Chat With the Experts: Answering Key Questions on Cloud

Wow!You guys are stil online?

Ohhhh! I thought it was at 2pm! 

And Mary just left. :( 

So it's late, right? 

thank you for the information

You're welcome.

Have a good day, everyone!

Thank you Mary!

Thanks lin. Watch IE for more on Pure later today, as Nicole lends her observations from Impact 2012.

It was my pleasure to be here today!

Yes, thank you for your time, Mary! Wonderful information.

Thank you Mary and Mary for the cloud info, and for touching on Pure (my new fav technology)!

There are also retraining efforts going on--so it's not all abt young grads

@lin

Vendors are struggling, too

Don't laugh, Kim.

My IT career started because I was a music and lit major! 

Seems like an opportunity for a vendor to help businesses retrain their workers in these skill sets, rather than waiting for a new batch out of college.

Thanks for the great responses, Mary.

Hey, sounds like a new lease of life for philosophy depts! (says an old philosophy graduate)

Yes--the gaps are significant

Any further questions for Mary Shacklett?

Those are some pretty significant gaps.

Thanks, Mary!

Oh--and I forgot training people in critical thinking skills so they can run business analytics

@MAry

In some cases, the shortage is worldwide.

Here are the aeras:

storage mgmt and big data--traditoonally, organizations have note done much strragteically about storage--and there are hardly any training  programs for it. With Intenret, storage and data access are big isses inteh cloud and elsewhere

Mainframe computing--it still drives 70 % of large enterprise transactions and mission critical systems. Between 100-200 universities worldwide now have programs in it, so there is some help on the way.

Telephony--there are not many people coming in with both voice and IP skills

Surprised by this apparent training logjam when it comes to business intelligence, cloud computing, enterprise architecture.  Why didn't schools see this coming?

That's amazing about the skillset issue. Do you find that hiring foreign workers results from the skillset shortage? Or is the shortage worldwide?

@Kim

Yes, Kim, it is a skillset issue

Is that because of lack of candidates with appropriate skills?

@MAry

I am not seeing that at this point, Mary.

The bigger threat that I hear from enterprises is that they have IT jobs that they cannot seem to fill

@MaryS: We often hear about cloud eliminating IT jobs. Is that really true?

@Paul

I thik scalablity and security are both very important--and lkikley  euqally weighted by enterprises in their cloud evaluations

@mary

I'm seeing dual sourcing for both public and private cloud

@lin

That could well be, Li.

Cloud potnetially gives enteprises more workforce flexibility--although in the apps area, I'm acutally seeing  entperies in-sourcing! The conern here is erosion of intenral intelllecutal property.

@MaryS: Interesting about the two separate vendors. But that's been the case for a long while in IT, I think, no? And you mean two separate vendors for public clouds only?

@Kim

I'm surprised, too, Kim--and I don't think the market IS going to tolerate it for much longer.

@Mary

Lock-in is defininately a concern.

I know a number of enterprises that acyually sign on with at least two different vendors for a complete stack of cloud solutions--and  they make sure the vendors know this

I'm very surprised at the lack of SLA's.  Why does the market tolerate it?

Mary - a lot of IT folks are contract workers now, so the bottom line could be immediately improved by transitioning to an external cloud.  Plus, executives might feel more comfortable with an abstracted and external IT department.  

@Paul

One thing to remember about cloud vendors--a majority of them still don't have SLAs in their contracts.

Many don't have internal SLAs, either (from what they tell me).

@MaryS: I read on a LinkedIn group message board recently that some enterprises fear vendor lock-in on public cloud services. I think that may apply to the need to integrate with a particular vendor's service. What do you think of that?

@MaryS: How significant are the economies of scale as opose to security be the principal determkinat of which cloud model to adopt?

@Paul

I think entepsies will continue to evaluate their cloud decisions. They may very well decide to move to publiccloud

@lin

Remember though, Lin, that many of these staff are being redeloyed into new jobs

@Kim

Security breaches certainly cut both ways, Kim.

The key is likely to be how well IT controls the assets it is using for its systems (whether they are public or private)

I think enterprises might be attracted by the reduced need for in-house IT staff.

@MaryS: So u are saying once they make the decision to go private, they won't necessarily change that along the way?

@Mary

Yes, Mary--I think they will eventually become comfortable with public cloud

While there are unquestionably security issues with cloud, I think as long as we're seeing widespread breaches of conventional data centers it's going to be hard to convince people cloud is much worse.  I think enterprise is driven to keep things private out of a sense of ownership as much as concern about hacking.

@Paul

I don't see this as a transition necessaruily from private to public cloud, Paul.

Enterrprises are more likely to just choose the "best fit" (public-Private) solution for a given business need.

@MaryS: Do you think enterprises will lose their hesitancy around public clouds?

@MaryS: At what point in the evolution of the provate cloud that an entrprise should make the decision to transition to a public cloud?

I am having some key lockup issues. Bear ith me!

@Mary

IT itself is lkely to become more "virutal" Mary. Somehow, metrivcs will need to be introducedthat aracalble of caputuring the metrics of outsdie cloud provfdiers  as well as the internal dat nvererresources. THis is an open support issue now as IT heads into mroe of a servie culture.

I am migrating to another room at this conference but hope to re-join you all momentarily. Keep chatting!

Thank you Mary.

@Mary: is there a way you think security in puiblic cloud can be improved in the coming years or is it just too prone to fix it security wise?

@Nicole

PureSystems will further expedite virtualization and  scalability of server and storage resources for the cloud, and will also extend IBM's already robust sytems management solutions for the cloud. It also spans every possible data center platform--from x86 and Unix machines to mainframes. 

@MaryS: The growth of private clouds makes me think that data centers will be trnasformed or forever changed as time passes. What will characterize the IT dept. of the future?

@Mary: I think I understand.  We are talking about hybrid, with critical systems which don't require dramatic scaleability remaining private?  That makes sense.

@Paul

I don't know if there really are security "guarantees"--

it's just that if you have a security breach and an outside vendor allows it to happen, you feel a lot less comfotable answering to your stakeholders about it if you are the CEO or CIO.

I'm having connectivity issues so just repeating in case this didn't post earlier: Mary could you say more about how PureSystems is going to bring value to cloud deployments?

@lin

I have heard of some recent decisions by very security-heavy govt agencies to mvoe to public govt business portals.

This certainly bucks the general security trend.

I still believe though that the cloud vendors are better position to provide more robust and tight control cloud security solutions

MaryS: That may be true to certain extent but what gurantees are there that taking control for your cloud security may lead to better and improved cloud security solutions?

@Mary

Yes, Mary, Kim is  right.

Mobile, BA, supply chain (supplier management) are some of the  "pain points" of  internal systems that enterprises look to public  clouds for.

@kIM

No, Kim, it doesn't.

There is always the central "drive chain" of the company--its financials, ordering system, manufacturing or other systems, etc. that already are tailored to the business and have worked well for years.

@MaryS: So what kinds of processes are being sent into clouds? Is Kim right about mobile device management, analytics, etc.?

@Mary -- Last I heard, lots of government-related enterprises operate under security regulations that require physical security (hence mobile shipping-container contained clouds).  Any vendors that are trying to address this market?

@Mary

I think there is a perception problem operating here Mary (on security).

Remember, too, that CIOs (and CEOs) get dragged before their boards when a security issue goes wrong.

"external business processes that their internal systems don't do well" - Increasingly that can mean everything from mobile device management, through analytics, to data recovery.  Doesn't this suggest private cloud is no more than a resting place on the way to public cloud?

@Paul

The gap on security is closing between public and private clouds.

The issue here is that the enterprise "perception gap" may not close as fast.

@MaryS: Regarding security, we often hear (probably prompted by public cloud vendors) that public cloud services are just as secure as data centers and private clouds. Is that really true? And if it is, why is it so tough for enterprises to accept that?

@ Mary and Paul

Being able to take charge of their own security is a primary driver  for large enterprises preferring private vs. public. cloud.

Other drivers are:

--internal IT has the requisite skills to run the cloud

--companies like to "own" what is strategic to them.

Now,  here's where enterpises are going to public:

for external business processes that their internal systems don't do well.

So it's a more agile data center?  I do wonder whether Paul isn't right, and it's a way of resisting the real innovations and potential cost-savings of public cloud.

i know there are still issues of security to deal with, but are there any gurantees that the provate cloud is more secure than its public counterpart?

And welcome to others, including mpouraryan and aum007

To me the private cloud is basically trying to hold on to something that is really not holding on to

@Kim

An  internal data center is a  combination of physical and virtual resources used to support entetprisr  IT, Kim.

Cloud can also be that--but where it especially differrntiates is that it supports instantaneous on demand allication/deallocation of resouces that are being viewed as "consummable"

versus the  more "static" approach to resrouces that trad data centers tend to provide.

I hope this isn't too abstract....

By the way, nice to have you back w/ us in chat, Paul!

Also @MaryS: I would reiterate Paul Whyte's question about the relative merits of on-premise cloud capacity v. public cloud access?

@MaryS: I still look at cloud computing as basically the cost efffective way of helping enterprises meet their computing needs. So I realy don't see the reason why enterprise would continue to sweat over trying to retain control of their computing needs

@MaryS: Is a private good for ALL enterprises?

(And thank you, Mary, for joining us today!)

Hi all

Everyone: Please feel free to reiterate your questions to Mary Shacklett.

@Mary: I've been trying to draw a clear distinction between a private cloud and an internal data center, and I am struggling.  Help!

Mary E: Can you say a bit more about the impact PureSystems will have on private cloud deployments?

There she is. Welcome, Mary!

@Lin: I hadn't heard of that. That's certainly interesting, but a mobile data center is surely a data center.

Yes, Nicole--I think PureSystem will add great value to cloud deployments.

Hi everyone! Mary S. will be joining us momentarily.

Thanks Mary and Mary.

Kim -- re cost saving on private cloud .  Mobile deployment of resources where needed can be an advantage in private cloud.  I hear that some aerospace companies have container-like structures that contain private clouds that they can deploy at will to different sites, depending on their current data needs.   

@Nicole: I thought the likes of OBM may be roooting for public clouds instead of focusing on helping enterprises build their own provate clouds

I think that's my question, Paul.  Beyond the change in terminology, what are we talking about?

I'm at the IBM Impact show listening to a keynote about PureSystems. I'm wondering if Mary thinks this new system will help accelerate deployment of private cloud.

• Questions around cloud security: Does the security satisfy any industry-specific laws and regulations by which your business must abide?

@Kim what is d difference between the two: private cloud and private data center?

Questions to ask around cloud security are: what security is present and whether it is robust? Does the security afford tight enough controls?

Also, it's not completely clear to me why an exclusively private cloud is a cost-saving over a private data center.

I always find it hard to see where the precise dividing line is between a private cloud and private space in a public cloud.

I am barely hearing the audio. I think nit has to be with my own internet connection

HI everyone..glad I was able to "drop in"!!!

So clever.

Hi when you join us here.

Hey all say hi when you join us here. It's always good to know who is chatting.

I thought u already have your won digital avartar

Mary's recent blog and vblog on cloud computing have made it clear that we'd better start answering questions about cloud computing. I'm glad she could join us today to discuss.

multitasking just make it possible for this popular lyrics to be true " if i could be in two places at the same time...."

:) It'd be easier with a clone, but we can't have it all.

Great to see Nicole. Multitasking should definitely hold no fears for u anymore.

Ah I see aum007 too. Hello!

Hi Paul, Mary, lin. Thanks everyone for being here! I'm multi-tasking because I'm at the IBM Impact conference, but this is sure to be a great chat. Glad to see you already have your questions ready.

Hi Lin

That should be nice. It's nice to hear what she has to say

Hi, All!

Mary Shacklett will be joining me for about 10 to 15 minutes of audio prior to the live chat.

anyone else in the chatroom?

@MaryJ: How significant are the benefits of having access to local on-premise cloud capacity as opposed to solely accessing public cloud services for elastic compute needs?

@Mary: Why not just use the public cloud instead of having to bother with hassle of creating and maintaining an inhuse private cloud?

by few minutes u mean like 30 minutes?

I'll be talking to Mary Shacklett at 1 EST for a few minutes of audio introduction, followed by her joining us here on live chat.

Hi Mary

Hi everyone!

@Mary: What is an enterprise cloud solution?

I thought we are just getting started with the cloud

Who says the cloud money is over?

Good to be back in the chat house after a long hiatus

Hello

Lots to learn and Lots to Gain here!!!

I would also like to know what her ROI plans for her Cloud investment was initially and how far along she is on her way to achieve it.

I am most interested in seeing exactly how much impact the Cloud has had on Mary's IT expenses-Have they come down if so,by how much?

Guys,

This looks set to be a most interesting chat session.