As organizations continue expanding their adoption of the public cloud, many IT and security professionals are beginning to see that they need improved cloud-monitoring and cloud-auditing capabilities. By cloud monitoring, I’m referring to the process of identifying cloud use within an organization and then evaluating if there are data privacy and/or compliance risks that need to be mitigated. Cloud monitoring includes the idea of fully understanding what clouds are being used and how employees are accessing and updating information, from where and when. This becomes more complicated with the proliferation of BYOD policies as well as the growing trend of Shadow IT groups within corporations that assist business units in deploying clouds without “Official” IT knowing about it. But steps can still be taken to manage the operational and legal risks associated with sending sensitive data outside of the corporation’s firewall while simultaneously enabling operating units to use the cloud as required to drive business results.
Archives
24
Mar 14
Computerworld – Amazon vs. Google vs. Windows Azure: Cloud computing speed showdown
The cloud computing sales pitch is seductive because the cloud offers many advantages. There are no utility bills to pay, no server room staff who want the night off, and no crazy tax issues for amortising the cost of the machines over N years. You give them your credit card, and you get root on a machine, often within minutes.
To test out the options available to anyone looking for a server, I rented some machines on Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine, and Microsoft Windows Azure and took them out for a spin. The good news is that many of the promises have been fulfilled. If you click the right buttons and fill out the right Web forms, you can have root on a machine in a few minutes, sometimes even faster. All of them make it dead simple to get the basic goods: a Linux distro running what you need.
At first glance, the options seem close to identical. You can choose from many of the same distributions, and from a wide range of machine configuration options. But if you start poking around, you’ll find differences — including differences in performance and cost. The machines may seem like commodities, but they’re not. This became more and more evident once the machines started churning through my benchmarks.
14
Feb 14
CIO.com – IT Departments Losing Control Through Cloud Services Say Cisco and Intel
The cloud offers senior executives the business control they demand, according to international research from Cisco and Intel, meaning IT departments need to “become more collaborative and innovative as result.”
The rising adoption of cloud services is “fundamentally changing” how businesses consume IT, according to the Cisco Consulting Services report, in conjunction with Intel.
The report found that in a majority of organisations, control of IT planning and purchasing is increasingly being shifted to lines of business (LOBs), such as HR, sales and R&D. Their rising influence “represents a marked departure from the traditional ‘top-down’ approach, forcing IT departments to adapt”, Cisco says.
“The Impact of Cloud on IT Consumption Models” report – based on a global survey of over 4,000 IT decision makers – found that while 43 percent of funding currently comes from LOBs, 59 percent of respondents predict this will rise.
As a proportion, the cloud represents almost a quarter of total IT spend (23 percent), with that figure expected to rise to 27 percent by 2016.
10
Feb 14
Cloud Computing Journal – The Grand Challenge: Simplifying IT to Unleash Innovation
I don’t listen to music before I buy it anymore. I don’t need to – as long as I’m purchasing it from Amazon. Based on algorithms that crawl my purchasing history, the online retailer knows what I like as well as I do and, dare I say, better than my wife.
A company develops this intimate knowledge by using Big Data to improve the customer experience in an economical and adaptable way. Amazon has integrated this agility into every aspect of its business, from running its warehouses to its revolutionary ability to publish on demand.
Game-changing innovation happens when you simplify everyday processes. But managing a large, traditional application portfolio – however crucial it is to your business – disrupts innovation.
The cloud virtualizes your software, protecting you from the inefficiencies associated with IT. As a result, you spend less time and money introducing and maintaining applications and more resources innovating and advancing your business. Whether you implement a software-designed data center, a hybrid cloud approach or and end-user computing strategy, you’re taking the burden off of your own team and into the virtual world.
06
Feb 14
Tech Time Tea – How PaaS and DevOps are the next big wave in Enterprise Cloud computing
Cloud computing, a disruptive phenomena has gone mainstream in 2013 and now in 2014, PaaS promises to revolutionize the enterprises globally. Although virtualisation of cloud computing is now ubiquitous, It is the implementation of private PaaS, a competitive and evolving service model along with DevOps internally for enterprise organization that promises to drive the next big wave in cloud computing. Cloud computing itself too has tremendously evolving from just being a software-as-a-service to complex forms that also includes hardware and platform as a service. The three service models namely IaaS, PaaS and SaaS too are now showing signs of integration through 2014 with SaaS as the dominant service model by 2015. For 2014, The spotlight is on PaaS and Enterprises across globe are rapidly adopting PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), as a delivery model for software application development. However, even within PaaS, enterprises are in need for a faster delivery of software developments therefore a hybrid of private PaaS and DevOps emerges as better option. By working around the respective trade offs of PaaS namely extreme productivity at the expense of control and of DevOps namely high level of control and flexibility at the expense of productivity, Enterprises seek to tap into the benefits of Hybrid cloud computing. Thus by utilising DevOps as foundation for PaaS, Enterprises can have the control of DevOps and productivity of PaaS. This enables to bring more fluidity to automation, continuous delivery and integration. Such a hybrid system allows for significant cost advantage by reducing development cost and increasing margins.
05
Feb 14
IT World – OpenStack still has an enterprise problem
After trotting out some impressive enterprise users at its conference in Portland, Oregon, early last year, OpenStack hasn’t been able to showcase many additional big names. Supporters tried to address “the debate about the opportunity for OpenStack in the enterprise” at a half-day conference yesterday that was held at the Computer History Museum and webcast.
The speakers ended up highlighting a few of the challenges holding back OpenStack deployments.
Many businesses are looking for the kind of enterprise technology product that they’re used to seeing, and that’s not what OpenStack looks like yet, said Ken Pepple, CTO and founder of Solinea, a consulting company that helps businesses implement OpenStack clouds. On one end of the spectrum are vendors that are packaging parts of OpenStack and adding support. On the other are tightly packed solutions that go as far as designating what hardware to use. “People want something in between. They want pretty installers and great looking GUIs. They want some management tools around it, things you normally see perhaps in an ERP system,” he said.
10
Dec 13
CCJ – Cloud hurts: Server sales continue to slump
The latest server sales tally indicates that higher end systems are increasingly looking like glorified PCs that will experience the same slowing growth picture in the future.
And the cloud is increasingly getting the blame. Cloud computing is to server sales what tablets are to the PC market.
IDC said that server sales fell 3.7 percent in the third quarter to $12.1 billion. Gartner pegged server sales at $12.34 billion, down 2.1 percent from a year ago. Both research firms indicated that HP was the market share leader. HP and Cisco were the only server vendors to show growth in the third quarter.
The reasons for the server slump officially go like this:
Integrated systems are selling well and the market is consolidating.
Unix server sales are in a downward spiral.
And economic conditions are dicey in multiple regions.
