Cloud Computing / Opinions

Many organizations are turning to the public cloud, taking advantage of the speed it enables developers to deploy applications in their organizations.  According to IDG in their 2018 Cloud Computing Survey, 73% of organizations have at least one application, or a portion of their computing infrastructure in the cloud.[1] But in some cases, certain data and applications cannot run in the public cloud due to data sovereignty and compliance policies.

With few enterprises using purely private or purely public cloud infrastructure, a range of startups has emerged to meet unique hybrid-cloud needs for management, storage and virtualization. Here are 10 hot hybrid cloud startups to keep an eye on.

Could you soon see Windows running on a Chromebook? Clues are pointing that way. But why would Google do it? Here’s my take.

Anything other than a cloud-only strategy for new IT initiatives will require justification at more than 30 percent of large enterprises by 2020, according to Gartner.

Is it really that hard to keep from making a security idiot of yourself?

If you are evaluating cloud financial management applications, a common question is “how often does the system go down?” For most of the leading cloud vendors, they have a strikingly similar answer: 0.5% of the time, phrased as “99.5% uptime”. That sounds very impressive, but does that really mean your application will be up and running 99.5% of the time? The short answer is no.

Diamonds may be forever but they are non-trivial to produce; applications that are forever may be nearly as challenging to create.

The perception of software quality will be forged in the first 90 seconds. Don’t let your users experience what I had to go through.

At some point the economic unviability of private clouds will become clear. Math will win out.

You might not have noticed it, but cloud implementation consultants and contractors have been acting increasingly stupid over the last couple of years. If you think this doesn’t affect you and your project, you’re wrong.

The US Social Security Administration does a poor job of computer security. Surprised?

While private cloud proponents have spent the last five years focusing on getting their IaaS offerings working, Amazon, Microsoft and Google have moved way beyond core computing services. And you don’t have to strain to hear the death knell sounding for the private cloud.

Michael Sampson’s latest book, Re-Imagining Productive Work with Office 365, is a “must read” if you are currently using or planning to use Office 365. Michael is a brilliant author and approaches his overview of Office 365 not from the perspective of the individual technology elements, but from the perspective of the activities that “information workers” do every day.

IT as we know it is on the brink of massive disruption. Enterprise IT groups will struggle to rebalance skills while vendors struggle for survival. How will your organization fare in the new cloud-centric world?

Cloud computing is remaking the entire IT stack, from the foundation to the customer level. The application layer is no different.

CIO.com’s Bernard Golden looks into the near future of cloud computing. Here’s what he sees.

Why would an organization adopt bimodal IT? It says an IT group needs to move both quickly and slowly for an effective digital workplace. I recommend that CIOs embrace DevOps – the jewel in the crown in the cloud world – and apply its principles of agile, elastic thinking to their legacy world.

Amazon Web Services’ signature conference continues to show how customers both large and small are solving their real IT challenges, which is one of the reasons it’s evolved into a must-attend conference.

It’s hard enough really trusting your own employees these days. So when it comes to employees of cloud service providers, columnist Rob Enderle writes you definitely shouldn’t trust them.

Wi-Fi can be done securely, even at a hacker conference like DEF CON. Just avoid open networks and Android.