Cloud Computing Podcast Ep. 231

Dave: Welcome to the Cloud Computing Podcast, the original cloud computing podcast bringing you current cloud computing news, sound and practical advice, knowledgeable guests, and other information you’ll need to be successful in the emerging world of cloud computing.        

This is Ep. 231, and it’s Saturday January 19th, 2013, my name is Dave Linthicum, SOA, cloud computing SME, author, B list geek, CTO and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.     With me is my panel:

Chris Dailey, SOA and cloud computing expert, with Blue Mountain Labs.   

Good morning Chris.   

JP Morgenthal, SOA and cloud computing thought leader and author.    

Good morning JP.  

Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

2013 Events:

Discover how to create he best financial model for your cloud computing


Cloud Connect, April 2 through 5. Santa Clara, CA.
Modern Infrastructure, April 11, New York.
Interop, May 6 through 10, Las Vegas.

Schedule for the remainder of the year.    

News:

Dave:  The market for traditional servers is being enveloped by the cloud

Chris: Gartner: 30% of Companies to Monetize Big Data Assets by 2016

The big data is the new frontier of business. A global survey by Gartner estimates that by 2016, 30% of businesses driven by the financial costs of management and emerging opportunities, will monetize directly or indirectly their information assets through trade, barter or sale.

Gartner has been doing some good work in the big data arena, I’ve worked with some of their people recently and have been impressed.  Of course, it’s no surprise that companies are already monetizing their information assets.  We all remember that interesting story from Target about a year ago this time when a father was upset that Target was emailing his teenage daughter ads for pregnancy options.  He wrote a letter asking what they were trying to do - make his daughter interested in getting pregnant?  Behind the scenes, though, her shopping habits had been mined along with everyone else’s and she had been buying things that indicate pregnancy (dye free, scent free, along with certin hygeine products).  Then, in September, the father mailed another letter apologizing - “there were events going on in my household that I was unaware of”.  It’s big brother, it’s spooky, and it’s probably here to stay.

Dark data is undiscovered goldmines of data that a company may monetize, basically speaking.  Examples include insurance adjusters that are sitting on decades of reports, and can mine those for patterns that can improve the discovery of fraudulent claims, and the email systems of systems integrators who have 20 years of project emails in an archive - by mining those against the success of a project you can come up with indicators that in true big brother style might indicate when a current project is having trouble.

Final thought - I’ve been working with investment firms lately to help evaluate companies in a new way.  We apply a little figure called “Tobin’s q”, which basically is a ratio between how much an asset can be sold for and how much that asset costs to replace.  Here’s the thing - the norm for information assets is a Tobin’s q of 1.  Companies, however, that are informational product companies, have a Tobin’s q of 4-5.  Companies that are info-centric, which many could be that are not, have a Tobin’s q of 2-3.  Other indicators include just looking at roles - if you see a company hiring data scientists, big data specialists, or chief data officers, they might be someone to take a look at.

JP:Cloud app dev saves developers 1 hour of every 8
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9235718/Cloud_app_dev_saves_developers_1_hour_of_every_8?taxonomyId=158

Infoworld - Developers are finding that building applications in the cloud saves time, but concerns remain about security and uptime, according to a newly released study.

Results of the biannual Evans Data Cloud Development Survey, conducted in December and released earlier this month, found that cloud platforms reduce overall development time by an average of 11.6%. Cloud development streamlines the development process, improves tools procurement, and boosts collaboration, with developers more easily able to pass code off to team members, the survey of 400 developers found. "The bottom line is these data appear to show that time savings -- efficiency -- is one of the key motivators that is driving the adoption of the cloud among developers," said Ben Hanley, Evans senior analyst.

Outro:

Please check out my book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, available in print on Amazon.com, as well as on the Kindle.

Cloud Computing - Assessing the Risks

Make sure to catch my cloud computing blog on InfoWorld as well as GigaOM Pro.  Don’t forget about the CCPC LinkedIn group, Google Plus community, and fan page on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to go to www.bluemountainlabs.com for news and information on cloud computing, including links to this Podcast, and information on how to contact us directly.   

Also, there is a cloud computing podcast app, for both the iPhone and iPad.    It’s available on iTunes, as is this podcast.

Get our weekly updates via twitter: Dave is @DavidLinthicum, Chris is @CJDailey, JP is @JPMorgenthal.

So, until next time best of luck building your cloud computing solutions, we’ll be back in about 7 days.

Cloud Computing Podcast Ep. 228

Dave: Welcome to the Cloud Computing Podcast, your one stop for news, information, and advice on how to make your way through the emerging world of cloud computing.

This is Ep. 228, and it’s Friday December 14th, 2012, my name is Dave Linthicum, SOA, cloud computing SME, author, B list geek, CTO and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.   

With me is my special guest Brett Beaubouef: .  Brett is a delivery manager with Cardinal Point Solutions - an Oracle SI partner.  Brett has over 20 years experience with implementing Oracle ERPs across several deployment models including on-premise, hosted, and cloud.  Brett has also authored a book on maximizing your ERP investment and enjoys blogging on ERP trends & best practices.  Brett’s current focus has been on guiding on-premise ERP customers to the cloud.

Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

News Items for Discussion:

SAP Clings To A Dated Cloud Apps Strategy                    

Salesforce.com Wants Developers To Think Big                     |

Feds Pull Plug On 'One Stop' Cloud Portal

Gartner: Cystal Ball Gazing for 2013 Top Tech Trends


Outro:

Please check out my book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, available in print on Amazon.com, as well as on the Kindle.

Cloud Computing - Assessing the Risks

Make sure to catch my cloud computing blog on InfoWorld as well as GigaOM Pro.  Don’t forget about the CCPC LinkedIn group and fan page on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to go to www.bluemountainlabs.com for news and information on cloud computing, including links to this Podcast, and information on how to contact us directly.   

Also, there is a cloud computing podcast app, for both the iPhone and iPad.    It’s available on iTunes, as is this podcast.

Get our weekly updates via twitter: Dave is @DavidLinthicum, Chris is @CJDailey, JP is @JPMorgenthal.

So, until next time best of luck building your cloud computing solutions, we’ll be back in about 7 days.

Cloud Computing Podcast Ep. 227

Dave: Welcome to the Cloud Computing Podcast, your one stop for news, information, and advice on how to make your way through the emerging world of cloud computing.

This is Ep. 227, and it’s Friday December 14th, 2012, my name is Dave Linthicum, SOA, cloud computing SME, author, B list geek, CTO and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.   

With me is my special guest Mike Kavis:

Mike has served in numerous technical roles such as CTO, Chief Architect, and VP positions with over 25 years of experience in software development and architecture. Mike is a pioneer in cloud computing and led a team that built the world's first high speed transaction network in Amazon's public cloud. Mike is currently writing a book for Wiley Publishing called "Architecting the Cloud: Design Decisions for Cloud Computing Service Models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)" which is expected to be released in 2013. Mike also performs numerous consulting assignments including writing, speaking, and technology consulting. Mike is the former CTO of startup M-Dot Network which won the 2010 Amazon AWS Global Startup Challenge. M-Dot was acquired by Inmar in April of 2011.


Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

News Items for Discussion:

EMC follows VMware, rest of world into OpenStack

Power and dumb machines are the biggest challenges for big data

Gmail’s outage disrupting Chrome for some too

Outro:

Please check out my book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, available in print on Amazon.com, as well as on the Kindle.

Cloud Computing - Assessing the Risks

Make sure to catch my cloud computing blog on InfoWorld as well as GigaOM Pro.  Don’t forget about the CCPC LinkedIn group and fan page on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to go to www.bluemountainlabs.com for news and information on cloud computing, including links to this Podcast, and information on how to contact us directly.   

Also, there is a cloud computing podcast app, for both the iPhone and iPad.    It’s available on iTunes, as is this podcast.

Get our weekly updates via twitter: Dave is @DavidLinthicum, Chris is @CJDailey, JP is @JPMorgenthal.

So, until next time best of luck building your cloud computing solutions, we’ll be back in about 7 days.

Cloud Computing Podcast Ep. 226

Dave: Welcome to the Cloud Computing Podcast, your one stop for news, information, and advice on how to make your way through the emerging world of cloud computing.

This is Ep. 226, and it’s Saturday December 15th, 2012, my name is Dave Linthicum, SOA, cloud computing SME, author, B list geek, CTO and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.     With me is my panel:

Chris Dailey, SOA and cloud computing expert, with Blue Mountain Labs.   

Good morning Chris.   

JP Morgenthal, SOA and cloud computing thought leader and author.    

Good morning JP.  

Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

2013 Events:

Cloud Connect, April 2 through 5.   Santa Clara, CA.
Modern Infrastructure, April 11, New York.
Interop, May 6 through 10, Las Vegas.

Schedule for the remainder of the year.    

News:

Dave: Gartner: Amazon, HP cloud SLAs are 'practically useless'

Gartner analyst says cloud market leader AWS also has one of the worst SLAs, but HP's new offering is giving it a run for its money

By Brandon Butler | Network World

Amazon Web Services, which Gartner recently named a market leader in infrastructure as a service cloud computing, has the "dubious status of 'worst SLA (service level agreement) of any major cloud provider'" analyst Lydia Leong blogged today, but HP's newly available public cloud service could be even worse.

Chris: Service Governance Morphs into Cloud API Management
That’s a great segue into my topic this week: cloud API governance.  Written by Dave as a follow-on to a piece by Loraine Lawson.

So are old SOA Governance playbooks and plans good enough for cloud API management with a little updating?  Gartner wrote about this last year: 2011 Magic Quadrant for SOA Governance Technologies: “SOA governance in the cloud also overlaps consistently with API management …”  I disagree with some of the original quotes from Mashery’s CEO on SOA not being connected to business, but that has more to do with the fact that I made sure line of business managers had ownership over SOA contracts - it wasn’t a guarantee.  He’s right on the flipside that it’s more likely today to have business managers taking ownership over cloud APIs, hapless as they might be at it.

There are some perspectives here - internal SOA versus external SOA and how it compares to internal cloud APIs and external cloud APIs.  Actually, if you are registering consumers, which many cloud APIs require in order to meter, constrain, and prevent abuse - I think they really are just about the same.  Maybe with a SOA framework you have a big honking repository and registry that doesn’t survive to the cloud API management, but they would serve well in these use cases as well.  What’s in there?  Service contracts, do we call them cloud API contracts now?  A catalog of services = a catalog of cloud APIs, ok that works.

JP:

EMC, VMware Team To Woo Cloud Developers

http://www.informationweek.com/authors/Charles-Babcock

The initiative also gets its name from Pivotal Labs, acquired by EMC last May. The San Francisco firm provides software to manage the agile development process. If EMC can help developers build applications with modern techniques, it's in a better position to move out of its data storage role into one more oriented toward enterprise use of data.

Included will be a key piece of VMware's vCloud Suite called vFabric, which provides application data caching and deployment capabilities; also, the Spring lightweight Java development framework and VMware's open source Cloud Foundry development hosting service. They can be combined with the analytics capabilities of EMC's Greenplum open source data warehouse. At the same time, other parts of the VMware's vCloud Suite, such as vCloud Director for orchestrating pooled resources, remained off the agenda.

But it's not clear from a single blog posting what EMC and VMware have in mind. They issued only a vague statement about its ultimate goal: "We are experiencing a major change in the wide-scale move to cloud computing, which includes both infrastructural transformation and transformation of how applications will be built and used, based on cloud, mobility and big data," wrote Terry Anderson, VP of corporate global communications in comments posted to The Console Blog, an outlet for the VMware executive team.

Outro:

Please check out my book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, available in print on Amazon.com, as well as on the Kindle.

Cloud Computing - Assessing the Risks

Make sure to catch my cloud computing blog on InfoWorld as well as GigaOM Pro.  Don’t forget about the CCPC LinkedIn group, Google Plus community, and fan page on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to go to www.bluemountainlabs.com for news and information on cloud computing, including links to this Podcast, and information on how to contact us directly.   

Also, there is a cloud computing podcast app, for both the iPhone and iPad.    It’s available on iTunes, as is this podcast.

Get our weekly updates via twitter: Dave is @DavidLinthicum, Chris is @CJDailey, JP is @JPMorgenthal.

So, until next time best of luck building your cloud computing solutions, we’ll be back in about 7 days.

With me is my special guest N:

Staff writer

Network World, Inc.

       
Responsibilities: I cover cloud computing, social media, enterprise collaboration tools and general technology news.
Past experience: Sentinel & Enterprise (Staff Writer), Worcester Business Journal (Staff Writer, Senior Staff Writer, Editor of MetroWest495 Biz)
How to reach: Best to reach by email. Follow me on Twitter @BButlerNWW
Follow on Google+
Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.
       

• bbutler@nww.com

Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

News:

Dave:  Amazon launches workflow orchestration service

The AWS Data Pipeline can stream big data analysis jobs

By Joab Jackson | IDG News Service

Amazon CTO Werner Vogels introduced the technology at the company's Re:Invent conference, held this week in Las Vegas. The service is now available in limited beta preview, though Vogels did not say when it would be commercially available, nor what the price would be.
The service can "automate the movement and processing of any amount of data using data-driven workflows and built-in dependency checking," according to a blog post AWS issued that further explained the technology.

Amazon designed the service to automate the process of parsing large sets of data. For example, one pipeline can move log data from an AWS EC2 (Elastic Cloud Compute) instance to the AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service) once a day, and then, once a week, evoke an analysis job on the data on an AWS Elastic MapReduce cluster.

Brandon:  (Brandon, put one or two stories here to discuss during the Podcast).

Hi Dave,



-What's Amazon's play in the enterprise?
Barb Darrow of GigaOm covered this question before the conference and I hope to write a story on a similar topics this week.
Here's Barb's article: Amazon's dead serious about the enterprise cloud
http://gigaom.com/cloud/amazons-dead-serious-about-the-enterprise-cloud/
At the conference though, many of the attendees were small and medium sized businesses from what I saw. AWS has been making a number of announcements for the enterprise market recently though, between Glacier, Data Pipeline and it's RedShift news, the last two of which were announced at the show.
More on Redshift here from an article I wrote: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/112812-amazon-cloud-database-264609.html

-Cloud price wars
In the last month, Google and Amazon have each dropped the prices on their cloud computing services twice. Google did it twice in two weeks, in fact.
What's going on here?

Here are some stories covering the back and forth:
AWS drops prices, again - by me
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/110112-amazon-cloud-prices-263895.html

Google drops prices, rolls out new VM instances, by me
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/112612-google-cloud-264532.html

Amazon announced another price drop at the conference
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/112812-amazon-cloud-database-264609.html

In response, Google dropped its prices again, which Barb wrote about
http://gigaom.com/cloud/ok-this-is-getting-silly-google-cuts-storage-prices-again/


-And finally, a story I wrote a couple of weeks ago could be an interesting to discuss.
Gartner says cloud outages should be a bigger concern for enterprise users compared to security.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/111412-gartner-cloud-security-264268.html

News:

Dave: Amazon’s new data warehousing service takes aim at “old guard” IT giants

Well, now we know what one of Amazon’s “unbelievable” new services will be. It’s Redshift, a data warehousing service now in preview, which aims to siphon business from Oracle (Redshift, get it?), IBM and Teradata. The move shows that Amazon Web Services (AWS) hasn’t finished building higher-level services that compete not only with old-school IT vendors but with some of Amazon’s own software partners.

Redshift will cost roughly 1/10th of what old-school data warehouses would, Andy Jassy, SVP of Amazon Web Services (AWS) said Wednesday morning in his AWS:Reinvent keynote.

Chris: NFL to Use EHRs for Care Coordination, Injury Tracking

The National Football League is kicking off a league-wide effort to digitize health records. The NFL will use eClinicalWorks' electronic health record (EHR) platform to streamline coordination of care for players.  Announced Nov. 19, the multimillion dollar deal will allow NFL doctors and trainers to access health records and radiology images and share them with second-opinion physicians, said Girish Kumar Navani, CEO and co-founder of eClinicalWorks.  In addition to typical EHRs, which include information on patient medical conditions, digital records for the NFL will help doctors and trainers track players' rehab and physical therapy, according to Navani.

Coaches and trainers will get a "play-by-play" feed on players' conditions so they can track injuries.  "They're going to use mobile devices on the sidelines as well, so this makes it a very real experience, not just to be used at the clubs and at the practice facilities, but it will be used during game day,"

In addition, team doctors will be able to share player records with doctors using different EHR platforms through eClinicalWorks' P2P health information exchange, called Join the Network.

This is interesting from a cloud perspective for several reasons:

1 - Healthcare EHRs are pretty much all legacy technology, including eClinicalWorks.  There is a transformation going on right now where the vendors that are able to adopt cloud-like technology will come out in the lead, and eClinicalWorks is one of those companies that will most likely make it.  Really, today, it’s more of a managed service at best, there are no cloud-aware EHRs that scale out and are widely adopted today.  By the way - interesting sidenote, Navani mentions rehab which, along with Dentistry, is almost totally ignored by EHR vendors - very interested to see how they are managing that with eClinicalWorks.

2 - Moving toward an accountable care world, where doctors are paid for outcome instead of for service, this kind of adoption will increase.  At its heart is a lot of telemedicine type use cases.  Are you ready to have a nurse clinic at your place of work where you can consult your very own primary care provider or a specialist over video chat with specialized instrumentation that can pass on high resolution imagery of your injuries / concerns to them?  The technology exists - from Cisco it might be around $70,000 a pop but guess what - that’s how much the old virtual machine getups used to cost.  Today those virtual machine getups (biomechanical optical orientational monitors - the big ugly helmets) cost around $3k.  The day isn’t too far off where people can have these things in their homes.  Moreover, pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS are already in this business - it used to be if there wasn’t an urgent care clinic around you had to bite the bullet and pay for emergency room treatment.  Now you can just go to the local pharmacy and pay pennies on the dollar compared to what you have to when you have an urgent but non emergency issue.

3 - Patient information belongs to the patient, and creating health care records (encounters) more rapidly in places like work, the gym, on your iPhone while you’re jogging in the morning, further distances the data from a traditional healthcare system’s EHR.  Vendors are trying to make the patient health record meaningful by tethering it to these old dinosaur applications, however, the truth is that none of them are able to rapidly consume new data - the average for an EHR vendor today is 2 years from good idea to implementation.  So you see a nice heart monitor for your iPhone and your doctor would love the data, but it won’t be part of your health record as the legacy EHR vendor doesn’t have an inkling on how to create an enriched patient record, and that’s what this is all about - being able to enrich your patient record so that you can manage your wellness and we as a society can begin to change our behavior for the better.  I say begin because knowledge does not change behavior - as we all know every time we buy something at a fast food joint.  There is tech that helps with this as well - in the form of gamified apps that make it fun - but that’s another story.

JP:Private cloud does not bring full benefits of cloud computing, says AWS

Amazon Web Services, the biggest public cloud service provider, has hit out at private cloud providers, claiming private cloud users are not achieving all the benefits of cloud computing at its first user conference AWS re: Invent.

Andy Jassy, senior vice-president at Amazon Web Services (AWS), told the AWS re: Invent conference that the full benefits of cloud computing are achievable only on a truly cloud-based service

“Jassy is exaggerating public vs internal/private cloud. Many clients are seeing the benefits of internal/private cloud too,” said Kyle Hilgendorf, principal research analyst at Gartner.

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240173332/Private-cloud-does-not-bring-full-benefits-of-cloud-computing-says-AWS

Cloud Computing Podcast Ep. 223

Dave: Welcome to the Cloud Computing Podcast, your one stop for news, information, and advice on how to make your way through the emerging world of cloud computing.

This is Ep. 223, and it’s Friday November 16th, 2012, my name is Dave Linthicum, SOA, cloud computing SME, author, B list geek, CTO and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.     With me is my panel:

With me is my special guest Jeff Dickey,

   
With over 20 years’ experience in IT and entrepreneurship, Jeff is a tech visionary who guides the IT and cloud strategy of some of the world’s largest companies by keeping one eye pointed straight at ten years from now. His ongoing work with IT executives at these companies gives him rare insight into what’s working, what’s not, and how quickly someone’s going to solve it.

Jeff brings a depth and breadth of knowledge in the world of cloud infrastructure and IAAS.  He has expertise working with top providers of strategies and solutions, and is a consultant on the largest hybrid cloud in the world.  He is experienced in every silo of the IT world, and he’s built a reputation as a guy who forces the examination of all angles — over and over again. His girlfriend thinks he’s neurotic. His clients think he’s the best.

twitter @nextcast

Scale interview series: http://www.nextcast.net/scale/

Redapt’s Web site: http://www.redapt.com/cloud/

Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

News:

Dave:  Why Enterprise Software will hit a Wall When Moving to the Cloud

We have a crisis afoot in the world of cloud computing.  It’s not cloud outages that cause a reliability crisis.  It’s not looming security breaches.  It’s the fact that enterprise software providers will hit a wall when they move to cloud computing, and I’m pretty sure they don’t know it yet.

At issue is the fact that most enterprise software providers, including big CRM and ERP systems, won’t find an easy path to the cloud and their users will pay for it.  Here’s why, and how you can mediate your risks.

The core problem is around architectural limitations that are built into the core products, which are largely on-premise software systems that are decades old.  Unlike the larger cloud computing providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Rackspace, which are purpose-built around the model of a cloud, existing enterprise software is locked into older structures and architecture that will severely limit that software’s ability to support features that are expected in cloud-based technologies.

The heart of the problem is how traditional enterprise software deals with multi-tenancy and elastic scalability.

Jeff: So very true. In fact this is an issue that I see every day.  Currently infrastructure can outperform legacy and enterprise applications.
So how do we fix this?
I begin telling my customers that they cannot develop CLOUD applications unless they have an actual cloud infrastructure to develop on.
Our strategy at Redapt is to help our customers build small Dev environments on AWS or buy shipping them one of our Amazon anywhere cloud racks. This might sound counterintuitive as VAR but we can't help customers build out large-scale infastructures unless they have apps to drive the infrastructure.
The API is king in the cloud world and Enterprise vendors don't quite get it yet.  We also have companies like VMware enabling legacy apps or prolonging the use of these application.

I think we're going to see new players emerge in this space that compete with the big application vendors.  We're already seeing this with Database and data analytic.  It's a fine line to walk as a new cloud application vendor.  How do you strike balance between changing the world and being bought out?

Web 2.0 has figured it out how to scale their apps.  In fact, most companies that have started it in the last six years are in a much better place to adapt and scale.  But web 2.0 only represents a fraction of business.  

So how does the enterprise figure this out? How does the enterprise handle multi-tenancy and scale elastically when necessary?
We currently solve this with pods and purpose built cloud infrastructure.  We design the infrastructure to have pods of similar compute.  We will create a similar application compute pod or maybe a large instance compute pod.  We also create specific pods just for bursting out.  These are typically web apps that may or may not have access to the rest of the compute pods for security reasons.  Our pods are pre-integrated with RightScale to allow bursting to most public cloud providers so our customers can dynamically burst when and where they choose.
It's a super exiting time to be in this space. Unlike the Virtualization wave, cloud infrastructure is very mature all ready.  Yes there is still a long road ahead, but we have working cloud infrastructures today.  Virtualization was a long, difficult adoption path.  Cloud is almost too early for customers and software application.  It's the perfect time to dip the toes in and move your Dev environment to a cloud style infrastructure.  Like I said in the beginning, developers can't make cloud apps without an infrastructure that enables them to.


News article this week:
Amazon Web Services Blog: AWS in Action - Behind the Scenes of a Presidential Campaign


Outro:

Please check out my book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, available in print on Amazon.com, as well as on the Kindle.

Cloud Computing - Assessing the Risks

Make sure to catch my cloud computing blog on InfoWorld as well as GigaOM Pro.  Don’t forget about the CCPC LinkedIn group and fan page on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to go to www.bluemountainlabs.com for news and information on cloud computing, including links to this Podcast, and information on how to contact us directly.   

Also, there is a cloud computing podcast app, for both the iPhone and iPad.    It’s available on iTunes, as is this podcast.

Get our weekly updates via twitter: Dave is @DavidLinthicum, Chris is @CJDailey, JP is @JPMorgenthal.

So, until next time best of luck building your cloud computing solutions, we’ll be back in about 7 days.

Cloud Computing Podcast Ep. 222

Dave: Welcome to the Cloud Computing Podcast, your one stop for news, information, and advice on how to make your way through the emerging world of cloud computing.

This is Ep. 222, and it’s Saturday November 17th, 2012, my name is Dave Linthicum, SOA, cloud computing SME, author, B list geek, CTO and founder of Blue Mountain Labs.     With me is my panel:

Chris Dailey, SOA and cloud computing expert, with Blue Mountain Labs.   

Good morning Chris.   

JP Morgenthal, SOA and cloud computing thought leader and author.    

Good morning JP.  

Don’t forget, you can contact us at: podcast@bluemountainlabs.com.   

Also, please make sure to rate us on iTunes and like us on Facebook.   

Photo

News:

Dave: New Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region in Australia - EC2, DynamoDB, S3

It is time to expand the AWS footprint once again, with a new Region in Sydney, Australia. AWS customers in Australia can now enjoy fast, low-latency access to the suite of AWS infrastructure services.

The new Sydney Region supports the following AWS services:

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and related services including Elastic Block Storage, Virtual Private Cloud, VM Import, VM Export, Auto Scaling, and Elastic Load Balancing.
• Amazon Elastic Map Reduce (EMR).
• Amazon DynamoDB.
• Amazon SimpleDB.
• Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS).
• AWS CloudFormation.
• Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS).
• Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).
• Amazon CloudWatch.
• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3).
• AWS Storage Gateway.
• AWS Elastic Beanstalk.
• AWS CloudFront.
• Amazon Route 53.
• AWS Direct Connect.

Chris: Inside Microsoft’s R&D Labs
Interesting article by Natasha Lomas over at TechCrunch today - she digs into Microsoft’s R&D efforts - particularly their labs, which exist in Washington, California, NY, Massachusetts, 2 in Europe, Egypt, Israel, India, and China.

If Steve Wozniak is worried Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple, the root cause for that concern undoubtedly lies within Microsoft’s network of research labs. Dotted around the globe, from Redmond to India and Asia via the UK, these university-style research institutions are the quiet engines behind innovations such as the Kinect depth camera which translates human movements into computable gestures, and Xbox users’ movements into gameplay.

The labs are “the far seeing eyes of Microsoft,” says Andrew Blake, lab director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, giving the insider’s view. “Our job is to be a cauldron bubbling with ideas and the ideas are there to be plucked out at the right moment,”.

“It’s sort of intrinsically difficult to predict what’s going to be important,  so that’s why you have the cauldron bubbling, because let a thousand flowers bloom, let’s just see what happens. You genuinely don’t know what the outcomes are going to be.”

Ok, so R&D is the topic here, and how it fuels business outcomes . . . eventually.

Google’s mission is to “bring significant, practical benefits to our users, and to do so rapidly within a few years at most.”  That’s interesting, sounds like a product-oriented company interested in making money and raising earnings per share.  What Microsoft has done, whether or not we consider them to be innovative, is create a system of university-like think tanks that’s quite a bit more academic . . . until it’s not.

So user-centric driven R&D or trying to fix the world and do something cool - I guess the typical approach pays off immediately and is thus the preferred method to connect technology to business outcomes for today’s CTO to CEO relationships.  The latter, however, shifts business paradigms and disrupts tradition.  Food for thought on how this impacts “Cloud”.  What happens if sales guys basically lead the way versus scientists, and which has a better impact?  Dig in there a little more - is it a weakness or a strength to have your CTO reporting to marketing instead of business leadership?  I’ve seen this recently.

JP: Is Dell Confused about what it wants to be when it grows up?

Dell Boosts Cloud, Enterprise Efforts With Gale Purchase, New Biz Unit

http://www.eweek.com/cloud/dell-boosts-cloud-enterprise-efforts-with-gale-purchase-new-biz-unit/
The acquisition of Gale, a 4-year-old company, and the creation of the Enterprise Systems and Solutions group, announced Nov. 16, falls in-line with the acquisitions and internal moves Dell has made as it looks to build up its storage, networking and software capabilities to add to its server expertise.

In October, Dell unveiled its Active Infrastructure converged data center offering, which provides compute, storage, networking and management software in a single solution similar to what Cisco Systems—with its Unified Computing Systems (UCSes)—and other vendors sell.

Dell Ramps Up its Cloud - Todd Nielsen

I am anxious to talk to partners using Dell’s cloud and to find out more information on what profit margins and benefits will be offered for the channel. Despite the naysayers, and there are many in the channel, I still think we are looking at the beginning of the next big cloud provider.
There is no doubt though that they are playing catch-up to the likes of HP and IBM.

Established vendors like HP & IBM can play both service provider and private cloud provider because of the depth in their offerings and established customer bases. Dell’s attempt to go after both markets simultaneously could result in failing to lead in either.

Outro:

Please check out my book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in your Enterprise: A Step-by-Step Guide, available in print on Amazon.com, as well as on the Kindle.

Cloud Computing - Assessing the Risks

Make sure to catch my cloud computing blog on InfoWorld as well as GigaOM Pro.  Don’t forget about the CCPC LinkedIn group and fan page on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to go to www.bluemountainlabs.com for news and information on cloud computing, including links to this Podcast, and information on how to contact us directly.   

Also, there is a cloud computing podcast app, for both the iPhone and iPad.    It’s available on iTunes, as is this podcast.

Get our weekly updates via twitter: Dave is @DavidLinthicum, Chris is @CJDailey, JP is @JPMorgenthal.

So, until next time best of luck building your cloud computing solutions, we’ll be back in about 7 days.

News:

Dave:  CloudStack releases first code under Apache license

The latest advance of the CloudStack code -- version 4.0 -- improves support for software defined networking, natively integrates Amazon Web Service API compatibility and provides a framework for more features to be added into the code, says Chip Childers, a principal engineer with SunGard Availability Services's cloud division and a member of the CloudStack project management committee.

Chris: Global IT Spending, Cloud Computing & Top Growing Industries

Forbes has put together an analysis, combining other analysis from IDN and Gartner, in their Cloud Computing and Enterprise Software Forecast Update, 2012.  They’ve put together some useful information around the growth of cloud computing in certain industries.

Here are some highlights:

• Projected 81 percent increase in the global server market from 2011-2016 ($5.2-9.4B), fueled by public and private cloud computing, according to IDC’s Worldwide Enterprise Server Cloud Computing 2011–2015 Forecast.
• Projected 36 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate) in Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), cloud management & security devices, and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) markets from 2011-2016 ($7.6-35.5B), according to Gartner’s Forecast Analysis: Enterprise Infrastructure Software, Worldwide, 2011-2016, 3Q12 Update.
• Projected 19 percent CAGR in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud-based business application services from 2011-2016 ($13.4-32.2B), according to Gartner.

The 2011 to 2016 compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for verticals that will lead are this:

1. $84,074M – Banking & Securities
2. $70,683M – Communications, Media & Services
3. $63,589M – Manufacturing & Natural Resources
4. $34,611M – Insurance
5. $24,968M – Retail
6. $24,907M – Transportation

So, of course interesting to me is Healthcare isn’t even in the top six and its undergoing a reformation type event given that the industry skipped the last several server / service technology pushes.  Healthcare comes in seventh at $15,311 right behind Utilities ($18,756).  Maybe a portion of what I’m seeing in Healthcare is covered by Insurance, seeing as the Accountable Care Act is basically pushing Payers and Hospital Systems to become the same kind of company.

Any surprises here?  Not really.  Finance has been spending large ever since the players discovered that IT is the product.  Media companies will continue to spend large and we’re seeing a tremendous amount of investment around streaming capabilities - there’s no standard.  Think of how many copies of your show you need to keep in different formats if your serving it up on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes - companies are trying to decode and code in stream but it’s not producing viable models yet.

Manufacturing and natural resources is interesting, seeing a lot of push toward rapid prototyping and 3D printers, but I wouldn’t have guessed that for cloud and server based technology that the opportunity is so large (circa $63B).  Maybe someone out there can reach out to us and enlighten me.  The others aren’t as comparably large a CAGR but are still worth looking into for cloud opportunities.






JP: Cloud Computing As A Management By Objective (MBO)
http://infocus.emc.com/jp_morgenthal/cloud-computing-as-a-management-by-objective-mbo/

My most recent blog covers an interesting trend in IT, manager’s bonuses being tied to delivery of cloud computing for the business.  Yet, in many cases success is unbounded and not well-defined. What does this mean overall for the future of cloud computing? Will businesses have a bunch of underutilized private cloud environments? Is this MBO supposed to figure out public cloud services for the business? Why is the executive office tying rewards to a technical initiative without strong business goals?