Vogels claims seven essential technology transformations will create strong foundations for enterprises to adopt cloud computing. Vogels ideas were well supported by [...]]]> In the recent concluded Amazon Web Services Summit in New York, Dr Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon provided some insight highlighting how cloud computing particularly public cloud computing will transforms future business market.

Vogels claims seven essential technology transformations will create strong foundations for enterprises to adopt cloud computing. Vogels ideas were well supported by representatives of companies using Amazon cloud services.

Distributed Architecture Simpler with Cloud

Building distributed architecture with traditional infrastructure is a cumbersome process. Maintaining a single data center provides risk to business. If the systems fail, services running on them will also fail. IT administrators use highly distributed, fault-tolerant architectures to mitigate risks using running servers and networks located in geographically isolated data centers.

With cloud, Vogels said a reliable, distributed system “becomes relatively easy.” In Amazon’s case, their data centers are backed up in multiple places each with multiple availability zones to mitigate outage and risk like natural disasters. If one system fails, your service will still be available through Amazon API.

Vogels explained Amazon offers various distributed cloud services including DynamoDB NoSQL database service, Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), Simple Workflow Service (SWF), Simple Notification Service (SNS), Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Queue Service (SQS).

Robust Security in Cloud

Vogels linked most data centers as a castle with a moat to protect it. Vogels said, “As the castle starts growing and growing, as happens with most enterprises, it becomes much harder to protect what’s inside the castle.”

Cloud computing as an alternative provides right security model and offers an end-to-end security guarantee for each application and keep them distinct from one another.

Amazon is investing lots of money in cloud security and it is a number one priority for them as stated by Vogels. Amazon’s application level tools help customers to protect from external cloud threats.

On Demand Scaling in Cloud

On demand scaling of on-premises database cluster and applications require more planning, more server setup and configuration, tuning, and testing. This is also costly affair and takes time to architect and to scale quickly.

Distributed systems built on cloud technologies let you scale your applications quickly and on demand. Vogels said AWS NoSQL Database Cluster approach removes latency and eliminates database-as-an-application bottlenecks, so you could build bigger and scalable database cluster.

Supercomputing is Accessible Thanks to Cloud

Supercomputers and expensive and are limited to handful of elite enterprises who use them. They are mostly used only for the highest value jobs.

By using cloud, Amazon says AWS built world’s 42^nd fastest computer in the world and made it available and affordable for everyone.

Representative of Cycle Computing that uses Amazon cloud services highlights the power of supercomputing. Cycle Computing uses AWS supercomputing capacity to handle their business. The company built a 50,000 core supercomputer with AWS compute capacity to test potential cancer drugs for the pharmaceutical research firm Schrodinger. By using cloud services, the system delivered 12 years worth of calculations (to process on a single core) in three hours at an affordable cost of $4828.85 an hour.

Cloud Drives Innovation

Cloud lets you do experiments quickly and leverage the tremendous power cloud technologies. If the experiment doesn’t work, it will save you much time and money, as Vogels makes the solid point, “experiment often and fail early.”

Big Data with Big Clouds

Storing of massive volumes of data need huge data warehouse setup and are quite expensive to invest in server clusters to process the data.

But with the cloud, big data management is scalable, and organizing, analysis and visualization of data is also possible. Distributed cloud services like Amazon DynamoDB (NoSQL database), Amazon relational database service, Hadoop-based Elastic Map Reduce, Microsoft’s Azure, and offering from Google can quickly react to big data opportunities.

Mobile-Cloud Ecosystem

Building a successful mobile app is hard and may require rich media experience, multi device access, real time presence, integration with social networks, social graph based, rely on user generated content and recommendations, premium support, location aware and contain advertisements to appeal mobile users.

With a cloud mobile ecosystem, mobile apps developers can use tools like Simplegeo, Panda, Echo, Social Grid, Twilio, Animoto and others to build app quicker and easier and make them available through Amazon’s new marketplace.

Amazon CTO keynote signifies the many incredible possibilities of public cloud computing. Gartner recently identified five trends of cloud computing that is accelerating and seen as hope and challenge for many companies.

Apart from a very competitive price point, GoDaddy’s Cloud Solution is designed to give its customers a fast plug & [...]]]> GoDaddy recently announced its newest offering, Cloud Servers, and competes for the first time with companies like Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. (See an exclusive interview with GoDaddy CEO Warren Adelman below.)

Apart from a very competitive price point, GoDaddy’s Cloud Solution is designed to give its customers a fast plug & play installation, combines convenient control panels, a strong infrastructure and frequently used features, like firewalls and load balancers.

As the Internet expands and websites become more resource-intensive, many businesses are moving from traditional hosting to more advanced, scalable servers with flexible network options. Go Daddy Cloud Servers are designed for companies looking to take complete control of their Web hosting environment.

In an exclusive interview with CloudTimes (see below), Warren Adelman, CEO of GoDaddy said that “Cloud Server are a natural progression – offering shared hosting with ‘cloudy’ attributes like elasticity, offering virtual servers and dedicated servers. Our new product is the next piece in the hosting landscape – offering Infrastructure-as-a-Service with Cloud Servers that include load balancing, network configuration and easy spinning up and down of environments.”

In an initial test of the service, we have been quite impressed with its intuitive UI and quick setup.

Dashboard Screenshot

Machine Configuration

CEO Series Interview

Watch the exclusive interview with GoDaddy CEO, Warren Adelman, about the its new cloud computing offering. Warren was interviewed by Martin Tantow, Founder of CloudTimes, as part of the CloudTimes CEO Series.

“Cloud” is one of the most over used and least understood words in technology these days, so it’s little surprise that there’s so much confusion about its security.  Popular ideas, right or wrong, can gain traction and become accepted truths, so to provide [...]]]> By Dave Meizlik, VP of Marketing and Business Development, Dome9 Security

“Cloud” is one of the most over used and least understood words in technology these days, so it’s little surprise that there’s so much confusion about its security.  Popular ideas, right or wrong, can gain traction and become accepted truths, so to provide a little clarity we set out to test some of these theories, just like the popular show “Myth Busters,” here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The following are five myths of cloud security we busted, extrapolated from the study by the Ponemon Institute on cloud security, available at http://www.dome9.com/resources/ponemon-cloud-security-study.

Myth #1) My provider has my security covered

Thirty-nine percent of IT security professionals think their provider will let them know if/when their cloud server is hacked.  We call these folks wishful thinkers.  In fact, most providers have SLAs and monitor only for issues involving infrastructure availability, not server security.  Providers are responsible for the infrastructure, not how you use it.  As an example, think about your car – the manufacturer builds a safe and dependable vehicle, but it’s up to you to drive it defensively and follow the safety rules of the road.  The same is true in the cloud.

Myth #2) What I did then for security, works now in the cloud

If you think what you’ve done for years in your network can be replicated in the cloud…think again.  Remember that you don’t own the infrastructure and you can’t just walk down the hall to resolve a problem.  Forty-two percent of IT Security personnel admit that they wouldn’t know if their cloud server was hacked, and only 9% rate their cloud security as “excellent.”  The cloud is much more elastic than traditional IT, and if your security doesn’t scale as rapidly and efficiently, your cloud will outpace your security, and you will be in a world of trouble.  Fundamentally, as you re-architect you infrastructure for the cloud, you need to think about how you re-architect your security to match it.

Myth #3) We don’t use the cloud

Ask an IT security guy if his company is using cloud computing and he’s likely to say no, or only SaaS (software as-a-service) for CRM and a few other services.  But more likely than not, that’s not exactly the case.  Most cloud adoption is happening outside of IT, often without the knowledge of the IT team. Engineering, marketing, service, and support teams make up the majority of cloud adopters leveraging its power to build, service, and support customers without IT’s knowledge.  So, if you’re an IT security guy, best to query those business units to understand exactly what they’re doing, because although you may not be aware of your organization’s cloud use you’re likely still responsible for its security.

Myth #4) I know exactly what I’m doing when it comes to the cloud

Um, no you don’t.  But don’t feel bad – nobody really does.  The cloud is new and different, and comes in so many flavors that it’s virtually impossible for anyone to have an exact fix on things.  But start with the basic lines of defense like firewalling, encryption, and malware protection, and rethink their application.  Fifty-four percent of IT security personnel say they have no knowledge of the risks from open ports on cloud servers, yet 73% agree that the cloud server firewall is the first place to stop attacks and prevent exploits.  And of those who know, 61% say they have already or are very likely to have ports left open and exposed to hackers.

Myth #5) My strategic security vendors secure my cloud

No they don’t.  But don’t be mad – they’re still trying to figure it out too.  Most of the big security companies don’t really offer cloud security.  They may offer their security “in the cloud,” but few have anything to actually secure the cloud.  Cloud computing and SaaS are a new and rapidly evolving infrastructure, and the big security dogs are technology laggards.  Share your requirements with your big security vendors, but look to the littler, more nimble security companies for help now.  In the end, the mainstream security vendors will hear your plight and make some strategic plays, but it’ll be a while more and frankly you just can’t wait for their corporate development and engineering teams to catch up to their marketing, or their customers’ needs.

So, there you have it.  I hope debunking some of these common beliefs has not scared you off from further cloud adoption.  If you are concerned about cloud security, and you sure should be, instead of worrying about which myth might be correct and which might not…go with what you know.  You are responsible for your organization’s cloud security – not your cloud provider – so own it.  You know you are going to need new tools and solutions – the same old, same old is not going to work in the new world of cloud.  You might not know everything there is to know about the cloud, but you don’t need to at the beginning –basic defenses such as cloud server firewalls, data encryption and malware protection are a good start.  Finally, look to the companies built for the cloud for help.  Follow these simple truths, and ignore all the myths out there, and you’ll be on the right path.

Dave Meizlik, Vice President of Marketing & Business Development

Meizlik is a security veteran with more than a decade of experience advising some of the world’s largest enterprises, including more than half the Fortune 50. Formerly the head of product marketing and communications at Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN), he is a recognized expert in IT security, with specialization in cloud and information security. Meizlik holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California.

CloudTimes is proud to sponsor one of the key events in Cloud Computing and Big Data this year: Cloud Expo in New York, which now has been extended to focus specifically on Big Data.

A massive 93% of financial decision makers believe that Cloud Computing will be important to [...]]]> Cloud Expo & Big Data Expo

CloudTimes is proud to sponsor one of the key events in Cloud Computing and Big Data this year: Cloud Expo in New York, which now has been extended to focus specifically on Big Data.

A massive 93% of financial decision makers believe that Cloud Computing will be important to the success of their businesses over the next couple of years, according to research – and Big Data analytics is being called out by IDC as a “must have” competency in 2012 as the volume of digital content grows to 2.7 ZB‚ up 48% from 2011.

These two Enterprise IT game changers – Cloud Computing & Big Data – will be side by side at the Javits Center in New York City, June 11–14, 2012, at 10th International Cloud Expo in New York – introducing BigDataExpo!

So whether you are a large enterprise, a growing business, a government organization, or a service provider, Cloud Expo New York is THE place you need to be June 11-14…so you can continue to boost the use and provision of the cloud services that increasingly transforming IT and business alike, and so that you can discover the surest way to help yourself and your company obtain maximum value from your enterprise data.

CloudTimes readers get 20% off the ticket price. Use Code cloudtimesdiscount. Register now.

Golden Pass enter coupon code: cloudtimesdiscount [case sensitive] TOTAL SAVINGS $400

Expo Plus enter coupon code: cloudtimesexpo [case sensitive] TOTAL SAVINGS $60

Bootcamp + Expo Plus enter coupon code: cloudtimesexpoplusboot [case sensitive] TOTAL SAVINGS $130

Forecast 2012

Also don’t miss Forecast 2012, organized by the Open Data Center Alliance on June 12, also at the Javits Center in New York.

Forecast 2012 offers a unique opportunity to learn about the most critical issues shaping today’s cloud deployments and network with leading enterprise users of cloud computing, service providers, and industry solutions providers as they gather to dive deep into the latest developments across the cloud computing spectrum.

Register NOW and enjoy your CloudTimes special offer.

The Code for the discount is,  Members: PM-2012 / Non-Member: PNM-2012.

Contrary to a sea of white papers and hours of slick video clips, the point when your back is against the wall is NOT the time to start looking to “the cloud” to save you. Instead, you need to start with a controllable situation of your [...]]]> by Chris Uttenweiler, System Architect, DLT Solutions

Contrary to a sea of white papers and hours of slick video clips, the point when your back is against the wall is NOT the time to start looking to “the cloud” to save you. Instead, you need to start with a controllable situation of your own choosing that is as far from the fire, but as close to reality as possible.

The IT battlefield is littered with mangled reputations and dead careers from those who picked up the shiny new technology-of-the-month and went chasing windmills, while hordes of very real IT problems overpowered them in a cruel game of attrition. Cloud technologies can help even the odds in many situations; however they very rarely can go straight into production without a proper evaluation. After all, you’re not just playing with technology here, but with workflow & mindset as well.

Compared to other types of proof of concept (POC) work, the cost of giving the cloud a spin can be considerably cheaper than what you might be used to. In many cases, you can deploy redundant structures into the cloud and directly compare their performance & operational profiles in real-time with little unknown risk.

There are a number of things that you can do to make POC in the cloud more successful; however, some of them may be a little counter-intuitive:

1)     Private doesn’t mean easier or less embarrassing:  It seems logical that a private cloud floating in your own familiar data center should be easier to deploy, right? Think again. While there are a few different technologies that help you apply the basics of the Cloud methodology to the confederated mass of IT resources in your server room, most of them have tradeoffs in features and maturity when compared to going with a CSP. If you decide to go private first, see if you can’t get a small amount of capital to at least attempt a public cloud trial side-by-side at the same time. In many cases, you will be surprised at how much easier it is to get an environment up in a public cloud as opposed to building private cloud.

2)     Dynamic, not lethargic:  The cloud is a reactionary platform: It reacts to stimulus, almost like it is a living organism. If you take on an application that is mostly static, you will not exercise the design elements and operational tools/constructs that make the cloud any different than virtualization or co-location. In essence, you’re not going to learn that much, and may set yourself up for an unexpected future fall by allowing hubris to lead you to the conclusion that “this cloud stuff is easy.”

If you choose an application that is already in service or possibly in need of an overhaul, pick one that has a dynamic load/feature profile because you will get the best bang for your buck and, along the way, learn more about the cloud models and design patterns. Doing so will help you better understand the benefits of cloud including pay-as-you-go and just-in-time provisioning.

3)     Clouds are not fluffy and soft: Security is security, and you’d better pay close attention to how it works and how it doesn’t. In many ways, even though the name seems to imply that it’s less secure than previous methodologies, constructs in the cloud are often locked down a lot tighter than your local data center. You can quickly find yourself locked out of your hosts and, even worse, you may find yourself in situations where something should work but, very stubbornly, doesn’t. The abstraction of cloud services and their security controls can make parsing through a traditional, multi-layer firewall profile seem like child’s play.  Take no short cuts here – learn the security ins and outs of your particular CSP and put it to paper before you start your infrastructure modeling.

4)     ‘Apple’ is to ‘Orange’ as ‘Hand Grenade’ is to ‘Land Mine’: Anything you move to the cloud will need to be rationalized against its relationship (or in cloud speak, ‘affinity’) to other infrastructure or software systems that your business relies on. Understanding the type of systems and business processes that work with, feed or are fed by the systems you move into the cloud is vital to making sure that you don’t upset the eco-system that is your IT & business environment. Discover these affinities by using software tools or good old fashioned IT detective work, and then document it formally. Next, make sure that you’ve got it right by meeting with your application teams AND your business partners. Frame the interactions carefully: You are verifying the relationship between the systems, not asking for permission to move your target application. It’s a fine line to walk, so tread carefully. Here be Dragons – don’t get crispy.

Ideally, you should choose an application that is open and well understood. The number of hooks into other systems/processes matter less than the clarity of the relationships and your understanding of them.

5)     Hard now isn’t hard forever:  Some things that work really well in the cloud are so difficult in the private data center that they never cross the minds of the professionals who are considering their first cloud projects/POCs. Here are a couple places to start that you might not have considered:

Log Management – The biggest logistical problem with deploying a log management and analysis system is the storage aspect. It’s expensive to get off the ground and exponentially difficult to keep up with. You almost always pay for more storage than you need on day one, and by the next budget cycle you’ve got to find the funds to feed the beast that you’ve built, regardless of how useful the system is. This is where the pay-per-drink model of cloud storage is a real life saver. By coupling it with expandable compute capacity to handle unexpected spikes in traffic and deep analysis queries, you’ve now made it a lot easier to have a functional, healthy log management system that can scale with your needs – both up and down.

Information Assurance & Disaster Recover(DR)/Continuing Operations(COOP) – Everyone wants DR and strong data backup, but anyone that has ever been charged with designing  it understands that the costs of doing it right can be downright prohibitive. Now, the devil is in the details, but this is another big area where the cloud can save you a considerable amount of headache and money. There are quite a few solutions out there that allow you to take snapshots of your data or even virtual machines and place them into the cloud to pull back when needed. There are also complete infrastructure designs at your finger tips that could allow you to build out an inexpensive DR environment that 99% of the time is only sized to handle data synchronization. However, within 30 minutes of a disruptive failure of your primary systems, the same environment can be scaled up to full strength to run your business in the cloud while you pick up the pieces and rebuild your primary site.

At the end of your efforts, the scaling abilities of a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) can allow your successful POC to become a production-ready system in a few clicks of the mouse. If the outcome isn’t what you expected, the POC can be terminated just as easily. In either case, you absolutely must think through the interdependencies of your cloud-deployed application and make sure that you properly stress the system. Remember, you’re evaluating not only a technology, but a methodology.

Chris Uttenweiler is a System Architect with DLT Solutions. He is specializes in application, architecture, and migration/operational concerns for the DLT Cloud Advisory Group. Chris has a diverse background in IT Operations & Infrastructure Design and has supported a broad range of IT consumers ranging from the Federal Government to Digital Media companies.

Juniper knows that internet users will start looking past devices, gadgets or hardware. Focus will be on services and gadgets will have to “learn” how to [...]]]> The network solutions company, Juniper, is anticipating 60 percent growth in the next couple of years due to its cloud computing strategy and focus on telecommunications service providers.

Juniper knows that internet users will start looking past devices, gadgets or hardware. Focus will be on services and gadgets will have to “learn” how to interact with each other in order to allow users a seamless data experience.

The future of mobile business is not about mobile phones. It’s about the user and how they expect data services to serve them, regardless of where they are and what device they are using.

Smartphone Penetration is Growing

By the end of 2012, smartphone sales internationally will grow 25 percent. That is 472 million in 2011 to 630 million.

The key is in evolution of smartphones itself. Just a few years back, Blackberry was the only smartphone accepted in the corporate world. Now, iPhones and Androids have replaced most of Blackberry’s market share. Maravedis anticipates that over 50 percent of smartphones will be Android OS, 18 percent will be iPhone, 13 percent will be Windows and 12 percent will be Blackberry.

Mobile Phones as Data Silos

When Google introduced the Chromebook last year, one message was clear. Google wants us to rely on the cloud. Programs, files, applications and media are all browser based and in the cloud.

Chrome is not the only browser that synchs with the cloud for contacts, emails, bookmarks, and even games. However, all of these browsers still have to store user information on the hardware itself. Chrome OS does not. Everything is in the cloud which allows people to log in to any device and access all their files, applications, media, and information.

Mobile Phones as Apps Multiplier

Appcelerator and IDG determined that 84 percent of smartphone users are using cloud-based services. The majority of this is primarily pushed by popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Skype. These sites create mobile versions of their sites allowing users to log in and use the service seamlessly.

However, growth of apps supplements is coming fast. For example, there is an app that allows a user to access any data of file from his phone and send it through Dropbox with only a couple of clicks.

There is also an app that allows a user to access files on his desktop and other data through a mobile phone.

These apps are making carrying laptops unnecessary. Everything can now be put in the cloud and accessed through the phone.

Mobile Phone as Unifier of Fragmented Devices

Development of intelligent technologies such as HTML 5 is making it possible and easier for developers to create applications and services that operates across all platforms. It is also minimizing problems such as latency as it allows data caching. Unstable internet connection is becoming less of a problem. CND or Content Delivery Network is also allowing dynamic re-routing of traffic based on user location (read our review on CloudFare).

This development has motivated more people to own multiple devices. There’s the desktop in the office, laptop for personal use, tablet for external meetings, and now, a smartphone. The mobile phone seems the one poised to unify all devices. Desktops and laptops are most likely going to be left in the office or homes and tablets are still considered “not quite a laptop, not quite a phone”. Mobile phones are the ones that’s capable of doing everything personal computer can do.

So, What’s the Future

The future of mobile phones is in the clouds. It’s not about providers anymore. It’s not about the features of the phone. It will be about that mobile phones are becoming the primary computer of everyday’s life. Development should be made to allow for seamless integration with other devices and overcome latency limitations.

Like most [...]]]> Cloud Computing and Big Data have been the hope and challenge for many companies. Companies believe that the cloud holds all the answers to their data problems. The idea is to utilize and maximize the unlimited scalability of the public cloud for corporate needs resulting to more cost-efficient and more elastic solutions.

Like most technological solutions, this is easier said than done. There are still a lot of critical technical and strategic issues that must be addressed before companies should even think about migrating databases to the public cloud.

Challenge: Integration

The first issue is integration. When an entire company is running on a specific system and it decides to collect millions of data, this would also involve designing a new system that would systematically collect those data, accurately translate it, and sync it with the existing system.

Smaller companies or companies who are just starting to set up their system may have an easier time but only slightly. There are the bandwidth limitation issues and set-up cost.

Challenge: Security

The second one is even more critical – security. Private clouds, for obvious reasons, generally provide better security models. This is not to say there are no ways to protect your data in the public cloud but it certainly becomes more vulnerable.

Challenge: Relevance

The third one is the most critical, at least for business owners. That issue is relevance.

To this day, many cloud computing companies still market the technology. There is nothing wrong with it. It’s an impressive one and a true game changer. However, any kind of technology is useless unless it serves the purpose of businesses.

Cloud computing companies often say their product is for data-centric business. No business is data-centric, not in the minds of business owners, at least.

Businesses are all money-centric. They may call it ROI, revenue, earnings or they may even claim that they are all about customer satisfaction. One thing is for sure, none of them will continue to operate unless they are earning enough.

Big data and cloud computing, public or private, are two great concepts but these two must work to support what businesses are all about. How does moving to a public cloud, or a private cloud for that matter, help a business? What kind of data will be expected? How will the system covert this data to insights that can boost customer satisfaction, help customer acquisition, and increase sales? How will these technologies help me spot, pursue, and close business opportunities?

This is not to say big data and public clouds don’t go hand in hand or that these two don’t deserve the attention they are getting. It’s just to say that it is an architectural situation, there should always be a big plan.

When SaaS first emerged in the early 90s, businesses and consumers alike dreamed of a world where the capex for software no longer cost anywhere between a few thousand and up to several millions of dollars, and new releases made their purchase obsolete in a few [...]]]> Article written by Jason Currill, CEO of Ospero.

When SaaS first emerged in the early 90s, businesses and consumers alike dreamed of a world where the capex for software no longer cost anywhere between a few thousand and up to several millions of dollars, and new releases made their purchase obsolete in a few short months. SaaS promised to change the face of computing by offering web based platforms, with little setup and minimal upfront costs – however skip forward to 2012 and the market penetration of SaaS hasn’t reached anywhere near the levels predicted back then.

While SaaS adoption is increasing, with a recent Gartner report indicating that year on year growth is doubling, with an estimated 2011 value of $12.3 billion, the piece of the overall $267 billion software pie is still worryingly low.

In a 2001 report by the Software & Information Industry Association, they had this to say on SaaS and the future;

“The SaaS market now comprises about 2 percent of software application sales, but the figure is expected to climb significantly by 2003, according to Forrester Research. Almost all projections agree that the growth rate will run at around 100% a year for the next five years.”

2001 saw an estimated software revenue of $77 billion, meaning that the two percent mention for SaaS equates to $1.5 billion. If we scale those figures over the predicted 5 years – that would mean we should have seen a SaaS market value of nearly $50 billion by 2006. Now obviously this was not the case, and in hindsight, perhaps that figure was a little eager, however a 3% market share increase in a decade that has been defined by computing seems far too small.

So, what are the barriers to entry for SaaS, and why hasn’t the world moved to a cloud based software delivery model?

Data Security

“Security is the No. 1 reason preventing firms from moving to SaaS,” Forrester analyst Liz Herbert wrote in a recent report on software-as-a-service adoption.

This is without doubt the largest concern that is come up against when migrating a traditional local software installation to a cloud based platform. Working historically on the premise that one computer contains one IT system, managing and controlling security becomes a minimal task. Now apply that to the cloud, where one computer can contain many instances of individual, virtual machines – and if a computer is hacked, all those virtual machines suddenly become accessible to the hacker.

This alone can be enough to persuade many CTOs to hold off on moving to the cloud, but there are other considerations as well.

Data Protection

As any Organisation should testify – having a solid reliable backup is key. Whether it is a simple case of cloning your computer contents to an external hard drive or a rack mounted server, running RAID redundancy; if a local system’s backup fails, it is largely your responsibility if not actually your fault.

Now while this may sound like a scary prospect in itself – the cloud removes any control. You have no real understanding of how your data is being stored, and how many backups there are. If you look at the debacle encountered by Microsoft in 2010 over their Sidekick mobile sync servers, you can easily see how a simple mistake can cause the loss of millions of accounts and corresponding data.

Legal Compliance

In January 2012, the European Commission published a package of draft measures, including a Regulation on data protection aimed at fundamentally overhauling and harmonising the EU’s data protection regime. If passed in its current form, the regulations will introduce significant new compliance obligations for organisations, enhanced rights for individuals and tough new penalties for non-compliance.

This legal minefield is enough to cause any CTO to run for the hills, with the prospect of multimillion dollar penalties enforced, if legal regulations, specific to the country they operate in are not adhered to. This is one of the main reasons that may SaaS based vendors have not branched outside of the US, which accounts for 64% of the global SaaS market. 

Data Sovereignty

The fourth and final boundary encountered has been that of data sovereignty, that is knowing exactly where in the world your data is.

Taking the US as an example, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requires customers to keep sensitive data within the country. In virtualized systems, data and virtual machines can move dynamically from one country to another in response to load balancing needs and other factors. While this is a benefit for the end user, decreasing load times, whilst increasing reliability, whether in New York or London – for SaaS vendors, the headache of managing data location (and the aforementioned legal compliance can be too much to bare.

While this may sound like a grim report on the state of SaaS, the future is bright, as long as vendors embrace the perceived problems around them and adapt for a future in the Cloud. Ospero exists to help businesses make the move to the cloud and distribute globally.

Ospero’s distribution-as-a-service (DaaS) offering, helps business rollout global SaaS instances without vendors’ having to worry about legal compliance, latency issues and privacy headaches. Their service is helping CTOs and IT managers overcome the barriers to cloud entry and embrace SaaS.

Jason Currill is founder and CEO of Ospero, a global Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) company. The company, through a federated cloud strategy, has one of the largest ubiquitous, single vendor cloud platforms in the world. Before founding Ospero, Jason, a seasoned technology Executive with over 15 years international sales experience, worked with Cisco Systems, Business Objects (a SAP company) and NetSuite, in charge of both EMEA and NA territories. Prior to his career in IT, Jason worked on the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) for almost 10 years as a Futures Trader.

CloudFlare has been around for more than two years and the adaptation rate is impressive. They claim that more than 450 million users pass through CloudFlare and they want to continue growing. Essentially, their vision is to clean up the web. They want to get rid of spams and make the web faster.

The survey which was conducted by Logicworks and compiled and executed by GigaOm Pro, the research firm of GigaOm, reveals nearly 50 percent [...]]]> Logicworks, a leading provider of cloud computing and managed hosting service, and GigaOm, released the results of their recently completed survey, “Deploying Big Data 2012: Strategies for IT Departments.”

The survey which was conducted by Logicworks and compiled and executed by GigaOm Pro, the research firm of GigaOm, reveals nearly 50 percent of IT leaders and decision makers surveyed inclined that Business Intelligence (BI) projects fail as a result of lack of in-house expert who are able to apply findings and conclusions for strategic decision-making.

Lack of expertise to connect the dots and apply learning from the data, lack of business context to the data, legacy tools are not up to date to analyze large data and analysis of wrong data are some reasons for the failure of the BI projects.

Conducted in February 2012, the “Deploying Big Data 2012” survey was results of responses of 304 IT decision-makers from medium (500 to 999 employees) to large-size (1500+ employees) companies.

Most companies believe cloud computing and big data are the next big thing in the industry. But when it comes to implementation, almost 70 percent of decision makers prefer outside big data and cloud service provider such as Amazon, Rackspace, Logicworks, Microsoft, IBM etc. for their big data needs. Additionally, 61 percent companies are already using third party service provider for their big data business needs.

“Organizations are spending more time and money deploying and keeping big data architectures up and running than actually using the data to make better decisions,” said Kenneth Ziegler, Chief Executive Officer of Logicworks. “By leveraging specialized cloud environments, clients can reallocate these resources to monetize their big data investments.”

Security topped the lists of reason for companies who opted not to use a third party provider. Nearly 34 percent respondents believed outsourcing of their big data needs would be more expensive than to manage them in-house. Compliance regulations, more expansive WAN capacity, applications re-architecting are some more reasons why they prefer to stay in-house.

“Continued concerns over security when moving data to the cloud and issues around PCI, HIPPA and other compliance regulations are roadblocks for many companies when it comes to using cloud services,” said Jo Maitland, Research Director at GigaOM Pro and author of the report. “Enterprises must seek out a cloud provider with a proven track record of meeting these complex regulations.”

“Deploying Big Data 2012” result shows that successful implementation and adopting measures to overcome these hurdles will create long term benefits and competitive advantage to organizations.

Logicworks and GigaOM recommend some action plans for IT decision makers. Hiring skilled data scientists, training to the current staffs, innovating cost effective business models, products and services, and more knowledge on SaaS BI tools will help businesses to standardize a process for data analytics and help them better meet their requirements.