Government Launching G-Hosting to go Alongside G-Cloud
Earlier this year the Government launched a new G-Cloud project to allow the public sector to make use of pre-approved cloud hosting providers, including Virtual Internet, and now they have decided to go one step further with the launch of G-Hosting.
The new G-Hosting initiative will allow more complex applications within the public sector to be shared using virtualised environments. This means that applications that aren’t currently supported by the G-Cloud initiative, such as highly complex legacy systems, will now be supported and can securely be shared within the public sector.
Cost of G-Hosting
Both the G-Cloud and G-Hosting will help improve the efficiency of many areas within the public sector and allow for secure sharing via a virtual cloud, however, the implementation and maintenance of both of these systems is coming at a cost.
According to recent reports, it is expected that by the year 2015 the Government will have spent a total of £250 million on the G-Cloud and by the year 2016 a further £470 million on the new G-Hosting, showing a strong commitment to the project.
G-Cloud Security
All of the companies involved with the G-Cloud and G-Hosting project have had to go through rigorous security checks as the biggest issue with sharing in the Public Sector is security. However, with the G-Hosting network highly sensitive information will be securely hosted, meaning it can be shared within a virtual environment.
This shows that even the Government and Public Sector have caught the cloud bug and it looks like it won’t be long before it is the norm in all businesses in the UK.
Where did it all begin?
Cloud computing has come on leaps and bounds since its inception and as we now move towards an age where cloud computing becomes the norm, we take a look back at how it all began.
An Accurate Vision
The concept surrounding cloud computing can be traced all the way back to the 1950s when Herb Grosch, author of Grosch’s Law, stated that the world would one day ‘operate on dumb terminals powered by about 15 large data centres’. Writing this article I indeed sat at one of those so called ‘dumb terminals’, whilst to even have the ability to read this article, you too are using a ‘dumb terminal’, be it a computer or a smartphone. The term ‘dumb terminal’ is thus rather oxymoronic if you are indeed using your ‘smart’-phone.
Furthermore, in the 1960s John McCarthy explained that “Computation may someday be organised as a public utility”. It appears both these men were right!
Inception and Development
The term ‘cloud’ has been used, quite generically, as a metaphor for the internet since the 80s. Throughout the 1990s, many telecommunications companies started offering virtual private network (VPN) services to their customers. They discovered that this allowed them to utilise their overall network bandwidth much more effectively and the famous cloud drawing was used to illustrate the system. Essentially, cloud computing extends such a system in order to cover servers as well as network infrastructure.
Following the end of the dot.com bubble at the beginning of the new Millennium, Amazon emerged as the leading light in the development of cloud computing as they modernised their data centres and found that the new cloud architecture gave a significant improvement in internal efficiency. In 2006, Amazon eventually launched Amazon Web Service (AWS) on a utility computing basis in order to provide cloud computing to its external customers.
Following this, in 2007, the real rise of cloud computing came to the fore and ever since the cloud has grown and adapted and it continues to be improved each and every day. Cloud infrastructure has come a long way, and soon it will be a necessity for all businesses and internet users.
Survey Reveals Cloud Adoption Should Quadruple
Cloud adoption amongst enterprises is now expected to significantly grow throughout the rest of 2012, however it has also been revealed that some serious obstacles must be overcome. This is according to a customer survey carried out by Cisco Systems.
The 2012 Cisco Global Cloud Networking Survey of 100 IT executives in each of 13 countries has unveiled that while just 5% of the IT executives are currently using cloud computing technology, in order to deliver the majority of the software applications they are using within their business, the figure is expected to rise to around 20% by the end of the year, thus quadrupling the amount of enterprises using cloud hosting as a solution.
Inbar Lasser-Raab, Senior Marketing Director of the Cisco Services Routing Technology Group (SRTG) has been explaining: “The reason so many are moving the majority of their apps to the cloud is because there are more cloud applications out there, more choice, and then there's the maturity of the process.”
She went on to state that the cloud adoption process is beginning to mature as businesses are becoming more familiar with the technology and how cloud computing can benefit their business. It thus seems the adoption of cloud computing is on an upward curve, however this hasn’t, so far, simplified the process as it remains complex, time-consuming and includes a number of pitfalls. This, again, was revealed by the customer survey. 37% of the IT executives surveyed suggested that networking issues was the primary challenge that cloud computing must overcome.
As cloud computing has progressed and cloud adoption has grown, many enterprises discovered the limitations of their current wide area network (WAN) infrastructure and so depending on the application, the infrastructure may need to be upgraded. A typical WAN link, in the case of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployment, can support 20 virtual desktop sessions however they may not deliver the sub-50 millisecond latency limit that is required in a service legal agreement (SLA). Inbar Lasser-Raab concluded that cloud technology has had to adapt and grow to adhere to many considerations that were not previously planned for.
How a University used SharePoint to construct a real, scalable online portal
What happens when a major University finds itself at crossroads with regards continuing legacy software or upgrading to an industrial strength extranet and portal which can deliver personal file storage to over 4,000 staff and additional departments, students and faculties?
If you chose the latter you would be correct. The University of Brighton had no previous experience using the portal, but were aware the new ‘my sites’ feature could replace personal network shares on which staff had become increasingly reliant, in both an online and offline capacity.
The University made all the right moves to engage the Team Sites component and activate a number of security features for critical admins in different departments, schools and faculties.
Of course, this particular implementation was done in-house, overseen by an administrator with 8 years of technical experience including PHP / MySQL development. The University decided to forgo a cloud-based hosted SharePoint model due to strict internal policies regarding data.
However, we would argue that the pain and skill required in deploying SharePoint in-house could have been alleviated by outsourcing to a remote hosting provider which offers 24/7 support from a team of experienced cloud based engineers.
Increasingly, government institutions, private companies and small businesses are pursuing gains in Capex and Opex by moving to a cloud-based model for SharePoint Server and Microsoft Exchange.
Part of the University’s aim was to evolve into a real portal with standard features such as online submission of expenses claims or holiday requests, and front ends into other areas such as finance or student information.
“Our 25,000 students could also perhaps use it as a front end to our Blackboard-based Virtual Learning Environment,” said a ZDNet article.
New Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) models for hosted SharePoint Server environments allow organizations to work smarter using a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Priced on a per user per month basis, budget planning is made simple and affordable while also allowing for infinite growth. All of this also includes a less complex IT operating model allowing institutions (including Universities) the ability to scale without hiring additional IT support staff.
When do Businesses Require Cloud Servers?
More and more SME’s in recent times have decided that cloud hosting is for them, but why? The beauty of the cloud is that anyone can access data and files from anywhere on the planet, as long as they have the correct cloud access of course. Cloud computing can also be extremely cost effective, scalable and improve operational efficiencies too for any business. However, many companies, when questioned, still have security concerns regarding joining the cloud whilst reliability and cost concerns were also causing corporations to be hesitant.
Immediate Concerns
Despite the fact that the numbers of businesses and, in particular, SME’s using cloud servers, it would seem that there is still a large portion of SME’s that are struggling to believe in the cloud at the moment as around 74% of them are reported to currently not use cloud computing. If they were to realise just how much dedicated servers could help their operations, then this figure would swiftly decline.
Many SME’s could thus be missing the point by concentrating too heavily on their immediate costs rather than the potential for long term savings and even increased revenue thanks to the possibilities and advantages of cloud computing.
Advantages
Some of the advantages of cloud computing can include the fact that, when on the cloud, you can effectively pay on demand. Simply, you pay for what you use. Furthermore, you can measure your businesses storage needs efficiently instead of needing to purchase expensive hardware on a regular basis. Also, your hosting provider will be the one taking care of future software and hardware updates, so you would not have to worry about such a thing!
Further advantages of joining the cloud would be the environmental impact. Cloud computing is proven to use less energy than more traditional data centres. In today’s climate this is a very important factor! Cloud computing is also instantaneous as it has a better response time to standard server hardware. Again this is of great importance to many different types of business. Speaking of improving efficiencies and speed, using a cloud server will also allow any potential websites you may have to function at a faster rate due to the benefits of using a more durable service.
These are just some of the advantages, however there are a vast amount of others included and to answer the question posed in the title, cloud servers should be required by all ranges of businesses from SME’s upwards.