September 30, 2013
Volume XLV, Issue 6
New TOWN HALL MEETING at CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013
Don't miss the newly added, timely, and important Sunday afternoon Opening Session at CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 (CCW:2013), the Cloud Computing Association's (CCA) and Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) business strategy summit taking place October 27th-29th at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, NV.
Join us the day after STOP WATCHING US — the largest ever US rally for privacy in Washington, DC backed by more than 100 advocacy groups and companies across the ideological spectrum — for a TOWN HALL MEETING ON THE NSA PRIVACY SCANDAL AND THE CLOUD COMPUTING INDUSTRY.
Is the controversy surrounding the NSA's electronic collection and surveillance of domestic communications records a threat to the continuing advancement of the cloud computing industry — or is this an opportunity for responsive solutions, legislative reform, and new business practices to be undertaken in fact to accelerate growth and profitability?
What can be done in response to this challenge so that your business actually improves as a result and the industry continues to advance? What improvements in architecture, encryption, and data processing methods could mitigate threats like this through new technological solutions?
Will the NSA controversy spur passage of new laws and the establishment of new regulations — how can legislative reform benefit the cloud computing industry? What business practices, voluntary industry standards, and other private sector actions can we take individually and jointly to overcome this issue and help expand our businesses?
Our newly added Town Hall Meeting will assess the impact of this controversy, outline the legislative reform process underway in Congress, and drive for proactive responses the cloud computing industry can make to foster growth.
Has this scandal affected your business and if so how? What should Congress do to mitigate this and prevent a recurrence? A coalition of more than two-dozen affected parties is now advocating federal legislative reform to ensure the privacy of our data stored in the cloud. Learn first-hand from Jim Dempsey, Vice President for Public Policy, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) about the very latest developments on the Hill.
How can the cloud computing industry respond to increase our growth prospects? This is your chance to better understand the impacts of this controversy on business, to make your voice heard on this vital issue, and to come away with a clear action plan that will help expand sales and boost profitability through more advanced solutions and improved business practices.
At the conference you'll interact with media and entertainment sector companies like ABC-Disney-ESPN, Comcast, DirecTV, Netflix, Sony Games, and Warner Bros.; cloud computing leaders like Amazon Web Services (AWS), IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Rackspace, and TransLattice; mobile cloud players like AT&T, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, NTT Data, Sprint Nextel, and Toshiba; insightful analysts, advocates, and industry observers — like ABI Research, CDT, Hughes Hubbard, and the authors of 21st Century Television: The Players, The Viewers, The Money and Securing the Cloud.
SIGN-UP NOW for CCW:2103. Please click here for exhibiting and sponsoring information and here to apply to speak at this event.
NSA: No Upper Limit on Records Collection
Excerpted from PC World Report by Grant Gross
A US surveillance court has given the National Security Agency (NSA) no limit on the number of US telephone records it collects in the name of fighting terrorism, the NSA Director said Thursday.
The NSA intends to collect all US telephone records and put them in a searchable "lock box" in the interest of national security, General Keith Alexander, the NSA's Director, told US Senators.
"There is no upper limit" on NSA telephone-records collection, Alexander said. "I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lock box that we can search when the nation needs to do it."
The NSA would need to notify the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and Congress before collecting some other types of U.S. communications, including mobile-phone location information, Alexander told Senators. The NSA doesn't currently have plans to collect mobile-phone location information, he said.
Alexander, other intelligence officials, and several members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence defended the NSA's data collection and surveillance efforts during a committee hearing.
The NSA collection of US phone records, disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden earlier this year, are "lawful, effective, and constitutional," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat and Chairwoman of the Committee.
Nevertheless, Feinstein said she's working on a bill that would add transparency to the data collection process at the NSA and the surveillance court. Some of the provisions she described would reinforce current NSA practices, but the bill would also give the NSA new authority to continue to conduct surveillance on foreign suspects who enter the US while the agency seeks court-ordered warrants.
Feinstein, Chairwoman of the Committee that's supposed to oversee the NSA surveillance programs, at one point interrupted witness Tim Edgar, a former Director of Privacy and Civil Liberties for the White House, when he talked about the NSA's unauthorized collection of some US communications. Feinstein defended the NSA, saying the agency immediately reported the mistake to the surveillance court.
"I really believe the NSA is extraordinarily careful in what they do," she said. "I have great faith in the NSA."
Alexander, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and some committee members blamed what they called inaccurate media reports on the Snowden leaks for creating an environment of mistrust in the NSA by the general public.
Some media organizations are feeding "raw meat to people who refuse to look at the facts" that the NSA's data collections are legal and protect privacy, said Senator Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican.
"It's very frustrating to know that we have programs that comply with the law, that have been approved by the Congress, that have been approved by the President of the United States, that are saving Americans' lives, and there are efforts to compromise those programs to convince a non-trusting public," Coats said. "Had we not had these programs in place, I'd hate to think of what we'd be talking about" at the hearing.
Clapper agreed with Coats. Intelligence officials are frustrated in their efforts to "counter the popular narrative" about the surveillance programs, he said.
But Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and critic of the NSA programs, pointed his finger back at US intelligence officials.
Abuses alleged in the NSA programs were bound to be made public, said Wyden, who introduced legislation Wednesday that would prohibit bulk collection of phone records by the NSA.
"I believe that any government official who thought that the intrusive, constitutionally flawed surveillance system would never be disclosed was ignoring history," Wyden said.
"The leadership of your agencies built an intelligence collection system that repeatedly deceived the American people."
"Time and time again, the American people were told one thing about domestic surveillance in public forums, while government agencies did something else in private."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We're very pleased to highlight industry leading exhibitors Aspera, a Platinum Sponsor; Oracle Communications and Savvis Gold Sponsors; A10 Networks, Citrix, SoftServe, TransLattice, and VASCO Silver Sponsors; and ABI Research Marketing Partner for CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 (CCW:2013).
Without their valuable support, the Cloud Computing Association's (CCA) and Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) business strategy summit taking place October 27th-29th at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, NV, would not be possible.
Delegates will be particularly interested in the fascinating demos and presentations of new services by this year's exhibitors.
Aspera is the creator of next-generation transport technologies that move the world's data at maximum speed regardless of file size, transfer distance, and network conditions.
As organizations turn to the cloud for improved efficiency and unprecedented scalability, Aspera enables data- and processing-intensive workflows with high-speed transfer available on-demand and maximum speed ingest and distribution of big data to and from cloud storage.
More than 1,700 organizations across a variety of industries on six continents rely on Aspera software for the business-critical transport of their digital assets.
Oracle Communications solutions span the communications industry landscape — from cross-channel customer experience and business and operational support systems, to network service and session delivery and control solutions — enabling service providers and enterprises to deliver and monetize innovative digital lifestyle services, build strong customer relationships, and streamline operations.
Savvis, a CenturyLink company, is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprises.
Nearly 2,500 unique clients, including more than 30 of the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500, use Savvis to reduce capital expense, improve service levels and harness the latest advances in cloud computing.
A10 Networks is the technology leader in Application Networking.
A10's flagship high-performance AX Series platforms offer solutions for three key markets: Application Delivery/Server Load Balancing, IPv6 Migration, and Cloud Computing & Virtualization.
With the AX Series, customers of all sizes benefit from application availability, scalability & performance; increased infrastructure efficiency and a faster end-user experience.
Citrix transforms how businesses and IT work and people collaborate in the cloud era.
With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking, and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile workstyles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 organizations.
Citrix products touch 75 percent of Internet users each day and it partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion.
SoftServe is a leading global provider of high quality software development, testing, and technology consulting services.
The company is committed to bringing the best commercial software to independent software vendors and enterprises.
SoftServe combines its unmatched experience with best practices delivering SaaS/Cloud, Mobility and SDLC innovative solutions.
With an onshore/offshore delivery model, SoftServe collaborates with its customers helping them drive their business and differentiate themselves within their markets.
SoftServe has successfully completed over 2,500 projects for over 150 global companies.
Founded in 1993, SoftServe is head- quartered in Fort Myers, FL, with an award-winning development organization based in Ukraine.
TransLattice geographically distributes SQL databases and applications for enterprise, cloud, and hybrid environments to provide data where and when it is needed.
This new approach to enterprise infrastructure provides corporate-wide visibility while enabling data location compliance, significantly reduced deployment complexity and costs, and dramatically improved system availability and scalability.
VASCO is a world leader in strong authentication and e-signature solutions, specializing in online accounts, identities and transactions.
As a global software company, VASCO serves a customer base of approximately 10,000 companies in over 100 countries, including more than 1,700 international financial institutions.
In addition to the financial sector, VASCO's technologies secure sensitive information and transactions for the enterprise security, e-commerce, and e-government industries.
ABI Research, established in 1990, is a market intelligence company specializing in global technology markets.
Its unique blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis helps ABI Research to quantify the important markets of today, define the strategic technologies of tomorrow, and provide insight on how technology is adopted into vertical markets.
ABI's clients rely on its services to uncover key market metrics and trends that are compiled through a combination of hundreds of comprehensive stakeholder interviews per year, technical intelligence from teardowns, years of collective market experience, vendor contributed data and end-user research.
This year's CCW:2013 themes are Revolutionizing Entertainment & Media and The Impact of Mobile Cloud Computing & Big Data. A Town Hall Meeting been added to address the NSA privacy scandal and how to optimize business results of our industry response.
SIGN-UP NOW for CCW:2103. Please click here for exhibiting and sponsoring information and here to apply to speak at this event. Share wisely, and take care.
Accountability and Surveillance
Excerpted from Op-Ed Report by Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA)
There are certain natural liberties that Americans have — simply as citizens of this nation — that set us apart from many others in the world. One of those is privacy. Privacy is intrinsically linked to other freedoms: the freedom of expression, of assembly and association, the freedom to acquire and use property.
So when Edward Snowden leaked information about the collection of American communication data by the National Security Agency (NSA), it reignited a fierce debate about the role of the government in today's world of technology and terrorism.
Under current law, the NSA has limited authority to gather electronic information. Events over the past few months have demonstrated that the agency has built a surveillance network that reaches far beyond the scope of its authority. Americans quickly learned that Snowden had unearthed a five-year collection of "telephony metadata" that logged the origin, destination, time and duration of billions of phone calls made in the United States.
The issue of government surveillance became personal to many Americans for the first time as word of NSA's overreach kept coming. New reports in August showed that the NSA has broken privacy rules and overstepped its authority thousands of times since 2008, and that it misrepresented the scope of its efforts to the secret court that oversees government surveillance.
Encasing all of this are the harsh realities of our world today. We live in a post 9/11 society. There are those who actively seek to do our nation harm. Many intelligence programs are meant to keep Americans safe from a very real terrorist threat. But we also have a need for public trust. Indeed, the need for security does not mean the government is off the hook in its obligation to respect individual privacy.
The Fourth Amendment says that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." This provision is clear in its intent: Americans deserve privacy just as much as they deserve protection. Our Constitution demands that these rights cannot and must not be mutually exclusive.
I share the deeply held concerns of those who fear that government has become increasingly intrusive and disrespectful of the American people's fundamental rights and liberties. The security and safety of our nation must not come at the cost of our freedoms or individual liberties as American citizens.
I strongly support providing a legal framework that reassures all Americans that our rights are being respected, while at the same time taking appropriate steps to ensure our security. We need to strengthen oversight so we can continually ask important questions. How much government monitoring is too much? What oversight mechanisms are in place? Do they need to be strengthened? How do we protect these liberties against the pursuit of security?
As it stands now, when the secret court responsible for overseeing surveillance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), reviews a decision, the Attorney General must determine if the issue is an appropriate interpretation of current law. Only if the Attorney General deems the decision "significant" must the information be shared with Congress. Otherwise, the information isn't required to be shared. This leaves a lot up to interpretation, and I believe we need an extra layer of oversight.
Last week, I introduced a bipartisan bill that will provide much-needed accountability to a system that has run aground of its constitutional authority.
US Representatives Mike Thompson (D-CA); Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ); Luis Gutierrez (D-IL); and I came together on this issue because we believe the oversight of our intelligence community transcends partisan barriers. The Intelligence Oversight and Accountability Act (HR 3103) requires that the Attorney General share all FISC decisions with Congress.
Essentially, it removes the subjective layer that exists between what Congress should or shouldn't review. The result will be increased oversight of the secret court and of intelligence community programs overall.
The bill comes at a crucial time when many Americans no longer see their government as a force for good, but rather as an invasive institution that has abused the powers its citizens bestowed on it. Freedom is costly. But we don't have to pay for it on privacy's tab.
IBM Calls Amazon Unprepared to Secure Intelligence Data
Excerpted from Nextgov Report by Joseph Marks
Against the backdrop of a $150 million lawsuit over a contract to build a secure computer cloud for the US intelligence community, an IBM executive swiped at competitor Amazon last week, calling the company's cloud services unreliable and not up to government standards.
"Amazon's definition of reliability doesn't measure up to what the federal government needs for mission critical workloads," Andrew Maner, Managing Partner of IBM's federal cloud business told Nextgov.
Amazon is suing the government in an effort to claw back a contract it initially won to provide cloud computing services to the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The CIA later canceled and re-bid that contract after IBM complained to the Government Accountability Office.
GAO found the CIA gave Amazon an unfair advantage because it agreed to modify some terms of the contract after it had already been awarded. Notably, the agency agreed to weaken a requirement that all software in its cloud be verifiably free from computer viruses that might let unauthorized people see intelligence data. Amazon asked that it only be required to vouch for software it had built itself, not for third party and open source software.
Amazon contends in its lawsuit that the contract was properly awarded and that the CIA overlooked significant flaws in IBM's bid in order to comply with the GAO ruling. GAO rulings on bid protests aren't binding but agencies often follow them.
IBM is an intervening party in the lawsuit, which means it can file motions in the case and view sealed motions filed by Amazon. Most documents in the case record are either sealed or redacted to protect trade secrets.
Maner declined to discuss the lawsuit directly in his interview with Nextgov other than to say IBM stands behind its protest to the GAO.
"We don't normally take that approach," he said of filing the protest. "But with something this important and the entire company behind us it was the right thing to do. We're talking about mission critical applications and we don't take those things lightly."
Maner criticized Amazon, saying the company was not secure enough to store sensitive government information and that its level of service isn't up to government standards.
"Amazon's whole business is built on a self-service model, but government agencies require more than a do-it-yourself mentality to be at the core of their work with mission critical projects," Maner said.
He also argued that "Amazon is scrambling to find talent to fill major gaps in its ability to deliver."
A spokeswoman for Amazon's cloud division, Amazon Web Services, responded in an email that the company "has a large, dedicated public sector team that serves the needs of more than 600 government agencies and 2,400 education institutions currently using AWS services."
The spokeswoman added: "AWS works closely with government organizations to implement mission-critical applications on the AWS cloud to significantly reduce costs and achieve benefits like increased scalability, flexibility, security and agility."
In the first round of cloud solicitations, Amazon's bid came in at $148 million and was rated low-risk by the CIA, according to a redacted version of Amazon's lawsuit. The IBM proposal came in at $94 million and was graded high risk by the CIA, the lawsuit states.
In the suit, Amazon describes IBM as a "late entrant to the cloud computing market" and calls its price advantage "a mirage."
Computer clouds can generally store larger amounts of information more cheaply than traditional data centers and are better at giving customers remote access to those data and programs.
Amazon has become one of the largest cloud providers for the federal government, mostly focused on non-sensitive data such as website content. Its customers include the Treasury, Energy and State departments. IBM has a longer history securing sensitive government information, including for the US military.
The proposed CIA cloud would be available to the entire intelligence community. National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander told an audience in 2011 that cloud computing cloud save the NSA 30 percent or more of its IT budget. NSA is one of the government's largest gatherers of digital intelligence, including through a number of controversial programs exposed by former contractor Edward Snowden.
Software Revolution: The Shift to Cloud Computing
Excerpted from Forbes Report by Josh Manchester
What is cloud computing? Cloud computing, simply stated, is the ability to use files and applications over the Internet instead of hosting, storing, or processing them on locally managed hardware.
Thanks to a series of advances in data storage, security, and transmission, individuals and enterprises can now store their data remotely in a third-party facility. Because the data and software in use is not physically stored, it's as though it were floating in a cloud.
You can easily understand cloud computing from the history of personal computer software over the past decade. Ten years ago, a consumer purchasing a new computer would be extremely conscious of the machine's processing power as well as the size of its random access memory (RAM) and its hard drive. This is because so much of what the consumer might wish to do would take place on the machine and by the machine itself. Any software would be installed onto the computer and accessed by the computer's central processing unit (CPU) and operating system (OS). The amount of RAM available would determine how fast a program might run, and the total memory on the hard drive would determine what programs one could use.
Today, a corporation, small business, or individual no longer has to make nearly as many decisions when purchasing hardware; in many cases, there are no hardware decisions to make.
As the long-tenured venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners summarizes in its Top Ten Laws of Cloud Computing, the headaches that once plagued software providers and users have been relieved. Now, a software provider can bypass these challenges and simply make sure that a business or individual has all the data and applications necessary to succeed.
Cloud computing was more or less created by the growth of consumer Internet. In 1999, there were roughly 50 million broadband users worldwide. In 2012, there were perhaps two billion. As consumers began to have increasing speed and access to the Internet at their leisure, they began to use the consumer web at extraordinary levels.
Then, Google was born and grew into the behemoth that it is today, tasked with serving the millions and ultimately billions of consumers making trillions or quadrillions of searches. Many of the innovations we see now are a direct result of Google's response to the Internet's rapid growth, and many are related to cloud computing.
Other consumer web businesses have followed suit. Amazon, for example, became so adept at managing its own data centers and infrastructure that it began offering these skills to third party developers, as Amazon Web Services.
The same transition to cloud infrastructure is now happening in enterprise software.
Tech firms caught on to this trend and began building similar services solely for enterprises. As a result, businesses no longer need to hire expensive IT consultants or staff to make complicated decisions about hardware or suites of software products. Instead, they have options.
They can make use of "public clouds" such as Dropbox, Box, and Citrix ShareFile, which are used by many other businesses. Or, if they are of sufficient size, they can build their own "private clouds" for security, governance, or other reasons.
As an additional advantage, businesses can keep data in storage owned by a third party, in a data center run by data specialists. This allows businesses to purchase computing and storage almost as they would utilities, on an as-needed basis, which gives them room to scale up or down at will.
As large enterprises continue to adopt cloud computing in all its forms, businesses will have to make critical decisions related to the security, storage, and virtualization of their software, proprietary information, and data. In the future, we expect to see more headlines related to changes in the existing ecosystem and the disruption of key incumbents, like HP and IBM.
What does this mean for VC investing?
The accessibility, utility, and popularity of cloud computing has created an industry shift ripe for disruptive technology innovators. The media continue to pump out headline stories about the role of cloud computing in enterprise software today, as well as the accompanying influx of venture capital in start-ups tackling the space.
VCs across investment stages are maintaining a close watch on the sector's success and growth potential, with the goal of identifying those companies most likely to drive compelling returns for investors. Cloud computing is still a nascent industry, and its potential spans across all industries.
How Cloud Computing Is Changing the World without You Knowing
Excerpted from The Guardian Report by Joe Baguley
From improving healthcare standards to reducing carbon footprints, the cloud is driving a quiet revolution.
When it comes to emerging technologies, there is one phrase that has drawn more controversy than others: cloud computing. Two words which have driven countless debates, caused numerous arguments in IT departments and, more often than we'd care to admit, have left many in the industry deeply confused.
But interest has continued to increase and many organizations have moved elements of their IT into the cloud. We've also become accustomed to the idea of storing our personal data in the cloud, whether it's via Dropbox, the iCloud or even Facebook.
But this really only tells half the story.
So far cloud computing has, for the most part, been used to speed up and reduce the costs of existing processes. As Henry Ford supposedly said: "If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."
It is only now, as the cloud journey grows more maturity, that we can begin to see the full potential to transform business models and working practices.
We're moving into what is becoming known as the mobile/cloud era. Our thinking is being shaped by several key areas: the need for flexible IT infrastructure, the emergence of big data analytics and increased mobile usage. But how can we use these ideas to help organizations not only improve but transform their internal processes? Just as email rendered the memo as obsolete, cloud computing is set to impact on the way we do business, offering a competitive advantage to those organizations bold enough to think outside the accepted.
Frimley Park Hospital, for example, is an NHS Foundation Trust serving more than 400,000 people across its region. With budgets cuts beginning to bite, the hospital looked to innovate its IT systems in order to save cash without impacting frontline services. Thanks to the cloud, Frimley Park's staff are now able to access all clinical records from tablets, meaning patients experience an increased level of one-to-one care. Additionally, the savings in IT mean that the organization is able to push more resources into patient care rather than tying it up in back office maintenance.
And in the private sector, businesses such as online gaming company Betfair are using the cloud to ensure they stay ahead of their competitors and can offer exciting new options to its established customer base. These days customers are used to having instant, mobile access to the latest odds as well as the ability to bet in-game and receive real-time feedback. Without the cloud this would be impossible. For Betfair, cloud technology is critical as the organization looks to react quickly to market events, creating and deploying new applications in time to capitalize on key trends.
WorldPay, an online payment providers, has also benefited from cloud technologies. Time has always been a valuable commodity for businesses, and now, with the world moving at a faster pace than ever before, its worth has increased exponentially. Businesses need to able to launch applications quickly and take advantage of lucrative market opportunities. By moving its infrastructure to the cloud WorldPay was able offer customers self-service provisioning, or in layman's terms, the ability to instantly add a payment method to their service.
Cloud is playing a vital role in ensuring employees are kept in constant contact - working practices have been transformed as the cloud allows new and more efficient forms of collaboration. The technology is no longer a "nice-to-have," but is a critical part of any organization's infrastructure. We're seeing more and more businesses relying on mobile devices as the era of "office working" slowly draws to a close.
In fact, the trend is so important to workers that over a third claimed they would leave their job if told they couldn't use their mobile device for work purposes. With this in mind, nearly half of IT leaders said they would be designing systems and policies this year to accommodate employee access to mobile data - once again cloud technology proves vital in not only lending a competitive edge but also as a method of talent retention.
These are just a couple of examples of how the cloud is affecting your life without you knowing it - from helping to improve healthcare standards and educational learning to reducing our carbon footprints and cutting IT bills so more resources can be invested into research and development operations.
The cloud applications we're seeing at the moment really are the tip of the iceberg and, as the technology matures further, who knows how we may be using the cloud in even a year from now. Technologies and concepts such as the Internet of Things and smart cities are growing ever closer to becoming the norm as organizations begin to realize that the cloud can do so much more than simply speed up or reduce the cost of their IT - it can totally transform it.
Survey Provides Insight into Cloud Computing Usage
Excerpted from AccountingWeb by Jason Bramwell
What are organizations looking for in a cloud solution? What concerns do they have about using a cloud-based service? How do they view the obstacles associated with this technology trend? These were among the questions asked to more than 500 organizations for the 2013 Outlook on Technology: Cloud Computing Survey from PC Connection.
While 31 percent of the businesses surveyed reported having no plans for moving to the cloud, 69 percent reported either already having applications in the cloud (19 percent) or are somewhere in the process of implementing a cloud-based service (50 percent).
Of those organizations in the cloud, only 14 percent are using it for finance/accounting. E-mail/collaboration software (35 percent) was organizations' top functional area for cloud usage, followed by the IT department (32 percent) and web/e-commerce (31 percent).
Fifty-five percent of organizations that have moved to the cloud or are in the process of implementing a cloud-based service are most likely using a private cloud strategy. However, of the 39 percent of organizations likely to use a public cloud strategy, software-as-a-service (SaaS) is the most popular choice (75 percent).
There are twelve main factors driving businesses to using a cloud solution:
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Improved data backup services/disaster recovery (42 percent)
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Always-available access to applications/data (40 percent)
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Cost savings (40 percent)
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Reduced on-site infrastructure needed (38 percent)
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Scalability/flexibility in the amount of capacity needed/paid for (35 percent)
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Long-term IT strategy (35 percent)
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Improved mobility for the workforce (33 percent)
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Improved productivity (32 percent)
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Reduced workload for internal IT department (29 percent)
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More storage capacity (25 percent)
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Moving capital expenses to operating expenses (21 percent)
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Control over the Cloud environment (19 percent)
Additional Key Survey Results:
Fifty percent of organizations surveyed had an assessment to determine if their environments are suitable candidates for the Cloud, while 41 percent reported they did not have an assessment. Nine percent were not sure.
More than half of respondents (52 percent) said their organization's IT department was responsible for starting Cloud initiatives, followed by C-level executives (34 percent) and non-IT-related business functions (10 percent).
Seventy-three percent of respondents said reliability is the most important factor when choosing a Cloud partner, followed by technical support (64 percent) and price (64 percent).
Among organizations with cloud-based services in place or working toward implementing one, cost savings (51 percent) was the top influencer.
There are also ten obstacles organizations cited in regards to moving to the Cloud:
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Security concerns (65 percent)
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Integration with current networks/applications/systems (34 percent)
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System performance/availability (33 percent)
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Legal and regulatory compliance (32 percent)
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Lack of standards among Cloud service providers (28 percent)
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Lack of visibility into future cost (27 percent)
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Managing a vendor/partner (20 percent)
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Deciding which applications to move to the Cloud (20 percent)
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Implementing policies around which applications can be moved to the Cloud (20 percent)
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Difficulty finding a vendor with the needed skill set/offerings (12 percent)
It comes as no surprise that security was the top obstacle to adopting a cloud strategy; however, this was more of a concern for those with no plans to implement (71 percent) than organizations using the cloud or implementing a solution (62 percent).
Thirty percent of organizations surveyed strongly agree that their IT staff has the skills to deploy or manage cloud technologies. Organizations are less sure about cloud technologies freeing up their IT staff to focus on other projects — especially organizations with no plans to implement cloud. Only 2 percent of those respondents believe a cloud solution will allow IT staff more free time.
Cloud Computing Challenge Is to Keep-Up with Demand
Excerpted from Business Solutions Report by Bernadette Wilson
According to CompTIA's 4th Annual Trends in Cloud Computing study, the cloud market is maturing with revenue and profits growing. Along with this good news, however, there is also some evidence that the cloud market is experiencing growing pains.
Carolyn April, Director of Industry Analysis at CompTIA, reports, in some cases, "Demand has outstripped capacity and some people have lost customers."
The study, based on an online survey of 501 end-users in the US and 400 IT channel companies, found 40 percent of channel firms have experienced cases where demand has exceeded their capacity to deliver. An additional 20 percent have lost deals because a customer wanted a cloud solution they didn't offer.
According to April, options for solutions providers include specializing — limiting what they offer — or "realizing there will be a time when you can't keep up with the demand."
The high demand for cloud services also means increasing opportunities. April says, "We're seeing the highest growth potential in the management and monitoring of these solutions going forward."
The section of the study, Channel Relationships: Vendors, Customers, and Distributors, also reports 60 percent of solutions providers say offering cloud services has strengthened their customer relationships. "Cloud really affords an opportunity to cement that trusted-advisor status," says April. She says cloud requires more than just making a sale — it's having a business conversation, understanding the customer's pain points, and helping them find a solution.
"It's knowing what the customer needs — and in some cases that might not be cloud," April points out.
She says concern over security is often the reason customers initially reject cloud, but "then the solutions provider has an opportunity to step up and explain security."
The study, divided into six sections, also looks at End-User Cloud Migration Issues. Researchers found that as companies are becoming more familiar with the cloud model, more often they are optimizing their usage by moving from one public cloud to another or moving to their own private cloud. April comments, "The amount of migration has gone up successively with each of the studies.
In 2010, there was a lot of apprehension and little adoption. This year there is more maturity of cloud business among the channel. Overall, it's a real uptick and a validation that cloud is here to stay." The study says cloud migration will become a greater focus area as time goes on, with 44 percent of companies that have not yet performed a secondary migration planning to do so in the next 12 months.
The section on Channel Business Model Analysis found that half of channel firms today consider their cloud business as "mature." Another 40 percent say their cloud services have reached a degree of maturing alongside their more established lines of business. April says this finding is significant. "This was a fundamental fear point for a lot of solutions providers." This section of the study also gives the details of the four primary cloud business models for the channel: Build, Provide/Provision, Enable/Integrate, and Manage/Support.
The last section of the study, Cloud Challenges and Opportunities lists some hurdles to overcome as the market matures. The first is "the incidence of rogue IT." Some businesses are procuring their own cloud solutions. April says this, too, is an opportunity. "In order to move to the next level, it's well beyond their capabilities. It opens up a lot of profit margin opportunities."
Another challenge is transitioning, either launching cloud services or trying to grow existing ones. The study states a critical question is whether cloud makes sense from an ROI perspective, and although the answer is complicated due to the wide variety of business models and revenue structures, solutions providers are moving toward cloud. About 60 percent of those surveyed are proactively pursuing several segments of the business models to enter the cloud market, with medium to larger firms more likely to do so.
To make the transition, the companies surveyed use several strategies. Of those companies, 46 percent invested in technical, sales, and business training, 42 percent transitioned just a part of their business with plans to scale later, 40 percent pursued vendor-based training, 39 percent partnered with other solutions providers, 38 percent hired new sales reps with cloud experience, and 32 percent pursued new lines of capital or credit.
April says adding cloud parallels adding other managed services to your business. "It's infrastructure. It's where the technology resides. It's really about selling a service."
For a summary of the survey sections that present end-user data visit SlideShare.
Telefonica Launches Nubico Cloud-Based e-Book Platform
Excerpted from Telecompaper Report
Telefonica has launched its Nubico e-reader platform in Spain. Developed in partnership with Spanish publisher Circulo de Lectores, Nubico is a subscription service with e-books from all the major publishers in Spain.
Open to other participants in the sector, Nubico is a multi-platform, cloud-base service, focused on quality content. For a monthly fee of EUR 8.99 (VAT included), Nubico subscribers will have unlimited access to thousands of e-books on up to five different devices, including tablets, smartphones e-readers, and PCs.
BitTorrent Restored to Google Search Function
Excerpted from Variety Report by Ted Johnson
Google several years ago started blocking terms associated with sites that traffic in copyright-infringing content from its auto-complete function, and the term "BitTorrent" was among them.
But BitTorrent, responsible for the widely used peer-to-peer (P2P) technology used for file-sharing, is now in Google's good graces, and has returned to the search function.
Studios have gone after file-sharing sites for years, including those like The Pirate Bay that host BitTorrent "trackers," and they have pressed Google to restrict search terms that can lead users to infringing sites.
Just last week, NBCUniversal released a study conducted by NetNames that said that BitTorrent was the most popular P2P file distribution system worldwide, but also concluded that the infringing use of the file-sharing protocol was on the rise, with the number of users increasing 23.6% from November, 2011, to January 2013.
BitTorrent, the company, has been challenging perceptions that it is associated with copyright infringement, arguing that it is a legitimately used ecosystem, deployed by companies like Facebook and authors like Tim Ferriss.
Matt Mason, the company's Vice President of Marketing, wrote in a blog post in June that it is "literally impossible to download unauthorized content on BitTorrent. To infringe, you need more than a protocol. You need search, an infringing content site, and a content manager. We offer none of those things. If you're using BitTorrent for copyright infringement, you're doing it wrong."
In an interview, Mason said that they had not been talking to Google "directly" about restoring its name into the auto-complete function, saying that it was "not something we initiated specifically." He said that the restoration represents a "perception shift in terms of the word 'BitTorrent.'" The company announced a BitTorrent Bundle for artists and other content creators to publish directly to fans.
Xbox One's Cloud Computing Ensures Better Experience
Excerpted from Gaming Bolt Report by Ravi Sinha
During a panel at the on-going Eurogamer Expo, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President Phil Harrison talked about how cloud computing would improve the visual experience in console games over the years.
"It's also about cloud processing and AI. This is where some of the computational effort of a game can be offloaded to the dedicated CPUs on the cloud, to make your game experience even better, better graphics, better lighting, better physics. This is an example of where we think the cloud is going to push the next generation of game development in new and creative ways, that will make the experience even more better."
Harrison also believed that the Cloud will help keep consoles relevant, even as PCs become more powerful. Will Microsoft's server farms be enough to support visual improvements for so many consoles and games over several years at a time? That remains to be seen, but at the very least, you won't need to worry about games looking visually inferior down the line.
Does Netflix Have a Better or Worse Business Model than Comcast?
Excerpted from Generator Research Report
Comcast is the world's largest cable TV operator while Netflix is the world's largest over-the-top (OTT) Internet TV provider. Both companies are essentially in the same business, but their respective business models could hardly be more different.
So who has the best business model? More generally, is cable TV a fundamentally better, or worse, business than OTT Internet TV?
If you're involved in Internet TV then you should know the answer to these questions.
A comparison of the respective business models of Comcast and Netflix raises some interesting points:
Because Netflix subscribers pay for their own broadband service, Netflix has effectively outsourced part of the cost of delivering its content to its own customers. So should this cost be added to the monthly fee that Netflix charges its subscribers to allow a proper comparison with what Comcast charges its video customers?
Here's another tricky point: Comcast's network costs are far higher than Netflix but they allow the company to sell additional services — specifically broadband service and voice service. So should these costs be reduced proportionately to allow a proper comparison to be made with Netflix?
But even if you just look at the portion of Comcast's network operating costs that are attributable to its video service then are those costs higher or lower than Netflix? And what about content acquisition costs?
Everyone knows that the biggest Pay-TV operators, like Comcast, have the best content — branded shows that oftentimes air exclusively first on their networks. So you'd think that Comcast is paying a lot more than Netflix for its content — but while this is true in absolute terms, is it also true when measured as a percentage of video service revenues?
Please click here for the full report.
Coming Events of Interest
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2013 - October 27th-29th in Las Vegas, NV. Two major 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; and the impact of mobile cloud computing and Big Data analytics in this space.
International CES - January 7th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. The International CES is the global stage for innovation reaching across global markets, connecting the industry and enabling CE innovations to grow and thrive. The International CES is owned and produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $209 billion US consumer electronics industry.
CONNECTING TO THE CLOUD - January 8th in Las Vegas, NV. This DCIA Conference within CES will highlight the very latest advancements in cloud-based solutions that are now revolutionizing the consumer electronics (CE) sector. Special attention will be given to the impact on consumers, telecom industries, the media, and CE manufacturers of accessing and interacting with cloud-based services using connected devices.
CCISA 2013 – February 12th–14th in Turin, Italy. The second international special session on Cloud Computing and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and its Applications within the 22nd Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, and Network-Based Processing.
NAB Show - April 5th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. From broadcasting to broader-casting, NAB Show has evolved over the last eight decades to continually lead this ever-changing industry. From creation to consumption, NAB Show has proudly served as the incubator for excellence — helping to breathe life into content everywhere.
CLOUD COMPUTING EAST 2014 - May 13th-14th in Washington, DC. Three major conference tracks will zero in on the latest advances in the application of cloud-based solutions in three key economic sectors: government, healthcare, and financial services.
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