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As those of you who follow my tweets@traffichoney know I was at an SDForum event called “Shaping the New Age of App development last Friday and most of Saturday. This was my first ever SDForum event and I have to say it was a fantastic line up for speakers and was otherwise very well organized. This post and the next few are my notes from most of the sessions at the event.

James Staten, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Keynote

Should cloud computing be part of your roadmap

Cloud computing Definition: a standardized IT capability delivered via internet in a pay-per-use in a self-service way

Cloud based services

• Database as a service
• Application services
• Infrastructure services
• Data as a service

Software as a service (finished apps)

• CRM
• ERP
• Accounting

Cloud Platforms

• Infrastructure as a service

• Ex. pay per use based on days, size etc. appeals to everyone but enterprises wanting a predictable bill– Amazon EC2
• Built services on top of old environment. Not as elastic as Amazon but goal planning to sell to existing base.
  • Rackspace
  • Terremark
  • Layered Tech
  • ServePath
  • Savvis

• Platform as service

• Google App engine
• Salesforce—Force.com, building and hosting multitenant applications
• Microsoft—Windows Azure. Exposure you to abstract layer Windows
• Cloud specific to languages—Bungee Labs, LongJump, Engine Yard, IBM
• Good news for a developer as there is less to worry about to implement something. Problems for an Enterprise considering/using a code mashup

Cloud’s customers

• Startups—no IT legacy so building something new in cloud is easy
• Gaming and entertainment companies—modern design, small (main drivers Amazon EC2)
• Small businesses—online businesses, online presence, collaboration, enterprise integration
• Enterprises—R&D projects, quick promotions, widgets, online collaboration, partner integration, social networking, new business ventures. Ex Wendy’s 99c promo entirely in cloud

Cloud addresses—business need for speed but fuels the IT—business disconnect

• Business wants
  • A place to experiment
  • Fast integration
  • Looser IT restrictions
  • Responsiveness
• IT wants
  • Plenty of notice
  • Predictability
  • Stability
  • Justification

Cloud provides a business facing response that meets business needs for speed and experimentation without too much restriction. Very different from traditional IT process.

But clouds are still maturing

• SLA proof of plus—99.99% uptime
• SAS 70 audits not possible for cloud
• Security and compliance services—cloud can be compliant but if your procedures and processes are different you may not be.

Internal cloud builders

• 3tera—startups and risky
• Sun Microsystems
• Zimory–startups and risky
• Elastra–startups and risky
• IBM—emerging, non-startups announcements for new deliveries next week
• VMware–emerging, non-startups announcements for new deliveries next week
• Citrix systems–emerging, non-startups announcements for new deliveries next week

Interesting and appealing but do not entirely address issue of business circumventing others. Real value cloud bursting—linking to other clouds

Early days for internal cloud

• Large clouds designed to accept failure

• Amazon 50-100 drives fail every day. Same with servers
• Distributed throughout US geography allowing your apps to remain running despite failure at any one center

Similar Posts:

• SDForum: Shaping the New Age Of App Development, Cloud enabled applications
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• SDForum: Shaping the New Age Of App Development, Venture investments
• SDForum: Shaping the New Age Of App Development, Emerging Applications

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