Cloud misconceptions

Recently I have read a lot of comments on blogs regarding the cloud, many of which have been made by in house IT specialists or the general public. While it’s always good to read peoples comments and thoughts on a subject, what is concerning is the amount of “misinformation” many of the comments exhibit.

 

Cloud = Death of the PC?

It seems that many in the general public really do see the cloud as attempting to kill off their beloved PC, or a way in which cloud providers can steal your information. I am a little concerned as to where these ideas have come from. I can think of one source, and that is Google…

Google has been pushing their version of the cloud for a while, and their vision of “Chrome” notebooks that simply run a browser and nothing else. The whole concept that we can do everything in a browser really isn’t true, and it’s aimed at people who mainly go on the web and do nothing much more…The Google vision of the cloud is not one that brings anything new to the table, its not a vision that is to help consumers or businesses, no its a vision that drives people to continue to use their search, and therefore a tool to allow them to charge more to companies to advertise with them. Nothing more…

The cloud essentially should be seen as an extension of the infrastructure and technologies we have today. Not everything a consumer wants to do will be in the cloud, nor will all their data and content. Rather cloud services are there so that you can have better experiences across multiple devices, rather you can use back up services seamlessly and that for some software, you can use it as a service. This is the correct vision of the cloud for consumers.

Keeping in mind the amount of consumers who state their fears that the cloud is an attempt at killing off the PC, equally as many IT professionals seem to feel the same, if not worse. Many blog comments state they feel that cloud providers are trying to move everything to the cloud, that there is no need for servers in house, and that the model being proposed is that of the main frame days…Again, where has this come from?

The cloud for enterprise is nothing like the main frame model. If anything the cloud is an extension of client server, with applications being connected via the cloud to their content and data. It’s simply a different way of doing certain things, and not all things that businesses do (in terms of IT need / use) can be applied or work in the cloud. For many software providers the cloud will provide services which enrich the solutions they deliver, allowing them to provide additional features and functions. And for certain IT tasks such as backup and storage, sure you may leverage the cloud in a native fashion and remove costly in house servers and administration. But please remember, the cloud for enterprise is not about moving everything to the cloud…

 

Cloud definitions

It’s also worth noting that the Cloud still has different definitions, and probably always will have. Amazon cloud services are very different from those of Microsoft’s. For example Amazon sees a complete “Cloud” solution, where you use their infrastructure and move whatever you want (infrastructure wise) to the cloud. This is IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Almost like an all or nothing approach to those functions you chose to move to the cloud. Microsoft on the other hand delivers a cloud platform as a service (PaaS). This essentially is like another server that you can connect to and leverage, deploy software on it, content, storage and leverage services from it, it just so happens to live in the cloud and not in-house. This means you can have lots of things running in the cloud with Microsoft Azure, complete solutions if you wish, but you can also have very small components of bigger solutions that may run in-house, such as certain web services hosted in the cloud, but leveraged only by your in-house solution. The PaaS option is far more flexible to business needs and software requirements, and it is not intended to be seen as a replacement to the PC, nor the enterprise IT department…

 

Cloud = good

Well it does. It enables software and devices to understand user and application state, it enables better connectivity between our devices and solutions, and it enables the headaches of scalability for certain business needs to be removed from in-house. But, and it’s a big but, the cloud should never be seen as a replacement to in-house IT, it should never be seen as a replacement to the PC, and it should never be seen as a tool in which the cloud providers steal your personal information. Security is paramount to the cloud providers, without it, they don’t have a service to provide…

The cloud is a great extension to the way in which we use IT today, not a replacement for it.

workFile Vision. A change in direction

Today’s post is very much centred on Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM)…

 Some of you may keep an eye on the news from my company, One Degree Consulting. If you have, you will know that our workFile ECM & BPM side of the business (platform) will be going through a transition phase in the coming weeks and months. We have effectively torn up our existing road map for version 2.0 of the workFile Vision product, and put together a new one. This new one with some big, well massive, changes to how we see the future of IT in business, the future for business solutions, the future for SMEs access to solutions and consequently to the Vision solution itself…

In the coming weeks, workFile and One Degree will publish more information on the changes, and the effects these will have on the Vision suite, and how these big changes will provide benefits to business.

In this post though, I want to give a quick outline to what some of these changes in thinking are, what the changes are in the Vision product, and what the drivers are that led to this drastic new thinking…

Single Silo…That singular degree of separation

workFile is, if you didn’t know, an ECM and BPM platform. However, it also allows records management and with that, the ability for CRM to an extent. Other business focused modules are built on top of the records management capabilities. However, all of these are very separate modules and silos, only aware of small fragments of data that can be shared between the two, effectively linking that content and making it of bigger use to an end user…

So what’s the big idea? Well the big change is to move away from a multiple silo approach, and to bring these different elements closely together, effectively delivering a single silo solution for ECM, BPM, CRM, Records Management, and dynamic content processing and capture. The CRM module will be a thing of the past, and a dedicated customer focused section of workFile built (not on top of Records management functionality not seen as a separate module).

In essence, ECM, BPM, CRM etc will become modules of the past, superseded by a new way of looking at how we work as individuals, teams and as an organisation, and also how your organisation communicates and engages with its customers…All of these elements seen as one…

So how do we achieve this with the new version of workFile Vision?

Through state awareness, user empowerment and adaption. The concept here is to ensure true state awareness between the user, the customer, the content and the process. BY process, I don’t mean a rigid path, which work must follow, rather a process guide, which is highly adaptive to the content needs, the needs of the customer and the needs of the user.

In addition, the singular UI and underlying capabilities of workFile – to allow real team working on items of work, makes life a lot easier for the agent to collaborate and process their work. This may not sound like anything that new, but it supports newer ways of working. We have a vision that people will work more as teams on individual pieces of work, effectively pulling together on items of work, not in a collaborative fashion but in a real sense of working together. This is a big move away from BPM and Case Management as it is today, with the concept that we work as individuals and move work along at the centre of work / process thinking.

Max J Pucher has a great article on the future of work, in which he talks of users “swarming” to do work. In it he also states that by 2015, 40% or more of an organisations work will be non-routine, which is currently at 25%.  Take the time to read his blog, it is very informative… Have a read of his article, http://isismjpucher.wordpress.com/2010/11/12/the-future-of-work/ )

More than a single silo…

A single silo that supports content, customers, additional records and the process information is the best approach. In addition, interconnectivity and multiple feeds of data will mean not only will users need greater perceptive skills, but their software needs to be able to deliver this to them in an easy to identify and work fashion.

workFile though provides real flexibility in terms of content, status and structured data. This allows the flexibility to teams to create new structured data records on the “fly” and in essence joining them directly to their work (which could be content based, customer based etc.) This may all sound complex, but essentially it is quite simple…Its how we would naturally work without the rigidity of structured processing…(BPM).

Distribution…

Though we are moving to a single silo, this doesn’t mean a centralised solution. On the contrary, we believe that departmental distribution is key to freedom and success. So workFile will support a greater level of distributed processing, with departments being able to create their own content guides, their own process guides, rules etc. But, this doesn’t mean we are allowing duplication. Commonality between departments will be identified and illustrated, and wherever applicable (and suitable) shared between them.

It’s a team approach

Working in “swarms” sounds quite fun, but in essence it means tightly knit teams, working together quickly and efficiently. Traditional BPM presumes we work on pieces of work as individuals, then move it along to the next person. Sure occasionally we will allow “branches” in the processing, or splitting of items of work, but it doesn’t support multiple people working on the same piece of work at the same time. So, with this in mind, Vision 2.0 will support a more team approach to working, and will ditch the rigidity of its traditional BPM platform, which was used for defining how users work.

Social Media

While social media is taking off, organisations either see this as some wonderful marketing tool or as something they need to get control of. However, social activities and social media sites, conversations etc are becoming increasingly part of a team’s working day. These conversations and interactions aren’t carried out at a set time, they aren’t structured in their content and don’t form strong ties between you as an organisation and your customers. In addition, they are often disjointed, with an organisation not being able to tie social media engagement with a customer, to a customer record for example.

So the trick is to ensure interactions can be processed by the right people, that the right people provide good information, and that Social Media is seen as a form of engagement and conversation, not just free marketing. In addition, the content generated from these interactions allow a flexible way of working, after all, the customer may send requests that don’t follow a strict pattern, and as such, the user must be able to facilitate these requests flexibly. This content should also be recorded and brought into the solution, so that other team members have all the information they need to help….

workFile will become a lot more social, interacting with typical social media websites, and allowing users the freedom to interact in an expected fashion.

Flexibility, adaption and yet accountable

Organisations and management want to have full control, however, if they do, things become too rigid, too centralised and ultimately inflexible. So, the solution is to trust our workers, to empower them and let them do their jobs. Sure we need to ensure quality, service level agreements etc. but this can be done through guidelines and empowering users. Accountability will always still be there, with solutions recording all interactions and use. But the point is, the user has the power to process the work how they wish (to an extent obviously, certain rules have to be in place for compliance).

The big winners of Vision 2.0

So who is workFile Vision to be aimed at? Well the big winners at first will be SMEs, simply because workFile is used mainly by organisations that fall into the SME category (with the odd exception). The new version will be able to drive the cost of IT and these types of solutions down for SMEs…

However, larger organisations can easily benefit from this new way of thinking and working. If anything, while SMEs will see benefits due to a smaller investment, larger organisations will not only share in this benefit, but will also see dramatic increases in productivity and efficiency. All of this with the reduction in administration and licensing costs…..See, we didn’t call it Vision for nothing.

Finally, a change in name…

Finally, the workFile ECM & BPM platform name will be no more. Though Vision is the product suite, both the terms ECM and BPM will be replaced from the workFile company name. Why? Simply because workFile will offer a lot more, and it deserves a new description of what it delivers…The marketing people can think of something I am sure….

HTML 5, Flash, Silverlight, The Cloud…The future is here?

I.T. seems to be at one of those cross-roads in terms of how people use software, where they use it, and how and where they choose to store their data.

There has been a lot in the press regarding HTML 5 and I have posted some thoughts on this in the past. There has been equally as much speculation as to the future of technologies such as Flash and Silveright and whether they are now redundant technologies as HTML 5 moves closer. In addition to these, rather large discussions, we are also talking about moving content and software away from traditional servers and PCs, and handing control over to the “Cloud” and “SkyDrives” etc…

So this post is looking at indicators of where we may all end up based on feedback I have received from businesses, the general public, phone professionals and my own thoughts…

HTML 5

This is the easiest one to start with really. HTML 5 will be here, at some point. Many say a lot sooner than I personally believe and many (as there always are) saying this will change everything (which it won’t at all). What HTML 5 will do, is simply to replace the need for browser plug-in to enrich a users web experience to an extent. For example, we will no longer typically use Flash or Silverlight to just stream video, give our website some pretty animations etc etc. Some will argue that’s a good thing, and if you are a purist (in terms of open environments, using only HTML to deliver content) then yes it is. For Video and animations, yes it is a good thing…

However, there are big problems with the whole architecture and the way HTML and the web in general works. The problem here is the web browser. When the web was conceived, the browser was simply an application that displayed some content, it wasn’t to be used as an environment in which processing can occur. But, we are here, and the browser is used to run “script” and to initiate communication between the client and the webserver…HTML sets out standards, but, with everything, with multiple choices (in terms of browesers here) you get different results. No matter what standards are in place, web browsers handle, and will handle the same HTML and even script differently to each other. This is a horrendous state of affairs, meaning that the same website has “allowances” for multiple browsers. This isn’t good…From an end users point of view, “who cares”, but from a development, maintenance and cost point of view, this is not acceptable really. Even if the browsers did handle it all the same (or got very close), testing would still need to be made on each browser platform, and for every time a new browser is released / updated. But this is where we will still be with HTML 5, don’t listen to any marketing hype or to any so called “experts” on this….This is simply the facts….HTML 5 will not change the web for us at all…

Silverlight and Flash

HTML 5 will have a big impact on Flash I believe, after all sites that utilise flash do so to enrich the website. HTML 5 will do this, and unfortunately for Flash, developers will adopt this and leverage it before they look at Flash. So where can Flash go? Well there are still many things Flash can offer that HTML 5 won’t be able to, or at least won’t be able to offer consistently across all browsers. Because of this I see Flash filling small gaps that HTML 5 leaves (the same applies to Silverlight). I do think though Flash will see a massive reduction its use on the web, but will maintain its use for presentations, short movies, and games.

Silverlight is a little different. I have never really seen Silverlight as a pure web technology, and those out there who keep comparing it to Flash or HTML 5 obviously know nothing about Silverlight. Sure Silverlight can give you animation online, deliver RIAs, stream movies etc (all that Flash and HTML 5 can do), but Silverlight has a lot more to offer. The architecture behind Silverlight I feel is spot on. It mixes both the worlds of Desktop and Web seamlessly, effectively delivering desktop applications (with all their power) via the internet for installation, communication and maintenance. This is very different to HTML 5. Because of this, developers will use Silverlight for business applications, for RIAs that need to do more (integrate, carry out complex functions etc) and all without the reliance on the browser or server doing processing jobs. This reduces testing and ensures a single code base (and that’s how it should be). In addition, you get frequent updates, and full support from Microsoft, which again are good things for real developers…

There has been some confusion as of late (mainly in the media and Microsoft haters) as to the value of Silverlight to Microsoft and the fact that it is also used on the new Windows Mobile & platform. Let’s get this clear, Microsoft will concentrate more now on HTML 5 as HTML 5 is a big online technology, and it needs to keep up with others. So this is no surprise. However, Silverlight is and will remain a core development platform for the web, RIAs, Out of browser applications and experiences (which it does now). Sure the Silverlight team will also now work more on its Mobile use and adoption, and that’s because they need too. So all we are talking about is prioritisation of the progression of Silverlight. This is clear from reading up on Silverlight, looking at Microsofts future plans and listening to what is said rather than reading between lines when a press release comes from Microsoft…Silverlight will become increasingly more important to Microsoft in the future, as more developers realise that they can use a single platform to code for the web, the desktop and mobile devices…

Cloud computing, SaaS and SkyDrives

I mention SkyDrives here as that is what Microsoft terms your cloud computing storage space with Windows Live and on your windows mobile 7 phone.

I think in the past couple of weeks, I have had more feedback than ever before on the cloud and its use, from both businesses and the general public.

So let’s look at businesses. Businesses cannot move everything over to the cloud, it’s as simple as that. There are savings to be made via the cloud for business, but it has to ensure that it can move those applications and content to the cloud. That it doesn’t already have a cheaper alternative, that it can trust the cloud providers security measures etc 100% and that there is a way to port to other providers in the future. All in all, business is still wary of this and why shouldn’t they be. I see businesses embracing the cloud and SaaS for smaller elements of their operation, ones that do not require so much compliance and that are not that critical to the organisation. This is not a bad thing, rather it is a good thing, the cloud here allowing IT to provide better solutions to the business at lower costs. I don’t believe the increased popularity of the cloud will translate to vast amounts of an organisations data or services being moved to the cloud. Rather the cloud becoming another IT implementation option.

So what of individuals. Well only last week I posted that individuals may well be the big winners of cloud computing. But even here, individuals are more sceptical of cloud based services. It seems that keeping some photos online, music and videos is fine. But when it comes to more personal documentation, you cannot beat a good hard drive or storage device at home. Because of this, I don’t see the masses adopting cloud computing and sky drives….Google may want us all to use the Cloud for software and storage, but the simple fact is, we like control over everything. If our data and content is only in the cloud, then we feel vulnerable, not just to theft, hackers or work colleagues finding things out etc, but also to cloud providers themselves. Let’s face it; Google has an appalling record on data protection and our privacy.

So what is the right usage for individuals? Well Microsoft though I feel has pitched it correctly. Providing 25Gb of space in a sky drive to windows live users (perhaps a little too small really). This is enough space for most people, sure it could be larger to allow us to synch a lot more content, especially music and videos. But it’s a good start. I also love the fact that my Windows Mobile 7 phone provides options to just take a picture and have it stored in my skydrive and not on the device. But, I still have enough space on the device to cart around with me a certain level of music, pictures etc etc. (No doubt this amount of storage will grow). So it’s a nice blend, one I personally am comfortable with, and one most people I speak too are comfortable with…

Conclusion, if any?

It seems in IT, too many marketing companies, experts etc provide to much hype. Everything is also “brilliant” or “rubbish and a fail”. It’s either 100% the way of the future or 0%…There is never any middle ground, and it is the middle ground which actually is where we are heading, in terms of our web usage, devices, online services and storage…And there is nothing wrong with that at all…

A cloud of individuals

I have just been reading a blog from one of my companies funny enough, and it is something I only thought about after reading the blog post, but the cloud is really suited towards us as individuals more, than companies…

Sure there are potential savings to organisations using the cloud, but knowing that there are restrictions to organisations as to what they can, and what they would like to put in the cloud, this does mean that the business world will never take full advantage of the cloud (nor should they in many cases). But as an individual, the benefits are plain to see…

For example, Windows Mobile 7 has limited space in the actual phone, but the idea is that you access your pictures, videos and music via your online storage environment (up there in the cloud). I like this, though i would still want to be able to download my content such as music and have it actually on the device too – especially when abroad lets say. But there is no need for me to have 10,000 songs on my phone, rather I download the couple of thousand I want at the moment. Sounds quite a good idea doesn’t it…

So as an individual could I have my documents stored up there? Yes. Could I use Microsoft Word as a SaaS option? Yes again. Can I easily share my content with friends and family? Yes….So why is cloud hype not really being aimed at the general public? The answer is money…

A money maker

Individuals on the web at the moment don’t expect to pay for software, services or anything. This is one of the big problems I have with the web these days, and it’s due to Google offering products and services for free because it can afford to from its advertising revenue. This means we expect to be able to store millions of pictures on Facebook for example for free. We expect to be able to store our videos and share them with people via YouTube, again for free. And to some extent this is how it should be. But the problem is how do companies make money from providing services and solutions to the general public, especially when they cost a lot to develop, deliver and maintain and the public expects it for free….

So even Google, who loves to deliver free stuff, has to aim cloud computing at organisations. An organisation expects to have to pay for services, software and storage, so they will pay the fees required for cloud computing solutions. However, their potential use of the cloud (in terms of what an organisation will choose to use the cloud for, not how much it will use the cloud) is limited when compared to individuals across the globe…

So does this mean the cloud will be free to individuals, or does it mean we will see a small shift away from everything to be provided for “free” to the public, to something’s requiring a small fee to be paid by the individual…I for one would be happy to pay a small annual fee to store all my music, videos and content in the cloud (providing I had a way of securing it how I want). The issue is then though, is would that fee need to cover my storage costs?

The “Bewares” of Cloud Computing …

I have posted about Cloud Computing a number of times, a couple of times looking at some of the downsides and others the big positives of cloud computing. However, answering a question on eBizq.net today got me thinking just what the definitive list of downs is for cloud computing….Surprisingly there are many more than you expect.

Don’t get me wrong, I love cloud computing and for certain applications and for businesses under a certain size, the Cloud and SaaS provides a great solution and a great cost reduction in entry to certain forms of software. There are numerous occasions that I do, and will recommend SaaS (Sofware as a Service) and cloud based solutions to organisations. However, there is quite a list of things to take into consideration:

1. Stable communication – This is a basic and fundamental issue with the cloud computing ideal. If your internet connection goes down during the day, then you are going to have issues communicating with the cloud and any SaaS. In the UK, many organisations experience downtime from the internet daily, sometimes for considerable time periods. It is great to presume that our internet connection will always be up, but it simply won’t be.

2. Communication performance – I know we are in the 2010, but internet performance is not as good as my LAN, especially when I have hundreds of users trying to connect and use particular software. Bandwidth, local area usage of the internet in general, internet provider and cloud provider’s internet connection rates etc etc are all potential issues. I know many organisations which struggle to access the internet at 3:45pm-4:30pm each day, why? Simply because the school kids are now at home and checking their facebook accounts….

3. Application performance – I love SaaS, but to use it heavily on mission critical software is a no go. Not only do you have issues with communication stability and performance, you also have issues with the actual software performance itself (waiting for calls to be made across the web etc). It is also worth noting; just what technology is used to deliver SaaS applications. Standard web pages with AJAX place quite a load on the server, and will no doubt have further performance issues. Web based applications cannot compete with traditional desktop applications in terms of usability and performance

4. SaaS usability – Often web based software has issues with usability of the UI. This is an issue that is starting to be negated with technology such as Silverlight, however, with traditional web pages this is a real issue. Some cloud providers also place a restriction on how web based applications are delivered, this is not good and really restricts the flexibility and ultimately user experience.

5. Just where is my content / data – Some organisation have commitments to customers and regulatory bodies to ensure their data is stored in-country. However, on the cloud, what does this mean? Your actual storage could be in LA though you are committed to store data in the UK. In addition, many organisations (by law) have to know exactly where their content is stored. This doesn’t mean “it’s in the cloud” rather you need to know its exact location (which server and where) and who has access to the physical hardware it sits on. In the cloud, this just isn’t possible.

6. Limitations on integration – Many organisations need to embrace cross application integration to raise efficiency and at the end of the day customer experiences. On the cloud this is very limiting

7. Different implementations / ideas of a cloud – Some implementations use virtual environments of actual servers, others limit the things you can place on the cloud (sometimes to be written with a certain language etc)

8. Reliance on more than a single provider – some cloud providers utilise other cloud providers. This means that your applications etc become reliant on not just one set of “cloud based variables”, but many.

9. Too many people jumping on the bandwagon – by this I mean IT companies and providers. Many now state their software is cloud enabled or are providing solutions for the cloud (which is fine). However, what constitutes a cloud solution between software providers varies quite a bit

10. Lock in – locked in to a certain cloud provider, or more importantly, into the way in which they deliver cloud computing.

11. Costs – Believe it or not, cloud computing for certain tasks will be more expensive than sticking to using your own in-house environment. Always always look at the actual operational cost as a whole to your organisation and not just a comparison like for like on a particular peice of software (or SaaS variant).

 I am sure there are more points to add to this list, however the list is not meant to scare people off utilising cloud computing and SaaS. Rather this post is to make people aware of some of the restrictions of using the cloud, and help organisations make better informed decisions on how to use their IT and what type of solutions work best for them. My fear with “cloud hype” is that organisations jump to use the cloud only to find it doesn’t meet their requirements, expectations or compliance obligations…

The cloud has its place and we need to ensure the lines between what works well on the cloud, and what works best in house are drawn more clearly…Unfortunately, many cloud and IT vendors and providers will always try to make this line more “foggy” or even inform us that it doesnt exist…Just to sell you cloud computing…

Redefine the way we use the web, to unlock its potential…Web 3.0?

This is something I have been thinking about for a number of years now, but more so recently with a lot of talk of HTML 5. Basically we haven’t really changed the way we use the internet (from a technical point of view) since the web became mainstream shall we say. Sure, we now use it in new ways which we hadn’t dreamed of (habits and the way we communicate with each other), but essentially the web still works the same way it always has. We use the web as content rendered as HTML that is displayed back to us in a web browser. Even if HTML 5 is the magic version and delivers so much more in terms of animation and streaming has it actually changed the way in which we use / the web works for us? No…

Let’s not go back to the good old Mainframe environment…

It seems more and more IT professionals and large organisations see the web as the new mainframe, especially when you start talking “thin client” and “cloud computing” (the cloud could be seen as our mainframe..scary). When you start looking at mainframe environments and then cloud and thin client computing, you see that the basic concepts are very similar. So what do I mean, well, all of the processing happens on a server, the machine you actually use to access it, doesn’t really have to do anything. In a mainframe environment we have dumb terminals, in the new way of thinking (trying not to laugh, sorry) we have a PC that run’s a browser (this could be a very low spec machine), and if all we did is “cloud compute” we perhaps wouldn’t need anything else?

Sure I see benefits, some of which are green, but the negatives are so obvious to see. These are essentially the same problems we have with mainframes and the same problems that lead us to using the “PC” and the “Network” to replace mainframes?

Some thin client issues?

Let me give you an example. Imagine you and I are working as designers, creating 3D computer models of pretty much anything. We may even be responsible for animating these 3D models (think something like toy story, I don’t know why, it just popped in my head). Ok, now imagine you are part of a team of say 20 working on these models, of course you are designing Buzz, someone else Woody etc. Let’s think just how much “processing” power do we need for this – just you and your requirements? The answer, quite a bit, well a lot. Now image having to times that by 20. Oh, and now let’s have that processing carried out in a “thin cloud computing environment” (of course your application is written with the fab HTML 5 which means we can do anything), which at the end of the day needs a hell of a lot of work going on at the server, oh and traffic across our network… Do you see the problems?

Well basically, even with the advances of our hardware, the server will be doing too much and things won’t go well. The system will be going slow, maybe crashing, you as a designer will be going mad with frustration, along with the rest of your team, oh and not to mention you are working to a deadline so the project manager is now going mad. Let’s throw into the mix too, that our team is distributed across the States and the UK, and some of us love using Internet Explorer, some FireFox, some even Chrome…Hmm though in theory the web is great here, it is no match to a good old client desktop, some distributed servers…

Now I know I am focusing here on a situation that doesn’t lend itself to “cloud computing” or “thin clients” but if we believe all the hype of HTML 5, cloud computing why shouldn’t we be thinking this is possible? But, as our hardware advances so does our software (though at a slower rate granted) and we as users (be us general public users or business) expect more and more performance and capabilities. So while some of our user requirements do seem to lean us toward a cloud computing way of working, soon our requirements will no doubt swing back the other way (and wont we be repeating the Mainframe and PC story all over again?)

There is an answer

The answer is pretty simple to be honest and it is something Flash showed us the way to a number of years ago when it first started popping up on the web. The answer is a mixture of the two.

So let’s start evolving how we use the web properly (not just our habits) but how it is used. The web becomes a communications network and in some ways returns to its roots. We can still use it in the way we are used to, as in we find websites and we view them in a web browser, however, those websites that aren’t just presenting us with some information, or basic shopping facilities, websites that are more “applications”, get themselves installed on the client machine. So think MS Office on the web. Why install on the client? So that the user experience is not restricted by the web architecture, nor the browser, and that “processing loads” are removed from the server and distributed back down to the client PC.

Isn’t that what Flash was doing, installed and running on the client, err years ago? Yes, and that’s why Flash has worked so well to now…The problems with Flash are not what it visually looks like, nor its basic architecture (running on the client), the problems are that it doesn’t lend itself to being able to deliver “applications”. So it is great for the web to show animations, and funky banners, slick movies etc but don’t think it will be great at delivering that 3D modelling tool we spoke about earlier…

So let’s go back to our 3D modelling requirement in the designer’s studio. In our new web world we are now working with a RIA that actually runs on the client machine, uses local storage on the machine and uses the web only for bare communications and maybe storage of files that are to be shared. All of a sudden, all of the issues with “thin client” and “cloud computing” and server loads are removed, yet essentially we are still using the web and “cloud computing” to an extent…

So the answer is RIAs that use the client processing power and that do not run in the web browser.

Is this available…

Yes it is. Since Microsoft launched its Silverlight platform (which many see only as a competitor to Flash) it has been working towards this type of scenario, where we can maximise the benefits of the PC and the benefits of the web and cloud computing. Silverlight 3 was the first version to deliver an out of the browser experience and this has been taken further with Silverlight 4, with it being able to run as a trusted application on the client machine. Oh it also runs on Mac’s and PCs and if in the browser, any browser…

Silverlight, though in some ways similar to Flash and even the old Java Applets, is a new way of using the internet, rather than us re-inventing the same way of using the web with more bells and whistles. Like flash and Java applets, Silverlight essentially runs on the client PC. Which means we can utilise its processing power to do our work, it doesn’t need to go back to the server for updates to the UI, business rules or anything like that, and it can be done there on the client machine? However, it is connected and delivered essentially through the web as a communications network, so its data and files can be easily pulled and pushed across the web and stored there. Updates to the software are also delivered through the web, with the user being able to get the latest versions of the software just by using the software itself.

At present this is all still young, but the potential is there to change our web experiences and what we realistically should be using the web for. MS Office could be delivered as nothing but a Silverlight OOB (out of browser) application, allowing us to purchase it online and using it within moments. And it would look and feel just like the version we currently have from a CD (not the slightly less functional web version). Business applications could be delivered through organisations intranets, or their “cloud providers”. Websites that provide “secure” trade or partner areas would essentially have these installed on the client machine. Twitter, Facebook and other types of highly interactive websites would be delivered as RIAs installed on the machine (there is a prototype for Facebook already built and made, which you can download and use at http://www.silverlight.net/content/samples/apps/facebookclient/sfcquickinstall.aspx). You havent used the flexibility of the web at all, if you were on a new machine and wanted to get to facebook, still visit the website where you would get prompted to install the client, which would be a simply and quick install…and away you go, back on facebook.

The future then is…

Re-defining the web as a communications network and moving RIAs out of the web browser and down onto the client. By using the web in this fashion we get a truly distributed environment that has the benefits of the web, but also the benefits of the client machine…

Virtualisation, it’s not a cloud

In the world of IT we often come across confusion, especially when you are from a “business” perspective. Often this confusion is brought about by IT professionals and blogging, mixing what is technology with a business concept / way in which to implement IT technology. I see this time and time again when people are talking about cloud computing, with the technology being mixed up with or as the business concept that is cloud computing.

Virtualisation is the big thing that always gets associated with the cloud or as the same thing. This is a prime example of a technology being confused with a business solution / concept / way of implementing IT.

The lines of difference…

It can get confusing and downright cloudy when talking about technology and concepts of how to implement technology. However, these are very different things, and if we can make a clear distinction between the two, it is far easier to talk to the business about the benefits of a “concept” or a technology.

The key in making clear distinctions between technology and implementation is down to IT professionals. At the end of the day, business does not need to know the nitty gritty, rather they need to know the business benefits that a solution will bring them.

Virtualisation – a technology

I hate saying something is a “technology” but it does make things easier to explain. Virtualisation is a technology that allows “IT” to get more out of hardware resources. How it does this, really isn’t of great concern to a business, only the fact that it does it (why have IT professionals in your business if you want to understand all the IT yourself?). Basically though, Virtualisation allows your hardware to become more than just one server. (Please I am being very basic in my explanation I know). So, lets take a single server (physical hardware) and allow it to become 3 for example. So in your company you used to have 3 servers all running different solutions on them etc. But now, with Virtualisation you have 3 servers all running on one physical box (doesn’t matter if one server run Windows, another UNIX etc). I am not going into any more detail than that, as that’s all that is required in this type of post…

Cloud Computing – A way of working

Cloud computing is not a technology; rather it is a way in which we can use technology to decrease IT overheads (cost wise in theory).  Cloud computing is essentially letting someone else (outsourcing) provide you with the hardware and infrastructure required to run aspects of your IT. You then connect to that IT over the internet. Simple explanation I know, but I like to keep things simple. Cloud Computing is therefore a business model that companies can adopt…

So why does Virtualisation get confused with or as Cloud Computing? Well I am sure it is because Virtualisation is used by cloud providers in order for them to maximise their own IT infrastructure. Bloggers often confuse things by talking about Virtualisation in great length in their posts about the benefits of using the cloud. There is also one other reason why Virtualisation gets confused with the cloud, and that’s due to “perspective”…

Perspective of your IT

We love to use diagrams to illustrate how something works, and IT infrastructure is no different. As a business person, you could get a little confused between Virtualisation and the Cloud because of diagrams and some less than helpful statements by us in IT.

If you choose to use Virtualisation in house, you may well see the odd diagrams popping up that represent a cluster of servers (on your own system) as a “cloud” especially if you are using virtualisation. This shouldn’t be the case, often the “cloud” is reserved for the internet (hence the cloud computing term), however I have seen such diagrams as it is hard to represent a “virtualised” server environment. In addition, people often see Virtualisation as a way of implementing an internal “cloud” computing environment, or Virtualisation as an internal cloud solution. This isn’t right, and IT should correct this rather than encouraging this thinking. I have seen many blog posts even on “Private Clouds..” but there is no such thing as a private cloud. Remember the cloud is the “internet”…Why is it overlooked or encouraged? Well the “cloud” has a lot of buzz about it at the moment, simple as that. Its far easier to get people talking about an internal cloud or getting people to a blog titled “Private cloud” compared to “Virtualisation of your network…”

Virtualisation – not just for the cloud

So hopefully, from a business point of view, we understand the difference between “cloud” and “virtualisation”. If so, you can see why virtualisation isn’t something only used by the cloud, rather it is a technology that many businesses can take advantage of to help maximise IT hardware use. It therefore comes with a host of benefits for an organisation, some of which include:

1. Reducing administration cost
2. Reducing hardware cost
3. Reducing electricity bills

I am a strong believer that we will see virtualisation use grow within businesses, no matter what their thoughts are on “cloud computing”. I also believe that Virtualisation will help many cloud computing providers – however, do I see us all switching over to cloud based solutions…..NO….But that’s a different post.

When the cloud provides savings

Many organisations are looking at possibilities in which “cloud computing” can provide savings. However, many IT people themselves will resist migrating large areas of their IT to the cloud, and for good reasons. After all, there are so many considerations:

• Security
• Accessibility
• Potential Expansion costs
• Support
• Migration
• Etc

When looking into cloud computing, it makes great sense for consumers and small businesses. For medium organisations and larger corporations, the numbers just don’t add up, and there are far too many “concerns”.

This is something I have posted about in the past; http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/does-cloud-computing-save-money/ and is something that more and more people are talking to me about…So, does the cloud provide savings on storage? Savings on software? Administration?

Storage savings in the cloud?

Errrmmmm. Probably not. Not even if you are a small business or it’s just you on your own. Storage space and storage devices are so cheap now, your far better off just plugging in a removable hard drive and using that as a storage device. Ok, so it’s not a mirrored drive, but you can automate your backups quite easily and you can even take them off site, all this at almost zero cost monthly.

If you look to use the “cloud” for your storage, you may well find that your monthly outlay will be creeping up. My own company has stopped providing these services to small organisations simply because there isn’t a saving to be made. On top of that, if you have large “lumps” of data to store online, it can take a hell of a long time to upload.

So when does the “cloud” provide savings?

Basically, if your volume of usage is low, then the “cloud” makes great sense. Let’s look at Microsoft Office running in the cloud. Small businesses basically all purchase an Office license, and with it they use Office to run large areas of the business (in micro-businesses maybe all of the company). However, Office in the “cloud” provides them with pretty much the same functionality at a vastly reduced cost. So instantly there are savings to be made.

SaaS (Software as a Service) really can provide genuine savings, especially for small organisations. There are also the added benefits of “sharing” information through “cloud” based applications. Though again, please be careful, not all SaaS provides savings, especially over the longer term. Many applications that operate in the “cloud” also store your information in the “cloud”, and as such can mean a cost for using up x amount of space.

Our own workFile ECM solution can be used in the cloud as SaaS. There are great savings to be made for smaller organisations, as the amount of content they access; store etc in the cloud is small enough not to have any impact on cost. However, if their requirements got to a level where storage and bandwidth becomes real issues, it makes great financial sense to purchase and implement the system internally.

 

Conclusion…

The “cloud” can deliver you and your organisation great savings if the volumes are right. Always, always, always, monitor and make sure you know what volumes of usage and storage you may / are using. At a point, the “cloud” stops delivering savings and starts providing you with added costs…

Does cloud computing save money?

This is something I have been looking into quite a bit in the past 6 months, and though reading lots about the “cloud” suggests this is the case, I have always had my reservations. For me there is a distinct difference between cloud based services, and the cloud itself.

Cloud Services

This is basically software applications that operate in the cloud (SaaS – Software as a Service). Here I can see many cost saving benefits, simply due to licensing and usage. For some time there has been a distinction between “dedicated” licenses and “concurrent” licenses, the second being basically licensing on demand. We have always sold our own licenses for software, such as workFile, workFile EPOS etc on a “concurrent” basis, allowing a 1-10 license model. This means you can have up to 10 users for 1 concurrent license, effectively providing large cost savings.

Cloud Networking and Storage

Ahh, outsourcing your actual hardware and storage capacity requirements. Now here is where my main reservations lie, simply because of cost analysis never seems to be quite right. I have always thought that the more space I used up “in the cloud” would cost more per month, so the larger the organisations requirements, obviously the cost of their “cloud” services would increase. I also believe that the larger the requirement the more cost “ineffective” the cloud could potentially become. I have to be honest, most of my thoughts on this were based on our own hosting programmes that OD Media offer, and our own cloud solutions based on workFile.

Concerns proved?

Today I see that a McKinsey study actually proves my concerns. Let’s face it, large enterprises are not going to commit all their data storage and networks to the “cloud”. So, realistically there will be some hybrid requirement, if one at all. Because of this there really just isn’t any large saving to be made for larger organisations, sure if you outsource everything there will be an admin saving to be made, but since this realistically won’t happen, that saving is negated.

Small businesses? General Public?

This for me is where cloud computing services should be aiming, and in the purest form, cloud computing has been aimed at these areas for some time, just think of outsourcing your website…

There are savings to be made for small businesses, especially if using SaaS. Our own workFile ECM SaaS does provide significant cost savings to small businesses.

The general public will always make savings with SaaS, though with the “cloud” storage I am not so sure. At the end of the day, most members of the general public will purchase a mass storage device, which is more than adequate. So again, SaaS is the only real benefit I see…

Seeing past the marketing cloud, in cloud computing

A lot of our customers have been talking about “cloud computing” and asking us to explain it in some simpler terms. Some have even got caught up in the marketing hype, of shall we say, the larger cloud computing players. This really isn’t surprising when you start looking around the web for information on cloud computing, it can be quite confusing, full of marketing hype and sometimes, I would say, misleading.

Cloud computing, in its basic form

Let’s look at what cloud computing is. First off, the cloud is just really a term for the internet or externally hosted space. Why cloud? Well for those of you not from a technical background, it’s simply because when diagramming out networks etc, externally hosted content or the internet was drawn as a cloud.

In its basic form, and without any jargon, cloud computing is simply an externally hosted environment, accessed and connected to via the internet. That’s it. Oh, and it’s not a new idea by any means. If you think of it as this pure concept, cloud computing has been used since the birth of the internet. By hosting a web site, which contains content, on a third parties server, which is connected to and accessed by the internet, you effectively are using cloud computing.

So what is new?

Like many things in IT, the concept is nothing new; it isn’t even a new technology. What is new is the way we see that concept and the things we add, or take away. For example, think back to a time before Blogs were on the web. Many of us read news articles on the web, we may have even used forums and discussion boards but never blogged. But, blogging was a massive new thing, and with all the hype that went along with it, many people believed it was some new technology, something that had never been done before. In essence, a blog is just a news article that we can comment on, or it’s a forum where you don’t respond to one topic, you respond to an author’s topics. See, nothing new there. But something new is created, but it’s not a new technology, rather a new way of looking at things. The same is true of cloud computing.

Cloud confusion

Now things get a little complicated when people look at how companies provide their clouds. By this I mean, how the third party actually provides you with hosting space.

Looking at Amazon EC2 (Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud), we see that the implementation is to provide virtual machines for people on their hardware, effectively using one machine as many, expanding virtual machines to meet the usage demands. In this method, Amazon EC2 does give developers a lot of freedom to deliver software in any shape or form. The cloud really is a virtual machine.

Google offers its own cloud computing solution; however, developers have to deliver applications written in Python. This is very limiting, and in essence a developer is not presented with a personal machine, rather a space reserved for them on the Google servers.  

Microsoft’s Azure provides a cloud platform that enables developers to deliver web based applications. As long as you wish to develop in Microsoft technologies, then Azure will provide all that you need to run your applications in the cloud. So this is a little bit of a mix between the Google solution, and the Amazon solution, however Microsoft bundle a lot of extras, such as storage services, Windows Live integration etc.

Please note at no point have I discussed other concepts that often get confused with cloud computing, concepts such as Parallel distributed computing, or Grid computing. We will talk about this another time….

Should you use cloud computing….

I see some real benefits, the obvious being accessibility to your content / applications. However, I see some real pitfalls too, most of which revolve around security, physical locations of content and the freedom to move away from a particular provider. The following article does highlight a number of concerns and issues for businesses. http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/03/27/235439/security-concerns-for-cloud-computing.htm 

For the general public and even some small businesses, cloud computing makes real sense. They don’t have to invest in expensive hardware, backup and disaster recovery services nor payout for particular software.

A small business though will do well to look to standard webhosting environments and software development companies that provide external hosting of particular applications. My own company provides these services with our workFile ECM platform. We provide a Virtual Server on our externally hosted platform, and allow businesses to access and use all the typical content management functions across the internet. The difference here is that the storage space and physical location of the application and content is known at all times, it isn’t lost in the “cloud” as such. Also workFile is a highly secure repository, encrypting all content within its repository.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see massive potential for cloud computing, but more focused on delivering applications and storage space to the general public.

It’s all in the marketing…

As usual it’s how we market things and cost that determine how successful something is. In the case of “cloud computing” this really is true. However I have missed a trick, that’s for sure. My own company has provided “cloud computing” services and “cloud” applications for sometime. However, it has never been marketed as anything “new”. This is changing though, the language we use, and the way we describe these services will now be communicated as “cloud computing” and “cloud based applications”. And to deliver cloud based solutions, we won’t have to change a line of code….