January 6th, 2010

5 Enduring Aspects of Cloud Computing

Forgoing the hyperbole of cloud computing predictions – sensational outages to a cloud-in-every-pocket – I want to start 2010 discussing the enduring aspects of cloud computing on enterprise business-technology.  Regardless of the final manifestation of cloud computing, and the tally of deployments, successes and failures, I believe cloud computing will influence the expectations and practice of enterprise business-technology throughout the decade.

I have identified five enduring aspects from a practitioner perspective.  Certainly, there are enduring aspects on the provider side as well, such as advances from Infrastructure 2.0 and disruptions created by new economic and pricing models.  However, I will leave that list for provider-side specialists. 

The first three enduring aspects focus on the expectations from business-technology organizations. 

1. Resource Optimization – Cloud computing has raised Executive awareness to the disproportion of installed versus utilized computing capacity, along with the requisite expenses of space, power, software licenses and support personnel. 

If they have not already, Executives will mandate infrastructure ecology initiatives, starting with the consolidation and pooling of compute and data resources, and progressing to software execution efficiency. 

 more >>

Tagged as: 2010 hypothesis, brenda michelson, capability delivery, popular post

Posted by brenda michelson at 5:59 pm in Blog, economics, elasticity & scale, fundamentals, infrastructure 2.0, performance & reliability, platform, pundit positions, software architecture | Permalink | Comments(3)
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January 2nd, 2010

Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures: 2010 Interest Area #5 = Cloud based platforms and APIs

Fred Wilson, principal of Union Square Ventures, just published his investment area interest list for 2010.  The list contains 6 items, which Wilson later abstracts to 5: “mobile, gaming, commerce/currency, cloud platforms/APIs, and education/energy/environment.”

Regarding cloud platforms/APIs, Wilson states:

“5) Cloud based platforms and APIs – Many web services have APIs today. A good example is the Twitter API. These APIs have become development platforms in their own right. On top of that, Amazon and others are offering very robust cloud based platforms for developers. The combination of these two trends means that modern web and mobile development is being done on top of cloud based services and APIs. Until recently, we had not been interested in services aimed at developers but the emergence of cloud based platforms and open APIs is changing that. We’ve made two investments in this sector to date, MongoDB, a cloud based open source datastore, and Twilio, an API that allows web developers to access telephony resources from the cloud. Developers are the new power users. If you cater to them, you can build a large user base with significant network effects. And that is one of the key things we look for in our investments.”

Interestingly, in his mobile write-up, Wilson calls out Android and the power of an open platform for developers.  As well, in describing his education/energy/environment choice, Wilson calls out a cloud-based investment: “AMEE, which is a cloud based API for recording and measuring energy and carbon consumption.”

So, if you were to look for themes across the themes, I’d start with developers, APIs and cloud-based platforms.  Abstracting that up to one, I’d be inclined to say “The future is platforms”.

Tagged as: Fred Wilson, MongoDB, Twilio, Union Square Ventures

Posted by brenda michelson at 10:56 am in Cloud Watch, platform, venture / investments | Permalink | Comments(0)
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November 23rd, 2009

Cloud Computing Bull or Bear?

In February, as I began my cloud watching in earnest, I wrote the following:

“Only time will tell if my cloud watching is attention well spent.  If the cloud is indeed "the future of the Internet", then yes.  If the cloud is merely a repackaging of everything that we already do, then no.  Most likely, the cloud’s promise falls somewhere in between, landing closer to the future than the past.”

Since then, of course, I’ve launched Elemental Cloud Computing, which some have interpreted as a now bullish position on cloud computing.  That would be a misinterpretation.  more >>

Tagged as: enterprise architects

Posted by brenda michelson at 10:07 am in Blog, elcc, enterprise architecture, platform, pundit positions, services architecture | Permalink | Comments(0)
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February 17th, 2009

Unintentional Cloud Watching >> Cloud Computing for Enterprise Architects

Despite my best intentions, I find myself watching the (insert meteorological pun) cloud computing space.  Only time will tell if my cloud watching is attention well spent.  If the cloud is indeed "the future of the Internet", then yes.  If the cloud is merely a repackaging of everything that we already do, then no.  Most likely, the cloud’s promise falls somewhere in between, landing closer to the future than the past. 

Added to this (more likely than not) significance, are parallels with my own writings, work and interest areas (current and past), including architecture realization through blending strategies, the power of service grids, the ceding of applications to business capabilities, the morphing of boxes to platforms, and (forthcoming) creating an active information tier.  more >>

Tagged as: archives, elcc origins, enterprise architects, popular post

Posted by brenda michelson at 2:47 pm in Blog, elcc, enterprise architecture, platform, services architecture | Permalink | Comments(0)
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