Category Archives: Cloud Infrastructure

A Quick Review of Cloud

Posted on by
Reply

A great, short piece on Forbes.com recently looked back and forward at Cloud: Interesting note:

According to a recent Carbon Disclosure Project report, companies that streamline operations to improve IT performance will not only reduce capital expenditures but they’ll shrink energy consumption and carbon emissions. The group estimated that, by 2020, U.S. organizations that move to the cloud could save $12.3 billion in energy costs and the equivalent of 200 million barrels of oil.

The article is well worth two minutes of your time. Here are some data:

In 2009, revenue for cloud services was just over $58.6 billion. In 2011, IT spending is expected to top $2.6 trillion. And with cloud computing accounting for just 2.3 percent of that global market, there’s plenty of room for growth. The research firm Gartner projects that revenue for cloud services will approach $152.1 billion in 2014.

Understanding the Cloud

Posted on by
Reply

The Cloud is a key component in the five pillars that allow companies to scale in unprecedented ways. Companies like Amazon scale their services at remarkable speed. Did you know it took  Amazon.comm only 120 days to become the largest online music retailer. It took Apple only 9 months to hit 1 billion downloads from its Apps Store. Cloud represents a tipping point in corporate capability – but when is it appropriate and when not? Continue reading →

What iCloud Tells us About the Benefits of the Elastic Enterprise to Us

Posted on by
Reply

The concept of elasticity implies that business is not naturally bounded in any traditional sense. Not bounded by an employee base, by limits on communications, or by intellectual resources which are often the most important resource for new online businesses, or by their traditional place in one industry or market.

Of course no area of human activity is totally unbounded, something will always pull us back or limit our activity.

Elasticity though implies organizations that are more free to expand than they were in the past, and more free to roam, to stretch themselves through radical adjacency into other areas of the economy.

Cloud infrastructure is an essential part of that capability and Apple’s iCloud is a good example of what it will mean for individuals. Continue reading →

Client companies get a say on Cloud

Posted on by
Reply

I mentioned in a post yesterday that the Cloud tends to be a discussion between experts. Kevin Jackson today wrote on Forbes.com about a new move by client companies to get a say in how the Cloud evolves and the standards for cloud infrastructure and services. Well worth a look:

Last week I had the opportunity to discuss the newly released Cloud Standards Customer Council (CSCC) Practical Guide to Cloud Computing with Dr. Angel Diaz of IBM. Written with a cross-industry viewpoint, this guide is written through the lens of the end user. According to Dr. Diaz, the goal is to get cloud computing end users engaged in a dialog on cloud computing adoption use cases.

Obviously we’ll try to keep an eye on who is involved and what the Council does.

Cloud Computing 101

Posted on by
Reply

Christopher Barnatt of Nottingham University gives a great account of Cloud computing, a development we see as central to the growth of the elastic enterprise. We’ll have more to say later about the opportunities and barriers surrounding Cloud infrastructure. This video is for readers who need a primer.

“Cloud computing has the potential to transform the face of computing.”