Over the past five or so years, the phrase “cloud computing” has been tossed around frequently, in various contexts and quite often, meaning different things to different people. If you’re like most enterprises, you’ve already explored what cloud computing means for your organization. Businesses everywhere would love to develop or run applications in a cloud environment that accommodates workload bursts or app testing situations without having to purchase additional server equipment for what could essentially be a very short-lived need. In 2012, cloud computing truly became mainstream – and if you aren’t implementing the cloud in your infrastructure yet, you’re most likely planning for it in 2013.
Alternatively, you might be rethinking your cloud approach. Many organizations have implemented a cloud infrastructure that is impulsive and arbitrary, causing more problems than it solves and costing an IT organization time, money and resources. The development of cloud in the enterprise has proven to have a learning curve – one that will now lead to more and more organizations working to seamlessly combine in-house private clouds with the benefits of public and commercially packaged private cloud services in a hybrid mix.
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Cloud Continues Its Move into the Mainstream
Big businesses are finding out they have something in common with their smaller counterparts. Both like to save cash, and both like to be prepared in the event of a disaster. And they have an affinity for the cloud.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal found large organizations are adopting cloud technology for many of the same reasons held by smaller organizations: greater flexibility and cost savings, resiliency in the face of natural disasters and the ability to implement new technologies without long-term commitment. While they acknowledge concerns about cyber-security, they believe they can safely pursue their cloud strategies while taking appropriate precautions.
“For every application, we look at whether the cloud can be used, and at that moment we look at all aspects, including security. When all criteria are met we will launch on the cloud and therefore we believe that the cloud is secure enough for a number of scenarios,” said Johan Krebber, Shell group IT architect and lead architect for the Projects and Technology Business, according to the Journal.
Analytics Can Change Your Business
Companies that inject Big Data and analytics into their operations show productivity rates and profitability that are 5% to 6% higher than those of their peers. Data is the critical success factor. Because without data, there can be no analysis.
Data virtualization can accelerate development of a new analytic or refinement an existing one.
With data virtualization you can easily:
Discover available data sources across and beyond the enterprise
Simplify access to required data sources, while complying with security and governance policies
Combine all the data required, physically, virtually or in a hybrid combination
Analytics Can Change Your Business
Companies that inject Big Data and analytics into their operations show productivity rates and profitability that are 5% to 6% higher than those of their peers. Data is the critical success factor. Because without data, there can be no analysis.
Data virtualization can accelerate development of a new analytic or refinement an existing one.
With data virtualization you can easily:
Discover available data sources across and beyond the enterprise
Simplify access to required data sources, while complying with security and governance policies
Combine all the data required, physically, virtually or in a hybrid combination
Security Orchestration: Herding Digital Cats
Generally speaking when the topic of devops comes up security isn’t something we mention. If we do it’s in hushed tones, eyes darting back and forth, the fear that someone might hear us overriding the certain truth that security can benefit as much from devops as any other operational paradigm but just as certain that even mentioning it in polite IT company might get us labeled as a mite crazy
Because when it comes to orchestrating security, we’re really talking about herding cats. And not the fat, lazy Garfield cats of the world, I’m talking about the almost feral, fiercely independent, runs-your-house-like-their-kingdom kind of cats.
Automating something that’s more art than science, for which exist so many different and highly independent systems and devices with as many different interfaces (and rarely an API) as there are types of beans (seriously, do you know how many different kinds of beans there really are??), is certainly on par with trying to herd that kind of cat.
In other words, it’s not something rational folk decide to do unless they’re into Sisyphean tasks.
The Cloud’s Next Killer Apps
I think the new cloud killer apps for enterprises will leverage cloud-integrated data centers (or true hybrid cloud adoption), and will strategically transform IT operating models. Those killer apps will include cloud-enabled agility, protection and scalability.
The public cloud has been promoted as a low cost alternative to physical data center infrastructure, mostly to small and medium-sized businesses. That has driven the creation of a robust category of cloud migration services which has emerged as these smaller businesses have made considerable investments in moving their apps from colocation and data center environments into public clouds.
Enterprises, however, have been notably slower to invest in public cloud and cloud migration, at least in proportion to their overall IT budgets. There are many reasons for the slower enterprise adoption of public loud (IaaS) and they have been discussed extensively. I think what is missing is a more robust discussion of the next killer apps for the cloud; the enterprise game changers.
A Cloud-Based Testing Tool for the Budget-Minded
Finally, a low-cost cloud-based QA testing tool hits the market. After an extensive beta program by software testers at 500 companies from 23 countries, QASymphony announced general availability of qTest, a cloud-based enterprise test management solution.
The testing tool is aimed at small and growing QA teams looking to escape the heavy lifting and expense required from enterprise-focused systems such as HP Quality Center.
Its vendor claims qTest is on par with large enterprise systems, yet unlike those heavyweights the platform’s SaaS subscription model makes it a low-risk proposition to pilot and adopt.
At a scant $20 per user per month, it certainly offers teams an affordable path towards formalizing their quality control procedures.
The tool offers a collaborative work environment for teams to manage requirements, design test cases, plan test execution, track defects, and generate status and quality-metrics reports.
XO Communications to Exhibit at Cloud Expo New York
SYS-CON Events announced today that XO Communications, a provider of advanced IP communications, managed network and hosted IT services for business, large enterprise and wholesale customers, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
XO Communications is a leading nationwide provider of advanced IP communications, managed network and hosted IT services for business, large enterprise and wholesale customers. These customers include more than half of the Fortune 500, in addition to leading cable, mobile wireless and domestic and international telecommunications companies. XO offers a superior customer experience through its innovative solutions, its employees’ focus on customers and the proven performance of its advanced network.
AWS Cuts Prices Again
Amazon Web Services ratcheted up the cloud price war again Tuesday when it cut new EC2 Reserved Instances running Linux/Unix, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server by up to 27% or up to 65% compared to On-Demand instances.
Amazon said in a blog that the new pricing applies to all three Reserved Instance models (Light, Medium and Heavy Utilization) for purchases made on or after March 5.
It suggested that customers review their Reserved Instance usage monthly and offered a few economical guidelines: If your server is running less than 15% of the time, use an On-Demand instance; if your server is running 15%-40% of the time, use a Light Utilization Reserved Instance; if your server is running 40%-80% of the time, use a Medium Utilization Reserved Instance; and if your server is running 80%-100% of the time, use a Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance.
IBM Takes on AWS
Big Blue put its back into OpenStack Monday at its Pulse conference in Las Vegas, almost a year after lending its name to the open source cloud platform started by Rackspace and NASA – which has abandoned it.
It announced that “its cloud services and software will be based on an open cloud architecture.”
It said it’s doing it in the name of open standards, arguing that “this move will ensure innovation in cloud computing is not hampered by locking businesses into proprietary islands of unsecured and difficult-to-manage offerings. Without industry-wide open standards for cloud computing, businesses will not be able to fully take advantage of the opportunities associated with interconnected data, such as mobile computing and Big Data.” Ah, FUD.
Basically IBM has declared war on Amazon Web Services and its de facto standards.