Amazon links cloud to enterprise data centers

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has had success providing its cloud infrastructure to startups and Web companies, but a new service announced today aims to move its cloud offering further into the enterprise, testing both its platform and its reputation as it courts more traditional IT departments.

The new Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) service, available today in a limited beta, lets companies combine their existing IT infrastructure with Amazon’s cloud capabilities as if it were part of their own data center. Initially, the offering works with Amazon’s EC2 compute service, but will work with other Amazon Web Services – such as cloud storage – in the future.

Applications of the new service include enabling enterprises to more easily offload applications – such as e-mail or CRM, for instance – to the Amazon cloud platform, as well as offering at-the-ready resources that can be accessed as needed, such as for backup or disaster recovery.

“One important piece of feedback that mainly came from our enterprise customers was that the transition to the cloud [from] more complex enterprise environments was challenging,” said Werner Vogels, Amazon chief technology officer, in a lengthy blog post describing the new service. Amazon VPC, Vogels said, enables enterprises to “transition applications and services to the cloud, while protecting their investments in their existing IT infrastructure.”

Enterprises appear to be more willing to test and deploy cloud computing offerings, however those deployments – at least initially – are likely to be isolated to specific applications or capabilities. Amazon wants to position cloud services as an extension to existing IT resources that can be grown – and paid for – over time. Like all of its Web services offering, enterprises fund only the private cloud services they use on a pay-as-you-go basis.

It’s important to note that Amazon is not supporting the concept of “private clouds,” an idea that some more traditional IT vendors have backed, driven by the idea that by virtualizing hardware and adopting other cloud approaches, IT departments could essentially become cloud providers in their own right.

The problem with such an approach, claims Amazon’s Vogels, is that it doesn’t deliver the full value of a cloud computing platform. “Virtualization and increased automation may give them some improvements in utilization, but they would still be holding the capital, and the operational cost would still be significantly higher,” Vogels wrote in his blog post.

This public vs. hybrid vs. private cloud debate will be one to watch closely as the technologies behind cloud computing – and companies pitching them – mature and evolve. The challenge for cloud service providers – including Amazon, which despite its pioneering efforts is still best known as an e-commerce retailer – is the degree to which enterprises will be comfortable turning over portions of their mission-critical computing platforms to outsiders.

The Amazon VPC service uses an IPsec-based virtual private network (VPN) connection to link an enterprise’s existing infrastructure to Amazon Web Services. That link also supports the extension of a company’s security and network management capabilities – such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and more – onto the Amazon infrastructure, further integrating the two environments.

In announcing the new service, Amazon trotted out a few early customers and partners, including Elil Lilly and Intuit, which said they are using the data center extension service, and vendor Citrix, which said its customers would use the service to extend their behind-the-firewall Citrix applications.

To help enable the new service, Amazon also announced AWS Multi-Factor Authentication, which provides an optional additional layer of access and control capability, important for enterprises opening up their data centers to cloud services. The authentication solution uses a physical security token featuring a rotating, six-digit rotating code that users must enter in addition to their regular Amazon Web Services account credentials.