Cloud Enablers

We had a brief discussion at one of the meetings recently. One member asked what VMware's relationship to Cloud Computing is. I think there was some agreement that virtualization is an enabler of CC, but we didn't get to the crux of how it is one. I've seen some discussions which put Cloud Computing at the intersection of a number of technological advances, but it seems to me that there are three technologies that get the nod as economic enablers of CC. Without these three, the financial numbers don't work out for putative CC providers, and therefore, for the industry.

Virtualization is certainly one economic enabler, allowing a single server to hold multiple instances of an application, and thereby drive utilization, multitenancy, and rapid re-provisioning in the datacenter.

A second economic enabler is SaaS. This allows centralized management of applications, reduces the cost and complexity of upgrades and release management, and allows new generations of end user devices to have access to heretofore inaccessible computing resources and functionalities.

Finally, there is the hardware component - blade computers. As blades became mainstream, datacenters were able to scale horizontally, but without the space, power, and cooling concerns that plagued large datacenters in the era of "server racks". Now, the same footprint in a datacenter can accomodate 4-16 times the number of compute engines, (each a potential virtualization platform) and each with an acquisition cost that averages 1/4 to 1/3 of the typical cost of a rack-based server of the previous generation.

With these three technologies in place, the idea of offering on-demand computing became economically viable as a business model. The financial value proposition to the end user could be realized at a substantial profit to the supplier.

Of course there are many more technologies that were needed, and continue to be needed, but these are enhancers, in my view, not necessarily enablers. Storage virtualization, management paradigms, security, secure multitenancy, etc. are all critical technologies, but they allow differentiation, value creation, and cost optimization. While their impact is partly economic, they enhance, not enable the business model.

Your comments welcome.

Jim

Chatter!!

Chatter is a new way for people to communicate in the company. It is considered Salesforce.com’s collaboration cloud. It allows an individual the opportunity to follow anyone in the company on any project. Everything is in one place, Chatter has the same collaboration features on Facebook or Twitter combined with the sharing and security rules of Salesforce. One of the coolest things about Chatter is the filters, you can follow just your team or you can follow your largest account, it is your call. Twitter is also integrated into this tool, when relevant accounts or topics get mentioned on Twitter it goes into the Chatter feed. Preview and comment on a newly posted project plan directly in the feed. It also allows you to follow back end applications such as HR. Custom apps that are developed on the force.com platform will update automatically to a live feed that filters into Chatter. You can follow everything that goes on inside of the company making sure no one is left out of the loop. With the force.com platform, you can track any data you want, such as orders, discounts, references, competitors... anything. This CRM app reflects your business in a real time feed which, allows developers using force.com to build a social app with just a few mouse clicks. Of course Chatter works with your iPhone and Blacberry. Real time insights that lead to better decisions that is what Chatter stands for!!

Interview with David Skyberg

On 3-30-2010 I talked with David Skyberg an alum of the CSIX Cloud Computing SIG. He is a technical product manager for Ping Identity. His job is to seek out what the market needs and where the market is going. He then delivers his ideas to the engineers that create the product for Ping Identity customers. Ping Idenity has over 125 SaaS customers and Federated Identity is his business. Federated Identity, in a non technical description, allows you to make a reservation for a flight and that same check in (Identity scan) would allow you to make a reservation for a hotel, allowing you to surf the internet with one ID scan. What Dave loves most about the position Ping Identity has in the Cloud is that it makes it viable and accessible. He mentioned to look out for SAML claims based integration of authorization and authentication of Federated Identity. He also mentioned claims based authentication by Microsoft leveraging WCF and WIF smart clients Integration with AZURE. One thing he expects to change is the adoption or migration away from OPENID. A big thanks to David Skyberg for making room in his busy schedule to participate in a short interview, CSIX Cloud Computing SIG wishes him the best at Ping Identity.

Cloud as Disruptive Technology

In 2008, Gartner identified Cloud Computing as one of top 10 most disruptive innovations through 2012. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=681107. In 2010, the prediction seems reasonable, and it may be possible at this point to suggest some of the winners and losers that may be created by the increasing adoption of Cloud Computing. While there is still a lot of water upstream of the bridge, let's consider a few examples:

Clear winners: Storage companies. The demand for storage, both in internal and external clouds continues to grow at a breakneck pace. Companies that supply storage arrays, and the software to provision, manage and protect the data they contain, should thrive in the Cloud.

SaaS Providers. As one of the enabling technologies in the Cloud, the companies who have mastered this approach will reap the benefits as demand for both custom and standardizes apps grows.

Managed Service Providers: Many former VARS are morphing into this type of service provider, and the value proposition for the SMB is real and compelling. A major shakeout is probably in the offing, but there will be a number of clear winners.

This is just a start - Virtualization providers, networking providers, and green technologies are also likely beneficiaries of the Cloud. What do you thnk?

Probable Losers: White Box Suppliers: The predominant paradigm has moved to virtualized blades for datacenter and cloud supplier. The concentration of demand - focused in larger datacenters and in the cloud suppliers themselves will likely move demand to the largest players in this market - the clone wars may be over.

Traditional hardware distributors: These players have adapted to changing conditions over many tech cycles and will need to do so again. Professional services and online software need to occupy their offerings.

System admins: One of the mantras of virtualization and SaaS is the reduced need for administrative resources. Going forward, there will be lower demand for the traditional sysadmin, although other skillsets may provide career options.

This is just a first look - please add your ideas.

A Snapshot of the Internet Marketing Industry

After attending SMX (Search Marketing Expo) West, it inspired me to delve further into the Internet Marketing Industry and this is what I have so far. In 2008 the Internet Marketing Industry was valued at $23.4 billion, according to engineworks.com. It is clear that the industry is growing and Google is proof of that. Larry Page and Sergey Brin share the number 11 spot on the Forbes 400 richest Americans list. Google AdWords brings in 97% of Google’s revenue, according to organicspam.com. Let’s take a closer look into their PPC madness. Google AdWords is a text based advertising strategy that is easily integrated into site search results, mobile webpages, feeds, videos, online games, and TV inventory. It has also found its way into social gaming sites such as Zynga, Playfish, and grab.com.

What does this mean? This gives companies the ability to target their advertising to the places customers live on the web, pretty exciting stuff. http://bit.ly/thegoogleeconomy According to this blog post Google has the clear majority of market share at 81%. As long as Google has 81% of the market they can taylor their Google AdWords revenue based on how much they promised they were going to report to Wall Street.

Yahoo! converted their company Overature to Yahoo! Search Marketing (SM), which as of right now doesn’t stand a chance to Google. Now for my thought, since I am not using these techniques or in the Industry for that matter, I see Google being the clear winner. Google Adwords is very well known and it is easy to start an account.

Marketing and the Cloud – II Using Social Media

Using social media as a marketing tool is growing rapidly in virtually all segments of the market today. Marketing teams dream of coming up with a strategy to engage large numbers of potential customers with compelling messaging – the YouTube video that “goes viral”; the Twitter superstar who attracts an instant following; or a Facebook page that creates “fan-demonium”. If you are looking for the magic formula here, please move on to the next post. However, I do think that there are three principles that are emerging, that, not surprisingly, echo some of the key learning from internet marketing, and even from good old-fashioned direct marketing, and that make success more likely.

First, let’s be clear. Social media marketing is not “free”, nor is it “easy”. The basic tenets of marketing still apply. Know your audience. Know what you want to say to them. Know what you want your audience to do next. And know what you want to do next. That said, here are three things to consider.

1) Content is king. What you say is important. If what you say is important to your audience, they will follow along. If it looks like a commercial, they will skip it. So, it is critical to create interesting, relevant, and timely content. The goal is to get potential customers to hear your message.

2) Follow-through is the name of the game. Most marketing teams know what to do with someone who responds to an ad, offer, or invitation. Social media contacts are no less important. Deciding how to reinforce the messages that attract fans and followers is one thing. But keeping the interest of the fans and followers is a time-intensive and thought-intensive process. Let them drift away at your peril.

3) Fans and followers don’t just happen. And, they are not permanent. From a business perspective, they follow because there’s something of value for them. Attracting them takes time, as does finding the right content to keep them around. Once you start the process, the worst thing you can do is let it get stale.

As always, comments are welcome, encouraged, solicited, and hoped for.

Shedding Light on the Cloud Phenomenon

The last few years in the technology sector have been in a perfect storm based on a weak economy, high unemployment and Cloud Computing. That’s right, Cloud Computing! Many business leaders concerned with the bottom line have been looking at the various aspects of Cloud Computing as a way to reduce headcount and therefore fattening the bottom line.

Cloud Computing in its various forms like Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) can reduce costs normally associated with setting up a company’s technology infrastructure base. The key area the business executives immediately draw attention too is the reduction or elimination of IT personnel and the associated savings saved by not investing in servers.
It is true, putting key services in the cloud can have an impact on head count but you will pay subscription fees for every service you sign up for. We’ll come back to subscription fees shortly. An area most companies forget to address as they move more services to the cloud or bring on additional staff is in the actual technology infrastructure needed to get everyone out to the cloud provider(s)! That’s right, we’re talking bandwidth, switching and routing. Go cheap on equipment and bandwidth you choke productivity and create problems you hadn’t expected.

Back to the cost savings by reducing headcount, licenses are less expensive than personnel but there is a breakeven point and it’s not the typical support person salary vs. licensed seats. The breakeven point will occur when your business needs to make a change and the current subscription/Service Level Agreement does not cover changes you want/need to make to your business. This becomes very evident when you have several different SaaS applications from different venders and you need to move data and/or expand a key application or add something else to your cloud infrastructure.

Cloud based computing can save dollars via headcount but has associated costs to purchase, maintain, expand and change and access. Understand that the cloud computing arena is still very young and still changing. In my opinion the market has not seen major fallout from merger and acquisition and the usual consolidation that has traditionally occurred in the technology sector.

So what does all this cloud stuff mean to the business owner or CEO? It means you can reduce or eliminate headcount but you will still have operational expenses that will need to be adjusted over time. The cloud is a good thing but seek out an expert if you don’t have one on site to help you navigate through the fiction so you don’t get rained on under your cloud.

By Ted Franklin

Cloud Computing meets Smarter Planet Initiative

Earlier this week, I attended an IEEE Cloud Computing meets IBM's Smarter Planet Initiative event put on by the Santa Clara Valley Chapter Computer Society. The speaker, Lennart Frantzell, PhD of the IBM Innovation Center, San Mateo, has the goal of pushing technology until computers replace mankind.

Cloud Computing Adds Value in Specific Ways

The core of Cloud Computing made up of
- virtual machines
- high capacity broadband
- open source SW
- smartphones
- app stores such as Amazon Web Services (AWS)

I liked how Lennart Frantzell tied in current trends of smartphones and social networking to the growth of cloud computing. Without demand for more bandwidth and vendor neutral infrastructure by web users, the challenge of cloud computing activity may have stayed in the enterprise domain. Social networking is driving the growth of cloud computing.

Cloud Computing Globalization and Globally Available Resources

Frantzell explained how IBM Innovation Centers play a role in expanding the global digital infrastructure. A behind the scenes innovator in converting the world from analog to digital. The demo of one hospital based Cloud Computing implementation looked a lot like Big Brother. Wearable tracking systems allow computers to determine how well a doctor sticks to a predetermined checklist. Medical practitioners are at risk for being beeped at for failing to wash their hands long enough. The level of remote monitoring gave me shivers. Other remote management, like reading energy meters, are less intrusive.

Lennart Frantzell also discussed the differences between private clouds, public clouds and hybrid clouds and how they interact. Hybrid and public clouds can act as storage or computing capacity backup or fail over. Hybrid and public clouds give enterprises the flexibility to have an internal private cloud as well immediate ability to absorb short term spike in need.

Three co-existing Cloud Computing delivery models

Post by devans00

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Abstract of Talk

As the world becomes more and more global, integrated and "flat", it is also facing an array of problems: a financial crisis, climate disruption, energy geopolitics, food supply hazards etc. This is coinciding with technological innovations such as the following developments that can assist in resolving these problems:

The world is becoming instrumented. There are a billion transistors per human, each one costing one ten millionth of a cent.

Cloud computing and mobile computing are changing how software is deployed and used throughout the world.

All things are becoming intelligent. Algorithms and powerful systems turn those mountains of data into decisions and actions that can make the world work better. Smarter.

As the world's leading globally integrated IT company, IBM is attempting to use modern IT technology to tackle many of the world's problems. In this presentation, Lennart Frantzell will talk about IBM's global smarter planet initiative in its quest to make the world a smarter place.

IBM presentations of their cloud computing offerings available on cloud homepage.

About the Speaker
Lennart Frantzell, PhD, is a technical consultant at the IBM Innovation Center, San Mateo. He works with IBM Business Partners and startup companies in the IBM smarter planet initiative. The IBM Innovation Centers is a world-wide network of IBM business partner centers that provide business- and technical support to help companies get started and deploy applications in the IBM smarter planet space.

Lennart Frantzell has expertise in Cloud Computing, IBM Industry Frameworks, IBM Tivoli systems management, WebSphere and other IBM middleware products. He has worked in artificial intelligence, object-oriented programming and computer games.

Marketing and the Cloud - I

Cloud Computing raises some interesting questions about marketing. How can/should cloud companies market their services? Does Cloud Computing change marketing? How? How do social media play into the marketing mix? How does a latter-day marketing organization use the cloud to drive business? Undoubtedly, there are many other questions, and perhaps this blog can surface and answer some of them as we go along.

We’ll pose the questions one at a time, create a stake in the ground around a potential answer, and look for some collective wisdom.

Let’s start with the broad question, “Does Cloud Computing change Marketing?” At its core, I think the answer is no. Marketing still has the same set of goals: building and sustaining a Brand; finding, attracting, and (perhaps) acquiring customers; understanding, selecting and conditioning target markets; listening to customers and prospects to inform both the brand and future offerings, and shortening the selling cycle for sales and partners.

However, what do change are the processes and tools that can be used to achieve those goals. These tend to fall into three broad categories:

1) Listening tools: In the past, it was difficult to understand how your brand was perceived, or how your product experience was rated, except through cumbersome, time-consuming, and not-very accurate surveys, or focus groups. Today, with a variety of social media tools, it’s possible to listen and respond to customer conversations about your company, and to leverage that knowledge directly into your company strategy.

2) Content Management: Using the Cloud as a repository for marketing tools (brochures, sales tools, presentations, etc.) facilitates communication with, and support for, sales teams, partners and even customers. Access can be managed, usage monitored, and actionable feedback collected from a broader audience than in the past.

3) Customer acquisition: Many potential customers are in the Cloud already – on social media, conducting searches, asking questions, and interacting with self-selected peer groups. The ability to find and listen to these conversations, to engage without disruption, and to attract potential users is fast becoming an art/skill that can set one competitor apart from the others.

In future posts, we’ll look to dissect each of these questions and categories a little more. Meanwhile, all flak, questions, comments, etc. are gratefully requested.

Jim Lee