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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LG is the latest high profile company to announce that it has launched a cloud service. As of yesterday, May 1st, users are able to store content on the company’s servers and access it from a number of different LG devices. The LG cloud will, for now, be exclusive to Android operating systems whilst also, of course, being compatible with a PC interface and an official LG Cloud app.

The app is downloadable and can be setup to automatically synchronise with LG’s cloud servers so that any user can view their content via their smartphone, PC, tablet and enabled TV/set-top box whilst connected to the cloud server.

LG has announced that a free and paid cloud service will be available with prices varying depending on region whilst the move by LG to release their cloud server is a direct answer to Apple’s iCloud, Samsung’s S-Cloud and Google’s Drive service that have all hit the headlines recently.

However, in an attempt to find distinction from its rivals, a press release from LG stated the following: “The difference is in LG's Real-time Streaming Transcoding technology. The conversion happens on the server in real-time, not on the device. There is no need to worry about installing codecs or converters, everything happens seamlessly and in the background with no involvement from the user. No other cloud service can make this same claim.”

A very bold statement from LG and it will now be interesting to see whether LG’s cloud takes off in the way that they believe it will.

Pure Infrastructure

Very few hosting providers can offer pure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).  Virtual Internet goes beyond this providing blended dedicated and cloud servers to match your business profile.

Orchestrate and innovate

Seal IT complexity inside a VI black box that allows you to orchestrate all your IT assets under centralized dashboards supported by engineers on call 24/7/365.  Further opportunities exist to innovate your systems including automating security, disaster recovery and server monitoring.

Superhero consultants

Nothing uncovers holes or inconsistencies in your business model faster than an audit of your IT operations. It forces companies to admit weaknesses and consolidate strengths. Approach a dedicated consultant to analyze your revenue model, IT complexity and ability to respond to changing market conditions

Business agility

By offshoring your mission-critical apps via Hosted Exchange, Hosted SharePoint, or Lync/Office 365, you can immediately focus on business objectives and leave the technical difficulties and daily troubleshooting to your hosting provider.

Save money

How could we leave this out! A focused server consolidation program found under remotely managed hosting services would save you both Capex and Opex. Add in further cost-savings through managed software installation and maintenance and your 1-5 year profit/cost ratios start to look very good.

It’s been revealed by a research firm, IDC Manufacturing Insights that cloud computing is struggling to take off in the Asia Pacific region. Dr William Lee, Senior Research Manager at IDC Manufacturing Insights Asia/Pacific, has been quoted saying: “Keeping costs down continues to be the primary focus of Asia/Pacific manufacturers.”

The report, Manufacturing and Cloud Computing: A View from Asia/Pacific excluding Japan, analysed responses from 59 manufacturers across the area. Dr William Lee went on to add: “As most benefits of cloud computing do not directly translate to lower total cost of ownership when compared to traditional on-site IT deployments, take-up has been slow till date with fewer than 10 percent of manufacturing firms across APEJ (Asia/Pacific excluding Japan) currently adopting the technology.”

Unsurprisingly, security seems to be the biggest cloud hosting adoption barrier for manufacturers in the region. The concern does not just centre on data breaches of sensitive information, however, as the manufacturers are also anxious about the consequent loss of time and expenditure of resources to reproduce the data.

Dr Lee has again been commenting: “The cloud is often perceived as less secure compared to retaining data in-house. In reality, most security breaches are internal. Therefore, having data residing in the cloud does not necessarily make it more vulnerable to security risks.”

The findings made by the survey have revealed that half of the respondents are indeed hesitant about taking on cloud-based solutions due to further concerns about connection speeds. However, most of the survey respondents did acknowledge that such concerns would be short lived due to the rapid progress of developments in the telecommunications network infrastructure throughout most of Asia.

Dr Lee concluded that he believed cloud computing would have a bigger impact in the near future: “The current volatile market conditions in the manufacturing sector have ignited new interest in cloud as more companies are now looking for shorter term return on investments (ROI), which is one of the chief benefits of the cloud.”

But, today there is no doubt that Salesforce.com is considered one of the catalysts and elder statesman of cloud technology, extolling its values long before Google, Facebook and others brought it to the broader masses.

And, now it has jumped out of the CRM consumer / enterprise playpen and entered the rarified political IT arena with the announcement of a dedicated Government Cloud and associated app marketplace.

“Salesforce.com already has a broad presence in government. According to the company, 70% of cabinet-level agencies and 80% of states use Salesforce.com,” said Information Week.

The implications for this heavy-duty CRM system are enormous considering some reticence towards the cloud in general with regards security and privacy. It’s a clear signal that Quants and IT division heads in governmental sectors, now consider the cloud to be reaching maturity in terms of bullet-proof security and locked-down privacy.

“The Government Cloud will include a dedicated, multi-tenant instance of salesforce.com's cloud infrastructure that will allow U.S. federal, state, and local agencies to rapidly deploy the latest social and mobile technologies in compliance with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements,” said Saleforce.

The statement above reflects the growing trend towards mobile technologies, which recently pressured Facebook to purchase Instagram for $1 billion in a preemptive move to head off competition and overhaul its mediocre mobile platform.

The U.S. government has also signed up for Saleforce’s partner program that entails training over 1,000 integrators by the end of 2012 to overhaul government IT with Salesforce's on-demand platform.

And, when they need more cloud firepower, they will use the Salesforce App Exchange to test drive and deploy new web applications, which are are typical benefit of the cloud.

It’s hard to see whether this is a defensive or offensive move by the Government, which is obviously starved for cash and needs to reduce staff overhead. By its very nature, consolidating on-premise infrastructure into fewer, hosted cloud servers with utility pricing models would obviously appeal to any cash-strapped government.

"We must end the era where government spends millions of dollars and waits years for IT projects that never work.  Now, salesforce.com offers a solution the government needs to break down barriers to innovation and eliminate wasteful IT spending,” said Salesforce.

To many, Salesforce is considered a premium cloud service, especially at the enterprise level. The costs for Government are likely to be much higher. However, in relation to costly on-premise IT and internal resource management, it may well gain economies of scale at lower costs over the next several years.

Caution Cloud Lovers

As with all massive marketing announcements like the one above, there is the need for caution: Salesforce.com will need to scale its internal resources adequately to cope with the increased demands of a G-cloud.  The slightest security or privacy breach could cause big waves that stretch across the world, in much the same manner as that caused by Wikileaks recently.

What today is seen as a majestic move that crowns its place at the pinnacle of the cloud heap, may tomorrow be seen as the pivot point, which hurt its fortunes.

Samsung are the next in line to jump on the cloud hosting bandwagon as they are reportedly preparing to launch a new cloud storage service that they hope will compete with Apple’s successful iCloud and the Google Drive service that was launched this week.

The Google Drive has already caused a stir, with it trending on Twitter and being heavily publicised, and now Samsung can only hope that they will also be able to cause such a media frenzy.

The S-Cloud

The Samsung cloud service has, thus far, been named the S-Cloud and will reportedly be capable of offering users over 5GB of free storage space whilst also being able to function as a media streaming and download service. So, based on such figures, Samsung are aiming to go beyond the free 2GB of space offered by the highly popular Dropbox service. Perhaps Samsung will hope that users of their mobile phone devices will ditch Dropbox in favour of the Samsung S-Cloud. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the service will allow its users to store data beyond traditional media files.

The S-Cloud is reportedly set for its public release on May 3rd at an event in London.

The addition of the Samsung S-Cloud has left me wondering a number of things. Firstly, will it be accessible through the new Smart TV’s that have recently been launched? Samsung offer some of the best rated Smart TV’s on the market, so surely it only makes sense to be able to access your files via an S-Cloud portal on the new TV’s.

Brand Loyalty

Furthermore, are we now moving towards complete single-brand technology integration? What I mean by this is, are we now getting to the point where Samsung mobile phone users will buy only Samsung products in order to have complete device integration? For example, a Samsung mobile phone user uploads an image file to the S-Cloud whilst connected to the internet, they then get home and access said file via their Samsung laptop to perhaps edit it before then saving it to the S-Cloud again. Later that evening whilst watching their Samsung Smart TV they decide to upload that very same file to Facebook due to the fact that the Smart TV’s have Facebook and internet access. To me, that sounds like a sure way to quickly build brand loyalty.

This also follows on from our article last week regarding the idea that soon cloud hosting will rule the world as we will all live in a metaphorical internet cloud. Due to more and more companies launching cloud services and the addition of the 4G cloud, perhaps this really is the beginning.