Green lights for cloud computing

NEWS
Nr.3/2010/May
BALTIC DATA CENTER’S NEWSLETTER
Green lights for cloud computing
Contents:
Editorial
Green lights for cloud computing
1, 2
A private computer cloud: a natural IT
evolution for businesses
3
Cloud computing in Lithuania: the present
4
situation and the prospects
The Tiketa system – on Baltic Data Center’s
4
virtual servers
There is hardly an IT conference, presentation, or seminar today that does not
mention the topic of cloud computing.
The term “cloud computing” covers IT
services which are provided and paid for
according to principles similar to those
applied in the field of public utilities:
they are used as much as needed and
charged for the volume consumed.
So is it the new Holy Grail of the IT market?
Sceptics are quick to point out that the IT
industry is always eager to invent and praise
new concepts: all of us remember the
dot.com, Web 2.0, and other booms.
“Yes”, market analysts say. “Cloud computing
services are now generating a lot of chatter
work. However, the noise will subside, while
this service model will remain and become
indispensible”.
Baltic Data Center to provide support to
5
Carlsberg employees
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu forecasts that, in
2010, the cloud computing services market
will grow 20 percent more compared to last
year and will reach USD 70 billion.
The highly productive and easy-to-install
Oracle Exadata V2 – for today’s business
challenges
6
Analysts from Forrester define cloud computing as standardised IT capacities. These are
services, software, and infrastructure which
are accessible via internet using any
computer. They automatically adapt to specific needs, are charged for based on consumption, and are managed according to the
self-service principle.
The cloud computing service model will
survive the promotional boom and expand
to the wider market of large enterprises.
Forrester believes that this model will
change the rules of the game and bring
about some fundamental changes to the IT
outsourcing market.
The belief in the prospects of cloud computing is substantial. According to a survey
conducted by McKinsey and the Uptime
Institute two years ago, approximately 6
percent of the available server capacity, on
average, was used. The cloud computing
model, which is based on virtualisation
technologies and a critical user mass,
increases utilization considerably and
reduces service provision costs. This also
results in the reduction of the prices of the
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services for clients from 20 to 50 percent.
Furthermore, users can use IT services
whenever they need and as much as they
need at a given time and subsequently pay
based on their consumption. They do not
have to invest in or maintain a powerful
infrastructure or to expand it as their needs
grow. Thus, they do not have to invest in any
further equipment each time they want to
use or implement a new solution in the
company.
The provision and use of services already
started
Actually, some cloud computing services
are already present in our everyday lives.
Numerous people use webmail, data storage
services, and social networking sites and
many businesses use web hosting services
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BDC NEWS/2010 05
1
NEWS
Green lights for cloud computing
from page 1
computing services.
For this reason, the need for dedicated
resources required for such clouds will grow.
It is forecast that the infrastructure hosting
and virtualised infrastructure outsourcing
services market will grow by 31 percent by
2013 and will outrun the growth of pubic
cloud computing services.
Employees of companies can independently
order and configure the required services
and use the available equipment in a more
efficient manner. An infrastructure managed
in a centralised manner requires less involvement of IT specialists, and the data accessible
to the employees only are secure.
The popularity of some services which were
normally offered as software in the past is
increasing as well. One example is Google
Docs which offers the basic office software
functionality. Client relations management
services are also gaining in popularity.
“The potential of such publicly accessible
cloud computing services is greater in the
SME segment: these enterprises are more
eager to outsource their IT and use leasing
services”, Linas Rukšėnas, Head of the Services
for SMEs at Baltic Data Center, said.
Large corporations, on the contrary, have a
more cautious attitude towards these public
services.
According to IDC survey data, the largest
problem posed by cloud computing is
security: this was mentioned by 87.5 percent
of the respondents. Accessibility was the
second most important issue (83.3 percent),
while capacity was the third most pressing
issue (82.9 percent). Concerns also exist with
regard to compatibility of standards, service
and data in sourcing to the internal IT
infrastructure and integration with the
internal IT infrastructure, and fewer options
for service personalisation.
“In the cloud computing model, data is stored
in some sort of “bank repository”, and the
client does not know for sure which repository it is. If the data is sensitive, it is hard to
overestimate the risk of loss of the data”,
Arūnas Stankevičius, Business Development
Manager, said. “Furthermore, the issue of how
to re-appropriate the data arises if the client
wants to change the provider. Perhaps data
formats will be closed”.
Different models for different needs
Certain advantages of cloud computing such
as flexibility and lower costs are attractive to
large corporations. These companies use
publicly accessible services in areas where no
sensitive data is used.
According to Mr Stankevičius, large corporations and governmental organisations are
considering the opportunities and are undertaking the development of their private cloud
Different needs are already determining
differences in cloud computing services.
Forrester distinguishes several types of
these. The first type is the Software-as-aService (SaaS): software functionalities such
as client relations management or e-mail are
offered.
The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) type offers
resources with an operating system and
software platform, in which specialised
applications or services can be developed
and implemented.
The Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) type
offers computer resources, processor capacities, data storage, and virtual servers. This
type is used for the development of private
clouds and implementation of individual
functions such as making backup data
copies.
Cloud computing will not just be a short-lived
trend. It will be the form of provision of IT
services and resources of the next generation - just as mainframe was substituted by
client-server architecture in the past, to be
subsequently followed by web - enabled software.
IT benefits receive recognition in times of economic recession
According to a recent survey, IT managers
and the projects implemented by them
received high appraisal of CFOs and CEOs.
The role of information technology in
overcoming the economic recession in
2009 was acknowledged as being of
crucial importance.
According to a survey of over 550 managers
conducted by Accenture, 72 percent of top
managers have acknowledged the significant importance of IT in times of economic
crisis. They are planning to invest in this
technology in 2010 as well: this was mentioned by 62 percent of managers other
than IT department heads.
“As operating costs in other areas are
being cut, global companies view IT as a
means to revival”, Keith Haviland,
Accenture’s Global Managing Directors for
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BDC NEWS/2010 05
Systems Integration, said.
According to the survey conducted by
Accenture, it is expected that most investments will go to virtualisation and consolidation projects (44 percent of the respondents), service - oriented architecture projects (SOA - 31 percent), and e-business
projects (32 percent).
“The fact that it is planned to raise investments regardless of the difficult economic
situation shows the importance that IT has
gained for the survival and competitiveness of businesses”, Mr Haviland noted.
According to him, IT could not boast of
such attention in the past. The confusion
of the past year and a half has simply
accentuated the necessity to adapt to the
changes and to try to retain leading positions.
Information provided by
eWeek
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NEWS
Private cloud: a natural evolution for enterprise IT
Partner’s column
Cloud computing will inevitably become a
part of companies’ IT environment. There is
hardly anyone who questions this. Thus, most
of the questions asked concern only the
model or form of the cloud, which will best
suit a particular company.
The public cloud computing service models
which are most common today are not completely suitable for large companies. Large companies need specialized, integrated, and flexible services adapted to their needs, as well
as the opportunity to exercise more stringent
control of their data and quality of service.
Therefore, preference is usually given to the
option of private (internal) cloud computing.
This decision is also preferred because a private cloud is a fairly minor change for most companies, as their IT departments have gone
significantly down the path of consolidating
infrastructure and setting up shared services.
Thus, the introduction of cloud’s self-service
and automated dynamic capacity is just a small
additional step that needs to be taken.
The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model is
usually chosen for private cloud computing. It
is an environment in which applications can
be developed and run using the components
and interfaces offered by that platform.
Oracle technologies: a comprehensive
foundation for cloud computing
Oracle, which thanks to its innovations helps
to develop various technologies such as grid
computing, virtualization, service - oriented
architecture, and management automation,
has contributed greatly to the development
of the cloud computing model.
Oracle Fusion Middleware provides a comprehensive foundation for enterprise private
clouds. Thanks to mature, reliable, and highperformance clustering mechanisms as well
as pervasive and unified security and management, Oracle Fusion Middleware products
deliver the most effective dynamic resourcing in the entire IT industry. Modularity, sharability, and composability enabled by Oracle
Fusion Middleware SOA, BPM, and user
interaction technologies complement the dynamic resourcing to support a powerful selfservice platform of reusable components.
These platform components are both easily
managed by a centralized IT department and
easily composed into applications by departments within the company.
Oracle technologies enable companies to
move to their PaaS private cloud gradually,
by passing through various levels of “cloudiness” such as self-service enablement, elastic
capacity, etc. Probably the most common
starting point is to achieve some level of
centralization, consolidation, and standardization of at least some parts of the company’s infrastructure.
Afterwards, companies can choose based on
their priorities. They can focus on elastic capacity and increase automation there (such as
by plugging in Enterprise Manager into WebLogic Server’s or Coherence’s cluster scaling
mechanisms). They also can start by creating
reusable components such as SOA services or
portlets.
If specific requirements for security exist,
major attention can be focused on the security issue. As soon as a sufficient number of
components is available or the required automation level is reached, the next step is to put
some self-service in front of the plat- form so
as to reduce the burden on central IT, gaining
agility for the departments and efficiency for
the company overall.
Benefits: lower operational costs
The major benefit offered by PaaS is the
reduction of costs. Organizations using PaaS
techniques with WebLogic Server typically
report operational savings of 30 percent or
higher compared to having individual project teams manage their own infrastructure.
The cost savings come about most commonly because of consolidated resources (e.g.
servers) as well as elimination of redundant
work across teams.
One of the largest investment banks, with a
high priority on security, has created a centralized Java platform based on WebLogic
server and other Oracle Fusion Middleware,
with focus on federated security. They have
achieved a 7:1 consolidation ratio, reduced
operational costs by 10 to 20 percent, and
cut the average turnaround time for changes from months to days.
Another key benefit of PaaS is agility. PaaS
customers are able to more rapidly deploy
environments for development, testing and
production. In some cases, the provisioning,
configuration, and integration of a platform
can take up the majority of an application
production schedule. PaaS lets applications
get into the hands of testers and end-users
nearly as fast as they can be developed.
Certainly, there remain technologies to develop and practices to refine, but companies
are already achieving the benefits of cloud
computing by using the products available
today.
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BDC NEWS/2010 05
3
NEWS
Cloud computing in Lithuania: the present situation and the prospects
Editorial
Although the computing cloud is not yet
visible in Lithuanian IT skies, market leaders
are ready to provide it. What they need is a
stimulus from the clients who, as representatives of Baltic Data Center say, are at present
only considering cloud computing services.
introducing certain changes. According to
Linas Rukšėnas, Head of the Services for
SMEs of Baltic Data Center, clients have
already started to consider whether they
should invest in hardware and software or
purchase services.
“At present, we are providing cloud ready
services such as virtual servers, data storage,
and back up services”, Arūnas Stankevičius,
Business Development Manager of Baltic Data
Center, said. “We have discussed the possibilities of cooperation with the providers of different services such as Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) and Client Relations Management (CRM) solutions to ensure that end
users can receive all the solutions required as
one service”.
In the meantime, enterprise businesses
continue to demonstrate an increasing
preference for specialised solutions adapted
for their needs. For instance, when they order
the data storage service, the indication of
storage capacity that they will need is not
sufficient: more often than not, they require
other service level indicators such as performance, throughput and etc. The configuration of the hardware used and the quantity
of the equipment also depends on the
aforementioned parameters. Such companies are likely to prefer dedicated infrastructure solutions or private cloud computing.
According to representatives of Baltic Data
Center, some clients still stick to the practice
of purchasing hardware and software independently, installing systems independently,
and maintaining them independently as well.
But it should be noted that the overall
economic recession has forced them to start
The easy-to-purchase, standardised, easyto-manage, and cheaper cloud computing
services are likely to attract small and medium sized enterprises, just as is happening
all over the world. These enterprises are more
flexible and usually do not have enough IT
specialists to develop and maintain their own
systems.
In Lithuania, companies have already started
extensive use of services such as web hosting,
which are ordered and activated online.
“Exchange software package services comprising shared calendars, tasks, and mailboxes
also have the potential to become popular”,
Mr Rukšėnas said.
A considerable impact on the development
of cloud computing in Lithuania is exerted by
such major players as Google and Amazon
who offer their services all over the world.
However, according to Mr Rukšėnas, Lithuanian providers have a number of competitive
advantages such as extensive knowledge of
the local market, compliance with local legislation (e.g. in the field of accounting services),
provision of services in the local language,
and better opportunities to demand the fulfillment of the suplier commitments.
Growth of Baltic Data Center
in 2009
.
In 2009, Baltic Data Center expanded the range and export of its services. The company
increased its turnover by 9 percent to reach
LTL 39.7 million.
the fifth data centre managed by the company started operation in Vilnius last year,
and the opening of the sixth data centre is
planned in 2010.
The company, which provides its services in
the Baltic States, Scandinavia, and Poland, last
year signed its first contract with an Asian
company - the Japan-based Interlogcs - regarding the management and development of
its systems. The expansion of Baltic Data Center
business was also ensured by the contract
signed in December regarding the acquisition
of one of Lithuania’s largest web hosting service leaders Interdata.
Last year, Baltic Data Center was the first
among Lithuanian companies providing IT
outsourcing services to become an Oracle
Certified Partner. Furthermore, Baltic Data
Center became the exclusive partner of the
world’s largest technology company HewlettPackard in Lithuania and an Advanced
Partner of the global IT company IBM and
was named the best reseller of IBM software
also.
Baltic Data Center’s opportunities to expand
its business are also facilitated by its regular
investments in technological infrastructure:
During the award ceremony of the international conference Data Centres Europe, Baltic
Data Center was acknowledged as one of the
best regional data centre operators in Central
and Eastern Europe. Last year, the term of
validity of the company’s ISO 27001 information security certificate was approved for the
third year in a row.
The Tiketa system – on Baltic Data Center’s virtual servers
Customers
Starting from May 2010, operation of the
Tiketa system - which sells tickets to various
events and occupies the largest share of the
market in terms of sales - will be ensured by
the virtual server service provided by Baltic
Data Center.
The service provided enables Tiketa to easily
expand the technological resources being
used and to simultaneously serve an virtually
unlimited number of clients. The General Manager of the company Vidmantas Šiugždinis
4
BDC NEWS/2010 05
said that the number of event organisers
served and the number of tickets sold continue to increase rapidly and it is there fore of
utmost importance that the company ensure
the stability of the operation of the system
and be prepared to serve an even greater
number of clients. The reliability of the
system is becoming ever more important for
the selling of tickets for major sports events
and music concerts. For instance, over 10,000
tickets for the Metallica concerts in Vilnius
were sold during the first week of sales.
Baltic Data Center specialists will monitor the
computer workplaces and communication
networks at the offices of the Siemens Arena
in Vilnius, Cido Arena in Panevezys and SEVEN
Entertainment. TEO have connected the
SEVEN Entertainment office in Vilnius and
operated arenas by using the fiber-optic
cables, which will provide the data communications, Internet and voice telephony services.
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NEWS
Acquisition of Interdata completed
Baltic Data Center has reinforced its
position by acquiring one of Lithuania’s
web hosting service leaders, Interdata,
which is now operating as a subsidiary of
Baltic Data Center.
Baltic Data Center to provide support to
Carlsberg employees
Customers
The experience acquired by both companies as well as the expertise of their
employees will allow them to improve the
quality of the services provided as well as
offer modern new services. All this will
ensure a more efficient use of the available
technological resources.
The services of Interdata are used by many
e-service provision leaders in Lithuania,
which include the ticket selling website
greitai.lt, the news website www.15min.lt,
the websites of the company Plius
www.autoplius.lt and www.domoplius.lt,
and many others. Following acquisition of
Interdata, the number of web hosting
service clients of Baltic Data Center has
doubled to reach almost 5 thousand.
According to the data of the international
IT market research company IDC, revenue
from web hosting services around the
world will almost double in the next four
years, and will equal approximately USD 29
billion in 2012. At the end of 2008, there
were about 74 million websites operating
around the world, and this number
increases by approximately 30 percent
every year.
Baltic Data Center is undergoing successful
expansion of its services. The company has
been providing IT Service Desk services to
three companies of the Carlsberg group:
Švyturys-Utenos Alus (Lithuania), Aldaris
(Latvia), and Saku (Estonia) since the beginning of February this year.
IT Service Desk consultants provide support
services to employees of the Carlsberg
Group who are using about 450 computers,
100 printers and 40 servers at the companies' factories, storages and offices - at
twelve sites in total. IT support is provided
on 24/7 basis, and the specialists' consultations provided in three languages.
Baltic Data Center also provides reports
about the problems encountered so
allowing the client to monitor the most
frequently occurring ones.
According to Seitumer Čurlu, Director of
Carlsberg Baltic IT Department, the introduction of the Service Desk services has lead to
quicker servicing of employees, and the company’s IT Department has become more efficient because the new features allow it to
prioritise breakdowns, monitor the progress
of problem solving, and analyse the relevant
data in real time.
“As we register the employees’ inquiries, we
are able not only to eliminate the consequences of the breakdowns but also to identify the reasons for the recurring problems
more easily”, Mr Čurlu said.
At present, the Service Desk services are used
by over 4,000 employees of major Lithuanian
companies. The BMC Remedy ITSM7 Suite
system, in which Baltic Data Center invested
LTL 1.9 million in 2008, is based on the ITIL
methodology and used for the management
of the services.
EU funds for expansion abroad
Other
Baltic Data Center began the export promotion project which is partially financed by EU
structural funds and will allow expansion of its operations in the Nordic Countries and an
increase of export revenue approximately 1.5 times.
More flexibility with Microsoft
SPLA
Baltic Data Center has signed Microsoft
Services Provider License Agreement
(SPLA) contract. With SPLA, Baltic Data
Center clients will pay monthly for Microsoft products they use, with no up-front
costs.
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70 percent of the value of the project (the total value equalling half a million LTL) is financed by
EU structural funds. At present, the company’s revenue from foreign markets accounts for 20
percent of its total revenue. It is expected that by the end of the project - the middle of 2011this share will increase to 30 percent.
During implementation of the project, Baltic Data Center will prepare its long-term export
expansion strategy covering Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The company also invests
in the preparation of marketing instruments targeted at these export markets and participates
in specialised fairs. During the events.
BDC NEWS /2010 05
5
NEWS
The highly productive and easy-to-install Oracle Exadata V2 – for today’s
business challenges
Partner’s column
As companies all over the world face economic challenges, they are starting to pay closer attention to e-business and process
computerisation and automation opportunities. More often than not, these options ensure not only business optimisation but also
the survival of companies. Therefore, business needs increase regardless of the difficult situation. The requirements set by businesses are also becoming increasingly stringent. Companies need more productive systems because an increasing number of process
es are transferred to the e-environment. Furthermore, companies are looking for simpler and quicker installation solutions.
No weak links
Today’s business with its automated processes
is difficult to imagine without its powerful
database systems and computing capacities.
Oracle has developed a specialised solution for
such needs: the Oracle Exadata V2 system.
The components of the system - database and
storage servers, their connections, and software - have been developed and combined to
ensure maximum speed for processing database queries and transactions.
This solution, whereby the entire system is
provided by one company, is superior to any
commonly used models comprising components manufactured by different manufacturers subsequently compiled to make one
system. Regardless of the fact that the best
models may be used, problems of restrictions
on the speed - the so called bottlenecks, whereby the operation of the entire system is
hindered by one slower link - arise due to various incompatibilities. For instance, the storage array is not fast enough write or read data or
the database server is not able to process the
required workload.
Real life examples shows Oracle Exadate V2 is
several dozen times faster comparing to other
systems processing the same workload.
The innovations used increase the speed
This speed is achieved thanks to innovations
used in Oracle Exadata V2. The basis of the
system is grid computing technology, which
is used by the database and data storage
servers connected by a particularly fast 40
Gbps InfiniBand network.
hybrid columnar compression, which allows
reduction of the size of database tables by up
to 10 times on average. In this way, disc space
is saved and the speed of database queries is
increased significantly.
A higher speed is also ensured by the Sun
FlashFire technology used in the data storage servers, whereby the fast flash memory is
integrated in the PCI board rather than used
as a separate disc.
Ensures a quicker return on investment
The high throughput of Oracle Exadata V2 is
one of the advantages offered by this integrated and harmonised system. Another advantage is the easy and quick installation of
the system, as well as its simple maintenance
thanks to the unified administration software and the compliance of the components
used with industrial standards. On purchasing Oracle Exadata V2, the only task that the
client has to complete is the transfer of his
data. All technical tasks to start up system -
NEWS
Specialized Oracle Exadata software preprocess database queries and transactions at
storage level, and this means less workload on
database servers and less network traffic.
Oracle Exadata V2 storage servers use Exadata
hardware, software installation, configuration and tuning - are done by highly skilled
Oracle professionals.
All this helps to achieve savings: the system
installation is cheaper, the simple installation
ensures a quicker return on investment, and
the system maintenance is cheaper as well.
Furthermore, as the client’s needs grow, Oracle
Exadata V2 can grow, too. One fourth of the
standard 42U server cabinet, which contains
2 database servers and 3 storage servers, can
be purchased first. Later, this solution can be
expanded to one half, and afterwards the
entire cabinet can be completed. As the
client’s needs increase further, the system
can be expanded by purchasing additional
Oracle Exadata V2 server cabinets.
NEWS
Data storages normally operate as a separate system, and data is extracted from the OLTP system and transferred to the data storage. Data
extraction and transfer are complex and time-consuming processes, and reports and inquiries are prepared in the data storage using data
which is not the latest. In the case of Exadata V2, the user performs data storage operations with real OLTP data and these actions are
completed considerably faster compared to most data storage systems.
NEWS
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BDC NEWS/2010 05
Publisher: BALTIC DATA CENTER, UAB, member of TEO GROUP
Žirmūnų g. 141, LT-09128 Vilnius, Lithuania, Phone +370 5 2748360, Fax +370 5 2783399, www.bdc.lt
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