Is 99.999% reliability good enough?

Convergence: The Catalyst to Transform Scientific Research

By G C Network | January 7, 2015

by Melvin Greer  Greer Institute for Leadership and Innovation A new transformative research approach is gaining global attention and adoption. The scientific opportunities enabled by convergence—the coming together of insights…

Cloud Computing Promises: Fact or Fiction

By G C Network | December 29, 2014

Cloud computing is currently making information technology headlines, and vendors are aggressively promoting the many benefits it can provide organizations. This White Paper addresses the claims and questions that are…

Super Smart Person’s Guide to Cloud Computing – San Diego

By G C Network | December 24, 2014

We are offering a fun and educational event just about the cloud. This session will help CEOs, Directors, Managers, and Dilberts learn what the heck the cloud is all about.…

A Managed Services Business Owners Lament: A talk with Joe D.

By G C Network | December 22, 2014

 by Kevin L. Jackson A few days ago I received a call from a small business owner asking if I would meet him for coffee.  He wanted to run some…

Technology and the Evolving Workforce

By G C Network | December 17, 2014

by Melvin Greer Managing Director Greer Institute for Leadership and Innovation According to a Greer Institute Workforce and Talent study, the 2020 workforce is both “the most educated and culturally…

Security attacks and countermeasures

By G C Network | December 14, 2014

by Sandra K. Johnson   Cyber security is rapidly becoming a significant issue in the C-suite as well as the population at large. The results of Dell’s Global Technology Adoption…

ITIL in 7 Minutes!

By G C Network | December 9, 2014

What is ITIL & how can it benefit your organization? Learn the answers to these questions plus gain an understanding of the ITIL Service Lifecycle in this video.  Download a…

How Resilient are FedRAMP Clouds Anyway?

By G C Network | December 8, 2014

By Jodi Kohut For the uninitiated, FedRAMP is the Federal Risk Authorizationand Management Program, a government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for…

Federal Tech Talk: Cloud Transition Challenges in Government and Industry

By G C Network | December 2, 2014

Cloud Computing is revolutionizing today’s business marketplace. While “learning the art of the possible”, corporate executives today are struggling with the business and security challenges associate with this important transition. Just…

Cloud, Mobile, Social and Cyber: 2015 Predictions That Will Rock The World (AGAIN!)

By G C Network | December 1, 2014

2015 PREDICTION TIME!! The worlds of cloud, mobile, social and cyber will continue expanding, permuting and recombining. Their individual effect on society and commerce will become moot as these technological…

According to Reuven Cohen in his recent post, Cloud Failure: The Myth of Nines , the whole concept of reliability may be meaningless.

“In the case of a physical failure such as Flexiscales recent one, the hardware downtime might be small, but the time to restore from a backup might be considerably longer. A minor cloud failure could cause a cascading series of software failures causing further application outage of hours or even days for those who depended on the availability of the given cloud. Meaning your cloud may achive five nines, but your application hosted on it doesn’t.”

I agree. When dealing with a system of systems, like the cloud, component and function SLA’s are meaningless. The cloud architect must brush up on their Bayesian probability theory, plan for failure and ensure that no matter what happens, the users can complete whatever workflow is requested.

“One of the major benefits to using cloud computing is that you can make these types of failover assumptions well before they happen using an emerging global toolset of cloud components. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when, when you take into consideration that application components will fail then you can build an application that features “failure as service”. One that is always available, one with Zero Nines. “

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G C Network