The past few weeks we have been discussing some of the mistakes made in early cloud deployments. As a refresher, here are the issues we outlined: Not understanding the business value Assuming server virtualization is enough Not understanding service dependencies Leveraging traditional monitoring Not understanding internal/external costs This week we are discussing a key mistake that occurs fairly often; one that only manifests long after the solution is operational...blindly assuming that Cloud equals costs savings. Blasphemy, you say - how could it possibly not cost less? Let's take a look at the considerations and components of IT cost, and revisit this question at the end. The unfortunate truth is that most enterprises have well-established IT cost allocation mechanisms, but few of these have any basis in actual consumption. Put simply, can you (or your users) conf... (more)

How Intel Kept Dell Afloat

If it was up to AMD, the SEC's complaint against Dell would be required reading especially pages 10-28 where the agency explains in gory detail how Intel paid Dell $4.3 billion between 2001 and 2006 so it wouldn't sell any AMD-based machines and how Dell needed the money to meet Wall Street estimates and wouldn't have met a one of them for 20 straight quarters without Intel's desperate largesse. The SEC even discovered that in September of 2003 - after the Xeon-beating AMD Opteron hit market - Dell was negotiating to take a stake in AMD and use its chips in 25% of products, an e... (more)

SOA + Cloud Computing: Next-Generation Enterprise Computing Blueprint

Today's IT organizations face a dual challenge of "keeping the lights on" while providing "new services" at unprecedented rates with reduced investment support from the business. At the same time, the very business model of IT is changing - how applications, content, information, and infrastructure are delivered. One of the biggest barriers to business execution and innovation today is managing complexity. This barrier forces the largest IT investment spend to be focused on keeping lights on while containing infrastructure sprawl. IT's inability to focus a majority of its time a... (more)

IBM Buys Storwize

IBM is buying Storwize, an Israeli start-up that does real-time data compression software that can reportedly cut physical storage requirements by up to 80%. That facility in turn is supposed to lower the cost of making data available for analytics and other applications. It can scan more years of historical data from multiple sources without additional storage and compressing data in real-time is suppose to make it available up to four times faster for transaction workloads. IBM didn't disclose terms but an Israeli press report put the price at $140 million. Storwize, which h... (more)

Cloud Identity and Privacy

Advances in Identity Management technologies will provide foundations for an "Identity Metasystem", providing the tools for securing information in a manner that greatly accelerates adoption of Cloud computing. Secure Cloud Services Typically conversations about Cloud Computing quickly lead to the perceived big roadblock holding back its adoption, data privacy and security. Ask yourself how you would feel about having sensitive information, like your bank account or credit card details, stored "in the Cloud"? What does that even mean? Who owns and controls it? If the data resides ... (more)