Cloud computing describes accessing IT resources over the internet, often in a pay-as-you-go model, delivered on-demand from a cloud-service provider.
The infrastructure of building cloud computing systems accounts for more than a third of IT spending. This number indicates an increasing reliance on external infrastructure, management, security services, and applications.
Spending on the more traditional version of in-house IT is decreasing, and workloads are gradually moving into the cloud, be it public cloud services or private clouds built by enterprises.
Cloud computing originated in the early years of the new millennium, but computing-as-a-service has been around much longer. It began in the 1960s, when computer bureaus would allow companies to rent time on their mainframes to accomplish vital computing tasks. The bureaus benefitted because it brought in additional capital during what would otherwise be computer downtime, and the businesses renting the computing time enjoyed the cost savings of not having to purchase, install, and maintain expensive and bulky computer hardware.
Naturally, over time computers became smaller, more powerful, and much more affordable. The rise of the personal computer led to the increase of corporate data centres, which allowed companies to store vast amounts of information onsite. However, as data became more valuable, and more closely tied into nearly every aspect of business, the need for more advanced data centres and computing tools once again became prohibitively expensive.
To offset these costs while still enjoying the benefits of big data, businesses once again turned to the possibility of renting computer access. But this time, data and services would be available over the internet. Cloud computing was born, and SaaS providers quickly stepped in to offer advanced computing solutions via cloud-based platforms and tools.
Customers are capable of using a website or a similar control panel to provision resources, such as additional computers, networks, or user email accounts without the need for human intervention or interaction between customers and vendors.
Users across a range of computing devices can access data and computing resources. The cloud is accessible from essentially any internet-capable device, including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones etc.
Vendors use shared computers to provide cloud services. Virtual technologies and multi-tenancy mechanisms segregate and protect customers and their data from unauthorised access.
Cloud computing is capable of quickly and automatically expanding or reducing available processing, data storage and network bandwidth to meet user needs.
Customers only pay for computing services that they use, and they are able to monitor their usage.
While cloud computing describes any IT resource accessed over the internet, organisations and providers use and deliver cloud services in a number of distinct ways. There are four major types of cloud deployment, and three common service models.
Public: Used by the general public and managed by a business, a third-party organisation, or a combined organisation. Public cloud stores data from many different clients on common servers, while using advanced security measures to ensure that data is only accessible to authorised users.
Private: Used exclusively by consumers from organisations, and managed by the organisation. A private cloud caters only to a single organisation.
Community Cloud: Provisioned for use by a community of consumers from organisations with mutual concerns. It may be owned and managed by organisations in a community, a third party, or a combination of the two.
Hybrid: Composed of two or more cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) and uniquely services entities, but is also bound by standard technologies that enable data portability.
While cloud computing is essentially an umbrella term that encompasses all forms of remote IT resource access, cloud management is something different. Cloud management describes the strategies and tools designed to optimise cloud infrastructure resources and services for the benefit of a specific organisation.
Users have the ability to scale different services for their needs, access cloud applications from anywhere, and customise the applications they use.
Enterprise users can speed their applications to market more quickly without the worry of underlying costs or maintenance.
There is a more competitive advantage, as clouds provide the most innovative technology available.
Another aspect of cloud management is cloud governance. Cloud governance describes overseeing and regulating issues such as cost, operations, security, risk, budgets, and compliance across multiple clouds. In cloud governance, the focus is on cost, security, and operations, where cloud management often focuses on resources. Naturally, there is a significant amount of overlap between the two terms.
When working with a range of cloud providers, businesses face unique challenges. Specifically, there is no standardisation of operating models between providers, and each option brings with it its own proprietary provisioning tools. This leads to increased operational complexity, and makes effective governance extremely difficult.
An effective cloud governance solution empowers businesses to create a unified framework for provisioning and governance in a multi-cloud environment, while still promoting increased cloud agility and without restricting individual cloud-vendor capabilities.
Effective cloud governance demands a reliable optimisation and provisioning solution. ServiceNow ITOM Optimization makes it easy to provision on-demand cloud services while maintaining acceptable cloud spend. With ServiceNow, you can enjoy the full capabilities of every cloud provider, and create a manageable, unified operating model across your entire cloud ecosystem. Benefits include:
Managing multiple clouds can be difficult, depending on the number of clouds involved—both from a cost optimisation and technology perspective. Customers tend to subscribe to various cloud services to avoid a dependency on a single service. A better approach is to select a public cloud, analyse the features they offer, and then integrate them.
Cost control and management-overhead reduction can be reconciled by using cloud management platforms (CMPs) and/or cloud service brokers (CSBs). Both help you manage multiple clouds in one location. But, these services can limit customers to common-denominator services, ignoring the unique advantages of individual cloud service providers.
Cloud computing is often considered an alternative to edge computing. However, edge computing moves local computing to local devices in a distributed system that is usually layered around a cloud computing core. Cloud is typically involved in orchestrating all of the devices, then it collects their data, analyses it, and acts on it.
Protecting data from access by a third party
Protecting data from access by the vendor’s customers
Protecting data from access by the vendor’s employees
How to handle cloud security
Cloud computing in the future will be widespread and will continue to rapidly grow. In fact, it’s predicted that 40% of organisations will deploy cloud computing technology by 2022, and edge computing will be a crucial part of the setup (source: Learn Hub).
Software development agencies will find an advantage in the agile frameworks they follow, as they will be able to continuously integrate process and speedy delivery of cloud systems. Online security firms will let users work remotely from anywhere around the globe as they transition to zero-trust security models from Google, rather than continuing to use traditional firewalls. Data analytics firms will continuously focus on improving data analysis to make informed decisions, and the continuity of the analysis will be crucial.
A Cloud Centre of Excellence is a fusion of cross-functional teams, like DevOps, CloudOps, Infrastructure, and Finance. CCoE provides the opportunity for these teams to manage cloud strategy, governance, best practices, and to be a location for cloud leaders within the organisation.
Leverage your existing ITSM processes, quickly creating a unified management framework across both multi-cloud and non-cloud environments.
Easily define new types of cloud services using cloud-native templates and offer them through a unified service catalogue. Provision cloud services in real time, responding instantly to requests from DevOps and other cloud users.
Establish non-intrusive policy guardrails, including quotas, available cloud service types, naming conventions, workload placement, and more. Automatically manage approvals for policy exceptions while instantly fulfilling compliant requests.
Deliver a streamlined, responsive user experience with an intuitive self-service portal where users can create and manage their cloud resources.
Take advantage of integrations with configuration providers and other vendors, including Terraform and Ansible Tower.
ServiceNow® ITOM Optimization lets you rise to this multi-cloud challenge. Its Cloud Provisioning and Governance feature provisions on-demand cloud services, accelerating service delivery while providing consistent, non-intrusive governance guardrails that prevent uncontrolled cloud spend. It directly leverages native cloud provisioning capabilities—for example, AWS CloudFormation templates—so you have unrestricted access to the full power of each cloud vendor. And it works seamlessly with ServiceNow IT Service Management, creating a unified operating model across your cloud and non-cloud estate.
Create a catalogue of standardised cloud services by importing cloud vendor templates into the role-based ServiceNow service catalogue. DevOps and other users simply select the cloud service they want, enter configuration parameters, and submit their request. They can also do this programmatically using a built-in REST API. ServiceNow automates the end-to-end provisioning process, creating the requested cloud resources in real-time—often in seconds when no approvals are required. This provides a consistent, secure, and auditable way of ordering services across multiple clouds, delivering effective governance while simplifying and accelerating provisioning for users.
Define role-based permissions and policies for your users, creating non-intrusive guardrails that are only triggered when there is an exception condition. Policy examples include storage and CPU quotas, allowed cloud service types, naming conventions, workload placement, resource sizing limits, tagging policies, and more. This lets you manage approvals for policy exceptions while instantly fulfilling compliant requests. You can also establish leases for non-production cloud resources, alerting resource owners when the lease is about to expire. Unless the owner renews the lease, ITOM Optimization automatically deprovisions the resource—reducing cloud sprawl and stranded cloud assets.
ITOM Optimization makes it easy for cloud users to see and manage all of their cloud services in one place. Its Cloud User Portal delivers a consumer-like, unified experience where users can create new cloud services, manage their existing cloud services, track approvals, and see associated changes and incidents for their cloud resources. The portal also has quota utilisation information, creating situational awareness and encouraging users to release cloud resources they no longer require. ITOM Optimization also includes a dedicated Cloud Administration Portal, providing a single pane of glass where IT managers can govern their cloud resources and deployment policies across multiple cloud vendors.
Foresee problems before they arise with ServiceNow.