Cloud Computing / Features

Every revolution results in winners and losers -- after the dust settles. During the revolution, chaos occurs as people attempt to discern if this is the real thing or just a minor rebellion. All parties put forward their positions, attempting to convince onlookers that theirs is the path forward. Meanwhile, established practices and institutions are disrupted and even overturned -- perhaps temporarily or maybe permanently. Eventually, the results shake out and it becomes clear which viewpoint prevails and becomes the new established practice -- and in its turn becomes the incumbent, ripe for disruption.

The hype around cloud computing would make you think mass adoption will happen tomorrow. But recent studies by a number of sources have shown that security is the biggest barrier to cloud adoption. The reality is cloud computing is simply another step in technology evolution following the path of mainframe, client server and Web applications, all of which had -- and still have -- their own security issues.

IT people with skills and experience in server virtualization, cloud computing or both have a far greater chance of getting and keeping jobs than most other IT people now, according to recruiters and analysts. But what do you call these gurus?

Just before the holidays I had a really interesting conversation with my friend Bill Takacs, who works at Gear6. It is a company that offers memcached appliances, used in applications that have very high data loads that preclude using a database as the primary means of data access. He shared with me a common pattern he sees in companies that are heavy users of memcached, which, after some thought, I concluded offers a vision of the future of cloud computing operations.

There's no doubt that 2009 was a rough year for startups and established businesses alike, but many are holding out hope that 2010 will be different, especially since venture capitalists seem to be loosening their purse strings. Keep an eye on these five businesses that offer fresh ideas to the Web 2.0 arena.

When you belong to several social networking sites-Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter-(and don't we all?), keeping up with them can seem overwhelming. Tweet this. Update that status. Share a link here. If you've resolved to get more organized this year, consider these seven tools that save time and streamline your social networking interactions. My picks: For easy content sharing across platforms, be sure to check out is the browser plugin Shareaholic. And for simple synching and updating of multiple accounts, Atomkeep seems to be the most efficient.

There is no doubt that cloud computing is dominating today's IT conversation among C-level security executives. Whether it's due to the compelling cost saving possibilities in a tough economy, or because of perceived advantages in provisioning flexibility, auto-scaling, and on-demand computing, CSOs are probing the capabilities, costs and restrictions of the cloud. At the same time, security and compliance concerns are at the forefront of issues potentially holding large enterprises back from capitalizing on the benefits that cloud computing has to offer.

A host of substantial problems with porting legacy apps to the cloud will keep most companies from diving in for now, say analysts reporting on weaknesses in the cloud and ISVs trying to fill in the gaps.

I realize I'm dating myself, but the first computer I ever owned didn't have a hard drive. It had two drive bays that held 5.25 inch floppies. Later, I bought a then revolutionary machine, an 8086 I think, with a 40 MB hard drive, and I wondered how anyone could ever fill it up. And the last time I moved, I discovered a box filled with floppies and 250 MB Zip drives.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to moderate an HP-sponsored meeting on the subject of virtualization. Predictably, most of the discussion (attended by press and vendors including Citrix, Microsoft, Red Hat, and VMware) focused on cloud computing. It was a pretty lively session, but what I want to address here is an HP product portfolio called "IT Financial Management" that was discussed, along with its implications for cloud computing. As you might guess, the product focuses on financial analysis of IT operations, which is extremely relevant to the adoption of cloud computing.

Boeing CIO John M Hinshaw talks about rationalising IT, surviving the financial crisis and the challenges of migrating 200,000 desktops to Windows 7.

Australia's $43 billion National Broadband Network will usher in a new era of connectivity and business innovation. Here's what CIOs need to know...

You've probably seen a hundred-or even a thousand-articles criticizing cloud computing Service Level Agreements (SLAs). A common example in those articles is the putatively low Amazon Web Services SLA. Typically authors of these kind of articles go on to cite recent outages by cloud providers, implying (or stating directly) that cloud computing falls woefully short of the true SLA requirements of enterprises, often described as "five nines," i.e., 99.999 per cent availability.

With data center costs on the rise, Jeff Monroe is always looking for a deal.

Despite its great promise, CIOs' concerns about cloud computing perist. . .

Cloud service providers can make compelling and simple sales pitches in terms of cost of individual services-$100 per user per year sounds pretty good. But "hidden" expenses can alter a company's outlook. Costs related to people, processes, and architecture associated with both the transition and the operations require analysis and planning before signing up for a business case based on a move to the cloud. CIOs and other IT professionals are already well acquainted with such expenses, but the challenge will lie in uncovering them in the relatively unfamiliar cloud model and determining accountability for each.

Experienced CIOs have learned the hard way that achieving tangible benefits early in the technology lifecycle is no easy matter--whether its OO, CMMI, ITIL or SOA. Cloud computing shows promise and demands attention, but the related hoopla needs to be tempered with a good dose of business sense. The cloud, regardless of its variety, should never be considered an all-or-nothing proposition.

It seems as if every CIO comes back from a conference cocktail party demanding IT move to the cloud. While this can mean many things, including using software-as-a-service (SaaS), managed hosting, or application service providers (ASP), the demand often centers on moving applications out of your own budget-sucking data center and up to an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud platform.

When Microsoft's storage service for Sidekick users broke down, cloud computing questions sprang up -- both fair and unfair.

Did you think all those legacy apps would just float up into someone else's cloud infrastructure? Management, licensing and migration concerns highlight the list of troubles that vendors are now trying to address.