GMO Cloud

Small versus Big Cloud Service Provider Part 2

Following on my last post, there are some more factors to be considered before deciding whether to go for a small or big cloud player. Here are some of them.

Where is the datacenter?

Cloud, as we all know is not really in a cloud. Your data has to finally reside in a physical server which in turn has to be in some location on earth called datacenters. The location of these datacenters is very important due to several reasons. Some of these are located in remote corners of earth and due to this download speeds are compromised. As far as possible you must ensure that the datacenter in which your cloud server instances are running are located in or near your clients. For example, if you run an e-commerce site with majority of clients in the US, your datacenter must be located in the US. This will result in faster web page load. You must also remember that Google search algorithm takes page load time as one of the factors. Your website will be better placed in Google search results if you have faster downloads.

The second reason why you must know the location of your datacenter is security. Your data is important and must not be compromised. There are rumors that some datacenters may be in the business of selling data. Datacenters must also provide physical security to their servers. There are several physical security features which are essential for datacenters. Data backup facilities must also be checked thoroughly.

As far as the big players are concerned, their datacenters are spread over the world. Therefore there is no problem here. It’s the small players who are likely to compromise on their datacenter location. While I always advocate the use of small cloud service players, their facilities must be double checked by users. There is no point in crying wolf at a later date.

Service level agreement

SLA is a critical document which you must read with a lens. The small print in all the SLA’s is so small that they escape your notice. It’s when there is an outrage that you realize the trap in the small print. I am not suggesting that your SLA must contain clauses which are impractical. Understanding the implications of the clauses is more important. Balance is critical out here.

Management control panel

By this I mean that the control panel provided by the cloud service provider must be easy to use. You must be able to scale up and down easily and manage your server instances. All facilities must not be more than a few clicks away. If you ask my sincere opinion, an effective control panel can make your life pretty easy.

Help Desk

The buck always stops here. It’s one of those pesky, irritating things – you never get help just when you need it most. Speak to some existing customers and get proper feedback on this aspect. It can save your time later.

Conclusion

I can think of several other factors but the ones I have mentioned are probably most critical. If I have missed some, I will cover them in my later posts.

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Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Small Versus Big Cloud Service Provider

This is a perennial problem while deciding on a cloud service provider. In the first instance migrating from a traditional server platform to the cloud is by itself a tough decision. Who and why are questions which continue to dominate our minds, I mean website owners, when finally coming to a decision. Here are some issues which you need to consider while taking such a big decision.

The main big players

Though there are many big players, I consider Amazon services, Google platform and Microsoft Azure platform as the main contenders for the top slot. These cloud service providers are established, reliable and dependable. I may mention here that even these providers have had outrages which have disrupted services. One of the well-known names provides excellent service but is tardy. This may be because their infrastructure may be under tremendous pressure – this is my personal opinion.

Microsoft Azure is a perfect platform for those who want to be tied to Microsoft. No problems here. Microsoft has stitched together all its software and services nicely and seamlessly. I have not worked with Azure myself, but I understand that it’s good. If you are planning to migrate to an open source strategy in future (I am a fan of open source) you would find it tough if you are presently with Azure. Otherwise, a diehard Microsoft company may well go with Azure and get fulfillment.

The Amazon bundle is a lot more complicated. They offer everything under the sun and more. Since they are bulk suppliers, their costs may be competitive. Amazon Web Services (AWS) consists of several cloud offerings. They have an extensive database and you will find an answer to most of your queries here. The only issue which you need to consider is whether you need personalized guidance while setting up your cloud infrastructure.

The small cloud players

The word “small” is rather comparative. When I say small, I mean smaller than the big players. Cloud service providers who might be considered small may actually have extensive infrastructure and ability to support every conceivable service. The only differentiators here are cost and personalized service. Small players may look as if they are costlier and this may prompt users to go with big players. I would consider this to be short-sighted. If you consider the cost of maintaining a full-time server administrator, the scale will surely tilt towards the small guys.

Coming to the personalized part, small players will always be better. You don’t have to face an automated help wall every time you face a problem. This can be an extremely frustrating experience and I am speaking from personal experience. Small cloud infrastructure providers will always hold your hand in case you face a crisis. You can buy services of an expert on a pay-as-you-need basis. You don’t need   permanent technical staff to maintain your cloud infrastructure.  These factors are a tremendous advantage and one realizes this only when you are in a crisis. I would suggest that you try and avoid such an eventuality where you are required to run from pillar to post to get your cloud infrastructure up and running.

Conclusion

From my personal viewpoint, a small cloud infrastructure provider is a better option. As I have mentioned earlier small doesn’t mean ‘small’. It only means smaller than the big players.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Love and Dating in the Cloud: Online Dating

Love and dating used to be a personal affair, but no longer. Dating has come out of the closet and into the open. The world has changed and so has romance. Ironically, it is technology which has led to a transformation in the way we love and live – sometimes ‘til death do us part. I can go on and on singing peons on love but I have to remind myself that this post is about how cloud has enabled new ways to conduct our love lives.

What’s cloud got to do with dating?

Actually dating and cloud are well matched or you may call it made for each other. I am talking from the dating provider point of view. Dating sites are mushrooming and entrepreneurs are creating new ways to date. As a rule, dating sites start small and grow as time passes. This means that dating site owners must find a flexible process which will enable them to grow as well as find ways to conserve their budget. Cloud technology is therefore ideal for such entrepreneurs. You can start with a single server instance and keep on adding as the traffic increases.

Dating sites are bandwidth-intensive

If you look at a good online dating site, you will find that it provides all kinds of facilities like video and audio chat, photo upload and even music sharing. All these activities gobble up bandwidth. This slows down the website speed unless you are extremely careful. Remember that dating guys and the gals are an impatient lot. If they find that your dating website is awfully slow, they will immediately switch to a rival site. You don’t want to lose customers, do you?

I had discussed some time back about server load and download speed. There is a correlation between the two. As your server reaches its peak load, the performance diminishes. The only solution is to load your servers optimally. Some experts suggest that seventy percent load is ideal. Some give a little more leeway. When you adopt cloud technology, you can always decide on the capacity of a server after which another server instance is automatically triggered. This ensures that your website performs to the satisfaction of your customers.

There is another point I wish to make here. Once you have a dating customer, you are actually acquiring several more. Also, once they are dating actively on your site, they cannot switch to another – retention is therefore guaranteed if you give adequate service. The cloud technology gives you an edge in this aspect.

How to choose a dating partner in the cloud?

It’s obvious. Your cloud service provider must give your site access to high bandwidth which can sustain video and audio chat along with other attractions. Make sure that you go with someone who will hold your hand while you transition from a small site to a fully mature dating portal. I would personally recommend that you talk to a small cloud service provider who has their own infrastructure – not a franchisee. You not only need luck in love but also how you find it. A cloud is a nice place to cozy up.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Cost Considerations in Cloud Deployment

I had discussed the case of Lillian White, the florist in my last two posts. The savings in terms of cost were obvious. I want to go  a bit further in this post and look at the possible scenarios while deploying infrastructure in the cloud.

The seasonal business model

Lillian White, the florist had ten dedicated production servers operating through the year – the base number required to serve her clients during off season. She had one server for testing which was used occasionally but paid for on an annual basis. Assuming that she paid $150/month for each server, her base cost was $150 x 11 servers x 12 months = $19800 ~ $20,000 per annum. She had one junior administrator for maintenance who was paid $50000 per annum. Essentially, Lillian White paid $70,000 per annum to keep her business going.

The florist business is highly seasonal. The business bulges to ten times or even more during season. Lillian had noticed that business started picking up around mid-December and kept rising and peaked on Christmas day and New Year time. It tapered down and came down to base demand by mid-January. The demand picked up again by beginning of February and peaked on Valentine’s Day. Obviously lovers liked flowers as much as she did. Besides flowers, Lillian had to deal with hard facts.  Traditional infrastructure calls for some tough decisions.

As a result, Lillian had to deploy 50 additional servers beginning from the month of December to the end of February. She could not deploy servers in the middle of the month simply because she was charged on a monthly basis. Moreover, her administrator took more than two weeks to make servers live and bring them online. As a result, she paid for a total of 60 servers for three months in a year.  Let’s rework the cost with these considerations in mind.

Base infrastructure of 11 servers for nine months – March to November
Cost of servers = $150 x 11 servers x 9 months = $14850 ~ $15,000
Cost of servers during peak season – December to February
Cost of servers = $150 x 61 servers x 3 = $27,450 ~ $27,500
Total cost of servers = $15000 + $27500 = $42500
Total cost of maintaining servers = $50000 + $42,500 = $92,500

Costing with cloud deployment

Now let’s look at the changed scenario with cloud deployment. Due to the flexibility afforded by cloud technology, Lillian could bring additional resources or servers into service as and when she desired. As a result, she decides to deploy additional server resources from 20th December to 10th January. She released the additional resources and redeployed them on 10th February and released them again on 20th February. Let’s see how this impacts on her cost.

Base infrastructure of 11 servers for twelve months = $150 x 11 servers x 12 months = $19800 ~ $20,000 per annum.

Cost of servers during peak season – 20 Dec to 10 Jan + 10 Feb to 20 Feb = 30 days

$150 per server x (one month) 30 days x 50 = $7500

Total cost of server infrastructure per annum
$20000 + $7500 = $27500

Let’s assume that Lillian does away with the junior server administrator and instead pays $10000 to the cloud service provider to assist her in setting up the server instances. The total cost of maintaining her online infrastructure is now = $27,500 + $10,000 = $37,500

Savings in cost by migrating to the cloud
= $92,500 – $37,500
= $ 55000
You might observe that a major cost saving has been from doing away with the administrator ($50,000)

Even if we do away with the cost for employing server administrator, the saving is still considerable. In addition, she now has the flexibility in deploying online infrastructure. I think most of you will agree with my arithmetic. I welcome comments from the readers who would like to add something here.  To look at actual costings, visit GMO Cloud’s resource pricing page.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Is Cloud Computing Only for Large Companies?

In my last post I discussed a case study of a florist. Lillian White faced a typical problem of a small business – Is cloud computing for me? Most of us think that cloud computing is for large companies who do millions of dollars of business. From where did this idea spring up? Obviously, the larger-than-life picture which the media has created about the cloud has something to do with it – but what really is the truth?

Looking at the facts

Let’s look at cloud computing from the perspective of affordability. I have taken the example from http://us.gmocloud.com/solutions/popular-configuration.html. Here you will find a typical general purpose configuration with two web servers and a database server, with 8 GB memory and 40 GB disk space. The cost is around $150 per month. This seems quite affordable for a small business. But wait a minute. With a dedicated server with the same cost, you may get a larger disk space – maybe 500 GB. Looks like you are losing out here. But the fact of the matter is that in practice, a small business doesn’t need more than 40 GB of space on a web server.

Now let’s look at the small print. For a dedicated server hosted in a data center, you will always have a limitation on bandwidth. Out here in the cloud environment, you are free from this botheration. This is the situation when a small business starts small. What happens when the business fluctuates as in the case of a florist?

Flexibility in adding/removing resources

Remember that Lillian White had to add resources during peak season. When she was using dedicated server, she had to add servers well before putting them into service. There were a host of activities connected with bringing servers online. Moreover, she had to pay monthly even if she used a server only for a few days. In case of a cloud environment, she could add or remove resources and be charged only for the time she used them. Let’s read the fine print in our link once again. Here, resource addition charge is calculated by run time. Resource additions are charged by the hour. Monthly billing is calculated over 30 days of use. What this translates into is savings. When you add several resources, the savings increase manifold.

Ease of operation/automation of functions

In a dedicated server environment you need an experienced administrator who knows the intricacies of maintaining web servers. In case of a cloud computing set-up, most of the technical tasks are automated. Functions like load balancing can be managed by paying a bit extra, while the savings are a lot more in terms of a highly experienced technical staff. You can make do with a junior administrator.

Conclusion

Obviously, cloud computing is best suited for small businesses. What you must remember is to find a friendly cloud service provider – one who will hold your hand when you most need it. For this I would recommend that you go with a small cloud service provider instead of big names. Due diligence is important when you choose a cloud vendor. Get you facts right and get an SLA signed before you move into the cloud.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.