SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...| By James Carlini | Article Rating: |
|
| February 22, 2012 10:35 AM EST | Reads: |
5,163 |
When it comes to procurement, any technology or service should be evaluated with a good set of criteria. Executive decisions should not be weighted solely on a single selection criterion such as price. This applies to any cloud computing service as well.
The twelve criteria listed below (see Chart 1) forces executives to take a broader review of the many elements of the total cloud computing service, and not just price. Each criteria starts with an R, F, or P which makes it easy to remember the total framework for the Yardstick for Technology Procurement (RFP).
Chart 1: Yardstick for Technology Procurement (RFP)
|
RELIABILITY |
At what percentage of reliability is the service? 99.9% 99.99? 99.995? How is this measured? What costs are associated with increasing reliability? (Cost/Benefit Analysis) |
|
REDUNDANCY |
Can the system survive a major disaster or is there a single point-of-failure? Does the vendor have a system that can handle mission-critical applications or is that better left off the cloud? |
|
REDUCED OPERATING COSTS |
Every system is going to proclaim they save operating expenses. Is there a significant difference between vendors' products? |
|
FLEXIBILITY |
How flexible is the basic platform to accommodate changes and/or additions to the initial applications? |
|
FUNCTIONALITY |
What does the cloud provide as to capabilities? Are these functionalities easily adaptable to changes in the business? |
|
FAMILIARITY |
Every system is sold as "user-friendly" so that is not a good criterion to use. Familiarity is a better term to understand how the average user navigates into the cloud and is comfortable with utilizing the applications. |
|
PERFORMANCE |
Most systems are talking about performance in areas of scalability, elasticity, and other criteria, are there any unique performance capabilities tied to one vendor or vendors? |
|
PRICING |
Price is still a consideration in any purchase, but now is only a part of the evaluation criteria instead of being 95% of the decision. |
|
PERSONNEL |
Which people will the user still need to have on premise? A liaison person? A systems administrator? An SLA administrator? Any other resources? |
|
RESOURCES |
Are all resources off-site or are there requirements that might include on-site physical resources? What are they? |
|
REALITIES |
What can be done with the cloud and what cannot be done? This sounds like a simple question yet many do not seek the answer to this and immediately look at the cloud as a "universal solution" to all their computing issues. |
|
RISKS |
What are the risks in going to a third party instead of keeping an application in-house? What about Intellectual Property or proprietary applications being put into the hands of a third party? |
Source: James Carlini
There are many other questions to ask under each of the R, F, and P categories. This opens up discussions as to what's internally important to your enterprise and not what was important to the organization down the street that just installed a cloud application in their environment.
If you go through the review process using this twelve-step assessment tool, your selection will be much more well defined and "price" will still be a factor, but not the only factor in your decision.
Be Selective
Some say computing will become a utility, I disagree. Many organizations have proprietary applications that are so intertwined with their core business, they cannot pull them out and give them to a third party to operate. An example is the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and their trading platform. Would they really want to give their electronic trading platform, a mission-critical application that is part of their strategic competitive advantage out to a third party to manage?
If an application within your enterprise qualifies as a candidate for cloud computing, you should ensure the right service is selected by using all the criteria that has been mentioned and not just price.
This yardstick's focus on selection criteria has been used for clients throughout the years as well as integrated into the Executive Masters courses I taught at Northwestern University.
• • •
Copyright 2012 - James Carlini
Published February 22, 2012 Reads 5,163
Copyright © 2012 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
More Stories By James Carlini
James Carlini, MBA, a certified Infrastructure Consultant, keynote speaker and former award-winning Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University, has advised on mission-critical networks. Clients include the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, GLOBEX, and City of Chicago’s 911 Center. An expert witness in civil and federal courts on network infrastructure, he has worked with AT&T, Sprint and others.
Follow daily Carlini-isms at www.twitter.com/JAMESCARLINI
SYS-CON Events announced today that Wowrack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Wowrack’s core expertise lies in high-availability Private and Public Cloud IaaS Hosting Solutions. Wowrack provides a true Hybrid service – where business release all IT management and hardware provisioning – taking the data center and server system administrative headaches off our customer’s shoulders. ...May. 24, 2013 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,300 |
By Elizabeth White As enterprises deploy private IaaS clouds into production they are reevaluating their future application delivery models. SUSE and WSO2 believe that private PaaS will leverage the automation and scalability of Private IaaS solutions, such as OpenStack-based SUSE Cloud, to deliver the secure, standardized development environments that will make migrating to an agile, serviceoriented delivery model possible.
In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Chris Haddad, VP of Technology Ev...May. 24, 2013 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,568 |
By Pat Romanski “Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...May. 24, 2013 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 1,465 |
By Liz McMillan Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...May. 24, 2013 11:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,076 |
By Pat Romanski In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...May. 24, 2013 10:15 AM EDT Reads: 1,343 |
By Elizabeth White You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...May. 24, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 721 |
By Liz McMillan SYS-CON Events announced today that OpenStack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed by a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.
OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS app...May. 24, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,314 |
By Liz McMillan Many have heard of OAuth but are unsure of how it might apply to their business.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will describe how OAuth can be used to facilitate certain business models and simplify the sharing of private data.
Alistair Farquharson is a visionary industry veteran focused on using disruptive technologies to drive business growth and improve efficiency and agility within organizations. As the CTO of SOA Software A...May. 24, 2013 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,314 |
By Elizabeth White May. 24, 2013 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,367 |
By Pat Romanski SYS-CON Events announced today that nfina Technologies, a provider of highly reliable cloud server products, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
nfina Technologies develops, manufactures, and markets highly reliable cloud server products, designed to solve the most demanding data center requirements in mission-critical cloud applications. Nfina’s staff has decades of experience in co...May. 24, 2013 09:45 AM EDT Reads: 1,193 |
- Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Dave Linthicum – Cloud Technology Partners
- Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Is Changing the Economics of Business
- Windows Azure IaaS Reaches General Availability
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Nicos Vekiarides – TwinStrata
- AMD and Adobe Collaborate on Upcoming Version of Adobe Premiere Pro Software to Enable Breakthrough Video Editing Performance Through Open Standards
- State and Local Governments Adopt Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Improve Citizen Service Delivery
- Enterasys Spotlights SDN's Impact on Traditional Networking in Upcoming Webinar
- New Relic Q1 2013 Blazes Past Growth Targets and Reaches 40,000 Active Customer Accounts
- Best CIO Practices Shared from SHI’s Customers
- Cloud Expo New York: Deploying Hybrid Cloud for Performance and Uptime
- Cloud Expo New York: Delivering Digital Marketing on the Cloud
- Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing
- Cloud Expo New York: Best CIO Practices Shared from SHI’s Customers
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Dave Linthicum – Cloud Technology Partners
- Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Is Changing the Economics of Business
- Cloud Expo New York: How to Use Google Apps Script
- Windows Azure IaaS Reaches General Availability
- Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Nicos Vekiarides – TwinStrata
- AMD and Adobe Collaborate on Upcoming Version of Adobe Premiere Pro Software to Enable Breakthrough Video Editing Performance Through Open Standards
- Cloud Computing Bootcamp at Cloud Expo New York
- State and Local Governments Adopt Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Improve Citizen Service Delivery
- Enterasys Spotlights SDN's Impact on Traditional Networking in Upcoming Webinar
- New Relic Q1 2013 Blazes Past Growth Targets and Reaches 40,000 Active Customer Accounts
- The Top 150 Players in Cloud Computing
- What is Cloud Computing?
- Six Benefits of Cloud Computing
- The Top 250 Players in the Cloud Computing Ecosystem
- Twenty-One Experts Define Cloud Computing
- What's the Difference Between Cloud Computing and SaaS?
- The Future of Cloud Computing
- Virtualization Conference Keynote Webcast Live on SYS-CON.TV
- A Brief History of Cloud Computing: Is the Cloud There Yet?
- GDS International: Global Warming Scam?
- Cloud Expo Europe 2009 in Prague: Themes & Topics
- Cloud Computing Expo 2009 West: Call for Papers Now Closed








As enterprises deploy private IaaS clouds into production they are reevaluating their future application delivery models. SUSE and WSO2 believe that private PaaS will leverage the automation and scalability of Private IaaS solutions, such as OpenStack-based SUSE Cloud, to deliver the secure, standardized development environments that will make migrating to an agile, serviceoriented delivery model possible.
In their session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Chris Haddad, VP of Technology Ev...
“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as...
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organiza...
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Dave Eichorn, Global Data Center Practice Head at Zensar, will share a case study describing how a utility services company handled the migration of its Microsoft platform to the cloud. Challenged with the time-consuming task of opening operations out of temporary offices, this company struggled with the need to simultaneously access data that was accumulated from a vast amount of data-intensive jobs. Zensar migrated the company’s application ...
You're getting pitched every day from your legacy enterprise software and hardware vendors about "cloud." They're doing an amazing job of convincing your CIO and CTO about what cloud is and how you should use it. The reality is they're defending their shrinking market share and keeping you on the legacy treadmill for as long as they can by selling you solutions that aren't "cloud."
In her session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Niki Acosta, Cloud Evangelista for Rackspace, will talk thro...
SYS-CON Events announced today that OpenStack will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed by a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.
OpenStack powers some of the most widely-used SaaS app...
Many have heard of OAuth but are unsure of how it might apply to their business.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, will describe how OAuth can be used to facilitate certain business models and simplify the sharing of private data.
Alistair Farquharson is a visionary industry veteran focused on using disruptive technologies to drive business growth and improve efficiency and agility within organizations. As the CTO of SOA Software A...
SYS-CON Events announced today that nfina Technologies, a provider of highly reliable cloud server products, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
nfina Technologies develops, manufactures, and markets highly reliable cloud server products, designed to solve the most demanding data center requirements in mission-critical cloud applications. Nfina’s staff has decades of experience in co...
Although often misunderstood, cloud computing ultimately relies on the same technological underpinnings as traditional server and storage options. While software, platforms and even infrastructure are farmed out to third-party providers, their ability to operate efficiently is constrained by the sam...
Hyper-V Replica is our included asynchronous site-to-site VM replication capability for Windows Server 2012 and our free Hyper-V Server 2012 bare-metal enterprise-grade hypervisor. Using Hyper-V Replica, you can quickly implement a cost-effective disaster recovery plan for your business critical VM...
While movement to the cloud keeps accelerating, fears about security hang on. Let’s take a look at the most common myths about cloud security that might be holding businesses back from taking advantage of the flexibility and scalability of the cloud model.
This is the piece of “common sense” that h...
Imagine if you could take a time machine five years into the future, so that you would know which of today’s new technologies panned out and which did not.
Most companies have only started using cloud in the past two years. But there are some companies that have been using cloud for five years or...
Don and I have four children, all of whom have had the fortune to take piano lessons (I'm not sure if the youngest would agree he's fortunate at this point in his life but at five, he's not really able to answer the question with any degree of wisdom, anyway. Come to think of it, not sure the other ...
Our prior post, A Roadmap to High-Value Cloud Infrastructure: Disaster Recovery and Data Protection, discussed both the benefits and limitations of a cloud-based disaster recovery (DR) strategy. As we highlighted last week, traditional disaster recovery options leave open a huge hole: At one extreme...
Online collaboration has evolved during the last decade, delivering even greater value -- thanks to a new generation of business technology applications. Forbes Insights released "Collaborating in the Cloud," a Cisco-sponsored study examining the ways business leaders increasingly look at cloud coll...
New technologies allow schools, colleges and universities to analyze absolutely everything that happens. From student behavior, testing results, career development of students as well as educational needs based on changing societies. A lot of this data has already been stored and is used for statist...
A recent Gartner study states that the function of the modern CIO is in flux and that his or her future focus must incorporate digital assets (aka cloud-based data and applications) to remain relevant. Towards the goal of riding the sea change a compiler of stacks to a broker of business needs, secu...













