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...

Today, most sizable IT organizations have hundreds, if not thousands, of licenses for software tools that are critical for building and running the databases and applications that power their business. Managing these tools and their associated licenses, including deploying, provisioning, and updating them, is time-consuming and incurs many hidden costs. There are also real productivity costs when IT professionals can’t readily access the tools they need at the right time. On the other hand, putting a bunch of tools on a server with no management, provisioning or usage tracking capabilities around them can come at an even higher cost. So then, where should IT professionals or anyone else responsible for setting up and managing a tools infrastructure look for answers? The latest phenomenon sweeping the IT landscape – cloud computing – may hold the most promise to overcome this issue. The reduced complexity, lower costs and improved scalability afforded by enterprise clouds ar...

Do you feel like you need to escape the typical hardware and operating system lifecycle “treadmill?” Like a dog trying to catch it's tail.. For Application Virtualization what are the application your organization use and how the users are accessing the Applications? How these users are spread and the related challenges in the WAN environment? Securing the IT infrastructure in today’s computing environment may well be the biggest challenge faced by organizations. Not only must organizations ensure the integrity of their systems and data, but often they must also prove that their security processes and policies measure up against standards and regulations established and enforced by national standards-developing entities. In addition, the recent popularization of virtualized environments adds a new layer of complexity to the security picture. Businesses are just beginning to comprehend the security implications of these environments. To tackle these security issues, many organizatio...

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...

The megatrend that powers SaaS is the same one driving Web 2.0, SOA and every other expression of today’s increasingly Web-connected world. Fundamentally, the infrastructure of the Web allows us to cut out much of the location-dependent friction that gets in the way of communicating, collaborating and trading. Software used to be delivered in boxes and had to be installed in the same building as the people that used it. The Web removes those constraints, enabling SaaS — and SaaS in turn becomes the foundation for innovative new ways of interacting and doing business. Software as a Service (SaaS)—meaning delivering software over the Internet—is increasingly popular for its ability to simplify deployment and reduce customer acquisition costs; it also allows developers to support many customers with a single version of a product. SaaS is also often associated with a "pay as you go" subscription licensing model. Under a "pay-as-you-go" model, your customers gain access ...

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...