Three Cloud Choices for Enterprises

shutterstock_108845345With the growing popularity and use of cloud services, IT administrators continue to face the choice of whether to maintain their network operations in house, or outsource operations to a third party. There are pros and cons to each approach.

Administrators must carefully evaluate a company’s needs and requirements to determine if a cloud solution makes sense. Not all cloud services are created equal. When deciding among Public, Private, and Hybrid cloud solutions, cost, capabilities, and security needs should be considered.

Public Cloud

Public cloud offerings are affordable, flexible and easy to access but offer less stringent security capabilities. Security is top of mind for network administrators, who have likely taken notice of recent high-profile data breaches.

Public cloud solutions create an additional point of risk by allowing employees to access information from the cloud from potentially insecure networks. Such breaches cause IT administrators to be cautious about the security risks associated with entrusting sensitive to data to servers they don’t control.

Private Cloud

Private cloud offerings, on the other hand, allow enterprises to maintain a certain level of control of data resources. This control allows enterprises to ensure critical company data is kept secure. Other benefits include the ability to control costs. A careful evaluation of the company’s security position is also crucial to determine what data, if any, can be transported and used via a public cloud, and which must remain within the private network.

Private Cloud solutions also provide the ability to customize and optimize services to fit the enterprise’s specific needs. However, private networks sometimes have limited data access, due to fewer interfaces with existing systems. In addition, private networks require in-house support and maintenance, which costs money and personnel resources.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud solutions are a relatively new offering that can give enterprises the benefits of both public and private approaches by allowing enterprises to offload some resources to the public cloud while maintaining control over others. In particular, enterprises may be attracted to the limitless capacity of the public cloud and the ability to buy into that capacity as needed.

With a hybrid solution, companies can take advantage of those benefits, while still selecting which mission-critical data it must keep within the private network in order to protect that data from breaches. While adoption rates are still low for hybrid solutions, research shows an increasing level of interest in such services among enterprises, driven in part by a market that values the ability to customize IT solutions.

Choose Wisely and Succeed

Ultimately, each enterprise must carefully consider current and future needs when selecting a cloud solution. Once these evaluations are made, the company will be in the best possible position to determine which cloud solution best meets needs and requirements.

Three Critical Infrastructure Elements for Network Uptime

shutterstock_85778392In today’s fast-paced world, where business is increasingly conducted electronically, infrastructure reliability and network up-time are crucial. Infrastructure weaknesses can lead to network downtime, and outages can prove costly for businesses.

Network uptime can be affected by three primary factors. Focusing on adding redundancy to these three elements can help ensure network reliability and decrease the likelihood of an outage.

Overheating

Servers, like any piece of equipment, have the potential to overheat if proper steps are not taken to control their temperature. Servers typically run uninterrupted, unlike desktop PCs that are powered down, or go into idle mode throughout the day. Servers also are often housed in small rooms, and in close quarters with other network equipment. These server rooms can quickly warm to levels that can jeopardize equipment.

Whether a business is housing its own equipment, or outsourcing network and server functions to a third party or cloud provider, it is critical to ensure that network infrastructure is properly cooled. At least two cooling methods should be employed to ensure there is a backup in case one cooling method fails. Possible cooling solutions include rooftop air conditioning units, external condensers, and computer room air conditioning units.

Power Failures

Sometimes the most obvious point of weakness is the most overlooked. Infrastructure equipment requires power to function, and reliable data center power with a backup power solution for redundancy is critical.

An A+B power feed, which creates two independent channels from the public power source to the infrastructure equipment, should be at the top of the requirement list for data center power. This eliminates potential single points of failure when power channels are shared at any point.

Some of the power options that can be included in each feed are uninterruptible power supply, utility power, back-up generator, maintenance bypass panel, internal server power, mains distribution panel, and an automatic transfer switch. Each power feed should have at least one of these options, and should be able to handle the entire server load at peak usage independently to create redundancy.

Network Connections

The equipment used to connect infrastructure to the Internet is another potential point of weakness. Routers and switches wear out relatively quickly, and should be properly maintained and replaced in a timely manner. Integrating backup connections to create redundancy can help prevent network downtime. In addition, connections from the data center to the external Internet network are crucial for network uptime. Peering arrangements with multiple connections create redundancy and reliability, and can optimize performance.

Another important key to making sure potential network failure is mitigated is to choose network and infrastructure providers that are committed to reducing or eliminating single points of failure by adding backups and redundancies. Network downtime is costly and unacceptable, but there are simple ways to build in redundancy. Cutting corners on infrastructure reliability leads to network downtime and service interruptions that can ultimately cost more than building redundancy in from outset.