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Posts from the ‘Cloud Security’ Category

Apr 25

Five Ways Cloud Service Providers Are Making Manufacturers More Competitive

  • manufacturing-execution-systemsEnterprises are only realizing 35% of the total potential value of their cloud deployments according to a recent Bain & Company study.
  • Companies that moved development to IaaS and PaaS clouds from Amazon Web Services (AWS) reduced downtime by 72% and improved application availability by 3.9 hours per user per year.

These and other key take-aways are from the recent Bain & Company study, Tapping Cloud’s Full Potential. The full report PDF is available for download here (free, no opt-in). The following graphic from the report illustrates the currently realized value of cloud deployments in enterprises today according to Bain & Company.

Capturing only one-third of the value of their workloads

The researchers found several critical drivers of cloud value with one of the most important being the strengthening and clarifying of a product and service focus. The following graphic illustrates the critical drivers of cloud value.

getting the most value

Cloud Service Providers Give Manufacturers The Ability To Stay Competitive

Cloud-first strategies designed to accelerate and strengthen shifts in emerging business models is paying off according to Bain’s research results.

Manufacturers choosing to pursue a cloud-first strategy are focusing on evolving their business models, processes, systems and performance quickly to stay in step with customers’ needs. For many manufacturers, their customers’ pace is faster than internal IT organizations can anticipate and react to.  CSPs are helping to close that gap.

Here are five ways CSPs are making manufacturers more competitive:

  • Bringing industry expertise to the shop floor level. The best CSPs serving manufacturers today have management teams that have decades of combined manufacturing experience in specific industries. The CEO of a specialty tools manufacturer remarked that his company’s cloud strategy was more focused on accelerating plant floor performance first.  Working with a CSP that had expertise in their industry, this manufacturer was able to gain greater supply chain visibility and improve forecast accuracy, all with cloud-based apps.
  • Solving legacy and 3rd party system integration problems so that cloud-based ERP, CRM, supply chain management (SCM) systems can scale quickly. When a rust-belt based manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems had the opportunity to grow their business by expanding into build-to-order customized products, their CSP partner made it possible to integrate an entirely new product configurator and cloud-based ERP system module to manage quote-to-cash. Today, 30% of corporate-wide profits are from build-to-order selling strategies.
  • Knowledge-sharing supplier networks are becoming more attainable for manufacturers thanks to cloud technologies and CSPs. All manufacturers have strategic plans that include greater integration of their supplier networks, with many seeking to create knowledge-sharing networks. One of the best studies of how to create a knowledge-sharing network is from Dr. Jeffrey Dyer and Dr. Kentaro Nobeoka based on their intensive work with Toyota. Their study, Creating And Managing A High Performance Knowledge-Sharing Network: The Toyota Case is a great read. The following graphic from the study illustrates the evolution of a knowledge-sharing network. Manufacturers are relying on cloud platforms and CSPs to enable shifts in network structures and nurture change management to create self-sustaining systems.

Evolution of network

  • Two-tier ERP adoption in manufacturing is growing as CSPs master cloud ERP systems. CSPs are moving beyond providing basic services, specializing in cloud ERP, CRM, SCM, pricing, services and legacy system integration to keep pace with manufacturers’ demands. In one high tech manufacturer, their CSP partner orchestrated the procuring and launch of their cloud-based two-tier ERP system integrated to an SAP instance in their headquarters. Today they operate production centers in Asia, North America and Australia, all coordinated through the main SAP instance in the U.S. headquarters.
  • Making Service Level Agreements (SLAs) more relevant to manufacturing business models. Instead of just getting SLAs for uptime, security and system stability, manufacturers are getting advanced manufacturing intelligence dashboards that provide visibility to the plant or production center level.

Bottom Line:  Manufacturers are increasingly relying on CSPs’ cloud, industry and integration expertise to support the transition many are making to new business models and get greater than 35% of the value from their cloud investments.

Additional resources on Cloud ERP systems:

Aug 13

IDG Cloud Computing Survey: Security, Integration Challenge Growth

cloud computing survey 2IDG Enterprise recently published Cloud Computing: Key Trends and Future Effects Report, showing how enterprises continue to struggle with security, integration and governance while finding immediate value in collaboration and customer relationship management (CRM) applications.

IDG’s methodology is based on interviews with 1,358 respondents, stratified across CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, ITworld, and Network World websites, in addition to respondents contacted via email, and LinkedIn forums.  58% of respondents are from executive IT roles; 17% from Mid-level IT; 14% from IT professionals; 8% from middle-level business management and 3% non-manager roles were represented in the study.  High tech industries are the dominant industry represented with 18% of respondents, followed by financial services, government and manufacturing (each accounting for 10% of respondents).  Education (9%) and telecommunications & utilities (6%) are the other industries represented.

Key take-aways from the survey include the following:

  • 49% of executive-level management see cloud computing as transformational to their business strategies.  40% are currently having their IT staff investigate the potential of cloud computing contributing to their businesses, 5% don’t see cloud as an option and 6% aren’t sure.
  • Amazon (32%), Microsoft (23%) and Google (20%) are most often considered thought leaders in the field of cloud computing by respondents to the IDG survey.
  • Enabling business continuity (43%), greater flexibility to react to changing market conditions (40%), speed of deployment (39%) and improving customer support or services (38%) are the top four drivers of investment in cloud computing technology according to the survey.  The following graphic provides an analysis of each driver by level of relative importance.   This image is from Cloud Computing: Key Trends and Future Effects Report.

  • Accelerating business value by providing access to critical business data and applications (56%); serving as a catalyst of IT innovation (56%); enabling greater employee collaboration (54%); and enabling greater levels of IT agility (54%) are the top four benefits enterprises are gaining from cloud-based applications.  The following graphic provides an analysis of how cloud computing technology is impacting each of the areas shown in respondent’s enterprises. This image is from Cloud Computing: Key Trends and Future Effects Report.

  • Financial Services and high tech companies are projected to have the largest cloud computing budgets based on the survey.  Enterprises are expected to invest an average of $1.5M in cloud-based services during the 2013 – 2014 timeframe.  IDG projects that large companies will spend $2.8M relative to small and medium-sized businesses investing $486K on average.
  • Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) (35%) are the hardest to convince regarding the value of cloud computing, followed by the board of directors or equivalent (24%), the CEO (24%), and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) (16%) third. Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) are the easiest to convince, with just 6% of respondents mentioning this group of executives being a challenge to convince regarding the value of cloud computing.
  • The percentage of organizational IT budgets allocated to SaaS increased from 8% in 2012 to 13% in 2013 according to the last two IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing surveys.  Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) increased to 10% of overall IT budgets, up from 7% in 2012.  In aggregate, 44% of IT budgets are spent on cloud computing today, increasing to 51% by 2015 in the base of enterprises interviewed for the study.
  • Enterprises continue to migrate applications to the cloud that increase collaboration and enhance customer relationships first.  Collaboration and conferencing solutions (38%), e-mail and messaging (35%) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)/Sales Force Automation (SFA) (27%) are the top three applications being migrated to the cloud in the enterprises surveyed.  The following graphic shows which applications are moving to the cloud today and the plans for migrating applications in the next 12 months, and over the next 1 to 3 years.  This image is from Cloud Computing: Key Trends and Future Effects Report.

  • 59% of enterprises are still identifying which IT operations are the best candidates for cloud hosting.  33% have identified all IT operations that they are comfortable having hosted in the cloud, given the current security of cloud infrastructure and application design.
  • The three most important factors in selecting a SaaS application provider include the ability to configure and customize the cloud application to meet specific business needs (40%), consistent cloud application performance and availability (38%) and security certification and practices of the SaaS provider (34%).
  • 61% of enterprises have at least one application that is cloud-based in their organizations today.  This increased from 57% in 2012.  24% of enterprises are planning to implement cloud applications in the next 12 months and 15% are planning to between 1 to three years from now.
  • In enterprises with less than 1,000 employees, CEOs (52%) are the most influential role in cloud purchasing, followed by the CIO (39%) and IT/networking staff (33%).  In enterprises over 1,000 employees, the CIO (60%), followed by the IT/networking management (47%) and CTO or IT network architect (45%) are the three most influential roles in the cloud purchasing process.
  • 42% of cloud-based projects are eventually brought back in-house, with security concerns (65%), technical/oversight problems (64%), and the need for standardization (on one platform) (48%) being the top three reasons why.
  • The top three challenges to implementing a successful cloud strategy in enterprise vary significantly between IT and line-of-business (LOB).  For IT, concerns regarding security (66%), integration stability and reliability (47%) and ability of cloud computing solutions to meet enterprise/industry standards (35%) challenge adoption.    The following table compares the perceptions of IT and line-of-business leaders.  This image is from Cloud Computing: Key Trends and Future Effects Report.

Aug 7

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Coursera, edX Offer Free Online Courses As Cloud Computing Learning Options Proliferate

StanfordThe value and variety of online cloud computing programs being offered by leading colleges and universities is proliferating.

Focusing on the learning needs of IT professionals who need to apply cloud technologies to solve complex business problems, many of these programs and courses sell out before classes begin. This is because CIOs’ career paths are increasingly defined by how well they apply cloud technologies to the unique challenges and problems their businesses face. For CIOs and other members of senior management, getting a solid education on cloud computing’s business benefits is essential for managing effectively today, increasing their long-term marketability and career growth.

These programs are designed for C-level executives and senior managers to get up to speed quickly, often including guest CEOs of prominent software companies as part of the curriculum.  Stanford’s course offered this fall online and on campus has five different CEO guest speakers including Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.net for example.  These programs have an entirely different set of learning objectives versus certifications.  For an excellent analysis of cloud certifications please see David Linthicum’s recent post Are you on the right cloud computing career path?   Also excluded are vendor-sponsored certification programs as the intent of many of these is to promote a very specific view of cloud computing that aligns with their product and service strategies.

Here are key take-aways from following this area:

  •  Georgia Institute of Technology is partnering with Coursera, offering Health Informatics in the Cloud, beginning on September 16th for free.  Coursera is an education company that partners with many of the worlds’ leading colleges and universities to offer free online courses to anyone, anywhere.  They have partnered with 62 universities in 16 countries and offer over 300 courses as of today.
  • University of California, Berkeley is partnering with EdX offering Software as a Service (CS169.2X) beginning August 13th for free.  MIT and Harvard partnered to create EdX, a non-profit organization that is committed to bringing the best of higher education to students around the world.  EdX offers MOOCs (massive open online courses) in addition to interactive online courses in the subject areas of law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and artificial intelligence (AI).
  • Stanford University’s CS309A looks like one of the best being offered this fall, with five different CEO guest speakers including Hamish Brewer, JDA Software; Godfrey Sulliva, Splunk; Bob Beardon, Horton Works; and Aaron Levie, Box.net.  Dr. Timothy Chou, former president of Oracle OnDemand and Lecturer at Stanford University for over three decades is teaching the course.
  • The following is a comparison of the cloud computing courses and programs designed for senior management starting this fall.  Those entries in green are the free courses that take just minutes to enroll in.  Please click on the image to expand it for easier reading.

Cloud Computing

Jul 1

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CIOs On Cloud Computing Adoption: Conquer Complexity And Help Us Grow

CIONTT Europe recently completed a study that found 56% of CIOs and Senior IT leaders see complexity of their own Information and Communications Technology (ICT) systems as the biggest barrier to their organization’s enterprise-wide adoption of the cloud.  The survey contends that cloud adoption continues to be tactical in nature as a result of the inordinate complexity of existing and legacy ICT platforms.

Completed in April and May of this year in the United Kingdom, the study Growing Pains In The Cloud, 300 CIOs Express Their Views About Barriers To Cloud Adoption (opt in required) was completed by Vanson Bourne and included 300 interviews of CIOs and Senior IT leaders from public and private organizations with 250+ employees.

While the study was completed in the UK, the findings are applicable to enterprises globally looking to use cloud computing to better align business and IT strategies.  59% of CIOs and IT Leaders surveyed say that enabling alignment of business and IT strategies using cloud infrastructure is their number one priority.

Key take-aways from the study include:

  • 53% said that launching new services and applications more quickly is a key request they receive from business units. In the transport and logistics sector four fifths (80%) of CIOs confirmed launching new services and applications is their most important business focus.
  • 60% of IT leaders are concerned that cloud providers don’t  appreciate how complex legacy ICT systems are, and fear migration to the cloud could fail.  A common concern of respondents is how vendors tend to oversimplify their cloud solutions despite the inordinate complexity of ICT legacy platforms and systems.
  • 46% of the IT leaders polled agree that cloud is a great enabler of ‘bring your own device’ and flexible working, through enabling remote access to data and applications.  The challenge is making cloud infrastructure work seamlessly with legacy platforms and applications.
  • 68% have had cloud-based systems in place for two years or less.  The following graphic shows the distribution of cloud adoption by industry included in the study.
  • 77% of CIOs and Senior IT leaders report cloud-based infrastructure is in use today in their enterprises.  87% of CIOs in media and retail, and 84% of CIOs from telecommunications and ICT companies have already implemented a cloud-based infrastructure as well.  The following graphic illustrates the use of cloud as part of respondent’s ICT infrastructures.
  • 28% of the CIOs surveyed stated their legacy systems were too expensive (or valuable) to abandon altogether.  The implication is that CIOs and Senior IT leaders expect cloud platforms to eventually handle the complexity of their core business systems while also meeting compliance requirements internal and external to their organizations.
  • The four industries with the highest concentration of legacy ICT systems include Financial Services (30%), Media & Retail (31%), Transport and Logistics (31%) and Public Sector (30%).  CIOs in these industries show the highest resistance to cloud adoption in the study.  6% of CIOs said they have no plans to adopt cloud computing.

Bottom line:  CIOs are looking for cloud solution providers that recognize just how uniquely complex their businesses are and can address legacy system integration challenges head-on.  With 59% saying they have responsibility for aligning business and IT strategies, greater cloud adoption at the enterprise level is inevitable.

Aug 3

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Gartner Releases Their Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2012

Enterprises are beginning to change their buying behaviors based on the deployment speed, economics and customization that cloud-based technologies provide.  Gartner cautions however that enterprises are far from abandoning their on-premise models and applications entirely for the cloud.

Based on an analysis of the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2012, the best results are being attained by enterprises that focus on a very specific strategy and look to cloud-based technologies to accelerate their performance.  Leading with a strategic framework of goals and objectives increases the probability of cloud-based platform success. Those enterprises that look to cloud platforms only for cost reduction miss out on their full potential.

The Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2012 is shown below:

Cloudwashing and Inflated Enterprise Expectations

While the hype surrounding cloud computing may have peaked, cloudwashing continues to cause confusion and inflated expectations with enterprise buyers.  This just slows down sales cycles, when more straightforward selling could lead to more pilots, sales and a potentially larger market. Cloud vendors who have the expertise gained from delivering cloud platforms on time, under budget, with customer references showing results are starting to overtake those that using cloudwashing as part of their selling strategies.

Additional take-aways from the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing include the following:

  • Cloud Email is expected to have a 10% adoption rate in enterprises by 2014, down from the 20% Gartner had forecasted in previous Hype Cycles.  This represents modest growth as the adoption rate of this category had been between 5 and 6% in 2011.
  • Big Data will deliver transformational benefits to enterprises within 2 to 5 years, and by 2015 will enable enterprises adopting this technology to outperform competitors by 20% in every available financial metric.  Gartner defines Big Data as including large volumes processed in streams, in addition to batch.  Integral to Big Data is an extensible services framework that can deploy processing to the data or bring data to the process workflow itself. Gartner also includes more than one asset type of data in their definition, including structured and unstructured content.  The Priority Matrix for Cloud Computing, 2012 is shown below:

  • Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions in the Cloud and Hybrid IT are included in this hype cycle for the first time in 2012.  Gartner reports that MDM Solutions in the Cloud is getting additional interest from Enterprise buyers as part of a continual upward trend of interest in MDM overall.  Dominant vendors in this emerging area include Cognizant, Data Scout, IBM, Informatica, Oracle and Orchestra Networks, are among those with MDM-in-the-cloud solutions.
  • PaaS continues to be one of the most misunderstood aspects of cloud platforms.  The widening gap between enterprise expectations and experiences is most prevalent in this market.  Gartner claims this is attributable to the relatively narrow middleware functions delivered and the consolidation fo vendors and service providers in this market.
  • By 2014 the Personal Cloud will have replaced the personal computer as the center of user’s digital lives.
  • Private Cloud Computing is among the highest interest areas across all cloud computing according to Gartner, with 75% of respondents in Gartner polls saying they plan to pursue a strategy in this area by 2014.  Pilot and production deployments are in process across many different enterprises today, with one of the major goals being the evaluation of virtualization-driven value and benefits.
  • SaaS is rapidly gaining adoption in enterprises, leading Gartner to forecast more than 50% of enterprises will have some form of SaaS-based application strategy by 2015.  Factors driving this adoption are the high priority enterprises are putting on customer relationships, gaining greater insights through analytics, overcoming IT- and capital budget-based limitations, and aligning IT more efficiently to strategic goals.
  • More than 50% of all virtualization workloads are based on the x86 architecture. This is expected to increase to 75% by 2015.  Gartner reports this is a disruptive innovation which is changing the relationship between IT and enterprise where service levels and usage can be tracked.

Bottom line: Gartner’s latest Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing  shows that when cloud-based platforms are aligned with well-defined strategic initiatives and line-of-business objectives, they deliver valuable contributions to an enterprise.  It also shows how Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) are the catalysts of long-term market growth.  The following slide from the presentation  High-Tech Tuesday Webinar: Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast, 2Q12 Update: Cloud Is the Silver Lining (free for download) also makes this point.

Sep 25

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How Analytics and Business Intelligence Are Accelerating Enterprise Cloud Adoption

During the last few weeks of completing a research project on buyer personas, a key finding of of just how quickly enterprises are switching out legacy reporting apps for SaaS-based analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) is emerging.

I’ve been interviewing sales VPs, sales operations directors, contract managers and CIOs. Of all these groups, the CIOs are providing valuable insight into the transition SaaS is going through in their enterprises.

Throughout this post I’ll correlate the interviewed CIOs’ comments back to a recent report Forrester published titled Understanding The Business Intelligence Growth Opportunity by Holger Kisker, Ph.D.  Dr. Kisker’s findings support many of the insights gained from the research on personas completed to date.

Key Points from Persona Interviews and Forrester Study

  • Forrester predicts the market for BI SaaS software will be $529M in 2011 growing to $2.4B in 2014.  The report mentions that by 2012, up to 30% of companies will have some SaaS-based BI services.  From the conversations with CIOs, I think this is actually low.  The urgency to get off of legacy reporting systems and onto a unified reporting platform is quickly changing this market.
  • 80% of enterprises will complement on-premise analytics and BI systems with SaaS-based applications by 2014 according to Forrester.  From the persona study I am working on, the cut-over is going to be much more abrupt.  50% or less of companies will most likely have on-premise applications in place by 2014, as SaaS-based analytics and BI applications provide business users with the information they need when they need it.
  • iPads running analytics and BI apps with lenders’ data in real-time are the new bling in financial services.  One CIO who recently was recruited to a financial services firm told me he quickly picked out the other C-level execs in the room – they all had iPads running analytics apps with live customer data.  One of his first projects: make that happen for the sales teams with a policy app.  Everyone I’ve spoken with on this research study tells me being able to get to their analytics data on an Android or Apple iOS device is critical for their build-out plans.
  • The greatest concerns the CIOs continue to have with SaaS are data integration to legacy systems and lack of security standards.  Despite these concerns one CIO summed it up well and said “We really don’t have a choice, the legacy reporting apps are too high maintenance, don’t integrate to our new workflows well – we need a new reporting platform, so we are piloting a SaaS-based analytics app right now.”
  • The high cost of maintaining legacy reporting applications, integrating them to the latest Microsoft, Oracle or SAP databases, and preserving tribal knowledge are factors pushing CIOs to adopt SaaS-based analytics and BI apps.  One of the CIOs is with a government subcontractor who has Airbus, Boeing, Sikrosky Aircraft as their largest clients explained how dashboards are manually generated in Excel, taking weeks and often being inaccurate.  To comply with contracts they must move to a faster reporting process.  Using SaaS-based analytics in pilots have trimmed the time for creating dashboards from weeks to hours.
  • Cloud integration and security are the skill sets these CIOs are hiring for right now.  A quick analysis from Google Insights shows the rapid ascent of cloud integration as a search term. While Insights doesn’t provide demographics, the persona interviews underscore this trend.
  • Analytics and BI data integration wins are setting the foundation for more complex system migrations in the future.  Bank of America, Citibank and other financial institutions have client-side systems that are outpacing legacy systems’ ability to analyze and make use of the massive amount of inbound data they provide.  Implementing cloud integration projects successfully, in conjunction the successful launch of more scalable SaaS-based analytics and BI applications sets the foundation for migrating even more complex systems.  The Forrester Report Understanding The Business Intelligence Growth Opportunity included the following graphic with further underscores this point.

Bottom line: The lessons learned from migrating analytics and reporting from legacy to SaaS-based analytics and BI applications, combined with the need to have customer and market intelligence on mobile devices, is leading to rapid changes in this market.

Apr 5

Cloud’s Impact On The Future Of Open Source


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Red Hat’s CTO Brian Stevens sits down with Kym McNicholas of the Forbes Network and discusses the current and future potential impact of open source on cloud computing.  Brian paints a realistic and pragmatic picture of where cloud is today and where it is going.  At just under 5 minutes, this is a video worth watching.

Jan 1

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Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts and Market Estimates, 2011

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During the last four months of 2010 the pace of published forecasts on cloud computing, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS forecasts quickened, yielding an eclectic and at times conflicting view of this emerging market. From the daily Google Alerts, RSS feeds, e-mail subscriptions and offers to buy research reports on cloud computing received, the pace is being matched by the variety of research being completed.


I did a quick review of the term “cloud computing” on Google Insights for Search, which produced the following graphic.  Google Insights for Search is an excellent analytical tool, as it will render a forecast based on previous results and show geographic concentrations.  Please click on the image to expand it for easier viewing.

Cloud Computing Was Gartner’s Most Popular Inquiry Topic Last Year

Gartner analyst Ben Pring sums it all up when he writes in the report, The Influence of Cloud in Outsourcing, 2010-2011 that cloud computing was the #1 area of inquiry for the advisory firm in 2010. The Google Insights analysis and the proliferation of reports underscore that point.

Before reviewing all these forecasts, it’s good to also take a look at the latest Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2010.  Back in October 2010, Intel started offering it on their website for free.  You can get a copy of the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2010 by clicking here.

2011: When Cloud Computing Customer Results Became King

You can debate which area of the hype cycle the industry is on, yet after reviewing all these forecasts and projections the urgent need for real-world results is clear. As 2011 begins, any software company who has measurable results from customers, not just projections, of their cloud and SaaS-based strategies will be much further ahead of the mainstream.

Hopefully this year the research firms will cite more users than ever before an anchor these forecasts, as varied as they are, back to customer results.  That said, the energy and intensity going into forecasting the cloud computing and SaaS markets is impressive.

Here is the roundup of cloud computing forecasts and predictions for 2011:

  • Experton Group is forecasting that the German cloud computing market is forecast to grow from EUR 1.14 billion in 2010 to EUR 8.2 billion in 2015. This is equal to average annual growth of 48 percent. In 2015, cloud computing will account for around 10 percent of total IT expenditure in Germany. Around half of revenue in 2015 will be generated from cloud services, with a third coming from investment in cloud infrastructure, mainly data centres. The use of so-called ‘private clouds’ by businesses will account for EUR 2.6 billion in revenues by 2015, up from EUR 400 million in 2010. Source: http://professional.wsj.com/article/TPDMEUR00020101007e6a700061.html
  • Gartner analysts write in the report Predicts 2011: New Relationships Will Change BI and Analytics, that by 2013, 33% of business intelligence functionality will be consumed via handheld devices, and 15% of BI deployments will combine BI, collaboration and social software into decision-making environments. By 2014, 30% of analytic applications will use in-memory functions to add scale and computational speed. In addition, 30% of analytic applications will use proactive, predictive and forecasting capabilities and 40% of spending on business analytics will go to system integrators, not software vendors.  All of this is predicated on the security and scalability of cloud-based analytics.
    Source:  Predicts 2011: New Relationships Will Change BI and Analytics
  • TechMarketView predicts the value of the UK cloud computing market will more than double between now and 2014 from £2.4bn to £6.1bn according to the study UK Software and IT Services Market Forecast published in December by the firm.
  • MarketsandMarkets.com in their report, Cloud Computing Market – Global Forecast (2010 -2015) predicts that the global cloud computing market is expected to grow from $37.8 billion in 2010 to $121.1 billion in 2015 at a CAGR of 26.2% from 2010 to 2015. SaaS is the largest contributor in the cloud computing services market, accounting for 73% of the market’s revenues 2010. Source: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/cloud-computing-234.html
  • Renub Research has made the following predictions in their latest report titled Cloud Computing – SaaS, PaaS, IaaS Market, Mobile Cloud Computing, M&A, Investments, and Future Forecast, Worldwide.Here are the key take-aways from the summary sent to me of the study:
    • Worldwide Cloud Computing market is growing at a rapid rate and it is expected to cross $25 Billion by the end of 2013
    • Renub predicts the Platform as a Service (PaaS) market size will reach US$ 400 Million by the year 2013
    • Renub also predicts that Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market will increase at a CAGR value of 52.53% for the period spanning 2010 – 2013
    • US Federal IT budget devoted to Cloud Computing Spending will reach nearly US$ 1 Billion by 2014

Source: http://www.reportlinker.com/p0293136/Cloud-Computing-SaaS-PaaS-IaaS-Market-Mobile-Cloud-Computing-M-A-Investments-and-Future-Forecast-Worldwide.html

You can also find additional market forecasts in my post from July 19, 2010 titled Sizing the Cloud Computing Market and IDC Predicts SaaS Will Re-Order Software Landscape by 2012.

Happy New Year and I hope you find these links useful.  I’ve been tracking this activity a while and thought this would be a good time to publish the list.

Best Regards

Louis

Nov 16

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Key Research Challenges in Cloud Computing

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Dr. Ignacio M. Llorente leads the The DSA (Distributed Systems Architecture) Research Group at Complutense de Madrid and is one of the world’s leading lecturers and thought leaders in advanced distributed computing and virtualization technologies, architecture of large-scale distributed infrastructures and resource provisioning platforms.  His thoughts and observations on the key research challenges on cloud computing are fascinating to read over.

Oct 24

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Overview of Amazon Web Services Security Processes

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AWS’ Chief Information Security Officer Stephen Schmidt released this presentation last week on slideshare.net.  At 27 pages, this presentation is packed full of excellent content and great information on the direction AWS is going on for ensuring security and compliance.  He discusses certifications, SAS70 Type II security, physical security, Amazon EC2, network, S3, Simple DB, and SQS security topics as well.  He also covers CloudFront and Elastic MapReduce security initiatives and plans.

It is a great tutorial to the strategies and initiates AWS is pursuing to make their platforms scalable, secure and reliable.   Be sure to check out this page on the AWS site for more information on security: http://aws.amazon.com/security.