Comments on: Cloud Computing: A System of Control

By: Cloud is a System of Control « Benson Schliesser

Cloud is a System of Control « Benson Schliesser — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:05:08 +0000

[...] considering my bias, I have to say that this is a great quote from his recent article at GigaOm, Cloud Computing: A System of Control: …cloud computing isn’t cheap computing; it is the delivery of more control to enterprises [...]

By: markjessel

markjessel — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:31:02 +0000

Thanks for the education Bryan. A great point of view article, I look forward to the other parts.

I can definitely imagine the savings in IT support of a larger cluster, much like internet host providers parse out domains/hosting profitably. The effect of adding a control dial on spending versus bandwidth/processing power/storage for unknowns will allow for greater market experimentation with lower long term costs. Once past the acceptance/trust boundaries, I can’t help but imagine cloud computing as an efficiency boosting service.

Are there similar cloud concepts for software development? What about in other industries like power control or manufacturing/fulfillment?

By: Bryan Doerr

Bryan Doerr — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:56:22 +0000

Hi Jeff, yes, I do think that the function you describe, which presents a systems management function to the SMB that includes a view of cloud assets will be an import part of the SMB solution. Additionally, I think that adding this function will improve the adoption rate of cloud services. In my view, as cloud services begin to dominate, system management tools are going raise their level of abstraction and deal more with decision making enablement and automatic optimization in IT.

By: Bryan Doerr

Bryan Doerr — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:56:52 +0000

Hi James, I agree, cloud services will drive enterprises to revisit their resource allocations and drive efficiences through less over provisioning. Further, I think a deeper understanding of actual requirements, per application, will drive the market to offer grades of cloud service to better satisfy these requirements.

Thanks for your comment!

By: Jeff Campbell

Jeff Campbell — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:47:22 +0000

Excellent piece Bryan,

The quote from Lydia is specific to Small and Medium IT Organizations. In my experience, many of these organizations use external service providers for many or all of their IT management. Additionally, I have observed that cloud delivered applications are often procured directly by the line of business manager and not necessarily IT. As a result many forward thinking service providers have developed a managed service capability and deliver managed applications such email, collaboration tools, CRM in addition to the traditional IT support. There are variations on this theme, but the point I wish to make is that the service providers may feel that their busines is threatened by cloud providers who are selling their services direct to customers.

I am interested in your opinion on this subject. In particular what are your thoughts on the role network and systems management vendors should play? My Company has recently released its Cloud management capability as part of Managed Workplace 2009. We are enabling external service providers to remotely monitor and manage cloud delivered applications and services alogside on site IT and apps. Do you think we will help these service providers mitigate the threat and get on board to drive adoption so that SMB will acheive the cost benefits?

Thanks,

I am interested in your perspective on

By: James Del Guidice

James Del Guidice — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:04:26 +0000

Perhaps the cloud will force enterprise IT to work with their business leaders to better understand how much control the organization really requires. Then we may find that much of our dedicated infrastructure is ‘required’ only because we’ve overstated or inflated the need for control over the years.

By: Satpal

Satpal — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:53:19 +0000

GREAT Article!

As we saw a sharp increase in our user/customer base for our life saving mobile phone tracking application, we wanted to give our international customers 0.01% downtime and wanted to reduce our overheads and increase our margins.

Better ROI is all about – How much can you improve your unit cost without losing your quality ?

CLOUD Computing is certainly the answer and we have welcomed this open hands.

______________________

Mobile Phone Tracking – Life Saving Symbian Application

LBSzone.com Application of the week comes from Down-Under from Track and Locate – LifeAssist Application, an innovative “Man Down System” Mobile Phone Tracking application, supporting Symbian S60 mobile devices (like the Nokia N95).

We have released this application on 9 different Nokia Series 60 phones – Nokia N95, N96, 6210 6220 etc.

“World’s best” Man Down System Tracking Solution, Life Assist is a new breed of cell phone based technology that enables the cell phone device and the Internet determine the welfare of a person.

For the ageing population that is largely mobile and often single, a solution like Life Assist when used by aged care monitoring companies and agencies in community services will give a pro-active welfare and security system to their clients. Complete with GPS tracking, motion tracking, elementary signs-of-life check, biofeedback, remote camera activation, battery monitoring, and a voice-based interface – Life Assist is unparalleled in the easy of use and the value it delivers.

Cheers
http://www.trackandlocate.net/mobile-phone-tracking.html

By: Bryan Doerr

Bryan Doerr — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:49:21 +0000

Rodrigo,
I agree with your observation. At this point, customers appear to be very accepting of standard solutions when they get the control offered by the cloud, but they are looking for more features.

Regarding your second question, I think the “Virtual Private Datacenter Pattern” will emerge in time. There are two requirements – cloud customers with datacenters and cloud service providers with the right features, e.g., private network extension, ID and access management integration, etc.

By: Bryan Doerr

Bryan Doerr — Fri, 29 May 2009 23:28:56 +0000

Thanks for the feedback Sanjay.

By: Rodrigo Flores

Rodrigo Flores — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:14:19 +0000

Bryan,
Great article. We have seen more focus from our (newScale) enterprise customers on driving standards and understanding unit costs. Most IT shops do not have clear unit cost — what does it cost to process an invoice? what is the fully loaded cost of a VM?

We have seen many organizations start to deploy a service catalog to define their services, components and costs to then use it to drive standards and benchmark.

Bryan,
In your experience, are your customers asking for more variation or more standardization? And what’s getting in the way of adopting cloud services as an extension of their traditional data center?

-Rodrigo Flores
-CTO, NewScale,
- http://www.cloudfrontoffice.com (blog)

By: Sanjay Maharaj

Sanjay Maharaj — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:37:42 +0000

Great informative article, look forward to reading part 2 and 3, my start up is looking into cloud computing for the launch of our web site very soon