Read “Verizon State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud” and discover how businesses are using the cloud; the role cloud plays in achieving business goals; the impact cloud is having on IT and the future of the cloud.
Cloud technology is both simple and complex to understand. At its core, cloud is a means of distributing and hosting content, applications, storage and more. Much like how CDs or floppy disks were once used to transport data and software, today cloud technology is becoming the virtual media, storage and distribution means of choice for enterprises and consumers alike.
That said, the technology and infrastructure behind cloud is far more involved and can easily lead to confusion. I’m taking some of the complexity out of the terminology with a list of key terms that will hopefully help demystify the jargon behind the cloud.
Application Performance Management (APM) — The practice of monitoring the availability of software applications to determine the speed at which they deliver information or complete transactions for the end user, within a specific network or web-based infrastructure.
Application Program Interface (API) — A programmatic connection between an application and the cloud platform. It allows the application to make changes to the cloud infrastructure in near real time, eliminating the need for a user to change configurations manually using a cloud console.
BYOL — Acronym for bring-your-own-license. BYOL allows enterprises to maintain their existing license with a specific software vendor while moving the application to a cloud provider.
Cloud Application Management for Platforms (CAMP) — A specification designed to ease management of applications, including packaging and deployment across public and private cloud-computing platforms.
Colocation — When an enterprise physically houses its servers and devices in the cloud provider’s data center. This leverages the infrastructure, expertise, security and many other advantages that come with placing the equipment within a professional data center.
Content Delivery Network (CDN) — A collection of geographically dispersed devices that cache identical content for web browsers. When a request for content is made, the server that can most rapidly and efficiently provide the content is dynamically identified. This helps improve the end-user experience and potentially reduces the Internet infrastructure required to provide a domestic or global web presence. It also alleviates the need for substantial investments in web servers, firewalls, LAN switches, application software and colocations services.
Data Center — Physical location of the provider’s IT operations and equipment where the data is stored, managed and distributed.
Dedicated Hosting — Internet hosting, in which the provider’s equipment is leased by an enterprise for a single purpose, such as hosting a website. The equipment can be located on- or off-premise and the enterprise manages the day-to-day oversight of hardware, software and operating systems.
Hybrid Cloud — Combination of traditional on-premise IT and public and/or private cloud. Some applications and data remain with the enterprise (in their data center; behind their firewall), while some is in the cloud provider’s data center (in either a public or private cloud infrastructure). Additionally, the term hybrid cloud can be used when discussing IT environments that incorporate multiple clouds from several cloud vendors.
Hypervisor — A program (software, firmware, hardware) that manages multiple virtual machines (VMs) by allocating resources to each of them from one or many hardware host machine. The resources, such as processor and memory, from the host machines are distributed to the VMs (also called guest machines) in a way that prevents their operating systems from disrupting each other.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) — One of three broad categories of cloud computing (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). Provides a mixture of hardware and software that replaces or augments a data center. This can include storage, networks or virtualized servers.
Managed Hosting — A type of dedicated hosting where the equipment is located at the provider’s facility and the provider maintains the infrastructure (hardware, software and operating systems). Enterprises lease the equipment and typically have administrative access but rarely use it. Instead, they usually access the hosting environment through a web-based interface, offering online tools to manage websites and applications. Providers vary in the additional services considered standard as part of a contract, such as DDoS attack mitigation.
PAYG — Acronym for pay-as-you-go cloud computing which charges enterprises only for the services they use by the minute, hour or day.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) — The use of infrastructure managed by a provider for general software development on virtualized servers. Provider maintains the servers, load balancing, operating systems and computing capacity. Enterprises access the platform via web portals, APIs or gateway-specific software.
Private Cloud — Provider supplies all hardware and software, which is located behind a firewall in either the providers data center or at the enterprise’s data center. The provider dedicates networking and VMs to the enterprise with most using Private IP networking, such as Verizon’s Secure Cloud Interconnect. This model is initially more cost-intensive since, unlike a public model, resources are not shared. This maintains security, reliability and flexibility.
Public Cloud — All hardware and software is located at the provider’s data center, where all data from the enterprise is stored. Users access the data via the Internet, eliminating the need for the enterprise to purchase and maintain potentially expensive hardware and software infrastructure on premise. Providers can typically offer faster scalability and accessibility because of their infrastructure and expertise. However, the same hardware and software resources are shared with multiple enterprises. That can raise concerns for sensitive business operations in terms of data security, operational reliability and flexibility.
Service-Level Agreement (SLA) — Document between the provider and the enterprise outlining agreed-upon service levels for the cloud computing solution. This is generally part of the customer contract and should be as comprehensive as possible to include system infrastructure service levels, such as response time, installation, availability and more.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) — A business model that allows vendors to offer software as a leased option, instead of as a one-time purchase. Businesses pay a recurring fee and receive all updates and future versions of the application. While cloud is quickly becoming the preferred means of providing SaaS offerings, the term is platform agnostic. Two popular examples of SaaS are Microsoft’s Office 360 and Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
Virtualization — In regards to cloud computing, virtualization typically refers to virtual servers. One physical server contains the storage and computing resources which supports several virtual servers. The storage and computing from the single physical server are parceled out to make each virtual server believe it is running by itself as though it’s on a standalone computer.
Virtualized Disaster Recovery — Leveraging networking, compute and storage resources from a provider in the form of a Virtual Private Cloud to replicate applications and data. This serves as a complete back-up of the enterprise’s critical data, operating systems, databases and applications.
Visit Verizon Enterprise Solutions’ Cloud Portfolio to learn more about how to choose the right cloud for your enterprise organization.
Read “Verizon State of the Market: Enterprise Cloud” and discover how businesses are using the cloud; the role cloud plays in achieving business goals; the impact cloud is having on IT and the future of the cloud.
