cloud service catalog

cloud service catalog
Introduction
In the context of cloud computing, the service catalog is an integral and critical
component of the cloud computing architecture. Most cloud computing projects will
invariably begin with a discussion of “what IT services does an enterprise need?”
Helping companies devise their service catalog strategy, design a service catalog,
and design and implement a service catalog portal that supports the underlying cloud
infrastructure are primary components of Cisco® Cloud Enablement Services.
The Context: Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is a service delivery model that abstracts the setup and
management of IT resources from the underlying infrastructure, providing compute
environments in a self-service mode, on demand, and at scale.
An enterprise can deploy cloud computing within its private network. This is
commonly referred to as a private cloud, as it is restricted in access to the private
network. A service provider can provide cloud-based services to its customers over
the public Internet. This is commonly referred to as a public cloud. An environment
that transparently combines both a private cloud and a public cloud is commonly
referred to as a hybrid cloud.
A cloud can provide IT infrastructure (for example, machines and storage, including
the base operating system), an application deployment platform (for example,
machines and storage, including the base operating system plus standard enterprise
middleware), or subscription-based software. These different types of cloud
computing services delivery models are called infrastructure as a service (IaaS),
platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS).

IT services that are delivered as cloud services typically have the following attributes:
 Pay as you go: minimal or no initial costs as well as self-service request capability
 Usage based pricing: end-user costs are based on actual resource consumption
 Elasticity: end customers can dynamically consume more or less resources
The NIST definition of cloud computing is a good reference for additional information
about cloud computing deployment models and definitions.
The Front End: Service Catalog
Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL® v3) service design defines a
service catalog as a list of technology-enabled services that an organization
provides, often to its employees or customers. More specifically, the service catalog
is an expression of the operational capability of a service provider or enterprise
within the context of an end customer, a market space, or an internal business unit
stakeholder.
In the context of cloud computing, the service catalog is an integral and critical
component of the cloud computing architecture. A cloud service catalog:
 Contains a set of cloud services that an end user can request (usually through a
web self-service portal).
 Acts as the ordering portal for cloud end users, including pricing and service-level
commitments and the terms and conditions for service provisioning.
 Can also be used as a demand management mechanism, directing or incenting
customers toward particular services or service configurations or away from
legacy or declining services, as well as making sure of alignment with governance
and standards through default configurations and service options.
 Has a self-service look and feel; that is, it provides the ability to select service
offerings from the cloud service catalog and generate service requests to have
instances of those offerings fulfilled.
 Is useful in developing suitable cloud-based solutions, thus enabling other IT and
business services, which in turn create the value propositions for the investments
in cloud architectures.
 Contains features and characteristics (atomic items1
 Serves as the provisioning interface to automated service fulfillment using a cloud
orchestration subsystem.

Developing an Optimum Service Catalog
An optimum catalog is one that maximizes the alignment of infrastructure capabilities
with business requirements while delivering the best value for the end consumer.
The service catalog can be used as an effective tool by IT organizations to
implement enterprise standards, introduce new technologies, and enforce default
regulatory requirements. The enterprise architect is responsible for the service
catalog’s alignment with the business architecture, thereby helping to maximize the
return on investment in cloud and service catalog development.
It is important to note that an optimized cloud service catalog can only be built when
both the business perspective (for example, which services does the business need
to deploy?) and the IT perspective (for example, what services can be provided?) are
taken into consideration at the same time.

The cloud service catalog development methodology should be:
 Repeatable: When a service catalog is built for a customer, the process could be
taken and repeated for multiple customers.
 Measurable: A service catalog's items should also be measureable in order to be
priced for chargeback, as well as managed for availability and performance.
 Comprehensive: A service catalog should encompass all the possible
combinations of infrastructure capabilities as well as different deployment
requirements.
As a result, the cloud service catalog development framework should be:
 Scalable: To enable services provided to scale up or down according to market
and end-user requirements. It should enable horizontal and vertical scaling
requirements of the services provided through transparent integrated automation.
 Flexible: To accommodate new and changing service requirements for end
consumers and implications on the IT service catalog.

Service Catalog Development Methodology and Framework
The initial framework upon which the service catalog will develop depends in part
upon the relative maturity of your IT organization. More advanced organizations will
have an enterprise architecture (EA) practice, often at times reporting to the CIO, or
an IT executive reporting to the CIO. One of the four pillars of the EA practice is the
generation of the enterprise business architecture. In an IT organization with this
practice in place, the service catalog will align exactly with the business architecture
practice’s artifacts and will be used as the one tool to manage change into the
enterprise. The ability to use this group’s work in the creation of the cloud service
catalog will add significant velocity to the effort and greatly simplify the work. For the
purposes of this paper, therefore, we will focus on organizations that have not yet
reached this level of maturity. The following steps outline this methodology and
framework for designing a cloud service catalog:
1. Capture initial requirements based on your environment (brownfield/greenfield).
2. Analyze and identify requirements from following perspectives:
 Business
 Services capabilities
 Role-based access
 Governance and compliance
 Purpose-built cloud use cases
 Geographical constraints
3. Create a template of the cloud service catalog based on the distilled
requirements.
4. Create sample service catalog work flows for a self-service portal.
5. Review the cloud service catalog design with the customer and incorporate
feedback.
6. Iterate through distilled requirements and finalize the design.
These steps are illustrated in the service catalog decision tree (Figure 2) and are
discussed in detail in the remainder of this document. Note that this illustration
shows an example for IaaS.

Current Environment (Brownfield vs. Greenfield)
In a situation where you might already have an existing service catatog in place, the
service cataloging process will encompass analyzing the requirements, assessing
and identifying any particular gaps in your existing catalog with respect to best
practices, and providing recommendations to mitigate those gaps. This is a highly
customized effort and is, therefore, not covered in this white paper. This white paper
only discusses environments where a service catalog does not exist.

what is a cloud service

what is a cloud service

Fundamental Aspects of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing:

Not everyone in the field of computer knows about the basic aspects of cloud computing. This article is best for those because here we will talk about:
Versions of cloud computing
Infrastructure of cloud computing
Flexibility and comfort-ability
Economical software
No further hiring

5 aspects of relying on cloud computing:

If you are done and don’t want more complexities in the world of internet; not able to handle number of software in the system; unable to retrieve data on time or substitute the need of with other software, then this is what you need to know.

1. Versions of cloud computing:

As per the needs and demand of the servers two sorts of cloud computing services are provided. Somehow or the other, it is always good to go for cloud service rather than a new hardware. SaaS and IaaS are two versions of the services which are offered to the clients.
SaaS:

This is a computing service provider which entails data and applications at the back end of the system. Web browser is what people use to get an access to the system. For this, your company has to pay as it is a premium software, which means it isn’t free of cost.
IaaS:

Physical servers, switching, virtual machines and enterprise applications are provided by IaaS. Your duty is to maintain and install the application.

2. Infrastructure of cloud computing:

Sustaining and conserving infrastructure in a new setup is pretty difficult. The missions are critically analyzed by the applications. For that, association of virtual machines are needed to run robust servers.

3. Flexibility and comfortability:

IT services are functioning best with the help of cloud computing. What it does is to elevate the business growth. Cloud computing services are flexible as to the payment structure. Instead of a yearly contract, now services are provided in monthly utilization of the company.  This offer suits best to the financial and retail services.

4. Economical software:

When there are ten people in a department and you have tight budget, cloud computing comes for rescue. When the data is too much to handle and the company doesn’t have much to invest in making a new data storage server, it is cloud computing which comes in handy.

5. Hiring:

Cloud minimizes the staff of the company. Managers, executives and others rely on cloud computing rather than on human interaction to keep track of data. It is because of the management services and infrastructure of cloud.  When you hire people naturally you have to pay too, and it is not a very wise idea to hire people when you are the owner of the startup company.

Conclusion:

Cloud computing do wonders to everyone. It is however, up to you how you utilize the system. Every company has its own needs and demands. For which they go for cloud computing operating system. Cloud computing navigates the services to assist companies in being more receptive and approachable. It also is the means to provide best to the market which fluctuates quite often.

cloud computer services

cloud computer services
Cloud Based Point of Sale Systems

Background:
During the days when technology was in its formative period, business organization or retail stores used to record their daily transactions manually on a notebook/register. This process was indeed hectic and crucial due to the fact, the person responsible for bookkeeping had to undergo the same process many times a day. Even in the case of a single error, the bookkeeper was held accountable whether he was guilty or innocent. With the advent of the microprocessor, the very first Point of Sale system, by the name of IT Retail was engineered in 1992 by Martin Goodwin and Bob Henry that was made compatible to run on Microsoft Windows.

Cloud Based POS System:
The inception of cloud computing has revolutionized each and every aspect of technology. Ranging from smartphone app developers to the owners of large corporations with terra-bytes of important data, are relying on purchasing cloud services because of one or many good reasons this technology has offered so far.
 Among many admirers that cloud computing is crowned to have gathered so far, one of them is POS (Point of Sale) system. Cloud Based Point of Sale System, is being considered as one of the trendiest and most sought after systems across the globe. It is being considered as caliber setting criteria for businesses, most importantly of which include, Food based organizations, hospitals, retail stores, Hotels, Restaurants and many more. It gives its users the benefit of accessing their sales and purchases remotely from anywhere just with a simple internet connection.

Many organizations, mostly in developed countries, are making groundbreaking achievements in developing and optimizing cloud-based POS. Let’s have a random look over the cloud-based breakthroughs that are involved in developing best cloud based POS systems in Singapore.


Best Cloud-Based POS in Singapore: Introduced below are some top notch cloud-based POS systems in Singapore, along with some description that will help many readers to distinguish one from the other.

1. InspirePOS: InspirePOS offers many amazing services and features that make it different from other cloud-based POS. It has a user-friendly interface with features like inventory management, exchange and return management, two-way payment methodology and access to your sales even in offline mode. These features make it one of the most used and the best cloud-based POS in Singapore.

 2. Epoint Systems: A competitor of InspirePOS, the Epoint Systems is one of those cloud-based POS system, which is considered to be the most optimal for Food and Beverage (F&B) industry. Its services go beyond and also covers hotel management and Merchandise Management.

3. PCSPOS: One of the leading firms in developing cloud-based POS in Singapore, Prima Computer Systems (PCS) is one of the most well-known POS developers. Their product comes in the market by the name of PCSPOS. Apart from Hotel Management and Food & Beverage (F&B), PCSPOS also claims to have features like iOrder and smart card solutions.

Benefits of Cloud-Based POS:


1. Transactions at your fingertips: By switching from traditional desktop POS to a cloud-based POS, a sudden boom in your sales is always expected. Due to the fact, after getting upgraded to cloud-based POS, you are required to download a smartphone application that keeps you updated with every transaction made in your business, thus giving you an edge of monitoring your business whenever you are, wherever you are.

2. Instant Upgrades Another advantage of cloud-based POS over other methods is, the smartphone app you downloaded is definitely synced with cloud service provider. It will keep you updated on what the latest offers are being offered and how your competitors are availing those offers to grow their businesses.

3. Speed: Local businesses suffer a lot because “to wait”, is not a part of any customer’s nature. If a customer reaches out to you and due to your traditional slow desktop based POS, he gets bored and will never return. With a cloud-based POS, your customer is no longer needed to come towards your office because every slightest information will be on the cloud and easily accessible over the internet. Thus paving your way to a brighter tomorrow.

4. Cloud Support: Error detection and its timely correction are the best services that cloud-based POS offers. In traditional POS systems, this whole process comprises a set of hectic steps which are the responsibility of I.T team in organizations, who work for specific hours. With your business on the cloud, you don’t have to worry a bit. In case any error pops up, the cloud support team will itself detect it, and eradicate it as soon as possible.

Conclusion: Every system nowadays is being engineered using the cloud services in mind because cloud service providers are striving for excellence and researchers along with tech experts are making their best efforts to make cloud services available for commercial use. So it’s time, you should stop using the old-fashioned POS and switch to cloud-based POS.

cloud sharing services

cloud sharing services
Service Catalog Work Flows

Once all the levels of detail have been finalized for a cloud service catalog, the
details of how the catalog will be utilized by end users can be outlined by providing
sample work flows (effectively sequences of operational steps). The purpose of
work flows is to provide insight and guidance regarding the self-service portal
functionality, which can then pass on the provisioning/monitoring/management
information to an orchestration layer below the service catalog to interact
accordingly with the underlying infrastructure. Figure 7 illustrates one such
example: a user can select a compute profile, select a service tiering
(gold/silver/bronze and so on), define what level of monitoring is applied to the
service instance, and commit activation of the service instance across the multiple
pieces of equipment required to deliver this service.

Designing the Solution: The Case for Professional Services
Defining and designing the right service catalog for your cloud computing solution is
a demanding task. It requires detailed service catalog design experience and deep
understanding of cloud computing models as well as detailed knowledge of how the
service definitions interact with data center equipment, the external (cloud)
environment, and the underlying infrastructure. It also requires experience
integrating IT systems and cloud management and – a significant project in its own
right – a structured approach to program management.
Cisco Services has significant expertise and experience in each of these areas,
backed up by multiple years of helping customers transform their data centers. Cisco
Services offers a range of Cloud Enablement Services, from strategy to planning and
design to implementation. Application migration is an integral component in each of
these services, and detailed application methodologies have already been
developed by the cloud computing experts in Cisco Services. Cisco Services,
therefore, is ideally placed to help you design and develop a state-of-the-art
application migration approach for your cloud computing deployment.

Summary
A cloud service catalog is a critical component of a cloud architecture since it
provides an abstraction for the underlying infrastructure. It enables other IT and
business services, which in turn create the value propositions for the investment in
cloud architectures.
A well-defined service catalog methodology and framework, therefore, are
paramount before an investment in cloud architectures is made. Engaging Cisco
Services to help you with this design exercise will provide you with additional
expertise to accelerate your cloud services adoption

business cloud service

business cloud service
Major Differences between Grid and Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing and Grid Computing, both are termed as synonymous to each other by many tech enthusiasts. Here in this article, we are going to clearly elaborate what exactly is the nature of both of the technologies, conclusion of whose, will lead to a better understanding of the mentioned technologies and also the misconceptions will be cleared out, according to which many people term it as the same technology.

Introduction:-
Both the technologies involve a great deal of distributed processing using abstract memory locations. Abstractions in complex computing, are used to masquerade the entire complex workflow logic and gives a rather clear and smooth interface to the user to interact with. The main goal of using abstractions is to make use of the complex code logics and frameworks whilst keeping the user intact.

Advantages of Distributed Computing Distributed Computing,
as the name may indicates, refers to a network of computer peripherals being spread out over a large area. Now when we relate it to cloud computing and grid computing, these both technologies turn out to be the epitomes of distributed computing. The essence of distributed computing lies in the fact that, when the area to be covered is very large and the peripherals are quite low or even if there are, are quite difficult to maintain. For instance, in case of cloud computing, a multitude of data is being stored on cloud, which is remote indeed, and this specific task is being done through various super servers diligently. There are a lot of flavors whose origin can be traced back to the concepts of distributed computing, the Cloud Computing and the Grid Computing are the ones we will be discussing in this article.

Cloud Computing:
Cloud Computing is an extension of the Object Oriented Programming concepts. Cloud Computing has become the hot topic due to its scalability, flexibility and ease of use. No matter wherever you are, you can easily save or retrieve the important data you want to work on. The data is stored on a public/private cloud whose subscription fee is waived annually and you have to pay the fee. In a cloud computing scenario, the data is spread around a number of data banks, and the user is privileged to use an interface to access and manipulate his own data on the cloud while keeping the rest of the information concealed. The very fact that justifies the nomenclature of Cloud Computing is, you never know what lies at the other side of a cloud that brings rain. Enjoy the rain and let the cloud take care of the rest.

Grid Computing:
Grid Computing, another flavor of distributed computing, is used to utilize the idle processing capacity of a CPU. During a fraction of a second, the processor becomes idle as it crunches the tasks at quite a speed. Grid Computing usually divides a job into several co-related sub-jobs and distribute it over the available machines for crunching. Once the output has been generated, a certain module converges the result from every machine and sends it back to the main controlling unit. In order to create a perfect computation module that carries out the job of grid computing, the code needs to be written in such a manner that it portrays the ability of being both the agile and interdependent at the same time. Mentioned below, are the major differences between cloud and the grid computing.

Cloud Computing vs. Grid Computing
The dissimilarities between the Grid Computing and the Cloud Computing are quite difficult to highlight due to the fact that both are used to economize computing using complex logic's. Abstractions play an important role in both the technologies as discussed earlier. If we are to analyze the situation microscopically, we find differences not in the nature of tasks accomplished, but the way the jobs are being accomplished. Being in the scenario of grid computing, a task is divided in to multiple sub tasks and distributed over various machines to get computed. Clearly not followed in case of Cloud Computing. Keeping the underlying architecture undisclosed, the user is given the privilege to avails the services using an interface, in case of cloud computing. Grid Computing offers quick accomplishments of task over a single machinery either working as one or is separated. A cloud intends to give a number of facilities that includes web hosting, domain hosting, data manipulation and storage and etc.

Conclusion
Keeping the drastic improvements in the field of science and technology, it is difficult for us to weigh and compare the trending technologies. Every emerging domain brings with it a lot of new opportunities and facilities to avail. Our job, is to use the technology for the betterment of the society and for the greater good, rather than abusing it to destroy peace and harmony across the globe.