Live blogging from the Internet Summit:

Revlon: Making The Cloud Glamorous
David Giambruno – Senior Vice President & CIO, Revlon

Internet Summit - David Giambruno

David runs through his hour-long presentation in a quick 20 minutes:

Key Points / Takeaways:

  • The cloud is as impactful as the LAN was in the early 90s.
  • It’s all about horizontal, not vertical.
  • It’s all about the network, if it doesn’t work, you have problems.
  • Fiber channel is not good for the cloud; get rid of it.
  • The cloud allows faster, better cheaper infrastructure.
  • We never spent any more money, we just changed how we spend our money.
  • Shifting to the cloud creates a culture of change.
  • Everything is a file. The cloud changes the perception of time for how fast work can be completed.
  • Real applications & data to develop on, at no cost.
  • Data can be transferred very fast during disaster relief to prevent data loss.

Managing a Top Tier Data Center: Change, Control, and Cloud
Duane Barnes – Senior Network Engineer, Windstream Hosted Solutions

Internet Summit - Duane Barnes

Infrastructure challenges:

  • Costs are going up, but infrastructure budgets are remaining steady.
  • Managing change in a data center, requires multiple levels of approval.
  • Procedures for different levels of change.m
What is the cloud?
  • Scalability
  • Resource pooling
  • Self Service
  • Pay by the drink – purchase only the resources you need
  • Highly available
  • SLA-driven (the higher the service level agreement, the higher the cost)
Why implement cloud?
  • Flexibility
  • Scalability
  • Efficiency
  • Reliability
Cloud types:
  • Public
  • Private
  • Hybrid
Selecting a cloud provider:
  • Security at all levels
  • Reference customers
  • Experience, mature product sets
  • Enterprise-class equipment backed by major vendors
  • Tier 2 or 3 SSAE 16 Soc 1 Type II compliant
  • 24×7  NOC support w/ solid response times and SLAs
  • Support is going to drive the cost of the solution and your happiness
Uptime SLAs:
  • 99.5 = almost 2 days of downtime per year
  • 99.99 = about of downtime per year
Migrating to the cloud:
  • Biggest pitfall: getting access and connectivity to your cloud
  • DNS changes and IP addresses are very important to consider
  • Which applications should be virtualized?
  • Data – how much does it change, and how long to store it?
  • Server identities
  • Environment architecture
Which option is ideal for you?
  • Budget vs. acceptable risk
  • Level of control
  • CAPEX vx. OPEX
  • Development vs. production environments
Pitfalls to avoid:
  • Cloud sprawl – risks with self-service provisioning and complete loss of control by IT and potential bursting costs
  • Application performance – making sure you know how your application will perform in a virtualized infrastructure
  • Software licensing – a risk with maintaining compliance with your software vendors moving to the cloud
  • Don’t get boxed in – make sure the provider you choose uses industry standards and best practices
  • Platform support – don’t assume that everything can be moved to the cloud, have realistic expectations
Summary:
  • Pick a partner you can trust that will change to your need and grow with you
  • Have solid requirements and know what you are buying
  • Focus on what you do
Find cloud services at Windstream.

The Public Cloud Security Challenge
William Dalton – Director, Corporate IT, Trend Micro

Internet Summit - William Dalton

Key Point and Takeaways:

  •  The cloud is NOT secure
  • Increased adoption of cloud correlated to a higher incidence of security lapse
  • Enterprises are concerned about using cloud computing services
  • Not all cloud providers meet enterprise IT security requirements
  • Some enterprises don’t even know they are using a cloud computing service
  • Enterprises are moving to the cloud at a fast rate
  • More servers and endpoints are being virtualized
  • Security is important, but performance and availability are equally important
  • Develop a calculation model to address variable costs
  • You must adhere to a cloud provider’s logging requirements; keep this in mind
  • Make sure your vendor has the proper APIs in place to prevent vendor lock-in
  • Look into cloud brokering services
  • Encryption needs to be managed; don’t store your keys in the cloud provider
  • Leverage corporate accounts where possible

Delivering End User Apps to users…wherever they are
Dave Lawrence – Practice Director, End User Computing, Varrow

Internet Summit - David Lawrence

Two main providers: Citrix and VMware

The Citrix Perspective

FlexCast – utilizes multiple technologies to deliver apps to users

  • Users don’t like change
  • To use all of these devices, we need an app store. People have been accustomed to the iTunes method of delivery
  • Citrix is trying to create a consistent, identical experience for each user regardless of the device
  • Citrix has been around longer than VMware
The VMware Perspective
  • The PC is not dead, but it’s not the only game in town
  • Horizon Platform – creating a catalog with a desktop and a data service, where the admin can choose what the users see and have access to
  • Give users the app they need in one location (iTunes method)
  • VMware is simpler at the moment but continues to increase in complexity
  • Not a full solution yet
There is a very similar approach between Citrix and VMware. The goal is the same: create a consistent experience for end users.
Comparison:
  • Both use an app store to deliver their applications
  • Both are providing customers with multiple options
  • Both are using multiple technologies to deliver apps based on user need
  • Both have methods to deliver the user data to the user
  • Citrix has longevity, and it shows in their functionality
  • Citrix may require additional admin training
  • Part of VMware’s solution is still in beta
  • VMware has had success in server virtualization; VMware is to server virtualization as Apple is to the tablet
  • Most of our customers choose Citrix on VMware
  • Competition has benefited customers

Steps:

  • Access your environment and use cases; analyze your users and their workloads
  • Gather performance data on your desktops; know how your applications work
  • Plan which applications will be delivered to your users based on which method
  • Decide if you want a POC
  • Design and implement the infrastructure this will run on
  • Deploy in small groups so you can work through any issues
  • Administer and constantly tune the environment, evaluate over time

Find out about Varrow here.