Nobody likes waiting in line. This is the fundamental reason enterprise computing has changed so dramatically over the past generation. Nobody enjoyed waiting for what was then called MIS to deliver their batched reports on MIS’s schedule and terms. The PC changed all that, even as IT departments continue to wage an eternal battle for control. The current BYOD struggle serves as a reminder of how the bad old days of struggle between technology users who want what they want now and technology managers who want to provide things on their terms. In today’s environment, cloud computing services have snuck into organizations through departmental budgets and personal credit cards the same way PCs did 30 years ago. Rogue clouds are one of the most volatile topics in all of enterprise IT today. Because nobody likes waiting in line.

But there’s an even more important issue in the IT world. Although user impatience has been the principal driver of fundamental enterprise IT change, this other issue is driving fundamental societal change. It has to do with the IoT, but has roots going back almost two decades. I’ll write about this tomorrow…

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The move to the cloud brings a number of new security challenges, but the application remains your last line of defense.
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Arthur Hicken, Evangelist at Parasoft, to discuss how developers are extremely well-poised to perform tasks critical for securing the application – provided that certain key obstacles are overcome.

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Jeremiah Dooley, Cloud Architect at SolidFire

Industry discussion around the role OpenStack can play in the enterprise remains rife – given its open source nature, it is still viewed with suspicion by a number of businesses. When taking a closer look at how the industry is using OpenStack, however, it becomes clear that there are plenty of examples to prove OpenStack can be used in an enterprise IT context. This means that now is the time to move the discussion forward, and look at how OpenStack makes enterprise IT better.  

Looking at the current enterprise IT landscape, there are a significant number of “legacy” workloads that require support, but have increasingly been moving (especially on the customer-facing side) to a lightweight, web-scale deployment model. These new applications have different challenges than SAP, Oracle and Exchange workloads, and are delivered by specific teams, employing varying methodologies onto different infrastructure – often via public clouds.

It’s here that OpenStack can really support enterprise IT, and as a result the challenge has moved from “how do we deploy and manage these new kinds of applications?” to “how do we integrate that process into our existing operational model, so that enterprise IT as a whole improves?”.

OpenStack can be the enabler of this, and here are four top ways that it can support enterprise IT:

1. OpenStack Can Extend Your Investments in AWS

You probably have developers in your company using (and paying for) AWS right now, whether or not you know it (or admit it). The fundamental challenge is that their consumption model (programmatic, API-driven, use and dispose on demand) doesn’t match up with a traditional IT procurement and provisioning model, causing issues at many levels.

OpenStack can extend the AWS consumption model and all of the skills that your developers have learned by making internally hosted and managed infrastructure available in the same manner. Cloudscaling CEO Randy Bias lists this as requirement #4 of enterprise-grade OpenStack in his excellent series of enterprise cloud blog posts.

2. OpenStack Can Embrace Your Existing Enterprise Hardware

Every enterprise I work with has a varying tolerance for change, and in some part that tolerance is driven by how much existing investment needs to be protected. Hardware is expensive, and while change can happen quickly, amortization happens on a fixed schedule.

Rather than looking at new application models as an either/or proposition, or as a completely new operational model to manage, OpenStack can take advantage of your existing hardware, your existing staff that administers that hardware and your existing processes used to manage those assets.  The list of hardware companies that are actively involved in OpenStack (even if it’s just contributing drivers) is long and growing.

3. OpenStack Can Help Drive IT Transformation

Don’t underestimate the amount of money that large enterprises are willing to spend in order to drive more efficiency into their operational model.  The only way to do more, faster, is to become more efficient, and to use a “cloud first” model that embraces both on-premises and public cloud deployment models.  

By standardizing on a cloud management and deployment model, enterprises can start winding down the silos that have been created around hardware and its associated vendors. It’s amazing how misaligned those legacy silos are with the business process they are supposed to support, and the efficiency gains made here can be significant and lasting.

4. OpenStack Can Embrace Yesterday While Preparing IT For Tomorrow

Enterprise IT faces many challenges from many directions.  If the financial, business-alignment and operational-efficiency struggles we’ve discussed earlier in this list aren’t enough, challenges with staff retention, development methodologies, architecture adoption, learning curves and even basic troubleshooting are all increasing as the enterprise pivots into a new cloud era. Yesterday’s hardware vendors have become today’s liabilities. Yesterday’s applications have becomes today’s boat anchors.

Meanwhile, today’s development methodologies and workload patterns have become the pattern for how IT will operate in the future, and that’s where the best and brightest in this industry want to be. For every one server or disk hugger out there who is more interested in his Java-based GUI and annual trip to Vegas, there are dozens of people more interested in tackling the interesting questions around what cloud becomes when it grows up, and how to make every IT process align with the horizontal business policy it’s designed to support.

For every virtualization administrator who is content to sit and let the industry come to him, there are many who are instead trying to help decide where the industry is going.  OpenStack (even with its in-fighting, politics, and open source soul) is a huge part of that process, and embracing it allows enterprises a front row seat and a license to participate.

Ultimately, there’s still a long way to go until OpenStack is truly embraced by this community, and there will be bumps ahead. Still, it’s poised to not just be relevant in the enterprise, but become extremely beneficial for it. We are already seeing the front of the adoption curve jump in and find that the water isn’t as cold as they feared.

How far can it go? We’re about to find out.

SYS-CON Events announced today that TechXtend (formerly Programmer’s Paradise), a leading value-added provider of server and storage virtualization, and r-evolution will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 15th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on November 4–6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
TechXtend (formerly Programmer’s Paradise) is a leading value-added provider of software, systems and solutions for corporations, government organizations, and academic institutions across the United States and Canada. TechXtend is the Exclusive Reseller in the United States for r-evolution

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Veterans 360 will be attending the Gartner Catalyst Conference. They are also sponsoring the attendance of active duty service members that are currently in the US military and serving in an IT related position. If you are in such a technology role and are interested in attending this “must-attend” technology conference to learn strategies on how to leverage mobile, cloud, and big data. Please visit Vets 360 at http://vets360.org/gartner-catalyst-conference/ to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity.

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It’s not the first time we’ve heard the statement that cloud can be too expensive and I doubt it will be the last. This latest episode comes from Alexei Rodriguez, Head of Ops at Evernote by way of Structure 2014:
It is important to note that this admission – like those in the past – have come from what we call «web monsters.» Web monsters are, as the name implies, web-first (and usually only) organizations who have millions (or billions) of users. Modern web monsters generally have only one application for which they are responsible, a la Evernote, Netflix, Facebook, etc…

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Amazon Web Services, Coursera, Google, MIT Courseware and Microsoft are accelerating the depth and variety of cloud computing courses, courseware and learning materials they are freely making available online.

Over the last six months since the last Roundup Of Free Cloud Computing Online Courses, Amazon Web Services has added an additional series of free instructional videos, self-paced labs and selected free courses in the seven areas their AWS Training programs focus on. Microsoft’s Virtual Academy has grown to include more courses, training material and entire section of free downloadable books from Microsoft Press.  Google’s continual additions to the Developer Academy include online courses to learn more about Google AppEngine, Python App Engine and Google Cloud SQL.

Coursera and the University of Maryland, University of New Mexico and Vanderbilt University are all offering free courses on Android, mobile and web application development.  MIT Courseware continues to add useful courses across the broad spectrum of subjects they cover. The dominant theme of all courses is a new focus on creating and launching a new cloud computing application during the course.

One of the best indicators of how serious a software company is about their developer evangelism strategy is how much they invest in free training

Update on Cloud Computing Online Courses – Full Index Available For Download

One of the best indicators of how serious a software company is about their developer evangelism strategy is how much they invest in free training, easily accessible knowledge, and work to break down learning barriers.  Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft are each accelerating these areas quickly.  Each are choosing to freely provide valuable training videos, books and content in the hope of attracting and educating more developers.

In addition to these extensive evangelism efforts, there are several excellent courses and educational programs available entirely online at various price points.  You can find entire roundup of cloud computing online courses and programs here (in PDF) and also in Microsoft Word.

The following table compares the free cloud computing online courses.  Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.

Key Take-Aways:

• Coursera & the University of New Mexico are partner to offer the free course Web Application Architectures starting next month. By the end of this course, students will be able to design, develop and deploy a modern web application. You can find more information about the course here.

• DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media is offering a Cloud Computing Technologies Program where students will build their own cloud applications.  Using Amazon Web Services, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce cloud platforms, students will learn how to create and manage cloud-based applications.  The eleven-week in-depth program in the principles, methods, and technologies of Cloud Computing. The program provides a broad understanding of the different leading Cloud Computing technologies.

• Stanford University is offering CS309A – Cloud Computing one of the most sought-after online courses in this field, from September 23^rd to December 16^th, 2014.  This class includes discussions with cloud computing industry leaders and CEOs who share their vision of the future of software-powered businesses.  Previous guest speakers include Hamish Brewer, CEO, JDA Software, Godfrey Sulliva, CEO, Splunk, Human Shah, CEO, RMS, Rob Bearden, CEO, Hortonworks, Bill Ruh, VP & Corporate Officer, GE Global Software and Aaron Levie, CEO, Box.   The course is taught by Timothy Chou, a widely recognized pioneer in cloud computing.  He has been teaching introductory computer architecture at Stanford for 15 years.  He has an extensive background in cloud computing and is a high energy, engaging speaker.   You can find his LinkedIn profile here.

Adam Nelson (@varud) is working with OpenStack to develop Kili, a public cloud for Kenya and other African nations. “Kili lets local developers be local,” as he explains.
Despite his enthusiasm for the project and his prospects, he did note there can be “extremely little capital available for serious startups in Africa,” making it difficult to realize all of one’s vision and plans.
But as we approach @CloudExpo in Santa Clara Nov 4-6, it seemed like a good time to find out what’s going on with Kili and its relevance for all of us.
Cloud Computing Journal: So please describe your idea and how you do it. Are you the «AWS of Kenya?»
Adam Nelson: We run cloud infrastructure—IaaS—in East Africa, so yes, we definitely consider ourselves the «AWS of Kenya».
CCJ: How did your journey to this project and destination evolve?
Adam: Before coming to Kenya, I was an early adopter and heavy user of AWS at various New York–based startups. We spent up to $25k/month on it.
When I then traveled to Kenya, I noticed very quickly upon arriving that there was a giant hole when it comes to cloud infrastructure–in Africa generally as well. So we see an amazing opportunity to get ahead of the curve and become the platform of choice for the coming generation of African tech startups—all of which need local infrastructure.
In addition, for global companies attempting to enter African markets, Kili complements the AWS offering and allows those groups to pay for local compute and storage capacity simply by using their credit card.
With local capacity, end-user uptime is higher and latency is typically 90% lower than if the server were located in Europe or the US. Those groups can use Kili but don’t have to leave AWS for the rest of their global footprint.
CCJ: So you’re reaching a variety of customers.
Adam: Yes, we reach a variety of startups and SMEs with a technology capacity. Government is another sector we’re focused on, but the sales cycle in that sector is quite long. We only went live with the beta in April so we have a ways to go.
CCJ: What sort of growth for cloud services do you see in Kenya and the region?
Adam: We have customers from Uganda and Kenya and hope to get some from Rwanda and Tanzania soon. Continent-wide expansion is the obvious next step and it’s when Kili has multiple regions that it will really shine.

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A lot of people are heralding IoT as the future, but what can your business do today? Quite a lot, it turns out, if you know what to look for and how to talk about it. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Reid Carlberg, Senior Director at Salesforce.com, will discuss business processes ripe for IoT style solutions and provide real-world examples in operation today. He’ll also cover several fun ways to inspire your organization, share some lessons learned about solution development and offer several next steps designed to get you started. Join us and learn how to kick start your company’s IoT efforts into high gear.

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Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are increasing at an unprecedented rate. The threat landscape of today is drastically different than just a few years ago. Attacks are much more organized and sophisticated. They are harder to detect and even harder to anticipate. In the foreseeable future it’s going to get a whole lot harder. Everything you know today will change. Keeping up with this changing landscape is already a daunting task. Your organization needs to use the latest tools, methods and expertise to guard against those threats. But will that be enough? In the foreseeable future attacks will originate from entirely new attack platforms. The tools and methods you use today will not protect you from the threats you will face tomorrow. Your security experts will be no match for this new threat. Where will these attacks come from? It isn’t where you think.

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