Hybrid Cloud Computing models are becoming more acceptable to IT departments. Moving less important applications to cloud services frees up computing resources for peak loads and poses less of a security risk than moving the entire infrastructure outside a company’s walls. A public private cloud mix of sorts is becoming the model of choice at least for some IT organizations. In retail and service sectors that have seasonally variable work loads it makes sense to move some applications to the cloud.

Rich Alessandro

IBM and Canonical are introducing a new, flexible personal computing software package for netbooks and other thin client devices to help businesses in Africa bridge the digital divide by leapfrogging traditional PCs and proprietary software. This is the first cloud- and premise-based Linux netbook software package offered by IBM and Canonical.

Part of IBM’s Smart Work Initiative, the new package targets the rising popularity of low-cost netbooks to make IBM’s industrial-strength software affordable to new, mass audiences in Africa. Businesses that could not afford traditional PCs for all employees can now use any type of device and low-cost software to enable all workers to work smarter anywhere using a variety of devices, regardless of the level of communications infrastructure.  

The IBM Client for Smart Work is now available across Africa and is being piloted for other emerging and growth markets worldwide. The solution includes open standards-based email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, social networking and other software for any laptop, netbook, or a variety of mobile devices. It runs on Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux operating system, and provides the option to deliver collaboration through the Web in a cloud service model. This software bundle can also be extended to virtualized workspaces using VERDE from Virtual Bridges, which is available locally through business partners and voice-based collaboration pilots through IBM Research. IBM estimates that it delivers up to 50 percent savings per seat versus a Microsoft-based desktop.

“Businesses in emerging markets are looking to gain the freedom and flexibility afforded by open standards,” said Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software. “The IBM Client for Smart Work builds on the movement toward open standards and Web-based personal computing by giving people the power to work smarter, regardless of device.”

Link to IBM Press release http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/28457.wss

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The economics of a cloud infrastructure will give small companies the ability to compete with larger firms on a global scale. Companies will save a lot of money by offloading what has historically been a major expense, to what will amount to a commoditized but very flexible business infrastructure. Because cloud computing applications use the subscription payment model, costs are spread over months or years; they become part of an operating budget instead of a capital budget, and avoid the depreciation costs of capitalized computer equipment. Embracing Cloud computing and SaaS will produce significant cost savings and help drive innovation around workload management.

The dynamic nature of Cloud Computing will give organizations a way to provide the right level of services for strategic initiatives and personal productivity that has never been available before. Commoditized computing capacity and Software Services will also allow IT-Departments to make better decisions of how they use their most valuable commodity , the IT staff themselves.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM are building massive data centers offering computing resources that are scalable and affordable to even the smallest companies. Almost every function of an organization has or will have a SaaS (Software as a Service) option to support it. Collaboration platforms such as WebEx and Salesforce.com will allow companies to increase the speed and efficiency of almost every business processes and allow companies efficient ways to interact with customers.

The appeal of Cloud Computing will inevitable lure all business to leverage some aspects as the pay as you go model , but the advantages offered to smaller companies using Cloud Services may help them lead the way for the near term.

Rich Alessandro

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced their long term cloud computing policy intended to cut costs on infrastructure and reduce the environmental impact of government computing systems. Federal CIO Vivek Kundra unveiled the administration’s first formal efforts to roll out a broad system designed to leverage existing infrastructure and in the process, slash federal spending on information technology, especially expensive data centers.As an example of what’s possible with cloud computing, Kundra pointed to a revamping of the General Services Administration’s USA.gov site. Using a traditional approach to add scalability and flexibility, he said, it would have taken six months and cost the government $2.5 million a year. But by turning to a cloud computing approach, the upgrade took just a day and cost only $800,000 a year.

You can see the New Government Cloud Apps Store Here https://apps.gov/cloud/advantage/main/start_page.do

The movement of personal data off desktop computers and into the cloud is changing rapidly. The amount of Data that will reside with Cloud Service providers will eventually dwarf what is held by individuals and company servers; this brings up troubling questions that must be addressed as we move forward to this new paradigm of shared resources and Cloud Computing.

Is it time to update legal protections? Our laws must change to account for cloud computing. The Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure will surely be challenged as more of our personal and private information is being held by someone else. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was written more than two decades ago and leaves many new categories of data poorly protected.

The Fourth amendment, — “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”, — will surly have to be more thoroughly debated and I hope strengthened.

In the 1976 case U.S. v. Miller and in a series of subsequent decisions, the Supreme Court basically concluded that an individual’s records held by a third party may enjoy considerably less constitutional privacy protections than the same records held by the individual in a filing cabinet.

Cloud Computing will allow for data storage at very low cost. The downside may be a loss of privacy protection. What constitutes, “papers and Effects” and “unreasonable.” Along with questions of jurisdiction and what a reasonable expectation of privacy is will be at the forefront of this new challenge to our legal system.

White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra will talk about how the federal government plans to offer cloud computing services to U.S. next Tuesday. Kundra will speak Tuesday morning at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “He will outline his vision for a new federal government cloud computing initiative,” NASA said Thursday in a statement.

The U.S. General Services Administration expects to offer Web-based applications as part of this cloud infrastructure, but it is also working on database and testing environments, as well as cloud based computing and storage resources, according to a June 18 GSA presentation.

How data from different government agencies can be secured when it is hosted on the same servers is the biggest stumbling block to this cloud computing plan, according to Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute. I don’t think there’s anything to delay massive adoption by the federal government, except security,” he said. “The feds have always outsourced everything. What you’re talking about is outsourcing at lower cost and at higher capacity. Tell me why that’s a bad idea?”

Salesforce is announcing a significant upgrade to its product, “Service Cloud 2,”  adding additional functionality in three areas of the product. The  idea behind the Service Cloud is to capture crowd sourced pools of knowledge floating across the internet and use them for commercial customer service, potentially replacing traditional on-premise contact center technologies which are disconnected from on-demand knowledge that can be found in the cloud.

Here are the new innovations that Salesforce has packaged in Service Cloud 2:

Salesforce Knowledge: Powered by technology Salesforce acquired through Instranet,  Salesforce will offer clients a knowledge base platform, which will allow customer service agents to quickly tap into a SaaS knowledge database. Built on top of the Force.com platform, Salesforce will provide businesses with the technology to organize customer service information into organized repository, making it easy for reps to quickly find the right answer for an inquiry.

Google search will be integrated and easily accessible in the platform. Salesforce says that businesses can easily deploy changes into the knowledge base and extend the platform to mobile devices and other websites. The knowledge base is price at $50 per user per month and will be available on the Service Cloud 2 in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Salesforce Answers: From the its initial launch, the Service Cloud has leveraged crowdsourcing to incorporate knowledge into the platform, but with this new release, Salesforce is helping businesses looking to the web for answers. Online forums and social networks, like Facebook, hold a vast amount of knowledge from consumers.

Salesforce Answers will create a customizable website that will facilitate question and answer conversations and will filter the knowledge created on Salesforce Answers directly into the Service Cloud’s knowledge base, ensuring that customers, agents and partners will all have access to the best knowledge available. Answers will also allow companies to set up a Salesforce Answers community directly on a Facebook company fan page that will import knowledge into the Service Cloud. For example, on Dell’s Facebook Fan page, questions and answers answered by the Facebook community will be imported into the Answer base in the Service Cloud. Salesforce Answers is will available in the first half of 2011.

Salesforce for Twitter: Salesforce was one of the first CRMs to integrate with  and leverage Twitter back in March but has added to this functionality in the Service Cloud. Similar to the feature added earlier this year, users will be able to search Twitter in a real-time stream, will be able to monitor and track particular conversations in Twitter around a search term. And users can Tweet directly from the Service Cloud.

The Service Cloud will now let businesses create a Twitter handle for customers to directly Tweet their customer service issues to. When a customer complains to the handle on Twitter, a customer service case is automatically created in the Service Cloud, letting the representative respond to the customer’s questions in a timely manner, linking back to the Knowledge Base. Salesforce for Twitter is available today for free on the Force.com AppExchange.

Let’s look at some of the Benefits of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS): 

IT costs are reduced significantly because you don’t have to pay for proprietary software, high tech hardware, or a large IT staff.

Documents can be made accessible from any location, any terminal, to any person.

 Easily scalable – ‘Cloud’ computing resources can be expanded in hours instead of waiting days for new servers, new users can be added instantaneously. 

Safe and Reliable – Clouds are often hosted by the largest IT companies in the Industry – Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Cisco – in high quality data centers, and data transmission is encrypted for maximum security.

 Always up to date – SaaS (Software as a Service) applications are always up to date – eliminating the need to perform individual software updates on computers throughout your company

 Hybrid Cloud Computing

 In the event that your enterprise can not switch to a fully cloud computing enabled workspace due to proprietary issues, you can still benefit from external computing resources by implementing a ‘hybrid cloud’. In this environment, you can run proprietary enterprise applications and store documents on your own network, but tap the resources of the cloud for one time projects or other special needs.

 Cloud Computing is the Future of Business IT

 With all these advantages, it’s difficult to think of reasons why you shouldn’t consider switching to a cloud computing IT environment. You have significantly fewer in house IT costs, you pay only for the computing resources you use, and cloud computing networks are often more secure than traditional business systems. And with the new collaboration abilities created by a cloud computing enabled workspace, you’ll be able to accomplish work more efficiently than ever before.

Many businesses today are familiar with the benefits cloud computing offers over a traditional in house IT departments. But as the popularity of this new alternative expands, questions regarding its security are being raised. Is cloud computing as secure as having your data network in house?

 Data in Cloud Computing is Centralized

 Unlike traditional networks which leave documents and other information data spread randomly amongst employee work stations, data inside the cloud is centralized. Because cloud computing providers are typically held to much higher standards than in house IT security teams, this generally means the data is safer than on your own network. This data is accessed only via web browsers which can be set to clear their cache every time they are closed.

 Take this in comparison to distributing an email, for example: The email with attachment is distributed to numerous employees who are expected to use the information appropriately then discard or resend it. In the case of cloud computing – no data would be sent to the employees. They would be able to log on to one central location, view the data, make any changes they needed to collaboratively, then log out – all without actually downloading the information.

 Cloud Computing Security Concerns are Cultural, not Factual

 To date, there has been no major violations of cloud security. Take that in comparison to private networks, in which there are multiple stories every week of breached data or stolen client machines.

 Most of the current concern for security in a cloud computing setup arises from cultural norms. People are used to thinking that something in their possession is more secure than if it is out in the open. While that seems like common sense, it simply isn’t true. All connected networks are ‘out in the open’. Cloud computing simply gives fewer chances to access that data by its very design.

 Initiatives to Improve Cloud Computing Security

 Because cloud computing is still relatively new in comparison to traditional in house IT departments, there does tend to be a lack of standardization on security issues. Many companies are beginning to contribute to security initiatives, however, including Hewlett Packard, IBM,  Novell, Qualys, Symantec, Zscaler, and others.

 By its very design and through the use of normal security measures such as encryption, cloud computing security really isn’t a barrier to entry any longer. In most tests it proves to be just as secure if not more so than conventional in house data networks. As time progresses, the many benefits inherent to cloud computing will ensure that it remains the focus of the IT security industry.

The need for companies to cut costs and increase productivity means one thing for Technology professionals, Cloud computing. Start-ups are being formed, venture capitalists are doling out cash, and big companies such as Amazon, EMC, Google, and CISCO are formulating strategies and announcing cloud computing offerings. Instead of buying hardware and software that must be listed as large, one-time capital expenses ,paying a monthly fee for cloud services is a smaller, ongoing operating expense. Cloud computing users pay only for the services they need which offers Scalability of capacity as needed.

Small and midsize businesses will be the first to integrate cloud-based services, while bigger companies will take longer to figure out how these services relate to their existing operations, whether they’re secure and reliable enough, and whether they comply with all sorts of regulatory requirements. But the appeal is that cloud-based services can cut the costs of all sorts of IT operations like storage and number-crunching and payment processing, while giving companies the flexibility to simply pay a higher monthly fee as they grow – or pay less when they shrink.

Shrinking IT budgets, have prompted many IT managers to look for any possible way to maximize cost savings, the number of cloud computing subscribers worldwide will grow rapidly over the next five years lead by small and medium sized businesses that need to improve productivity while lowering bottom line costs. The best thing that happened to the cloud was the downturn in the economy an this global recession.The main driver toward cloud computing is not only the efficiency but the cost savings.

Rich Alessandro