Cloud Computing with CLI

First Step Toward Cloud Adoption

As the concept of cloud computing has yet to be formalized, providers have their own interpretations. Some players consider cloud computing simply as the delivery of on-demand applications using a web service interface. CLI provides a complete cloud computing endpoint portfolio, allowing you access to computing resources. Regardless of distinction between “private”, "mass-market" and "enterprise" clouds, IT administrators can use CLI thin clients to complete the experience in managing enterprise applications across their networks.

The simplicity and flexibility of cloud computing is appealing to many companies who are looking to simplify IT infrastructures and with limited budgets. While moving core business processes and applications into the "cloud”, the leading concerns of overall performance with respect to network reliability, SLA, security and transparency make cloud computing an afterthought for a majority of large enterprises.

CLI thin client family provides

• Full-fledged cloud extensions – CLI extends functionality to access “clouds” from terminal emulation to desktop virtualization with leading cloud platform providers such as Citrix, VMware, Microsoft and Quest.
• Universal management software – Unlike some hard to use device managers, CLI management software is intuitive with a "near-zero" learning curve for IT professionals. The software enables extremely effortless management of images and device deployment.
• Matched security enforcement – Thin client endpoints have the advantage of no local hard drive. While computing efforts occurs in the “Cloud”, support for certificates, secure two-factor proximity, smart card peripherals and biometric composite devices are inherited features in CLI products.

With desktop virtualization, endpoints—whether thick or thin clients, or even mobile devices—access a virtualized image of a PC OS running as a virtual machine (VM) in a corporate data center. Data, applications, settings and services live on the virtual image, while only I/O, video and audio are delivered to the endpoint over the network.

With cloud computing, the overall concept is very similar: the end-user applications and services are neither resident nor do they execute on the endpoint; instead, they are hosted remotely. The difference is that the pieces of a cloud computing-based end-user environment—e-mail, voice, collaboration, productivity applications and data storage—are all hosted by separate cloud computing providers, and generally, cloud computing services are accessed via a browser running on top of a complete desktop OS. 

A compute cloud has the following characteristics:

• Instant provisioning and de-provisioning
• Billed on a utility model, usually per hour
• Self-healing: Clouds can detect faults and rebalance, restart or move workloads transparently with little or no disruption to the end user.
• SLA driven: The cloud should be aware of the performance needs and SLA of running workloads and schedule resources and dynamically adjust as needed to meet these goals.
• Scalable: The cloud should be linearly scalable across instances, where instantiating more servers linearly increases the workload processing capability. Also ideally scalable within a single instance, automatically allocating more compute resources as the application needs
• Multi-tenancy: Just as SaaS applications share application resources, cloud computing hosts many customers on the same infrastructure using virtualization software to enforce isolation
• Virtualized: The user is shielded from the details of the underlying architecture and is only concerned with the virtual resources allocated to them.

Putting computing resources and applications into the cloud is currently under the industry spotlight. Whether the offering is about accessing hosted applications or utilizing computing resources in the cloud, the on-demand delivery mechanism that enables users to scale up and down network resources and services required to meet changing business requirements is a fundamental act.