Enterprise organizations are looking for service providers to be a trusted partner with them throughout the entire transition through steady state process. The key for cloud providers is to develop ongoing relationships with their customers using hands-on engagement processes from beginning to end. A high touch process ensures that customers engage with various members of the transition team throughout the three stages of the on-boarding process: Business and Technology Assessment, Transition Plan, and Business Reviews. Like most new technologies, cloud computing can require significant changes in business processes, application architectures, technology infrastructure, and operating models that must be properly understood before embarking on any new initiative. Having a well-thought-out strategy can mean the difference between success and failure. The first step to understanding these challenges is the assessment.
Companies that until recently had never heard of the Internet of things (IoT) are now excited to find that they’ve been IoT players all along. Businesses involved in home automation, security services, vehicle tracking and health monitoring to name a few have been around for a while. They all provide services that involve devices (now known as “things”) that communicate with each other, with their owners, and sometimes with control centers. Increasingly that channel of communication is via the Internet. Therefore, they all see themselves as IoT service providers now, and rightly so. But they are also specialists in the actual services they provide, and the fact that we have an increasingly popular expression to describe the infrastructure they use does not diminish the need for that expertise. While IoT brings additional challenges and opportunities, it doesn’t remove the need to retain business methods and strategies that remain appropriate for the specialist area, even in a rapidly changing world.
Today, the technological progress that is accelerating business and life is observed as many things from a breakthrough in broadband connectivity globally to client-cloud architectures. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Vasyl Mylko, Director of Research & Development at SoftServe, Inc., will reveal how business models are being transformed, why all companies become software companies, and how IT infrastructure is being redesigned and rebuilt to support business changes. He will review how design and programming paradigms have evolved since SaaS golden times, why advanced analytics is a modern magic wand for decision makers, and how advanced analytics is emerging from [and together with] the Internet of Everything.
Security is critical to Internet of Things (IoT) adoption because we want to make sure we can trust the sensors, actuators, rules engines and other connected componentry we embed in every element of our existence. Bringing this down to earth is as easy as pointing out that people's smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, appliances, entertainment centers and home security systems are all becoming IoT-connected endpoints. How vulnerable will you be to security vulnerabilities and privacy violations from any and all of these?
Oracle has announced the availability of JDK 8, a production-ready implementation of the Java SE 8 Platform Specification, which was recently approved through the Java Community Process (JCP). This release includes the largest upgrade to the Java programming model since the platform was introduced in 1996. JDK 8 was developed collaboratively in the OpenJDK Community. Oracle has also announced Oracle Java SE Embedded 8, which leverages the new Java SE 8 features and is optimized for mid to high end embedded systems. With a consistent Java 8 platform across embedded devices, desktops, data centers and the cloud, customers can deploy applications faster, process and analyze in-flight data and act on events as quickly as they occur.
In previous articles I predicted that wearable technology would be powered by light-weight operating systems, citing Samsung’s decision to go with Tizen instead of Android. This decision was apparently based on battery life and user interface considerations. However, just after the article hit the Internet, Google executive Sundar Pichai announced the Android SDK for Wearables. Android is used in many different ways as demonstrated by Kindle and Nokia X (Nokia X seems to have deployed a Windows 8 look and feel on top of Android). Indeed, for this very reason Android 4.4 has moved a lot of key APIs into the Cloud.
What typically happens to smaller firms when they are being eaten up by mega-companies like IBM seems pretty obvious – they go to the dogs. Key executives will leave the team, product roadmaps will lose their binding character and strategy will get fuzzy due to the sheer magnitude of the organization and its inherent complexity. But not so with SoftLayer / IBM. It has become obvious over the past 6 months that IBM’s senior management had more in mind than a pure opportunistic acquisition when they bought hosting firm SoftLayer in the summer of 2013 for 2 billion USD. Eric Clementi who was among the early cloud advocates within IBM has made a strategic bet that will enable IBM to regain its position as one of the key cloud leaders in the market over the next 2–3 years.
I had the opportunity to spend some time recently with Asure Software's VP/GM of EMEA and APAC, Nigel Clarke, and to discuss how digital transformation is impacting work spaces and the mobile workforce. In years past I attended facility management conferences and developed mobile apps to help manage facilities, assets, rooms, inspections, materials and supplies. We were counting and inspecting physical objects. Today, however, there are digital transformations taking place in this industry.
The hottest new wave of marketing — digital social influence -- is intersecting with one the hottest areas of cloud computing — software-as-a-service (SaaS) collaboration and documents/objects sharing. Educating technology markets and communities is now, more than ever, a function of influence, social media, digital word of mouth -- and of cultivating an ecosystem of trusted collaboration. The role of social media and the power of personal connections have really become dominant forces in how people learn how to find and use technology. This is such a major departure from the past — marketing has changed more in the last 5 years than the previous 50 — that any instruction on what actually works best these days is highly prized.
There is a common phrase, often attributed as a Chinese proverb/curse, “May you live in interesting times.” For those following the cloud technology space, we are definitely living in interesting times. In their latest magic quadrant report on IaaS, Gartner describes the market as still evolving and maturing. This would imply the market leadership is in flux, yet according to Gartner “AWS is the overwhelming market share leader, with more than five times the compute capacity in use than the aggregate total of the other fourteen providers in this Magic Quadrant.” I would say that makes AWS an 800lb gorilla in the room that the competition must get by. Many of those competitors could be considered 800lb gorillas in their own right. Microsoft, IBM, Google are not small companies, yet AWS has managed to create a dominant position in the marketplace.
Windows 8.1 has a lot to offer Business, probably one of the bigger improvements is the inclusion of Hyper-V in the client. This provides support for several scenarios including: Test Lab: This is what I use it mainly for to test all the wickedly cool technologies in Windows Server 2012 R2, among others. It provides a great way to test and design basic infrastructures, especially leveraging the built-in virtual machine networking. Application Testing: Testing home-spun or package applications can be done very easily inside of Windows 8.1 client Hyper-V Import Production Servers for testing. If you have production virtual machines created with Hyper-V or if you have created vhds with tools like Disk2VHD, you easily bring them into Hyper-V for testing. Windows 8.1 even supports snapshotting of virtual machines. Windows To Go Virtual Hard Disks, you can use Hyper-V to create Windows To Go .vhds, you can learn more about Windows
The more things we have connected to the Internet the greater the opportunities are to create innovations. Even more innovation is enabled when devices are connected to the Internet in an open way that enables us to leverage the potential of countless innovative companies, leading to more jobs and a stronger economy. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Rikard Strid, Founder of Clayster, to discuss how when we enable devices to be reachable on the open Internet outside of closed proprietary environments, their usage options are no longer limited to the ideas or the development capability of their original manufacturers and that will change everything.
Companies are moving forward with cloud deployments at a rapid rate, according to Hosting and Cloud Go Mainstream: 2014, a Microsoft Corp.-commissioned study conducted by 451 Research LLC. The new study showed that more than 45 percent of organizations surveyed are beyond the pilot phase, and 32 percent now possess a formal cloud computing plan as part of their overall IT and business strategy. The data also highlights that on-premises private cloud adoption accounted for 26 percent of on-premises infrastructure spending in 2013, and hosted private cloud is expected to experience the highest rate of growth for off-premises infrastructure, accounting for 32 percent of hosted spending in the next 24 months.
User experience can boost or kill your revenue. Unhappy users are likely to abandon a service they struggle with and go to your competitors. To effectively manage the experience of your users, you need to efficiently monitor and understand their transactions in your mobile, web and enterprise applications. More important and often overlooked, the practice of User Experience Management (UEM) does not end in the client application. Common user experience tools fail to ensure holistic UEM the same way many think performance management is only based on analyzing server logs. Neither approach will shed light on the true user experience.
For years, the benefits of moving to the cloud – including lowered costs, flexibility and faster time-to-market – have been espoused. But among IT professionals, there remains widespread reticence about migrating mission-critical applications over, due in large part to performance concerns. “Can the cloud really deliver the same level of speed and reliability as physical services?” IT asks. Business managers often minimize or downplay these worries, saying that the potential business benefits to be reaped are just too mission-critical to ignore. Therein lies a major conflict. Regardless, as numerous surveys like this one from IDC demonstrate, cloud adoption is moving forward at a rapid pace. Clearly, the cloud is where we’re headed. IT must learn to accept the cloud as just part of how services are delivered today, rather than some exotic and potentially dangerous new technology. The good news is IT’s concerns about application performance are not insurmountable and can actually be eased with specific approaches.
There's no doubt that the "Internet of Things" is driving the next wave of innovation. Google has spent billions over the past few months vacuuming up companies that specialize in smart appliances and machine learning. Already, Philips light bulbs, Audi automobiles, and Samsung washers and dryers can communicate with and be controlled from mobile devices. To take advantage of the opportunities the "Internet of Things" brings to your business, you'll want to start preparing now. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Brendan O'Brien, co-founder of Aria Systems, will discuss: What you can do today to prepare your business for "The Internet of Things" Some inherent challenges with "The Internet of Things" Considerations and approaches for monetizing "The Internet of Things"
Application Performance Management (APM) may be brought in to help resuscitate an application that has recently become lethargic or assist the team in rehabilitating an intrinsic codebase. Once the goal is attained however, the propensity to pigeonhole APM as a point solution is high. Much like electricity, APM will take the path of least resistance when entering into an organization, attracted to the area with the strongest need; lightning, as soon as it is triggered, needs to find ground. It may be brought in to help resuscitate an application that has recently become lethargic or assist the team in rehabilitating an intrinsic codebase. Once the goal is attained however, the propensity to pigeonhole APM as a point solution is high. Now contrast this with DevOps, which is moving forward with a momentum permeating IT and giving us a means to change the way we think and operate as a partner to the business. From a waterfall perspective the sprints in scrum may have tainted the stream, but DevOps disrupts the flow entirely, rerouting the way we do work. The exploration of DevOps springs from the need to keep up with the insatiable expectations from the business without losing a competitive edge or operational stability.
We are all aware that business needs to change into business 2.0 today – or even some version of business 3.0 if you truly want to start placing new social and semantically-aware labels on the modern business model of today. It sounds simple enough on paper doesn’t it? Bring in and deploy new collaborative and connected workflow models with new (very often) cloud-based underbellies that drive new business efficiencies on all sides.
There has been a revolution in application release scheduling in recent years as the nature of applications has evolved and development methodologies shift. With DevOps now hitting the mainstream,IT is becoming more agile, responsive and aligned to business goals. But traditional application infrastructure – the world of servers, network switches and storage – still limits potential efficiency gains.
In the last blog, we started the discussion about where the Internet is headed and why this is relevant to the topic of net neutrality. The best way to map the future of the Internet may be to look at the kinds of things that interest a company like Google these days as part of its mission to be the repository of all the information in the world about everyone. In the last year or so, Google has acquired at least eight companies in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. Then, the Nest acquisition brings intelligent home automation into the fold. Google’s Android OS is on more than half of the smartphones in the world. Google is moving confidently into wearables: Google Glass is here, and we can expect to see watches and other smart devices, including health-monitoring and sports gear, coming along too, if not from Google, then from another company. Google Apps, its SaaS platform, is now backed by 10,000 channel partners. Although partners don't make a lot from reselling Google Apps, only about $10 per user per year, there are cloud services brokerages popping up that charge migration and consulting fees for Google Apps projects. Google is also more broadly focused on ISVs with its Google Cloud platform. Even its futuristic self-driving car has progressed after a surprisingly short development time.
There’s been plenty written and predicted about the future of cloud and Software-as-a-Service, and it’s hard to argue with its benefits – for both organizations and users. If our cloud-based future is to come true though, we must pay closer attention to the service levels users are getting from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. Obvious? Maybe not. As many organizations make their first big move to the cloud with services like Office 365, a few common misconceptions – grounded in the general belief that once we move to the cloud, IT no longer owns direct responsibility for service levels – threaten to put them on a path to protracted outages and frustrated users.
Automation tools are central to DevOps transformation, but what is the intelligence driving your automations and how do you ensure the right people are informed when automations are added, changed, or removed? Collaboration is also essential to DevOps, so how do you effectively communicate changing requirements, engage the right team members on release and deployment plans, and keep environments in sync? In their session at 2nd DevOps Summit, Rob Reiner, co-founder and CTO of ITinvolve, and Cass Bishop, Director of Consulting Services for ITinvolve, will demonstrate a breakthrough approach that significantly improves cross-team engagement and configuration visibility across the DevOps lifecycle – so you can improve business agility while ensuring release quality and operational stability.
In the Subscription Economy, purchase-to-use is winning, and purchase-to-own is on its way out. The key to success is that customers are actually using a product or service and in the Subscription Economy, the future is clear: delivering value drives revenue. Accessing this data to understand usage, and resulting customer value, is mandatory to survival. In his session at 14th Cloud Expo, Matthew Shanahan, SVP of Marketing and Strategy at Scout by Service Source, will discuss how businesses in industries such as telecom, SaaS, financial services, healthcare and education can, and are, leveraging data science methods to predict and avoid customer churn and increase revenue.
In my previous posts I wrote about how important it is to have end-to-end visibility into SAP in order to avoid serious problems in our delivery chain or to discover that application performance degradation was caused by malfunctioning hardware. One of our New Zealand customers, Fonterra, who is the world’s largest exporter of dairy products, uses SAP to support its delivery chain of dairy products made from 22 billion liters of milk collected each year. In this article we show how Fonterra uses a new generation of APM tools that provide both user and transactional insight, as well as complete end-to-end coverage to monitor its SAP infrastructure. Monitoring SAP infrastructure led Fonterra to quite surprising discoveries that some performance problems could be caused by insufficient SAP training or that milk churns block Wi-Fi signal in Fonterra warehouses; we will discuss the latter story in my upcoming blog post.
If you want to bring the new kind of elastic cloud infrastructure revolutionized by leading public clouds or web-scale companies like FB, Google and Twitter, you have to change your thinking about a few key things: hardware, failure and scalability. In his session at 2nd DevOps Summit, Randy Bias, Founder & CEO of Cloudscaling, will outline the key design principles and challenges involved with building these new kinds of clouds. Randy Bias is Co-Founder and CTO of Cloudscaling. His provocative views on the cloud computing disruption have made him one of the industry’s most influential voices. He has inspired organizations to embrace cloud to transform business processes and position for success in a new world where computing resources are ubiquitous, inexpensive, instantly scalable, and highly available.