Thursday, April 26, 2012

All Under One Roof - Remote Infrastructure Services

Companies that have outsourced their IT infrastructure management are slowly realizing the advantage of having a common vendor for all services. Previously, operations management was a segregated affair with separate vendors handling separate operations. One vendor would take care of helpdesk support; while another vendor would specialize in server and mailbox support while the third would take care of the backbone network. The reason for using disparate vendors for every task was that infrastructure management as a service was not mature enough, IT departments were unsure of service levels as tools and processes had to be aligned between vendor and enterprise wary of giving away what they thought was "control" on their infrastructure. Added to this was the perception that support services were an extension of the hardware and software supply function.

With the growing dependence on IT infrastructure, companies soon started understanding the pivotal role communications and IT made to their bottom lines. Vendors soon started realizing the new opportunity that seemed to present itself. With almost every business making use of some sort of IT infrastructure, the need for IT infrastructure support grew rapidly. Quite soon, many companies realized the potential of packaging their services for end-to-end support. This meant stepping beyond the support they provided for their specific products (say a storage device or a messaging platform). Organizations that provided remote infrastructure management services as a core competency and not merely an extension of hardware/software sold, began to mushroom. The key was to provide end-to-end services, thereby reducing the pain points of effective governance, competency building and talent retention. Suddenly, a CIO was not concerned with recruiting and training talent for his infrastructure needs - he had vendors who would do this, letting him focus on the needs of the enterprise.

Remote Infrastructure management services are a consolidated IT infrastructure support service. A single vendor would have the competency to manage everything from network backbone, servers, firewalls and security, helpdesk support, etc.


Today's RIMS providers have managed to bring everything under a single roof: from managing every aspect of IT infrastructure, through various on-site and remote support models and via tools and processes that bring complete transparency. Now, we need to see innovation by way of elasticity.

source: http://EzineArticles.com

Friday, April 13, 2012

Infrastructure as a Service : IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service is one of the three main categories of cloud computing service. Cloud computing involves delivering hosted services over the internet. A cloud service has three different characteristics from a traditional hosting on the internet. These are: it is sold on demand by the hour; it has infinite capability and can be elastic giving as much service as demanded; and the hosting service is managed totally by the provider. The client needs just a personal computer and an internet access. There is a great interest in developing cloud computing as a major component of the infrastructure as a Service.

Further, Infrastructure as a Service offers both large and small businesses an enterprise class managed solution. By utilizing the best architecture IaaS allows its customers to focus on their core business and not worry too much about their infrastructure that is provided to them with a built in flexibility, scalability and reliability. And all this unmatched service is provided for a monthly fee.

A managed hosting is the same as IaaS and manages critical infrastructure. The server which hosts the website of its clients is housed in a data centre. It provides support to the operating systems and applications of its clients with complete security. Data from one client cannot be accessed by any unauthorized person. Many of them have various security programs deployed on their server and spammers as well as hackers cannot get through.

source: http://ezineArticles.com

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Wonders of Cloud Computing

The term "Cloud Computing" is such a by-word nowadays with people claiming it's the trend of the future. The theory behind cloud computing is that individuals and business need not be limited by applications in their desktops. The applications, services and utilities needed in the performance of your work can simply be hosted in the "Cloud" or by a certain provider of your choice. You only need to log on to these services through an internet connection and a browser to access them anywhere you are.

You probably didn't know it but you are already part of the cloud computing generation if you have an online email subscription, one that you access from the net and not installed in your desktop.

If you can imagine the implications this kind of access will have for your enterprise, you'll be staggered. See, now you are dependent on the software applications to be installed on each desktop of every employee in your organization. What this means is that you will have to pay for either the software or the software license for each of these workstations. If you use a cloud computing service to host your applications, you only need to have ONE application hosted with your service provider and your employees can simply log in and use the service from anywhere they are. This will work best especially if you have employees that are always on the road and have to access or store files that are necessary for other members of the team that are waiting in the offices.

Cloud computing is also highly scalable which means that it doesn't matter if you have a small business or a very large corporation. It can easily be customized to suit your needs and to upgrade the system when the need arises. The initial start up will only be minimal and you'll only probably face subscription fees to your hosting provider to keep the applications going.

source: http://EzineArticles.com

Monday, April 9, 2012

Infrastructure As A Service - IAAS


Computer terminology can be incredibly confusing, especially when what they have named at seems to have nothing to do with the product so you can't even make an educated guess as to what it is. If you are an IT whiz then you probably do not have this problem, but for those of us who know the importance of IT but just don't understand or know much about it, it can be a huge problem. If I were to mention infrastructure as a service - IaaS to you, would you know what it meant?

Well, IaaS is one of the ways or methods which allows for you to access cloud computing based services. This is where organizations can purchase or rent computing power, and/or disk space which they can access from their office or desktop PCs through private networks or via the internet.

If this still doesn't make a great deal of sense it is where a company can rent space from a provider instead of having to purchase and set up an IT infrastructure of their own. Generally speaking there are three types or varieties of cloud offerings, however with constant IT changes the changes between each service are ever changing and constantly overlapping.

When a customer opts for an IaaS software server they can choose which software server they feel would be best for their organization. Another task with IaaS providers do is worry about the organizations website, they ensure it is available and monitor traffic, taking another worry off of the organization itself.

As with everything the price for IaaS changes depending on which provider you opt for. Generally though it is priced on a pay as you go system, charges will be made for the amount of data you host via them and the traffic you have going through their servers.

Generally speaking there are various types of cloud which you can opt for, being; public cloud, community cloud, hybrid cloud, private cloud. Some you can tell what they entail by the name, others you cannot so it is wise to do adequate research so you know what you are looking at or contemplating.

Infrastructure as a service - IaaS can be a good addition for any organization. It enables for you to just get on and work without having to continually purchase new software and wait for them to be installed properly and so on, it also allows for you to worry about the more important aspects of business.

source: http://EzineArticles.com