At the top of many IT group’s list of concerns lie security, compliance and internal process governance – both in static data centers and in dynamic clouds. Indeed, governance should not be overlooked. And, as they say in many security circles, the best measure of successful security is silence. Although the discussion around governance in the cloud has evolved, many organizations still struggle with questions such as:
Which apps should we deploy to public clouds?
When and where should cloud environments be encrypted?
Who has access to cloud-based applications and infrastructure?
Which firewall rules should apply?
How do security rules differ from app to app based on the application’s lifecycle phase?
Cloud Computing Can Slash IT Expenses by Half: Report
An IT services provider based in Asia is throwing up some big numbers when it comes to savings and cloud computing.
DataOne Asia, an independent provider of IT services in the Philippines, said businesses can significantly reduce expenses by putting in place cloud computing solutions, according to an article on PCAdvisor.co,uk.
«Businesses that migrate their IT systems to the cloud could save at least 50 percent of their expenses. This is because the cloud minimizes the cost of infrastructure, management and support,» said DataOne Asia President and CEO Cyril Rocke.
Rocke says that the cloud could help companies minimize expenses on procuring and maintaining their IT infrastructure.
«Most IT users tend to underestimate the cost of procuring infrastructure. Whenever a company wants to buy IT equipment like servers, they cannot do it in a snap. They need to follow a long procurement process where they have to justify the project, write cost-benefit analyses, and submit the necessary papers to different departments. Sometimes, there’s even a need to hire IT experts that will decide which equipment is best for a company.»
«In reality, companies can spend more than a year and thousands of [dollars] on the procurement process alone. This entire traditional procurement process severely damages businesses, and reduces their ability to react and roll out new ideas and solutions.»
Cloud Expo New York: Filling the Cloud Information Security Gap
Organizations of all sizes are challenged because of an industry-wide deficit of information security professionals. Compounding this problem is the steady adoption of cloud-based services, including software and infrastructure as a service, where information security is not always a core competency of the cloud provider.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Rob Aragao, VP, Services, at EiQ Networks, will discuss how other organizations have solved these challenges through hosted SecureVue security information and event management (SIEM) – a service-based offering that delivers advanced security expertise and managed security services to organizations that utilize cloud-based services. Attendees will walk away with an understanding how customers have greatly improved the security posture of their cloud-based deployments through hosted SIEM.
Has Cloud Changed IT for the Better? | CTO Power Panel at Cloud Expo NY
In this CTO Power Panel at the 12th International Cloud Expo, moderated by Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, topics discussed will be at a deliberately high level and will include:
How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away – are truly secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones?
How exactly does a company or organization go about deciding whether to migrate only specific applications to the cloud – such as storage or security – or their overall IT infrastructure?
How much of an influence on cloud adoption is the US Government’s continuing support of Cloud strategies for all government agencies?
Compliance and Security in Cloud Migration
“Anyone moving to the cloud saves not only time but money,” stated Joel Daly, Chief Operating Officer of HOSTING, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “For SMBs, the primary cost issue is a lack of resources. They have no choice but to run legacy systems during the transformation to the cloud. This gets expensive, but once done, the cost savings are there.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn’t about saving money, it is about saving time. – Agree or disagree?
Joel Daly: Agree, but time is money. Virtualization allows for faster provisioning and faster recovery, therefore increasing time-to-market for solutions. In many cases, especially if you’re a software provider, getting to market sooner means revenue sooner. In addition, via the cloud, you can reinvest that money and use it to increase your capabilities. A recent study by the University of Manchester showed that 60% of companies have more time to focus on strategy and innovation and 70% of large enterprises and 59% of SMEs surveyed have been able to reinvest more money back into their business.
Anatomy of an Internet-Scale Application
Planning scalable environments isn’t terribly difficult, but it does require a change of perspective. During this session we’ll broaden our views to think on an Internet Scale by dissecting a video publishing application built with The SoftLayer Platform, Message Queuing, Object Storage, and Drupal. By examining a scalable modular application build that can handle unpredictable traffic, you’ll be able to grow your development arsenal and pick up a few strategies to apply to your own projects.
Cloud Is All About Simplicity
«For organizations just getting started the move to cloud is about rapidly turning on IT infrastructure,» said Nicos Vekiarides, CEO & Co-Founder of TwinStrata, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. «For mature organizations where IT has started to become unwieldy,» Vekiarides continued, «it is about cost and administrative savings.»
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn’t about saving money, it is about saving time – agree or disagree?
Nicos Vekiarides: I would say that it is a combination of both.
Ramp-up time is a very important consideration for organizations deciding whether to deploy IT infrastructure locally or in the cloud. Saving time is particularly compelling for organizations in the midst of new «green field» deployments, where data center space needs to be built out. Without the need to purchase and deploy any infrastructure, cloud reduces the ramp-up cycle dramatically.
Mobile Payment Future Is Tied to Services
Guest Post by Nick Nayfack, Director of Payment Solutions, Mercury Payment Systems
Consumers are already using their smartphones when they shop. They just need the incentive to take the next step to making a purchase with their phone. According to Google, some 79 percent of consumers today can be considered “mobile shoppers” because they use their smartphones for browsing for product information, searching for product reviews or looking for offers and promotions. Today’s merchants see their customers browsing their store with smartphones and know that mobile marketing is no longer an option, it’s an imperative.
There is a clear opportunity to target avid smartphone users, as well as provide merchants with the ability to turn their point of sale system into a marketing engine simply by capturing their customers’ phone numbers. By creating a point of sale environment where processing becomes prospecting, mobile and alternative payments become a natural extension of the convenience and value that merchants and consumers are looking for. Not only can consumer use their phones in store to gain product information or exclusive offers, they can skip the checkout line by paying with their phone. In this environment, mobile payments gain adoption because of the valuable service it provides to both the merchant and the consumer.
What is it that is driving merchants to adopt mobile point of sale systems (POS) – doubling their implementation in the past year – and consumer rapid adoption of smartphones – while mobile payments has yet to experience the same growth curve? The slow speed of adoption can be tied to two gaps in the current payment landscape: convenience and value. Merchants are adopting mobile POS systems because of their affordable pricing, the ease of use, and the ability to tie value-added services like loyalty programs and gift options to their customer’s checkout experience. Consumers are looking for more value for their money and more likely to sign up for opt-in marketing at the cash register or loyalty programs if they feel like they are getting something in return.
Where is the value in Mobile Payments today?
1. Information is Still Key
Consumers are using their phones now mostly to find product information, restaurant reviews, and discount offers. 90 percent of smartphone shoppers use their phone today for “pre-shopping” activities. The most common are price comparisons (53 percent), finding offers and promotions (39 percent), finding locations of other stores (36 percent) and finding hours (35 percent). In contrast, consumer in-store purchases from a mobile device are still in the minority (~16 percent), but show promise for fast and exponential grow. As such, if you want consumers to use your mobile payment application, there must be a tight alignment with other frequently used mobile applications (i.e. mobile search.)
2. Remember Your Basics
Key players in the mobile payments space need to make better UX by applying principles learned from the web many years ago: mobile-specific design, clear calls to action and one shopping experience across all platforms. Beyond the UX, there needs to be clear and repeatable value to the consumer. Special offers or incentives could be paired with your current purchase history to make one-click purchases attractive from mobile devices. From a historical perspective, Amazon introduced this concept several years ago in the e-commerce world with links that provided suggestive purchases based on the buyer’s current purchase (e.g. others that bought this book, also bought the following). While m-commerce has different considerations such as limited time and high distraction of users, there can be some lessons learned from the past.
3. Find Today’s Value
POS developers will succeed today, and in the future by helping merchants to obtain and analyze information about their business and customers. This requires coordinating with an acquirer or processor that has rich historical data to help analyze transaction history, and other data. In this way, merchants can then personalize the consumer experience for new cost benefits or improve operations for cost savings.
Lastly, as mobile evolves, new data points will provide richer context (e.g. location, social context, sku data) and merchants will have even more reference points to deliver a personal consumer experience. In this way, personalization is the key value that is coupled with convenience.
Nick Nayfack is the director of product for Mercury Payment Systems. He is responsible for developing best practices in mobile commerce with industry peers in order to help enable merchants and consumers to navigate technological “ease-of-use.” Nick is also a member of the Electronic Transaction Associations (ETA) Mobile payments committee.
Nimble Flashes New Private Cloud Reference Architecture Around
Nimble Storage, one of the darlings of the new storage breed – darling if for no other reason than it’s managed to collect $98 million from the VC crowd since it started in 2008 – that’s pretty darling – has been waving around the plans for a new Microsoft private cloud that’s pre-configured, turnkey and certified as a scalable on-premise infrastructure platform.
The Microsoft reference architecture involves a Nimble SmartStack for Windows Server and System Center running on Cisco’s UCS servers. It’s supposed to be good for 75 virtual machines created by Microsoft’s Hyper-V in a highly available environment.
Harnessing the Risks of Cloud | Lunchtime Discussion Panel at Cloud Expo
A 2013 McKinsey survey reported that 75% of CEOs find value for their company in cloud computing. Given the well-documented perception of risk, are these established brands now coming to cloud to leverage «brand momentum» and create a «fresh start»? What are the pitfalls as these established companies enter the cloud environment, as CEOs start to discover the power of cloud computing beyond efficiency and cost savings?
In this Lunchtime Discussion Panel at the 12th International Cloud Expo panelists will discuss the risks involved with doing business in the cloud, the competitive landscape, the impact of regulation, compliance and what our experts see as the opportunity for reward.