The Winds Of Change Are Blowing In The Clouds Favor
First Published Friday, 22nd January 2010 03:06 pm from Xand : Landon Long
The opinions expressed by this blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone, this does not reflect the opinion of Automated Trader or any employee thereof. Automated Trader is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by this article.
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A few
years back, if you asked your IT professionals about Cloud
Computing, you probably would have received a blank stare,
followed up with a "I love my servers"
comment. At that time, even the term "Cloud
Computing" was plagued by confusion, uncertainty and a
fair amount of misinformation. Early misconceptions were further
reinforced by the many 'cloud flavors' being
lumped into one term, SaaS, PaaS, utility computing, virtualized
computing, managed services, resource computing, elastic
computing and so on. Many concluded that Cloud Computing was more
a buzzword than a definable technology.
Today, that is no longer the case, with an overwhelming
consensus affirming that the winds of change are blowing in the
clouds favor. The desire to move into the
clouds is quickly turning into a necessity,
with a wide range of internal and external factors leading the
charge. Redundancy, efficiency, availability, simplicity,
stability or plain & simple economics, every entity has
its own unique set of reasons for moving into the cloud. With its
inherent time and cost benefits, It's no surprise that
there is a growing wave of support for Cloud Computing, with some
of that support coming from unlikely places.
This past week, a once
reserved Gartner highlighted the benefits of cloud computing,
stating; "The technologies that CIOs are prioritizing
in 2010 are technologies that can be implemented quickly and
without significant upfront expense, instead of investing
millions of dollars to get millions in benefits, with these
technologies, up front investments are measured in thousands of
dollars to get those same benefits". In the same
report, where the opinions of 1586 CIO's were polled,
it was discovered that there has been a dramatic shift in global
technical priorities. Amazingly, the #1 technological priority
for the past five years has all but dropping off the list, being
replaced by Virtualization & Cloud Computing.
In addition to the CIO's of the world, another
area where Cloud Computing is gaining serious momentum is within
the U.S. Government. It is clear that one of the
world's largest political entities is doing more than
assessing the clouds viability, but rather, running down the path
towards broad adoption. In a revealing interview with Information
Week, Obama's Federal CIO, Vivek Kundra stated:
"The cloud computing investment in the 2010 budget
reflects the administration's desire to drive down
costs, drive innovation across the federal government, [and] make
sure we're making available technologies to the
workforce".
While the executive
branch of the Government is currently in the late planning to
early implementation stages, other agencies within the government
have already moved into the clouds. Among the front-runners are
NASA's NEBULA Cloud Computing Project, The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory's Cloud Projects, the Defense
Information Systems Agencies RACE Program, the Department of
Homeland Security's Advanced Cloud Strategy, and a
handful of other agency-drive initiatives. One of the more
exciting initiatives is the GSA's approach to
centralizing approved Cloud Computing Vendors, as well as plans
for the agency to become the central clearinghouse for government
backed private, public and semi-public cloud based applications
and computing capabilities. To jump-start this effort, the Obama
Administration, in conjunction with the GSA, launched
www.APPS.gov, an all new centralized government storefront for
everything cloud related. It is apparent that cloud based
technologies are becoming so prolific, that even the U.S.
Government is getting on-board!
While private,
public and governmental initiatives are a good sign of progress
in the Cloud Computing segment, other sure-fire indicators
include innovation and investment. In addition to the hundreds of
millions invested by leading cloud service providers like Amazon,
Google and others, Microsoft and HP have put their hats into the
ring with a USD $250 million investment in Cloud Computing. This
extended partnership is aimed at building a new cloud based
'infrastructure-to-application' service that
will "transform the way large enterprises deliver
services to their customers", tackling both the
expansion and innovation of cloud services in a single leap.
According to Microsoft's CEO, Steve Balmer; "This
agreement, which spans hardware, software and services, will
enable business customers to optimize performance with
push-button simplicity at the lowest-possible total cost of
ownership".
Worldwide, there are countless
examples of how Cloud Computing is re-shaping the way we think
about our computing needs. However, there is one business segment
that is a bit late to the game. The Financial Data Industry, with
its transpiring low latency arms race and troubling regulatory
concerns, has all but shunned the Cloud Computing paradigm,
citing a host of philosophical concerns, and boasting the
perceived benefits of over-spending on data acquisition
technologies. Traditional data vendors are gripping tightly to
the legacy delivery models of direct feeds, cumbersome flat files
and terminal based data systems. It's no surprise that
the one Financial Data Provider that has fully integrated Cloud
Computing technologies into its delivery model, is growing at
break-neck speeds. While it is hard to shake tradition out of an
industry that is plagued by overwhelming systemic issues,
it's good to know that there is at least one company
that can see into the clouds, and is embracing the future with
open arms.
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