The next wave of cloud computing: a new cloud network service

Over the past few years, the main focus of the IaaS provider has been to provide the basic computing and storage resources needed to run a variety of applications.


　　


The main focus of the SaaS provider is to provide enterprise-class applications such as CRM and ERP, as well as communication and collaboration solutions.


　　


recently, cloud service providers are starting to offer a new type of solution that is traditionally provided by the IT infrastructure of the enterprise. In addition to communication and collaboration, this scenario includes network and application optimization, security, management, and virtual desktops.


　　


We call this kind of new solution for cloud network services (CLOUDNETWORKINGSERVICES,CNS). The presence of CNS shows that the IT infrastructure sector is facing new challenges. The new challenge is to decide which traditional IT services will continue to be provided by the Department, which service needs to be provided by the CNS provider, and which service can be provided as a hybrid scenario.


　　


as the CNS
for infrastructure Solutions

　　


's classification of CNS may be a matter of opinion. Some CNS solutions are categorized as SaaS and some CNS are categorized as IaaS. While technology is a way to classify CNS, a more persuasive approach should be to first look at what the typical IT organization is like.


　　


Most IT departments have an application team whose primary responsibility is to develop, procure, and maintain enterprise-class applications such as CRM, ERP, and supply chain management.


　　


Most IT departments also have an infrastructure team whose primary responsibility is to provide, manage, secure, and optimize networks and servers to support these applications.


　　


in almost all cases, services like voice, collaboration, disaster preparedness, management, security, optimization, and virtual desktops are provided by the infrastructure team, not by the application team.


　　


According to this typical architecture of the IT department, the CNS solution should be considered the next wave of IaaS solutions.





Assessment of CNS Solutions


　　


in order to evaluate the CNS solution, IT departments must determine whether the solution can eliminate or at least minimize the various negative impacts of the public cloud solution.


　　


Considering that security is a major barrier to the adoption of a public cloud, security should be a critical indicator in assessing the CNS provider's scenario.


　　


the assessment, the IT department needs to determine whether the multi-tenant environment implemented by the cloud provider is as secure as it promises. For example, it needs to determine whether a service provider can enable IT departments to comply with the necessary corporate and government regulatory standards to maximize the cost-effectiveness of the shared infrastructure and improve operational efficiency.


　　


However, it is also important that the solution really benefits and drives the IT department to use the public cloud solution. One of the biggest benefits of using a public cloud solution is low cost.


　　


service providers should provide the IT department with all the information necessary to determine whether a CNS solution has a compelling cost advantage.


　　


The second important benefit is that the solution can shorten the time it takes to deploy new features. One way for an IT department to assess whether a cloud service provider is agile is to determine how far its entire datacenter infrastructure has been virtualized.


　　


For example, has the service provider implemented the virtual network functionality using the products provided by Vyatta? Virtualization is important because a virtual infrastructure is easier to initialize, expand, and migrate than a physical infrastructure.


　　


Typical CNS solution


　　


according to the Web World Survey, we found that corporate IT departments are more interested in VoIP and unified Communications (UC) than any CNS. Fonality, for example, is an SME-oriented company that has 20多亿次 voice calls across the cloud.


　　


Although there are many providers can bring a lot of benefits to customers, but also created a number of problems. These include a variety of distinct business models that offer a wide range of features-from the most basic telephony services to call centers to HD voice.


　　

One of the main roles of CNS, which engages in network and application optimization, is to provide similar functionality that can be provided by the WAN Tuning Controller (
). Virtela is an example of a CNS provider that can provide optimization and other services, including security and management.


　　

There are three different uses of CNS in
. One is that the CNS provider can provide all the benefits promised by the public cloud. The second is that this type of CNS enables IT departments to optimize their mobile application performance without having to deploy software on each mobile device. The third is the ability to allow IT departments to optimize service performance from other service providers, such as VoIP or desktop virtualization.


　　


IBM's recently released x-force2010 trend and Risk report shows that 2010 security vulnerabilities increased by 27% compared with 2009, with nearly half of the vulnerabilities coming mainly from Web applications. ”


　　


since the risk of Web applications is so great, an important area of concern for the security CNS is comprehensive web content filtering and granular policy control, which allows real-time and accurate identification and classification of Web content using dynamic evaluation algorithms.


　　

Another important security concern for
is the rapid increase in malware. For example, a report from Cisco said that in June 2011, there were nearly 290,000 different malware instances found on the web. That is nearly 3 times times the number of Cisco's March 2011 reports (about 100,000).


　　


in order to protect against malware, the CNS solution should be able to identify suspicious sites or content, or identify sites or content known to spread malicious software. To improve efficiency, CNS, which provides Web content filtering or malware protection, needs a source of intellectual capital, such as the Bluecoat Webpulse service, which identifies known and suspected attack vulnerabilities. Ideally, CNS can also provide comprehensive antivirus scans, providing additional protection against malware from file attachments.





because of the broad nature of network management, it is also possible to find a CNS that can provide multifunctional management-oriented. Virtela Security management products such as IPs and firewalls are examples. There are meraki companies to manage the basic network functions of products, such as routers. When evaluating such solutions, IT departments need to determine how wide the vendor's product can be managed, and how many experts can support the product.


　　


According to IBM's report, most IT personnel store data on mobile devices that could be misused or lost, leading to serious security threats.


　　


Such a phenomenon creates a market opportunity for CNS, for example, a product provided by Virtela, which provides management of mobile devices. As a recent report says, many IT departments are doing their best to support the increasing number of mobile employees, so such services will be very market.


　　


Our market research data suggest that the current market's enthusiasm for CNS is not high, but the situation will change over time.


　　


Summary


　　


over the past few years, IT departments have begun to adopt a broad range of SaaS and IaaS Solutions, and a large number of market research reports indicate that the number of applications for these solutions will increase dramatically in the foreseeable future. But so far, SaaS solutions are primarily enterprise-class applications such as CRM or ERP, while IaaS solutions are primarily basic computing and storage.


　　


research suggests that the market may be approaching an inflection point, depending on the IT services the CNS can provide. Research indicates that it has shown great interest in obtaining many traditional IT services from a cloud service provider.


　　


the most basic metric that the IT department needs to know when evaluating these CNS solutions is the functionality it provides. However, since CNS is another form of cloud computing, IT departments need to determine whether the CNS solution can eliminate or at least minimize the negative impact of the public cloud when delivering the benefits promised by the public cloud.