When does Bioinformatics in the Cloud make sense?

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Ilyas Iyoob

In the Bioinformatics industry, next generation sequencing applications are ideal for cloud migration due to their high performance computing needs as well as the data sharing requirements.  However, the savings from cloud are typically lost due to inefficient use of cloud services.  A similar trend can be seen with folks attempting to migrate GIS applications to the cloud as well.

The three key concepts for such applications to really save money in the cloud are workload partitioning, dynamic provider selection, and third party security integration.

Workload Partitioning

Bioinformatics applications shouldn’t have to move their Baseline Analyses to the cloud.  These are routine applications with very stable usage and should be run in-house with existing resources.  On the other hand, their Scientific Analyses are ideal for on-demand high performance cloud computing due to the sporadic nature of this workload.  Such workloads also demand very high SLAs from cloud providers.  The storage for such workloads should be placed in Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices to facilitate clustering.  Cloud storage may not be the best option for such workloads.

Dynamic Provider Selection

Since provider prices and offerings are constantly changing, the best cost provider now may not have the best cost a month from now.  Cloud provider performance also varies over time.  Therefore, the best cost provider (subject to performance constraints) should be selected at runtime.

Third Party Security Integration

Data in Bioinformatics applications as well as GIS applications are extremely confidential and require a very high level of security.  While cloud providers constantly claim increasing levels of security, it is important to integrate 3rd party services that specialize in handling data privacy in addition to data security.

Therefore, Bioinformatics applications, like GIS applications, will benefit significantly from the cloud only if these issues are addressed.  It may seem farfetched to expect consumers to figure all this out, but cloud broker platforms have already implemented some of these concepts today.  For more information, please visit www.gravitant.com.

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Just In Time I.T.

Posted on March 26, 2013 by gravadmin

by Praveen Asthana, Chief Marketing Officer, Gravitant

The concept of “Just-in-Time” was pioneered in the manufacturing supply chain as a critical way to reduce costs by minimizing inventory.   Implementing a just-in-time system that does not impact the ability to meet unexpected demand is not a trivial undertaking.  It requires the confluence of a number of disciplines such as analytics, statistics, sourcing, procurement, production management, brokerage and economics.

An interesting new idea is to take this concept pioneered in manufacturing and apply it to Information Technology resources.  Doing this can provide an effective way to meet dynamically changing needs while minimizing the inventory of unused IT resources across a set of cloud services platform and providers.

Case Study:  Election Day 2012

With the growing popularity of e-voting and use of the Internet as an information resource on candidates and issues, the Secretary of State’s office for the second most populous U.S. state knew that demand for IT resources would go up significantly on election day.  But they didn’t know exactly how much, and they didn’t want to buy extra infrastructure for a temporary surge in demand.  Even if they could come up with a good guess for the demand, deploying the right amount of resources in a timely manner would be challenging.  Given the time it normally took (months) to deploy and provision new servers, the Secretary of State’s office knew they couldn’t use traditional means to procure compute and storage capacity to meet this demand.

As it turned out, demand went up over 1000% to over five million hits on the state voting web site by noon on election day.

Fortunately the state had deployed a novel capability based on a cloud brokerage and management platform to seamlessly provision IT resources in real time from multiple public cloud sources to meet the variability in demand.  As a result, this demand was fully met without needing to do complicated planning or buy unneeded infrastructure.

Minutes, not months—that’s what enterprise users want when it comes to having I.T. resources available to meet changing business needs or develop new applications.

However users find this to be an extraordinary challenge—most IT departments today struggle with rigid processes, a round-robin of tasks and approvals across multiple silos and departments, and manual provisioning steps.  All this adds significant time to the deployment of I.T. resources resulting in users waiting for months before the resources they need become available.

How do users respond to such delays?  By going around their IT departments and directly accessing cloud services.  Often termed ‘rogue IT’ or ‘shadow IT,’ such out of process actions expose the company to financial risk, security risks, and operational risk.

The Solution: Just-in-time IT with Real-Time Governance

Just-in-time IT is not merely about using private or public cloud services.   It is about engineering the end-to-end IT supply chain so it can be agile and respond immediately to dynamic business needs.  To achieve this in practice, you need:

  1. Effective assessment and strategy
  2. Self-service catalog of available IT resources
  3. Collaborative solution design
  4. Rapid approval work flow
  5. Sourcing platform that allows you to select the right supply chain partners for your business need or workload profile.
  6. Single button provisioning of resources
  7. Transparency across the IT supply chain
  8. Sophisticated supply-demand analytics
  9. Elastic source for resources
  10. Governance—dynamic control of resources based on goal based optimization of budget, resource usage and SLAs.

The first critical aspect of real time supply chain is identifying, sourcing and procurement of best fit cloud platforms and providers (internal or external) to meet your unique business needs.

The second critical aspect of ensuring just-in-time IT is effective is real-time governance, for this is the mechanism by which you truly manage the elasticity of cloud resources and ensure that IT resource inventory is minimized.   This also has the additional benefit of eliminating shadow or rogue I.T.

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Typical CIO Conversation

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Ilyas Iyoob

(Originally posted in Sys-Con Media)

Here’s a snapshot of a typical conversation I’ve had with large enterprise CIOs.

I’ve had a number of free lunches this way, but my colleagues at Gravitanthave built this technology and have already proven it with a successful implementation in the State of Texas!

The technology is known as cloudMatrix. It is a culmination of online marketplaces driven by SOA and powered by advanced analytics. Under the hood is an electronic services catalog that contains a list of providers and their offerings as well as API connectivity for auto provisioning. The exterior is also pretty slick with a single pane of glass for drag and drop cloud architecture design. Advanced analytics then kicks in to show the best fit provider, followed by continuous recalibration for optimal performance. I know that sounds more like an automobile ad, but cloudMatrix technology is in fact a layer of abstraction even above the cloud.

However, in my mind the real strength of cloudMatrix is that it creates an ecosystem of providers that work together to service the customer. Today, cloudMatrix enables the best infrastructure providers, the best storage providers, as well as the best network, monitoring, and security providers to cooperate and satisfy the customer. In the same way that specialization of labor in manufacturing gave birth to the industrial revolution, we are now fortunate to witness specialization of labor in IT giving birth to the technology revolution.

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Who Controls the Cloud Market – Providers or Consumers?

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Ilyas Iyoob

We first went from reserving cloud capacity to securing capacity on-demand, and then we even started to bid for unused capacity in the spot market – all in an effort to decrease cost in the cloud.  Can we take this one step further?  Instead of us bidding for capacity, wouldn’t it be interesting if we can get providers to bid for our demand?

Retail Supply Chain Market Analogy

In fact, this is a common phenomena in the retail supply chain industry.  For example, Walmart has a large amount of freight that needs to be shipped between different cities over the course of the year.  So, every year an auction is conducted in which Walmart lists all their shipments, and carriers such as JB Hunt, Schneider, Yellow etc. bid for the opportunity to carry these shipments using their fleet of trucks.  The reason carriers are bidding for retailer demand is because in general, capacity exceeds demand in the retail industry.

Cloud Computing Market

Keeping this in mind, let us now take a look at the Cloud Computing Market.  Does capacity exceed demand or is it the other way around?  A quick way to find out is by observing spot prices in the cloud market.  In today’s market, Amazon’s Spot Instances are 86% cheaper than their on-demand instances, and Enomaly’s SpotCloud also shows lower spot prices across the board.  This leads us to believe that capacity exceeds demand in the cloud market as well.  A related indicator is the predominance of data center consolidation initiatives in both the commercial and government marketplaces.

Since capacity exceeds demand, consumers have an upper hand and are in control of the cloud market at the moment.  Moreover, they should be able to replicate what is being done in the retail supply chain industry.  In other words, cloud consumers should be able to auction off their demand to the best fit lowest price cloud provider.

So, …

Consumers should seize the opportunity and control the market while the odds are in their favor i.e. Demand < Capacity.  At the same time, Service Integrators and Value Added Resellers can help Enterprise IT consumers in this process by conducting Primary-Market auctions using Cloud Service Brokerage technology.

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Accelerating Cloud Adoption in 2013 through Cloud Service Brokers

Posted on January 2, 2013 by Mohammed Farooq

Industry experts and analysts point to two complementary cloud computing trends this year:

  1. Hybrid cloud computing
  2. Internal and External cloud broker services*

Taken together, these two cloud computing trends will drive acceleration of cloud adoption and transition to the new IT paradigm of IT as a Service.

My predictions for 2013 are:

  • Enterprises and SI/VARs/MSPs working together to define and make operational the business and technology processes required for accelerated cloud adoption.
  • The cloud broker platform will start becoming the IT hub that automates the new business and technology processes required for the cloud. This hub will integrate service catalogs, sourcing/procurement processes, cloud services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), cloud automation tools (deployment, migration, et al), and managed services.
  • Cloud automation vendors will continue to mature tools for cloud workload deployment, migration, cloning, data sync/portability in pursuit of the hybrid cloud vision.
  • CIOs, CFOs and IT Procurement Managers will start using the IT hub as a command and control center for planning and controlling the IT supply chain, bill of IT, SLAs and resources.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our early access customers and users for believing in our Cloud Services Broker and Management vision and technology and deploying our software in production environments.

Wishing a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2013 from all of us here at Gravitant.

Mohammed Farooq

CEO, Gravitant

* The cloud broker services provide tools for designing and sourcing the right hybrid cloud solution, analyze cloud economics, automate cloud procurement, operationalize cloud managed services and establish governance (control bill of IT, SLAs and resources)

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Pilot Texas Cloud Offering – Lessons Learned

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Ilyas Iyoob

Gravitant embarked on a special journey 12 months ago by setting up the first statewide cloud brokerage portal for the state of Texas – called the Pilot Texas Cloud Offering.  Only a select few state agencies were chosen to take part in the pilot.  This pilot has been so successful that it has been extended for another 12 months and more agencies will get a chance to take part.

See what the Department of Information Resources (DIR) has to say about the experience so far, and the lessons learned in their latest publication – Pilot Texas Cloud Offering – Lessons learned…

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Cloud Technology Spectrum

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Ilyas Iyoob

Doesn’t it make you cringe when people use the term cloud brokerage when they really mean cloud marketplace?  Or, when they say they provide virtualization management whereas they really provide cloud management services?  A number of such cloud terms are used interchangeably every day, but the challenge is that cloud terminology has yet to reach steady state.

In this article, we hope to clarify a few cloud technology terms using Level of Integration as the criteria.

Note that each layer builds upon the layer below it, thus leading to a spectrum of cloud technologies – aka – The Cloud Technology Spectrum.  The table below shows some of the key providers in each layer of the spectrum.

There are a number of other providers as well, and some providers in fact go over multiple layers of the spectrum.  But the point here is to note that in order for any technology to claim to be in a specific layer, it should effectively integrate at least one item from each of the layers below.

When deciding to migrate to the cloud, it is important for consumers to know where in the spectrum they would end up if they purchased some piece of cloud technology, and how much additional effort would be required on their part.  The Cloud Technology Spectrum helps in this step of the process.

Go to Cloud Deployment Tree for a view of the different cloud deployment options…

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Secure Environment for Federal Government Cloud Pilot

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Ilyas Iyoob

How is the Federal government hoping to achieve the $12 Billion in projected annual savings?  This projection was quoted by the MeriTalk Cloud Computing Exchange and published today by Forbes.com, and it doesn’t seem too optimistic given that the Federal government is already saving approximately $5.5 Billion per year.

These savings have been achieved by individual agencies adopting cloud solutions, but such organic growth will only go so far.  In order to expand this in a generic and scalable manner, the Federal government would need a secure environment to test the cloud and run pilot programs.

A Fire-fort?

Key features of such an environment:

1. Multi-provider provisioning and compliance
Agencies should be able to provision resources across cloud providers without having to worry about vendor lock-in.  This would require the use of a brokerage platform that enables auto provisioning across providers.  Monitoring would also be necessary to ensure the providers maintain SLA compliance, failing which they would be quarantined.

2. Fed certified cloud providers
The list of cloud providers should include those that are FedRAMP certified, or at least FISMA compliant.  Agencies should be able to compare providers side by side and pick the best-fit provider.  This requires standardization of cloud offerings and pricing models.

3. Integration with existing data centers private / hybrid clouds
Agencies should be able to interoperate between the cloud and their existing data centers and private clouds.  This provides a backup plan in case the cloud solution does not succeed.  For this feature, the test environment would need to be agnostic across VMware, Xen, Hyper-V, vCloud Director, etc.

4. Connectivity to existing security frameworks
The test environment should be integrated with the security frameworks currently used by the Federal government.  In this way, valuable resources need not be wasted in re-designing a security framework that is already very efficient.  Instead, resources can be assigned to enhance the existing framework with intrusion detection and intrusion prevention features.

5. Complete cost transparency
First of all, agencies should not be required to sign multi-year contracts with cloud providers.  Secondly, the cost of cloud services should be visible at the highest level so that budgets may be allocated based on resource requirement.  This allows complete auditability as well.

6. Recalibration based on historical data
Cloud usage data should be constantly correlated with cost to ensure that cost is minimized without impacting mission goals.  This requires the test environment to be powered by advanced analytics engines for continuous recalibration through command and control.

All the above features would need to be tested by the Federal government through a pilot program before executing any major cloud migration initiatives.  If successful, the test environment can then be established as the official government cloud portal which is bound to be successful because it has been built on NIST standards and governed through strict monitoring and compliance.

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Gravitant partners with NJVC on Cloud Brokerage for the Federal Government

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Ilyas Iyoob

Gravitant and NJVC announce a strategic alliance to provide Cloud Brokerage services for the Federal Government through a self service portal where Government agencies can provision cloud services across multiple cloud providers.

The portal also provides application screening, cloud architecture design, capacity planning, auto provisioning, consolidated billing, and command and control. These features help Government agencies run their applications in the cloud through a secure channel and at the same time control cost and avoid vendor lock-in by actively managing SLA compliance across all the cloud providers.

See press release here…

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Can Clouds Plug the Ozone Hole? (pun intended…)

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Ilyas Iyoob

Environmental protection has been a major concern over the past few years… and if it hasn’t been an issue for us, it probably should be.  In any case, as an IT analyst it is important to know where we fit in and scrutinize our contribution to the environment from an analytical perspective, leaving all subjectivity aside.


For those of us who are not EPA experts, let us say we can help conserve the environment by:
1. Protecting the environment from pollution and habitat degradation
Cloud computing does not do much when it comes to habitat degradation or water pollution, but it does play a part in controlling air pollution.  This is because physical servers are consolidated into more efficient blades and chassis in the cloud.  Consolidation of resources results in less power and cooling requirements, which in turn reduces air pollution.  Moreover, cloud data centers can be placed in colder parts of the world to further save on power for cooling.
2. Sustaining the environment by avoiding depletion of natural resources
In the same way that cloud data centers can be placed in cold parts of the world, they can also be placed in remote areas with high wind (to harness wind power) or areas with more direct sunlight (for solar power).  As a result, alternative sources of energy can be used to power cloud data centers.  This placement of cloud data centers away from consumers is feasible because data and compute processing is not lost over wireless networks (unlike power loss during transfer of electricity from wind farms in the West coast to consumers in the rest of the country).


However, there are a number of underlying assumptions that need to be satisfied for cloud to successfully deliver Green-IT…
Assumption 1: Utilization of cloud resources is high and efficient.
Underutilization greatly reduces the consolidation ratio from physical to cloud resources and power savings are minimal.  Efficiency in the cloud can be boosted by turning VMs on/off based on demand (i.e. autoscaling) and load balancing between VMs.
Gravitant’s CloudMatrix technology specializes in “optimizing” the cloud for consumers through a SaaS console across multiple providers.
Assumption 2: Data being collected is summarized and compressed before storage.
Otherwise, the constant collection and storage of data will lead to data obesity which brings into question “how much duplication there is and more importantly how much integrity does the data have?” (CloudVisions).
EXAR’s hifn technology provides data deduplication and data compression services.
Assumption 3: Virtualization and storage caching technology is continuously improving.
Otherwise, the ever increasing processing and data needs will catch up and diminish the relative benefit of the cloud.
Cisco and EMC are constantly improving their virtualization and thin provisioning technology respectively.


Therefore, it is safe to say that Cloud computing can deliver Green-IT provided that the right tools are used and innovation continues unabated.

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