It has been some year in the world of Cloud and Cloud Storage in particular. We witnessed the demise of Nirvanix, as well as the revelations of Edward Snowdon outlining the surveillance of the PRISM surveillance program and the alleged collusion with major US Service providers.
Amidst all of this the behemoth that is Amazon continued to move forwards apace and continuing to add new services and reduce pricing.
Monthly Archives: December 2013
Looking Back and Forth
It’s the time of year to look at what was and contemplate on what will be. In Gartner the latter process has been formalized through the series of predict documents we publish towards the end of the year. Since a few years we precede these individual documents with a top predictions note that this year was titled “Plan for a Disruptive, but Constructive future” (press release). An important theme of this year’s predict was the rise of digital business, but also some of the darker sides of this. My section spoke about how – in the 2020 timeframe – the labor reduction effect of digitalization may cause social unrest and a quest for new economic models in several mature economies. Early signals of such movements may be larger-scale versions of Occupy Wall Street-type movements and increasing replacement of traditional paid jobs with bartering-based systems and increased reliance on volunteers in areas such as patient care.
Best Practices to Ensure Security in the Private Cloud
As regulatory oversight across the financial landscape continues to drive greater transparency and stricter penalties, outsourcing to the private cloud has become an integral resource for hedge fund and private equity managers. Cloud infrastructure services are now synonymous with increased efficiency, decreased costs and added security. However, security in particular remains a key concern for many financial services firms. The costs a cloud services provider can incur in dealing with a security breach, both financially and to its reputation, can be devastating.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Innovating in the Marketplace
“The DNA of the company has been all about innovation. Our CEO Thai Lee gets all the credit for really setting that foundation for the company and allowing us to go off and do market contributions like we’re doing with the cloud marketplace,” explained Richard Place, General Manager, Enterprise Solution Services, at SHI International, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Testing in the Cloud
“The entire market knew for a long time that to test a site at scale required a lot of hardware. SOASTA was founded a little before the cloud and when the cloud came that was the pivot point as that was exactly what the load testing market had been waiting for,” explained Brad Johnson, VP of Product Marketing & Business Development at SOASTA, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at the 13th International Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Cloud Model 2014: Hybrid, Google, Brokerage, Startups and The Enterprise
2013 has been incredibly eventful for the cloud industry, mostly for making itself an eminent presence in the mainstream IT market. Businesses of all sizes have made their ways to the cloud, confirming my 2013 predictions. Government agencies worldwide take the cloud seriously, as demonstrated by the CIA’s contract switch over to Amazon from IBM. AWS has proven its rapid pace of innovation and has introduced great leaders who have completely replaced the concept of sluggish IT servers with instances. While the market is still relatively small, I believe it will take over the IT market sooner than some of us think. I am not alone in my forecast… another analyst predicted that AWS will become a $50B business in 2015, which means it will multiply 12 times its size from last year. So, have a look at my 2013 predictions and read on to see what 2014 has in store for the world of cloud computing.
Why You Need an API-First Strategy for the Cloud
Everyone talks about a cloud-first or mobile-first strategy. It’s the trend du jour, and for good reason as these innovative technologies have revolutionized an industry and made savvy companies a lot of money. But consider for a minute what’s emerging with the Age of Context and the Internet of Things. Devices, interfaces, everyday objects are becoming endowed with computing smarts. This is creating an unprecedented focus on the Application Programming Interface (API) as developers seek to connect these devices and interfaces to create new supporting services and hybrids. I call this trend the move toward an API-first business model and strategy.
Identity Challenges in Cloud Computing
Enterprises are seeing a great potential in cloud-based services. However, security is a primary concern that keeps enterprise from harnessing the full potential. Identity management is one of the most important aspects of security. There is always an authentication required in an application to identify the user and provide service based on the user details. Authorization is required to allow only privilege user to execute privilege operation. An identity store required to maintain the identity and roles for the user.
Identity Management is a solution that takes into consideration all the identity concerns: authentication, authorization and maintaining identity.
In this article we will discuss some of the challenges occur while moving to the cloud in terms of identity. And what are the Microsoft technologies available to resolve identity management issues over the cloud and scenarios and solutions to use those technologies
Thoughts on Vertical Integration: The Cloud and (Gasp!) Ma Bell
Although it has been a couple of months since the hysteria of re:Invent, there has been a great deal of consternation by hoards of people in enterprise IT over the emergence of Amazon AWS. The fear is that AWS and it’s main competitors will substantially disrupt the market for enterprise infrastructure and create the next big oligopoly or even monopoly in the technology industry: The Cloud. In this weekend’s Barrons, we find Tiernan Ray making the near term case for mediocrity, if not eventual doom for the big enterprise technology players (Note: subscription may be required):
The key concern among investors – both venture and public market – and users everywhere really centers around the notion of AWS being a “dominant exchange”. This is what happens when the game becomes one where the entire solution set is owned by a single player, scale matters most, and customers can no longer see an incentive to go anywhere else for their needs.
Thoughts on Vertical Integration: The Cloud and (Gasp!) Ma Bell
Although it has been a couple of months since the hysteria of re:Invent, there has been a great deal of consternation by hoards of people in enterprise IT over the emergence of Amazon AWS. The fear is that AWS and it’s main competitors will substantially disrupt the market for enterprise infrastructure and create the next big oligopoly or even monopoly in the technology industry: The Cloud. In this weekend’s Barrons, we find Tiernan Ray making the near term case for mediocrity, if not eventual doom for the big enterprise technology players (Note: subscription may be required):
The key concern among investors – both venture and public market – and users everywhere really centers around the notion of AWS being a “dominant exchange”. This is what happens when the game becomes one where the entire solution set is owned by a single player, scale matters most, and customers can no longer see an incentive to go anywhere else for their needs.