SEI Cloud Computing Webinar Q&A

I had a chance to attend the SEI Webinar on Cloud Computing as a part of the SEI Webinar series. I had posted some questions during the seminar, and hence I thought of sharing them with you. The questions were answered by specialists in Cloud Computing at CMU SEI.

What is the scope for Enterprise Cloud ?

Enterprise Cloud is the term that is currently associated to the implementation of private clouds within the enterprise. The goal of enterprise clouds is the virtualization of resources leading to reduced maintenance and acquisition costs from a business perspective and hiding IT complexity from a technical perspective.

How an existing Customer can scale their already purchased infrastructure to Cloud?

There is a term called cloud bursting that is associated to only using cloud resources when local resources are not enough. This is one way. Another way is one-time usage, which is to move to the cloud one-time processing or archiving.

How do you see the Standardization of the Cloud Computing vendors coming up, and the timeline for it ?

The only standardization effort that I know of is from Eucalyptus Systems. Standardization is going to be hard.

How do Cloud Computing Implementors convince Customers regarding Security of their data in the Cloud?

The only way would be to look at their SLAs and analyze the security clauses. If you are comfortable with placing your data given those clauses, then it should be acceptable. It is a matter of trust, both from a partner and a technology perspective.

Thanks to Shane McGraw for getting back to me with the answers.