Description

We have defined the Public Cloud type as companies/entities that would like to offer a Public Cloud service such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, etc. These are the current large suppliers into the market but there is a trend for hosting companies to start offering cloud access to their IT infrastructure. However, in addition to these large and well established companies, there are many more relatively small companies that are interested in entering a new product offering area that is growing quickly. It is these Types of companies that the Contrail technology could serve.

The larger companies already have their own technology and they are already offering this service to their customers. However, we are expecting that smaller companies that are already offering general IT hosting services will start to offer cloud solutions to their current and potential customers. They already have the IT hardware and services in place, they already have a sophisticated sys-admin group of personnel and they already have customers using these services.

At a general and very simplistic level, the difference between hosting and cloud services is that hosting services are fixed at both the access to computers as well as pricing (in other words, the client purchase "X" processors and "Y" storage facility and pays a fixed "Z" price for a fixed period (e.g. one year)). For cloud computing, this access to IT infrastructure is at a variable cost. This is obviously better for the client as they pay for only what they use but a more challenging business model for the supplier as they cannot guarantee their sales for the year and need to be able to offer enough IT infrastructures. This is the main advantage of Contrail for this Type of user of the technology.

We are expecting this Type of user organisation to be commercial companies rather than academic organisations although it is still possible, although unlikely, that academic institutions could introduce this system. With respect to academic companies this is theoretically possible as they come under more pressure to reduce their IT costs going forward. Historically, each academic discipline has requested their own IT infrastructure for each project and it is likely that going forward they will be encouraged to share their IT infrastructure across academia. However, we are expecting, at the current moment, that academic organisations will be more likely to use Contrail for a private cloud (Type 2) rather than for a public cloud (Type 3).

Why would you be interested in Contrail?

We believe that companies/entities of this type will be interested in Contrail for the following reasons:

1. New business opportunity. For relatively small companies already offering hosting services (i.e. they already have IT infrastructure under management and have customers outsourcing their IT services), the opportunity to offer cloud services is a very attractive option. Particularly in the current business environment when all companies are trying to offer new and innovative services, the use of Contrail would enable these companies to offer new services.
2. Cloud bursting into other cloud services. This advantage will be significant to these Type 3 organisations. We are expecting that many of the Type 3 organisations will be fairly small (most of the large companies are already offering cloud computing services). As such they will have relatively limited access to their own IT infrastructure and if one of the clients wants access to significant amount of computing resource, Contrail will allow the supplier to cloud burst into other clouds and satisfy their clients need.
3. Enhanced features. The enhanced features of Contrail should be very attractive to these Type 3 organisations. The SLA, federation, enhanced security and other system features will all make Contrail an attractive technology for these types of organisations. Many of the other software technologies do not have these enhanced features.