Skyhigh Networks releases their second edition of the Cloud Adoption and Risk Report. As with the first edition of the report, the purpose of the report is to provide hard data on the actual use of cloud services within enterprises of all sizes. This report summarizes data from approximately 6 million users across 175 companies and 10 industries.
Moving to a Zero IT Infrastructure Footprint
A myriad of new methodologies and technologies from cloud computing to BYOD have changed the IT landscape demonstrably. In parallel, higher-value functions around data, customer engagement and revenue growth are pushing CIOs to consider alternative approaches. The nexus is moving IT to a zero footprint infrastructure model. Organizations including Healthcare, Financial Services, Insurance and Airlines are moving in this direction. Unfortunately, traditional IT paradigms present a challenge to adopting these new methodologies.
Cloud Auto Scaling Using AppDynamics
Are your applications moving to an elastic cloud infrastructure? The question is no longer if, but when – whether that is a public cloud, a private cloud, or a hybrid cloud.
Classic computing capacity models clearly indicate that over-provisioning is essential to keep up with peak loads of traffic while the over-provisioned capacity is largely left under-utilized during non-peak periods. Such over-provisioning and under-utilization can be avoided by moving to an elastic cloud-computing capacity model where just-in-time provisioning and deprovisioning can be achieved by automatically scaling up and down on-demand.
Who Will Win the Enterprise Cloud Race in 2014?
And the race is on. The cloud industry is abuzz with recent M&A and product news pointing towards what appears to be the Holy Grail for helping large companies move to the cloud with confidence. Both private and public cloud vendors are vying for a spot in the relatively new and rapidly growing market segment of enterprise cloud. CenturyLink swooped up Tier 3 in an attempt to establish a stronger enterprise offering; Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced its enterprise play at re:Invent; IBM acquired SoftLayer; and even the Google Compute Engine has been quick to follow in the footsteps of its competitors.
As each vendor makes a move to build a top-tier enterprise cloud, others will counter. With so much product and M&A activity going on, all that’s left to ask is: What’s next?
Customer Data Paves Way for Purchase-to-Use Attitude
In the Subscription Economy, purchase-to-use is winning, and purchase-to-own is on its way out. The key to success is that customers are actually using a product or service and in the Subscription Economy, the future is clear: delivering value drives revenue. Accessing this data to understand usage, and resulting customer value, is mandatory to survival.
In his session at 14th Cloud Expo, Matthew Shanahan, SVP of Marketing and Strategy at Scout by Service Source, will discuss how businesses in industries such as telecom, SaaS, financial services, healthcare and education can, and are, leveraging data science methods to predict and avoid customer churn and increase revenue.
How cloud adoption is changing the business landscape
A 2013 IBM survey shows that the cloud’s strategic importance to decision-makers, such as CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, HR directors, and procurement executives, is poised to double from 34 percent to 72 percent, vaulting over their IT counterparts at 58 percent.
The survey found that one out of five organizations is ahead of the curve on cloud adoption. Moreover, they are achieving a competitive advantage by using cloud-based platforms, and not just cutting costs and driving efficiency through cloud computing.
The results of this survey are not surprising. Business leadership drives much of the growth around cloud computing, demanding that IT both consider and implement this technology. They see the potential for this technology to be strategic, much like the growth of the Web many years ago that changed the face of many businesses. Remember, it was business units, not IT, that drove Web adoption and related functions like e-commerce …
Why for most businesses the cloud is evolutionary, not revolutionary
IT decision makers are conservative by nature: “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”
I frequently hear the question, “What does the cloud do for me that I can’t do in my own data centre?” The honest answer is nothing.
There is nothing that can be done in the cloud that couldn’t also be done in an in-house data centre or with collocated hardware in an external data centre.
However, almost everything a business may want to do with IT can be done more quickly, less expensively, and with intrinsically more scalability in the cloud. That’s the true value of cloud platforms.
A business could choose to buy and collocate new servers when updating its groupware application. It’s a simple process of getting approval for the capital expenditure, procuring the servers and the data centre space, paying for support and licensing, paying for server …
Six Myths of Monitoring SaaS Applications
There’s been plenty written and predicted about the future of cloud and Software-as-a-Service, and it’s hard to argue with its benefits – for both organizations and users. If our cloud-based future is to come true though, we must pay closer attention to the service levels users are getting from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications.
Obvious? Maybe not.
As many organizations make their first big move to the cloud with services like Office 365, a few common misconceptions – grounded in the general belief that once we move to the cloud, IT no longer owns direct responsibility for service levels – threaten to put them on a path to protracted outages and frustrated users.
The Seven-Year Itch! Startups, It’s Time to Graduate from Amazon
For about seven years, the IT industry and its pundits have been infatuated with the “cloud” – specifically Amazon Web Services (AWS). Tech startups and their investors have flocked to AWS with inflated expectations on the notion that cloud economics were better than hosting applications themselves. After all, start-up resources are tight, agility is required, and any time not wasted on infrastructure management can be put toward business and product differentiation. It all makes sense, but start-ups and investors alike are now finding that much of AWS’s promise is not being met. After as much as seven years of doing this “cloud” thing, many are having second thoughts about a cloud only solution. AWS was expected to deliver reliability, cost savings, flexibility, and good support, but these benefits have not been realized and it’s the customer that suffers.
Frederick’s of Hollywood: Making a Holistic Move to the Cloud
A trendsetter in intimate women’s apparel, Frederick’s of Hollywood, needed a cloud strategy that merged stability, security and PCI compliance needs with the ability to scale up during retail busy season.
In her session at 14th Cloud Expo, Malorie Lanthier, VP of Information Technology at Frederick’s of Hollywood, will discuss how migrating to the cloud enhanced the scalability, resiliency and flexibility of Frederick’s of Hollywood’s IT infrastructure while elevating the ability to address company-wide business objectives. She’ll also share her cloud evaluation process, successful practices used to make the wholesale move to the cloud and advice for organizations looking to develop and execute a holistic cloud plan quickly and effectively.