StrAIT Blogging

I recently attended an interesting presentation on cloud computing (I’m a sucker for the topic). It was just another perk for being a member of the Houston SIM (Society of Information Management) chapter. The presenter was Gene Phifer, Managing Vice President at Gartner. It covered a history and other background information as well as an interesting perspective from Gartner. I have included a couple of slides here but, unfortunately, I am not able to provide the entire presentation.

While acknowledging the benefits that we have all come to appreciate, he also included a warning of the existing problems. As I have pointed out in previous posts, there is a lot of excitement on the benefits but not enough attention to the risks (they will all eventually be addressed, but not for a while). In my official role as the cloud computing Grinch I want to be sure to draw your attention to the risks associated with those tantalizing benefits. From the Gartner presentation they are:

• Data/Process Location & Isolation
  
  • Security, privacy & ownership
    
• Regulatory, Compliance & Policies
  
  • Limits, e-discovery, investigations
    
• Portability between Providers
  
  • Lack of standards, vendor lock-in
    
• Provider Trust Management
  
  • Transparency to provider operations
  • Immature vendors and certifications
    
• Uncertain Failure Remediation
  
  • SLA guarantees, redundancy
    
• Integration and Process Integrity across the cloud
  
  • Technical & Support issues
    
• Bandwidth & Latency
  
  • Accessing or integrating “clouds”
    
• Licensing Issues
  
• Uncertain Financial Models
  

Now that I have fulfilled my “party pooper” responsibilities I can return to my usual optimistic tone. His presentation went on to highlight the aggressive expansion of both Microsoft and Google into more sophisticated cloud offerings. While Google’s preferences are not surprising, seeing all of Microsoft’s offerings shown on one slide was interesting. While I was aware of each of their cloud based products, seeing them listed together was enlightening. Microsoft is making a real push into cloud computing, which is quite a balancing act for them.

Then the presentation moved into its most interesting phase for me. We started covering the development of cloud applications and assembling them into solutions to business problems. There is now a large selection of application development environments available and covering a broad range of sophistication. The Spectrum of Cloud Computing slide above showed up in this section of the presentation. I like it because it captures the various cloud environments that are possible. It’s easy for the definitions of public, private and hybrid cloud environments to blur. This slide captures the spectrum with a little more granularity and clarity.

One point that stood out to me was the idea of cloud brokers. While I’ve heard of cloud brokers before, I hadn’t paid much attention to the concept. It’s actually an intriguing concept once you imagine a future where the cloud-based applications and services are more plentiful, complex and available. The slide on the right is handy for visualizing the attributes of brokers.

There were other slides in the presentation that emphasized how complex these ecosystems will become and the need for brokers will grow. I found a handy resource guide for such brokers as of this moment in time. Its link is here. I found another article on selecting a cloud service broker that is consistent with this presentation. Its link is here.

I am now convinced that the notion of cloud service brokers will become very important to our business. Our target markets are mid-size manufacturers, mid-size manufacturing related service business and independent E&P companies with interest in the notion of Digital Energy. Understanding the cloud service broker universe is now a priority for us. It’s moved way up the priority list. I believe that the risks listed above will provide a useful list of metrics against which to evaluate these brokers. As we get into it, the list may vary a little but this list will provide a good starting point.

Since I am unable to provide you with a copy of the presentation, I would like to provide some alternative. I found a complimentary eWeek article and provide the link here. Stay tuned for future posts on cloud service brokers. They should be interesting.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next time…

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