Busting the nine myths of cloud computing

This article examine nine "myths" about cloud computing. The myths are somewhat contrived, but are truely valid.

The thing I like about this article is that it related to what customers get, rather than what makes up the cloud.

Here are the nine myths:

1. There's one single "cloud"
2. All you need is your credit card
3. The cloud reduces your workload in the long run
4. You can seamlessly blend your private "cloud" with public cloud providers
5. You won't ever be able to seamlessly blend your public and private clouds
6. Cloud computing always saves you money
7. A cloud provider can guarantee security
8. If you're running VMs, you're doing cloud computing
9. Cloud computing is about technology

Busting the nine myths of cloud computing

Cloud Computing: We've Been Here Before

Interesting tidbit on SLAs, and the fact that Cloud Computing isn't really that different from what has gone before.

"...cloud computing by his definition is "just the next generation of hosting."

Cloud Computing: We've Been Here Before - Business Center - PC World

IT Services Market continues to grow.

IT Services continue to grow despite the economic slump, although it has had it's effects, particularly on the Indian market.

There were some signs of slowing in the latter part of 2008, but the full effect won't be known for a while.

IBM continue to lead the market.

"Revenues from worldwide IT services, such as managed hosting and disaster recovery provision, witnessed an increased of 8.2 percent in 2008, according to a recent survey by IT industry analyst Gartner"

IT Services Revenues Up, says Gartner Study - Web Hosting Industry News | Daily Web Hosting News and Web Host Interviews

Social Networks for the Enterprise

This is an interesting article on Social Networking for the Enterprise.

A particularly good point was that any initiative needs to be integral with the workflow for it to be useful and for it to be used. I think like stand-alone wikis, while interesting, are more a distraction than a resource.

"Anne said that when a social network is deployed internally separate from the workflow, it does not tend to drive productivity, as employees do not engage. There needs to be a compelling reason apart from the technology to make it work. It cannot be implemented as a utility without a specific value proposition tied to work processes."

The FASTForward Blog » Launching Social Networks for the Enterprise: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary

Using Professional Services When Managing Outsourced IT Services

Just implementing a hosting solution isn't always enough. The tasks and projects associated with the infrastructure need to be integrated into the solution.

Quite often companies look to use professional services when implementing a hosting solution to ensure that the project as a whole is a success.

Using a Professional Services vendor means that the right skills are available at the right time when outsourcing IT infrastrucure. Here's a white paper that gives some real world examples of how professional services can ensure a hosting project can be a success.

Managing Outsourced IT Services—The Role of a Strategic Professional Services Partner

Mid-market CIOs increasing Data Center Outsourcing

In contrast to the Gartner study (see previous post) that said only 9% of CIOs are considering increasing outsourcing to address buidget issues, here's a study that says mid0market CIOs are increasing their data center outsourcing and are, in the main, happy with the results.

Data center outsourcing increases; most happy with results

This increase in ouitsourcing, is matched on the supply side by hosting providers expanding their facilities.

IT Budgets Down - but it's not as bad as you might think

A Gartner survey of CIOs shows that budgets in the first quarter of this years are down just under 5% compared to the end of 2008.

In a time of uncertainty, plans are postponed/delayed and the figures are examined more carefully.

Over half of the respondents reported making no changes to their budgets - implying those that did actually averaged about a 10% reduction.

Typically, the actions reported were:

• renegotiating vendor contracts
• salary freezes
• head count reductions
• capex reductions

Only 9% view outsourcing as a way of addressing budget issues.

View the full blog entry:

Mark McDonald — A Member of The Gartner Blog Network: "In the first quarter of 2009, CIOs experienced significant IT budget revisions as executives gained a greater understanding and solidified plans for addressing the global financial crisis, according to a worldwide survey of 900 CIOs by Gartner Executive Programs (EXP)."

Verizon offers pay-as-you-go hosting service

I think we'll be seeing a lot of the "corporate" hosting companies offering pay as you go services over the next few months.

Interesting that it's described as "pay as you go". That's obviously a big customer benefit, but there are lots of others as well - speed of implementation, flexibility etc. etc.

I hope it's a true cloud computing service, rather than just a price package.

Verizon offers pay-as-you-go hosting service | Technology | Internet | Reuters

Hot Weather Causes Last FM Outage

This is a pretty impressive chart. it shows the rise on temperature when the chillers failed in the datacenter that hosts lastfm.com (among others I assume).

Obviously all six chillers shouldn't have failed. It's a shame we can't do something with all that heat!


Hot Weather Causes Last FM Outage - Web Hosting Industry News | Daily Web Hosting News and Web Host Interviews

Computer Sciences’ New Cloud Strategy Focuses on Security

When I first started to read this article it struck me that a definition of IaaS would help matters (me at least) when looking at the offerings in this area from the major players.

I think, though, that the market will provide the definition once the big players have offerings up and running.

"The announcement also leaves me wondering when IBM and HP are going to announce their own big cloud computing plays, rather than webinars and research projects. I think this summer, we’re going to see some big players launch real products to take on various layers of the cloud."

Computer Sciences’ New Cloud Strategy Focuses on Security:

Study Reveals Green Data Center Focus

Symantec have released their 2009 Green IT Report looking at the actions taken by data center managers to "green up" their operations.

Almost all are claiming they are doing something:

"Ninety-five percent reported that they are replacing old equipment with new energy efficient equipment, 94 percent that they are monitoring power consumption, 94 percent said they were adopting server virtualization, and 93 percent said they were implementing server consolidation."

The sceptic in me says that these are things they would be doing anyway in terms of being more productive and the normal equipment life cycle.

The non-sceptic points out that these things are the foundation of improving (or mitigating) effects on the environment.

What would be useful is an idea of how many are doing radical things rather than just replacing old equipment with new, or simply changing the light bulbs.

Study Reveals Green Data Center Focus - Web Hosting Industry News | Daily Web Hosting News and Web Host Interviews:

What is Uptime?

What is Uptime? | Dedicated Server Hosting:

"Here’s a handy list to gauge how much downtime one may experience over the course of a year, based on a web hosting company’s uptime guarantees:

* 99.9%: 8 hours 46 minutes
* 99.5%: 43 hours 50 minutes
* 99.0%: 87 hours 39 minutes
* 98.0%: 175 hours 19 minutes"

It just shows how much a (relatively) small outage can affect your business!

The True Foundation on IaaS

What?? IaaS isn't just a marketing positioning statement??

I thought this article was excellent at presenting some of the more technical aspects of IaaS rather than benefits/features etc. It underlined for me the change needed in design and management to deliver a true cloud infrastructure.

Building a Real-World IaaS Cloud Foundation
— I recently gave a talk at the Cloud Computing Expo in New York about where to begin if you’re building a cloud infrastructure or “Infrastructure-as-a-Service.” The response was great, so I’ll try to summarize the high points here for others who are interested. Whenever we see a “stack diagram” of cloud architectures, most conversation centers on higher-level layers like defining what “Platform-as-a-Service” or “Software-as-a-Service” is.

Rackspace in One Place

I've never understood why companies acquire other companies and don't immediately integrate them from a marketing perspective. It seems to waste some of the benefits that are gained by the acquisition.

So it's good to know that Rackspace is integrating it's cloud and email-hosting capabilities - The Rackspace Cloud (Mosso) and Rackspace Email (formerly known as Mailtrust).

Rackspace in One Place | The Official Rackspace Blog

Digital Realty Trust Buys Land in Virginia

This is in my back yard so it's certainly of interest.

DRT seem to know what they're doing, so this signals strong growth in data centers in the future.

Digital Realty Trust Buys Land in Virginia - Web Hosting Industry News | Daily Web Hosting News and Web Host Interviews

Google Traffic Falls Off a Cliff

The chart speaks for itself. A massive drop in traffic from US ISPs to Google.

Here's the official Google explanation. You have to be flying to get over that drop!

When Google Goes Down, It Falls Hard | Epicenter | Wired.com

Web-hosting firms defy recession

Believe me, I really want to believe this. The notion that technology areas that reduce customers' costs are recession-proof isvery attractive.

However, two points:

1. The medical industry is supposed to be resession proof, yet my cardiologist has had to lay people off, and the number of unclaimed prescriptions has dramatically increased. The latter indicates that people are willing to take higher risk if it means lower costs.
2. Moving to a hosting provider involves management time and people investment to analyze the bids and to migrate infrastructure. Something that can be hard to justify in lean times.

I suspect that firms who had already decided to outsource in some way accelerated those plans, but it's yet to be seen if the number of firms outsourcing in the long-run will increase.

Web-hosting firms defy recession - Network World

Federal Budget Hastens Cloud Adoption

The Obama administration is pushing to increase pilot programs to demonstrate that shared infrastructure is the way to go, meaning "cloud computing" will have a lot of potential just as it comes of age.

I've always thought that the issue with Federal projects of this sort is not the technology, but the willingness of federal agencies to give up control, even with improvements in cost and efficiency.

Federal Budget Hastens Cloud Adoption | BNET Technology Blog | BNET

Verio Launches Website for SMBs

Verio are launching a website for SMBs that not only touts their offerings, but actually combines a set of resources to help customers set up their website effectively, an also allows them to interact and learn from each other.

Whether there will be enough interest to form a core community will be interesting to see!

Verio Launches Website for SMBs - Web Hosting Industry News | Daily Web Hosting News and Web Host Interviews