As the lead in managing an organization’s information technology platform, infrastructure and operations (I&O) professional have typically been focused on the technical aspects of provisioning, management, governance and security. This represents only 44% of the IT value chain. While excellence in delivering these component is essential, it is not sufficient. In today’s business environment, the true I&O professional also provides crucial support to the other 56%, the so-called front end of the chain. Here in the front-end is where IT management superstars enable corporate agility and flexibility to their business line and acquisition cohorts. This is also why in the cloud computing age, cloud service brokerage (CSB) is so revolutionary.
Monthly Archives: December 2013
A roundup of cloud computing forecasts for 2013
Time-to-market, more flexible support for business strategies by IT, and faster response time to competitive conditions are combining to accelerate cloud computing adoption today.
Of the enterprises I’ve spoken with over the last several months including several Fortune 500 corporations to small businesses just beginning to evaluate cloud-based CRM and manufacturing systems, one message resonates from all of them: they need enterprise applications that keep pace with how fast they want to move on new business strategies.
The latest round of cloud computing forecasts reflect the urgency enterprises have of making IT a foundation for strategic business growth.
The following is a summary of the latest cloud computing forecasts and market estimates:
- Public cloud spending will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.4% from 2011 to 2016, accounting for 17% of all IT product send by the end of the forecast period. 46% of all …
IDC predicts value migration from IaaS to PaaS in 2014, cites IT “third platform”
It’s that time of year again, with every analyst firm falling over themselves to predict what will happen in IT during the next 12 months.
IDC is no different, issuing the first of its 2014 predictions earlier this week with a straightforward claim: all the big players will make increased investment in cloud, mobile and big data because of the huge emergence of the “third platform” for IT management.
The term ‘third platform’ relates to the technology built on the pillars of cloud, mobile, big data and analytics – and the net result means a 5% growth in global IT spending year on year, to $2.1tn.
IDC has been banging this drum for several years, predicting last year that acceleration to the third platform will “shift into high gear”. Now, IDC claims that any major vendor not adopting this strategy will be at a competitive disadvantage.
Digging deeper into …
How to Make the Most of the Cloud in 2014 – A Five-Point Strategy
Many technologies have made their presence felt this year and continue to excite us with the promises they hold for the future. Cloud computing has now reached a stage where businesses are seriously experimenting and are starting to reap the transformational benefits it can deliver. If you are in the process of determining how and what to do to get the most out of cloud computing in 2014, then here are five key strategic points to get you started immediately.
Cloud-centric design of your business – whether you are a software product vendor, service provider or even an enterprise business, a cloud-centric design of your product/service or IT-enablement practice highly outweighs any ‘incremental migration’ roadmap. We’ve observed that organizations that take a very strategic shot at cloud-enablement are better placed than those that have jumped from one piecemeal project to another. Cloud-centric considerations, architecture and design principles help optimize the investment along with the end-customer service experience.
Mirror Mirror: Difference Between Identity Management & Access Management
Identity Management (IDaaS) & Access Mgmt (SSO) solve similar but separate issues, but both serve as a cornerstone of an integrated security initiative.
One of the biggest misconceptions in cloud security is the perception that identity management (IDaaS) and access management (SSO) are the same thing.
They’re not.
And it took a viewing of the famous Star Trek episode called Mirror Mirror for me to best illustrate and articulate the difference between the creation and management of a user account and credentialed rights and the funneled applications that entity is allowed to see. For those unfamiliar with the episode, it’s the one where Kirk is transported into an alternate universe and meets evil Spock (the one with the beard)…but more about that soon.
Benefits and Economics of Strong Authentication in the Cloud
As web applications and cloud services continue to proliferate, identity theft, cyber fraud, cyber bullying, and simple misuse of confidential information online expand to chronic levels. Yet cloud providers are expected to ensure high security while maintaining a convenient user experience. MasterCard and Visa spend over $1 billion each year to fight identity theft and web companies are increasingly the subject of class action lawsuits due to online security breaches. Still, hundreds of cloud applications and portals are being hacked monthly leaving millions of passwords and confidential records in the hands of cyber fraudsters.
Recently, many cloud users have started to realize that security in the cloud is, indeed, a serious issue. This trend led ASPs, cloud providers, and enterprises to actively search for more convenient methods of securing the identity of their cloud users with strong authentication. While there are a number of such solutions in the market today, not all “strong” authentication methods are strong enough to stop hackers.
Red Hat Releases OpenShift Enterprise 2
Red Hat, Inc., on Tuesday announced the general availability of OpenShift Enterprise 2, the latest version of its on-premise private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering. With OpenShift Enterprise 2, customers can increase the velocity, efficiency and scalability of their IT service delivery, drive faster development of new applications and business services and reduce time-to-market. With new features – including datacenter infrastructure integration, an advanced administration console, support for even more programming languages, and new collaboration capabilities – and expanded global availability, a wider range of developers can achieve the benefits of private PaaS technology for their cloud deployments.
OpenNebula 4.4 Retina Bringing Simplicity to Enterprise Cloud Computing
The OpenNebula Project has just announced the nineteenth stable release of its widely deployed OpenNebula cloud management platform, a fully open-source solution for data center management and enterprise cloud computing. With a sysadmin-centric approach, OpenNebula is the open operating system of choice in the converged data centre, combining a powerful virtualization manager that supports traditional IT features such as fault tolerance and failover, with the dynamic provisioning, elasticity and multi-tenancy of the enterprise cloud.
OpenNebula 4.4 Retina includes support for multiple system datastores, which enables the definition of scheduling policies for storage load balancing. The monitoring subsystem has switched from a pulling mechanism to a massively scalable pushing model, being now able to monitor hundreds of thousands of VMs in a few minutes. An important effort has been also made in enhancing the support for cloud bursting to Amazon, enabling a transparent offload of computing power whenever the local infrastructure cannot cope with the demand. Moreover, the Amazon EC2 and EBS interfaces implemented by OpenNebula have been revisited and extended to support new functionality.
SOA Software API Management Solution Attains PCI DSS 2.0 Compliance
“Validation of our PCI DSS compliance ensures that our API Management customers can leverage our enterprise-class cloud platform to ensure the security and availability of their applications and data, as well as help meet their own requirements for PCI compliance in their API Programs”, said Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software. “The successful completion of these audits is part of our continued commitment to maintaining a well-governed, high-quality IT service environment.”
SOA Software on Monday announced that its API Management solution and cloud offering have been validated for compliance with version 2.0 of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). SOA Software recently underwent a series of rigorous audits by an independent Quality Security Assessor (QSA) to ensure that it met best practices and security controls needed to keep sensitive data secure during transit, processing and storage. This makes SOA Software one of the few API Management solutions able to offer a full end-to-end PCI DSS service based on pre-certified components.
Cloud Marketplaces: SaaS or Pseudo-SaaS?
There is a lot of confusion and hype about the cloud and SaaS (Software as a Service), and at Corent we experience it on a regular basis. One of the things I’ve been seeing and hearing about is the concept of a marketplace of cloud applications. I’ve observed that applications sold this way are often described as SaaS even though the key criteria of SaaS aren’t being provided to either the application vendor, or the application customer.
While it’s true that the cloud is a SaaS product, often the business applications provided on the cloud marketplaces are not.