Intel ® ‘Cloud-in-a-Box’ demo showcases cloud innovations

BANGALORE, INDIA: Using its ‘Cloud-in-a-Box’ demonstration tool, Intel today showed technologies that will deliver a more secure, energy efficient cloud that can be deployed faster than ever before.

Cloud computing is powered by data centres, and the vast majority of these data centres are powered by Intel Xeon processors. In essence, the cloud runs on Intel Xeon Processors.

The environment is ripe for companies to deploy cloud computing initiatives. By 2015, more than 2.5 billion1 people with more than 15 billion2 devices will access the Internet – more than twice today’s demand. That same year, Internet traffic is expected to reach a zettabyte – or one million million billion bytes.

Intel provides the technologies required to build the foundation for cloud through innovations related to simplification, virtualization, security, open standards and others – all integrated into Intel Xeon processors.

Intel Cloud Vision 2015 – From Vision to Reality: Intel has a multi-year vision for cloud computing called Cloud 2015. In this vision, cloud data centres should be seamlessly and securely connected or federated, should be fully automated – provisioning resources with little or no human interaction – and clouds should be client-aware, providing secure access and optimal experience across a range of devices from smartphones to powerful notebooks. To truly realize the promise of cloud computing, Intel believes that open, interoperable solutions that embrace standards are essential.

Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT) – Seventy percent of CIOs have cloud security top of mind4 and security continues to be a significant obstacle to widespread cloud adoption. Intel Trusted Execution Technology enhances security at the processor level by helping to ensure that a server has not been tampered with at the hypervisor level or below. This hardware integrity checking is a critical component of securely on-boarding workloads between clouds.

Intel AES New Instructions (Intel AES-NI) – With cloud computing pushing more data outside of traditional physical boundaries, encryption is becoming even more vital to data protection. Microprocessor instructions included in Intel Xeon processor-based servers called Intel AES New Instructions dramatically reduce encryption overhead, which makes pervasive encryption possible for all of IT’s business-critical data and ultimately helps secure the enterprise.

Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager – Power and cooling costs in data centers have risen sharply over the past several years. To enable data centre managers to better utilize rack power and better control server performance and power consumption to optimize server density, Intel has developed the Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager. Used with operating system tools, Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager allows data center managers to set a power budget for a server, enabling denser deployments.

Intel Virtualization Technology – Intel VT simplifies resource management, consolidate applications and concentrate heavier workloads on each server to improve flexibility, reliability, and energy efficiency – all core tenets of cloud computing.

Intel Xeon Processors – This processor family is the latest from Intel’s stable: cutting edge, high on efficiency, energy and productivity.
Intel Xeon Processor 5600 series - Intel’s most secure data centre processor, these 32nm processors blend security, performance, energy and efficiency. With enhanced data integrity and server virtualization, the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series, delivers up to 60 percent greater performance than the previous-generation processor. Now data centres can replace 15 single-core servers with just one server.

Intel Xeon processor E7 family - The record-setting Intel Xeon processor E7-8800/4800/2800 product families build on Intel's previous generation of server processors to set a new standard for high-end computing applications, including business intelligence, real-time data analytics and virtualization. Strengthening the line of defense for data centers, the new processors also provide advanced security features that ensure greater data integrity.

Intel Software – Intel has developed a range of software to help address security and identify issues for the cloud. This software includes:
The Intel Expressway Access 360, the first solution suite designed to control the entire lifecycle of cloud access by providing single sign-on, provisioning, strong authorization and audit.

The Intel Expressway Gateway Service is used to abstract, secure, and simplify services and delivers a unique set of features tailor made to integrate, mediate, and scale services in a dynamically changing enterprise application perimeter.

Intel Cloud Builders – Intel Cloud Builders helps take a cloud strategy from idea to reality. The program brings together leading hardware and software makers to provide practical guidance on how to make clouds simpler to deploy, use and share in an open and secure environment. Intel Cloud Builders also serves as a portal for information on cloud research and as a community where solution architects can consult on best practices for the adoption and enhancement of cloud solutions.

Open Data Center Alliance – The Open Data Center Alliance is an independent organization of IT managers from the world’s top companies who have come together to develop a roadmap for simpler, open and more secure data centres. Their mission focuses on delivering next-generation data centre and cloud requirements to meet IT challenges and delivering them in an open, industry-standard and multi-vendor fashion.

In just seven months, the Alliance has quadrupled membership to more than 280 global IT leaders with collective annual IT spending of more than $100 billion, formed workgroups, established alignment with key industry standards bodies and solutions providers and published initial cloud requirements. Intel serves as the technical advisor to the Alliance.