Hybrid Cloud Deployment in Manufacturing
Manufacturing applications can benefit from a Hybrid Cloud IT deployment. Depending on the business process, type of business, and other factors, hybrid deployment can mold itself to your needs.
If you are confused or undecided about the use of cloud computing or not in your manufacturing business, you are not alone. The amount of information available on the web about cloud computing is astonishing, and minds can get foggy (cloudy) about whether cloud is good for your organization or not. Part of this has to do with the fact that much of this cloud propaganda is published by biased parties.
This is what caught my attention about Rackspace. As a company Rackspace can profit from all three methods of deploying applications: public cloud, private cloud, and dedicated servers. From that standpoint, Rackspace’s stated recommendations for when to deploy under which model, even if quite general, is at least objective.
On this page, Rackspace outlines the main general reasons for deploying under the three models, as follows:
1. Public cloud for pay-as-you-go scalability, ideal for heavy or unpredictable traffic.
2. Private cloud for enhanced security and ultimate control.
3. Dedicated servers for ultra-fast performance and reliability.
Reading between the lines we can draw a few conclusions. The first is that dedicated servers are best suited for mission critical applications. If shop floor tracking is critical to your business, having those apps sit on a public cloud exposes your plant to outside risks, like the local utility driving a backhoe through the internet pipeline and disrupting service for a few days.
The above snafu notwithstanding, since certain applications like a web storefront need internet access anyway, hosting those on a public cloud might make sense. In a cyclical business, a public cloud would give you the required capacity during season, without the fixed cost associated with owning that capacity during off peak periods.
The private cloud scenario might be the most expensive, but offers the enhanced security of having your own dedicated servers on the cloud. The control comes from the fact that you make your own IT environment decisions, such as when to upgrade your system, rather than a public cloud scenario where the server farm might dictate your upgrade timeframe.
How do you view IT Deployment in your manufacturing firm?
