Archivo de la categoría: Research

Cloud computing, Information technology, Research

Research and Markets: Potential of Cloud Computing

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “Potential of Cloud Computing” report to their offering.

First there was the advent of the Internet that changed the manner in which we do business forever. Now, with the advent of cloud computing, the world is ready to undergo another major shift in terms of technology.

Cloud computing is an internet-based process that makes it possible to share information, software and even resources from computers to other devices all through the internet. The concept of cloud computing brings forth a new delivery model for IT services that are conducting businesses over the Internet. The process generally involves provision of scalable and virtualized resources over the internet. Not only does the process provide ease-of-access, but the speed and overall reliability of the entire concept of cloud computing is changing the IT industry rapidly.

Taiyou Research presents an analysis of the Potential of Cloud Computing.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary

2. Overview of Cloud Computing

3. Market Profile

4. Benefits of Deploying the Cloud

5. Cost Benefits to Organizations from Cloud Systems

6. Cloud Computing Delivery Modes

7. Cloud Computing Deployment Models

8. Understanding the Concept behind Cloud Computing

9. Application Programming Interfaces

10. Cloud Computing Taxonomy

11. Deployment Process of the Cloud System

12. Technical Features of Cloud Systems

13. Understanding Cloud Clients

14. Regulatory Landscape & Investment

15. Commercializing of Cloud Computing

16. Concepts Related to Cloud Computing

17. Cloud Computing versus Other Computing Paradigms

18. Cloud Exchanges and Markets Worldwide

19. Research Projects on Cloud Computing

20. Cloud Computing Case Studies

21. Future of Cloud Computing

22. Market Leaders

23. Appendix

24. Glossary


Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, Research

Cloud Service Deal Stats Show Rapid Growth, Tripling Since 2010

Our friends at Cloudreach asked today if we had seen the Information Services Group’s recent report that said global IT services deals with a Cloud computing element have tripled since 2010 The report, which looks at more than 24,000 contract records, shows the number of IT deals featuring Cloud have doubled from nine per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent in 2012.It also suggests that private Cloud does not fully realise Cloud’s promise, whereas public Cloud offers great economies of scale.

Pontus Noren, director and co-founder of Cloudreach, a Google Apps and Amazon Web Services reseller, also commented, “This report demonstrates how Cloud computing is living up to the hype – it is one of the only areas in IT that is rapidly growing. Cloud’s continual growth can only be good for the global economy because it allows them to concentrate on core business activities, leaving behind traditional IT set-ups that involve purchasing and managing equipment, which can prove expensive and time consuming.

“I see future growth being unstoppable for Cloud computing. I have heard suggestions that in five years time, 50 per cent of emails will be cloud-based, whereas today that figure is just two per cent. A twenty five fold increase in five years is just explosive.

“It is also encouraging to see that public Cloud is preferred over private, as it offers a much more scalable and flexible solution.Largely unlimited data storage and universal access makes public Cloud an ideal option for many businesses, such as those with offices at more than one location, a mobile workforce, limited IT resources or rapidly evolving IT requirements. Firms can increase or decrease capacity as they need, and only pay for what they use.”


Lifeline, Research

UK Survey: Public Cloud Not Considered Safe Enough by 87 Per Cent of Businesses

City Lifeline, the central London colocation data centre, has found that private Cloud is the more popular choice for businesses, with 63 per cent choosing private over public. Although the results, which come from an on-stand survey carried out at this year’s IP Expo, also demonstrated a growing understanding of Cloud in general (only 4 per cent of businesses claimed not to understand it), 87 per cent felt that private was safer than public.

Roger Keenan, managing director at City Lifeline said, “With technology, security risks should always be considered, but they do not need to become obstacles. Our aim at this year’s IP Expo was to increase understanding of Cloud among businesses, so they can make the most of all it affords. Both public and private Cloud have merits, but security should not be a concern with either if you are working with a reputable provider”.

Although acceptance of the Cloud as a concept continues to increase, the Federal Cloud Computing Survey recently found that security was one of the top challenges facing businesses when they consider the Cloud. However, City Lifeline found that privacy and security issues surrounding the Cloud in general are quickly becoming a thing of the past, with only 37 per cent of respondents letting this stand in their way. 41 per cent of businesses believe there are no obstacles at all, so why is there such a discrepancy around public over private?


Research, Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics: SMBs Run on Business Clouds

Keep it simple, scalable and secure is the approach of small and medium businesses in adopting business clouds according to the Strategy Analytics Business Cloud Strategies (BCS) service report, “SMBs Run on Business Clouds According to 2012 Global Survey.” It describes the extent to which SMBs have embraced public clouds for applications more than any other cloud option.

Unlike larger organizations that have invested in both public and private clouds for applications and infrastructure, SMBs prefer public Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings that are easy to use, manage and integrate with other infrastructure and applications. Security remains a concern shared with larger firms.

“Many SMBs have moved nearly all of the applications that they can to public SaaS clouds,” commented Mark Levitt, Director of Business Cloud Strategies research at Strategy Analytics. “In the next 12-24 months, SMBs will explore how to move their remaining applications to run on public Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) clouds.”

“To compete with larger competitors, SMBs recognize that they must tap the vast resources available in business clouds to act nimbly and quickly in response to business and market needs,” said Andrew Brown, Director of Enterprise Research at Strategy Analytics.


Digital wallet, MasterCard, Mobile, Mobile payment, NFC, PayPal, Research, Visa

Battle for Control of the Mobile Wallet: Sorting out Players,Technologies, Strategies

Research and Markets  has announced the addition of Javelin Strategy & Research’s new report “Battle For Control Of The Mobile Wallet: Sorting Out Players,Technologies and Strategies to Win” to their offering.

Mobile payments and purchasing at the physical point-of-sale have experienced little adoption in the U.S. marketplace despite abounding innovation in mobile and payments technologies. Control over the consumer’s preferred mobile wallet will be critical to the new business models that will develop in this ecosystem and the tremendous wealth that will accrue to the winners.

The battle for control of the wallet is in its initial stages, with many players just entering the field, jostling to grab early market leadership, and changing alliances and positions rapidly. A successful wallet will have to find a winning proposition for consumers, merchants, mobile network operators and financial institutions. This report will provide an update on how products have moved, where we can expect these products to be in the future, which primary technologies are being used at the POS (NFC, cloud, and bar code), and how wallets can maximize adoption.

Highly innovative but new vendors to the payments space, such as Google, the mobile network operators (the Isis partners in particular), Square, and Apple will need to position and partner differently than incumbent companies, such as Visa, MasterCard, card issuers, and alternative providers like PayPal. This report will also address consumer perception of different providers and why Visa and PayPal lead as preferred consumer wallet providers.

Primary Questions

– What is a digital wallet, and why is it important?

– What are the differences among NFC, cloud, and bar code mobile wallets, and what are their advantages and disadvantages?

– Who are the major competitors in the mobile wallets space, and how are they different?

– How are incumbent payments competitors transitioning into the mobile wallet space?

– Who are new entrants in payments , and what are their advantages and disadvantages?

– Which mobile wallets do consumers prefer?

– Which consumer segments should wallet providers target?


Amazon AWS, AWS, Big Data, Database, Memcached, NoSQL, Redis, Research

Benchmarking Redis on AWS: Is Amazon PIOPS Really Better than Standard EBS?

The Redis experts at Garantia Data did some benchmarking in the wake of Amazon’s announcement of

Their conclusion:

After 32 intensive tests with Redis on AWS (each run in 3 iterations for a total of 96 test iterations), we found that neither the non-optimized EBS instances nor the optimized-EBS instances worked better with Amazon’s PIOPS EBS for Redis. According to our results, using the right standard EBS configuration can provide equal if not better performance than PIOPS EBS, and should actually save you money.

Read the full post for details and graphs.


Archiving & Regulatory Retention, compliance, E-mail archiving, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office 365, Mimecast, Research

Mimecast: Email Regulation Issues Leaving Businesses Confused

Corporate email archiving and retention policies are muddled and unclear, with many businesses leaving themselves exposed to potential litigation or compliance issues, according to new research launched today by Mimecast®, the leading supplier of cloud-based email archiving, security and continuity for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365.

The research, which surveyed IT managers on their organizations’ email policies and archiving practices, found that just 20 percent of businesses (23 percent globally) retain archived email for three years or more, with one in four businesses (25 percent U.S.; 26 percent globally) admitting that they do not have a clear policy on retaining email at all.

Key findings:

  • Email retention policies are often ad hoc or based on guesswork – Just
    one in four IT departments (30 percent U.S.; 26 percent globally) have
    an email retention policy designed to comply with industry regulations:
  • Forty-one percent of businesses surveyed (43 percent globally) say
    their archiving policies are based on ‘internal best practice’
    with no consideration given to industry or country specific
    regulations
  • Six percent of U.S. and global businesses admit to deciding their
    email retention policy around a ‘random future date’ with ‘no
    basis’
  • eDiscovery for email is a major area of concern – Many
    businesses are not confident that they would be able to identify all
    emails relating to a specific customer in a timely manner:

    • On average, it would take a U.S. business 15 working days to
      identify all emails relating to a potential litigation
    • Eighteen percent of U.S. businesses do not think they would be
      able to comply with this kind of email eDiscovery request within a
      month
  • Forty-one percent of businesses surveyed (43 percent globally) say
    their archiving policies are based on ‘internal best practice’
    with no consideration given to industry or country specific
    regulations
  • Six percent of U.S. and global businesses admit to deciding their
    email retention policy around a ‘random future date’ with ‘no
    basis’
  • On average, it would take a U.S. business 15 working days to
    identify all emails relating to a potential litigation
  • Eighteen percent of U.S. businesses do not think they would be
    able to comply with this kind of email eDiscovery request within a
    month
  • Concern around email compliance – IT departments are concerned
    that they are leaving their businesses exposed:

    • Just one in four (24 percent U.S.; 27 percent globally) IT teams
      are ‘completely confident’ that their email policies comply with
      all relevant regulations
    • Forty-eight percent (46 percent globally) are ‘mostly confident’
      with 34 percent (23 percent globally) ‘minimally confident’ or
      ‘not at all confident’
  • Just one in four (24 percent U.S.; 27 percent globally) IT teams
    are ‘completely confident’ that their email policies comply with
    all relevant regulations
  • Forty-eight percent (46 percent globally) are ‘mostly confident’
    with 34 percent (23 percent globally) ‘minimally confident’ or
    ‘not at all confident’

“Taking fifteen days to identify all relevant emails sent and received by a client is a massive and unnecessary resource drain,” said Jim Darsigny, CIO, Brown Rudnick LLP. “For IT departments, managing and enforcing email policies can no longer be an ad-hoc approach as the risk potential and time wasted is too high to ignore. In our organization, the cloud enables our business to significantly reduce the pain, costs and resources normally dedicated to sourcing archived email data. With a solid email eDiscovery strategy in place, we are not only able to better serve our clients, but we can also more accurately assess their level of risk.”

“IT departments can and should be doing more to protect their organizations by adopting a more rigorous approach to email archiving,” Eliza Hedegaard, Account Director Legal, Mimecast. “However, the businesses I speak to are not being helped by a regulatory system that is incredibly confusing and difficult to navigate. Regulators should be helping businesses by simplifying the regulatory framework and putting greater emphasis on clearly communicating what organizations need to do to in order to comply instead of adopting scare tactics that focus on what will happen if organizations fall foul of the rules.”

 


Big Data, Memcached, NoSQL, Redis, Research

Redis/Memcached: Even Modest Datasets Can Enjoy the Speediest Performance

A pretty technical blog post over at Garantia Data’s blog relates the results of a recent benchmark test of the effects of cloud intrastructure on Memcached and Redis datasets:

Redis and Memcached were designed from the ground-up to achieve the highest throughput and the lowest latency for applications, and they are in fact the fastest data store systems available today. They serve data from RAM,  and execute all the simple operations (such as SET and GET) with O(1) complexity.

However, when run over cloud infrastructure such as AWS, Redis or Memcached may experience significant performance variations across different instances and platforms, which can dramatically affect the performance of your application.

Read the full post.


Big Data, Economic growth, Government agency, Government Technology, New York, Research, Smart city

Study: Big Data, Cloud will Transform City Government

Around the world, city leaders face the challenge of delivering economic growth while meeting sustainability targets and rising expectations about the quality of municipal services, often in the face of drastic budget reductions. This is forcing many city leaders to improve efficiency and drive further innovation in the creation and delivery of services. According to a recent report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant’s Energy Practice, new platforms for communication, data sharing, and application development – particularly cloud computing and data analytics – will play a key role in this transformation.

Cumulative investment in smart government technology between 2011 and 2017 will be almost $4.8 billion, the report finds. Annual investment in smart government technologies in North America alone will surpass $1 billion in 2017, and annual investment in cloud services for smart cities will reach nearly $1.4 billion worldwide by 2017.

“Cloud-based computing, in particular, offers new options for cities that reduces capital expenditure, provides access to new skills, and reduces time-to-deployment of new solutions,” says research director Eric Woods. “Cloud-based systems also enable cities to take advantage of the huge amounts of operational data they collect to improve efficiency and develop new services.”

City leaders are also looking at investment in technology as a means of spurring economic growth. This includes a range of strategies: making the city a center of cleantech development and innovation (e.g., Denver, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam); creating new types of digital commerce and development (e.g., New York and Manchester); being at the leading edge of technology adoption (e.g., Barcelona and Friedrichshafen); becoming an exporter of technology (e.g., Seoul); or retaining or establishing a position as a regional trading hub (e.g., Singapore and Songdo). Each of these approaches, the study concludes, requires a vision of where the city is heading, an investment in infrastructure, and a commitment to innovation.

Pike Research’s report, “Smart Government Technologies”, analyzes the global market opportunity for smart government technologies. It assesses the business drivers, market forces, and technology trends that are transforming the use of information and communication technology and related technologies in smart cities and communities. The study forecasts the size and growth of the market for smart government technologies through 2017, and it also forecasts the growth in smart government data analytics and cloud-based services between 2011 and 2017. The report includes profiles of major smart government initiatives around the world and also examines the strategies of key players in the smart government market including government agencies, IT companies, telcos, and infrastructure providers. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the firm’s website.


EMC Corporation, Federal government of the United States, Feds, Government, hybrid cloud, Mission critical, Research, VMware

Study: If Federal Agencies Move Three Applications Each to the Cloud, Savings Top $16 Billion

MeriTalk recently surveyed Federal IT professionals to understand if and how they are moving mission critical applications to the cloud.  They found that Feds estimate they can save $16.6 billion annually if all agencies move just three mission-critical applications to the cloud.

As Federal agencies are making cloud progress, the early-adopters that are moving their mission-critical applications to the cloud are realizing cost savings and improved access to IT, according to the report, which was sponsored by EMC Corporation, VMware and Carahsoft.  The report says the Feds spend more than half their IT budget on supporting mission-critical applications – and that private cloud is the platform of choice for mission-critical application transition.  The study reveals how Federal IT executives view the barriers, current status, and future plans related to this shift.

Not surprisingly, Feds say security is a challenge – 73 percent identify security as a primary barrier.  As a result, most favor private clouds.  Thirty-eight percent of respondents say they have moved a mission-critical application to a private cloud; 11 percent say they have moved a mission-critical application to a hybrid cloud; and, 10 percent say they have moved a mission-critical application to a public cloud.

“Private and hybrid clouds offer significant cost-saving benefits along with the necessary security infrastructure that have not yet been realized through public cloud models,” said Kyle Keller, Cloud Business Director at EMC Federal.  “The benefits of moving mission-critical applications to the cloud can be realized while also maintaining confidence in the security of those resources.”

Agencies spend 70 percent of their IT budget maintaining outdated legacy applications[1] – this is identified as a significant obstacle to cloud transition.  Federal IT executives report that 52 percent of their mission-critical applications are custom built.  When asked what would be required to make mission-critical applications ready for the cloud, 45 percent of Federal IT executives said these applications will require major re-engineering to modernize for the cloud.

Forty six percent of Federal IT executives say moving mission-critical applications to the cloud will improve their agencies ability to fulfill their mission, and 43 percent say it will improve their agencies’ big data analytics capabilities.

Of those who have moved a mission-critical application to the cloud, 91 percent report success.  Federal IT managers surveyed report moving applications including financial management, procurement, logistics, customer relationship management systems, and project management.

“Our customers who are migrating their mission critical applications to the private cloud are realizing great benefits in cost savings, efficiency, availability and agility,” says Aileen Black, Vice President of U.S. Public Sector, VMware.  “These benefits, enabled by the cloud, are the keys to customer success in the cloud.”

“Transitioning legacy, mission-critical applications to the cloud is not a forklift exercise – in many cases it’s more like an organ transplant,” said Steve O’Keeffe, founder, MeriTalk.  “With the complexity and security concerns, it’s not surprising many agencies want a private room.”

“It’s been our experience that agencies are moving to the cloud in great numbers and are, as this survey clearly indicates, achieving significant benefits from doing so,” said Craig P. Abod, President, Carahsoft. “What began with virtualization now encompasses mission-critical applications as the next step in the journey and the value chain.”

Despite the barriers, many Federal IT executives see mission-critical applications in the cloud in their agencies’ futures.  In two years, they expect 26 percent of their mission-critical applications to live in the cloud.  In five years, they expect 44 percent to be in the cloud.  In order to accomplish implementation goals, Federal IT executives recommend promoting cloud savings opportunities, identifying cloud-ready mission-critical applications, clarifying FedRAMP, and encouraging early adopters to share best practices.

“Mission-Critical Cloud:  Ready for the Heavy Lift?” is based on a survey of 151 IT Federal government managers and systems integrators in June 2012.  The report has a margin of error of +/- 7.95 percent at a 95 percent confidence level.

Download the study.