May 27, 2013
Volume XLIII, Issue 12
MetraTech CEO Keynotes at CLOUD COMPUTING EAST
Scott Swartz, Founder and CEO of MetraTech, the leading provider of Agreements-Based Billing, commerce, and compensation solutions, delivered a keynote address at CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2013. The event took place this week at the Marriott Boston Copley Place in Boston, MA.
Swartz presented an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) case study in his keynote titled "Make Billing Behave" as part of the Cloud Computing for Financial Services fCLOUD track on May 20th.
Financial services firms, utilities, healthcare, and businesses in other industries can create pricing models to drive customer behavior and service stickiness. As companies move their businesses to the cloud and offer more cloud-based services, they must determine how to best monetize business models.
In his presentation, Swartz discussed the need to maintain elasticity and flexible pricing to support differentiated business models — not just simple, recurring subscriptions — to enable cloud-based service providers to fluidly adjust price points based on usage or other behavior.
"Because the cloud-based delivery model is based upon flexibility and on-demand delivery, the billing structure underpinning these services must be just as elastic," said Scott Swartz. "While this may not have always been the case, more cloud service providers are now adopting flexible pricing models, including peak and off-peak rates to drive customer behavior."
WSO2 Director Keynotes at CLOUD COMPUTING EAST
A governed cloud-based distributed development environment helps connect program managers and information assurance professionals with developers to facilitate application development. This enables software acquisitions program managers across government organizations to control and field applications both locally and remotely.
WSO2 Director of Defense and Government Solutions Adam Firestone examined the impact and benefits of this approach in his keynote presentation at CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2013. The event ran May 19-21 at the Marriott Boston Copley Place in Boston, MA.
Firestone presented his keynote examining governed platform-as-a-service (PaaS) on Monday. The session was part of the event's Cloud Computing for Government gCLOUD Track, which focused on government cloud computing deployments.
In his talk, Firestone identified classic programmatic risks associated with distributed development teams and rapidly evolving information assurance requirements, and explained how a governed PaaS-based distributed development environment mitigates these risks.
Firestone also explored how this architectural approach empowers program managers to effectively manage projects with multiple developer organizations and reduce the time and cost associated with the certification of traditional and mobile application development in the government sector
Firestone works across the scope of the WSO2 team to understand and craft technology solutions that address the unique challenges facing today's military, intelligence and government organizations. A former US Army officer and defense industry IT executive, he has led the design and development of critical weapons and command and control systems, as well as spearheading the integration of open source software and principles within the defense enterprise. He recently was awarded the Historic Breechloading Smallarms Association's 2012 President's Cup and Gold Medal.
WSO2 is the lean enterprise middleware company. It delivers the only complete open source enterprise SOA middleware stack purpose-built as an integrated platform to support today's heterogeneous enterprise environments—internally and in the cloud. WSO2's service and support team is led by technical experts who have proven success in deploying enterprise SOAs and contribute to the technology standards that enable them.
For more information, check out the WSO2 community on the WSO2 Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and FriendFeed.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Our deepest thanks and congratulations to Cloud Computing Association (CCA) Executive Director Don Buford and the entire CCA team for their leadership and support as our partner in the well-attended and expertly managed CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2013 (CCE:2013) at the Marriott Copley Place in Boston, MA.
CCE:2013 focused on the use of cloud-based technologies by government, healthcare, and financial services to revolutionize business processes, increase efficiency, and streamline costs.
The Conference Brochure and session presentations are now posted in Past Events on the Activities page of the DCIA website.
Sunday's very informative Orientation Workshop featured Boston University and MITRE Corporation's Dino Konstantopoulos and BU cloud-computing graduate students Alaa Mahmoud and Madhura Pundlik.
Monday morning's Opening Plenary Session began with Altman Vilandrie's Stefan Bewley, Ignite Technologies' Fabian Gordon, and ShareFile's Cameron Jahn providing an enlightening overview of the commercial state of cloud computing adoption in the three subject verticals.
This was followed by Lumenate's Brad Maltz, Aspera's Jason Warman, Kronos' Dan Rooney, AppNeta's Adam Edwards, and VeriStor Systems' Omar Torres, who together outlined the latest trends in cloud computing and the newest cloud solutions being offered in these sectors.
Next ShareFile's Brian Benfer, Edwards Wildman Palmer's Larry Freedman, and Presidio's Larry Veino enumerated and realistically assessed remaining obstacles to adoption.
After a pace-changing workshop entitled Take the Bore out of Boardroom by Wes and Amy Peper, and conference luncheon, attendees choose from among three major event tracks with case studies and follow-on panel discussions.
Healthcare Cloud Service Models were presented by SAP America's Chris Christy, Lumenate's Brad Maltz, and VeriStor Systems' Omar Torres.
WSO2's Adam Firestone, Docusign's Mike Dinsdale, Unitas Global's Erik Salazar, and SAP America's Marlyn Zelkowitz offered representative Government Cloud Service Models.
Financial Cloud Service Models were offered by KineticD's Jamie Brenzel, Virtusa's Amit Khanna, and MetraTech's Scott Swartz.
Next, Crossroads Systems' David Cerf, TraceLink's Peter Spellman, and Aspera's Jason Warman reviewed exemplary Healthcare Cloud Deployments.
Government Cloud Deployments were presented by Fusion PPT's Michael Biddick and Oracle's Doug Natal.
Microsoft's Yung Chou, Egenera's Pete Manca, NaviSite's Kevin Nyberg, and Agio's Nicole Nakashian discussed Financial Services Cloud Deployments.
At day's end, there was a networking reception in the Exhibit Hall.
On Tuesday morning, a definitive Opening Plenary Session was given by FalconStor's Chris Poelker, who also signed copies of his book, Storage Area Networks for Dummies, in the Exhibit Hall.
Then in-depth examinations of the subject matter continued with Healthcare Cloud Applications from Lumedx's Praveen Lobo and David Wayne, Government Cloud Applications from GCE's Whitney Vickrey and Telestream's Jim Duval, and Financial Services Cloud Applications from Citrix's Brian Benfer and CSC Leasing's Tom Mountcastle.
And finally, the extended Closing Plenary Session began by addressing in more detail reliability and security concerns with KPMG's Geoff Clarke, Hurricane Electric's Owen DeLong, SoftServe's Russ Hertzberg, and WSGR's Gerry Stegmaier; as well as compliance and regulatory issues with BrightLine's Doug Barbin, FireHost's Daniel Beazer, and Cloud Technology Partners' David Linthicum.
After a working luncheon, the closing plenary panels continued with Allan McLennan, PADEM Group; and Yesica Schaaf, IBM; explaining key aspects of cloud economics; Iron Mountain's Jonathan Chisholm, Strategy Analytics' Mark Levitt, and Cloud Spectator's Kenny Li outlining cloud vendor selection criteria; Sprint's Jay Gleason, ZYNC Render's Brian Drewes, and MetraTech's Jason Mondanaro discussing cloud implementation strategies; and PathCentral's Jaye Connolly, Eoscene Corporation's Geof Griebel, and Cloud Options' James Mitchell forecasting future cloud opportunities.
Platinum sponsors for CCE:2013 included Citrix Systems and ShareFile, and gold sponsors were A10 Networks, Aspera, FalconStor, MetraTech, and VeriStor. Silver sponsors included AppNeta, Ce3, CSC Leasing, Lumenate, NaviSite, Presidio, SoftServe, and Virtusa.
Associate Sponsors for CCE were Apptix, Aspiryon, CommVault, Cloud Options, Edwards Wildman Palmer, Ignite Technologies, Infoblox, and Permabit Technology Corporation.
We look forward very much to our next business strategy summit in partnership with the CCA, CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 (CCW:2013), this October at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, NV. Share wisely, and take care.
Data Direct Networks Powers a 100-Petabyte Cloud
Excerpted from Data Center Knowledge Report by John Rath
DataDirect Networks (DDN) announced that University College London (UCL) has selected DDN to provide up to 3,000 researchers with a safe and resilient storage solution, that is expected to scale up to 100 Petabytes.
The first phase of the UCL project for enabling researchers to share, reuse and preserve project-based research data will use DDN object storage technology to store up to 600TB of research data.
UCL sought to remove the burden of storing and preserving research data from individual researchers and in doing so, lower the barriers of sharing and exploiting vital findings in order to improve research outcomes and overcome problems of global significance.
With DDN Web Object Scaler (WOS) distributed object storage architecture, GRIDScaler parallel file storage system and tight integration with the Integrated Rule-Oriented Data Management Solution (iRODS), UCL forecasts it will save money — up to hundreds of thousands of UK pounds — by slashing hardware, power and staffing costs, as well as maintenance fees, associated with attaining and maintaining personal data stores across 100 departments, institutes and research centers.
"We were very interested in building a relationship with a strong storage partner to fill our technology gap," said Dr. J. Max Wilkinson, Head of Research Data Services for University College London's Information Services Division. "After a thorough assessment, DDN met our technical requirements and shared our data storage vision. In evaluating DDN, we agreed that the WOS solution had a simple proposition, was high performance and had low administration overhead."
Verizon iOS Cloud Backup with 500 MB of Free Storage
Excerpted from Mind of the Geek Report by Brett Watz
Verizon customers with iOS devices can now download the Verizon Cloud application that offers them 500 MB of free cloud storage. The online storage can be used to backup all types of data, including photos, videos, contacts, and music, that can be easily accessed via any mobile device with the application or via the web.
While Apple already offers cloud syncing for contacts and photos with iCloud and Photo Stream, Verizon's Cloud platform will work with both Android and iOS, therefore a good idea for anyone looking to possibly switch from their iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 to the Samsung Galaxy S 4 (see our full review here).
Verizon's Cloud account also features backup of AOL, Yahoo!, and Windows Live/Hotmail/Outlook accounts, but no support for Gmail has been added.
Verizon customers wishing for more storage than 500 MB can upgrade to 25GB, 75GB, or 125GB of storage for an extra $2.99, $5.99, or $9.99 per month respectively.
Verizon's Cloud currently does not support the iPad natively (users will have to download the iPhone/iPod Touch app and scale it), according to its web page, although we wouldn't be surprised to see it added sooner than later. Verizon customers will need to activate the free 500MB of storage on their accounts to use the Verizon Cloud app.
The Verizon Cloud app for iPhone is available now on the App Store for free, and requires iOS 5.0 or later.
Telefonica Named Global Leader in M2M Services
Telefonica Digital has been highlighted as a global leader in machine-to-machine (M2M) Communication Service Provision (CSP) by two separate analyst houses. Analysys Mason, in its 2013 M2M Scorecard, placed Telefonica in the Industry Icons category.
While in its annual benchmarking study, Machina Research noted that 'Telefonica is the company that has done most during the last 12 months to strengthen its position in M2M.
The analysts' research is a strong endorsement of the steps and investments Telefonica has made to bolster its global M2M capabilities. This includes taking a lead role in creating a multi-operator alliance which now includes eight leading mobile operator groups.
It reflects the development of in-house platforms, such as its Smart M2M platform, as well as forming the right partnerships to operate in both the horizontal connectivity and vertical value added services markets.
Analysys Mason's 2013 M2M CSP Scorecard ranks providers in one of four categories: Industry Icons, Trailing Titans, Challenged Underdogs and Niche Notables. The Industry Icons category, in which Telefonica was placed, are those companies that dominate the M2M market, have the largest M2M business and the best capacity to co-ordinate their teams, network, partnerships, strategy and R&D.
In the case of Telefonica, Analysys Mason highlighted its centralized structure and partnership philosophy.
In their 2013 M2M CSP Benchmarking Study, Machina Research compared six key areas: Pedigree, Platform, Place, Partnerships, Process and People. Based on ratings across each of these areas, Machina Research identified a clear top tier of four CSP global leaders, of which Telefonica was one.
Machina particularly praised Telefonica for its excellent coverage of Latin America and good coverage in Europe, strategic alliances, strong R&D capabilities and multi-carrier IMSI swapping arrangements.
The two firms were not the only ones to highlight Telefonica's progress in the past year. In its annual M2M Roundup report, Current Analysis states that Telefonica has worked hard to develop solutions that go beyond connectivity sales.
It is increasingly involved in value-added services and end-to-end integration, especially in e-health, financial services, and security, where it has dedicated practices. It has also developed end-to-end solutions in fleet management, asset tracking, point of sale, usage-based insurance, smart taxis, consumer electronics devices with multiple payment models, and a smart meter-reading platform for utilities.
"All three reports reflect the strong momentum we have in our M2M business," said Carlos Morales, Director of M2M and Cloud at Telefonica Digital. "They are also a great endorsement of our approach to this market, combining our excellent R&D capabilities with the right alliances and partnerships to meet the needs of a wide variety of customers."
Commenting on Machina's findings, the author Matt Hatton said, "Telefonica has every reason to be very proud this year. It has had a great year in M2M. The lead role it played in the multi-operator alliance, strategic arrangements with the likes of Telit and Masternaut, and a move up the value chain into products such as usage-based insurance all helped to persuade us that Telefonica deserved a place as one of the top tier of global M2M CSPs."
Steve Hilton at Analysys Mason said, "We ranked Telefonica as an Industry Icon having created a strong set of partnerships and having a fairly high level of commitment from these partners. We also believe the creation of Telefonica Digital has given it the right organizational structure with a dedicated M2M services team."
Kathryn Weldon at Current Analysis notes that Telefonica has 'shown innovation and focus, with many end-to-end solutions and integration services capabilities that are key to the growth of the market.
Amazon Wins Cloud Clearance from US Government
Excerpted from Computing.Co.UK Report by Danny Palmer
Amazon has received security clearance from the United States government, a move that will make it easier for federal agencies to use cloud computing services.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is certified to provide cloud services for branches of the US government for the next three years as part of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).
It means once an agency has been authorized to use AWS for a project, it's then able to use the service for other projects within the department without needing to repeatedly gain permission.
"More than 300 US government agencies already use the wide array of AWS services to be more innovative, agile, and cost-efficient," said Teresa Carlson, AWS Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector.
"Today most government computing systems require built-to-order platforms and applications to meet government security and compliance requirements, which involve time-consuming and costly evaluations.
"With this FedRAMP compliance, agencies can now utilize a streamlined process from AWS when moving applications to the cloud to meet their unique business and mission requirements," he added.
AWS has already received an Agency Authority to Operate (ATO) at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under FedRAMP.
"HHS is pleased to be one of the first federal agencies to go through the FedRAMP process, and to issue an Agency FedRAMP ATO," said Matthew Goodrich, FedRAMP program manager.
"Our collaborative approach allowed all of HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVS) to leverage that ATO and thereby reduce duplicative efforts, inconsistencies, and cost inefficiencies associated with current security authorization processes."
Octoshape to Deliver Streaming Services for Eurovision
Excerpted from CDN Advisor Report
This Tuesday, Octoshape, one of the industry leaders in the field of cloud-based streaming technologies and the provider of Infinite HD-M IPTV platform, announced that The Eurovision Song Malmo 2013, which is the world's largest live entertainment program with more than 100 million viewers, has selected Octoshape's services and platform yet again.
EBU, which hosts the Eurovision Song Contest, has been using the Octoshape Infinite HD-M solution for the 8th consecutive time now, and by using the latter's service it is able to provide unmatched online video viewing capacity and performance to users around the globe.
Apart from providing high speed connections and reducing network overheads and costs, Eurovision Song will also be able to leverage Octoshape's native IP multicast solutions to provide streaming services across multiple devices.
At their end, both Octoshape and Eurovision Contest organizers that they were happy with the deal and stated that they would continue to collaborate and work together for providing better services to their viewers.
SAP Revamps Management to Focus on Cloud Computing
Excerpted from The Economic Times Report
German business software maker SAP said it was revamping its management to sharpen its focus on cloud computing as demand for the service which saves clients money grows.
SAP and rivals such as IBM and Oracle are dashing to meet surging demand for cloud computing, which allows clients to ditch bulky and costly servers for network-based software and storage in remote data centers.
Cloud & Big Data in Healthcare & Life Sciences
Excerpted from Intel Healthcare IT Report by Christopher Gough
In the past year, I've blogged about big data and cloud computing. Increasingly, the two are converging in ways that have transformative potential for healthcare and life sciences.
From electronic health records (EHR) and picture archiving and communications systems (PACs) to genome sequencing machines, healthcare and life sciences (LS) are generating digital data at unprecedented rates.
Much of the effort around "big data" is concentrated on deriving value from this information. Using distributed software frameworks such as open source Hadoop, big data techniques will give us the analytic scale and sophistication needed to transform data into clinical wisdom and innovative treatments.
Cloud computing can help healthcare/LS organizations take advantage of big data analytics and accomplish other key objectives. Whether you focus on your own data center, work with a hosting provider, adopt software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, or combine multiple approaches, cloud models provide the organizational agility to access scalable computing resources, as you need them.
Cloud computing offers well-recognized cost savings, but with all the changes and opportunities facing healthcare and life sciences organizations, the agility benefits can far outweigh them.
Intel recently developed two documents that can help you advance your cloud and big data strategies.
The New CIO Agenda takes a high-level look at key issues to consider as you move toward cloud-enabled transformation. It also provides quick examples of five leading healthcare/LS organizations that are using cloud computing to create value and enhance agility.
Big Data in the Cloud: Converging Technologies goes deeper into analytics-as-a-service models and identifies practical steps to advance your cloud-based analytics initiatives.
I encourage you to download these documents and use them as you evolve your cloud and big data strategies. I'd also like to offer three specific suggestions that can move you forward and prepare you to take full advantage of cloud and big data opportunities:
1. Develop a roadmap. Start identifying what's critical to keep in secure, on-premises environments and what functions you can move to external infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds or consume as SaaS solutions.
2. Modernize your infrastructure. Even if you use SaaS heavily, you still need standards-based virtualized infrastructure to interface with external services and adjust to fast-changing demands. If you've already virtualized your servers, start looking at storage virtualization, unified networking, and software-defined networks.
3. Don't let security concerns keep you out of the cloud. There's plenty you can do to keep data and resources secure in the cloud. Use your move into cloud computing to take a comprehensive, holistic approach to privacy and security. Adopt policy-driven, multi-layered security controls, and use hardware-enhanced security technologies to improve security and end-user experience. As you talk to potential cloud service providers, make sure they are able to meet the requirements derived from your organization's privacy and security policy.
Intel is committed to enabling healthcare and LS organizations to reap the full benefits of cloud and big data analytics. We're designing the compute, networking, storage and software capabilities to deliver high performance solutions for large-scale cloud and analytics workloads at scale. We're collaborating with the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA), Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), and other industry organizations to create flexible, secure frameworks for cloud computing and big data analytics. And, we're expanding our software portfolio with solutions such as the Intel ® Distribution for Apache Hadoop*, which enables standards-based distributed analytics with robust security and management capabilities.
I think some of the most exciting use cases for big data analytics and cloud computing are coming from healthcare/LS. How about you? What are you doing and seeing? How can Intel help you reach your cloud and analytics objectives?
Download The New CIO Agenda brochure. Download the Big Data in the Cloud: Converging Technologies solution brief. Visit this website to see what healthcare and life science users are doing with big data analytics and Intel technologies.
Yahoo Confirms $1.1 Billion Tumblr Acquisition
Yahoo said on Monday it will acquire Tumblr for around $1.1 billion. "Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business," Yahoo said Monday.
David Karp will remain CEO of Tumblr. The Wall Street Journal and other media had reported over the weekend that Yahoo had agreed to buy Tumblr.
Tumblr has more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day.
"On many levels, Tumblr and Yahoo couldn't be more different, but, at the same time, they couldn't be more complementary," Yahoo's chief executive, Marissa Mayer, said.
Why Oracle Is a Smart Cloud Computing Play
Excerpted from The Street Report by Libardo Lambrano
I like to invest in companies that are financially healthy, with a solid line of products, a reasonable market share, strong growth potential, and that are valued at a reasonable price. It is not easy to find companies that meet all of these requirements, but when I find one I usually allocate a good portion of my portfolio to it — generally around 10%.
The latest company to catch my attention in this way is Oracle.
Oracle is one of the world's largest providers of enterprise software and a leading provider of computer hardware products and services. Oracle is also one of the big players in the cloud computing revolution, and even more importantly, it is one of the pioneers.
For many years, Oracle has provided cloud computing services, including clustering, server virtualization, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), shared services, large-scale management automation, and more recently, engineered systems.
Oracle Cloud includes software application services, such as Oracle Fusion Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud Service and Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Cloud Service, and software platform services such as Oracle Database Cloud Service and Oracle Java Cloud Service, among others. Oracle seeks to be an industry leader in each of the product categories in which they compete, and to expand into new and emerging markets.
I'm investing in the cloud computing model for three main reasons:
1. In my opinion, cloud computing has the potential to end piracy. Once all software platforms live on a cloud, people won't be able to just burn a DVD with the software and pass it around.
2. Cloud computing will create stronger ties between clients and providers. Once you operate your company using the infrastructure of a specific vendor, it will be very difficult to move away from that infrastructure.
3. Updates will be more frequent and mandatory. People won't be able to skip releases anymore. A lot of people currently still using Windows XP, for example, are skipping several releases of Microsoft Windows. Under the cloud model, new releases could be part of the deal, and adoption will be higher.
Though the explosion of cloud service applications may be recent, cloud computing itself it is not a new field. If you think about it, email clients such as Hotmail, AOL, and Yahoo Mail are all cloud services, applications that store data and are accessed via a web browser, and all of them were created about 15 years ago.
As cloud computing becomes the new "trendy industry," I believe people are making irrational decisions on some companies within this market. For example, the P/E ratio of VMware was over 60 just one year ago and today it is around 45. This is a fairly high valuation for a company that doesn't pay dividends, and for a stock down sharply year-to-date. I always prefer to look for value stocks, and if I can't find them, I simply add the stocks to my watch list and wait for the right moment.
So if you are also considering the cloud computing model, there is no need to go crazy. Microsoft, a position that I added to my portfolio a couple of months ago might be one of the largest beneficiaries of the implementation of this technology worldwide. The same is true of Oracle, Dell, or possibly even Adobe.
The reason I like Oracle is not only because is one of the leaders and pioneers in this industry, but also because at the current valuation it is very attractive.
Oracle's P/E ratio is only around 15, as compared with its average of 30 over the last 10 years. The P/E ratio of Oracle is close to its lowest level in 10 years.
Although earnings per share (EPS) increased nearly 400% in 10 years, the price of the stock has increased by only around 170%. History has taught us that prices generally follow earnings.
Oracle is also generating great value for its customers. The company recently acquired cloud-based software providers such as RightNow and Taleo, which I believe should help it to gain market share in the enterprise cloud software market.
"Oracle is moving aggressively to offer customers a full range of Cloud Solutions including sales force automation, human resources, talent management, social networking, databases, and Java as part of the Oracle Public Cloud," said Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Oracle Development, when RightNow was acquired in October 2011.
Oracle's Chief Executive Officer, Larry Ellison, has snapped up more than 70 companies in a $40 billion buying spree to add programs that help large corporations manage human resources and operations. Of note, the acquisition of Taleo in 2012 was cheaper than what SAP paid for competitor SuccessFactors.
This acquisition gave Taleo an enterprise value of 4.7 times its estimated sales that year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. SAP paid 7.4 times SuccessFactors' estimated sales. Ellison's approach is to never overpay for deals, and as an investor, I appreciate that.
Another thing that I like about Oracle is that they are repurchasing stock like never before. For me, this is the best indicator of a company's financial strength and commitment to the future. On December 20, 2011, Oracle's board of directors approved repurchase of shares of common stock for $5 billion, and on June 18, 2012, it was expanded by an additional $10 billion.
2012 set an all-time record of repurchase shares from the company totaling $9.07 billion. So far in 2013 the company has already repurchased $1.58 billion. I expect repurchases to continue in 2013. At the same time its dividend yield is an all-time high, which makes the stock purchase even more attractive.
One final thing that I love about Oracle is that free cash flow has grown notably, especially over the last couple of years. The current ratio is also at all-time high, which means the company is more likely than ever before to pay its short term obligations by using its short term assets (cash, inventory, receivables).
Forget about new fancy cloud computing stocks that over promise and under deliver. If you really want to take advantage of this new technological development, I believe Oracle is one of the strongest candidates out there.
Cloud Makes a World of Difference
Excerpted from AsiaOne Report
Want to visit a fortune teller? There is a digital one at the ongoing 16th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo.
"By inputting the name of your micro blog, the cloud terminal can read your micro blog and immediately figure out your personality, hobbies, habits, personal relationships and popularity," said Lei Tao, CEO of Skycloud.
This is the third time Beijing Cloud Valley, a cloud computing base hosting Lei's and another 21 cloud computing companies, is taking part in the expo.
"We mainly displayed hardware like cloud servers before. But this time, we are giving more priority to applications," said Zhao Anjian, president of Cloud Valley.
Apart from being a "fortune teller", the cloud computing technology can also serve as a virtual teaching assistant, detective and accountant.
The technology can help teachers better prepare their lectures by getting a better understanding of what their students want to know.
"Students can use mobile phones to take pictures of the parts of their homework that they don't understand, and send the pictures to the cloud.
"Teachers will get a list of these parts, helping them prepare for the next day's work," Lei said.
Cloud applications are becoming a part of everyday life.
Worried about missing the bus, people may choose to forgo breakfast.
However, with cloud technology, people can know how long it will take for the bus to arrive.
According to a report published by Internet Data Center, global data volume is around 1.2 billion gigabytes in 2010 and will reach 35 zettabytes in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 40 per cent.
Lei said cloud technologies have huge potential in China given its massive population.
"The large population makes the volume of data, in China, which mainly consists of people's behavioural data and Internet data, extremely big," he said.
"This provides a base for the development of the industry," Lei said.
Cloud Valley in Beijing was founded in 2010 with seven companies and several-dozen employees.
It now has more than 1,000 employees working for 22 companies that cover all major segments of cloud computing technology and products.
Dropbox vs. Google Drive vs. Amazon vs. Skydrive
Excerpted from ReadWrite.com Report by David Sobotta
As cloud computing services become ever more popular, you might begin to wonder how much you can really trust them to perform when you need them? I decided to find out - by testing the top file-transfer/file-storage/file-backup services.
In many ways, getting a file from one computer to multiple computers is the most challenging task for the cloud. And because I like to use multiple computers running multiple operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and the Mac, that function is particularly important to me.
I am pretty agnostic when it comes to cloud providers - as long as they are free or close to it. However, as I was moving files around while preparing my most recent book A Week at the Beach: The 2013 Emerald Isle Travel Guide I was a little surprised at the lags I sometimes experienced using the big-name cloud-based file-transfer services.
More than once when I wanted to use a file from one computer to another, I was disappointed by my cloud services. There were a few times that I got so tired of waiting for a file to show up on my other computer's cloud drive that I resorted to sneakernet using a USB thumb drive.
After my book was published, I decided to go back and run some simple tests to see just how long the four best-known file-transfer/backup services actually take to put the files where you want them.
To compare Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Cloud, and Microsoft's SkyDrive I started by exporting a 500K JPEG test image from Lightroom on my Windows 8 computer directly to each of the four services.
After running the tests a few times, I noticed what can only be described as random operating system differences. Sometimes the file would pop up first on my Mac and other times it showed up first on my Windows 7 laptop.
In order to eliminate the operating system differences, I restarted the tests and this time stopped the timer when the file showed up on either my Mac running Mountain Lion or my Windows 7 laptop. I also reran my tests with a variety of sizes and types of files. In all I ran twenty-five sets of tests.
The differences were significant, if not overwhelmingly huge. The fastest synchs took less than 3 seconds, while a few others took several minutes. The biggest chunk of tests clocked in between 10 seconds and one minute. A few synchs never completed. But which service recorded the best times with the fewest problems?
Dropbox ended up being fastest 56% of the time. Even more importantly, it was slowest only 4% of the time.
Skydrive brought up the rear. It was fastest on 12% of the tests, but slowest on a whopping 80% of the tests. It also had two files that never showed up on the Mac and one that never showed on the Windows 7 laptop.
The Amazon Cloud slightly outpaced Google Drive - which had one file that never showed up on the Mac and another that took a very long time to complete.
If my tests convinced me of anything, it is that Skydrive is a work in progress and has a long way to go. I even had trouble setting up the tests on Skydrive.
My tests also revealed a number of odd results. When testing files saved from Word, strange extra files sometimes showed up on all the cloud drives except Dropbox. The file names always began with the characters "~$". Sometimes the mystery files disappeared and sometimes they hung around.
So here are some quick recommendations:
First, do not treat your cloud drive as one huge dumping ground. Create folders and try to force a little organization on yourself.
If you save a file to the cloud in order to work on it from another computer, quit the application or close the file on the first computer after you have saved the file to the cloud drive.
Make sure you have a local copy of important files in your documents folder - not just the replicated cloud folder on your computer. Interesting things sometimes happen when cloud files get updated or deleted from another computer. When you come back to the computer where you first created a file, you could be in for a nasty surprise.
If you cannot get a cloud folder on your computer to update, try quitting the cloud application or rebooting your system.
Dropbox and Amazon appear to be the most reliable solutions with only occasional delays. Google isn't far behind, and I can't imagine that Microsoft won't work hard to improve Skydrive - the company's subscription model depends on it.
Even so, I have no plans to throw away my USB thumb drives.
Public, Private, or Hybrid Cloud?
Excerpted from The Guardian Report by Sam Johnston
Tasked with driving innovation, CIOs must decide which cloud solution will really transform their business
Today it is generally accepted that businesses large and small are actively embracing cloud computing. Speculation is over and today companies are getting down to the real business of incorporating cloud services and platforms into formal IT portfolios.
Cloud is no longer seen as just a nice to have; it's considered an enabler of business transformation — with even Gartner predicting that most enterprises will have adopted cloud computing in some form by the end of 2013.
Tasked with looking beyond IT that will simply get the job done, the chief information officer (CIO) is the person driving this transformation and making decisions with the wider business context in mind.
In fact, by 2015, IDC estimates that 90% of IT investments will be evaluated based on the strategic goals of a business, which means that the role of the CIO is set to become not only very challenging but much more strategically important than it is already. Today, the challenge dominating many CIO agendas is centered on the cloud and deciding which of the options available will be best.
First and foremost, it is necessary to decide whether public or private cloud options work best for the business. The first option allows a business to install and customize software on its own computers that reside onsite in a private data center. Alternatively, the business can receive computing services from a third party via the cloud. Using this second option, computing now acts like a utility. In the same way people moved from generators to the grid for electricity over a century ago, people are now paying for cloud services as they use them.
The consumption of services through the cloud can provide businesses with much-needed economies of scale and enable business to free up fiscal and manpower resource which can be better focused on core competencies.
Using onsite servers, meanwhile, requires greater up-front investment and specialist skills to get up and running, but provide businesses with direct control over the asset and the information.
Given that there are advantages to both models, CIOs have come to realize that the answer doesn't reside in one or the other, but rather a mesh of the two. As a result, the majority of CIOs are opting for a hybrid approach — combining the adoption of cloud services alongside their existing onsite products in their infrastructures.
Because there is no one size fits all, it is essential that CIOs take the best of both worlds and incorporate the flexibility inherent in the cloud — allowing businesses to scale IT requirements in line with their needs and also have the control offered by on premise assets.
However, with so many cloud vendors in the market, it can be quite tricky for CIOs to know who to choose or how to connect with them. As a result, CIOs have started to take cloud adoption one step further by seeking out a flexible infrastructure that can allow the switch between cloud providers should the need arise.
In today's fast-paced business environment, the CIO has more influence when it comes to implementing business transformation technology than ever before. With cloud at the forefront, CIOs need to ensure that they are maximizing their investment and making decisions that not only allow flexibility, but also ensure they continue to drive innovation within their organizations.
When it comes to cloud, it's essential that CIOs keep their options open and multi-tenant data centers are providing them with the flexibility they so greatly need.
Taking the Cloud to a Higher Altitude
Excerpted from VenutreBeat Report by Matt Quinn
We're well beyond any question about whether cloud computing is the future. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) paved the way for the idea that organizations can operate some of their most important systems in an on-premise or off-premise cloud.
Small, medium and even large businesses accept that cloud computing delivers flexibility, cost and scalability that business has never had before. Companies are gravitating to cloud because it brings very short time to value and doesn't impact the current business model. Lower cost and less risk are very attractive propositions.
How big is this move? Forrester estimates that the average company has 9.3 different SaaS applications in use. Consulting firm Cap Gemini reports that 78% of new applications are deployed into the cloud.
And that's just the applications that are being tracked. In reality, workers today are practicing BYOS (Bring Your Own Service) as they experiment with SaaS in broad ways that IT and even business managers may not know about.
As cloud computing continues to mature and its use expands, it hasn't been without challenges. The single most significant limitation has been the increasing pain of a lack of integration between cloud applications and the rest of the business. This is a pain that becomes more acute as the cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premise system invariably becomes more complex. On top of the integration challenge, the mechanics of cloud expose organizations to increased risk of data integrity, process latency and security.
Oftentimes, SaaS applications are being marketed to the business, which likely looks at risk in a different way than IT or compliance. This is a challenge itself as the organization faces risks that aren't understood or moratoriums on SaaS use that aren't followed.
A way to solve this problem is to stay within a single SaaS vendor "stack," but that leaves an organization beholden to a single vendor — a risky position. But there's a reality of the still-maturing cloud: SaaS applications are typically limited in capability, a necessary evil of the SaaS paradigm that creates economies of scale for users by requiring customers to use highly standardized interfaces and functionality.
To build out the same level of capability that's commonplace in the on-premise world, organizations need to blend custom functionality within their own walls with multiple, disparate cloud applications and storage options. The reality of Cloud is that nearly all enterprises will need to operate a hybrid model for years to come.
With these challenges in mind, TIBCO today released TIBCO Cloud Bus. This is an entirely new integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that uses ready-made templates and connectors to integrate cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-on-premise systems and applications, and includes integration with social networks.
In keeping with the nature of the cloud, TIBCO Cloud Bus is a subscription service and pay-as-you-go without a large upfront investment or infrastructure.
The immediate benefit of this iPaaS platform comes from being able to rapidly connect SaaS applications without having to program, by using the latest graphical tools in a business-friendly user interface.
Considering how critical time-to-value has become, this kind of ease of use is essential. Let's face it, what matters enormously today may not be necessary tomorrow and likewise, business needs to constantly innovate through technology that changes, it seems, daily.
Coming Events of Interest
Cloud World Forum - June 26th-27th in London, England. The Cloud World Forum offers a comprehensive agenda and speaker line-up from the cloud sector, making it an ideal platform for global authorities to present their "how-to" strategy and vision. Many recognized headline participants along with detailed coverage of the enterprise IT market.
Cloud Computing Summit - July 16th-17th in Bradenton, South Africa. Advance your awareness of the latest trends and innovations from the world of cloud computing. This year's ITWeb-sponsored event will focus on key advances relating to the infrastructure, operations, and available services through the global network.
NordiCloud 2013 - September 1st-3rd in Oslo, Norway. The Nordic Symposium on Cloud Computing & Internet Technologies (NordiCloud) aims at providing an industrial and scientific forum for enhancing collaboration between industry and academic communities from Nordic and Baltic countries in the area of Cloud Computing and Internet Technologies.
P2P 2013: IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing - September 9th-11th in Trento, Italy. The IEEE P2P Conference is a forum to present and discuss all aspects of mostly decentralized, large-scale distributed systems and applications. This forum furthers the state-of-the-art in the design and analysis of large-scale distributed applications and systems.
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 — October 27th-29th in Las Vegas, NV. Three conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production, storage, and delivery; the impact of cloud services on broadband network management and economics; and evaluating and investing in cloud computing services providers.
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