Going All in on the Google Cloud

Mike Elgan of InfoWorld wrote an interesting article about what he learned by going all-in on Google Apps, gMail, etc. What's surprising is he decided to stay there.

You can't get the ultimate mobile computing experience by using nothing but Google products, but it's possible and enjoyable to use only Google products. I had a lot of fun with this experiment.

...

'm going all-in on cloud services, and sticking with Drive, Keep, and Docs, as I found them to be better than the alternatives I used previously.

Go here for Mike's full article.

-- Chris Claborne

aka Christian

Evaluating Software as a Service

The allure of the cloud for faster deployments of new capabilities with potentially lower equipment and labor costs are hard to turn away from.  For small businesses that either don’t have the capacity or don’t wish to grow their data center, the cloud can be the way to go.  I’ll first focus on evaluating software as a service (SaaS) solutions.  The assumption here is that you will, at a minimum, evaluate SaaS against a local deployment of the solution.  In the near future, I’ll focus on how you might evaluate using Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - using the cloud like a data center.

My example evaluation below will use a simple table in a spreadsheet.  The table can contain as many columns as you have solution options.  I’ll break up the evaluation into two sections, one for items that we can put a dollar figure on, one that will contain a rating with a possible multiplier.  The multiplier services as a weighting mechanism where the higher the multiplier, the more important the feature or capability is.  When using a rating (say 1 to 5), larger is better.  I’ll draw from my earlier posts, “Benefits of Cloud Computing” and “Challenges and Risks of Cloud Computing” to help come up with the rating criteria.

The Step Function of Cost

Building a “Private Cloud” within your data center has a lot of potential return on investment (ROI).  David Linthicom’s article, and others, are saying “you need to architect”.  

The focus needs to be on the architecture and the right-fitting enabling technology, including both private and public cloud technology, and not gratuitous opinions. There should be no limits on the technology solution patterns you can apply. If that means private, public, or a mix of both, that's fine as long as you do your requirements homework and can validate that you have chosen the right solution.

I agree, just stop architecting with brochure-ware and really think through your solution.  Think about what you need today, where you are going and how you integrate everything else.  Excluding software as a service (SaaS), when you compare private and public clouds there are some real advantages for a private cloud.  One of the biggest advantages I see public cloud solutions have, is the flexibility to scale up and down and time it takes to do that.

The thing I keep coming back to when I talk to people about public vs. private clouds is what I call “large step functions in cost”. One of the big step functions is cost to build a data center or enlarge it.  That large investments in infrastructure kills your ROI until you fully utilize that capital investment.  If you are building (or enlarging) a data center for example, most companies don’t build just what they need today, they leave some room for growth, and that’s “flexibility”.  That flexibility is costly because it just sits there on the books not really giving you any ROI until you start using it.  Really the ROI from that flexibility is only realized as future cost avoidance of the next step function in cost.  It’s like buying a restaurant and initially only serving breakfast.  Sure you’ll eventually staff up and start getting better use of that capital investment when you start serving lunch and dinner but until you do, your ROI may be negative.  Compare this to the cloud where having the capacity to grow costs you nothing.  Is “public cloud” always the best solution?  No, but you have options, architect, think, and compare.

- Chris Claborne

References & Related

• Benefits of Cloud Computing


• Challenges & Risks of Implementing Cloud Computing

How to Get Started With Cloud Computing

Some IT departments want to utilize public cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), or Software as a Service (SaaS) but aren’t sure how to get started.  I’ll discuss some ways to use cloud computing as you flesh out how you will use it and integrate into an existing information technology architecture.  If you’re not sure what IaaS is, read my previous article, “Exploring Amazon’s Cloud IaaS & PaaS”.

Cloud in 2012? Start Planning Now

Thinking about utilizing cloud services in 2012 and want to start mitigating some potential risks today.  InfoWorld’s Tim Greene recommends that you start working over you network provider today.

Gartner Has First Ever IaaS Magic Quadrant Report

From ReadWrite Cloud's David Strom,  "Gartner Has First Ever IaaS Magic Quadrant Report"

A new Gartner Magic Quadrant report is available this week covering the public cloud computing vendors. Not surprisingly, AWS received top honors, although Terremark, Savvis and CSC were also praised. Bluelock, a smaller vendor, also got props. The report is very detailed in the usual Gartner manner and is a must-read for enterprise IT architects who are evaluating players in this space.

I don't have access to the report but am interested to read it.

Exploring Amazon's Cloud IaaS & PaaS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a large offering of various compute and applications services that I will use for this article to help describe what “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS) and “Platform as a Service” (PaaS) are.  

AWS is used by many large Internet companies like active.com, Ericsson, the guardian news, Yelp,  IMDB and others to deliver their web applications or services.  Although I’ve covered Software as a Service” and related benefits, risks, and some specific applications, this article will take the next big step into another side of cloud computing, using public scalable infrastructure to deploy your in-house applications.

A Lesson in License Cost Risk In The Cloud

I came across something recently that places a black mark on cloud computing in general.  In January of 2011, MOZY, a network backup provider, significantly changed their pricing.  In fact, it’s so significant (and just a bit strange) that some MOZY customers will see renewed billing that can be double or 10s of times higher than they were paying.  MOZY’s unlimited storage for backup was just $6/month but when MOZY discontinued the unlimited plan and put a 50GB cap on that price plan, users with 100s of gigabytes of backed up data are now looking for a new home (or deciding to pay a lot more).

Google Draws a Line, Microsoft Stumbles

Google Announces New SLA

Google drew a line in the sand when it announced on January 14, 2011 some changes to its service level agreement (SLA). First, the SLA will no longer have an "out" for planned downtime. Customers will receive SLA credits for any downtime - planned or unplanned. Google claims to be the first major cloud provider to eliminate maintenance windows from its service level agreement.

Previously, Google did not count periods shorter than 10 minutes as downtime. That meant that even though short outages could add up to hours over a long enough period of time, the company had no obligation to compensate users. Google is ending that policy and will now credit users for any amount downtime, no matter how brief.

Do You Know Where Your Data Really Is?

Something new to think about when moving into the cloud... location. You should probably know the physical location of your data when moving your compnay into the cloud. Physical location might impact the legal & regulatory aspects of moving to the cloud. More specifically, what country does the server reside in? Although I don't have all the answers regarding the specific legal and regulatory aspects that having your data in various countries may have, it's reasonable to postulate that there is most certainly risk here. For example, the US has very specific laws regarding search and seizure of computers and the information they hold, but these laws no longer apply when your data resides outside the US. I won't name countries here but many governments wouldn't hesitate to march into a data center, confiscate equipment and ask questions later. The point should be clear, understand where your data is kept and, if not in the US, understand the legal as well as business continuity risks. If you are a multi-national company it becomes more complex.
- Chris Claborne

Challenges & Risks of Implementing Cloud Computing

(Updated 10/25/2011)
After writing about the benefits of cloud computing, I mentioned that it’s not without some risk and downsides. Cloud computing presents a strong case for cost savings, new capabilities, flexibility and speed, but to do a proper return on investment (ROI) analysis, you need to evaluate the risks and costs associated with implementing cloud computing for your organization. This article describes risks and disadvantages of moving to “the cloud,” how to mitigate those risks, and identifies issues relevant to your provider choice and implementation plans. In addition, there are topics that may not qualify as risks or disadvantages of cloud computing, but that may require an assessment of the impact on your organization. An evaluation of the risks and impact is an important precursor to decision-making regarding whether to make the move to “the cloud” and who you select to provide ”cloud” services. In fact, thinking about and addressing these issues should be part of the planning process for any deployment (cloud or not). Critical components of such planning should include technology, personnel, business process and company culture. Moving to “the cloud” requires not only considerable planning, but possible unexpected financial investment.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Updated 8/24/2012
Let's review the benefits of cloud computing. The core focus here will mainly be on cloud application deployment (sometimes known as software as a service or SAAS), like SalesForce.com for customer relationship management or Google Apps, for Office productivity. Cloud computing can also provide tremendous benefit by serving as a "platform" for custom development, like Google App Engine, which I will address in future articles. Cloud computing is in an evolutionary period in business computing, much like the migration from mainframe computers to desktop then to PC LANs, cloud computing is a major disrupting technology in business. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s just different and brings tremendous benefit. Companies that can adapt will benefit and get the jump on their competitors by reaping the benefits earlier. If you want an intro to cloud computing read my article, “Primer on Cloud Computing”.