Which allow customers to leverage Cloud supplier's hardware, network, software, and storage.
It is a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software.
This allows the consumer to focus on their business and not on being an IT supplier.

The Cloud

The Cloud represents the Internet as it is often depicted in computer network diagrams.

Cloud Services

Cloud Services are a well defined set of offerings that are delivered through a Service Catalog.

The customer can pick services from the catalog that fit their specific technology needs.

They can be spun up on demand and exterminated when no longer required.

It can be very much like a cafeteria style offering of services.

The customer can consume the service when needed.

Benefits

Services are Rapidly Provisioned
The Services are Highly Customizable
The Offerings are Completely Scalable
The Services are a Pay-As-You-Go Model

Providers

Google
Amazon
Yahoo
IBM

Components

Cloud suppliers usually break down the services into the following components.

Application
Client
Infrastructure
Platform
Service
Storage

IT Governance

SOA Strategy

Can SOA help companies leverage the Cloud?

Cloud Computing and SOA Strategies

One of the strong benefits are the ways that it can ensure IT Governances and Policies.

It can promote controls by following standardized practices.

In addition, it can provide the transparency into the use of applications and data the IT Governance requires.

Governance Attributes

Financial Visibility
Strong SLAs
Centralized Controls
Transparency of Services

The Cloud Confusion

There is lots of confusion as to what constitutes the Cloud. For instance, many Server Virtualization Companies make the claim that Server Virtualization is Cloud Computing.

Server Virtualization is basically the consolidation of physical servers by the use of Virtualization. The benefit is a reduction of the number of physical servers.

Technically, you do not need Virtualization to implement Cloud Computing.

What you do need is economies of scale in order to make the Cloud a worth while endeavor which is very do able through Server Virtualization.

Otherwise, the Cloud Service would need to be managing a very large physical server environment.

Although, Virtualization is not the same as the Cloud, it is a way to accomplish part of this goal.

Definition of Information Technology Table of Contents

Definition of Information Technology Definition of Information Technology describes the primary function of Information Technology. Along with the scope of IT Services and Technologies provides to the Information Technology Services Customers.

Cloud Computing Cloud Computing is the use of Internet computer and software technologies to provide a variety of computer services. It is more than virtual servers. It is a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. The name Cloud comes from the common diagram of the Internet as it is often depicted in computer network diagrams.

Disaster Recovery The purpose of this page is to establish a standard for disaster recovery for systems, applications and their configurations.

ITIL ITIL, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of best practices that support the delivery of Information Technology Services.

ITIL V3 ITIL v3, Information Technology Infrastructure Library, is a set of best practices that support the delivery of Information Technology Services.

Six Sigma Six Sigma seeks to identify and resolve the causes of defects and errors in engineering and business processes. It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization who are experts in these methods. Each Six Sigma project carried out within an organization follows a defined sequence of steps and has quantified financial targets.

SOA Strategies SOA Strategies, the importance of IT articulating the value of its technology strategy to corporate decision makers, the correlation between architecture and successful business-driven initiatives such as cloud computing and software as a service, and how to avoid common architecture mistakes.

SOX SOX, Sarbanes Oxley, reporting and testing requirements are mandating formal approvals and reviews of people who have access to application source code.

SOX Source Code SOX Source Code how to maintain a SOX audit for source code control, you must maintain access control and provide an audit trail of access.

SCMWise Software Configuration Management SCMWise is dedicated to SCM. This site is a central repository for the collection of best practices, processes, methodologies and tools that surround SCM.