Nonlinear Thinking

Cloud Computing Trend Becomes a Movement

InformationWeek has, just this week, announced the launch of a new Website devoted to news, analysis and opinion on cloud computing.  The agenda for PlugIntoTheCloud.com is to provide a source and forum for IT pros, and the general population, to understand what the cloud computing trend/phenomena means to them and their companies.

In advance of the launch, John Foley, editor of InformationWeek, penned a column reviewing some of the important traction that cloud computing is gaining among the movers and shakers in global technology

The scramble is on among major IT vendors to establish their place -- and their brands -- in the cloud. IBM on Oct. 6 announced a handful of Web services as part of its push into cloud computing. Microsoft will reveal new details about its cloud strategy later this month. And Salesforce.com is about to redouble its push into platforms as a service.

IBM launched a beta version of Bluehouse, which it describes as a social networking and collaboration "cloud service" for people who work in different companies. It was one of several new software-as-a-service offerings from IBM, all part of a four-pronged strategy: deliver its own cloud services; help ISVs develop and offer cloud services; help business customers integrate cloud services; and provide cloud computing environments to businesses. 

Microsoft seems ready to concede that the cloud is more than hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, and some of its other applications. After years of Microsoft's ambivalence toward cloud computing, we're watching to see the degree to which the company deviates from its predictable course and competes more directly with Amazon and Google, as rumored.

Salesforce, having started out with SaaS services, will introduce new platform-as-a-service capabilities at its Dreamforce event, Nov. 2 to 5 in San Francisco. CEO Marc Benioff last week previewed some of what's coming. The plan includes letting customers bring their own code into its hosted software environment, making Salesforce an alternative for a wider range of business applications.

In doing so, Saleforce will tout "Our Cloud, Your Success." Call it cloud branding, and expect more of it as the competition intensifies like a high-pressure zone.

Cloud Computing: I Know it When I See it

Defining/articulating/explaining what cloud computing is seems to have become a cottage industry these days.  Perhaps obfuscation allows many enterprises whose products/services are only peripherally aligned to the concept to climb on board what they perceive as the emerging engine in the technology marketplace.

From my perspective, the definition has always been pretty clear.  Cloud computing really comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing capabilities.

James Staten, of Forrester Research, delivered a nice overview of cloud computing in a teleconference earlier this year.  The slides from the teleconference still provide a nice primer for the technology.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: services computing)

Cloud Computing Behemoths

InformationWeek provides a brief overview of eight of the major players in the cloud computing universe in this article.  While there are any number of important participants helping structure and define what the "cloud" will look like, InformationWeek selected the following companies as representative of the differing points of view on where the "cloud" is going.

• Amazon
• Google 
• Salesforce 
• Microsoft 
• Sun Microsystems 
• IBM 
• Oracle 
• EMC 

The only surprise here is that there isn't any surprise that they selected the eight large, well-known technology providers that happen to be involved in advancing the cloud computing model.  Hard to argue with including Amazon, Google, Salesforce and IBM but I think some of the smaller, niche companies focused on the space might have been elevated to the list.  Emerging players such as Bungee Labs, Enki, Joyent and Rackspace might have created a more balanced list as they represent some of the very best, most advance thinking about the "cloud".

But check out InformationWeek's overview, particularly if you aren't aware of what the "big 8" are doing.

A "Cloud" Burst

With the launch of the Google App Engine, the concept of cloud computing takes one more step into the mainstream, creating yet another challenge to the business and operating models of IT service providers.

Cloud computing is one flavor of the grid computing approach to the use of shared computing resources. Companies offering hosted online services include Amazon, Bungee Labs, Elastra, Microsoft and Salesforce.com..

Cloud-based development platforms, or “Platform-as-a-Service” (PaaS) apps, are on-demand, web-based development environments that enable developers to build and deploy web apps that utilize the large variety of APIs and web services out on the Internet. Google App Engine resides more comfortably in this universe.

A recent article in CIO Insight by Tony Kontzer articulates the threat:

The promise of cloud computing goes far beyond simply providing software updates and dealing with growing server and storage requirements. It has the potential to transform the role of IT within the business.  

A huge cloud hangs over the future of IT.

After more than a decade of refining the Internet as a marketplace, the business world is grappling with the uneasy reality that companies can run almost every information system they rely on without owning any tech equipment. Thanks to the phenomenon known as cloud computing, businesses can rent access to applications and IT infrastructure that reside on the Internet, pay for them on a subscription or per-use basis and provide employees with access to information from anywhere at any time with nothing more than a connected device.

This is a huge, and very real, threat to all manner of constituencies in the broad IT service marketplace. From application development to infrastructure outsourcing, the sense of fear in the air should be palpable. I don’t think it is.

But, as with most threats, there comes opportunity for those that recognize it.

Kontzer again:

If the proponents of cloud computing are to be believed, that’s where the greatest promise of the technology lies: in spurring innovation. “Cloud computing will completely change the role of IT departments,” Salesforce.com’s Benioff says. “The IT department is evolving from being information technology to being innovation technology.”

I want to believe that the global outsourcers and IT service providers have baked this into their thinking about the future of their business models, but I know better. Between this and SaaS, there may be some real unplanned obsolescence taking place in the market in the near future.