Mind the Gap, Next Stop the Cabinet Office

CohesiveFT is part of the UK Government Procurement Service’s innovative approach to IT procurement - G-Cloud CloudStore.  What does this mean?  We’re excited for the opportunity to
offer our products and services to the UK public sector.

CohesiveFT has been awarded the Framework Agreement for inclusion in the G-Cloud’s CloudStore.  Meaning our Cloud Container products and services for migration, networking, and orchestration are available on ‘CloudStore,’ an e-marketplace where public sector organizations can procure services to leverage the “IT equivalent of a Boris Bike.”  More information on the Boris Bike for you non-Londoners.

In December, Francis Maude, Minister for the UK Cabinet Office likened Cloud Computing to a Boris Bike “pay for what you need when you need it, and forget about costly on-going maintenance that you can live without”.  A nice simple analogy and a goal which the Government hopes will result in better IP procurement process and better value for the UK Tax payer.  By allowing the UK Government to engage more with SME tech suppliers, buyers will benefit from greater flexibility and better price options than the bigger boys

We are eagerly awaiting the reaction to the CloudStore from the public sector IT buyers.  Less than half of the bidders in the G-Cloud process where successful and none offer the unique combination of image automation, topology automation and network virtualization that help organizations consume cloud services in a secure controlled manner. 

One of the biggest benefits of cloud computing is increased agility and with that comes the ability to fail fast and fail small.   Could the CloudStore be beginning of the end of the huge failures in Government IT?  Or is that just wishful thinking....

White Paper: Disaster Readiness and Recovery Best Practices

Now, for the first time, cloud computing offers a cost effective disaster management option. What CohesiveFT calls, Disaster Readiness is a cloud-based solution for staging a remote facility ready in the case of a disaster. This low cost repository is then operated on stand-by mode, and can even be configured with miniaturized clones of the server topologies running in your production datacenter. Instead of big iron running on idle, you can stage your digital assets, and run the smallest possible topology of virtual servers for each of your priority work loads. Each repository and topology packaged into a virtual Cloud Container similar the the idea of shipping containers filled with server racks.

The process involves five steps to reach Disaster Readiness, and another 3 steps to have a working Disaster Recovery facility operational. The steps are:

Step 1: Choose Your Cloud

Select a public cloud(s) to meet your scaling, geographic, technology, and vendor diversification needs.

Step 2: Build a Secure Environment You Control

Create a controllable and secure virtual overlay network on top of the cloud provider's physical network.

Step 3: Test Scaling and Failure Modes

Even before any IP or data is moved to the cloud, you have reduced your application's recovery time objective (RTO).

Step 4: Migrate Your Application Repository

Deploying copies of the digital assets needed for recovery.

Step 5: Commence Data Synchronization

Implement a the simplest workable method for synchronizing production data to the repository.

Disaster Readiness Accomplished!

You have narrowed your RTO by staging what you need to bring up the application in the cloud providers' facilities. And, you have establish a process for moving data to the cloud facility, which means your RPO is a a much more known and fixed down-time risk. Hold here until disaster strikes or to further tighten the recovery window, continue:

Step 6: Define & Deploy the Application Topology

Decide on an aspirational topology and deploying a scaled down version of your production systems.

Step 7: Process Live Data

Run select transactions through the Disaster Recovery facility as an extension of production.

Step 8: Conduct Periodic Disaster Drills

At this step the Disaster Recovery facility is fully operational, now your attention can turn to preparedness.

Read the WhitePaper to learn more about Disaster Readiness and Recovery made simpler and cost effective via IaaS cloud computing.

White Paper: NATO-G8 Summit - IT Readiness ALERT

As part of the Chicago IT community, CohesiveFT is especially tuned to the discussions and planning for the NATO-G8 Summit which will be held May 19th and 20th.  Protesting, demonstrations, and marches are part of Chicago's springtime.  However,  post 9/11, we must be concerned that terrorists will infiltrate and use peaceful activities as cover for much more sinister plots.  At the national, state, and city level extensive preparedness measures are already being put in place, and counter measures are being taken to foil the exploratory attacks now being made on critical digital infrastructure.

Now, for the first time, cloud computing offers a cost effective disaster management option.  What CohesiveFT calls, Disaster Readiness is a cloud-based solution employing miniaturized clones of the servers running in your production datacenter.  Instead of big iron running on idle, you can run the smallest possible topology of virtual servers for each of your priority work loads.  Each topology packaged into a virtual Cloud Container similar the the idea of shipping containers filled with server racks.  Each Cloud Container secures an exact replica of a server topology running in production.  Each one is scaled down and running on inexpensive virtual machines in an IaaS hybrid cloud.

By exploiting the 'pay only for what you use' cloud model, your miniaturized clone data center is a manageable operating expense not a major capital expenditure.  Disaster Readiness the right DR insurance plan for IT outages localized to a city's IT infrastructure, where multiple companies are effected concurrently.

It is not too late to be prepared for the NATO-G8 Summit.  Protect your high priority and at-risk IT resources by implementing a Disaster Readiness strategy to fit your unique needs.  Do-it-yourself, or like so many other enterprise IT shops, use CohesiveFT's Cloud Container products and services.  CohesiveFT provides actionable IT  contingency solutions for minor to catastrophic IT continuity risk.

The Cloud Container product set makes it possible to extend your data center into one or more IaaS provider's clouds while retaining complete securely & control.  Security & control accomplished by literally extending your enterprise firewall to enclose, isolate, and control each of the servers running in the public cloud, and all of the data in motion as well as when at rest.

Read the white paper,or for more information contact CohesiveFT's disaster readiness task force by emailing DRTaskForce@CohesiveFT.com.