CIOs are expected to be heroes. They are responsible for innovating and transforming IT using new technologies that will drive business initiatives forward, but that is far from an easy task given the ongoing evolution of the IT world. This article will discuss the case for hybrid cloud in the enterprise, and suggest how CIOs can strategically develop a blueprint for hybrid cloud deployment.
A few years ago, CIOs were hesitant to move any data outside of their own data center due to lack of security and limited guarantees of availability. But as technology matured, education of CIOs improved drastically. Now, they are becoming increasingly aware of how next-gen solutions fit into their overarching goals, which allows them to leverage public and private/hybrid clouds in the most effective manner. In turn, CIOs are warming up to the idea of a hybrid cloud model, as they realize that acceptable cloud solutions are now available.
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Simple Subscriptions Out, Flexibility to Monetize XaaS In
In the last MetraTech blog, we explored the topic of how you price for cloud and other services. In this blog, we focus on the everything-as-a-service (XaaS) movement and the impact on current pricing and business models. While the cloud industry is heavily impacted by this trend, it is by no means alone. The cloud represents a radical business model change for those vendors that were not born into it. We’ve all seen the mass confusion out there about how to monetize cloud business models and in the process of figuring it out, service commoditization. But like all massive market changes, once the dust settles, a new player takes control. After all, Amazon didn’t exist as a cloud provider until relatively recently. It is important to focus on what it will take to unseat the market leaders and we all know price alone is a race to the bottom where even the winner loses. I can recall a quote from the CEO of one of the largest software companies in the world who famously said at an analyst conference in September 2008 (yes less than five years ago), “the interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. […] The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?» Of course at that same analyst conference, he also admitted that his company would start selling cloud services, too. And therein lies part of the problem, there is a fundamental sea change afoot that requires a new way, a better way. Not the old way.
Incapsula to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that Incapsula, a cloud-based website security and performance service, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 13th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Through an application-aware global CDN platform, Incapsula provides any website and web application with best-of-breed Security, DDoS Protection, Load Balancing & Failover solutions, available as standalone services or as an integrated solution. Incapsula offers any online business with right selection of website security and performance services to meet your needs.
IBM & SoftLayer Get to Poke AWS in the Eye
Amazon Web Services has lost a nice piece of glory business to SoftLayer, the public cloud company IBM just paid an estimated $2 billion to buy reportedly for the pleasure of poking AWS in the eye.
Big Blue just got that distinct pleasure, heightened by the fact that it’s making a nice chunk of change off the deal.
Here’s what happened.
Amazon was supposed to host the first cloud-based DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC). The idea was for some of the world’s best engineers to develop their software in a virtual simulation, a challenge in itself, before getting to the actual robot phase of the competition.
Well, after initially using AWS, the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), which runs the annual competition, ran into trouble with the speed of Amazon’s server communication. So it switched to SoftLayer’s bare metal platform, which was reportedly the only one it could find that could shorten communication loops between machines to 1k/second.
SoftLayer offered the power and speed needed, as well as the raw compute, without any extra virtualization.
«Why Isn’t Anyone Listening To Randy?» – The Great OpenStack Debate
Unless you live under a rock, you will be aware that Cloudscaling co-founder (and now Acting CEO) Randy Bias wrote an Open Letter to the OpenStack community last week which ignited a Web-wide debate on OpenStack’s direction and strategy. Since OpenStack is now three years old, such a debate on The State of the Stack is only to be expected, and ought rightly to be welcomed. But in the world of IT infrastructure as in all other walks of life, not everyone has the same point of view. In the case of the OpenStack community, the diversity of opinion has been especially broad.
Layer 7 Survey: Over 85% of Enterprises Will Have an API Program by 2018
“Enterprises are increasingly recognizing APIs as a cornerstone of the modern open hybrid enterprise,” said Dimitri Sirota, Senior Vice President, Security, CA Technologies and co-founder of Layer 7 Technologies, on Layer 7’s release os the results of a survey focused on the key enterprise concerns that are driving the adoption of API Management solutions. “For an organization to be successful,” Sirota continued, “it must have a strategy to deploy and manage the APIs that will enable it to secure and leverage data, empower a mobilized workforce and engage with the developers driving the app economy.”
Of the 140 enterprise IT professionals polled in May, more than 43% of respondents reported that their organization currently had an API program in place, while 27% said a program would be launched within the next year. Respondents to the survey overwhelmingly pointed to a broad range of key business goals driving the growing need for API programs.
Has Cloud Computing Changed IT for the Better?
How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away – are truly secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? In this CTO Power Panel at 12th Cloud Expo, moderated by Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, Dennis Quan, Vice President of SmartCloud Enterprise at IBM; Jeff Lush, Chief Technology Officer Dell Services, US Public, Dell Services Federal Government; Brian Patrick Donaghy, CEO of Appcore; Pankaj Mittal, CTO and Senior Vice President at Impetus; and Jonathan King, VP, Cloud Solutions at Savvis, A Century Link Company, discussed this topic and more.
Cloud Technology Partners Launches Cloud Management Platform Services
“The use of cloud-based platforms in the technology industry continues to evolve into more complex arrangements, because the business world now demands a mix of many best-of-breed cloud services to form the optimal solution,” said David Linthicum, Senior Vice President, Cloud Technology Partners as the company launched its Cloud Management Platform Services, which designed to accelerate and ensure the successful adoption of multicloud environments that incorporate a variety of cloud services.
To address these demands, Linthicum noted that Cloud Technology Partners’ Cloud Management Platform Services enable “customers to create an enterprise cloud strategy that includes the ability to place workloads and data wherever it is most appropriate – in a public, private, or mixed environment while managing from a single pane of glass.”
Which Came First, the Server or the Network?
Cloud computing, developed more than eight years ago, has become a multi-billion dollar segment of the IT services market. However, the original server-centric model, used to provide low cost computing, is giving way to a new network-centric model that will deliver better performance and control at an even lower cost.
According to Gartner’s Forecast Overview: Public Cloud Services, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 4Q Update, the public cloud IaaS market is expected to grow by 47% – from $6 billion in 2012 to $9 billion in 2013. As this market has grown, hundreds of service providers of every size have stepped forward to offer “best-effort” cloud services. While a market for these services clearly exists, most of them don’t meet the enterprise requirements for a more reliable and secure computing platform. The challenge lies in end users having to use server virtualization technologies to solve problems better addressed by networks.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Scale-Out Architecture
“Cloud is not so much about a place, it’s about a way of delivering and handling these very dynamic, very large scale computing environments,” stated Kevin Brown, CEO of Coraid, in this interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at our Times Square Studio in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2013 Silicon Valley, November 4–7, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.