New types of clouds - quasi-private?

It seems that in order to address the data residency requirements, that public cloud providers are increasingly starting to offer their cloud services in local regions, even through local hosting providers instead of own data centers. There is an interesting blog post by Terry Wolozsyn about this trend at the Cloud Computing at Ulitzer site.

In response to these data residency requirements, Oracle made a very interesting announcement today - they will be offering their CRM on-demand in Australia through a local hosting provider in Sydney.  What this means for Oracle customers is that they can adopt Oracle's CRM cloud solution, while addressing their data residency requirements - the data never leaves the shores of Australia. 

This somehow appears to disconnect the claimed benefits of public cloud computing - and has in fact been termed as "quasi-private clouds" - as somewhere in between public and private clouds. It will be interesting to see if this will continue as a trend in the future.

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Telcos are strengthening their Cloud position!

The French telecom service provider Orange has teamed with VMware, EMC and Cisco to create a "ultimate" cloud proposition for enterprise customers, as detailed in this MarketWatch new story. This initiative, called "Flexible 4 Business" is targeted directly at enterprises that require high reliability and quality of service levels. In fact, Orange will offer SLAs for the service, promising customers certain quality levels:

As the service provider in all Flexible 4 Business engagements, Orange Business Services will commit to tiered end-to-end service level agreements (SLAs).

As I pointed out in one of my posts, I believe telcos are in a strong position when it comes to delivering cloud services to enterprises by providing SLAs and managed network services.

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Microsoft urges changes in privacy regulations

It's interesting to note that Microsoft is urging an overhaul of U.S. laws for electronic privacy in order to help new cloud computing services, according to a Bloomberg new story. As Microsoft has announced that the Cloud is a central part of their future strategy, the company has realized that the current legislation is a barrier for future Cloud implementation. 

As more data are stored on remote servers and away from personal computers, a 1986 digital law needs to be updated to give consumers confidence their information is protected, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington.

According to Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel:

Microsoft supports changes that will ensure that users do not suffer a decrease in their privacy protections when they move data from their desktop PCs to the cloud,” Smith said in his prepared comments

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Cloud computing will not replace enterprise IT

As usual, I completely agree with David's Linthicum view that cloud computing will not replace enterprise computing. From his blog:

Cloud computing does not replace enterprise architecture. It does not provide "infinite scalability," it does not "cost pennies a day," you can't "get there in an hour" -- it won't iron my shirts either. It's exciting technology that holds the promise of providing more effective, efficient, and elastic computing platforms, but we're taking this hype to silly levels these days, and my core concern is that the cloud may not be able to meet these overblown expectations.

Although more and more companies will prefer to migrate services into the cloud and only pay-for-what-you-use, it will not be applicable for every situation, especially when it comes to critical data. Regulated data, like HIPPA and financial data, will probably not be sent to the cloud - at least to not a public cloud provider. However, as time passes, more and more vertical cloud providers will emerge that can address specific needs of individual companies. 

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Cloud computing integration

Appirio is providing valuable tools for cloud integration and interoperability with its new cross-cloud solutions that enables enterprise users to integrate SaaS services/applications from multiple cloud providers, e.g. Salesforce, Google Apps and others, into a homogeneous and contextual interface. This can definitely simplify the life for enterprises that are already dealing with the increasingly complex ecosystems of various APIs and platforms from various cloud vendor. I think this type of proposition, like Appirio's cross-cloud solution, certainly is an interesting step forward in corroborating the vision put forth by a number "cloud broker" proponents. Here is an interesting video for the Appirio CloudWorks:

Several organizations, like the Deltacloud and the Cloud Forum are currently developing and promoting a single API that encompasses multiple APIs from different cloud providers and frameworks that enable cloud interoperability.

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Jurisdiction and data privacy in the Cloud

In one of my earlier blog post, I discussed issues regarding data privacy and different jurisdictions in the cloud. Due to the very nature of cloud computing, there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding these issues and dissimilar legislation increases the challenges at hand. The European Union, for example, has certain strict regulations that forbids the transfer of personal data out of its jurisdiction which is considered by some to hamper the cloud computing evolution in EU - especially when it's compared to what's happening in the US, as discussed in an interesting article in the New York Times:

“There are restrictions on cloud computing in Europe,” said Bob Lindsay, privacy director in Europe for Hewlett-Packard, which makes servers and other equipment for cloud data centers. “This isn’t killing the business, but it is slowing its evolution, compared with what is taking place in the United States.”

Whether this will adversely affect Europe's competitive position when it comes to cloud services remains to be seen  - but it seems possible. As US authorities have a more "hands-off" position when it comes to data transfer and usage, companies are more agile when it comes to deploy cloud services and migrate processes to the cloud. More from the NYT article:

Cloud computing, which allows companies to tap enormous computing power via the Internet without having to invest in the infrastructure themselves, has grown rapidly in the United States under a legal system that permits the sale and transfer of many forms of private data. 

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Google Data Center cooled by seawater!

It's interesting to learn that Google is building a new mega data center in Finland that will actually be cooled by seawater!

From Google's blog:

Google is very happy to be constructing a new data center in Hamina, Finland. When fully developed, this facility will be a critical part of our infrastructure for many years to come. Limited testing of the facility should be underway in 2010 and the center should be fully operational later that year. Eventually, we plan to employ approximately 50 people, ranging from Linux system administrators and experienced data center managers to security contractors and technology assistants. We’re confident this EUR200 million investment will be good for Hamina, Google and our Internet users.

The new data center is strategically located to specifically serve the Nordic market and growing markets in Russia and Eastern-Europe. Data Center Knowledge has more on the story

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Cloud governance

Scott Morrison provides an interesting point about cloud governance in his blog post. Obviously, trusted governance is a key motivator for businesses to trust the cloud and cloud vendors in general:

It turns out that cloud governance, while a logical evolution of SOA governance, has a number of unique characteristics all its own. One of these is the re-distribution of roles and responsibilities around provisioning, security, and operations. Self-service is a defining attribute of cloud computing. Cloud governance solutions need to embrace this and provide value not just for administrators, but for the users who take on a much more active role in the full life cycle of their applications.

 As Scott points out, David Linthicum, cloud computing expert at InfoWorld and CTO at Blue Mountain Lab, has addressed this topic several times in his writings. Both established provider of SOA governance technologies like Layer 7 and Amberpoint (now part of Oracle) and new players like Abiquo have entered this important field.

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Cloud Computing will force you to change the way that you look at IT

"Cloud Computing will force you to change the way that you look at IT", says David Davis virtualization expert at VMware in a blog post. Davis points out 5 criteria for SMEs assessing the Cloud. I completely agree with Davis that cloud computing will have a dramatic effect on how businesses will observe IT. When businesses have a IT need of some sort, they will start looking into how the Cloud can resolve their issue - before even considering throwing money into purchasing and installing IT resources. This trend obviously starts with the SMEs, but my believe is that it will escalate to large companies when certain problems, like security concerns, have been resolved.

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Cloud computing is not about technology

I agree with Scott Stewart, in his blog article, that cloud computing is not about technology. The concept of cloud computing is not new and actually traces back to 1961, when it was first mentioned by professor John McCarthy that named it "utility computing". Virtualization first emerged from IBM in 1974. Furthermore, in the long term, businesses will not have a choice of whether to migrate to the cloud or not. If they want to stay agile and competitive they will have to leverage on the cloud. Cloud computing is an evolutionary process and can be compared to the shift from generating power locally in the early 20th century to reticulated electricity. Many businesses had their own in-house power generators - something that not many would consider today. Likewise, IT resources will be consumed from the cloud.

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VMware new cloud products

While the dust is settling since VMware announced its new suite of cloud products at WMworld in San Francisco, it becomes clearer that VMware may actually become a game changer when it comes to companies wanting to deploy hybrid cloud solutions. WMware claims that vCloud Driector will enable companies to provision either public or private "virtual data centers" and brand them according to their marketing strategy. vShield is another product aimed for securing virtualied and cloud computing environments. Here is a product announcement from the VMworld - vCloud Director:

It's interesting to follow the development at VMware as they seem to be emerging as a very important cloud technology provider. 

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VMware's cloud strategy is evolutionary

VMware's cloud strategy is evolutionary - vSphere customer are supposed to easily "glide" into cloud computing, according to John Gilmartin, VMware's product marketing director for private cloud products:

“They can build upon their existing data centres, their existing applications [running in virtual machines, of course] on top of the virtualisation platform they’re accustomed to, vSphere."

This is hardly no surprise. VMware wants to leverage existing virtualization technologies and customer base to create a more interesting value proposition. Customers do not have to learn new tools for extending into the cloud. And, perhaps to most important factor, creating a hybrid cloud model, by extending a private cloud into a public cloud, VMware is removing interoperability barriers for current customers to create a homogeneous environment. In my view this also supports the notion of VMware's intentions of gradually offer a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), as I wrote about in my blog, and divert from pure virtualization focus.

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Funny video on "what is the cloud"

Funny video on VMware TV. What is the cloud?

What an entertaining way to explain the cloud for the newcomer  - and a good recipe for explaining complex, and sometimes elusive, concepts.

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Mobile cloud computing event streamed for free!

As I've pointed out in a blog post, mobile cloud computing is expected to become huge in the coming years, according to both Gartner and ABI Reasearch predictions. Now the Mobile Cloud Computing Forum (http://mobilecloudcomputingforum.com) is going to feature an event in London on December 1st. 

Sessions at the 1 day conference and exhibition will include an overview of the Mobile Cloud Computing Proposition and Marketplace, Mobile Cloud and Enterprise Applications, The Challenges for the Mobile Cloud and The Future of Mobile.

For those not able to attend, the event will be streamed live as well, free of charge.

VMware announcing new cloud computing products

It's interesting that VMware has just announced six new cloud computing products at VMworld in San Francisco this week. 

VMware announced six new vCloud products. The headliner here is the vCloud Director, which is designed to model and deliver IT infrastructure services. The idea here is to create virtual data centers and computing pools. There were other security products such as vShield and vShield Edge as well as vCloud Datacenter Services, interoperable clouds.

Not surprisingly, it seems obvious that VMware is going to make a strong inroad into cloud computing. The company is also making important partnerships with other vendors and providers to strengthen their strategy and offering. From ZDNet:

The company also outlined its consulting services and partnerships with the likes of Hewlett-Packard to create private clouds. Verizon will also include VMware’s applications in its computing as a service lineup.

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