While some are happy to debate definitions of cloud computing, I prefer to focus on the characteristics that make successful companies, successful. Lately there seems to have been a shift from the anything for anyone cloud to the industry or vertically focused cloud. Adding to this is today’s piece of news from Zynga who announced what they describe as «the beta release of Zynga.com,  a new service enabling third party developers to create and publish games on the Zynga Platform.» Yes, that company that brought you farmville is now going to be a cloud service provider enabling a whole new crop of game companies, which I can only assume they will acquire when the time is right.

So why is this news important? It’s another great example of a trend in the cloud computing sector of «Vertically focused» cloud products and services. In the early days, there was this mentality of just build it and they would come. Problem was that for most, they never really came. Instead you had a handful of very large players and everyone else fighting over the table scraps. What those who survived learned, is that in order to be successful it isn’t about being the best funded or even the best performing, but instead it is about being the most focused on the needs of a particular customer vertical. Those who focus on a particular problem, be it for a particular enterprise sector, application or customer need will have a clear and distinct differentiation in a market dominated by me-too cloud services.

This trend certainly isn’t unique to the cloud space, look at Facebook as an example. In an early market they were able to quickly gain a dominate position as a fairly generic social network. As the social market began maturing you started to see the most successful companies becoming more and more laser focused. A great example  is Instagram who according to Mashable now has more than 50 million users and is gaining about 5 million users per week, not to mention it was recently acquired by Facebook for 1 billion dollars. They succeed because of their ability to focus on a vertical. This trend seems to be gaining momentum recently with apps like SocialCam seeing astounding growth by focusing on the vertical niche opportunities over looked by their larger, better funded competition..  TechCrunch reported that SocialCam jumped from 12 million users last week to 20 million users today. Yes, 8 million new users in 1 week. Focus Focus Focus. Where’s youtube?

So what does a consumer focused app and a gaming company have to do with Cloud computing? Everything, as our market matures we are beginning to see the same sort of vertical focus for  the most successful new bread of cloud companies entering the scene. No longer is it acceptable to want to be a clone of Amazon or who ever you consider to be the leader in a particular sector. Nor is it wise. Those who focus on the industry sectors neglected by the largest players will see the most success and will be selling themselves for an Instagram or two.
(1 instgram = $1 Billion USD)

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This is Part III in a series by 6fusion Co-founder and CEO John Cowan on the emerging trend of Cloud Brokerage and the impact it will have on the technology industry and markets. Be sure to check out Part I of the series here and Part II here.

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VM Associates is a New York City cloud computing consulting firm. We help companies transition into newer, better, smarter software. Contact us to talk about your business, the cloud, and how we might help.

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MySQL is probably the most popular open source database. While there is a wealth of discussion online for MySQL database encryption,doing it right in a cloud computing environment is tricky. The discussion here is quite long, and contains a lot of interesting details. So if you want a spoiler: it is possible to achieve true […]

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Want to save your business money? Of course you do. What if we could show you a way to use the cloud in and around your office, get your workforce mobile, make communication faster and easier, and reduce OPEX? We can.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jason Silverglate, CEO of Fortress ITX and its subsidiaries, will present a “how to” analysis of what cloud technology can do for the modern office, of any size. He will show how incorporating hosted PBX, hosted email, and even hosted desktop (virtual desktop infrastructure) methodologies can help optimize office efficiency and save your enterprise money.

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CollabNet went into public beta Monday with a strategic new enterprise-
grade development-Platform-as-a-Service (dPaaS) called CloudForge so
distributed teams can manage and scale cloud-based development using a
broad set of tools, application frameworks and deployment clouds.

It’s supposed to integrate with cloud services and function as a one-click
front-end for deploying on a private data center or public PaaS including
Amazon, Joyent, Google App Engine and Salesforce.com’s Force.com.

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Policies and procedures for Cloud solutions and services should be established as part of Enterprise Cloud Giovernance. Plug and Play for Cloud Services is not enough!
Enterprise Cloud Governance is the specification of policies and procedures for Cloud solutions and services for the organization. Many organizations struggle with having silos of Clouds without a coherent approach for Governance. It is very tempting for departments or groups to go and buy new services and try to plug them and then play to see how they works. If specific services have their own individual policies and procedures, this can lead to problems due to lack of centralized management. Without proper alignment with Enterprise Architecture and Security, this can lead to a spaghetti-like conglomeration of Cloud services without proper attention to interoperability and service management. With Enterprise level solutions that leverage hybrid services, the situation can quickly spin out of control. It is extremely important to have a strategy and vision in place to address important elements such as policy management, service management, interactions between applications and data, availability, performance and control related to services.

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Alert Logic, a provider of Security-as-a-Service for the cloud, on Monday announced that it has taken two additional steps in its commitment to maintain the strictest control standards as it relates to both financial reporting and the protection of sensitive data such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII). With the completion of the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) No. 16 Type II assessment and certification of compliance with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor program, Alert Logic delivers an even higher standard of excellence with regards to data security in the U.S. and internationally.
An independent public accounting firm has issued two Service Organization Control (SOC) reports in relation to Alert Logic’s Security-as-a-Service solutions for the period of April 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011. The attestation represents that Alert Logic has successfully completed an in-depth Service Organization Control (SOC) 1, Type II audit of its internal control over financial activities and a SOC 2 audit of controls as they relate to the Trust Principles of Security and Availability. The SOC 2 evaluation covered controls over Alert Logic’s Security-as-a-Service solutions and related processes, including the infrastructure residing at its primary data centers that supports those services.

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In today’s business world, data is the lifeblood of most organizations. As such, it has become a prime target for both external and internal threats. Data breaches made plenty of headlines in 2011 and don’t show any signs of slowing down. In fact, a recent report from Privacy Rights Clearinghouse found that there were 535 data breaches reported last year alone. Whether it is for a Fortune 500 business, a university or a midmarket company, the protection of sensitive information is not only important for daily business functions, but is now a security measure required by law. As organizations of all sizes – not just large enterprises – struggle to keep up with evolving security and compliance requirements, many are turning to identity and access management (IAM) solutions to meet their needs.
Unlike traditional IT security technologies, which focus on perimeter and end-point threats, IAM solutions focus on identity lifecycles and access controls, as well as provisioning, authentication, certification and other identity-based processes. Previously seen as a luxury only available to the largest of organizations, cloud computing has increased the accessibility of IAM solutions for businesses of all sizes at a time when they are needed most. In addition, cloud computing provides the opportunity for security vendors to bring mature IAM technology to smaller businesses via a new deployment model – without starting from scratch and losing years of successful development.

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