In this part we will dig a bit deeper and detail the standards and regulations that some of the most common infrastructure (IaaS) Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) comply with and are certified for. CSPs are not always obliged to follow all regulations, but normally they have procedures to make their consumer cloud compliant. We also look at four of the IaaS giants
- We don’t see cloud as a problem. You adopt a cloud service if it fits your business. You install a system/application as part of your on-premise solution if it fits your business. You make them work together; there are some orchestrating apps and people for that.
- It’s not an internal love affair between cloud service providers. It’s not even a love affair between cloud service providers and engaged IT Pros, evangelists, and journalists anymore. A sweet lasting smell of love is obviously starting to arise between cloud services and IT departments and non-IT business people.
- The transfer of legacy
"So now let us look a little deeper on what desktop virtualization brings to the table.
Here are some of the most notable benefits:
- Global access through any device that can connect to the internet and have display and input functions like smartphones and tablets.
- Most virtual desktop solutions also support local storage drives and printers, while others might use some local processing power like graphics and sound processing.
- Allows for quick integration, upgrade, and change of applications for select user groups, individuals, and globally.
- Enhance security and data integrity plus easy backup solutions. Minimize data theft
""Are we witnessing the death of the 'mega-deal'? Is it going to get even tougher for the traditional one-stop-shop IT Outsourcing (ITO) houses? Why are so many organisations re-thinking traditional sourcing models all at the same time?
Even as companies are relying more on technology to come up with innovative business models and fresh ideas for finding new revenue, many boards of directors don't understand enough about IT to keep up. Few CIOs sit on boards and, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, just 1 percent of directors have any technology background at all.
"As the study illustrates, the cost efficiencies of cloud computing are the same in third-world countries as in the developed world, and up-and-coming nations can leverage data, applications, and infrastructure that were once cost prohibitive. In turn, this increases
"Employees are increasingly turning to the cloud to get their work done, whether IT has a policy about cloud use or not, according to research studies by Symantec and cloud backup provider
"My humble opinions and questions: if you’re the outermost responsible for a department, area or the whole company as part of the management group, whom will you advise? To advise the board is seldom popular. To advise managers within the department/area is teamworking and management. To discuss and advise to this and that within the I-area with the rest of the CxOs is business as usual. A trusted advisor is someone who knows what’s best for you, a company, your business or responsibilities. It’s not a mentor but still a “professional friend”: a “professional friend” who’s not gaining from the advice more than the salary he/she gets to advise. The trusted advisor can be an internal or external person and higher or lower in rank. The relation can be formal or informal. The key is to give advice a client can trust."Agree or disagree? Care and dare to discuss?
"I ask myself, will it be a true shift where traditional IT outsourcing providers* becomes outmaneuvered by smaller service provider, cloud brokers, in-house IT departments and non IT service providers acting as orchestrators of future hybrid IT? A shift caused by:
- Smaller SPs are able to change when the market does. Faster and shorter step to new decisions.
- Smaller SPs are able to operate, manage and orchestrate solutions earlier exclusively reserved the larger ITO providers.
- Non-IT service providers from mature branches bring money, resources and trimmed processes in to a sometimes immature IT world.
- In-house IT departments are able to orchestrate their IT solutions. They don’t have to focus on fundamental operations provided by IaaS, PaaS and A-/SaaS; they are able to concentrate on core/special services and work more innovative to bring value to core business. To become the internal trusted cloud broker to avoid de-centralised procurement/adoption of products and services.
- The act of “Fat and happiness”: instead of working innovative (know, predict and tell what the customer needs in the future) ITOs only focus on now!
Tell me what you think on Outsourcemagazine, here on the blog or just send me a mail.
- ITOs don’t use partnership to build success. They build everything on their own."
"The “Cloud Smart Meter,” for AWS, is a native iPad and iPhone application that enables chief information officers (CIOs) and IT managers to gain clear visibility into their AWS costs, risks, and assets while collaborating with their teams and managing their clouds from anywhere and at any time"Read more: http://www.newvem.com/newvem-introduces-its-cloud-smart-meter-ios-app-for-iphones-and-ipads/
"2) Seek collaboration, not necessarily consensus
Here are some of my bullets to a good start for a greater outsourcing.
- Only demand things you really need. Ask for the rest.
- Let the service provider explain how to solve glue, integration, add on services with their standard procedures and services instead of demanding your nitty gritty procedures. Core business for service providers is to know how to solve things in their environment: let them.
- When you outsource, be prepared for change.
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Here are Ron’s top ten tips for CSPs, whether you’re already a cloud player or plan to become one:
- SaaS = TRUST. If you can’t provide a trustworthy environment, don’t provide it at all.
- Invest in security and compliance. Don’t skimp—it is fundamental to your business and its future.
- Customers will always have concerns and ask questions.
When asked what "the cloud" was, 29 percent said "a fluffy white thing", whereas only 16 percent connected the phrase with a network used to store, access and share data across Internet-connected devices.
Cloud computing was found to be widely misunderstood. The survey found that:
- 51 percent of respondents, including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather
"European cloud adoption has happened slower than in the U.S., but there are signs that it’s about to rapidly accelerate. At Structure:Europe, cloud luminaries will talk about how they see this change unfolding and what’s motivating it. Hint:
"the fastest growing segment of outsourcing--cloud computing services--is expected to nearly double from $3.4 billion in 2011 to $5 billion this year. Even more notable--infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) will contribute 38 percent of the increment outsourcing growth in 2012, compared to 8 percent in 2011. "This is reflective of how difficult the current market
"Just for fun; a tricky question: What happens if an SaaS provider from Country A put its service on a PaaS provided from Country B? And, scary, the PaaS from Country B resides on an IaaS from Country C in Continent D? Is your organization cloud compliant in this scenario? Will any of the XaaS providers guarantee you’re cloud compliant? Let’s hope these scenarios won’t be frequent in the market in the future"Please share if you like it.
"Looking at the examples above carefully you begin to see a pattern, nobody really knows what information security is, nobody really wants to do it as they think it costs too much and if they do have to do it, they will do the minimum required in order to tick whatever box they need to. This leads me to ask a question.
"About half the negotiations revolve around issues such as people, governance, processes, and compliance. "It used to be all about just the technology," Corbelli said. "Now it's about who you are, your culture, your reason for being, the peer-to-peer relationship. People want to know if you can be trusted, if you're on the same wavelength. They want to feel that their CFO can call your CFO and talk to them as equals."
"What to do (1)
IT businesses have to walk away from seller-centric and buyer-centric scenarios to “swap-centric”, "customised standard", Lego-bricks or whatever you would like to call it.
IT providers have to listen to their customers and offer open standard services from which a customer can choose add-on services – either from the provider or from other service providers. Build up services in block: don’t customise a service if your goal isn’t to be that special services provider who will get paid for the effort you put in it. Plus,
"Despite the terrible weather, Amazon.com had no legitimate excuse for the outage. After all, most other cloud providers in the area were able to continue service. Powerful storms are not exactly an uncommon phenomenon in the mid-Atlantic region, so the data center should have been designed and run accordingly.
"Det här låter säkert som en klyssja men partnerskap är en nyckel till en lyckad IT-funktion vare sig den är helt inhouse eller om man som företag valt att outsourca hela eller delar av den. IT är för många företag inte kärnverksamheten, däremot är det den absoluta nyckeln för att kärnverksamheten ska lyckas. Därför måste det finnas ett samarbete mellan IT och verksamhet samt inte minst en förståelse från IT vad behoven är för att verksamheten ska lyckas. Lika viktigt är att information som påverkar behoven når IT-avdelningen. Vid en outsourcing av IT-funktionen är delar eller ibland till och med hela IT-avdelningen outsourcad, alltså att delar eller hela IT-avdelningen egentligen finns hos någon annan: outsourcing-leverantören. I det läget är det ännu viktigare att ett samarbete finns etablerat för att inget ska falla mellan stolarna eller att förväntningar faktiskt infrias."Read the full article
"Why do you drive a German car? Why do you love a fantastic Nasi Goreng from Indonesia? Why do you go to Ibiza, Berlin, London or Miami for a good clubbers night? Why do you travel to meet up at great IT conferences in the US?
Answer:
"What I mean say is that these items need to be discussed and put in paper as part of SLA. You don’t want to be in a situation where your provider is pointing a finger at the infrastructure issue or outage and saying it wasn’t their fault. Incorporate SLA terms that indicate how your company will perform based on these resources. What does it mean to your operations if the cloud is down?
"Europe may trump the United States in such matters as academic prosperity in mathematics and sciences, as we know it celebrates its monarchs with far more compelling pomp and circumstance that we could possibly muster for our heads of state. But clout in cloud remains one discipline in which America continues to exert overwhelming dominance over the continent across the pond. This isn’t to say that nations like France, Germany, and even economically beleaguered Greece
"@sarojkar Do you mean like a complete chain with several services included in a "full" ITaaS/XaaS? Or do you mean net, servers etc within the DC included in a SaaS? (Then it definitely should be included in the SLA) If ITaaS; it's definitely cool to deliver the chain of services from DC to user. It's a risk but definitely cool, you will certainly differ from many other SP's.
"An organisation’s ability to ’try before it buy’s with cloud services, in theory, meant that there is no longer the need to employ a consultant to decide which service would work for them. When the confusion around cloud is lifted, the future of the cloud broker may morph again, or even become extinct. If the issue
"And when Greenpeace is on your case there’s really nowhere to hide; as a big cloud service provider you get bad publicity = less money. That’s it. Always. The IT industry’s black sheep
"One of the most annoying definitions right now is (IMHO) "co-sourcing". Be honest now: who do you think can deliver IT services or IT outsourcing without co-operation, partnership and divided and joint responsibilities? If those days ever existed they’re gone now. There is nothing odd in dividing functions in an IT outsourcing as long as you write it down on a paper like
"Today, cloudwashing is prevalent. But it isn’t always intentional. In fact many truly believe they’ve got a true cloud — especially those using a pre-packaged private cloud software solution. But once you look under the hood it’s hard to miss.
“Yesterday I talked to Mikael about building two walls in the garden. I asked him: “Do you think one bag of concrete (20-25 kg mix) is good enough for each pole?” Mikael: “Nooo…. You know, when the wind starts to blow… its quite powerful… you should dig quite deep and use quite a lot of concrete. But, don’t you have something to fasten and secure it to, like…the house?” Me: “Yes,
Pst….sccchhh…but…sometimes I kind of repeat and sometimes I really don’t know what I mean…#10…Sorry… ;) But; I haven’t modified one of them.So…here goes:
"The differences lie in factors such as governance, service management and support.You might think this applies only to the IT outsourcing providers, but it’s not. Even if cloud services shouldn’t be drowned with governance models, cloud service providers and aggregators must present an extra value to their service. Here are some “common sense” guidelines that will help you to maintain a successful cloud lock-in..."The Successful Cloud Lock-in!
"Put simply, can you easily retrieve your data stored in the cloud to enable you to move from one service to another? This is a question that is worrying CIOs around the world. Unlike typical outsourcing services, retrieving your data from the cloud is not a straightforward thing. CIO.com recently posted an excellent article on this which raises some important questions. In this post, I will try to offer some insight into the topic."My comment:
"I think some of the scenarios are quite ”aggressive” and most probably quite rare. Even if cloud tempts “gold diggers” like the Wild Wild West (www? Ooops! ;)) most CSP’s won’t go bankrupt. And most companies
"But too many in IT are overly eager to pull the remote-wipe trigger. It's a serious weapon, the equivalent of a neutron bomb being set off in an iPad, iPhone, Android device, Mac, or -- with third-party tools today and a new OS this fall -- Windows PC. Like any tool with such overwhelming capabilities, it should be used with caution.My a bit frustrated ;) comment:
Sorry but isn't the point that you can use a MDM system to do backups (scheduled or not), lock before wipe, set special policies etc?! Not to discuss whether or not it was stupid of the guy to let his daughter use the phone or if it was a poor example?!
The purpose with the article is good. Of course you need to do wipe sometimes but not always. I agree with Mike Carmack; it is an InfoSec issue. The company policy rules and it should be well informed in the organization. But policies can as everything else evolve so - no, maybe it doesn't have to be that way.
Problem do exist with MDM systems, or rather the devices and OS's: all different ifs and buts on different devices and OS's. I'm also looking forward to a MDM system which for real can handle phones, tablets and PC's. Today there's a gap. Next SCCM?
"What will the job of CIO be like in the year 2020? In many ways, the answer is already clear: The IT leader will still be the nucleus of any company, working closely with business executives and strategizing about future technology directions, leading a staff of highly trained professionals and championing streamlined technical operations. The position will still require a mix of analytical foresight and management prowess over the next decade."My short comment:
"Wise predictions.
Not sure #7 will be a fact by then. But I've been talking about this... So, either I want to replace the #7 or add a #10b or #11: Trusted advisor. The CIO needs to be supported by trusted advisors to make the correct decisions."
"3 – The emotional lock-in. Dangerous one. You are really not technically or legally locked in, but you know, assume or just feel that you have put too much effort, work or money into adopting or using the service than you think you should have. Get out of there as soon as possible. It’s gambling in Vegas… “Ok, just 100$…then I stop…It will be my last bet…”"
"What's important?Large enterprises have their own legal departments, but most small businesses don't. Small businesses and even enterprises are also very likely to not have a complete file of all of their contracts or not read all of their contracts end to end. A good practice is to
Let’s be clear. Cloud washing is not breaking the law (yet). The problem with cloud washing enters the discussion when we start to talk about money, because that is what it’s really about – you might lose money due to its lack of scalability, adoption issues and lock-in effects. All this because you believed you were adopting a cloud service.
"With cloud, the tables have finally turned on the technologists. Adoption of cloud in the enterprise is disruptive in a bad way for IT and in a good way for business. For everyone in IT, it means radical changes to working practices and learning many new skillsets, while existing skills become redundant, sometimes overnight. Today’s old-fashioned jobs are in fields such as database administration, server management and systems integration, with many organisations handing over those tasks wholesale to cloud providers who can automate them at scale. While IT suffers, the business finds cloud brings vastly improved productivity to existing skills while adding huge new opportunities for innovation and business development."My comment to the post, or rather my comment to the post and the comments:
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| Shoe service description and SLA? This + brand, store and receipt is my agreement for buying a shoe. The agreement should also guarantee my choices: no children, environment-friendly transportations etc. If textile inside it doesn’t meet SLA I will return it. I shouldn’t care about transportation, logistics, sewing machines etc. IT is far more complicated but principle is the same. |
"CloudComputing is one hashtag that seems to be applied to almost every tweet that arrives on our Twitter stream. So how do you know which ones are worth the effort of that extra click? I decided to use the @Maildistiller Twitter stream as the basis of a little experiment in an attempt to uncover which #CloudComputing tweeters are ahead of the pack and making the sort of noise that leans towards the retweetable.
So, if IT security professionals are this skeptical about the security of corporate networks, how much trust can the rest of us reasonably place when accessing these networks — whether it be with personal or work devices?
"Every now and then we hear rumors of the death of the PC. The rise of the tablet, and especially the iPad, makes these rumors far more common. Take this article in the New York Times, titled “As New iPad Debut Nears, Some See Decline Of PC.”
To be fair, it’s a reasonably balanced article, noting in the end that it’s much more likely that tablets and PCs will simply become more indistinguishable.
"It is hard to say that there are any truly low-stress or stress-free jobs in the IT industry. IT workers operate on tight deadlines, mistakes can take entire companies down (or worse), and there never seem to be enough people to do the job. To make it even harder, IT pros are often asked to work with and even take direction from people who really have no clue about the technical details. But it is still possible to have a job in the IT industry that reduces many or even most of these pain points. Here are 10 IT industry jobs with relatively low stress levels."My comment:
I won't discuss the stress factor for each one of the mentioned or other not mentioned.Note! I know IT jobs are more or less stressful and I don't downplay any role or the issue people are stressed at work. Just looking at it from another perspective and to provocate a bit.
Look at it from a customer perspective on no 2-10. Create a less stressed organization: outsource and / or buy and adopt ITaaS / cloud... Stop in-housing these type of resources and roles. Make the stress / no stress situations the service providers pleasant responsibility.
I know I'm generalizing and making it easy for me and easy for others "attacks" and opinions.
"As in the case of most productive uses of new technology, such as the rise of the PC, the rise of the Web, the rise of mobile devices, and now the rise of the cloud, employees will drive ahead first. IT will follow. Call me crazy, but I think it should be the other way around."
"It would be one thing if companies paid for users' personal equipment and services, but I really fear BYOD is becoming just another way to shift costs off the company budget and onto employee's backs. Worse still, I can see BYOD actually blocking people from being hired.
So, even though I'm a BYOD user through and through, I can't really get behind the idea that BYOD is that great an idea for everyone."My comment:
"Outside of the application space, things are well, more stormy. Take the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) space. Providers here include Google App Engine, Windows Azure, Salesforce.com’s Database.com, and others.My comment:
For enterprises - who usually have much more rigorous requirements than consumers - multitenant cloud platforms have plenty of disadvantages. That goes double for the developers serving those enterprises."
"Think of cloud orchestration as an amazing CTO with a wand standing at the front of the IT room directing his team of IT people through the symphony of 24/7 consumer facing IT service. The difference is no amount of people and no size wand is ever going to direct the symphony as well as a nice tidy piece of software specifically written for the job.As you might know I focus more on the assignment than systems when I talk about orchestration so my comment to this was:
Orchestration of your cloud is only part of the puzzle, a big part granted but there is more cool stuff I like to see in my clouds, specifically around reporting and billing so I’m going to stick with cloud enablement as my main catch phrase until such time I find something better!"
"Outsourcing can be both beneficial and non-beneficial depending on your reason why you choose to outsource. To begin with outsourcing, according to Wikipedia, “is the process of contracting a business function to someone else”. But why outsource if the job can be done in your own company by your own employees? Therefore, the reason behind outsourcing plays a vital role in the decision to avail of services outside the company."My comment:
"Listen to the hype about cloud computing and you’d think it provides a quick fix for the CIO who needs to cut costs in a hurry.My comment:
And while its on-demand model offers the promise of reduced spend and freeing the IT team from the drudgery of looking after physical infrastructure, CIOs remain wary about getting carried away chasing savings in the cloud."
