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Cloud Computing News This Week
Cloud computing has been gaining a lot of popularity, disapproval as well as media coverage lately. As a new technology comes along and starts to become mainstream, there is a section of adopters and a section of naysayers. We have already seen security as a major hurdle to the adoption of cloud computing. But there is good news for cloud as well. This has been a mixed week for cloud technology.
Wikileaks
With Amazon ousting Wikileaks due to an apparent policy violation, there was huge uproar about free speech and so on. But I do not want to get into the politics of Wikileaks here. The question that arose for me was about cloud reliability. One of the main advantages for any enterprise for moving data to the cloud is reliability – the assurance that their data will be stored safely, will be available anytime they need and no fear of losing that data. But what about the cloud service provider? Since the data is stored with a third-party who do have complete access to it, do they have the discretion to cutoff your data or website? We all know service agreements are huge and convoluted and they do keep changing. In such a case, how do you ensure with your provider, the reliability of your data? Do you need to establish a relationship with your service provider?
Software Piracy
As cloud computing gains more popularity, software piracy may start to die. This is great news for software companies who struggle with this problem everyday. In fact, as companies move towards cloud applications (“no software”), the threat of piracy goes away automatically. As enterprises get rid of their IT resources and employ cloud services, they will pay for the service including any software hosted on it. They won’t find the need to buy low-cost pirated software as the clouding pricing will remain competitive. This will ensure more security for their data and applications.
Green Cloud
Cloud computing got another positive news this week from Pike Research. It seems cloud computing is also gaining popularity amongst environmentalists who believe that it is a greener choice, As data centers host multiple enterprise, the energy consumption will be more efficient and they will be reduced emissions.
According to a new report from Pike Research, the energy efficiency benefits of cloud computing are substantial, and growth in the market will have important implications for both energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The cleantech market intelligence firm forecasts that the adoption of cloud computing will lead to a 38% reduction in worldwide data center energy expenditures by 2020, compared to a business as usual (BAU) scenario for data center capacity growth.
While conflicting reports also exist, it does seem to make sense sharing resources means less usage per person making cloud technology more energy-efficient.
Cloud Security
The adoption of cloud has been rapid in the past couple of years, but cloud security is still a major concern for most IT managers. According to Cisco’s three-part Connected World study, IT managers ranked security as their top data center concern, along with performance, reliability, and budget for maintenance and management. It is difficult for many to give up control to sensitive data to a cloud somewhere. The Cisco study has revealed the following trends –
Cloud use today: Across the study’s 13 countries, only an average of 18 percent of respondents are using cloud computing today, while an additional 34 percent plan to use the cloud.
Top cloud users today: Brazil (27%), Germany (27%), India (26%), US (23%) and Mexico (22%) top the list of countries that are already taking advantage of cloud computing, exceeding the average (18%) across all countries.
Future cloud use: A large majority (88%) of IT respondents predict that they will be storing some percentage of their company’s data and applications in private or public clouds within the next three years.
Private clouds: One in three IT professionals said more than half of their company’s data and applications will be in private clouds within the next three years. Private cloud adoption was predicted to be higher in Mexico (71%), Brazil (53%) and the US (46%)
Timing for public clouds: Of those respondents that will use public clouds, one of every three (34%) plan to deploy within one year, and 44% predicted their companies would use public clouds within the next two years; 21% are expected to do so within two to three years.
So while adoption of cloud computing technology will continue, it will be imperative to secure the cloud. Cloud security has to comply with laws across different countries especially since business is global and mainly because a data center can be located anywhere around the world and not necessarily in the country when the organization is situated. But as the federal government moves to cloud computing, cloud providers will have to offer DOD level type of security. And since cloud data centers will host multiple organizations, even smaller entities can make use of such high level of security.
Another important way to remain secure in cloud is to integrate security into the applications that will run in cloud. This will add another level of security and IT enterprises may be able to breathe easier. As data and “software” moves online, application security will be needed and so adding that for cloud hosting will not be extra work.
More Google vs. Microsoft
Just a few days after the Chrome OS announcement, we see Microsoft being selected as USDA‘s choice to move to cloud computing. Google is crying foul over this development.
You can read about it at:
The federal government agencies are adopting cloud platforms and even have a “cloud-first” plan. Even the Obama administration has said that cloud computing will allow more people to share a common infrastructure, cutting technology and support costs.
Last week GSA collaborated with Google as their email provider. What will be interesting is to see whether different agencies will choose different cloud providers and whether they should be choosing a single one?
Google Chrome OS
Google announced its Chrome OS some time last year – trying to create a lightweight operating system targeted mainly towards notebooks. Chrome OS is designed to mainly work through the web and can have web applications. Even the Chrome OS startup page looks like a web browser. All files for the applications have to be stored online or in the cloud. This is the first cloud based operating system that we will be seeing. Just this week, Google finally announced their pilot program to provide test notebooks to qualified users so they can get feedback from those users. The notebooks will have no hard drives since one of the primary goals of the Chrome OS is to be fast. Some web applications designed for Chrome OS will run without being connected to the Internet. It remains to be seen, how seamless the integration of web-based OS with web applications can be considering bandwidth speeds. Also, how successful can a lightweight OS be for bigger corporations or data intensive workload that can be done with traditional operating systems. Will Windows be wiped out or still hold a niche market for enterprises?
Google also demonstrated printing in the cloud from within the Chrome OS. There is still a long way to go, but it can be a great idea. Security is the first concern in cloud-based printing. Will Google snoop around in the documents to target advertising? And of course, how does this all connect to having a physical device to print? HP already has web printers that can be used to print from anywhere. The physical printer does exist in your home/office but can be used from anyplace.
Trends in Cloud
There is a lot happening with cloud computing – some platforms being more popular than the others while others are more efficient. Many trends have emerged within the cloud arena in the past year related to performance, security or pricing. I would just like to talk about three main trends that I feel will be game changers as far as cloud services are concerned.
Hybrid Clouds
As we saw, a hybrid cloud is a composition of two or more clouds, private or public that are separate entities bound by standardized technology enabling portability between the clouds. Larger organizations may tend to use more private clouds whereas smaller startup enterprises may want to begin with public clouds. Private clouds are more appropriate where sensitive or proprietary data is concerned and security is of prime importance. CRM or collaboration related applications can make use of public clouds easily. The nature of hybrid clouds can allow integration between these two different entities without the need for duplication.
Standardization
Today, resistance to cloud adoption can be attributed to portability of applications between cloud vendors. If vendors can quickly agree on standards for cloud platforms and be open, more users are likely to use cloud based services. The need for interoperability between clouds, public, private or hosted is great and cloud computing can only reach full potential of movement is easy between different cloud vendors. A lot has been done in the past year regarding standardization but there is still some distance to go on this path.
As social networks gain mainstream popularity across different divisions of organizations, they will ease their way into cloud arena. Social networks are not just tools to find friends, but they are now used as a way to collaborate more effectively among individuals at the corporate level. Social networks can be public or private based on its need and can be shared or stored online. This nature of social networks allows them to be incorporated easily in cloud based applications.
Salesforce.com’s Chatter is such a cloud-based tool that has been developed specifically for the workplace. It allows people to collaborate and communicate effectively, wherever they may be and even allows to share files and status updates. There are numerous features of Chatter that can be turned on or off by clicking a simple check box inside the Salesforce.com’s cloud platform. This ease and simplicity make use of social networking applications attractive to cloud developers and users.
Cloud Notions 