The release (at least, the release to developers) of the Azure "Windows in the cloud" operating system from Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) begs the question of whether corporate IT is ready for cloud computing.
The jury's out, it seems. But Microsoft's move has focused collective IT attention on moving enterprise apps to hosted services.
And that's where the holdup is. "Frankly, I’d like to put our entire business in the cloud... but when it comes to the day-to-day tasks we need to do, it’s still too complex to manage without an advanced degree in geek," writes Dave Vellante of The Wikibon Project in his
ThinkerNet blog on Azure.
Vellante hopes Microsoft could make it easier for developers to build cloud applications at an affordable price with solid tools and management.
Others hope Azure will offer improvements in application connectivity. "Expect to see a great many commercial applications redesigned to take advantage of what may turn out to be low-cost, low-latency networking. But not for a year or two," states analyst Mike Karp of Enterprise Management Associates in his recent blog here.
For its part, Microsoft claims a big benefit of Azure is its support of a "federated" interface to multiple cloud services yet to be developed. (Price? Retail availability? Those are secondary concerns.)
"We aren't in a world right now where federation is broadly used. And we've created in our online properties one-click federation between the enterprise and our Live ID ecosystem so that now business developers can hook into that and serve a world of enterprises that they might not have been able to do otherwise," said Microsoft's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, in an interview this week.
Ozzie appears to view these services as regular business applications, like Sharepoint, Office Communication Server, Exchange, and so forth. Using Azure, a company could offer cloud access to these apps to multiple branches and divisions of the same firm, as well as to outside partners, without requiring separate IDs.
Will Azure's improvements really inspire IT to move toward cloud computing in a big way?
Perhaps. Microsoft's hedging its bets. Just as the analysts said, Microsoft is goosing developers to start thinking about cloud computing, so it can follow up later with real products. If the market doesn't respond, no products will need to be pulled.
What does need to happen to make cloud computing more popular with enterprise IT? "A platform is kind of step two," says Reuven Cohen, co-founder at CTO at Enomaly, a developer of enterprise cloud computing software and a potential Azure competitor. "The first step is using the tools that they already have. So infrastructure as a service, once they're comfortable with that, the platform will be an easier sell."
So what is Azure? So far, a puff of enterprise cloud that Microsoft hopes will whip into a cyclone -- sometime.
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At the recent PDC Mike Hall, the architect of the MS Embedded group, showed how the MS framework could connect small devices and the cloud. This software is ready for just about any single board computer.
IBM also has chosen an open protocol(MQTT) for Websphere that is device friendly MQTT can be fit in a J2ME environment and connect directly to the Websphere 'corporate bus'.
It will be interesting to see how these develop in a world of heterogeneous devices from different suppliers.
We want more applications on the device/embedded system as we want the size of the device to get smaller and smaller. Apart from the hardware technology (making device to be more powerful), Cloud provides a very promising solution.
Not only the small and medium businesses would benefit from the system, I also believe that big enterprises should consider the technology in their future plan.
It is not only about the cost but also the accessibility.
Having said that, the technology still need more works mainly the security, privacy and data liability.
Cloud computing, as many people mentioned, is not new in the industry; so, expect to see many developments rise pretty fast.
The whole concept of cloud computing leaves me skeptical. If my number one asset is my data why would I trust it to someone else for safeguarding? I understand that this concept allows more flexibility. The challenge that I have is the same as that posed in the virtual environment risks. If I know that a company is a cloud hosting company I know that they have multiple companies information on their systems. To me that would give bad guys an easier target to work against. The hosting company needs to be secure 100% of the time where as the hacker/attacker needs only find one weakness to gain access to potentially multiple companies worth of data. The risk just seems to out way the value.
Microsoft's Azure seems to be in the CTP (Community Technology Preview) phase so it is a bit early to give Azure a verdict in my opinion.
Data portability shouldn't be an issue as the application can reside on the cloud or just access its resources from an existing application with an Azure extension. I have a feeling Azure will do wonders for I'm Vivo in the short upcoming, which is a social search network built on DNN and the .net framework as demand on the servers become increasingly heavier. Azure should alleviate the hiccups Cuil experienced shortly following its press release.
From what I've gathered (asking Enomaly), Enomaly utilizes the Typo3 CMS framework(PHP-YAML) which Azure doesn't fully support yet(non .net framework/Visual Studio IDE), however has promised to do so in the short upcoming. I do LOVE the Water Cooler forum at Enomaly!!..is it an extension/continuation from the dried up Water Cooler at Sun?
In re, "What is missing in most these platform plays is, how do I get
my data if I want to leave?"
That's a great question that I've not seen addressed by any of the cloud computing service providers. Is there a "clean sweep" of the servers your data resided on? What about archived copies? And what are the compliance implications -- if my cloud service provider experiences a data or network breach. do they notify my cusotmers or do I?
Data ownership is more than just who physically posesses the data.
I wouldn't characterize Enomaly as potential Azure competitor. We're more of a supplement as in Vitamin C.
To be clear, I do feel that we as an industry are moving toward
platform based cloud computing such as Azure. But I also fear that we
need a kind of intermediary environment where we can use a Window Cloud
Edition within our own infrastructure and or use the MS cloud if we so
choose. What is missing in most these platform plays is, how do I get
my data if I want to leave? I haven't played much with Azure, but in
the case of Googles App Engine it's tricky.
Cloud computing would be a great help for schools that don't have a tech department, and expensive IT personal taking care of the computers. I take and cannibalize the computers that come out of the computer lab that would normally go on the scrap heap and put them in the classroom so that I can have the kids use them for research. I have to put up with Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. Different versions of everything.
We have a schoolbased program that is totally online. Medical records, grades, scores, lunches, absences, tardies. But if the internet slows down or stops...the school is at a standstill. Connectivity must be absolutely consistent if cloud computing is to be accepted.
is that they are full of holes. And mostly made of air and vapor. Yes, I just dissed cloud computing as a whole.
I understand the concept of cloud computing... it's not new. It's mainframe computing for PCs. Everybody tied into one large back end holding the data (hostage).
So, what's the benefit of that? The data-center being smaller? A "lower cost for IT"? I don't think you can convince me [or anyone with a critical mind] that cloud computing has ANY value for the enterprise.
Now, Small or Medium enterprises... I can understand their desire. Depending on the business, they can produce as much data as some large enterprises. And cloud computing becomes a matter of survival because COLO facilities are out of reach and DIY data centers rarely work for anyone but the most diligent of small or medium business owners. Besides, if you have your data on the cloud, then you don't have to keep your IT people on payroll and can bring them in on contract or contract out your entire IT operations. No such luxury for Large Enterprises.
So, for my dollar, you can keep your cloud and I will invest my money in terabyte NAS or SAN technology.
That would be the best scanario wouldn't it? If it would tie mobile users through the cloud back to enterprise data on local servers, but without forcing the user to change how they access the data. Sounds a bit like a hosted Blackberry Enterprise Server but without the need to have Exchange hosted as well.
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