Category Archives: Cloud Computing

When CompTIA completed its previous research into the cloud market, there was a sense that the initial stage of cloud adoption was complete. The vast majority of businesses claimed to be using cloud computing in one form or another, and discussions around cloud were turning towards architectural transformation rather than initial migrations. CompTIAs study found that both end users and channel firms had moved past uncertainty around cloud offerings and were embracing the concept as a primary model for building infrastructure and executing IT operations.

Analysis of the current market reveals a new aspect of the second stage in cloud adoption. Many of the macro trends seen before are still in place, but the pace of progress appears to have slowed. In some cases, it even appears to have taken a step backwards. What accounts for this phenomenon? Why does it seem like attitudes towards cloud have cooled, even though anecdotal evidence points to the topic being as hot as ever?

In a word: refinement. CompTIAs previous study noted that some degree of confusion was still present in the cloud market. Data around deployment models and vendor awareness suggested that cloud- washing had affected perceptions around true cloud solutions. At the time, this was not a major impediment. The study explained that ultimately, end users will choose the systems that closest meet their needs for function and cost. Overlooking individual characteristics may lead to a competitive disadvantage, but this is a long-term risk as many companies are still gaining familiarity with virtualization or hosted models.

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Trends In Cloud Computing - Business Solutions Magazine - Business Solutions Magazine

Forbes

Will Commodification Hurt Amazon's Cloud Computing Business? Forbes Will the profitability of AWS (Amazon Web Services) decrease over time (to near zero) because the service is basically a commodity? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better ... and more »

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Will Commodification Hurt Amazon's Cloud Computing Business? - Forbes

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Youre going to make mistakes. I tell my enterprise clients that every week.

However, there are mistakes and there are mistakes that are more like self-inflected wounds. Here are three of the dumbest mistakes Im now seeing enterprises make in the cloud efforts.

When helping clients plan their cloud efforts, I regularly hear, My data is sacred, so we dont want to put our data in the cloud. However, were paying too much for compute and datacenter space, so lets place that on some public cloud.

That is not a good move for a couple reasons. First, youre going to hit a great deal of latency. In fact, Ive never seen this kind of hybrid architecture work due to the lags. Second, security becomes way more difficult. In fact, you typically end up with more vulnerabilities.

Enterprises typically change their budgets around the use of public clouds, and publicly traded companies typically dont want to have any upticks in expenses even during transitions. For cloud migrations, they budget for a zero sum game, and to do that they get rid of the staff that looks after the legacy systemsbefore moving the workloads to the public clouds.

Thats a huge mistake. Typically, significant cloud migrations take a year or more. Youre going to need your legacy systems during that time to run the business. So you still need your legacy staff for a good while. Moreover, youre never going to completely get all your applications on the public cloud. Many applications should not move due to their economics, and others cant move due to some limitations in the technology. So you still need some of your legacy staff for the long term. Youll still save, but only over the longer run.

My, how the pendulum has swung! The people in enterprise IT who pushed back on the cloud just a few years ago are now aggressively embracing it. They see the writing on the wall.

But in a hype-driven frenzy, they are overstating the ROI that public cloud computing will bring. As a result, they are falling short in the eyes of the enterprises leadership.

The truth is that the mileage you get from cloud computing varies a great deal. Thats why I spend a great deal of time on the business case to tell enterprises exactly what they can expect. You have to do that, too.

David S. Linthicum is a consultant at Cloud Technology Partners and an internationally recognized industry expert and thought leader. Dave has authored 13 books on computing and also writes regularly for HPE Software's TechBeacon site.

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The 3 dumbest things enterprises do in the cloud - InfoWorld

By Clint Gilliam, Virtual CIO, GreenPages Technology Solutions

The topic of cloud computing currently ranks in the top-five of IT articles published for IT professionals. Daily we hear about the benefits of this new world, the range of exciting new services now available, and of course how to make the transition.

Even with the valuable insights provided by these articles, there is one critical aspect given too little attention or even overlooked entirely. Specifically, how to plan for a breakup.

If one accepts the old dictum that change is the only universal constant, then ask yourself why most people do not plan as carefully for unwinding a cloud / SaaS arrangement as we do in setting one up. The details of ending an arrangement can be tricky and not immediately self-evident.

These issues are beyond standard legal provisions for exit clauses, terms/conditions, and related matters. It deals with practicality and preparedness.

Take this as an example, imagine you use a SaaS system to implement secure e-mail for corresponding with people outside your organization. Even in the world of TLS, many still have a need for such services which provide mailbox-to-mailbox encryption for both e-mails and attachments.

Should you decide to terminate this service, you might be in for some unexpected challenges. If your service provider does not provide bulk decrypt and export tools, you could be in for a painful process.

In a previous role, I ran into this exact situation. We had to write custom scripts to go through each mailbox e-mail-by-email to unencrypt and export; it was slow and costly.

Even without terminating the service, data exporting tools can be useful as a course of normal business. Consider the situation when your organization is involved in litigation. As part of the legal Discovery process, you might have to produce e-mails for individuals covering specific subjects and dates. Should the list be significant or the filters complex, you can again run into unexpected workloads.

Another example is data offloading. Many services, AWS included, offer excellent tools for migration / uploading large volumes into their cloud services. In some cases, particularly with large datasets, such approaches are the only feasible or timely solution.

But what happens when you elect to move those datasets to another cloud provider? Dont assume the comprehensive set of options you have for bringing data into your providers cloud is symmetric. You might just find a long slow process to make a change.

In both examples, specific industry or regulatory requirements such as security, data location, and privacy can compound the challenge.

IT professionals have a lot of experience with managing proprietary solutions and data. The key is leveraging that knowledge when considering cloud-based solutions. Personally, I have found two methods for reducing these risks.

The first is to run some tabletop simulations on what happens in various scenarios, to develop and expand your punch list over time. Scenarios to consider might include migration, legal requests, disaster recovery or other matters specific to your industry.

My second approach is to network: it is a knowledge and experience multiplier thats second to none. Check with colleagues; get their advice and listen to their own experiences.

Of course, you dont know what you dont know, but thinking of the end, as well as the beginning, should put you in a better spot.

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CIOs and factors overlooked when changing your cloud - Cloud Tech

Box Inc. is accomplishing its current goal of generating cash from its cloud-software business, and Chief Executive Aaron Levie has plans for more changes down the road, including an artificial-intelligence effort.

After reporting fiscal first-quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon, Levie chatted with MarketWatch for about 10 minutes about the path Box BOX, +9.52% has traveled since its 2015 initial public offering, where the enterprise online-storage company goes from here, and how his sneaker game has changed. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MarketWatch: Since the IPO, Box has been able to maintain solid revenue growth, but the last two quarters you have generated positive free cash flow for the first time, which you had targeted. Is that the biggest change for the company financially since going public, and what else has been important so far?

Aaron Levie: I think thats a very key point. I would say that, overall, weve been building a cloud content-management platform for a little over a decade, and whats starting to happen is larger and larger enterprises are adopting Box as their core system of record for securing and managing and governing and organizing their corporate information. Were seeing customers basically do larger transactions with us, buying more seats of the service for their user base, and add on additional products like our Box governance capabilities and some of our advanced security technology.

So basically whats happening, were continuing to move more and more upmarket, were getting more efficient over time with our sales force, and were growing a larger base of customers, which obviously produces a larger recurring revenue base, which then drives more efficiency from an operational standpoint, and thus generating free cash flow. So I think whats happening is as you see deal sizes go up and transactions go up and our own internal productivity improve, youre seeing the economics of the business really kind of start to take hold. This is obviously what we had always been building into the business model, but it wasnt always as clear, like when we first went public, that this is what it was going to turn into. I think thats what is starting to happen within the numbers.

MW: A question provided by a person who tweets about Box even more than you, Alex Wilhelm from CrunchBase: How does positive free cash flow impact the business and how do you balance revenue growth with the focus on cash generation?

AL: It hasnt been any kind of significant change as much as just our own evolution as a company. Were now around 1,600 employees, we operate around the world, we have 74,000 customers, so theres a whole bunch of things that as we scale up as an organization not the least of which is going public where we have just become more operationally rigorous. So as were scaling up, it makes sense to ensure we have a sustainable business model that doesnt require outside capital, which is why the cash flow elements to the business are so incredibly important. But it hasnt restricted our growth, were just making sure that we execute as effectively as possible and that were driving that growth in as efficient of a way as possible. I think thats what youre starting to see show up in the business. I dont think were trading off that much from a top-line standpoint, but ultimately were building a much healthier organization and a much healthier business.

MW: Whats the next milestone beyond cash generation? Is actual GAAP profitability ahead? Youve discussed $1 billion in annual revenues, is there a target year for that? Are there other serious financial goals?

AL: Yeah, we are on a path to $1 billion in revenue over the next few years, thats probably the most significant next major medium-term milestone, so obviously this years financial metrics are going to be incredibly important to ensuring were on that path. We guided to more than $500 million in revenue this year, so the $1 billion mark is the next significant material milestone that we kind of have a flag in the ground on.

Dont miss: How artificial intelligence will affect your job

MW: When you went public, you talked a lot about how Box was capitalizing on the transition to cloud and mobile, and said that kind of major transformative change in tech happens every 10-15 years. Do you see another of those changes on the way?

AL: Yeah, I think the most significant technology were seeing is artificial intelligence. We think that the impact of AI within the enterprise is going to be enormous and were quite excited about some upcoming announcements we have that will at least point to where Box will be going in the space. I obviously cant reveal too much, but needless to say, we think that AI is going to be substantially powerful for the future of work, and we want to make sure were embedding intelligent experiences into everything we do and everything we build at Box.

MW: Any big changes in your sneaker game since the IPO? You using your cash to move up to some limited edition Yeezys or anything?

AL: No, getting pretty boring on the sneaker front, unfortunately. Im becoming a little more post-IPO in my sneaker choices. Still sneakers, but less, lets say, colorful.

Box shares have gained 35% in 2017, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.76% has gained 8%.

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Box CEO Aaron Levie: Artificial intelligence to revolutionize cloud computing - MarketWatch

Indranil Gupta, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, recalled the first time he offered a free Coursera online class on Cloud Computing Concepts in the spring of 2015. In the first class, Gupta said, Coursera registered a total of 179,000 enrollees from 198 countries.

That shows you how much interest there is, he said. It seems like every single country has some students who are interested.

Guptas assessment matches numerous reports that interest in cloud computing among students had skyrocketed, and courses in computer science departments throughout the nation were increasingly becoming commonplace. However, a recent report by Clutch, a Washington, D.C. based B2B and research firm, found that there were still concerns among universities and professors regarding the cost of teaching cloud computing. Riley Planko, a content developer at Clutch who authored the report, noted that while individual courses and certification programs were increasingly available, undergraduate and Masters programs were still developing.

For the cost, there was definitely optimism. Theres potential with regulation, and learning how to manage this, that its something that can be more more under control by the university, she said. It still a young field. Its only been around in its true power for a couple of years.

Higher education institutions have been interested in storing data on cloud servers for several years, and as the Clutch report indicates, cloud computing skills are in high demand by corporations, and increasingly, public institutions (LinkedIn found that knowledge in cloud computing was the most desirable skill in job applicants among employers, according to the report).

Kevin McDonald, the founder and managing director of GreyStaff Group, LLC, also teaches a cloud computing course in the Technology Management Masters program at Georgetown Universitys School of Continuing Studies. He said the sea change cloud computing brought to public and private industry was now benefitting individual startups. By eliminating the need for expensive server infrastructure and IT staff, new companies can significant cut their upfront costs, building their entire infrastructure in the cloud. It is an opportunity McDonald echoes in his course, with teams visualizing and building a phone app within a matter of weeks before presenting it to the class; some had even sought investors for their creations.

Its a total revolution under our feet, so as weve developed the program, weve tried to keep it in the real world, he said, marveling at the fact that students come up with an idea, and go through a startup and are able to present to a venture capitalist within six weeks.

Gupta agreed there was an ongoing transition amongst higher education institutions on how to offer cloud computing courses integrated in disciplines, instead of in isolation, and he detailed a Masters of Computer Science in Data Science currently offered by UIUC. The MCS-DS is an online program with a $19,200 tuition, offering students the ability to proceed at their own pace, and Guptas Coursera class in Cloud Computing Systems is integrated into the degree.

Gupta said that while there is always a period of transition where professors in a particular discipline may wonder whether a new facet of the discipline should be integrated or is merely temporal, he was optimistic about how computer science had quickly warmed to introducing cloud computing and big data into curricula.

Cloud computing as it is today is new, but many of the systems in cloud computing have been around for decades, he said. Many of the building blocks have been around for a long time, its just that its become more available and accessible to students.

Gupta also said the imposing costs of accessing cloud storage for student use could be alleviated by partnering with companies that offer free or reduced-price resources for students, citing that Amazon Web Services ran a program for several years that would offer $100 worth of credit for proposed research projects.

The company currently offers AWS Educate for institutions, educators and even individual students, touting access to company technology, training resources and open-source content for educational use. Much of UIUCs work, Gupta said, was done with Microsoft Azure due to a mutual partnership. He said students benefitted from the cloud space, while industries could see benefits once students enter the workforce.

Companies want students who are more familiar with the state of the technology, so they need as little training as possible when they join, he said. They know that all our students are smart; its whether they have the necessary skills or need extra training. If Microsoft has students use Microsoft Azure courses, theyre kind of already training them.

McDonald, who is also the author of Above The Clouds: Managing Risk In The World Of Cloud Computing, said government, after some lag time, was catching up to private industry in the adoption of cloud technology. The Federal Cloud First Initiative, instituted in 2010 by the Obama administration, had led to the closure of more than 3,000 data centers as of April 2016, with a goal of closing 5,203 federal data centers in total by 2019, almost half of the 2010 number.

He said cloud computing, like many burgeoning computer science fields, was increasingly viewed as interdisciplinary, asserting that while the School of Professional Studies valued the technical processes inherent in cloud computing, the increased accessibility of cloud storage for novice users lowered the complexity barrier for interested students.

Its gotten to that level of simplicity where we dont need to worry about that unless were turning out system engineers, he said. Thats always been the philosophy for this program since day one.

In addition to cost concerns, Pankos report found that some professors expressed concern with how to appropriately teach cloud computing in a rapidly-changing field, and also said the lack of necessary staff at universities that could be a hindrance.

Nevertheless, the report concluded that it would be worthwhile for colleges and universities to at least consider the topic for future implementation in their curricula.

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Cloud computing takes off as top new discipline on campus - Education Dive

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner and longtime tech analyst Mary Meeker released her annual Internet Trends Report Wednesday, and more than anything else, she pointed to a transformation of health thanks to big data and cloud computing.

The report, which is highly regarded in the tech community for its insights into trends and predictions, dedicated 31 pages to Healthcare @ The Digital Inflection Point and came up with some amazing stats about how technology and the Internet are transforming the sector.

At the top of the list, and perhaps the most remarkable number, is the way data is helping develop new medicines. Meeker said the digitization of medical data means that medical knowledge now doubles every 3.5 years versus doubling only every 50 years in 1950. Meeker added that the increased availability of health datais helping to accelerate clinical trials and encouraging collaboration with the scientific community as well.

That data accumulation, which Meeker describes as Digitally Native Health-Related Data Sets, comes from many sources, not only from medical establishments themselves but directly from consumers with the proliferation of wearable devices. According to her numbers, global wearable shipments hit 102 million in 2016, a figure five times higher than 2014, and a remarkable 25 percent of Americans now own a wearable device with more likely to buy in the future.

That data requires sharing, and some companies have earned more trust more than others in handling it. Google Inc. was trusted by 60 percent of those polled to handle health data, while Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronic Co. Ltd. were notfar behind at 56 percent and 54 percent, respectively. At the other end, consumers didnt trust Amazon.com Inc. and IBM Corp. nearly as much, with the companies only being trusted by 39 and 37 percent of people.

The surge in wearables has also been matched by a surge in health-related apps, with downloads hitting more than 1.2 billion in 2016. The types of apps were split across the health spectrum, with the most popular, fitness, sitting at 36 percent followed by disease and treatment at 24 percent and lifestyle and stress at 17 percent.

All the advances in healthcare technology wouldnt have been possible without growing cloud computing support. The cloud got its own section, with the report noting that Cloud Adoption = Reaching New Heights + Creating New Opportunities.

Although traditional data center spending still accounted for the majority of global information technology infrastructure spend in 2016, the type of spending is changing. Private and public cloud infrastructure accounted for 37 percent of total spending last year, versus 23 percent in 2013. Going forward, Meeker notes a survey that indicates that many enterprises are considering cloud adoption, with 57 percent of respondents saying they planned to run appson Amazon Web Services alone, with growing support for Microsofts Azure at 37 percent.

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Mary Meeker: Healthcare technology is booming thanks to cloud computing and wearables - SiliconANGLE (blog)

Will the profitability of AWS (Amazon Web Services) decrease over time (to near zero) because the service is basically a commodity? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Mathew Lodge, San Francisco tech executive, on Quora:

The premise of the question is flawed: Amazon Web Services is nothing like a commodity. I do expect that the profitability of AWS will decline at some point due to competitive intensity specifically from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform but that really isnt the same thing, and it isnt happening yet.

For over nineyears now theres been a narrative about AWS that says an IaaS cloud is just a convenient place where you can run some virtual machines on demand. The saying The cloud is just computers that belong to someone else embodies this idea. And because one rented virtual machine is much like another, the theory goes, a VM service like AWS is just a commodity like other fungible on-demand services such as electricity.

Peddlers of this narrative felt emboldened when AWS kept cutting VM prices in the days before we could see any financials about AWS. Surely this constant price erosion was evidence of the commodity nature of AWS?

There are two problems with this narrative:

From the outset of AWS, Amazon was building itself a new platform for building and deploying distributed applications. While it intended to eventually use this platform for Amazon.com, it fully intended to sell it to other people too. AWS was never spare capacity not being used by the retail site an enduring myth that just wont die[1].

The death blow to the commodity narrative should have happened when Amazon started breaking out AWS balance sheet in April 2015. Amazon revealed a breathtakingly profitable business with a balance sheet that looks totally unlike a commodity service, while also demonstrating a 49% growth rate that most multi-billion dollar businesses only ever get to dream about[2].

AWS EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is about 50%. For comparison, the best EBITDA Rackspace ever achieved as a hosting/cloud provider was 28%. So AWS is nearly twice as profitable as one of its most efficiently run public company predecessors in the hosting/cloud business. [I am using EBITDA because its the best way to compare profitability of capital-intensive businesses[3].]

Azure and Google Cloud Platform have incredibly competitive basic compute services. Googles compute service is vastly more flexible than AWS. Yet neither is badly denting AWS growth rate. Why? Because the code running inside of that VM needs to actually get stuff done, and AWS has a very broad and increasingly deep set of complementary services that software developers can tap into.

Angela Zhang () does a great job of explaining how well AWS does this, and how unlike a commodity AWS is, in her answer. Stan Hanks articulates The promise that means switching costs are high for the millions already using AWS, and for millions of new users who want not to screw things up by choosing the wrong cloud platform.

AWS and Microsoft are battling for control of the next great app platform.

Many people have been surprised that after years of brutally battling all-comers for server operating system revenue share with Windows Server, Microsoft has embraced Linux and done everything it can possibly do to encourage development of cloud apps on Linux on Azure.

Why the sudden charge of heart? Satya Nadella realized before many others that the battle for app developer mindshare was slipping away from the OS to the cloud and specifically the API of the cloud that it ran on. When your app dependencies are all on cloud services provided by an IaaS like AWS, then winning the OS battle doesnt win you much if they just go run the app on AWS.

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

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Will Amazon's Web Services Business Get Hurt by Cloud Computing Commodification? - HuffPost

New York Times

Movers: Amazon's Stock Price Hits $1000 New York Times Amazon is making itself indispensable on a number of fronts, most notably e-commerce and cloud computing. It is also expanding into areas like artificial intelligence and entertainment services. Our tech columnist recently wrote that of the big five ... Amazon@$1k on cloud unit business and global growthTimes of India Amazon stock tops $1000CNNMoney Amazon.com, Inc. - AMZN - Stock Price Today - ZacksZacks Investment Research all 486 news articles »

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Movers: Amazon's Stock Price Hits $1000 - New York Times

Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing will not run in the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes presented by NYRA Bets June 10 and will target later races this summer for 3-year-olds, trainer Chad Brown said May 28. Instead, Brown will send Cobra Farm's Federico Tesio Stakes winner Twisted Tom to the third jewel of the Triple Crown.

Twisted Tom, a Creative Cause gelding, worked five furlongs Sunday under exercise rider Peter Roman on the main track at Belmont Park in company with 4-year-old stakes winner Economic Model. The pair went together in 1:01.16, with the last quarter-mile going in :23 3/5, and galloped out to six furlongs in 1:13 4/5, according to NYRA clockers.

"Twisted Tom worked great," Brown said. "This horse has continued to improve all year, and more of the same today. It was a nice, strong work from him. [The Belmont is a] huge class test for this horse, but I love the way he's developed. I do think he can stay a mile and a half, I think the longer the better for him, so I'm anxious to get him out to that distance, but it'll be a tough field, a large field."

New York-bred Twisted Tom faced statebreds in his first four starts, graduating into stakes company in the March 18 Private Terms Stakes at Laurel Park. He returned April 22 to win the 1 1/8-mile Tesio at Laurel on a sloppy and sealed track.

"He appreciated the time after the win in the Tesio and has had a nice string of works since then, so the horse seems to be sitting on a new top again," Brown said.

Not nominated to the Triple Crown, Twisted Tom will require a $75,000 supplemental fee to run in the June 10 Belmont. Blood-Horse Staff

Gormley Breezes at Santa Anita; Decision on Belmont TBD

At Santa Anita Park on May 27, Jerry and Ann Moss' Gormley logged his second workout since a ninth-place finish in the May 6 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands. Trainer John Shirreffs emphasized that although the Belmont Stakes is under consideration, nothing is set in stone.

"I keep telling people, but it doesn't seem like they're listening," Shirreffs said with a laugh. "We'll see how he works and I'll talk with the owners. ... I think he worked well enough today. This work wouldn't eliminate him from the Belmont, anyway. We'll wait a little and see if he keeps improving."

Gormley covered six furlongs in 1:14 flat Saturday at Santa Anita under regular jockey Victor Espinoza. The Malibu Moon colt started about four lengths behind workmate and Shirreffs-trained stablemate Tiz Adore, moved alongside his target in the turn, and finished about five lengths ahead at the wire.

"That's what John wanted nothing crazy," Espinoza said. "Just a little maintenance for him. The idea was to track the other horse to keep me company for the first five-eighths and after that I was moving along."

If Gormley is entered in the Belmont, Espinoza said the Santa Anita Derby winner should not be hampered by the stretch out to 1 miles.

"There's no question about it. The distance is not going to be an issue for him," Espinoza said. "He's in good shape and he's bred to go long."

The prospective Belmont Stakes field as of May 28: Classic Empire, Epicharis, J Boys Echo, Lookin At Lee, Senior Investment, Tapwrit, Twisted Tomand True Timber. Likely to run: Meantime and Multiplier. Possible starters: Conquest Mo Money, Gormley, Hollywood Handsome, Irish War Cry, and Patch. Jeremy Balan

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Cloud Computing to Skip Belmont as Field Comes into Focus - America's Best Racing