Michael Sheehan's GoGrid Blog The Cloud just got another potential injection of PR from Apple as well with their announcement of MobileMe. Apple has brought a new technology term, the 'Cloud' - previously reserved for developers, IT managers and the like - to the main-stream public. We all know that the term 'Cloud Computing' is relatively new to the Technology buzz. But just how new is it? I spent some time analyzing search trends of different computing keywords to try to put everything in perspective. Google trends is a nice too that gives insight into broad search patterns. We all know that the term “Cloud Computing” is relatively new to the Technology buzz. But just how new is it? For starters, I ran a quick comparison of “Cloud Computing,” “Grid Computing” and “Utility Computing”. The term Grid Computing has been around for a while (even before Google Trends... (more)

Cloud Computing - Predominantly an IT Operation Outsourcing Trend

Theodore Omtzigt's Blog The shift created by SaaS as well as Cloud Computing is retargeting the IT supported business process services towards the mid-market where it will proliferate in a very different direction. The value that is created by the on-demand capacity inherent to Cloud Computing is the big differentiator here for both startup and established business. Whereas SaaS is predominantly a Business Process Outsourcing trend, Cloud Computing is predominantly an IT operation outsourcing trend. IBM and its shift towards services, supported by best-in-class hardware, has been leading this IT outsourcing concept for more than a decade now. However, IBM's main clientele have been large scale, high-availability, high-liability business such as Wall Street, credit card companies, and insurers. The shift created by SaaS as well as Cloud Computing is retargeting the IT ... (more)

Big Data and Politics: Influencing Both Sides of the Aisle

Data has always had a place in politics. Politicians have relied on polls, voter interests and demographics for years. In 2008, the Obama campaign was recognized for its data-driven campaign, but it wasn’t until the 2012 election, when the tools became available, that big data was used to target voters and win a presidential election using methods that had never been used before. Much like businesses, political parties have collected a lot of data over the years, but that data has been siloed into various categories: donations, website visits, social media comments. While each of these categories are useful, the ability to combine and analyze all of this data together creates new opportunities to target each individual voter, but until recently it was much too costly to do so. Now with the creation of Hadoop and Hadoop as a Service vendors, big data is being used b... (more)

The Three Levels of Cloud Computing

Thorsten von Eicken's RightScale Blog It looks like pretty soon all computing will be called cloud computing, just because the cloud is "in." Fortunately most computer savvy folks actually have a pretty good idea of what the term "cloud computing" means: outsourced, pay-as-you-go, on-demand, somewhere in the Internet, etc. What is still confusing to many is how the different offerings compare from Amazon Web Services to Google App Engine and Force.com. I recently heard a characterization of three different levels of clouds which really helps put the various offerings into perspective. Here’s my rephrasing: Applications in the cloud: this is what almost everyone has already used in the form of gmail, yahoo mail, wordpress.com (hosting this blog), the rest of google apps, the various search engines, wikipedia, encyclopedia britannica, etc. Some company hosts an applica... (more)

SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo Will Be Larger Than Any Recent Gartner Event

The future model for providing IT infrastructure and services in large organizations is what many today are calling "Cloud Computing" - a concept popularized by Amazon through its web services efforts. Merrill Lynch analysts for example reckon that by 2011 the volume of Cloud Computing market opportunity will amount to $160BN, including $95N in business and productivity apps (e-mail, office, CRM, etc.) and $65BN in online advertising. Cloud Computing has many interpreters just now - and many interpretations. One thing is certain: it is the most dynamic new metaphor to hit enterprise computing since the creation of the "Web" by Tim Berners-Lee. SYS-CON's 3rd international Virtualization Conference & Expo, which took place June 23-24, 2008 in New York City, attracted more qualified delegates than any Gartner event in the past two years. The two content-packed days e... (more)

Cloud Computing Is Far More Than Just Cutting Enterprise IT Costs

Paul Miller's Blog For too long, the emphasis in Cloud Computing circles has been almost exclusively upon provision of rapidly scalable and ad hoc remote computing on top of cost-effective commodity hardware. The Cloud play from Salesforce, Amazon’s EC2 and the rest has been dominated by the implicit assumption that these Cloud-based resources are an extension of the corporate data center; a way to simply reduce the costs of enterprise computing. There is value in this business, but there are bigger opportunities. Cloud Computing, and the various *aaS movements, have finally brought us to a place where the fiercely guarded and tightly delineated boundaries between the organisation and those outside it may become permeable in ways that should benefit the organisation rather than threaten it. It is a quite remarkable feeling to watch as the pieces fall into place and ... (more)

SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo: Show Report

Dmitry Sotnikov's Blog Overall, very exciting times, and a great event put together by the folks at SYS-CON! There was a lot of excitement and optimism throughout the event. As someone put it: cloud computing is about 700 days old. That means that there are a lot of arguments about definitions, and where things are going, and so on. And that also gives a lot of vibe and a lot of fresh community spirit. Below are my notes from all the sessions I attended at the last week’s Cloud Computing Expo 2008 on: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 A few general comments on the conference. First and foremost, cloud computing is happening. There was a lot of excitement and optimism throughout the event. And frankly this was quite contrasting to the SOA keeping talking about whether SOA is getting anywhere, how to justify SOA projects, whether it is a journey or a destination, and so on. This was... (more)

Salesforce to Present at Cloud Computing Conference & Expo

Peter Coffee, Director of Platform Research for Salesforce.com, will be presenting at SYS-CON's 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo in New York City this coming March 30-April 1, 2009. Coffee, who works with enterprise and entrepreneurial developers and IT managers to build a community based on the company's Force.com Platform as a Service, will be speaking about how Cloud computing should not be wrongly perceived as an either-or option, compared to other models of on-premise data centers or outsourced IT services. Coffee's session is titled "The Complementary Cloud" and he will discuss how non-proprietary protocols and fully disclosed interfaces let service consumers assemble solutions from multiple service providers, using each in the areas where its distinctive technologies and high-leverage APIs offer maximum advantage in creating new value - or... (more)

IBM to Present at Cloud Computing Conference & Expo

Doug Tidwell, Senior Software Engineer at IBM, will be presenting at SYS-CON's 2nd International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo in New York City this coming March 30-April 1, 2009. Tidwell, who works in IBM’s Software Strategy group focusing on Cloud Computing and SOA, will look at how to deploy, use and manage services in the cloud. "REST and WS-* services have made the software behind our applications more flexible," notes Tidwell, adding: "Cloud computing promises to do the same for the hardware." In his session he'll start by using REST (JSR-311) to work with code and data in the cloud, and go on to look at some of the more advanced features of the WS-* stack, including encryption and authentication. "Delegates who come to my session will leave with an understanding of how these two major trends complement each other," Tidwell says. Speaker Bio: Doug Tidwell is ... (more)

Unisys President To Keynote Cloud Computing Expo

Cloud computing is an approach to computing that enables organizations to leverage scalable, elastic and secure computing resources as services with the expected results of simplified operations, significant savings in cost and resources and an increase in operational flexibility. With its deep experience and rich technological innovation and capabilities in the enterprise server marketplace, as well as its involvement in transaction-intensive, mission-critical environments, Unisys is in a unique position to provide cloud computing that is secure enough and scalable enough for enterprise-class computing. As a pioneer in large-scale computing, Unisys has tackled some of the toughest security challenges in the world for both public and private sector clients. The company brings a holistic approach to security that spans digital and physical environments, securing a cl... (more)

Yahoo! to Present at 4th International Cloud Computing Expo

Yahoo! is running the largest Hadoop clusters in the world, but what exactly is the Yahoo! Distribution and why is Yahoo! sharing its investment in testing Hadoop? Register Today and Save ! Sponsor and/or Exhibit Today View Full Conference Schedule Eric Baldeschwieler, VP Hadoop Software Development at Yahoo!, will be giving a breakout session at SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo (http://cloudcomputingexpo.com) in Santa Clara, CA, this coming November 2 - 4, 2009, that answers those questions. His session is entitled "Hadoop @ Yahoo! - Internet Scale Data Processing." The session will cover major use-cases for Hadoop @ Yahoo!, explain how it benefits the larger cloud ecosystem, and provide a glance into the exciting plans moving forward around Hadoop and related open source technologies. About the Speaker: Eric Baldeschwieler, VP Hadoop Soft... (more)