As cloud technologies evolve and more companies move to cloud-based services, it’s important to understand the emerging trends surrounding the technology. Let’s look at some of the 2021 trends in cloud computing.

2021 Trends to Watch in Cloud Computing

1. More businesses will adopt hybrid cloud services

While a public cloud solution comes with benefits such as lower costs, less maintenance, and almost unlimited scalability, it’s not an option for businesses in regulated industries because of strict data security and compliance requirements.

A hybrid cloud is a cloud-computing solution that uses both private and public cloud models. 87 percent of enterprises have already adopted hybrid cloud strategies for the benefits it brings by combining the public cloud with the security of a private on-premise cloud environment.

A well-designed hybrid cloud environment lets employees access non-sensitive company data and resources through the public cloud while the private cloud provides the security and compliance capabilities necessary for protecting sensitive data.

2. The rise of “Distributed Cloud”

A distributed cloud solution allocates public cloud services to different physical locations to optimize for performance and compliance and is an excellent solution for businesses with specific geographical requirements.

Services can be distributed across on-premises locations and multiple third-party data centers. The management and maintenance of the distributed cloud remain the responsibility of the original public cloud provider.

Because infrastructure is physically closer to the client, distributed computing helps resolve latency issues and mitigates the risk of total server failure. In the future, distributed cloud solutions are expected to develop to look more like hybrid cloud solutions in private settings with more reliable networks, easier compliance to regulations, and an increased number of locations.

3. Serverless Computing

Serverless computing is a relatively new cloud offering but demand for the service is expected to grow by 25 percent by 2025. It is especially beneficial for software developers who no longer have to manage and maintain network servers because all resources are allocated by the cloud service provider.

Serverless computing removes the need for cloud application developers to have extensive expertise in AWS or Google Cloud Platform. Since they only need to interact with the serverless interface, developers can be more productive, focusing on development, UX and UI instead of IT infrastructure.

With the increased adoption of serverless computing expect to see more developer collaboration tools to help front-end teams optimize workflow.

4. Greater adoption of cloud-based disaster recovery

The events of 2020 underscored the need for businesses to have scalable and easily accessible disaster recovery solutions. The abrupt shift to remote work exposed vulnerabilities in many disaster recovery plans and resulted in an increased move to cloud-based solutions in 2021.

With a cloud-based disaster recovery solution, staff can still access resources and continue working even when it’s not possible to meet in person. IT support teams can also monitor and maintain the business network, allowing businesses to continue operations without interruption.

5. Rise of Platform as a Service

Platform as a service (PaaS) is also expected to see more growth in 2021. PaaS allows companies to use third-party providers to provide cloud-based development platforms.

Available through both private and public cloud platforms, PaaS increases stability across the development platform making it easier to develop applications, store data, and test software.

The use of PaaS is steadily increasing as businesses seek to modernize legacy applications with cloud-native capabilities. As PaaS offerings expand, small and medium-sized businesses are expected to take advantage of the lower costs that come with increased availability.

6. Artificial Intelligence will play a greater role

Artificial intelligence aims to automate repetitive tasks and covers a wide range of technologies, including chatbots, location services, and digital assistants. AI is expected to continue to grow with the market exceeding $300 billion by 2024.

AI will become more relevant in the workplace as companies use it to streamline business processes and eliminate manual tasks. Increased use of AI for data analysis will help companies gain better insight into their products and services and streamline workflows with activities such as payroll automation, budget forecasting, and compliance.

7. The Rise of Multi-Cloud

93 percent of all organizations are adopting a multi-cloud strategy. Multi-cloud solutions allow businesses to use two or more cloud services from several cloud service vendors. Businesses can avoid vendor lock-in while taking advantage of the best cloud offerings each vendor provides.

In the future, more organizations will develop multi-cloud strategies with little to no dependence on a specific cloud provider. Providers will also seek to create partnerships that combine their mutual strengths to speed up market launches and time to market for multi-cloud products and services.

Microsoft and Oracle, rivals in the cloud space, have already made this strategic move, linking their cloud services and allowing customers to run enterprise applications across Oracle Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

8. Edge computing will dominate

Edge computing is an emerging cloud trend that involves storing data and information in localized data centers closer to the devices that use them. Computing and management are handled locally instead of at the central cloud network.

Edge computing is useful in remote locations where there is little connectivity. The technology can also resolve latency issues that affect the speed and performance of real-time applications. Edge computing is the basis of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology used in facial recognition components, remote doorbells, temperature control systems, and smart light switches.

As IoT becomes more popular, edge computing will become more relevant in our everyday lives and play an integral part in the management of IoT technologies. 2021 and beyond will see organizations further using cloud computing solutions and emerging cloud technologies like AI and Edge to find innovative solutions to business challenges.

Don’t get left behind. NewCloud Networks offers several virtualization servers to help you take advantage of emerging trends in cloud computing and cloud services. Get in touch to find out more about our cloud solutions.

The post Top 8 Cloud Computing Trends [Updated 2024] appeared first on OTAVA®.

What You Need To Know About Healthcare Cloud Computing

In the past several years there has been a radical transformation of the healthcare industry in response to advances in technology as well as government regulations. This transformation was hastened by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. Under this legislation, providers are increasingly being reimbursed under the value-based care model rather than the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) model. In addition, providers are required to document and store records electronically rather than on paper. 

Traditionally, healthcare providers and facilities developed their own in-house network infrastructure to meet the technological requirements dictated by the Affordable Care Act. However, due to the high costs of building a physical network infrastructure and some constraints imposed by a physical network, an increasing number of healthcare providers are turning to cloud computing. The global healthcare cloud computing market is growing rapidly with no indication of slowing anytime soon. This market is currently at $19 billion and is expected to reach $44 billion by 2023 with a compound annual growth rate of 18.2%.

Benefits of healthcare cloud computing

Some of the ways that cloud computing benefits healthcare providers compared to traditional network infrastructures include:

• Cost: Physical network infrastructures are expensive to build and maintain. Building a network infrastructure can significantly increase a healthcare facility’s capital expenditure. There are costs associated with obtaining a location for the infrastructure, acquiring the necessary hardware as well as software, and hiring skilled personnel to operate and maintain the infrastructure. These additional costs can result in an erosion of profits for a healthcare facility. With cloud computing, these costs are assumed by a third party vendor; the vendor provides and supports the virtual infrastructure. Healthcare facilities simply pay the vendor for the resources used thereby saving a significant amount of money.
• Scalability: One area where cloud computing has a major advantage over traditional networks is scalability. With cloud computing, healthcare facilities are able to easily scale up or down their application use and data storage as needed. There is no concern that they might meet their data storage capacity and run out of space. This is especially important when developing a disaster strategy as frequent data backups may need to be necessary.
• Collaboration: As a result of the shift to the value-based care financial reimbursement model, greater collaboration is required by healthcare providers involved in the care of their patients. This collaboration requires the exchange of data among the providers so that they have the relevant medical information to make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan. With cloud computing, data exchange is simplified as all relevant providers have access to the information in the cloud. This is in contrast to traditional networks where the medical information may be siloed and not readily available to all providers.
• Analytics: Analytics are usually performed to assess healthcare trends and research into the effectiveness of treatment modalities as well as develop innovative treatment solutions. Effective analytics and research require access to all relevant medical information. Data stored in the cloud provides a central repository that can be accessed by researchers and data analysts to perform their research.
• Improved patient care: Healthcare providers make medical diagnosis and offer treatment options to their patients based on the information available to them. With more medical information, providers can make more appropriate diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Cloud computing provides the ability to gather information from multiple data sources. In addition to the electronic medical record, data can also be retrieved from smartphones, smartwatches, and other medical devices. Having this data stored in the cloud makes it easy for providers to access them when treating their patients, thereby improving their care.

At Otava, we understand the cloud needs of healthcare facilities. We have experts available to work with you in developing a unique cloud solution for your healthcare facility. Contact us today for more information about our services.

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As a manufacturer, there are many benefits that you stand to gain by migrating your services and processes to the cloud. Discussed below are some of the benefits of a cloud-based manufacturing process.

1) AGILITY

The ability to rapidly adapt in response to a constantly changing and evolving global economy is essential to the success of any manufacturing business. Manufacturers that fail respond rapidly may end up falling behind their competitors, becoming obsolete, and may eventually fail. However, switching processes is often a time as well as a cost-intensive task which is why some manufacturers are usually reluctant to do so, choosing instead to maintain the status quo.

Cloud computing simplifies the tasks involved in switching manufacturing processes. Since the processes are cloud-based with minimal hardware, the cloud service provider can easily customize the relevant applications to accommodate whatever manufacturing process is desired

2) COST REDUCTION

Developing and maintaining manufacturing processes is typically an expensive affair. There are costs associated with buying the relevant hardware, hiring the required personnel, finding the necessary physical space, among other things. These costs can, if not managed properly, erode a manufacturer’s profits.

With cloud computing, manufacturers save money as most of the applications are supported in the cloud by third-party cloud service providers. The cloud service providers assume the responsibility for any needed development, support, and maintenance; the provider is also responsible for hiring personnel with the desired skill-sets.

3) PERFORMANCE AND EFFICIENCY

The success of a manufacturer is directly linked to its performance as well as the efficiency of its processes. Therefore, it is important to adopt models the enhance process performance and efficiency. Cloud computing enhances the performance of the manufacturer’s processes. Using the cloud, manufacturers are able to easily streamline their processes. The cloud also helps them perform data analysis to ascertain other strategies to enhance their business performance and efficiency.

4) SCALABILITY

As manufacturers grow in size, it is important that they increase the capacity of their network infrastructure and manufacturing processes so as to keep up with the increase. Physical networks and processes have limited capabilities for expansion due to the limitations of their physical space. With cloud computing, however, there are no limitations to how much a manufacturer can scale. Cloud service providers can easily make the necessary changes to scale up as needed.

5) NEW PRODUCTION MODELS

To remain competitive and relevant in our global economy, it is essential for manufacturers to frequently reevaluate their processes; processes that are no longer relevant should be discarded. Cloud computing has facilitated the development of newer processes and production models; 3D printing, Internet of Things (IoT) as well as industrial robots are some examples of recently developed cloud-based production models. By switching to the cloud, manufacturers are able to take advantage of these new models and enhance their business capabilities.

At Otava, we know the importance of cloud computing in the manufacturing industry. We a premier third-party cloud service provider ready to work with your business in migrating over to the cloud. For more information about what we offer, contact us today

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NIST defines Cloud Computing as: Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.  NIST is implying the economy of scale that goes with cloud computing when they talk about a pool of configurable computing resources.

In my opinion, the benefits of cloud computing clearly include the cost savings that come with economy of scale, but also include a number of other benefits.  Here are the Six Benefits of Cloud Computing as I see them:

1) Lower Costs – Cloud computing pools all of the computing resources that can be distributed to applications as needed – optimizing the use of the sum of the computing resources and delivering better efficiency and utilization of the entire shared infrastructure. Cost management tools in the public cloud, such as Online Tech’s SprawlGuard, take lowering costs a step further to manage and optimize your cloud spend for the most efficiency.

2) Cap-Ex Free Computing – Whether you go with a public cloud or outsourced private cloud computing option, cloud computing delivers a better cash flow by eliminating the capital expense associated with building the server infrastructure.

3) Deploy Projects Faster – Because servers can be brought up & destroyed in a matter of minutes, the time to deploy a new application drops dramatically with cloud computing.  Rather than installing and networking a new hardware server, the new server can be dialed up and imaged in through a self-serve control console.  Or better yet, with a private cloud, your service provider can dial up a new server with a single call or support ticket.

4) Scale as Needed – As your applications grow, you can add storage, RAM and CPU capacity as needed.  This means you can buy “just enough” and scale as the application demands grow.

5) Lower Maintenance Costs driven by 2 factors:  Less hardware and outsourced, shared IT staff.  Because cloud computing uses fewer physical resources, there is less hardware to power and maintain.  With an outsourced cloud, you don’t need to keep server, storage, network, and virtualization experts on staff full time.  You get economy of scale of those expert resources through your cloud provider.

6) Resiliency and Redundancy – One of the benefits of a private cloud deployment is that you can get automatic failover between hardware platforms and disaster recovery services to bring up your server set in a separate data center should your primary data center experience an outage.

Cloud computing provides some strong benefits.  Selecting a public or private cloud implementation will depend on your application, performance, security and compliance requirements, but with the proper deployment cloud computing can provide significant savings, better IT services, and a higher level of reliability.

Related Links:

1. Advantages and challenges of hybrid cloud adoption: According to the RightScale State of the Cloud 2017 report, hybrid cloud is the preferred strategy for enterprise IT. That being said, hybrid clouds have their own set of challenges and opportunities, and organizations considering…(continue reading)
2. What is a Virtual Private Cloud? You already know that there are three major types of clouds: Public, Private and Hybrid. Now, there’s a newer player in the game: Virtual Private Clouds. What makes these different from public and private clouds, and what is the benefit? (continue reading)
3. How to provision resources in the cloud: According to RightScale, lack of resources/expertise was cited as the No. 1 challenge in enterprise cloud adoption. If you’re experiencing rapid growth or a need to become more agile, you’re probably looking at the public cloud or already in it.  (continue reading)
4. Key differences between AWS and Microsoft Azure: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are two of the biggest names in public cloud computing. Which one is right for you? To help you make that decision, let’s talk about what each provider brings to the public cloud table, and key differences between them. (continue reading)

Or, read all our cloud articles here.

Ready to speak with a cloud expert? Contact us now to learn more about our cloud solutions, including managed public cloud with SprawlGuard protection, virtual private cloud, or dedicated private cloud.

The post The Six Benefits of Cloud Computing appeared first on OTAVA®.

Server Costs Overview

Making a decision on how to handle your IT Infrastructure can be a difficult one and one in which requires some planning.  It is important that you understand all of your options before purchasing or renting your equipment.

One of the most common problems in communicating the value of managed colocation is undervaluing the time and cost of keeping your server up and running. Sure the cost of buying a server is relatively inexpensive but the costs to operate it can be overwhelming. There are many factors that go into the costs of operating a server but they all fall into one of four categories:

• Housing and Protecting
• Monitoring and Tracking
• Responding and Repairing
• Preventative Measures

These categories make it easier to explain the difference between managed and unmanaged colocation because the costs associated with each service can help you decide which service is right for you.

Housing and Protecting – This covers where the server is being stored, the power being supplied to it, the network keeping it online. It also includes any firewall or threat management system keeping hackers away from your server as well as features of the data center, such as raised floors and fire suppression, that help protect your server.

Monitoring and Tracking – This covers the monitoring of operating characteristics like disk space and RAM usage as well as the messaging system in order to alert the owner of the server if something is deemed to be out of the normal range.

Responding and Repairing – This covers any services that are necessary when your server malfunctions. These can include troubleshooting and remediation services as well as part replacement.

Preventative Measures – Besides the protection to your server mentioned in “housing and protecting”, preventative services like on-site or off-site backup help ensure that your data will always be recoverable.

What is Colocation?

Colocation is a service offered by data centers to house and power your servers at their own location. This can have several benefits depending on the services included by the data center operator you choose. At the bare minimum, colocation involves a place to house your server, the power to run it, and the connection to operate it online. Those services can be expanded upon to include everything necessary to not only get your server up and running but ensure that your server is working 100% of the time without any work from your company.

Colocation can provide you with many benefits, mostly due to the fact that you can take advantage of a data center’s significantly “bigger” infrastructure without paying for it up front. This can have significant impacts on uptime, deployment time, and security. It can also help with cost forecasting and planning as your contracts become “known costs” and can help you make decisions easier, faster, and safer. Scalibility is another important benefit when outsourcing your IT infrastructure as you can continue to add servers without increasing your head count or having to build additions to your own larger data center.

How do Colocation Services vary from a Dedicated Server?

The main difference between colocation services and dedicated server services is that a dedicated server is owned by the data center whereas with colocation services, the servers are always owned by the client. Dedicated servers usually include many more server-side services that ensure your server never experiences downtime than standard colocation services but with some managed colocation offerings, much of the same services are applied.

What is Unmanaged Colocation?

Unmanaged colocation usually takes care of only the first category of server costs, “Housing and Protecting.” This is a hands-off type of service that allows you to take advantage of a data center’s infrastructure, but you are solely responsible if something were to go wrong with your server (ex. your server runs out of memory). Unmanged colocation services tend to vary from data center operator to data center operator but typically provide a safe and secure place to house our server. Features of a data center that factor in to the quality or their tier classification are the following:

• power supplies
• data communications connections
• environmental controls (ex. air conditioning and fire suppression)
• security devices

The more “disaster proof” a data center becomes, the higher data center tier it is (ranging from I-IV. IV being the highest). A Tier I data center is considered to be the most prone to failures and downtime whereas a Tier IV data center has the infrastructure in place to be the least prone to failures and downtime with a high amount of redundancy put in place, both on the network and power side.

Depending on the Service Level Agreement (SLA) with your data center provider, they can often guarantee a very high percentage of power and network availability (upwards of 99.9%). Depending on how critical uptime is to your company, a good look at your provider’s SLA is a often a must.

Besides the infrastructure of the data center, the main costs drivers and therefore price motivators of colocation are:

• Power (Amps)
• Bandwidth (Mbps)
• Rack space (Us)
• Setup (Labor and Equipment)

When looking at unmanaged colocation, these are the four things you want to have a good grasp of going into the purchasing process.

What is Managed Colocation?

There is usually a wide variety of services that fall under “managed colocation” but all start with the previously mentioned unmanged colocation services as a base. The managed colocation services tend to cover at least one of the cost categories mentioned previously. With unmanaged colocation, the server owner is still responsible for monitoring and tracking, responding to and repairing problems with their server and taking preventative measures like backing up their data. Managed colocation outsources many of those operations to a data center operator that can offer those services at a lower cost then a company could deploy by themselves.

These services can include:

• Threat Management
• Technical Support
• Multi-probe Monitoring, Alerts, and Logging
• Asset Tracking
• Patch Management
• Capacity Planning
• First Responder, Troubleshooting, and Remediation
• On-site Backup and/or Off-site Backup
• Part Replacement and Service

These services, when executed properly, can be very valuable to an organization and provide peace of mind that their servers have the proper procedures behind them to reduce the risk of downtime or lost data to as close to zero as possible. Managed colocation provides the flexibility to decide what services and procedures you want to outsource and which you want to have more control over.

This flexibility creates an ideal environment for companies that want their servers in a secure and reliable environment with their data backed up but may want to have more control over a situation, were something to go wrong. Managed colocation allows you to pick and choose the services you want and creates a more customizable solution then a traditional dedicated server.

If you own your own servers and are looking to achieve the same level of support as that of a dedicated server, managed colocation is a great option. Just make sure that you understand which services you are receiving and which are still your responsibility. Managed colocation is currently being used as a term to describe any sort of level of support beyond unmanaged colocation so make sure you know what you are getting when you sign up with a managed colocation provider.

Questions to Ask Your Managed Colocation Provider

1. All of the Unmanaged Colocation Questions – What Tier Data Center will my servers be hosted at? Is there 24X7 Support? What kind of security is in place to protect my severs (both the physical features of the data center and the threat management security)? What is in the SLA? Is the data center SAS 70 Audited? etc.
2. What is monitored on my server? Be sure you know what metrics are being monitored and how you will be alerted to abnormalities. Will you be notified when you are close to running out of disk space? Will you get an alert by email, through a text-message, or by phone call?
3. Is my data being backed up and how so? Is it on-site or off-site backup, online or tape? How often is it backed up and for how long? What software are they using to backup the data and what procedures are in place to ensure that there is no lost data.
4. What happens when my server malfunctions? This may be the most important question to ask. Will there be someone available  24×7 in case something goes wrong? Who is going to troubleshoot and identify the problem? Are you responsible for the parts or the labor or both in order to fix the problem? Who will coordinate the resolution to the problem?
5. Are changes to my server being tracked and logged? Are patches being applied to my server? Why? How? and When? How long does it take for my support ticket to be resolved? Is that logged? Are changes to my server’s configuration tracked and logged?

These are all very important questions to ask your managed colocation provider and should not be overlooked. When it comes to managed colocation, you want to be absolutely sure you are getting what you pay for and not anything less. It may be easier to customize but it also makes it a little more confusing.

Be sure to read some related articles below and if you have any questions or ways this post could be more useful to you, feel free to leave a comment. We are always looking to improve our resources.

Thanks!

See Also

• Data Center Outsourcing Tips
  The top 7 reasons companies choose to outsource their data center operations and infrastructure.
• Managed vs. Unmanaged Colocation
  An exploration of the differences between the two services from about.com.
• The Essential Guide to Colocation
  An overview of the advantages and disadvantages of colocation and what to look for from the data center of your choice.
• Managed Dedicated Servers or Colocation
  A look at the spectrum of managed IT options.
• 5 Ways Colocation Can Help Cut Costs
  How to eliminate capital investments in your data center and reduce operating costs.

The post A Guide to Managed Colocation and Unmanaged Colocation appeared first on OTAVA®.

Common issues include:

• Application compatibility: Not all applications are meant for the cloud, especially public cloud. It’s a good idea to test the applications in the environment you’ll be running them in before migration. If you’re planning a lift-and-shift strategy to rehost your applications, you’ll certainly want to make sure the migration is even feasible. This includes closely examining your application’s architecture to see its possible integrations and dependencies on other on-premise workloads and services, including third-party vendor support.
• DR planning: Data loss is always possible, especially during a migration. What does your DR plan call for in this scenario? Have you tested migration components of your applications and failing back to an on-premise environment in case something doesn’t go as planned? A strong DR plan is an absolute necessity for a successful migration to Microsoft Azure (or any cloud, for that matter).
• Mitigating user/business downtime: When migrating to the cloud, keeping business operability is key. You’ll need to monitor your legacy application migration carefully to ensure there is minimal to no downtime. This includes cutover window times and making sure you’ve  successfully executed more than one disaster recovery test.
• Security: What protocols do you have in place at the application level to adequately protect you during a migration? Do you have end-to-end encryption or a VPN? Data is especially at risk when it is in transit unless you have proper security measures in place.
• Time: Timelines for cloud migration vary depending on how many applications you’re moving and how large they are, but a typical timeline is three to six months. Make sure you’ve adequately planned enough time to not only allow for the migration but mistakes along the way.
• Compliance assessment: If your legacy application needs to be HIPAA compliant or follow any other compliance standard, it will certainly need to be compliant in Azure as well. You’ll want to conduct a thorough analysis of your current system requirements and identify which cloud-based controls you need to meet those requirements.
• User experience (UX): How will your application look in the cloud? Is it vastly different? There could be major changes you’ll need to alert your users to before your Azure cloud migration, so you’ll need a strategy to address them.

There are many other issues to consider, including more detailed analysis of business operations, application performance assessments, verification management, and change management policies. While these don’t all need to be finalized before the migration is complete, they are important components to a successful migration.

Successful migration to Azure has its challenges and shouldn’t be taken lightly. But with careful analysis, a strong DR plan and enough time set aside to dedicate to the migration, you can successfully switch from a legacy-based IT to a faster, more agile cloud-based model.

For more tools and tips, check out Tech Target’s guide to cloud migration, or Microsoft’s own planning tool to assist you with your migration.

If you’re in the process of moving to Azure or currently use some Azure services and are looking to add more, we can help! We offer fully managed Microsoft Azure services to help you keep better track of your environment as well as your budget. Speak with one of our cloud experts today or visit our managed public cloud page to learn more.

The post Cloud Migration in Azure: What to Know Before and Benefits to See After appeared first on OTAVA®.