I'm blogging about how I see the cloud phenomenon progressing, and looking to engage in discussion with others in the industry.
I'm a multi-year Intel veteran, and currently hold the role of Strategic Marketing Director within EMEA. My time with Intel began with a role supporting all the PC design accounts in the UK - back in the days when the i286 was the latest and greatest processor on the Intel roadmap. Since then, I've moved through various technical and product marketing roles, including being responsible for launching the Xeon processor product line in EMEA and managing the Itanium program office. At present, I'm responsible for Intel's high-end server business and Cloud Marketing strategy in EMEA. This puts me at the hub of major developments in both server technology, and the cloud ecosystem it's powering. I'm now very involved with the Intel Cloud Builders programme.
Organisations that have adopted public clouds have experienced a higher number of security breaches than with their traditional IT infrastructures. This interesting snippet comes from recent research, ‘What’s Holding Back the Cloud?
Cloud computing is essentially about paying for what you need in terms of IT services and getting it when you want it. In principle start-up companies can get off the ground, and major organisations reorient their infrastructure, in days - as they don’t need onerous capital investment for IT infrastructure.
We don’t usually associate government with industry-leading IT but the UK government’s G-Cloud is a potential exception. Today, the perception that it’s dangerous to place private data outside of a company’s firewall tends to override the fact that the technology and know-how already exists to protect information in the public cloud.
There has been a small wave of panic lately to the end that cloud computing signals the death knell for traditional IT workers. The perception is that enterprise job openings such as server administrators, database administrators and infrastructure and network people are likely to become far fewer given that the cloud provides these services in cost-effective and flexible ways.
The benefits from the cloud extend beyond cost savings, ease of management and unrivalled flexibility. While these features are certainly compelling, and are driving cloud adoption, there is huge untapped potential in what the industry has now branded ‘big data.
I’ve blogged previously on the impact that cloud is having on innovations in the data centre. It’s a constantly evolving story – and one that keeps most of us in the industry on the edge of our seats, reflecting just how deep and pervasive cloud computing has become in the IT enterprise landscape.
Despite cloud technologies being adopted at a relentless pace there is always a question mark about security. In fact, it’s the thing I’m most often asked about.
The annual Cloud Expo Europe (CEE) has been and gone, and as a marker of the industry’s pulse it threw out some interesting insights. CEE is a growing event and each year it features an increasing number of industry heavyweights keen to hold forth on their cloud experiences and how they see the cloud moving forward.
In my previous posting I referenced some Forrester Research that took an optimistic position on cloud growth during 2012. In this post, I’m going to drill down a bit further and explain why 2012 is set to be a year of advancement for cloud technologies and some of the issues that will come to the fore.
I do believe 2012 is going to be an exciting year for cloud computing, and there are many who share this belief, too.Forrester’s US Tech Market Outlook for 2012, published in late December 2011, is optimistic about how much cloud computing will grow this year, estimating that sales for four leading vendors will increase by 23% in Q1, and will then grow 24% quarter-on-quarter until the year’s end.