Company leaders need to think about incorporating key technologies into their IT environments to set a foundation for the private cloud.  Well, the question arise what are those key enabling technologies? Broadly speaking, we need fast wide-area networks, powerful, inexpensive server computers, and high-performance virtualization for commodity hardware. Once we have these three thing in place. One may start with virtualization, to get your hands dirty, before moving on to an internal private cloud deployment. Then, you may decide to move to a managed service model. Well, one of the best places to start with a private cloud build is to make sure you have some form of virtualization already in place. It serves as a great foundation for the private cloud, which requires virtualized servers, mass storage solutions, and more.  Why do we need a cloud deployment model? The point is let’s not make the users worry about managing the cloud services. We must decide a cloud dep...

Virtualization is not new. IBM first introduced virtual machine technology for mainframe computers in the early 1960s. Microsoft Windows NT included a virtual DOS machine. Virtual PC was introduced by Connectix in 1997 (Microsoft acquired Connectix in 2003). EMC’s VMware introduced its first product, VMware Workstation, in 1999. Softricity introduced SoftGrid, the first application virtualization product, in 2001 (Microsoft acquired Softricity in 2006). Server virtualization is the masking of server resources, including the number and identity of individual physical servers, processors, and operating systems, from server users. The server administrator uses a software application to divide one physical server into multiple isolated virtual environments. The virtual environments are sometimes called virtual private servers, but they are also known as partitions, guests, instances, containers or emulations. There are different types of virtualization. Machine virtualization uses softwar...

Today’s IT organizations are dealing with the consequences of exploding IT infrastructure growth and complexity. While computing resources continue to increase in power, organizations are unable to fully utilize them in single application deployments and cannot change computing resource assignments easily when application or business requirements change. At the root of the problem is uncontrolled server sprawl, servers provisioned to support a single application. Organizations that implemented hardware virtualization have unwittingly created a new problem: OS sprawl. While hardware remains a considerable cost component, software and management continue to be the largest cost considerations. The daily management and operations functions are daunting, and adding in business continuity requirements, the costs and complexity are overwhelming. Moreover, few tools provide the management and automation to ease the burden on IT departments. In order to address these critical challenges, don...