Cloud-Computing

I am often asked by CEOs and CIOs to explain the ROI of cloud computing. My answer goes something like this. How well do you see? The main consideration in evaluating the ROI of cloud computing is your eyesight. What is the scope of your vision? What do you believe about the future? Ask yourself, as we create the ideal future for our customers, what kinds of changes will my organization need to accommodate? Think about how these changes will impact your use of computing - and indeed your entire operation. Consider the four major dimensions that change will include: technological, economic, organizational, and risk. ...

As you’ve probably heard, Amazon Web Services reduced their on-demand cloud prices significantly last week. You’d think customers would be happy across the board, but that’s not the case. Here’s why, and what will happen as a result. As discussed previously, AWS customers translate their capacity planning into Reserved Instance purchases, based on the relative savings these RIs provide over on-demand prices. But, when on-demand prices are reduced without a corresponding reduction in the instance-hour price for RIs - as happened last week - the RI breakeven point shifts and upsets the optimal RI coverage calculus. AWS customers who purchased RIs before the price reduction can find themselves stuck with inventory that now costs more per hour, in amortized terms, than the cost if they had not purchased the RI. I have several clients in this situation, and none are very happy about it. ...

Last week both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services reduced their prices for cloud computing services significantly to comparable levels, and both now offer significant discounts for long-term usage. Yet, though the two cloud services may seem similar, their radically different long-term pricing models reveal just how different these cloud offerings really are. Whose responsibility is capacity planning? The core difference between GCP and AWS is in capacity planning: Whose responsibility is it? In AWS, the customer owns their own capacity planning. If the customer can accurately predict their needs for the long term, they can purchase Reserved Instances and save significantly as compared to the on-demand cost. Whereas in GCE, Google owns the capacity planning. GCE customers are granted a Sustained Use discount at the end of the month for resources that were active for a significant portion of the month. The GCE customer might track their expected vs. actual costs and be pleasantly surprised when their bill at the end of the month is lower than expected, but the GCE customer cannot a priori translate their capacity planning prowess into reduced costs. ...

Succeeding with cloud computing requires incorporating your organization’s unique economic, cultural, risk, and technological considerations. Success with cloud computing means adopting more than just technology change. It requires addressing the elements that make your organization unique: how you work, the risks you’re prepared to take, and the market in which you sell. Even a tailor with all the right supplies - several yards of fabric, a sewing machine, and an iron - needs to craft a garment that looks good, is of high quality, and is done in an efficient manner. Here are the key ways to incorporate your organization’s economic, cultural, and risk factors into your adoption of cloud computing and accelerate your success. ...

Ancient wisdom apparently has much to offer modern cloud application architects. This fragment was discovered in a shadowy basement in the Tel Aviv area of Israel. See a PDF of the fragment This finding clearly shows that ancient cloud application architects in the great talmudic academies of Babylon struggled with the transition away from classic databases. At the time, apparently, a widely used solution was known as Urim veTumim (“oracle”). Yet this database was unsuited for reliable use in cloud applications, and the text explores the reasons behind that unsuitability. ...

This week I attended the OpenStack Israel 2013 conference. The conference was sold out, with over 400 attendees in a standing-room-only auditorium. As I mentioned earlier, I moderated a panel entitled “If OpenStack is the answer, what was the question?” Here is the video. Below is a summary of the panel’s Q&A. I want to thank the audience at the event for asking provocative questions, and the panelists: Mark Collier, COO of the OpenStack Foundation Chris Jackson, Manager of Big Cloud Solutions at Rackspace Mac Devine, Director and CTO, Cloud Portfolio, Global Services at IBM Mark McClain, Senior Developer at DreamHost Sivan Barlizy, Product Line Manager, CloudBand Business Unit at Alcatel-Lucent and, for joining the panel unprepared when I invited him on stage halfway through: ...

I’ll be moderating a panel of OpenStack leaders next week at the OpenStack Israel 2013 event in Tel Aviv. Last year’s OpenStack Israel event was excellent, and this year’s gathering looks like it will knock it out of the park. Over 350 people are already registered for the conference, and the two days of technical training following the conference are already full. If you’re in the area you shouldn’t miss this conference. And make sure to introduce yourself to me as well. ...

Before you ask yourself “what can and can’t I do in the cloud,” stop to consider the larger picture. How will your customers know that you have adopted cloud computing? What resulting radical improvement will delight your customers? These questions help you focus on the impact you want to achieve with your initiative. The answers help you understand the facets that you’ll need to address - technology, skills, procedures, and behaviors - in order to achieve and measure that impact. Then you’ll be ready to talk nuts and bolts about vendors, tools, and cloud-appropriate workloads. ...

Whether you operate IaaS, PaaS, or a SaaS service, watch out for these three pitfalls to the success of cloud offerings: Encouraging the wrong thing. Measuring the success of the offering by looking only at utilization metrics damages sales. One cloud service provider measured the success of its IaaS service - and compensated its sales force - based on virtual machine usage. Little surprise that, for all the years that this practice continued, the provider could not land strategically important accounts. Like in any mature sales operation, your prospective cloud service clients should be evaluated based on several criteria, including: ...

This coming year tens of thousands of medium and large companies will conduct initiatives to adopt cloud computing - and most of these will fail. The cause of these project failures will be unrealistic expectations. The inoculation is a hefty dose of reality. Get your vaccine here. No one questions the fact that IT is undergoing a revolution and cloud is at its center. You need only glance at the article titles in any business and tech publication to see this. Cloud is a critical element in achieving unprecedented agility and supply-chain optimization. ...