Tom, you might be interested in a current article in InformationWeek by Howard Anderson, "Why Private Clouds Will Prevail." It addresses many of the issues you discussed.
@mitch: Snuck in under the wire! As a wholesale offering there's a long-term market. As a retail offering it will be surpassed by the other models very quickly. You can see the trend already in how Microsoft and IBM are marketing PaaS.
Is there a real market for IaaS out there, Tom, or will we see it fade away? I have in mind that there are very solid, albeit niche markets for offerings like mainframe.
Net-net, if you like, you will almost certainly be able to justify SaaS if you can integrate it with your current operations. Everyone but a small business will be able to justify PaaS for at least some applications. Most companies will likely not be able to justify IaaS except for special situations.
We always mess up costs the first time, if we can accurately measure and know which weights etc to scale up then we don't need a 1.5 multiplier next time . . .
Here's another stat for you. If a company applies an X% expected return on a cloud project and they get a failure on the first one, they respond by multiplying X by 1.5 for the next one. Moral: Don't mess up the first project!
The worst part of the 85% failure number I noted was that in post-mortem about two-thirds of those projects could have been saved had the planning been proper.
@docelder - cloud solutions typically charge for transport/storage/processing & support - usage based pricing is what makes it so attractive to start with but then something like the network requirements or data volume is missed in the initial TCO/ROI estimates
@docelder: It's best to do a sensitivity analysis to see what variables could expose you to incremental costs, then monitor those variables to see if they are exhibiting those changes in your current system.
@labnuke: I think that's probably true, but as I noted there doesn't seem to be any history of somebody getting tangled in them.
@mitch: IaaS scaling is complicated. The costs of the services may have some price benefits with scale, but it depends on the provider.
@Docelder: In the surveys the biggest problem reported is failure to meet benefits. The number one reason is neglecting a cost item and the number two was underestimating one. Number three is that costs changed with usage and the user didn't expect it.
I see the benefits and cost savings, and you mention cost creep, but I have yet to see someone lay out the costs that could/will go up and thus not lead to the ROI that we thought when we moved to the cloud?
My understanding is that Germany & India have the most restrictive privacy/data management laws - find out if a service provider can meet those requirements and how they do it
@django1: Most of the cloud conferences are love fests between vendors and the press; there's not much "education" out there. This sort of forum is one of the few places where you can get anything.
@docelder: You can measure costs by getting the price list for a provider, finding out what they charge for, and then using a monitoring tool to measure how much of those somethings your application consumes per unit time. That will give you a starting point; the next step is a pilot test to validate that.
@django1: That's becuase of the prohibited technology rules here in the US.
@kim. The EC has asked for countries to normalize their rules on online data storage to prevent problems, but most of my EC contacts tell me that's an issue for only about 15% of the cloud prospects there, and there's no history of there being adverse enforcement of current rules.
For example, if you have certain kinds of data about customers, you're accountable for its whereabouts, its use, and its length of retention. You can't just stick it in the cloud and forget about it.
@mitch: It's the hardest to adopt in a business sense because it represents a change in process from whatever is currently done. The other cloud models let you move your current stuff into the cloud.
My understanding is that, in Europe at least, regulations present obstacles to some kinds of information being stored in the cloud. This is something the EU is currently trying to address.
Tom, did I hear you correctly to say that SaaS is the hardest to adopt? Is that right? It sounds counter-intuitive -- with SaaS, all the work of getting the app up and running is already done.
@Tom good distinction. Some businesses fail to grasp the dif. between marketing, which promotes a product or service, and actually closing the deal, which is selling.
@mitch: It's a marketing task, mitch. You can't afford to "sell" in a proactive sense to a small business, you have to induce them to come to you to try to buy. That means building mechanisms to reach groups of users through advertising, seminars, forums, etc.
@django1: HIPPA doesn't necessarily have to be encrypted on the cloud but you do probably need a secure connection and a provider who can pass compliance standards.
@alison: Thanks! I was in Latin America talking with a prospective provider and their biggest question was "how the heck can I prospect for my service without creating an enormous cost and little way of gauging my return?
@alison We tell providers outside the US to create forums and do seminars that are designed to eductate buyers and also to pull them together in a commuinty that will make them feel more comfortable.
@mitch: To an SMB, it should be. Direct cloud services even at the PaaS level will be harder for an SMB to consume; they need vertical SaaS if they can get it.
@ailsion I think the problelm outside the US is a sales problem not an opportunity problem. You can't go door to door selling clouds out of your suitcase, and there's not as much an active community there to support marketing and prospecting.
That's a very interesting perspective, Tom. So a cloud provider is more like an integrator or VAR (do we say VAR anymore?). Technical expertise is assumed, vertical experties is what enterprises want to look for?
@mitch: Most IaaS today (in dollar terms) is sold as a hosting strategy to companies who are building specialized web products or services. Most PaaS is sold to mid-sized businesses dependent on Microsoft, and most SaaS is sold to companies with loose or little internal IT.
What are the primary markets for IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS respectively? Any particularly industry, business side, geographic regions, etc., stand out as more likely to adopt one model over the other?
@kim: It does sometimes, Kim, but the problem is that IaaS only displaces hardware cost and most businesses of that size can run out to Office Depot and buy a server for under a grand. That's a tough price point to beat.
I am curious about IaaS. Surely for midsize businesses it offers potential cost savings: no need to replace infrastructure, ease of scaling, off-site, etc?
@alison; the main thing is to look for specific expertise in your own vertical. Then look for a cloud-hosted package from that provider, or for one who has at least hosted their product in the cloud as an integrator.
You mentioned service and solution providers several times: What should a midsize enterprise consider when seeking a partner? What credentials, experience should they look for?
Alcohol sold on airplanes are taxed by each state over which the airplane flies. Cloud usage might also route through various states and therefor a variety of taxation.
KIm, sure, it's easy to see an individual going on the cloud for Dropbox or Google Docs, but harder to see an entire big enterprise or department going cloud without IT support.
I'm just hitting play over and over; had to unhook from HDMI cable and stop sharing it; watch later is OK here in NE and snow; esp. wiht NYC area outages and new storm coming up caost
renaissance2000 - If you are having problems with audio, please refresh your browser. If that doesn't work, shut down and restart the browser. If that doesn't work, switch browsers. If that doesn't work, it's possible you're dialing in from a corporate network with a firewall that blocks this stream, in which case you'll have to log in and listen to the archive later.
so much of cloud is usage based - must have an idea of your usage and then watch it closely - kinda like a cell phone contract - minutes/data are separate charges... pretty much same for cloud solutions
@django1 No, but there were a maid and butler there and they kept asking me if I needed anything, which made me really uncomfortable because I'm not used to being waited on like that. I kept wondering if I'd wake up and find them hovering over the bed!
At the time, NCR owned the property and they used it to put up various people who worked with them, customers, etc. I was doing some consulting for them so I got lucky. I was the only guest.
It was sure historical! The brothers also designed what was probably the first of those multi-head-spray-from-everywhere showers, which I got to use the next morning. Wilbur, however, had long passed away.
Hello, hello early Eathlings! :D Today we have a superb speaker: Tom Nolle. We always learn something new with Tom, and his wonderful slides. Great class today!
The ThinkerNet does not reflect the views of TechWeb. The ThinkerNet is an informal means of communication to members and visitors of the Internet Evolution site. Individual authors are chosen by Internet Evolution to blog. Neither Internet Evolution nor TechWeb assume responsibility for comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and ThinkerNet bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.
The US National Security Agency learned the hard way that it can be dangerous to give a contractor too much money and access, with too little scrutiny. The NSA and other government agencies hire tens of thousands of contractors
a year to analyze data. Edward Snowden -- who revealed himself as the NSA leaker after fleeing the country -- was one such contractor, reportedly holding a $122,000 salaried position at Booz Allen Hamilton at the time of his departure.
Midsize businesses rarely achieve the same standards of security in their own datacenters as professional providers that specialize in delivering these services to organizations.
Big-data and analytics tools enable marketers to understand customers as individuals, identifying unmet needs and addressing each customer as a "segment of one," says John Kennedy, VP corporate marketing, IBM.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Monaco kicked into high gear today, and we've already begun to see news emerging from that lovely city-state by the sea.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
your weekly update of news, analysis, and
opinion from Internet Evolution - FREE! REGISTER HERE
Wanted! Site Moderators Internet Evolution is looking for a handful of readers to help moderate the message boards on our site – as well as engaging in high-IQ conversation with the industry mavens on our thinkerNet blogosphere. The job comes with various perks, bags of kudos, and GIANT bragging rights. Interested?
To save this item to your list of favorite Internet Evolution content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
