All posts tagged Cloud

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After looking back to 2010 what will 2011 see? Here’s my take:

1. Cloud First purchasing policy pervades
   I see a mind shift when people are looking at procuring technolog y- they’re going to look “Cloud First” before considering other solutions, even if they’ve got existing investments on-premise.  We’ve seen some of the most cautious organisations – even the US Government - doing this.
2. On-Premise needs Integration / On-Ramps
   As organisations go “Cloud First”, they’ll need to integrate Cloud into their existing IT with Cloud Integration or “On-ramp” technologies. These are technologies that enable companies to use the Cloud in conjunction with their existing systems. Despite being considered decidedly ‘un-sexy’ by the clouderati, the majority of organisations will enable their Cloud journeys with On-ramp technologies. Mimecast is a great example of an On-ramp technology, leveraging the best of the Cloud with on-prem systems. The word I’m really trying to avoid using here is hybrid, which has negative connotations for me – but yes On-ramp could mean hybrid.  But that’s another conversation entirely.
3. Continued Consumerisation of Enterprise Software
   Cloud is putting IT departments under enormous pressure.  As a result of the confluence of Social, Mobile and Cloud, staff are getting used to having excellent tools at home and want to use them in their workplace – so called Sunday night / Monday Morning expectations. IT departments need to satisfy these expectations using corporate IT, or risk the scenario of users making their own credit card purchases, creating compliance nightmares (Cloud Piracy- remember wireless?). “Simple, easy-to-build, easy-to-learn, easy-to-use consumer-style apps will increasingly be used to power enterprises,” said Jeff Clavier.  And the proliferation of Tablets beyond iPad – Android, BlackBerry and Windows – will accelerate it. That means change, which is scary- but surely much less scary than if users do it themselves.
4. IT’s shift towards Business Transformation accelerates
   To make that happen, IT folk need to realise their future role is in the use of technology to enable Business Transformation, rather than being technologists for the sake of it. James Staten from Forrester articulated it best:“And The Empowered Shall Lead Us. In Forrester’s new book Empowered, we profile a new type of IT leader, and they don’t work for you. They work for the business, not I&O, and are leveraging technologies at the edge of the business to change relationships, improve customer support, design new products, and deliver value in ways you could not have foreseen. And, despite your “better judgment” you need to help them do this. Your frontline employees are the ones who see the change in the market first and are best positioned to guide the business on how to adjust. They can turn — and are turning — to cloud services to make this change happen but don’t always know how to leverage it best. This is where you must engage.”

   And that’s why IT doesn’t have to fear for it’s job in the Cloud. It’ll just be different and we need to embrace the change.

5. Lock-in fears subside
   Vendors need to continue to tackle the perceived lock-in generated by the Cloud. The reality is that the lock-in isn’t nearly as bad as people think. People have been using proprietary standards for years.  The only difference now is that it’s in someone else’s datacentre and they can’t prod it. Portability of PaaS will remain critical, and although this has seen significant improvements, there may be more to come.
6. The Rise of the Plaforms
   We’ve long been saying that PaaS is the future of apps. But PaaS requires re-development, and that takes time to do, as well as confidence in the future of PaaS platforms (as lock-in is currently a problem). The more lock-in fears subside, the greater uptake of PaaS we’ll see. Why would you want to run your own stack if you don’t have to?
7. Standards come to the party
   In certain areas – especially Compliance – 2011 will be the year for standards. When people voice objections to Cloud, the number one objection is always Security. Security is a function of Compliance. It is imperative if Public Cloud is to attract “serious” buyers such as Governments and major corporates that standards in critical areas develop so that buyers can have certainty over what they’re procuring. Christopher Hoff summed it up:“Security is not the biggest barrier to companies moving to applications, information and services delivered using cloud computing.

   What is?

   Compliance.

   … That means what one gives up in terms of direct operational control, one must gain back in terms of visibility and transparency”

   That’s the only way you can measure the security or compliance of a Cloud solution. This has been massively challenging for Cloud providers to date, because of the lack of standards and unwillingness to divulge too much IP.

8. Rise of Cloud Exchanges or Brokerages
   As we see growth in providers of IaaS we’ll see more brokerages or exchanges, where people trade computing capacity according to trading principles of supply and demand. This will enable compute capacity to be utilised more efficiently, thereby driving down the cost of Cloud compute resources. Incumbent vendors don’t really want this to happen because they don’t want to be competing on price, but this will force them to innovate at an increasing rate to differentiate against the commodity providers. Upstarts in the Cloud sector like Telcos and Hosters will be keen to dip their toe in this market, since they have both customers and infrastructure at their disposal.
9. Customers will get wise to “Cloudwashing”
   In 2010, a lot of vendors jumped on the Cloud bandwagon with the same products as before, masquerading as ‘Cloud’.  I heard a great story about vendors jumping on the bandwagon:

   “At the start of the millennium, EMC launched the concept of Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) to embrace the idea of caring for data management from cradle to grave across multiple media and tiers. Within weeks, a rush of vendors issued press releases about their latest ILM offerings. In many cases, these were the exact same products as before but with a rebranding to capitalize on the fad of the moment.”

   That’s certainly happened again with Cloud. I predict that 2011 will be the year when Customers “get” Cloud and therefore get what’s not. This will be strongly helped by those vendors previously guilty of Cloudwashing who have used the intervening period to build or buy “true” Cloud technology.

What are your predictions for Cloud in 2011?

Forget what all the other folks are telling you. Here’s what’s really going to happen in the technology industry in 2011:

– In January, Facebook will announce the death of the telephone in the era of social networking. “Why would anyone need a telephone when they can simply update their facebook status?” asked Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, pointing out that he is now worth more than any phone company in the world.

– In February, after describing cloud computing as “water vapor” in 2009 and then announcing a hardware-inclusive “cloud-in-a-box” offering in 2010, Larry Ellison will announce Oracle’s latest vision, Orbital Cloud (TM). “If you’re going to outsource your IT,” he’ll tell a crowd of skeptical journalists, “you might as well get it off the planet, where it’s safe from earthquakes, hurricanes, and open source advocates. When people talk about cloud computing, they really mean clouds of diffuse interplanetary gases.” LISP programmers worldwide launch a protest movement under the slogan, “In space no one can hack in Scheme.”

– In March, in further pursuit of the perfect user interface, Apple will announce that it is disabling all iPhone apps not personally approved by Steve Jobs. “We expect our users to be grateful,” said an Apple spokesman, “for our protecting them against accidentally seeing anything ugly, ever.”

– In April, Apple will admit that they can no longer produce the more-beautiful iPhones fast enough to ship them to the US, because they’re all being purchased in Asia for well over list price. To address this shortage, Apple will double the list price globally. Consumers will promptly queue overnight at Apple stores in hope of paying the new higher prices.

– In May, Facebook will introduce its own “revolutionary” IP-based telephony service. “In the future,” says Mark Zuckerberg, “any two people in the world will be able to speak to each other, via audio, in real time, as long as they have Facebook accounts. This changes everything.”

– In June, after years of struggle to live up to the corporate slogan, “Don’t Be Evil,” CEO Eric Schmidt will snap during negotiations with the Chinese government and begin screaming political slogans at Chinese President Hu Jintao. The YouTube publication of an unfortunate video clip of this incident — which, to add insult to injury, was taken with an iphone — will result in Google’s banishment from China, “until more mature leadership is established.”

– In July, Google will announce that Schmidt is taking an indefinite “medical leave” and that it has arranged for former lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be released from prison to serve as interim CEO. In his first press conference, Abramoff will say that in the future Google will be more sensitive to cultural differences, noting that one culture’s “free speech” is another’s “treason.” China will promptly reopen its doors to Google, welcoming its “return to ethical behavior.”

– In August, Apple will wow everyone yet again with the introduction of the new “Apple iRose,” red-tinted digital glasses that both correct your vision and make everything and everyone look more beautiful. By the end of the month, Apple’s market capitalization will exceed the rest of the NASDAQ combined.

– In September, the Obama administration will announce the seventh version of its final decision about net neutrality. This policy will say that Internet traffic carriers must provide non-discriminatory access over wired lines, but may discriminate in access to wireless traffic, unless the content of the traffic is a discussion of whether or not there should be any difference between wired and wireless traffic, in which case they can only discriminate over wired lines. Exceptions will be made for public interest organizations, heavy political donors, and certain phases of the moon. Republicans announce that they intend to oppose the policy vigorously, just as soon as they can figure out what it says.

– In October, Larry Ellison will announce the cancellation of the Orbital Cloud program due to poor server performance, and will fire dozens of incompetent engineers for limiting transmission speeds to 186,000 miles per second. Claiming that the term ‘cloud computing’ was a typographical error all along, Ellison will introduce a new line of high-decibel servers he says will “fulfill the long-awaited vision of Loud Computing.”

– In November, Apple will introduce the revolutionary new Apple iWeight, a perfectly smooth white plastic sphere with a flat bottom and a weight ideally calibrated to hold papers down. “Our research tells us that customers want beautiful things,” says Steve Jobs, “and that they don’t really care what they do, or if they do anything at all.” Violence breaks out in front of those Apple stores that don’t have enough room for long lines to queue. Apple’s market capitalization surpasses the gross domestic product of the European Union. Jobs offers to pay off the US national debt if the government will replace all its Windows machines with Macs. As the Obama administration considers this offer, the Republican leadership announces that whatever the administration decides, it will oppose it.

– In December, Larry Ellison, saying “we’ve finally got it right this time,” will drop broad hints about the still-secret upcoming Oracle Clown Computing system. Puzzled observers given a sneak peak will be unable to identify any differences from traditional Oracle offerings.

– And finally, by January 2012, no one will remember a single one of the many predictions made a year earlier of what would happen in the technology industry in 2011.