The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) was formed to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing, and provide education on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing. Yesterday, at the Black Hat USA 2010 Conference, CSA announced industry's first certification program on secure cloud computing. CSA has been busy identifying top threats in cloud computing and developing best practices in the use of cloud computing. With this certification program, it will now certify that professionals with a responsibility related to cloud computing have a demonstrated awareness of the security threats and best practices for securing the cloud.
As cloud computing gains considerable traction in both government and enterprise sectors, it is necessary for these organizations to employ professionals who can guide them towards secure cloud computing. There is a clear need for training and certification of professionals to assure that cloud computing is implemented responsibly with the appropriate security controls. CSA's announcement about the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) is targeted to take care of this exact need of the industry. The examination is designed to test the professionals against their understanding of the key concepts of the CSA security guidance whitepaper and the ENISA whitepaper. 
This certification will come handy for organizations exploring to move to cloud. Already, eBay has announced that this certification is a requirement for their staff. Lockheed Martin also sees this certification as a great way to provide a consistent way of developing cloud security competency within the organization. Others like NG, Symantec, CA, Trend Micro and Zynga have already committed to CCSK. Pretty soon we will be seeing companies small and big requiring their employees to get get CCSK certified in order to help them with their cloud strategy.
enStratus , the company that offers tools for cloud governance, announced that CSA has selected enStratus cloud management platform for their new User Certification Program system. enStratus is a powerful platform with extensive support to many cloud providers including support for Amazon Web Services, Eucalyptus, GoGrid, The Rackspace Cloud, Windows Azure, Terremark, VMware's vCloud Express Service, cloud.com and Visi's ReliaCloud. According to Jim Reavis, Executive Director of CSA,The Cloud Security Alliance requires a cloud management platform that provides the critical cloud governance capabilities we know are important. For this reason, we selected enStratus and have deployed their cloud management platform to improve the resiliency and availability of our certification system.I have played around with enStratus platform a bit and it is packed with powerful functionalities necessary for any security conscious organization. The adoption of their platform by CSA for their certification program highlights the value of enStratus platform for enterprises with cloud plans.CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

While we don’t usually review books on this blog, the Manga Guide to Databases deserves some serious attention for LongJump users. Those who are just getting started with relational database design and data modeling will find this guide to be entertaining and extremely comprehensive. And even the most seasoned DB gurus can appreciate just how accessible this guide is. Some of our LongJump engineers are already looking to buy copies for their kids.

Of course this book focuses on very bare bones database development, covering everything from entity-relationship diagramming to database security to data sharing and scalability issues (much of which LongJump’s Platform-as-a-Service handles natively without having to write SQL or having to architect a database infrastructure). Still, the courseware provides real “fantasy” world examples complete with theory and exercises, and it does so with humor and clarity.

In fact, this unique approach to learning definitely puts the fun back in the fundamentals. Here’s hoping they develop a Manga Guide to REST Web Services!

Technorati Tags: database, manga, rdbms, relational data, sql

The noise surrounding Google App's City of LA deployment doesn't appear to be dying down anytime soon. Yesterday, another article highlighting Google's failure came up on the basis of a leaked email from the City of Los Angeles. The April 13 letter, addressed to L.A.'s information technology and government affairs committee from City Administrative Officer Miguel A. Santana, notes that during a pilot program testing the Google Apps system, which was deployed by Google implementation channel partner CSC, users voiced frustration over performance issues. The latter also notes that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) expressed concerned about the systems' level of security. The letter sheds an early light on some of the key reasons Google has missed the deadline to complete the project.In my opinion, there is a quite a bit of hype going on regarding the so called bungling by Google. Let me try to list out the criticisms in simple sentences based on my understanding of the issue.

• One of the biggest criticisms was about slow performance of Google Apps. It has been found that it was partly due to issues within their own network and issues associated with the browsers used by the employees, mostly Internet Explorer. In my opinion, this is not a Google problem.
• The second biggest complaint is lack of functionality in Google Apps. Looks like city employees were using Groupwise before they started the pilot with Google Apps. Many of the employees feel that Google Apps doesn't match with Groupwise on functionality. Such criticisms are natural when you move an organization from one platform to another. If anything, this is not a Google problem at all. It is the responsibility of City of LA IT to decide whether Google Apps matches their needs and then convince their employees about the merits of the system. Any criticism of Google on this is pretty naive. Such criticisms can occur whenever any IT moves their organization to a different platform.
• The third criticism, coming from LAPD about the security, might have some merit. However, without any details on this issue, it is just a case of my guess vs your guess. However, the recent announcement by Google to separate out the government data from its commercial customers and some security enhancements associated with this move should help Google convince LAPD.

The third point above brings into focus Google's recent announcement about Google Apps for Government. Going an extra mile to reach out to Government's requirement is a smart move by Google. President Obama's administration is serious about Government going cloud and opened up a marketplace where different vendors can offer services for Government agencies at all levels, federal, state and local. US Government being one of the biggest IT spender in the world, this will help Google in a big way.
Google Apps for government offers the following additional features that was not previously available with Google Apps Premier edition. 

• Government data will be segregated from the commercial customers' data on secure Google datacenters that are FISMA certified. All the government data is stored inside the US borders
• Google Apps is now FISMA certified. Google Apps is the first multi-tenant cloud application to get FISMA certification. It has received an authority to operate at the FISMA-Moderate level; an independent auditor assessed the level of operational risk as Low. This is a big coup for Google as it will help them not only secure government contracts but also help them convince enterprises that they can trust them with their data
• Best in class data recovery at no additional cost. This is crucial for government agencies as they cannot afford to have any downtime or loss of important data

While FISMA certification helps Google gain the trust of government agencies and, even, some enterprise customers, they also got a shot in arm when CA announced their new CA Identity Manager with support for provisioning user accounts on Google Apps. This will allow easy provisioning and deprovisioning of user accounts. This has a potential to significantly boost Google Apps adoption in the enterprise market.Central to CA's cloud security strategy is the launch of new CA Identity Manager capabilities that bring identity management tools to cloud applications. Mann said CA Identity Manager now supports user provisioning to Google (NSDQ:GOOG) Apps, Google's widely popular suite of cloud-based productivity applications like Gmail and Google Docs. Mann said users can now automate identity management functions, like role-based user provisioning and de-provisioning or self-service access requests to a single system for managing identities, for Google Apps in the cloud as well as applications that reside in-house.While pundits and competitors are busy hyping up problems associated with the pilot at City of LA, Google is quietly taking steps to position Google Apps with both government and big enterprises. The next two years will show us whether Google is going to succeed in its efforts or not.CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

Adoption of cloud based services is clearly on the up. Further to this, recent news from V3.co.uk reports on new figures from Gartner that found that worldwide software-as-a-service (SaaS) revenues in the enterprise application software market will surpass $8.5bn (£5.6bn)...

This is the Week of Leaks: first and foremost Wikileaks, and now the iPhone Leak.  No, I’m not talking about the disappearing signal (aren’t we bored of the iPhone antenna stories yet?), this is leaking white light as reported by TheStreet.com:

Apparently, the back light from the iPhone display screen is leaking out around the edges of the glass and seeping through the back of the white phone, according to a person familiar with the manufacturing process.

So it appears Apple can’t make a white iPhone – for now.  I actually think the black one is more elegant, but of course it’s a matter of choice.  HTC can claim to be first, since their white EVO is now available – but is it really white?

Not really…this is a black phone with a white back – a rather tasteless combination, if you ask me.  If you want white, go for the true white, which is what the iPhone design is – if they can ever manufacture it.

All this white-mania makes my head spin, to the point I can’t pick to most fitting tune.  Is it:

• Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum or
• Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues

Both recorded before many of our readers were born. Enjoy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related posts:

• House of Lords on A Whiter Shade of Pale
• White iPhone 4 Delays Might Not be Because of Color 
• White iPhone 4 Delays Due to Light Leakage?
  

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Last week the US Army released  a procurement solicitation for the Army Private Cloud.  This $249M solicitation calls for a 1-year base period with four, 1-year options. Department of the Army, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA [ALT]), Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), has a requirement for the Army Private Cloud.

According to the solicitation, "The Department of the Army, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA [ALT]), Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems (PEO EIS), has a requirement for the Army Private Cloud." Originally publicized as the Army Enterprise Application Hosting Service (AEAHS), the service cited a need for quick and flexible deployment of applications supporting various levels of mission criticality.

"Traditionally the Army has used a relatively decentralized approach to provision of information systems and services.  This approach has enabled significant innovation and enhanced warfighting capability.  The Army is now ready to leverage a more centralized approach as a component of the LandWarNet strategy.  This approach will enable the Warfighter to access information globally while reducing costs and energy usage.  Cloud Computing is part of this approach and is expected to reduce cost while improving access and security.  The Army cannot afford to continue doing business as usual and will embrace lessons learned from the private sector to achieve cost savings."

In this procurement, the Army will procure two "suites".

Suite 1 encompasses:

i)    Continental United States (CONUS) – Fixed-facility Contractor owned and operated or Government owned facility, operated by the Contractor, including Contractor provisioning and ownership of equipment.
ii)    Outside the Continental United States (OCONUS) – Fixed Government owned facility, operated by the Contractor and including Contractor provisioning and ownership of equipment.  Locations may be either austere or non-austere.

Suite 2 , the Mobile Datacenter, consists of:

i)    Continental United States (CONUS) Containerized Data Center, Contractor owned and including Contractor provisioning and ownership of equipment.  Locations may be either austere or non-austere.
ii)    Outside the Continental United States (OCONUS) Mobile, Containerized Data Center Cloud Computing Services including Contractor provisioning and ownership of the Container and the equipment and including deployment locations in austere or non-austere environments.

Solicitation details are available at the FedBizOpps.gov.

For more on the US Army's cloud computing activity, see:
Army G6 Cloud Roadshow Brief Army Knowledge Leaders Study Cloud Computing The Army's iPhone Story One AWESOME Week of Cloud Computing
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Fidelity Growth Partners Europe Leads New Round

GoodData today announced that it has closed Series A funding, adding $6.5 million in new capital, in addition to the $5 million raised in seed funding in 2009. This funding round was led by new investor Fidelity Growth Partners Europe and General Catalyst Partners, and includes participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Windcrest Partners.

GoodData provides an on-demand business intelligence service, delivering operational dashboards, advanced reporting and data warehousing at a fraction of the cost and complexity of other approaches. Through partnerships with SaaS providers and an active developer network, GoodData powers over 100,000 reports and 5,000 dashboards each month, all on a true multi-tenant cloud-based BI platform as a service (PaaS).

“GoodData has the right recipe to disrupt the multi-billion dollar BI market,” said Simon Clark, Partner at Fidelity Growth Partners Europe. “GoodData combines game-changing technology with an innovative go-to-market approach that’s too good to pass up.”

Key Company Highlights:

• November 2009: Introduced commercial SaaS applications for self-service dashboards and operational reporting across sales, marketing and customer support
• December 2009: Won 2009 Amazon Web Services startup challenge, beating over 1,000 companies building their business on the cloud using AWS
• June 2010: Opened up a complete BI Platform-as-a-service (PaaS), giving technical enablers open APIs and freely available developer tools to build their own BI apps
• July 2010: Launched GoodData for Zendesk, a powered by GoodData offering providing free dashboards and advanced analytics for all Zendesk Plus+ customers

“I founded GoodData to break the BI stranglehold,” said Roman Stanek, GoodData Founder and CEO. “This new funding allows us to continue building out our BI PaaS, and to leverage the unfair economics of the cloud to further disrupt the BI market.”

About GoodData
GoodData is the first company to offer a complete business intelligence platform-as-a-service (BI PaaS), providing our customers and partners operational dashboards, advanced reporting and data warehousing at a fraction of the cost and complexity of other approaches. GoodData is headquartered in San Francisco and located in the cloud at www.gooddata.com.

About Fidelity Growth Partners Europe
Fidelity Growth Partners Europe is a venture and growth capital investor which backs entrepreneurial companies in the IT and clean technology sectors across Europe. FGPE supports portfolio companies as they accelerate their growth with funding, team building,  partnerships and access to its global network.  Building on Fidelity’s 40 year heritage of venture investing, the firm has established a significant presence in Europe and invested in many of the leading European technology companies including Curam, Qumas, Newbay, Seatwave, Neverfail and Asset Control.  In January 2010, FGPE raised a new £100 million fund dedicated to backing European technology companies.

About General Catalyst Partners
General Catalyst Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs who are building the technology-based companies that will lead innovation and transform industries. Founded in 2000, General Catalyst Partners leverages its principals’ extensive operational, business development and technological expertise to provide portfolio companies with a catalyst for success through business-building and partnership development assistance. General Catalyst is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, please visit: http://www.generalcatalyst.com.

When I wrote about Openstack last week, I talked about the disruptive potential of an Openstack.org and how it can make the market by empowering the smaller players.Many people who dismiss Openstack.org as a non-starter fail to understand that it is just a start. Openstack.org doesn't claim it has the miracle pill for all the ills in the cloud. It is a new initiative and it is just starting off. In fact, the compute code is not even ready. In my opinion, it is a start and any outright dismissal or claims of victory is not only premature but also amateurish. The only thing it offers is a potential to disrupt the cloud marketplace in the future. There are many factors in play before we can even see the results of this move. If they execute it right, it can stir up the marketplace. It may not destroy the leading players in the market. The best I expect from this initiative is that it will level the marketplace by making it easy for smaller players to jump in and try their chance.In my opinion, there is a strong need for competition in the marketplace because it is the only way we can ensure a continuous innovation. Yes, Amazon is innovating rapidly today even with its current runaway lead. However, if the market lacks strong competition against Amazon, soon they will stop innovating and focus on protecting their monopoly type lead using their muscle power. In my opinion, Openstack is a good alternative with tremendous potential to disrupt the market and make it competitive.
Looks like Simon Wardley, a researcher at the Leading Edge Forum at CSC, said the same thing after talking to executives at Amazon Web Services in July, 2007. From his blog post from 2007, he writesI met Jeff Barr some time ago. I told him that in my opinion the smart thing would be for Amazon to open source EC2 & S3, encourage competitors and compete on price and service - take first leader advantage, establish the market. If they don't, someone else could disrupt their market by doing this to them. I asked Werner the same thing at FOWA and he talked about their "secret sauce". I reckon all that is needed is an open sourced utility computing engine being adopted by small ISPs and they are going to have a fight on their hands.Well, all I can do is to admire Simon's forward thinking at a time when cloud computing was yet to gain attention beyond the geeks. I agree with Simon completely and hope that the folks at Openstack.org execute it well. If done right, Openstack will lure smaller players including many webhosts trying to position themselves to be an important player in the cloud world. Such an adoption will offer the much needed competition for Amazon Web Services and force them to keep innovating. Any marketplace where the major player continues to innovate consistently is a winning situation for the customers. Let us wait and see if Simon's words turns out to be prophetic. CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

Last week when Twitter announced that they are building a datacenter I wrote a post wondering why companies move out of the cloud as they grow big. Even though I don't have many examples of startups building their own datacenters after growing big, many folks in the startup world told me that they wouldn't mind moving to their own DC if the situation demanded it. This justification can come from any company moving from the cloud to their own datacenter too. If every successful consumer focussed company is going to demand full control over network and system configuration and they want to be the person defining the SLAs, it is a big trouble for the public clouds. When consumer focussed companies are so obsessed with control and SLAs, there is no way enterprises are going to embrace public clouds anytime soon. Either we need a change in mindset of the companies in both the consumer space and the enterprise space or public cloud providers have to do more to lure them towards clouds.Recently, Larry Dignan wrote this post on CNET about Autodesk using Amazon EC2 to do heavy simulations in the background for their Inventer 3-D design applications.Grant Rochelle, director of digital simulation at Autodesk Manufacturing, says these tools will leverage Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the background. Engineers and designers are trying to ask key questions about their designs, notably whether they will bend or break and how they behave under certain conditions. “By designing Inventor into the cloud our users can consider many alternatives,” said Rochelle. “These compute simulations have been restricted on the desktop due to the hardware limitations.”This is an example from the other side of the "cloud situation" I discussed in the previous post. Well established companies from even the desktop era are considering cloud to push some of their workloads. This is the most logical approach and many enterprises are already doing it. Along with test and development, they are also pushing other non-mission critical workloads that are beyond the reach of regulations. 
I think cloud computing is at an interesting point where traditionally conservative enterprises are eager to explore but web 2.0 kids want to stay away. It is time we (evangelists, analysts, practitioners, etc.) should come together and think about it. Let us keep out the FUDs, spins and other noise from the discussions and explore why this is the case. What do you think? CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

As Cloudant's ops guy and "utility infielder" I (@williamsjoe) will be speaking at the Surge conference in September. Surge is a conference presented by OmitTI that focuses on infrastructure and web operations. As such I will be discussing how we have built Cloudant's database platform on top of Amazon's EC2. The conference will include keynotes from the always excellent John Allspaw (of Flickr and Etsy fame) and Theo Schlossnagle (OmniTI).

 

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Bitrock, the company that provides tools and services to package, deploy and update software, has announced the release of Bitnami Studio, a self service GUI based platform to package and deploy applications to the clouds. It offers choice from the underlying operating systems to middleware/runtime to applications to the users so that they can easily assemble the stack they want and get it running on the cloud within minutes. I have already covered rPath several times in this blog and Bitrock claim that they offer more choice to the IT users than their competitors. Though I never got a chance to do a feature by feature comparison, I did notice that Bitnami studio offers more OS choices than rPath )rPath supports RHEL, SUSE, CentOS and Windows coming in Q3 of 2010).
Bitnami studio is well suited for organizations that are keen to push their applications (whether popular open source applications customized to their needs or their own custom built applications) to either the public clouds like Amazon EC2 or private clouds within their own datacenters. With Bitnami studio the whole process is seamless and saves lot of time which IT spends in packaging and deployment. Some of the interesting features of Bitnami studio include

• Cross platform - it is independent of OS. You can run any OS of your choice
• Multiple distribution -  even within Linux, you are free to use any distribution of your choice. Either you can take one from the diverse choices they offer or if you have a custom built Linux distro to suit your organizational needs, you can upload it too. This is one of the areas where they differentiate themselves from rPath
• Choice of Middleware and Applications - They have a wide variety of option for middleware/runtime components and applications. This allows you to package any type of stack you want
• Templates - Like other players in this space, they also support templates. As an user, you have a choice to either use one of the ready-made templates or use your custom ones
• Supports many virtualization platforms - Support for VMware and EC2 is already available and they are working with other providers to support their platforms
• SaaS or On-Premise - Bitnami studio is available as both a SaaS offering and a downloadable offering for on-premise installation
• Role based control - This is one feature that will be attractive to enterprises. They provide role based access controls to allow you to limit access to stacks and components for accountability and security purposes. IT will love this kind of fine grained control at the component level. You can do this by setting up the necessary username and password before packaging on the Bitnami Studio

During Glue Conference, I had a demo of Bitnami Studio and what I saw was a pretty good product offering a seamless way to package any open source or custom applications. It is definitely a powerful tool that will help organizations push their apps to the cloud easily. Even without a cloud strategy, Bitnami Studio will come handy for packaging and deploying applications in your own datacenters. Even though they have a solid product, it will be interesting to watch them come up in a market where established companies like rPath and others have already gained marketshare. When I spoke to Bitrock people, they told me that they are already seeing some solid interest for their product and they are confident that they can gain marketshare by offering more choice to their users. If you are someone in your organization's IT and you are looking for a way to easily package your custom built application, I strongly urge you to take a look at Bitnami Studio. I will also closely observe their progress and get back to update in this space in the future.CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

By Ellen Rubin

As IT organizations move forward with their virtualization initiatives, consolidating operations and shrinking provisioning times, the cloud has come along as an even more compelling option. In the cloud, companies can build capacity on-demand without having to own or manage the computing infrastructure. As companies review their application portfolios, they’ve started to realize that many of their not-yet-virtualized apps could easily be run in the cloud. In particular, applications that are characterized by spikey, cyclical, or seasonal usage could benefit the most from the cloud’s economics and scalability — but a significant percentage aren’t even getting the benefits of virtualization.

So what’s the delay in going “P2V” (physical to virtual)? As with the cloud, virtualization has typically percolated from the bottom up. In many cases it crept into organizations, led by developers and technology evangelists who recognized the efficiency and cost advantages of virtualization and simply started using it. While many enterprise customers have started expanding their virtual footprints it can be a long and complex process. Although technically it’s quite easy to virtualize an application, using a number of well-known P2V tools such as VMWare Converter from VMware or Platespin (now owned by Novell), the harder part of the process is often agreeing which applications to virtualize and understanding the inter-dependencies between these apps and other data center services.

As corporate IT has slowly adopted virtualization as a strategic imperative, the cloud has come along with paradigm-changing flexibility and elasticity. We’re now seeing enterprise customers and prospects ask what they can do with applications that aren’t yet virtualized and are still sitting on dedicated servers, recognizing that the cloud is likely to be their ultimate home. Thus we’re seeing the emergence of a new model — “P2C” (physical to cloud), with virtualization in the data center becoming a stepping stone to the ultimate destination of the cloud. As discussed in a previous blog, the cloud has become a catalyst that is prompting companies to broaden their virtualization efforts.

Customers and prospects have told us that the P2C model is far preferable to simply performing a virtualization project in a vacuum and figuring out later which applications really belong in the cloud and how to get them there. In contrast, P2C is all about planning for the cloud from the outset, starting with virtualization and moving to the cloud as a natural progression. The P2C approach can also lead enterprises to alter their virtualization strategy compared to pure P2V. In some cases, they may want to use the cloud a temporary home for applications that need to migrate between data centers, to support satellite offices or in the case of an acquisition. In other cases, they may keep the application permanently in the cloud and be able to budget for far fewer internal resources.

Thus, we encourage customers to consider P2C as a valuable strategy, since for many applications, the cloud will deliver far greater self-service and on-demand computing power than available internally. By planning for this ultimate goal and designing their infrastructure accordingly, customers can also potentially save a great deal of time and money. Ultimately, a single integrated environment will span the virtualized data center and multiple clouds, using the same tools and providing the same simplicity of experience. CloudSwitch is working with our customers and partners to make it easy to use the cloud, regardless of the starting point.

The way we work has changed dramatically over the past few years.  I’m relatively young…turning 27 in a few weeks – yet even I can recall working for previous employers where there was just no way of getting things done without being present in the same location as my team (probably because for my first serious job I was occasionally asked to get coffee, can’t do that virtually…).   Today I think it’s safe to say that a majority of the tasks that an individual needs to complete can be done just as effectively sitting on a beach in Maui as they can sitting in a cubicle.  Furthermore, the traditional work hours of 9-5 are becoming more and more irrelevant.  One of the things that frustrated me the most when going into an office during a particular time was that just because someone told me that I needed to work from 9-5 doesn’t mean I that I could.  Like most people I have ideas and am more productive at various parts of the day; sometimes I get an idea at the gym, sometimes I get an idea in the shower, and sometimes I get an idea at 11pm at night – I don’t think 9-5 and neither do most people.  I also have a very interesting and dynamic workday.  Sometimes I like to go to the gym mid afternoon and sometimes I like to work late and sleep in during the morning.

According to an article from the Sunday Times in 2009, “Working nine to five, what an archaic way to make a living. Recent research by Microsoft shows that 78% of people believe that traditional office hours no longer exist — and some forward-thinking companies are even dispensing with the office itself.”

Current economic conditions are also propelling the virtual workforce initiative forward as it helps reduce overall operating costs.  An article on CNN also highlights the value of virtual meetings and discusses new initiatives by Second Life to service this new virtual workforce.  In my Enterprise 2.0 series on Intuit the organization mentioned that they are actively encouraging virtual work and are in fact now calling it “flexible work spaces.”

Tools such as Box.net, Yammer, Skype, and Gdocs (and probably hundreds of others) all allow you to do everything from host video conferences, to collaborate on documents, update the company on what you are working on, chat in real time (via text, voice, or video), share files – pretty much anything you can think of.  The challenge however is that while the tools are available, their successful use and adoption is ultimately what is going to drive and encourage a virtual or “flexible” workspace.  As Intuit puts it, the tools they have deployed allow employees to work from anywhere while still giving them the feeling that they are part of the team and collaborating – just as if they were sitting next to each other.

Most virtual technology solutions are also accessible via mobile devices, in fact many software solutions build specific apps so that employees can access all of their information via mobile phone.  Mobile phones are pretty much becoming small laptops and you can do almost anything on these devices. Here’s an interesting report by Pew which highlights some interesting internet, broadband, and mobile stats.

The reality is that today we have a very mobile and virtual workforce.

Working virtually is much easier for smaller organizations since there is just less to deal with in terms of adoption, employees, legal, and overall barriers.  Trust in a virtual workforce is also crucial.  If someone wants to work virtually from Maui then the expectations of that employee getting their work done, doesn’t change.  It only takes a few negative experiences to convince a large organization to disallow any type of virtual work.

I think there are a few things that are crucial for a successful virtual workforce.

Trust

As I mentioned above you have to feel confident that the guy in Maui is getting his job done and doing so just as if he were working at the office

Tools

The entire virtual workforce movement is supported by a host of technology platforms that all cater to a specific need.  For example Box.net is great at sharing files and information with employees.  Skype is perfect for 1-on-1 video or voice meetings.  Yammer is great at connecting an entire organization and updating employees on who is working on what.  The challenge around tools is making sure that they can be integrated with one another when relevant, that employees know which tools they have access to and how to use them.

Accountability/productivity

Employees have to remain accountable for the work that they need to do and productivity cannot suffer in the process.  Of course if an organization notices that accountability and productivity begins to decrease then you can kiss virtual work goodbye.

Governance

There need to be some rules and guidelines in place for this.  For example if a client proposal is due tomorrow is it still ok for the team to work from home?  Should employees be allowed to take conference calls from home?  Simple examples I know, but there need to be some sort of guidelines in place at least initially to make this work.

Security

This is a big one.  Making sure that information employees access from a remote location is secure and private is a huge concern for organizations.  Working from an office space, the organization has much more control over access so somehow this needs to be negotiated with IT.

Here’s a great post from Telecommuter on best practices for telecommuting for fortune 500 companies that I also recommend you read. For another interesting read check out Productivity 2.0: How the New Rules of Work Are Changing the Game.  The point is that we are moving towards a mobile and virtual work force and we now have the tools and technologies in place to support that, but as we learned tools and technology only get you so far without having a solid strategy in place for making everything work.

Here’s a great example of a large organization (Cognizant) manages and encourages virtual work, thanks to Prem Kumar for the tip!

Ask yourself if your organization can be just as productive if it allowed for a virtual workforce and let me know what you think in the comments.

(Cross-posted @ Social Media Globetrotter )



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Social Proof in Action …

Yesterday I wrote aboutthe benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital .  If you didn’t read that yet it might be worth having a quick skim as a primer.

Social proof is defined as “looking for others to guide our decisions” and is also one of the most important techniques in acquiring customers in your company.  Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “Crossing the Chasm” the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore.  It influenced a generation of tech marketers.

The book popularized the technology adoption lifecycle curve that originally came out of Iowa State University shown below.  We all intuitively know this curve now but we don’t all market effectively to it.  Chris Dixon alluded heavily to it in his brilliant post on “Techies and Normals.”  People who are “innovators” or “early adopters” like to be at the cutting edge.  We like to use new product and gain benefits before our peers.  We are evangelists.  We check-in when we go to restaurants when everybody else is wondering when we’re going to put away our F***ing iPhones or Blackberries.  We have to be first (this image is worth a click, I promise).

In short, innovators and early adopters have faith that there will be benefits to using products that are unproven and even if they don’t they enjoy the process of using new stuff.  This applies to business users as much as to consumers.  Sometimes these markets never appeal to “normals” (Chris Dixon’s definition) and other times it needs to be more effectively marketed to normals.

So the early part of a technology company is about finding your hard core group of early adopters and making them passionate about your products.  You need to give them “back stage” passes to your company.  You need to give them advance notice of your product development or better yet let them help influence your direction.  Sure, they need a little social proof.  If they hear that Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington or Jason Calacanis loves your product they’re more likely to give it a try.

This is what drove early adoption at Twitter, FourSquare, Quora and is now driving people obsessively at FlipBoard.  I must be an early adopter rather than an innovator because I DO NOT have my knickers in a twist to get on FlipBoard.  It looks cool, but I can wait.

But here’s the thing – the early & late majority will never come without social proof.  These are the people who want to see ROI studies (business), read NY Times reviews by David Pogue or WSJ reviews by Walt Mossberg (consumer).  And the key to understand how to market to these people is to understand the point made in the book “Yes” by Robert Cialdini.  Regarding “social proof” he says,

“Earlier we described the importance of testimonials in trying to sway others’ opinions in your direction.  The results of this experiment [the one on hotels listed in my previous post] suggest that the more similar the person giving the testimonial is to the new target audience, the more persuasive the message becomes … You should begin not with the testimonial you’re most proud of, but with the one whose circumstances are most comparable to your audiences.”

This is where heroes come in.  Heroes are those every day users of your product who are not overly senior in ranks but are in charge of implementing your solution within their company.  If they’re consumers they’re just everyday people like you and me.

Salesforce.come is brilliant at marketing heroes and I think Marc learned it in turn from Oracle.  We would take every day users from our customer base and make them heroes.  Here are some examples of heroes in action:

• A testimonial / quote from a hero on the banner on the home page of your website with their image and a link to a case study on how they used the product
• Speaking at a “city tour” in which Salesforce.com sales reps and executive management were present.  Heroes told our success stories, not us.
• Leading breakout sessions at our annual conference – DreamForce
• Speaking to industry analysts at Gartner Group, Aberdeen, IDC, Yankee Group, etc.
• Taking reference calls from prospects considering using our products

Marketing heroes is brilliant and you should find ways to implement in your organization.  On the one hand the early & late majority are more apt to listen to the benefits of your products from their peers through social proof than from any corporate bumpf you can produce to convince them of the benefits of your product.

On the other hand, what better way to build strong relationships with your company’s strongest supporters.  How often do every day employees get to appear on the home page of a major website, speak at a conference or get to talk with market analysts?  You’re elevating them in ways their own organizations probably do not.  And in turn you get not only strong endorsements but even more loyal future supporters.

Think about this – what is more powerful – a VC who tells you how great he/she is or when you read your peers reviews on The Funded?

And heroes work on the consumer side, too.  Ever notice all those iPad billboards are just ordinary users like you and me sitting on a couch using a product that they know you’re going to love?  OK, I know Apples has an unfair advantage – but the emotion their going after is social proof.  People like you use this product.  It’s easy.  It’s what they do when their sitting on their couch watching TV.  Everybody is doing it.

How are you going to cultivate and gain the support of your company’s heroes?  How will you work with your heroes to gain more early adopters or to market the early majority more effectively?  We already know from Cialdini that this is even more important than your putting a link to a press articles yet how much time do you spend trying to market these to everybody?

(Cross-posted @ Both Sides of the Table )

CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

It’s been great to see such good traction with the media around our appointment by STA Travel. We have started working with the company to provide their users with a much faster and highly accessible website. Given that STA Travel...

Today morning I wrote a post that pointed to a Gartner report that said SaaS revenues from enterprise application market has increased 14.1 percent in 2010 compared to 2009. Now the market research firm IDC has come out with a study that forecasts the market to reach $40.5 billion by 2014, representing a compound annual growth rate of 25.3%.
The other key findings include

• By 2012, nearly 85% of net-new software firms coming to market will be built around SaaS service composition and delivery; by 2014, about 65% of new products from established ISVs will be delivered as SaaS services
• SaaS-derived revenue will account for nearly 26% of net new growth in the software market in 2014.
• Traditional packaged software and perpetual license revenue are in decline and IDC predicts that a software industry shift toward subscription models will result in a nearly $7 billion decline in worldwide license revenue in 2010. As a result, a permanent change in software licensing regime will occur.
• SaaS segment mix will shift toward infrastructure and application development and deployment/PaaS, and away from U.S. dominance. IDC expects that by 2014, applications will account for just over half of market revenue. This shift will happen in part as a result of increasing IT cloud spending by enterprise IT groups and commercial cloud services providers (cloud SPs) relative to end-user spending.

Both this IDC study and Gartner study indicates that enterprises are embracing SaaS in a big way and the day when shrink wrapped software will enter the history books is not very far. There are many reasons for this large scale SaaS adoption. Chief among them are

• The prolonged economic downturn and the need for companies of all sizes to get their finances tight
• More widely distributed teams needing a robust collaborative environment
• Younger workforce wanting to use the latest technologies they are familiar with
• An IT environment having more mobile devices than anytime in the past

However, as I noted in my previous post, there are challenges that remain. We need to go a long way before SaaS becomes as ubiquitous as traditional shrink wrapped applications. CloudAve is exclusively sponsored by

Today we proudly announced that Deanne Harper, senior manager of Speech University at Nuance Communications, and our very own Sundar Raghavan, chief product and marketing officer at Skytap, will present at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference on July 28, 2010 in San Diego, CA. Both Harper and Raghavan will discuss real world applications for the cloud that can be used to accelerate business productivity, and share practical tips for companies to move to the cloud successfully. You can read the full press release here.

My previous trips to China, India, Japan, London have been super productive. I get a chance to meet tons of new people, make a lot of friends and talk about something that I am truly passionate about: Cloud Architectures and Amazon Web Services Cloud.

Next month, I will be in Brazil and traveling to 3 main cities to keynote and present at different conferences and user groups. My complete plan is as follows:

Aug 6 - Aug 11, 2010 in Sao Paulo:

• Keynote at iMasters Pro's Ecommerce Forum Brazil 2010
• Presentation at the Cloud Computing Summit 2010 - Organized by Tecla

Aug 12 - Aug 16, 2010 in Rio De Janero:

• Meeting Customers and Open for meetings

Aug 17 - Aug 21, 2010 in Brasilia:

• Keynote at CONSEGI 2010 - Third International Congress of Free and Electronic Government
• General session on Architecting for the cloud : Best Practices and Design Patterns
• Getting Started with Amazon Web Services - Hands-on Workshop

If you are in Brazil and passionate about cloud computing, I would like to meet you. If you are an aspiring cloud developer or architect, system integrator trying to win a local SaaS contract or an ISV trying to build a cloud strategy around your product, send me an email at evangelists [[at]] amazon [[dot]] com to schedule a meeting. I would love to exchange ideas, learn more about the local market and discuss the future. If you are a leader of a local user group and would like us to present to your group, please contact me in advance.

-- Jinesh

Today, Objectivity, a leader in distributed, scalable data management technology, delivered a press release about InfiniteGraph, a new distributed graph database product which is now available on GoGrid.

About Objectivity & InfiniteGraph

Objectivity, Inc., the leader in distributed, scalable data management technology, formed the InfiniteGraph business unit in 2010. The team was tasked with creating a product to meet a global need to obtain real-time answers from deep analysis of very large volumes of complex data.

The InfiniteGraph team has developed a solution that gives organizations significant technical cost savings and time-to-market advantages, in developing advanced and large-scale social networking, business intelligence, scientific research and national security systems across highly distributed environments. InfiniteGraph is unique among other products in the marketplace, providing a high-performance, distributed graph database with virtually unlimited scalability.

The InfiniteGraph graph database leverages enterprise-proven technology that supports the highest graph computing requirements, helping partners and customers to find and utilize the valuable connections and multi-dimensional relationships that exist within their data.

InfiniteGraph on the GoGrid Exchange

InfiniteGraph is the Distributed Graph Database for the Cloud. It supports the advanced requirements of web-scale systems and beyond, due to its unique distributed architecture and virtually unlimited scalability. InfiniteGraph’s massively parallel processing capabilities also help applications achieve near linear performance gains with every compute node. These features make InfiniteGraph the ideal solution for handling big data and graph requirements in highly connected but distributed platforms, enterprise and government infrastructures. For more information, please visit: http://www.infinitegraph.com/product/

Currently InfiniteGraph is available within GoGrid as 4 images, specifically:

• RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (32-bit)
• RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.4 (64-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 (32-bit)
• Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)

Also, Objectivity announced a new program called “The InfiniteGraph Startup Program” which is free for qualified startups (see here for more details). Apart from the standard GoGrid hosting costs, qualified startups can use InfiniteGraph for FREE.

Objectivity & InfiniteGraph Press Release

The following Press Release was sent out today by Objectivity and is available online as well:

InfiniteGraph and GoGrid to Enable Large-Scale Graph Data Processing and Discovery, Free for Qualified Startups The program will allow developers to build complex data analytics systems on virtually unlimited infrastructure, at no extra cost.

Sunnyvale, CA (Vocus) July 26, 2010

InfiniteGraph, a new, distributed graph database product that enables large-scale graph processing, data analytics and discovery, is being made available through GoGrid, a leading Cloud Infrastructure Hosting provider. The InfiniteGraph business unit of Objectivity, Inc. is working with GoGrid to offer the technology for free to developers and solution providers seeking to leverage cloud infrastructures. InfiniteGraph is the only solution of its kind to be made available on GoGrid or any cloud computing platform.

The InfiniteGraph Startup Program, free for qualified startups, will allow developers to build highly scalable and distributed systems and services around social networking, business intelligence, scientific research and more, at no cost beyond GoGrid’s standard platform usage rates. The InfiniteGraph distributed graph database product is currently in beta, and version 1.0 will be generally available at the end of July; the InfiniteGraph Startup Program on GoGrid will be launched shortly thereafter. Developers already have access to the beta software, and can get more information by visiting www.InfiniteGraph.com/GoGrid.

About GoGrid

GoGrid is a Global Leader in Cloud & Hybrid Infrastructure hosting. GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud infrastructures and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control. GoGrid physical and virtual server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure takes minutes via a web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud. For more information, please visit: http://www.GoGrid.com.

About InfiniteGraph

InfiniteGraph’s uniquely distributed graph database solution enables commercial, enterprise, government and other organizations to discover complex relationships in their vast and highly distributed data, with significant time-to-market advantages and technical cost savings.

About Objectivity, Inc.

Objectivity, Inc. is the leader in distributed, scalable data management technology. The company’s patented distributed data engine and persistent object store is the enabling technology within many markets, powering some of the most complex applications and mission critical systems used in commercial, enterprise, government and research organizations today. Objectivity, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. Please contact them online or call (408) 992-7100 for more information.

Objectivity, Objectivity, Inc., Objectivity/DB and InfiniteGraph are trademarks of Objectivity, Inc.. All other company, organization, product or alliance names mentioned herein remain the property of their respective owners.

###

Please be sure to visit the GoGrid Exchange for other solutions that include: Software & Applications, Development & Testing, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security Monitoring & Reporting.

How big is the opportunity for cloud computing? A question asked at pretty well every IT conference these days. Whatever the number, it's a big one. Let's break down the opportunity by the numbers available today.

By 2011 Merrill Lynch says the cloud computing market will reach $160 billion.

The number of physical servers in the World today: 50 million.

By 2013, approximately 60 percent of server workloads will be virtualized

By 2013 10 percent of the total number of physical servers sold will be virtualized with an average of 10 VM's per physical server sold.

At 10 VM's per physical host that means about 80-100 million virtual machines are being created per year or 273,972 per day or 11,375 per hour.

50 percent of the 8 million servers sold every year end up in data centers, according to a BusinessWeek report

The data centers of the dot-com era consumed 1 or 2 megawatts. Today data center facilities require 20 megawatts are common, - 10 times as much as a decade ago.

Google currently controls 2% of all servers or about 1 million servers with it saying it plans to have upwards of 10 million servers ( 107 machines) in the next 10 years.

98% of the market is controlled by everyone else.

Hosting / Data center providers by top 5 regions around the world: 33,157

Top 5 break down
USA: 23,656
Canada: 2,740
United Kingdom: 2,660
Germany: 2,371
Netherlands: 1,730.

According to IDC, the market for private enterprise "Cloud servers will grow from an $8.4 billion opportunity in 2010, representing over 600,000 units, to a $12.6 billion market in 2014, with over 1.3 million units.

Market opporunity based purly on server count. $160 billion dollars divided by 50 million servers = $3,200 per server.

The amount of digital information increased by 73 percent in 2008 to an estimated 487 billion gigabytes, according to IDC.

World Population 2009: 6,767,805,208
Internet Users 2000: 360,985,492
Internet Users 2009: 1,802,330,457
Overall Internet User Growth: 399.3%
Fastest Growth Markets (Last 10 years) - Africa +1,809.8%, Middle East, +1,675%, Latin America +934.5%, Asia +568.8%
Slowest Growth Markets - North America +140.1%

Cloud value by world population: $23.64 per person
Cloud value by Global Internet population: $88.77 per person

-- Update --
Netcraft Finds 365,000 Web Sites on EC2

June 4th 2010
IBM says The Cloud cuts IT labor costs by up to 50%, improves capital utilization by 75%

July 1st 2010
IDC estimates that sales of public cloud services will grow at a 25 percent annual clip. The annual growth rate for typical IT projects, conversely, is 5 percent.

July 26 - 2010
SaaS Revenue to Grow Five Times Faster Than Traditional Packaged Software Through 2014, IDC Finds

• By 2012, IDC expects that less than 15% of net-new software firms coming to market will ship a packaged product (on CD). By 2014, about 34% of all new business software purchases will be consumed via SaaS, and SaaS delivery will constitute about 14.5% of worldwide software spending across all primary markets.
  
  
• By 2012, nearly 85% of net-new software firms coming to market will be built around SaaS service composition and delivery; by 2014, about 65% of new products from established ISVs will be delivered as SaaS services.
  
  
• SaaS-derived revenue will account for nearly 26% of net new growth in the software market in 2014.
  
  
• Traditional packaged software and perpetual license revenue are in decline and IDC predicts that a software industry shift toward subscription models will result in a nearly $7 billion decline in worldwide license revenue in 2010. As a result, a permanent change in software licensing regime will occur.
  
  
• SaaS segment mix will shift toward infrastructure and application development and deployment/PaaS, and away from U.S. dominance. IDC expects that by 2014, applications will account for just over half of market revenue. This shift will happen in part as a result of increasing IT cloud spending by enterprise IT groups and commercial cloud services providers (cloud SPs) relative to end-user spending

-- Conclusions --

Based on these numbers, a few things are clear. First server virtualization has lowered the capital expenditure required for deploying applications, but the operational costs have gone up significantly more than the capital cost savings making the operational long tail the costliest part of running servers.

Although Google controls 2 percent of the global supply of servers, the remaining 98 percent is where the real opportunities are both in private enterprise data centers as well as in 40,000+ public hosting companies.

This year 80-100 million virtual machine will be created, the traditional management approaches to infrastructure will break. Infrastructure automation is becoming a central part of any model data center. Providing infrastructure as a service will not be a nice to have but will be a requirement. Hosters, Enterprises and small business will need to start running existing servers in a cloud context or face in-efficiency which may limit potential growth.

Surging demand for data and information creation will force a migration to both public and private clouds specially in emerging markets such as Africa and Latin America.

Lastly, there is a tonne of money to be made.
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