I visit with Sr. Technical Marketing Manager Nathan Pearce to whiteboard his Cloud Bursting reference architecture. We cover a little F5 Synthesis along with the challenges organizations face when trying to burst to cloud implementations. Nathan covers all the cool F5 tools available to successfully burst to the cloud.
AWS re:Invent 2013 – Cloud Bursting Reference Architecture (feat. Pearce)
I visit with Sr. Technical Marketing Manager Nathan Pearce to whiteboard his Cloud Bursting reference architecture. We cover a little F5 Synthesis along with the challenges organizations face when trying to burst to cloud implementations. Nathan covers all the cool F5 tools available to successfully burst to the cloud.
Cloud Brokerage: Cloud-As-We’d-Like-It-To-Be | Part 2
In a previous blog we introduced the topic of cloud-as-it-is versus cloud as-we’d like-it-to-be. The cloud services broker (CSB) business model is gaining momentum as one way to turn the cloud into as-we’d-like-it-to-be. CSB is a term used for the activity of brokerage and also for the software that supports that brokerage activity. What is it all about?
The Gartner guys have defined it in this way: “CSB is an IT role and business model in which a company or other entity adds value to one or more (public or private) cloud services on behalf of one or more consumers of that service via three primary roles including aggregation, integration and customization brokerage. A CSB enabler provides technology to implement CSB, and a CSB provider offers combined technology, people and methodologies to implement and manage CSB-related projects.”
What Does the Cloud Mean for ERP?
The gap is widening between legacy ERP and cloud ERP as traditional on-premise tools are shifting toward delivery of applications over the Internet. The sudden growth spurt for ERP in the cloud is largely driven by the vast cost savings resulting from the increased productivity and efficiency that characterize the move to web-based business applications.
Industry insiders have recently begun to draw attention to the upsurge in new ERP developers as an indication that the competitive landscape has shifted, and that long established players will need to adapt in order to maintain their market share in the years ahead.
20 Stats to Drive Marketing in 2014 [Infographic]
Enterprise IT Trends for 2014
I enjoyed reading this article in InfoWorld by Eric Knorr and thought its worth repeating here. He listed nine trends in enterprise IT for 2014 and beyond, as follows:
Cloud is the new hardware, software-defined data center (sddc)
– Entire infrastructure virtualized and software-defined
Systems of Engagement lead the way, not systems of record of the
– Customer-facing web and mobile applications
How cloud is giving CIOs a bigger seat at the boardroom
Bill Gates once said: “Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without talking about the other.”
In many ways this quote could also be used to nicely summarise the biggest change in the business world over the last 10 years – the evolution of information.
Information management and analysis has always been vital to businesses, that much is obvious. But while information has always been there, it’s the way in which people use that information which has evolved considerably over the last decade or so.
Information is such an important commodity and one that holds great value to any businesses. It’s because of this that the person in charge of managing information is the most important person for any company.
If information is the sceptre, CIOs are king
There’s a well-used quip that CIOs are now ‘chief …
Guidance for Combining Cloud and Social to Enable the Amazing
After years of talking to people inside and outside of my company about the benefits of cloud computing, I’m truly convinced that the most important benefit is not cost reduction or the ability to have new servers up and running in a few minutes. Of course those are great capabilities that a real cloud computing environment can offer. But the most important benefit of cloud technology is the ability to move your business to where it has never been before – and do amazing things you couldn’t even consider doing a few years ago.
One use case I’m happy to see the market (including large enterprises) explore more often is the enhanced customer engagement and experience achieved through a combination of social networks and the cloud. Although almost everybody understands how powerful this combo can be, very few are succeeding in unleashing the power of this synergy. Most companies are just scratching the surface in this area. In this article, I want to explore some ideas and useful guidance for those who want to dive into these waters.
Cloud-As-It-Is Versus Cloud-As-We’d-Like-It-To-Be | Part 1
It is hard to believe that there was a time when “the cloud” didn’t exist. Then, maybe 50 years ago, a lot of cloud-like things started to happen, such as remote computing, networked computing, resource sharing, virtual networks, and then, eventually, the Internet. But it still wasn’t the cloud. Large-scale virtualization of computing and increasingly powerful ways of managing and sharing that computing power resulted in the term “the cloud.” Everything was up in the air for a while as various vendors tried to align their own ideas of what the cloud might be with other ideas, and to align their ideas with what was actually happening out there.
Now in 2013, the evolution of the cloud has really only just started. We don’t know in precise detail how it will evolve. The community is debating and working to address concerns of security and regulation, while trying to remain compliant with all the administrations in the world, and experimenting to develop business models that make sense both for the potential users and those who provide the cloud services. It is now obvious that the cloud, however it all turns out, is going to offer plentiful opportunities for new services and new ways of doing business.
Cloud Computing the Most Valuable IT Job Skill: Survey
Having cloud skills will help pay the bills, according to a recent study.
Research from recruitment specialists Robert Half Technology revealed cloud computing is the most lucrative skill to have in the IT job market today.
Cloud topped the bill in the survey of 100 IT directors and CIOs across the UK, with 39 percent of respondents citing it as the most important. Security (37 percent) and project management skills (33 percent) were the next popular, with virtualization (29 percent) and network administration (27 percent) rounding out the top five, according to an article on Cloudcomputingnews.net.
Coding and development skills were mentioned. Although not as popular; knowledge of C# was cited by 15 percent of those polled, compared to 13 percent who said Java.