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Amazon’s cloud outage – a talking point for years

Amazon.com spent a couple days right before the Easter weekend trying to fix a cloud outage that has partially disabled or knocked out popular websites like Quora, Foursquare and Reddit.

Despite the fact that Amazon has a reputation as one of the top players in the cloud sector, the disruption will be hard for the company’s current customers to brush off — and the publicity surrounding the outage could make it difficult for Amazon to attract new customers, reports Computerworld.

“This will give the other cloud vendors, especially the higher-end ones, a talking point that won’t go away for years,” sais Ezra Gottheil, analyst at Technology Business Research.

But eWEEK.com asks (and answers): Is it too much of a snap reaction to ask if the outage will cause CIOs to hesistate about upgrading their IT systems with cloud-type deployments? Will IT execs question the cloud’s prime-time readiness for key business operations?

In a word: Nah.

There’s no question that the Amazon outage raises important points for enterprises to consider about which services to subscribe to from a public cloud, which should remain on the organization’s physical premises, or which to deploy as private cloud services. But those are questions that IT decision-makers grapple with every day.”

“The first thing to understand [about this event] is that this changes nothing,” Andi Mann, longtime storage industry analyst who’s currently serving as chief cloud strategy guru at CA Technologies, told eWEEK.

And Lydia Leong of Gartner Research wrote in an advisory that Amazon didn’t actually violate its service-level agreement when the outage occurred.

“Amazon’s SLA for EC2 is 99.95 percent for multi-AZ deployments,” Leong wrote. “That means that you should expect that you can have about 4.5 hours of total region downtime each year without Amazon violating its SLA.

“Note, by the way, that this outage does not actually violate their SLA. Their SLA defines unavailability as a lack of external connectivity to EC2 instances, coupled with the inability to provision working instances. In this case, EC2 was just fine by that definition. It was Elastic Block Store [EBS] and Relational Database Service [RDS] which weren’t, and neither of those services have SLAs.”

So, what are the takeaways from Amazon’s stormy cloud? Perhaps first, that cloud computing isn’t a panacea for all that ails you and your computing needs. That said, cloud computing still represents a major technology shift that has great positives for business and personal computing alike.

Second, stay realistic in estimating cloud computing’s value for you. To that end, a wise sage once said, “follow the money.” Looking at the structuring of your service provider’s SLA (whether cloud computing or other) will give you valuable insight to the limitations your service provider sees in the service offered.

2011: 04/25
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Four in 10 Small Businesses Plan Cloud Computing; 8 in 10 Want Local Provider

PC World reports approximately 40% of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) expect to utilize one or more cloud computing service within 3 years, according to a recently released Microsoft report.

Microsoft’s annual worldwide study on the cloud included more than 3200 companies from 16 countries. Other key take-aways:

More than 80% of SMBs say an IT provider with a local presence is important to their choice of a cloud computing provider.
The 3-year projection represents significant growth in cloud computing services by SMBs. Currently, 29% of SMBs use cloud services, meaning SMBs implementing cloud computing services will grow by an annualized 10+% rate each of the next 3 years.

Read more of the PC World article here.

Learn more about local cloud computing from this creative short video.

2011: 04/01
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Legacy technology vs. cloud computing – finding your competitive advantage

By 2020, businesses failing to pare legacy network architecture may find their core businesses disrupted by companies who have built infrastructure based fully on cloud computing. ”They will be unencumbered by a legacy of complexity and costly solutions and will be narrowly focused on their core competencies,” says Frank Wander, CIO at Guardian Life Insurance Co.

That’s the picture Wander painted during his “State of IT in 2020” presentation at the Computerworld Premier 100 conference this week. Read more here.

What are the take-aways from Wander’s address? Probably first and foremost: businesses need to actively assess their current legacy infrastructure and determine whether they can pare it down. Clearly businesses failing to act will finding themselves dragging around legacy technology that will impact their competitive abilities in the marketplace.

Businesses will need to answer the question: ”how can we best migrate portions – or even our whole infrastructure – to the cloud?” That will require developing a cloud strategy so decision-makers don’t get caught up in immediate demands. What happens when a server – or other major component of the network – needs replacing? Will the company replace it within the same legacy architecture or move that component to the cloud? Having a purposeful cloud strategy will help drive tactical IT decisions, rather than tactical needs driving decision-making.

Will it make better sense for a company to move “in dribs and drabs” – one application or platform at a time – to the cloud or to migrate all or large portions of the infrastructure to the cloud in more of an “all-in” approach? For many companies and even for many IT professionals, determining a cloud strategy will prove difficult because it represents a sort of paradigm shift in the way they approach IT.

The old adage “he who hesitates is lost” seems to apply here. Not that companies should rush headlong into the cloud. But allowing inertia or lack of knowledge to guide or influence your IT decisions in these times will negatively impact your business. Not sure how to proceed? Find a reliable expert to help develop and implement a cloud strategy.

2011: 03/08
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Looks like the Cloud will pay big dividends

Financial services firms are often caught in a balancing act between embracing new technologies that will temporarily “disrupt” services and becoming bogged down in legacy IT systems that negatively impact existing services and slow the development and implementation of new ones. As cloud computing continues to gain momentum and adoption, financial firms find themselves again standing at the crossroads of a significantly changing technology landscape.

According to the report published earlier this week by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), a UK think tank, cloud computing will “allow financial services business to break free from the shackles of old legacy IT,” generating some 175 billion euros a year throughout the European community and creating a stand-up-and-notice 200,000+ jobs over the next four years in the U.K. alone. Whether euros or dollars, in the words of past U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, “A billion here, a billion there – pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”

Wow! Take note you government leaders looking for ways to stimulate your economies: embrace the cloud!

Cloud computing is changing the way companies consume and pay for IT. Under the cloud model, IT applications and services are provided by a third-party over the internet or through an internal network that offers cloud services (often called hybrid, or local, cloud computing). By utilizing server space, IT services and computer apps via the Cloud, banking and other financial firms can eliminate or drastically change their IT infrastructure and expense model.

Alan Goldstein, Chief Information Officer for BNY Mellon Asset Management, says cloud computing allows banks to increase business agility by deploying IT resources quickly. “From an institutional standpoint, the benefits of cloud computing are concrete. You’re able to more rapidly deploy infrastructure and applications and to scale-up horizontally.”

Bottom line: financial firms can respond to business demands more quickly and reduce the time it takes to get a new service or product to market.

Not everyone agrees with Goldstein and the financial services industry as a whole – never known as early adopters of new technologies – has been slower than other industries to embrace the Cloud. Echoing industry concerns over the maturity and readiness of cloud computing to support financial entities, Michael Fahy, global head of IT infrastructure at investment bank Nomura, says, “The (cloud) model is not yet sufficiently developed to operate on a scale we want to operate on and there are still questions around data security.”

But the benefits of the Cloud are becoming tough to ignore. In addition to the flexibility and rapid scalability of cloud computing, businesses will also benefit cost savings and the way they spend their budgets. With cloud computing, businesses will no longer need large capital expenditures (CapEx) to buy or develop costly proprietary IT systems and applications. Instead, they can move to a more fluid OpEx spending model, consuming tech services via cloud computing on a pay-as-you-go basis.

The CEBR report concludes that, as financial service firms adopt the Cloud, they will see cost savings, increased productivity, and job creation. The CEBR report also predicts that 60-80% of all EMEA-based businesses in the banking, financial and business services sector will adopt some form of cloud computing by 2015, a significant increase over current cloud computing usage in the sector.

2011: 02/23
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Gobbling up the Cloud

Last week, Verizon acquired cloud services firm Terremark for $1.4 billion. This week, Time Warner gobbled up Navisite, also a cloud services company, for $230 million. Executives at Terremark and Navisite had been growing their businesses rapidly since shifting their primary business focus to cloud computing services.

Both Verizon’s acquisition of Terremark and Time Warner’s of Navisite reflected significant premiums (33-35%) over the acquired firm’s stock price at the time the acquisitions were announced. Meaning? Verizon and Time Warner both project the firms they were acquiring would be worth far more in the future.

Researcher Gartner Group would agree – perhaps not specifically about these two firms, but about cloud computing as an industry. In fact, their research indicates cloud computing will become a $150 billion industry by 2014, up more than two-fold from 2010.

And Wall Street sees further mergers and acquisitions involving cloud computing firms. Since last week’s Verizon/Terremark announcement, several cloud computing firms’ stock prices are up because of the increased M&A activity (example: Savvis’ stock is up 18% since the Verizon deal was announced). Click here to read more about these recent acquisitions.

What does all this mean for those considering technology deployment rather than stock purchases? Perhaps it’s further evidence of what we’ve been blogging for a while now: cloud computing is far more than the latest fad, soon to fall from favor and fade. Rather, cloud computing is a lasting, major technology shift that tech firms are making siginficant investments in and that cloud computing could be a useful technology for your business.

2011: 02/03
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
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Three Cloudy Things to Remember in 2011

It’s tough to look anywhere and not catch an advertisement, news report, P.R. announcement or whitepaper related to cloud computing. Cited by numerous researchers as a major trend of 2010 and/or 2011 (some even call cloud computing a major trend of the coming decade), cloud computing has certainly captured the business world’s attention. Heck, the Chinese are probably contemplating tossing out the Year of the Dog or Cat or Dragon or whatever for 2011 in favor of the Year of the Cloud…

In a recent CTO Edge article, the author cites some specific must-haves when considering a switch to the Cloud in 2011: availability, integration and performance.

First, will the computer applications nearest and dearest to your heart be available to you? In a sort of Newton’s law of cloud physics (every action is accompanied by a reaction of equal magnitude but opposite direction), the actions of other cloud users may impact availability of cloud-based resources when you need them. In time, public cloud infrastructures will improve and this problem will fade, but for now a main strength of public cloud computing is also a major weakness: it’s shared by you and others.

Second, just as no man is an island, likely none of your business computer applications stand alone. Your apps are integrated and even inter-dependent and the cost of data transfer back and forth between apps may offset the cost savings on hardware. So, transitioning to (and even operating in) public cloud computing for these integrated applications may be a technology challenge and financial black hole of hair-ball proportions.

Third, your network performance in a public cloud computing environment is dependent upon connectivity to the Cloud. Can you say latency? Can you say sloooooooowed network speeds? Who wants their mission-critical computer applications to sound like Will Ferrell in “Old School?”

So, how can you embrace the benefits of cloud computing and maintain excellent availability, integration, and performance? Private cloud computing or what’s being called hybrid cloud computing. Jimmy Tam, senior vice president of Peer Software, says public cloud computing infrastructure could be significantly more expensive than running on an internal private cloud.

Private cloud computing, which basically emulates cloud computing on a private network, has come under fire for failing standard benefits of cloud computing: 1.) reduced or eliminated up-front capital expenditures for hardware, etc. and 2.) no longer having to build or maintain your network infrastructure. Basically, only very large organizations who either benefit from vast economies of scale or simply don’t care about how much it costs, like the federal government, choose to build and maintain a private cloud.

For the rest of us, enter hybrid cloud computing, also known as local cloud computing. With hybrid – or local – cloud computing, you don’t build or maintain your own computer network and therefore avoid the up-front CapEx and other administrative and financial ”fuss and muss” inherent to an in-house network. You also avoid latency issues because your cloud exists behind your firewall.

To find out more about local/hybrid cloud computing and how your business can benefit, find an IT provider who offers local/hybrid cloud computing.

2010: 12/22
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Many Executives Still Confused About the Cloud

A new survey finds that 62% of business executives admit they are confused by the concept of cloud computing. As big a number as this is, perhaps the more surprising stat from the survey: 23% of IT executives also say they’re confused about cloud computing. The study surveyed Canadian companies (those Canadians!), but the results hold insight for us, their neighbors to the south, as well.

IT professionals revving up for the Cloud?

Many IT professionals view cloud computing as offering greater flexibility than traditional computing environments and state their organizations have plans to implement cloud computing solutions within the next five years, according to recent studies of senior IT professionals worldwide.

A study conducted by IDG Research Services and CIO Custom Solutions Group featured several compelling stats on the growing trend toward cloud computing.

The IDG/CIO study found that:

69% of IT professionals perceive greater flexibility in cloud computing solutions
64% of these IT professionals expect company spending on cloud-based services to increase in the next year
the trend toward cloud computing is accelerating, with 75% of companies employing the surveyed IT professionals planning to implement or expand their cloud computing solutions within the next 5 years
60% of IT professionals surveyed indicated it was difficult to find the right cloud computing solution, slowing near-term adoption of cloud-based initiatives

A two-part study by Boston-based market researcher Chadwick Martin Bailey, comparing perceptions of cloud computing a year ago with perceptions in August 2010, found security concerns and general confusion over “cloud computing” among IT professionals had dropped dramatically. The study shows nearly 30% of IT professionals surveyed now say their companies have aggressive, near-term plans to shift to cloud computing architectures – doubling the number of firms with such plans when the original survey was conducted a year ago.

2010: 12/01
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Forget White Clouds – a Green Cloud Awaits

This in for the environmentally-conscious business leader or IT professional: a recent environmental impact study of cloud computing shows the potential for significant reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions. How significant? The study says 30% or more.

The general thesis of the report: the smaller the organization, the larger the environmental benefit by moving to the cloud. Small businesses (defined as up to 100 computer users) benefited the most environmentally by moving applications and services away from their own servers to the cloud, reporting energy and carbon savings of more than 90%.

Says Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist Rob Bernard, “The cloud has the ability to deliver business value for customers in an age where corporate responsibility is critical to business success.”

Getting Your Arms Around “The Cloud”

Confused about what, exactly, is cloud computing? You’re not alone! Business leaders and even IT professionals find it challenging to strip through the hype and buzz – as well as the conflicting definitions and terminology – and get a grip on understanding what cloud computing is and whether it’s a good fit for their businesses.

Enter tech titan Intel, announcing this week a new initiative “Open Data Center Alliance.” The alliance, part of Intel’s Cloud 2015 project, is a coalition of 70+ major players in cloud computing. Their task: to help standardize facets of cloud computing by establishing hardware and software standards for technology providers.

Educating you on the benefits and "how to" of integrating cloud computing with your business network.