Hosting goes virtual

We operate in a business world that knows no borders or time zones and we continue to find new ways to redefine the possible. Buyers and sellers anywhere in the world can connect at the click of a mouse. Users have been unshackled from their desks and offices, and can run a business from the beach or the city through a growing variety of devices. A whole generation is coming of age where constant connectivity to the global village is deemed completely normal. And technology has led the charge to make this possible. One technology in particular is allowing us to connect the dots in a spectacular fashion. That technology is virtualisation. Defined as the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, we can virtualise hardware platforms, storage, network resources and even desktops.The link between the computing resources needed to run business, and the physical platforms on which they sit, is no more. Multiple "virtual” servers can reside on a single hardware server. Each can be provisioned and managed in the same way as their physical forbearers, and this factor alone delivers one of the most compelling benefits of virtualisation: consolidation. Consider a business environment with ten servers. Ten servers can generate significant amounts of heat. Ten servers can draw a considerable amount of power. Ten servers have more parts to fail. What if those ten servers could sit on a single physical box? They can, in a virtualised world. With virtualisation comes a new way of doing business. Economies of scale mean that large infrastructures shared by many virtual machines make sense. Large infrastructures beg for automation as a means to control and manage resources.Automation invites self-service and the notion of "on-demand” computing where resources can ebb and flow over units of time as small as a minute, and where the storage devices will move data seamlessly across disk classes as performance dictates. Suddenly, it no longer matters what your system is running on. The focus is where it should be: on the performance and availability of your business systems.  Against a backdrop of virtualisation, the Cloud is the new paradigm for IT systems. But with this advance comes some real-world decisions for a business. It is the business that needs to understand the implications, benefits and the value proposition of virtualisation rather than leaving it to the CIO or IT department.   ConsiderationsIf your business runs a traditional IT infrastructure, then consider what the Cloud has to offer. But before you do, take stock of where you sit in relation to cloud computing.

• What exists now and why? Has your growth in IT infrastructure been planned and managed or has it evolved, driven by different platform needs over time?
• What is in place for business continuity? Can you carry on in case of human error, data loss or physical damage from fire or extreme weather events?
• Is your infrastructure meeting the needs of the business in terms of capacity and performance?
• Are you constrained by your network infrastructure?
• What risks are you carrying in the current infrastructure? Security, resilience…?
• What resources are needed to maintain the servers, the network and your connectivity to the outside world?

The answers to these questions might not change the drive to move to a cloud computing model, but they will inform the choices you make when considering hosting providers and hosting services. Understanding the range of hosting optionsSeveral hybrid options are available on the journey into the cloud. A cloud environment need not be outsourced - it can be "on-premise”. Conversely, owning your own servers need not be on-premise, your servers can be co-located in a hosting provider’s data centre.  Beyond efficiency, flexibility and cost savings, your selected hosting infrastructure should deliver an 0pportunity to punch above your weight.  You will be renting resources, possibly limited to the racks and data center environment or extending to services, storage and software. In every case, renting a share of an enterprise-grade platform makes more sense than owning a full share of a small business platform. You can choose from a smorgasbord of options to define where and how you host:

• Opt for virtualisation in the cloud - shared or private
• Opt for physical resources - outsourced or on-premise

And then mix and match a range of options including:

• Virtualised servers
• Virtualised software applications
• Virtualised storage
• Virtualised firewalls
• Virtualised networks
• Virtualised desktops
• Rental licences for operating systems, databases and application software
• And the services to manage and maintain your resources: backups, server patching, firewall management, upgrades, to name but a few.

Scalability and Future-proofingVirtualisation is the key to both scalability and future proofing. With virtualisation, you can change the underlying service provider, hardware platform, geographical location and add or remove resources. Whether you start "on-premise”, in the cloud, or both, the paths will remain open. The technology gets better each quarter and, as a customer, being able to leverage the advances without long development and testing cycles is an exciting prospect.The price point is likely to determine where you go and how quickly you move. The New Zealand market remains constrained by the cost of international bandwidth.  Hosting with offshore providers when large amounts of data are involved is less attractive than national hosting with a provider offering free national transit. The differentiation between hosting partners will be one of service quality. As the service providers work through investment cycles, the game will be one of leapfrog, and the best game in town will depend on the point in the investment cycle. Stand-out hosting partners offer levels of advice and customer care reflecting the importance of service delivery and the need to be more than just a number when something goes wrong. And go wrong it will - very rarely, hopefully, but cloud computing does not remove traditional IT issues like the power goes out, carrier networks fail, DDOS (distributed denial of service) attacks target your IP address range or one of your users deletes data they shouldn’t.What matters then is that the much touted levels of resilience and management turn out to be real, and the customer care team at your hosting partner rallies to provide the support you need to get back up and running. Using a service provider in the data center hosting space will typically offer a high level of resilience, security, accessibility, back up, service and support as a package offering. But you do get what you pay for.  If two providers offer what appears to be the same service at very different price points, then you may wish to ask yourself why. A Checklist to move forwardVirtualisation technology is turning hosting on its head, but here is a list to run through as you consider launching into the cloud.

• Hosting is moving into a commodity space.  The differentiator will be the service levels. Check these and satisfy yourself that these are real.  Ask for references or refer to blog sites to see what the industry has to say.
• Make sure your provider has an open approach towards outages. Planned or unplanned, they still happen in the hosting world and transparency is critical for you to manage the impacts. Visibility of network outages is a reasonable indicator of your service provider’s level of openness.
• Make sure you stay mobile and can move to another provider if you are unhappy.
• Be prepared to trade a term commitment for a discount once you are happy with your hosting partner.  This will buy significant long term discounts.
• Make sure you address the key issues in the cloud and how these are handled by your service provider:
• Security and where the responsibility sits
• Data ownership (sovereignty); only really an issue if you are hosting off shore.
• Resilience in the data center, the network and platform infrastructure.
• Understand where the demarcation points are for service and who does what
• Understand the service levels on offer and particularly the level of self-service available to you.
• Understand the reporting and monitoring available for exception handling and options for proactive management of anything affecting your hosting environment: SMS texts, twitter alerts and email.
• Understand the range of additional services available to you as optional extras should you wish to migrate fully into the cloud.