous mode should be turned off, and should be protected in separated network segments to guard against a hypervisor jump attack. Those are some of basic first steps at the hypervisor level and down. Depending on the type of cloud service being provided there are many more controls that move into the logical application layer for proper encryption, data access, and validation.

So what is next in federal compliance? FedRAMP attempts to pick up where FISMA and DIACAP left off (and stretch across both civilian and DoD systems). It provides a clear definition of cloud and shared resource models and allows for many new controls and security compliance specifications for service providers.  A notable change in responsibility from the application owners to the IaaS model is encryption at rest. It goes further to dictate air-gapped OSS systems, continuous scanning for compliance and reporting against it, and requires that providers use hardware that is completely dedicated to federal clients only. These controls represent significant challenges in the cloud service provider community. While Verizon Terremark has been doing these things for several years, many providers have built their models on other concepts in cloud, forcing many changes on the cloud provider landscape as a whole.

This week, the city of Las Vegas gathered thousands of IT pros seeking innovative solutions to make their businesses more efficient. Interop kicked off on Monday through various workshops. I was able to participate in the Enterprise Cloud Summit, where the changing nature of cloud deployments was discussed. Going into this session, I didn’t know what to expect. Is there a broader topic than the changing nature of cloud?

The discussion was moderated by David Linthicum, of Cloud Technology Partners, and I was joined in the panel by Rob Craft, Microsoft Corporation, Peter Ulander, Citrix and Adityashankar Kini, Riverbed. We started the discussion by debating cloud deployment best practices. If you missed this session, here are the key takeaways:

1. Question everything. From numbers of virtual machines , resource requirements and combined functions to security procedures, licenses, billing, paying and budgeting. Leave nothing to chance. While this may sound cliché, planning makes all the difference.

2. Get to know your cloud provider. Many put a lot of weight in price differences when making cloud decisions. The group agreed that many enterprises could be greatly benefited by embracing the cloud provider’s features and knowledge. Once you embrace the provider’s capabilities, you’ll learn to trust them. This could be the deciding factor between a successful deployment and an epic failure.

3. Engage with the open source community. Today, the grand majority of applications are built on open source code. Peter Ulander mentioned that today, the cloud is defined by open source communities. I think this is the future. More and more large organizations are expressing their commitments to open source communities and we don’t foresee this stopping any time soon.

4. Do mind big data: Big data is bringing a new set of challenges to cloud providers. As a result, enterprises demand higher reliability, performance predictability and dedicated high bandwidth connectivity options. Be sure your provider of choice can offer- and more importantly, guarantee the availability of key elements.

I thought the discussion allowed for the audience- and even myself- to get different perspectives on cloud deployments. However, with the ever-changing landscape of the cloud market, I think best practices are being defined and redefined every day, and the future promises to be no different.

Over the past few years there has been a lot of commentary about the commoditisation of IT due to the introduction of cloud computing and indeed that cloud itself is becoming a commodity.

A recent article in the Economist magazine focused on the development of a trading platform for cloud computing capacity to create a marketplace between buyers with short-term computing needs and providers with excess capacity for compute capacity.  Similar to what several providers had attempted to do in the telecom capacity market, with limited impact as it turned out.

Now this trading platform may prove to be a successful business model, but it does raise the question as to whether cloud computing is or can be considered to be a commodity in the true economic sense of the word.

In economic terms a commodity has three main characteristics.

1. There are many producers. 
2. It is ‘fungible’ i.e. a consumer can’t really tell the difference between the products produced by different producers, like a litre of gasoline from one supplier is largely the same as another (though individuals may have a brand preference).  On the other hand, cars from two different manufacturers may be in the same category in terms of price and general function, but is sufficiently unique so that a car class cannot be considered a true commodity.
3. The pricing in the market is produced by the interaction of multiple buyers and sellers, hence the evolution of commodity exchanges.

Well, the first one is easy.  There are certainly a large number of providers out there and on the face of it many of them are providing qualitatively similar types of services. 

I will skip the second point for now. On the third point, there is not yet a recognised exchange or trading platform for cloud services with wide adoption (notwithstanding the innovation of the company mentioned in the Economist article).  I recall the CEO of Band-X speaking at a conference explaining why their exchange was less successful than he had hoped.  He indicated that in most interesting commodity markets there needs to be a variation in price over time, crucially both upwards and downwards (see link for article about Band-X from 1997 http://www.economist.com/node/155354 ).  Bandwidth is subject to Moore’s Law and therefore only went one way, downwards.  Cloud is subject to the same forces at least for data processing.

The second point is probably the most interesting.  Just limiting the discussion to IAAS, there are certain service elements which at least superficially sound like they ought to be commodities (e.g. storage, unit of compute, bandwidth).   However, quite apart from the product differentiation of individual underlying components like microprocessors, storage arrays, routers etc., cloud services even in a broad category like IAAS are engineered differently by service providers.

Cloud providers will typically define a unit of compute to facilitate sale of their own compute resources.  However, this does not make it easy to compare to other service providers who have built their infrastructures differently and indeed offer their services commercially in different ways.  For example, Verizon Terremark’s Enterprise Cloud offers both instance-based and resource pool based consumption models to fit different end user needs.  Even for notionally identical quantities of compute and storage, services offered by different companies can vary significantly by a broad range of parameters not limited to uptime, data security, throughput capability, ease of use, customer service, etc.  Therefore, although services from different providers may be similar enough that you could substitute one service for another and achieve broadly the same business outcome, the services themselves offered by different providers are not in general sufficiently similar to be fungible in the true economic sense.

Now, this is actually a good thing.  Life would be very boring if cloud was all Model T only available in black.  There is fortunately a large and vibrant market for different types of cloud models with different performance characteristics serving different needs.  On one hand, end users may be unable readily to compare similar services to the extent that they would like.  However, it does also mean that consumers can select from a wide variety of cloud offerings serving different needs and use cases.

At Verizon Terremark, we build our cloud solutions with the needs of demanding enterprise and Government clients.  That means we build them to be highly secure, highly available and high performing.    We have a good understanding of which workloads work well in our cloud and which ones may fit better in our managed hosting or some combination thereof.

But don’t just take my word for it.  Give it a try.  We will be pleased to assist you.

The term ‘cloud’ in isolation of context has often had its meaning imaginatively exploited either by those with a vested interest in doing so, or through lack of understanding, or both. It appears the buzzword of ‘cloud fatigue’ has now entered into the lexicon!

In the previous post, the intersection of technology drivers was noted as creating transformative new opportunities for businesses. The mobile device has become the primary form factor and information distribution point, and is becoming wearable and embedded (Pervasive Mobility). Then there is an upheaval in social and marketing interaction of connected communities, and the concept of the digital persona which can be marketed and sold to by those willing to exploit algorithms which mine our interactions (Social). Add to this the explosion of data and emerging analytics tools which provide the opportunity to tie relevance and context to user information and data (Information). The public cloud as the fourth pillar, offers the promise of mass scale, elastic delivery of IT resources, consumed on demand. Cloud enables the delivery of information, and allows the other drivers to evolve.

Cloud, and specifically the software that controls it, disintermediates users from the underlying technology. Open Source tools and software frameworks have had a democratizing effect on both consumers and users of technology. Disruption is occurring on both the supply and demand side: the value chain is shifting, and new business models are emerging resulting in value creation, and value destruction.

Using servers as an example, the data centre has already been commoditized. The hyper-scale web providers bypassed leading traditional vendors and in favour of ‘white boxes’ -  low cost, stripped down hardware, often directly sourcing processors, customizable to match their own customer workloads, orchestrated and managed with their own proprietary software. Open Compute plans to take this a stage further by standardizing specifications for ‘vanity free’ hardware based on interchangeable components, with the aim of reducing further cost and waste at the hardware layer and creating a foundation for customers and businesses to build custom and modular servers. Many of those traditional vendors have been hit hard, with value and share shifting to the thriving ODMs.

Open Source technology has also evolved and matured over recent years, and is being increasingly used as a tool to drive disintermediation and alternative business models. If we look at Open Source clouds, storage or networks, for example, we see the development of a “mixed source” ecosystem to maximise product distribution and ecosystem development on the back of the primary ‘for free’ software. Primary contributors hope for related increased commercial activity in adjacent areas, for example, servers, hypervisors, and support services. Other models include dual licencing, open and closed source offerings with full support, or discrete commercial packages available as-a-Service for white label distribution by a Service Provider. What we are seeing is a maturity of business models within and around Open Source, and importantly, increased comfort within the developer community, where the current generation is provided with (and expect) excellent tools, documentation, tutorials and support.

If we extend these concepts further to the latest buzzwords – Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the Software Defined Data Center – further opportunity exists to abstract management and control to storage and network infrastructure layers. Networks have traditionally been overprovisioned and hard to manage from an enterprise and service provider perspective, and there has been no standard way of managing network devices remotely. Extending the principles of server virtualization to network switches, firewalls, devices and potentially higher level services running on virtual machines, offers huge potential benefits of provider automation, cost reduction, economies of scale, as well as greater feature velocity and innovation.

There is complexity, however, and it is still early days, in particular for the enterprise. Today, the major networking vendors provide a complete stack of networking hardware and software, whose products interoperate at the network packet level, but management and provisioning of their devices plus certain services remain proprietary, enabling higher margins and product stickiness. Levels of true sustainable openness, interoperability and programmability – i.e. whether Openflow will truly be adopted as an open industry standard – are theoretically viable, but sceptics point that this is likely to be determined by the tactics of incumbent vendors, either by those looking to protect their installed bases in legacy hardware, or those seeking greater customer lock-in (ergo, the sky-high valuations and acquisitions of SDN start-ups in 2012).

Despite this, there is already thriving and evolving SDN ecosystem at various levels of the SDN ‘stack’ and above, including virtual controllers, switches, routers, and overlay management and orchestration services. Technology democratization has already arrived to networking.

So while this is all very interesting from a macro market and competitive analysis standpoint, how is this all relevant to Enterprise IT? While many enterprises have already reaped cost and efficiency benefits from server virtualization, and some are extending virtualization into private cloud domains (often locked into a management platform), in many cases they have yet to exploit the potential of the public cloud from a mass scale and efficiency perspective to deliver ‘IT as a Service’.

The main ‘issues’ with public cloud infrastructure tend to be specific to a combination of : a) SLA’s for reliable performance in the provider platform; b) availability, predictability and compliance; c) true configurability enabling developer autonomy and self-service; d) price, but not at the expense of a), b) and c).

If we look at provider approaches to delivering infrastructure as a service, they are generally split across two models:

1)      Web-Scale Providers: with massive scale using clustered servers and cheap components, used and designed for their own web businesses. Advantages include developer-friendly tools and aggressive pricing, which is sustained through an almost entirely self-service model. These architectures present significant challenges for enterprises looking to leverage the public cloud into business process design, in terms of predictable performance, availability and security.

2)      Cloud Service Providers (including Verizon Terremark): scale depending on global footprint, with a focus around automation of infrastructure. Advantages: high performance and reliability, embedded security, SLA’s for 100% uptime (Verizon Terremark), managed and unmanaged options. Limitations include configurability of different server hardware, developer tools, and pressures on maintaining the platform at an acceptable cost/price ratio.

A single platform does not yet exist that blends “the best of both worlds” – high availability and performance, hybrid ready and configurable, enabling workload flexibility combined with quality of service selection and SLAs, embedded security and integrated networking, AND Web-Scale cost competitive based on true performance. This is when cloud can truly enable the delivery of information at mass scale, and what enterprises and their users require.  You will be hearing a great deal more about this evolution throughout 2013.

For the sixth consecutive year, the most comprehensive security investigations report was released earlier this week, taking away countless headlines and revealing the how’s of data breaches in 2012. Additionally, backup and disaster recovery best practices are shared by the experts right before the start of hurricane season.

Vast majority of global cyber-espionage emanates from China, report finds

The Washington Post

April 23, 2013

The 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) analyzed hundreds of documented data breaches and found that hackers affiliated with China were by far the most energetic and successful cyberspies in the world last year. To get the 2013 DBIR, click here.

Disaster Planning and Recovery

Bloomberg TV

April 24, 2013

On the eve of hurricane season, backup and disaster recovery solutions discussions are rekindled. Verizon Terremark Chief Technology Officer, John Considine participated in a panel at the Bloomberg Technology Enterprise Summit, where existing and emerging disaster recovery strategies were  debated and analyzed, including what has changed in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. Lean more cloud-based disaster recovery here.

Verizon shines light on low number of cloud data breaches

Cloud Pro

April 24, 2013

Despite the increasing popularity of cloud services, the 2013 DBIR found little evidence of breaches involving cloud-specific technologies. One of the authors of the report said “We are not seeing are breaches involving cloud providers that would result in multiple virtual machines cascading into a [large-scale] failure, for example.” The reason for this could be that hackers prefer a path of ‘least resistance.’

Natural disasters can strike at any moment in any corner of the globe. I learned this first hand through my experiences as a firefighter in the emergency services. For families, this includes storing non-perishable foods and flashlights with spare batteries. For enterprises, an increasingly popular option is storing critical workloads in the cloud. And for cloud service providers, this means architecting data centers that are able to withstand whatever is happening outside.

The cloud provides offsite infrastructure and services allowing mission critical data and applications to remain operable in times of emergency. Reliability and consistency are integral features, and two essential factors we find enterprises weigh heavily in selecting a cloud provider.  Even when a data center is located in the heart of a storm, there needs to be protections in place to prevent system failover. Cloud providers must maintain the strictest building enhancements and features to prevent tragedy from striking on the inside as well. You can’t forget the fundamentals of prudent data center design just because everything is called cloud now.

One of Verizon Terremark’s flagship facilities, the 750,000 sq. foot NAP of the Americas, is located in Miami, FL. With hurricanes a staple of the regional climate, we knew the building required advanced features to protect our customers’ data.  That is why we constructed equipment floors 32 feet above sea level, designed a sloped roof to aid the drainage of floodwater in excess of a hundred-year storm intensity, and constructed seven inch thick steel reinforced concrete exterior panels, among numerous other precautions, in order to withstand a Category 5 hurricane.  We are prepared and have proven time and again all over the world that our data centers can stand up to extreme weather conditions.

Beyond the building infrastructure, the ultimate goal is to protect the equipment inside.  In the event of a power outage, if power is not generated inside the building, then servers, cooling and other critical equipment can suffer irreparable damage. This is why we architect redundant systems to maintain power and cooling, allowing our data centers and our customers’ most valuable workloads to remain fully operational.

We have to remember though that the physical infrastructure and equipment are only part of the story.  Cloud customers need disaster recovery services to function, especially when a natural disaster can compound damage. We take pride in our unique approach to Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) where we partner with our customers to provide expert knowledge and service in case of failover.  As partners, we have experts available 24/7/365 because we know every second of downtime negatively impacts our customers’ revenue and reputation. By providing access for data to burst into additional capacity, we limit downtime and save our customers major expenses.  

At Verizon Terremark, we understand full well the implications of natural disasters on IT.  We build our data centers to withstand forces of nature and give our customers peace of mind when they need it most.  Our top of the line infrastructures, coupled with our advanced power system and cloud services, provide reassurance in times of great uncertainty.  With customers in every market, including federal, financial and consumer, we are responsible for data and applications that affect the lives of millions of individuals. As a rule of thumb, leave nothing to chance.

As more and more firms are moving sensitive data into cloud infrastructure, there are questions about the right type of encryption solution. Some firms are looking for encryption solutions from a compliance standpoint while others are looking for a general security control to protect sensitive data.

Like any other technology, no single solution fits all scenarios. A solution that works well in an IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) cloud may not work well in SaaS (Software as a Service) cloud environment. Similarly there are many considerations related to transparency of solution and ease of management. There are also issues related to who owns, manages, and has access to encryption keys. This post is to provide a high level overview of encryption options and categories of available solutions in different scenarios. I will dig deeper into specific options in a follow up blog post.

Options for Encrypting Data

There are multiple options for encrypting data in the cloud. Each option mitigates risk in specific use cases and implements some trade-offs. At a high level, these options are as follows:

1. Full disk encryption option is available for customers with full access to the operating system.
2. Filesystem encryption is achieved either using native operating system or by installing an agent to enforce encryption policy. These solutions also provide granular level access controls for different file types.
3. Database encryption (table or field level) can be achieved in many ways in the cloud. Solutions are available from major database vendors as well as third parties. Encryption gateways (described next) can also be used for database encryption. Third party solutions work by intercepting JDBS/ODBC or other types of database calls or by implementing stored procedures.
4. Encryption gateway based solutions are available from multiple vendors for cloud environment. An encryption gateway is placed between the cloud environment and private network/data centers to encrypt/decrypt data in real time.
5. Hypervisor based encryption solution enable IaaS customers to run another virtualization layer to implement encryption at hypervisor level. From a functionality perspective, this is similar to full disk encryption.
6. Data Backup – Organizations using cloud services as data backup can use encrypted backup solutions. These solutions are available in the form of backup software as well as encryption gateways.

Management of Encryption Keys

Encryption key management includes generation, storage, use, and ultimately destruction of encryption keys when no longer needed. Many cloud customers are wary of the cloud provider having access to encryption keys. Key management also becomes crucial in hybrid cloud scenarios where applications access data in private and public cloud using same encryption keys.

Transparency

Encryption is a complicated business. For an effective and easy-to-use encryption, it has to be transparent to end users and, if possible, to the applications. Adoption to encryption solution becomes challenging if it needs modification to applications or relies on end-user training. All solution categories listed above can be implemented in a transparent fashion in the cloud. However, the implementers must understand the solution and be able to manage encryption keys.

Encryption Solution Selection

Depending upon cloud service model (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), customers can select a specific type of encryption solution as described below.

• IaaS Cloud – IaaS provides the most flexibility in selecting an encryption solution. Full disk encryption, filesystem (agent-based and agent-less) level encryption, hypervisor, and database encryption solution can be used depending upon specific situations.
• PaaS Cloud – Native database encryption as well as row/column level encryption solutions may be appropriate.
• SaaS Cloud – The encryption gateway solutions are more appropriate in SaaS cloud. In SaaS cloud, customers don’t have access to underlying infrastructure to implement any other type of encryption easily. Typical scenarios where gateway solutions are very useful are encrypting data in SaaS providers such as Salesforce CRM, online storage, online applications such as Microsoft Office 360, Gmail, and so on.

Encryption as a Service (EaaS)

Some vendors provide encryption solutions as a service, just like other cloud technologies. These services are useful for small to medium size organizations where it is difficult to hire a full time encryption expert for the management of cloud encryption solution.

I will explore some of these solutions in detail in follow-up posts on this blog.

This week, the potential impacts of an overhauled immigration law on technology companies and open-source news continue to make headlines. In addition, cloud providers discuss cloud SLA’s.

Migrant Bill Seems to Fit Tech Sector Wish List

New York Times

April 16, 2013

The proposed changes to U.S. immigration law include an easier way to get green cards for foreigners educated in America, in math and science. Academics and professional degrees may end up at the core of the immigration reform, which could greatly benefit technology companies hire and retain human talent.

Cloud Computing Gets Deeper and More Strategic, Survey Shows

Forbes

April 15, 2013

Findings of a new survey reveal that two-fifths of organizations run private clouds and one-fourth are using public clouds for enterprise applications. And by next year, 50% of surveyed participants “expect to be running substantial parts of their workloads within private clouds.”

Verizon Terremark backs Xen-CloudStack combo for clouds

The Register

April 16, 2013

As the open source Xen hypervisor and CloudStack cloud controller continue to gain momentum and support from different providers, Verizon Terremark invests in open source development tools, for the first time. The purpose? See the market mature quickly and provide businesses with flexible and cost-effective cloud-based solutions.

Your cloud computing SLA can’t be a marketing gimmick

Search Cloud Computing

April 17, 2013

Many cloud providers use their Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) as a tool to gain their customer’s trust. However, it is interesting to see the reporter’s perspective, where she mentions that “any SLA terms should be based on what providers can truly guarantee, not what they think customers want to hear.” Understanding your own limits and strengths is the first step to avoid SLA violations and the second step is to be confident with your ability to exceed the guarantees promised.

The cloud has proven to be an attractive cost-efficient and flexible model for many organizations. However, some skepticism remains when it comes to the return on investment (ROI) of embracing this technology as evidenced by this Networkworld article a few weeks ago where Senior Editor Ellen Messmer, referenced the results of a study which indicated that one-third of surveyed participants believed that the “costs of moving to the cloud were higher than expected.” Those participants attributed their reasoning to the re-architecting often required when migrating workloads to the cloud. 

As part of the Verizon Terremark team, I have seen this problem first hand, and the apprehension when it comes to the cost and the complexity of moving applications to a cloud environment. Consider an organization that builds a private cloud, which ends up being different from their data center where the networking, the virtualization technology, and the storage infrastructure vary. The cost of modifying workloads, and making them compatible with cloud environments is a non-trivial task. The good news is that organizations looking to adopt the public cloud do not have to go through this cumbersome process.

Verizon Terremark enables the secure transportation of a customer’s existing virtual infrastructure to the cloud completely independent of the provider’s underlying infrastructure—the IP address, storage controllers, network controllers, kernels, etc., remain the same. The enterprise can operate and manage their servers in a public cloud environment just as they would in the data center.

As I perused through the article and the challenges associated with migrating to the cloud – both technical and financial – I couldn’t help but think about today’s cloud offerings and migrating options.

Securely connecting to a public cloud isn’t really a new concept.  In fact, Verizon and Terremark have been offering this for years.  A significant percentage of our enterprise customers take advantage of our private networking functions including Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and (Virtual Private Network) VPN services to connect to our cloud.  Add to that, the dynamic capabilities we offer for creating secure hybrid environments from a customer’s data center to the public cloud, and you have a complete picture of existing technologies and of how enterprises are already securely connecting to the cloud.

Verizon Terremark is dedicated to leveraging its software expertise to address some of the cloud adoption barriers that still exist today. How can we make hybrid models more efficient while keeping costs down? Portability of workloads across data center and cloud environments remains a key requirement for enterprises – they expect to not only seamlessly move workloads between their data center and the cloud but also expect to maintain the same performance characteristics in the cloud. We firmly believe that portability of workloads and delivering predictable performance in the cloud are the keys to greater cloud adoption.

The market is rapidly moving to a point where customers want the cloud to be a true extension of their data center both in terms of being workload agnostic, but also in terms of performance and the ability to leverage their existing data center tools. With our expertise in networks, software development and data center deployments, we are uniquely positioned to deliver enterprise class services to our customers and start their journey to the cloud.