Cloud computing - top technologies for 2011

Cloud computing is one on the top 10 strategic technologies for 2011, according to Gartner

Cloud Computing. Cloud computing services exist along a spectrum from open public to closed private. The next three years will see the delivery of a range of cloud service approaches that fall between these two extremes. Vendors will offer packaged private cloud implementations that deliver the vendor's public cloud service technologies (software and/or hardware) and methodologies (i.e., best practices to build and run the service) in a form that can be implemented inside the consumer's enterprise. Many will also offer management services to remotely manage the cloud service implementation. Gartner expects large enterprises to have a dynamic sourcing team in place by 2012 that is responsible for ongoing cloudsourcing decisions and management.

Cloud computing is actually now at the height of the Gartner hype-cycle and will enter a more productive stage over the coming years.

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Google Instant and the mobile cloud

Google will soon launch a new search product, Google Instant, that's directly targeted at mobile touch-screen users. Google Instant will show results "as you type", suggesting the relevant search result before you finish tying in your search phrase. From GigaOM:

In many ways, Google Instant demonstrates the evolution of a product in order to keep up with times; today’s faster broadband means that the search results need to come up faster than one could type. More importantly, Google Instant is a search product optimized for a brave new world where the user interface is touch rather than keyboards, and devices aren’t your classic computer, but instead mobile and tablet-like

The Google Instant, and other mobile cloud applications, will certainly advance the mobile cloud. It's inevitable that more and more native mobile applications will move into the cloud.

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Version CaaS will open up in the UK!

Verizon has scheduled to open up a new presence in the UK by next year, aimed at the European market. It's services, called "CaaS" (Compute-as-a-Service) is basically a IaaS offering. Not surprisingly, the primary reasons for establishing a data center in the UK is to minimize latency and address data location issues, thereby complying to the EU privacy regulations. From ZDNet UK:

Region-specific facilities are necessary for two reasons — latency and data location, Beaumont said. By having the service come from a local facility, latency can be reduced, and the company can track the geographical location of customer data by using its own network. This helps "with some of the regulatory type of issues", Beaumont said. "If you're a company, some have issues with things like safe harbour or the Patriot Act, so they feel much more comfortable with those resources residing outside the US rather than in the US," he added

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Growth in mobile cloud computing will be phenomenal

A a new online survey conducted by IBM developerWorks among 2000 IT developer in 87 countries concluded that mobile development will become larger than development for traditional computing platform. From an article in OnlySoftwareBlog:

According to the survey, 55 percent of them expect mobile software application development for devices such as iPhone and Android, and even tablet PCs like iPad and PlayBook, will surpass application development on all other traditional computing platforms by 2015.

Industry analysts also are predicting mobile applications sales will undergo massive growth over the next three years, with estimates of mobile application revenues expanding from $6.2 billion this year to nearly $30 billion by 2013.

The Cloud will be a big enabler for this to happen. More and more applications and services will move into the cloud and be provisioned from there. We will most probably also see new types of smartphones, sometimes called mobile cloud phones, that will be particularly designed for accessing apps and services in the cloud as I discussed in an earlier post.

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Importance of cloud computing vision

It's true that many enterprises lack a strategic vision when it comes to cloud computing, resulting in ad hoc deployment that create heterogeneous IT environment and lack of cohesiveness. David Linthicum blogs about this problem in a new post, saying:

However, for all this cloud stuff to work, you really need to focus on the end game, moreso than with any other fundamental technology shift. Those that don't will end up with another set of new cloud-based systems that are highly dysfunctional in how they work and play together. In other words, cloud computing won't be able to deliver on the expected business value.

IT managers need to focus more on long-term planning and establish a vision when it comes to cloud computing. Aligning the IT implementation towards a clear strategy must be the overall goal for effective execution and economical benefits of every enterprise IT division.

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Mobile cloud: Native vs. Web-base apps

There is an interesting debate going on about native vs. web based applications in the mobile cloud. There are different opinions of whether smartphones will continue running native, handset-centric, applications in the future, or if these will be replaced by mobile web-based applications a la Google Apps and Facebook. In an article at the Cloudave.com, there is a summary from a panelist session from the Mobilize 2010 conferenece, since earlier this month:

• Native Apps will stay because web apps cannot take complete advantage of the increasingly more powerful mobile phone hardwar
• The counter point to the above claim is that with HTML 5 and modern browsers, web app can easily take control of hardware like GPS, Camera, Accelerometer, etc.
• Enterprise native apps will be with us for just 2+ years as enterprises move more towards web apps for better efficiency and cost savings
• The biggest pain point for web apps is the issue of discovery. Since the web apps lack a marketplace like Apple’s app store or Android marketplace, discovery is a big problem
• Networks are a bottleneck pushing against the web apps. With the increase in the speed and reliability of mobile broadband, this could change

Overall, the results seem to be biased towards web-based apps. As I pointed out in a blog post, HTML5 is a big enabler when it comes to mobile cloud applications

 

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