“Cloud computing,” despite the dreamy-sounding name, is a relatively straightforward concept: You sign up with a provider, use only the computing power you need, and let someone else worry about the details.
Of course, that “someone else” better have the technology chops to make it work. That’s why GreenQube, a Louisiana player in this growing market, invested in what one blog post called a “ginormous” data center, contained in a “12,000-foot ‘hardened’ facility with enough power generators and HVAC chillers to self-contain for weeks on end,” located “in the middle of the sticks.” The company is headquartered in Monroe, but its data center is located on Bluebonnet Boulevard.
“We have some calls from clients in California. They go, ‘Where are you guys?’” GreenQube CEO Hunter McFadden says. “We say, ‘Louisiana.’ You hear a pause, and they go, ‘Really? We expected you to be in Dallas or Atlanta.’”
Through cloud computing, sometimes called “grid computing” or “utility computing,” a business can essentially rent the computing power it needs. GreenQube COO Joey Messenger says people have long been able to pick up the phone and order utilities, cable or Internet service without having to think about how it all works. Now you can receive that same kind of service for your data.
A cloud server is accessed remotely, is instantly scalable, and can eliminate the need to buy and maintain your own servers. Through a provider like GreenQube, a business can move server applications, databases, and even desktop applications like Quickbooks or Microsoft Office into the cloud. Those applications can then be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.
“By alleviating that back-end and front-end infrastructure, they no longer have the concerns of viruses, data loss or the loss of any of their services,” McFadden says. “By moving into the cloud, the idea is to get rid of that capital expenditure and go with a subscription-based model or a pay-as-you-use-it model, so that a business owner knows what it costs per employee.”
That model can be attractive to small businesses. GreenQube says its typical client tends to have between five and 35 users, although they can accommodate much larger companies.
Some of the most recognizable names in corporate America, like Microsoft, Google and AT&T, are now providing cloud service. And other huge companies, which typically are wary of giving another company access to their information, are moving into the cloud.
Netflix, which rents movies by mail and streaming video, made headlines earlier this year by moving most of its web technology to Amazon.com. Many observers were surprised, since Amazon also wants to stream movies into homes, making it a direct Netflix competitor.
Since Amazon is putting a lot of energy into selling its cloud service, Netflix decided it was in its best interest to make Amazon happy. The move allows Netflix to focus on obtaining and renting movies as opposed to building huge data centers. That approach might sum up the bottom-line pitch for the cloud provider to a business: Let us worry about your data, so you can focus on doing what you do.
But worries about data, specifically the security of that data, continue even as more and more companies embrace the cloud. A study by CA Technologies, an “IT management software and solutions company,” and the Ponemon Institute, a research firm that specializes in privacy issues, found that more than half of the respondents are adopting cloud services, but only 47% believe that cloud services are evaluated for security.
Many companies are going with a hybrid approach, keeping some of their most sensitive information close to the vest while moving other data into the cloud. The CA/Ponemon survey found that 68% of respondents thought cloud computing was too risky for financial information and intellectual property, 55% didn’t want to want to store health records in the cloud, and 43% were concerned about credit card information. The take-home message from the survey’s sponsors seems to be, “Look before you leap.”
“If they can’t guarantee you where your information is, and the ability to get the information back quickly, and on top of that, to be able to move all of the information out into another service provider, then you don’t need to be doing business with them,” says Scott Swanburg, director of the Citrix service provider program. GreenQube uses Citrix software for its hosting services.
Swanburg says research shows a huge swell of demand over the past two or three years of small- and medium-sized businesses trying to outsource all of their IT. For those businesses, a smaller player that can provide service that is both holistic and customized can be a better fit than a giant like AT&T.
The decentralized nature of cloud computing allows a company to hire someone anywhere in the world, he says.
“If I want to hire somebody in Sweden, and my business is in Baton Rouge,” Swanburg says, “I can do that.” Southern University, with help from IBM, has been moving into the world of cloud computing over the past year. Deanna Roquemore, the computer science professor who is leading the project, plans to create a virtual computer lab that users can access from anywhere.
Eventually, IBM wants to help create a cloud computing network among a number of historically black colleges and universities, including Southern. Roquemore says the initiative could one day help to create revenue for the school by providing cloud access to local small businesses.
McFadden and Messenger say they’re changing minds about what a Louisiana company can do.
“We’re proud to be from Louisiana,” Messenger says. “Most folks don’t have an appreciation for where Louisiana is on the map as it relates to technology. We’re doing our part to get the word out.”
