Exclusive Q&As

Achieving the Most from Your Cloud Computing Strategy

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:00:00 EST

“Much like the “100% paperless” or “100% wireless” enterprise, we’re not likely to see a ‘100% public cloud,’” noted Willie Tejada, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Cloud at Akamai Technologies, Inc., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. However, Tejada does believe that “we will continue to see enterprises adopting a variety of cloud models – public, private and hybrid – according to the computing, budget, and delivery needs of their business.” Cloud Computing: How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away - are secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? Willie Tejada: Much like the “100% paperless” or “100% wireless” enterprise, we’re not likely to see a “100% public cloud” enterprise. It’s more likely that a best-in-breed mixture of traditional and cloud methodology will emerge as a standard. But it’s important to note that the reason isn’t likely to be security concerns, or performance concerns or any of the traditional barriers to cloud computing we hear so much about. Those barriers are already falling away. In fact, there are highly secure, highly performing public cloud solutions being used by enterprises every day.

Embracing Cloud Data Protection and Recovery

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 06:00:00 EST

“At the end of the day what’s important to technology users are their applications and their data, whether this be personal pictures and music files or corporate databases,” observed Alan Dayley, Sr. Director of Product Management at i365, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “The newest trend is ensuring access to these applications and data in the way the customer wants to access it,” Dayley concluded. Cloud computing has been on the fringe for many years and with different names. But like any monumental shift in technology, the momentum has been slowly building and is on the verge of exploding. Secure public clouds are very feasible, and may be more secure than a local IT environment, as cloud providers understand the importance of ensuring the privacy of customers' data and information and can do so in a more scalable way. SMB/SMEs will continue to look to public cloud computing to reduce overhead and to better manage their IT needs. A key need and current headache is data protection. Small businesses can embrace cloud data protection and recovery through a company like i365 to ensure that their data is secure and always available.

Cloud Computing Architectures: A Paradigm Shift

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:15:00 EDT

“As more and more people become comfortable with the idea, businesses will move more workloads to Public Clouds,” stated Joe Seibel, CFA, CFO & VP of Strategic Development at Hexagrid, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “I like to compare it to the history of electricity when every business had its own generator even though there was a central utility,” Seibel continued. “Eventually, as businesses saw the stability and became comfortable, they got rid of the generator. For the immediate and mid-term future, I believe private clouds, including hosted private clouds, will be the preference.”

Evaluating Cloud Computing: Achieve Performance and Financial Goals

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EDT

“There is no doubt that the federal government’s support of cloud computing is driving additional demand,” stated Paul Carmody, SVP, Product Management & Business Development at Internap, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. However, Carmody noted, “Enterprises are evaluating the cloud based on their own needs and the merits of the cloud offerings available to them.” How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away – are secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? Paul Carmody: We’re seeing some enterprises move to the cloud immediately, especially for public-facing web applications. There are multiple reasons for this. For one thing, new applications are being developed and optimized to fit cloud environments right out of the gate. In addition, the cloud’s provisioning flexibility, which lets organizations spin up instances on demand, and its ability to handle bursts of demand in an economically efficient way are both highly attractive features.

Defining Cloud Computing

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:00:00 EDT

“Adoption of new technologies by large enterprises and government agencies legitimize the technology and speed up adoption,” noted Ran Nahmias, Director of Virtualization & Cloud Solutions at Net Optics, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “The government has been very thorough and loud about the move to the cloud,” Nahmias continued, “and there’s no doubt that the public endorsement – backed by solid reasoning – have been very helpful in cloud growth, especially in the US.” A fundamental question is: what is the definition of cloud? I think the general consensus is that the cloud is any computing workload that is running and performing in virtual environments, and in many cases remotely. All of our enterprise customers are continuing to adopt and deploy virtualization across their data centers and business processes and the adoption rate and pace are both growing steadily. In the past 12–18 months, we’ve seen a steady adoption in mission-critical areas that historically were taboo from virtualization.

Cloud Computing: It's All About Self-Service

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:30:00 EDT

“Cloud computing is all about automation and self-service and [at CloudExpo] we'll be showing attendees how they can extend that to the application layer,” stated James Weir, CTO and co-founder of UShareSoft in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “I will be speaking at the conference on how cloud providers can build dynamic app stores where enterprises and ISVs can share and consume applications,” Weir continued, “and how enterprises can migrate applications to the cloud with full software governance.”

The Journey to Full Cloud Adoption

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:00:00 EDT

“There is a move to build more cloud-like capabilities into virtual environments, such as standard instance sizes and software stacks,” noted Andrew Hillier, CTO and co-founder of CiRBA, Inc., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is a step toward cloud,” Hillier continued, “and is typically very effective, as it provides many of the benefits without the need to go to a full self-service model.” Cloud Computing Journal: How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away – are secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? Andrew Hillier: Secure public clouds are feasible from a technical perspective, but the question is whether they are feasible from a legal, risk management and general “control” perspective. For example, it is possible to structure legal contracts that guarantee that no customer data will be exposed, but such agreements are almost worthless if such data actually ends up being exposed. In such situations there may be financial penalties, but no amount of money can undo what was done, and there may simply be no remedies for the damages incurred. Arguments such as this are very compelling to those charged with managing the risk, reputation and even brands of large organizations, and may prove to be the biggest impediment to public cloud adoption.

Hybrid Cloud Computing Strategies: Deploying Enterprise Applications

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:45:00 EDT

“We believe that ‘cloud’ as a specialized concept will rapidly give way to cloud as simply a dominant enterprise IT paradigm,” noted Lawrence Guillory, CEO of Racemi Inc., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, “where public and private cloud resources both have roles in an enterprise’s virtual data center.” We believe that many enterprises will start by implementing low-risk private clouds and test the public cloud waters with public cloud-specific applications and services. As the benefits and flaws of each materialize and as enterprise applications and management tools for the cloud mature, we believe enterprises will look more and more to hybrid strategies for deploying enterprise applications in order to marry the benefits of both cloud paradigms. Supported by clearly defined best practices and tools to rapidly deploy and test apps in the cloud, an increasingly large percentage of IT will run in some kind of cloud infrastructure within the next three years or so.

Accelerating the Enterprise Use of Private Clouds

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EDT

“The Obama/Kundra effect of pushing more government data to the web and promoting the application of cloud scale efficiencies has been felt across all markets,” noted Bart Copeland, President & CEO of ActiveState Software, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “The thought leadership and leadership by example,” Copeland continued, “has raised both the visibility and spurred the growth of a number of important projects.” Cloud Computing Journal: How fast will the last remaining barriers to enterprise-wide cloud adoption melt away – are secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? Bart Copeland: Enterprise adoption of private IaaS is definitely on the rise as one solution for eliminating these barriers. We believe that the advent of Private PaaS solutions such as Stackato will further accelerate enterprise use of private clouds. As for "secure," this has a number of connotations. In the sense that your container is impenetrable by others housed on the same servers or cloud – yes, we believe this is feasible. In the sense that data privacy is protected, this may only become a reality on private clouds. We are still seeing governance and compliance issues with the public cloud. Our customers are asking for recommendations for geo-location specific hosting services, which tells us this is going to be an issue for some time.

Take the Concept of the Internet to the Next Level with Cloud Computing

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 07:00:00 EDT

“The cloud provides access to an endless range of services and applications,” noted Uri Mishol, co-founder and CEO, Xoreax Software, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Without these up-to-date applications companies run the risk of being left behind, an option that on one cannot afford in today’s global market,” concluded Mishol. Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

Virtualization – The Engine that Enables Cloud Computing

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:15:00 EDT

“Most cloud environments – public, private, or hybrid – run on virtualized infrastructure that share CPU, memory and storage between applications,” noted Bryan Semple, Chief Marketing Officer at VKernel in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “These shared resource environments behave a lot like mainframes and hence require the same level of capacity planning,” concluded Semple. A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

Innovations in Cloud Computing

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:00:00 EDT

“What makes Cloud Computing more likely to be successful today are both technological and attitudinal changes in the market,” noted Tom Trainer, Director of Product Marketing at Gluster, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “First, commodity computing and storage and virtualization techniques mean that these services can be delivered at price points that make it more than economically feasible,” Trainer continued. “Second, Internet bandwidths make it possible to upload large amounts of data to and from these cloud-based infrastructures, easing the choice of platform.”

The Next Big Thing for Cloud Computing

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 07:30:00 EDT

“For many customers, the Cloud is still just an idea, and they do not know how the Cloud is built and operates,” observed Joe Bromley, Systems Consultant at Texas Memory Systems, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Cloud providers should continue to educate customers on how easy it is to take advantage of their services,” Bromley continued, “and let customers know the hardware that is in place that is being used to serve and protect their data.” Cloud computing has become more affordable, and is now a cost-effective option for the mainstream. In the past, the costs involved with cloud computing made it very difficult for most companies to justify the price. With the continual rise in the power of x86 hardware, and the use of less expensive, and open source, file systems, the infrastructure costs have dropped dramatically over the last five years, and this savings has been passed along to the customers.

Cloud Computing and the Hype Cycle

Thu, 26 May 2011 12:15:00 EDT

I had the opportunity to talk to Mark Raskino, Vice President at Gartner. Mark is one of the authors of the book Mastering the Gartner Hype-Cycle. At the conference, Mark gave the keynote, and I presented a talk on Cloud Computing. This interview is about how to Master the Gartner Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing. This represents Mark’s opinion, not the opinion of his employer Gartner. Mario Meir-Huber: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me about Cloud Computing and the Hype Cycle. We currently have the IT trend “Cloud Computing” and it is interesting to compare this trend to the “Cloud.”. Where would you see this trend?

Cloud Computing: Creating a Circle of Innovation

Wed, 18 May 2011 10:15:00 EDT

“How we communicate, how we do business, and how we get along through the day has required that we look at new and better ways of improving our businesses and our civilization. This demand is requiring organizations to be better and more efficient at bringing services to market,” stated JP Blaho, Senior Product Marketing Manager and Cloud Security Strategist for Crossbeam, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “As we become smarter and faster, the economies of scale go into effect. These cost savings are then passed on to the user, creating a circle of innovation (demand, efficiency, and savings),” Blaho concluded.

Cloud Computing: A Shift in the Way IT Departments Work

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EDT

“By outsourcing a big chunk of operations to the cloud, IT can shift from an operational cost center to a true partner and enabler of business success,” noted Rodrigo Coutinho, Senior Product Marketing Manager, OutSystems, Inc., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “The cloud offers IT the possibility to have a centralized platform for developing and running enterprise applications,” Coutinho concluded. Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work? Rodrigo Coutinho: I believe the cloud is going to work, because of two main reasons. First, the technology is now mature enough in terms of reliability, ease of use, available offer, and price. The fact that you can provision a server with a few clicks and a credit card proves that, maturity wise, we’re ready for prime time.

Cloud Computing: A Trusted Service

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EDT

“Cloud Computing removes the risk and allows you to try before buying,” stated Carlos Polo, CEO & Founder of Doocuments, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. Polo continued, “Cloud Computing helps you save money and stay focused on your business and eliminates technology complexity.” Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work? Carlos Polo: It is easier for everyone to believe and start adopting a trend once the market is massively pushing a technology. Cloud Computing (or whatever name used for this topic) is a technology that helps you save money, helps you stay focused on your business and eliminates technology complexity. Communications, security and software technology is also mature enough to support this revolution. These are the main reasons why we think Cloud Computing is convincing everybody.

A Hybrid Approach to Cloud Computing

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:45:00 EDT

“Cloud or the concept of ‘Data Center–centric’ computing is going to be around for a long time,” stated Rick German, Co-founder, CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Stoneware, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “We might tire of the word ‘cloud,’” he continued, “however, the need to shift from a client-centric delivery model to a centralized model cannot be avoided.” Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work? Rick German: Cloud computing describes the shift from a client-centric computing model to a data-centric computing model. Applications, data, services are moving into the data center whether they can be locally or publicly hosted for the end user. This transition is as much about the change in client technologies as it is about utility computing, grid, and other cloud buzzwords. The explosion in the “sub-netbook” device market has created a new category of devices from smartphones to netbooks and pads that are typically unmanaged, personal in nature, and running a variety of local operating systems. The centralized, hosted nature of cloud computing has created a platform from which applications and services can be delivered independent of the device. The rapidly changing device market almost ensures that cloud computing will be the next compute model.

Cloud Computing – The Foundation for How We Consume Technology

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:00:00 EDT

“Cloud computing arrived at a time when the industry was being asked to do more with less,” explained Eric Olden, CEO & Founder of Symplified, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Cloud computing offers a solution to that problem,” Olden continues, “on demand access to virtually limitless, cost-effective resources and for many this means entirely new capabilities that level the playing field. The ability and flexibility to pay only for what you use is a huge operational advantage.”

Cloud Computing: Creating a Functioning Market for Capacity

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:45:00 EDT

“Cloud puts control back in the hands of the consumers,” noted Andrew Hillier, CTO and co-founder of CiRBA, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Cloud computing creates a functioning market for capacity, it gives consumers choices," Hillier continued. “This forces everyone to sharpen their game, from Cloud providers to outsourcers to internal IT. As such, Cloud computing is more of a shift in business model than it is a technology change, and this is what makes it truly different.” Cloud Computing: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

Instant-On Enterprises & Cloud Computing

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:15:00 EST

HP’s strategy is centered on empowering both commercial and enterprise class cloud computing. Research from HP indicates that senior business, government and technology executives believe that by 2015, 18 percent of their IT delivery will be through the public cloud and 28 percent by the private cloud. That leaves the remainder of IT delivery to be handled by traditional delivery methods, either managed in-house, outsourced, or both.

Korea’s Software Industry Makes Big Strides

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:19:19 EST

South Korea is about to play a pivotal role in East-West trade. The US and Korean governments are working feverishly to resolve remaining obstacles with their recently negotiated Free Trade Agreement, in order to secure approval by the South Korean National Assembly and the United States Congress. Meanwhile, the Korean software industry is positioning for software leadership by employing the domestic market as a high-tech test bed, to prepare software products for global release.

Enterprise Cloud Computing: Exclusive Q&A with a Cloud Revolutionary

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 18:00:00 EDT

Founder, Chairman and CEO of Adaptivity, Inc, the company that is putting "IT Blueprinting" on the map of Enterprise IT, is adamant: IT must invest in architecture and engineering, and it must do so right away, here and now in 2010, 2011 and beyond. An innovative IT executive, with an excellent track record in strategy, design, and the implementation of business-aligned enterprise technology platforms across large organizations, before founding Adaptivity Bishop served as SVP and Chief Architect of Wachovia's Corporate Investment Banking Technology Group, where his team designed, built, and implemented a leading-edge service-oriented architecture and utility computing infrastructure. So he knows whereof he speaks. And speak he does, including an upcoming keynote on The Enterprise Cloud Revolution that he is due to deliver next month at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley, the seventh in the worldwide Cloud Expo series and the biggest yet (November 1-4, 2010 | Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA). He also blogs and appears on discussion panels, in newspaper interviews, and indeed anywhere that enterprise-grade industry thought leadership is to be found.

Thinking, Speaking & Dreaming Technology: Q&A with Michael Hüttermann

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:07:00 EDT

First in a series of interviews dedicated to learning more about JetBrains Development Academy Experts. In this interview we have a conversation with Academy Board Member Michael Hüttermann begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting. Michael is Cologne JUG leader, author, senior coach, consultant, and freelancer for Java/JEE, SCM/ALM and agile software development.

The Accelerated Time-to-Benefits of Cloud Computing

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:30:00 EDT

“We’ve moved beyond the question of how long cloud computing will exert its pull on the modern day enterprise,” noted Vishal Sharma, Senior Director of Business Development at NaviSite, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. Sharma then concluded that “Cloud computing represents a transformative – and permanent – change to the way IT resources are managed and delivered.” Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises - grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time - why is everyone so convinced it will now work? Vishal Sharma: There is a synergistic confluence of factors driving the interest in cloud computing. First, enterprises now understand – and can quantify – the tangible benefits of underlying cloud computing technologies. Virtualization allows enterprises to use resources more efficiently – turning them on and off, as required – while eliminating high capex barriers associated with new or expanding IT initiatives.

The Cloud Evolution Has Started

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:15:00 EDT

“Cloud is an evolution,” stated Tony Bishop, Founder and CEO of Adaptivity, in the exclusive post-show Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. “It coalesces grid, utility, virtualization and web standards into a delivery paradigm,” he continued. “The difference is each of these components are building blocks that solve the specific point problems of abstracted, on-demand, distributed processing.” Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

What's Driving CIOs Toward the Cloud?

Mon, 31 May 2010 09:00:00 EDT

The three main factors driving CIOs to the cloud are lower costs, dynamic capacity, ease-of-use/management, and offsite data protection, according to Jeff Bell, director of corporate marketing for Cloud Expo exhibitor Zetta. In this exclusive post-show Q&A, Zetta’s Jeff Bell speaks with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan about his views on the cloud, what is driving it and how Zetta’s on-demand storage directly addresses key IT needs and concerns.

The Next Chapter in the Virtualization Story Begins

Mon, 31 May 2010 06:45:00 EDT

Cloud Computing Journal recently caught up with Pete Malcolm, CEO of cloud management innovators Abiquo - a major new player in the fast-emerging Cloud ecosystem and Platinum Plus Sponsor of 6th Cloud Expo being held in Prague, the Czech Republic, 21-22 June 2010. Malcolm is keynoting at the event. His theme will be "An Open Cloud Ecosystem - the Gathering Storm."

Cloud Computing: The Next Era of Corporate Infrastructure

Tue, 25 May 2010 14:15:00 EDT

“Business drivers have changed,” noted Mike Donaldson, VP of Marketing, at Ping Identity in this post-show Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. And Donaldson believes “this has created a real demand for Cloud Computing.” A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises - grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

Meeting Competitive Challenges with the Cloud

Sat, 22 May 2010 06:00:00 EDT

“The most important factor driving CIOs towards the Cloud is that they have found a technology that helps them get close to achieving true ‘IT and Business Alignment,’” stated Ahmar Abbas, SVP at CSS Corp in this post-show Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. Abbas concludes: “Cloud removes the pain and cost of step investments in technology to support business growth by making the infrastructure available as needed. Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises - grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

Cloud Platforms: The Natural and Primary Choice for App Development

Thu, 20 May 2010 08:00:00 EDT

“Cloud computing today is accessible not only to enterprise customers, but individual developers as well,” observed Thomas Krafft, Director of Marketing and Demand Generation at Objectivity, Inc. in this post-show Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. Krafft also noted that “anyone with an idea and technical skill can utilize as much infrastructure as they want, for pennies per hour. It is truly an amazing time for web-facing technology and massively distributed systems.”

Cloud Factors: Cost, Complexity, and Compliance

Wed, 19 May 2010 18:00:00 EDT

“I think that with conferences like this [Cloud Expo] vendors are coming out with real service offerings with pricing and contracts (vs. pie-in-the-sky concepts that were being thrown around a year ago),” so noted Douglas Barbin , Director at SAS 70 Solutions, in this post-show Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. Barbin also noted that cloud computing is experiencing an evolution, not a revolution, as companies are now saying their “‘enterprise uses an IaaS provider or Software-as-a-Service, etc.’”

Cloud 2.0: Delivering on the Promises of Cloud Computing

Tue, 18 May 2010 21:15:00 EDT

“The fact that Cloud adoption rates are ever-increasing means that it has staying power,” stated Abiquo CEO Pete Malcolm, in this post-show Q&A with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. Not only does Malcolm believe the cloud has staying power but “it is likely that Cloud will be around for a long time and will be incorporated throughout businesses in the years and decades to come.” Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we’ve heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work?

Cloud Computing: A Tectonic Shift

Sat, 15 May 2010 08:00:00 EDT

“Cloud is setting expectations among end users for a fast hands-on experience,” noted Kevin Epstein, VP of Marketing at CloudShare, in this exclusive post-show interview with Cloud Expo Chair Jeremy Geelan. As CloudShare is “a fan of ubiquity and democratization of IT,” he concludes that “surrounded by Clouds – looks like computing heaven to us.” Cloud Computing Journal: A very general question first, about Cloud Computing itself: Surely we've heard all of this before in various forms and guises – grid computing / utility computing, etc.? What is different this time – why is everyone so convinced it will now work? Epstein: Proof is in ease of use – and corresponding actual usage. We have both. Remember that the vision of “utility” computing was that it would be like plugging in a toaster; power would just be there. But even existing public clouds to-date haven't made getting resources that easy, and add to the complexity by charging for every element (machines, software licenses, bandwidth, storage, etc.).

Cloud Computing Expo: Exclusive Q&A with Yahoo! SVP Cloud Computing

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EDT

"Ultimately, we believe that advancement in cloud computing technology will be driven by open source initiatives where large communities of engineers can collaborate and develop new code for the new applications and demands posed by the cloud model," says Shelton Shugar, SVP Cloud Computing at Yahoo!, in this Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Geelan in the run-up to the 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, being held November 2-4 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

BPMN Support Arrives in Modeling Tools

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:03:00 EDT

ActiveVOS 7.0 has a new design canvas that uses the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 2.0 specification to create executable BPEL processes. In a move to meet the growing demand for business process agility, Active Endpoints is readying the next release of its business process management (BPM) suite. The Waltham, Mass.-based modeling tool and process execution firm is rolling out ActiveVOS 7.0 later this month, and I got a sneak peek last week.

Tech Q&A With One of the 50 Most Powerful Women in the World

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:15:00 EDT

Marissa Mayer is one of the technology luminary’s that are driving the future of search, discovery and online experience. She was one of Google’s first 20 employees and the first female engineer at Google. She is currently the VP of Search and User Experience at Google, and is responsible for leading development projects and products [...] Related posts:

Bad Samaritan Economist Ha-Joon Chang Criticizes Globalization

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:00:00 EST

The United States and other wealthy countries are hypocritical in the way they view trade policy, according to leading economist Ha-Joon Chang.

Exclusive Q&A with John Goodson, VP & GM of DataDirect Technologies

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 07:45:00 EDT

'Data services apply the same philosophy of reuse and flexibility that SOA offers, but to the data tier,' explains John Goodson, executive leader of DataDirect Technologies, in this Exclusive Q&A. 'Data services,' Goodson continues, 'provide a level of abstraction that frees developers from concerning themselves with the physical location or format of the underlying data.'

Web 2.0 and RIAs Will Drive the Growth of SOA Middleware: Gordon Van Huizen

Sun, 25 May 2008 09:45:00 EDT

'When we speak of enterprise mash-ups, composite applications and software as a service (SaaS), it's easy to forget that you actually need infrastructure behind the user experience to make it happen,' says Gordon Van Huizen in this Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Geelan. SOA middleware is among the fastest growing segments of the software industry, Van Huizen notes, adding: 'I believe that the increased interest in Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications will drive the growth of middleware faster than EAI did.'