Cloud Management - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 90

FIGURE 4.1 Cloud management platform

Cloud Service A

Cloud
Management
Platform

Private Cloud Cloud Service B

What It Means for Service Providers

Managing a small cloud for an organization would already be quite a handful; now imagine
that cloud service providers are challenged with running and maintaining a massive, scaled-
out infrastructure possibly made up of different remote locations while serving customers
across the globe whose demands grow by the day. Ensuring the performance and availability
of diverse, highly complex IT environments, meeting standards and compliance requirements
in various SLAs, maintaining control, and securing the infrastructure are all common day-to-
day problems being faced by service providers.
The pressure on cloud service providers goes beyond delivering stable and good perfor-
mance for enterprises that are seeking to employ cloud computing to get an advantage over
the competition. Cloud service providers are not simply here to make people happy. That
is only part of the equation. They are here to make money. And so they are in an ongoing
struggle to find, create, and deliver attractive solutions and better alternatives for on-premise
IT or a similar or better level of service when on-premise approaches become impractical.
If they fail in this regard, their business fails as well.
As a way to keep up with demand and attract new players to cloud computing, they
could start with exceptional cloud management. Enterprises are all about control and
information, for nobody likes to be blind to possible negative situations. Cloud manage-
ment is therefore very important for the enterprise. It is at the forefront of the smooth
cloud operations of any business.

Planning Your Cloud

Differentiation is at the core of being a cloud service provider. You do not simply want to be
another fish in the bucket. You must stand out in order to compete, especially against the