Why You Should Care About Cloud Network Location

When Amazon and others began offering cloud computing, most of the initial applications were “consumer grade." The cloud was a nebulous place that end users didn’t care about, as long as they had access to the applications they wanted. Today, as we begin to see companies looking at enabling cloud services for more mission-critical business applications, the price/performance/security of network services is coming to the forefront. People are paying a lot more attention to what’s inside the cloud — and where that cloud is located in the world. These two attributes can make a significant difference in uptime, availability and even security of applications and infrastructure in the cloud. When choosing cloud-connectivity partners, consider the following:

1. Do I want my mission-critical information delivered over the Internet?
2. What kind of performance will my end users see if we use cloud services?
3. Will my network budget blow up if this cloud project requires more network capacity?

So networking is becoming a bigger issue in the cloud space. What do you do about this if you are considering using cloud services? Here are some steps to take:

1. SaaS and IaaS infrastructures are not really “in the cloud" – they are all physically located somewhere. Ask the providers where their equipment is located. If the cloud provider has its servers/storage equipment located in a carrier-neutral colocation center, there will be more options for network providers you can use. That can help with performance.
2. Model how your users would access the cloud-based applications. For example, today you have an application running locally on a server near the users in New York. However, the next version will have them accessing the application over the Internet to a cloud provider located in California. That will change the user experience.
3. Test with one application to see what end-user performance looks like.
4. Also, if you are running a hybrid environment and have some private servers and use some cloud services, look at locating your private infrastructure in the same data-center facility as the cloud provider’s servers/storage equipment. This will allow you to connect to the cloud provider directly inside the facility. This would give you better performance for some applications.
5. Develop a network plan to support cloud services. When you put together a cloud-project budget, include some funding for network upgrades and grooming to keep the user experience where needed.

As an example, iland, a provider of cloud computing infrastructure with high-availability data centers specifically designed for cloud computing in Boston, Washington D.C., Houston, Los Angeles and London, wanted to expand its market reach and lower latency on application delivery, the company decided to partner with Telx in Atlanta, New York City and Dallas. iland needed a colocation provider with the ability to offer multiple ISP connections with diverse providers, enabling them to uphold higher Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with customers. Today, iland leverages Telx for colocation and interconnection services in Atlanta and New York and also offer their Hybrid Cloud out of Dallas.

Network should be a major consideration in cloud planning. When moving to cloud services, keep the network in mind.

As vice president of Product Development and Product Management for Telx , Rose Klimovich leads efforts in creating the Telx strategy and developing and investing in new products and services in areas like colocation, cloud and Telepresence video. Rose’s team supports vertical markets including financial services, health care, cloud/SaaS, content/media and service providers.