August 16, 2016 at 13:19The first post on Habr or Why we are engaged in clouds
Greetings to the Khabrovites! Finally, my company launched a blog on Habré! Previously, employees had already published several useful articles:
" Configuring IPv6 on Linux Debian v7.XX, Ubuntu v14.XX, CentOS v6.XX and FreeBSD v10.XX
" Integration of Fail2ban with CSF to Counteract DDoS on nginx
" Server health monitoring under management of the VMware vSphere ESXi v5 hypervisor
» Several PHP versions in ISPmanager
» Secure encrypted data warehouse and features of working with it
In my first post on the company’s corporate blog, I would like to talk about cloud technologies as a service.
Cloud technology itself is like an internal combustion engine — it is invented, it works, it is used everywhere, but how and where is it used: in cars or trucks — and how should it work? This is what I would like to talk about, so this post will most likely be devoted to questions rather than detailed answers, and my thoughts on this subject.
Service is our everything
Lyrics on the dangers of lack of competition
There was Ukrposhta itself, it had a lot of customers, but it served them poorly: it was rude, lost parcels, delivered long and at a wrong time. And I thought that her clients would be forever. It would seem that the market is clogged and it is impossible to squeeze in there - there is nowhere and will fail. But then there were some upstarts, which were called New Mail, in defiance of the “old” mail and began to engage in transportation for everyone: send parcels for all people, for enterprises large and small, transport goods large and small, with attention to customer service and constantly work on quality. And Ukrposhta was horrified! - how so, we are monopolists! and always should have remained them. And Ukrposhta realized that any disregard for customers comes to an end. And if you do not develop the market, the market will respond with growth, but without you,
The story about Ukrposhta is another reminder that the lack of competition in the closed market is a dead end. No one will move, make efforts to improve their services for customers, will not offer new services to customers if competitors do not breathe in his back.
So, in the market of cloud solutions and technologies (I'm talking about our latitudes), the situation is about the same. Most often, the client does not even imagine that: a) such services can be provided at all, and already exist (not with us, but in Europe, for example, or even not there), and b) there are companies that can provide these services.
Often, providers try to give what they think customers need, forgetting to ask the customers themselves about it. Therefore, most often, a client’s conversation with a domestic cloud provider is something like this:
Client: - I need a cloud
Provider: - This is the
Client: - I need the same, but with mother-of-pearl buttons
Provider: - dude, do you have a check or go? take what is, there’s no other and never will be - no-no-yes!
Those data centers that already exist (in Ukraine), firstly - there are not so many of them, and secondly, if you imagine that, for example, at once 1000, for example, Ukrainian, even medium-sized (and not only) companies will want to go into the clouds , all these data centers will not have so much space and capacity, and thirdly, the cloud itself is nothing, it’s just an engine without a car, it still needs its own infrastructure — they won’t be able to provide critical additions to the clouds.
Will all the requirements of cloud client customers be satisfied? Unlikely. Most likely, half of the customers will have to fence off the hybrid structure in order to screw on the cloud independently what they still need - which is not good, since again, the overhead is increasing. And the second half will go to western data centers for the reason that the level of services is much higher than our providers can provide.
Safety is our everything
In the conditions of an unstable legislative situation, which, unfortunately, as bad karma prevails over many states, the same owner of almost any IT business can always have fear in his heart: will they come? but will they tear out the server? No one says that regulatory bodies are not needed, they are needed, but often their education in IT leaves much to be desired. And even if there is something, there is at least a hint of something illegal, instead of acting neatly and precisely, they act with a club: we need data - which was there, carried out not just all the servers, but in general all the equipment that is in the office - and deal with the end - "the data is now exactly with us, Comrade Major!". And the fact that in the company after such a medieval
In addition to the general legislative background in some countries, the tradition is also important, the tradition of handling personal data when it is considered that personal data is sacred and no one has the right to violate the privacy of any company, even if this company is not pleasant, disturbing or annoying to someone.
Openness is our everything
Often potential customers (our) data centers are asked a million questions about: who is he? what he? what does it do? “Whose will he be”? - i.e. here the provider, instead of simply providing high-quality cloud infrastructure services upon request, is insured and reinsured, thinking that “is this why the client will come to me or not?” so that, God forbid, because of this my client didn’t have problems just because this client would simply interfere with the fact of his existence to some official or his relative.
I am sure that openness to the provision of services is the basis of a healthy business, and if this is not an obvious crime or something illegal, then why bred bureaucracy? if the client has a desire to work, then what's the difference who he is, what he does, and where he came from?
Access speed is our everything
The main question asked when connecting a remote server is what is the access speed? Since inaccessible data is dead data. Of course, no one talks about their cliffs (fakap), but here the same openness plays - it works for you, here my company tells the client - if you want, check it yourself. Any client can check the speed by downloading the file. You can download a test file of 50Mb size or a file of 1Gb size to independently check the provided speed.
Softverization is our everything
In 2000, Mercedes-Benz conducted an advertising campaign for its trucks, addressed to other participants in the movement: "Since while sausages can not be sent by e-mail, we will have to share the road." Everything that can be verified — will be verified, everything that can go into the “clouds” - goes into the clouds. According to forecasts, the public cloud market predicts growth to 28% per year.
Hybrid IT structures are already a transitional step to this, but it is still a little scary for customers (especially in our latitudes) to completely switch to remote IT services. Hybrid cloud is also a yes-no-no cloud technology. Such clients are still thinking about where it will be “there” in few places, more reliable when it is in my closet. This approach to IT infrastructure, when it is not justified, is similar to storing “money under the pillow”, of course, you need to keep some money at hand, but keeping everything, or most of it under the mattress means lagging behind the modern world and be inflexible in response to change. But all these myths and fears will sooner or later go away, just as there was once a fear of paying for a purchase with a card on the Internet. Everything is moving towards “cloud software”.
Scalability, growth and startups are our everything
The client most often says: I do not want to change my hardware every 3 years. In this case, he should constantly have a headache about the need to increase the volume of disks, update processors to the newest and most efficient ones - all this requires large resources. Not to mention the fact that all the cloud features for startups are just a necessity, not a luxury.
In addition to a large enterprise, private clients can also use cloud solutions for their needs. In particular, start-up companies are often in conditions of limited resources - they do not have the opportunity to hire a team of IT specialists who would support the infrastructure necessary for the project to work, and the budget itself is limited on this infrastructure. When it all starts, server hardware is most often rented by a startup team to save money. But they quickly rest against the ceiling of opportunities, and the growing load for them is often difficult to predict. In the classic rental model, you need to constantly spend resources on miscalculation and upgrade of iron, and here it is time to turn to cloud technologies. At the moment of rapid growth, you can fully appreciate the advantages of the cloud - this is, first of all, flexible scaling. Even when it is impossible to predict the load gain and buy “in reserve”, you can always “build muscle” of virtual systems as necessary in a couple of clicks. (SIN-Networks is very fond of student programmers and startups, we have very good conditions for them.)
Cloud computing is our future
Here are some very interesting notes from one emigrant about what a person gets when he wants to open an online store in the UK:
What is the creation of an online store, many know. In England, everything is a little different. You don't have to create anything. There are many offers of ready-made blanks that you just need to rent. All you pay is the hosting price, and it depends on the number of product positions. The cheapest rental starts at 5 pounds per month, and then - how much imagination is enough. With a limit of 2,000 items and items, maintaining an online store costs £ 9.59 per month. All that you had to do yourself to create a store was to fill out the finished forms with product names, photographs, supply it with a description and set a price. The store is tied to your desired domain, and go ahead! Naturally, the software is easily consistent with accounting programs, a warehouse accounting program, and has a parallel access to Ebay.
For our latitudes - this is space. But it’s very good when there is something to strive for. I want to say that cloud technologies (aka internal combustion engine) can be applied in a very wide range of needs, and you don’t need to think and limit yourself and your capabilities to the extent that “there is no other and will not be”. No, there is, maybe it can be with us, and work is ongoing on this. Moreover, there are forecasts that by 2020 the global market for cloud computing will reach $ 240 billion.
Of course, not everything is so smooth, there are a lot of legal issues with data storage, with the integration of clouds in the existing infrastructure, etc. but in any case, no matter what difficulties IT professionals face when using cloud solutions, many agree that the future lies in cloud technologies, and the advantages of cloud technologies far exceed possible disadvantages.
Transferring ERP solutions from the on-premises environment to the cloud allows medium-sized international companies to reduce costs by 30% and increase profits by 35%. (AMI-PARTNERS BUSINESS BENCHMARKUNG WHITE PAPER, July 2014)
Returning to the example of mail and transportation, we can give an example of how “small” IT changes have a global impact, an example from Ukraine: a lot of good and cheap traffic appeared in Ukraine, so Internet trade developed rapidly - stores appeared like mushrooms after rain ( good competition for prices), a huge logistics company has appeared that wants to open a branch in each village and has already succeeded in this, and now: any size online store may not create its own delivery service, but may sell and deliver using w New address of the person in any (almost) anywhere in the country and give him exactly what he had bought. As a result, now thanks to “some” IT technologies, the money turnover has also improved, the overhead costs (which were borne by the buyers) have decreased, and now the distance is not an obstacle to shopping and good service.
Answering the question in the headline, I can say: in my opinion, cloud technologies are driving the IT industry, IT is driving civil society and improving people's lives. Therefore, I believe that the future is in the clouds.
Also, a couple of words about the social projects of my company here and here
» What does the company do at all ?
» What does SIM-Networks offer in the field of cloud solutions?
