The buzz phrase effect has finally kicked in with Cloud Computing. A few years ago "Web Services" meant an XML message between two web systems using a simple protocol. When it became a buzz phrase that enterprise marketers got a hold of it, Web services became anything that did something (they wanted to sell) online. The same is starting to happen with Cloud Computing. We often try to define what a technology is (standards) by what a technology is not. Here's my exclusion list:
1. Cloud Computing is not a Web portal - My Yahoo, iGoogle and the like are not examples of Cloud Computing. They may run on the cloud, the may even interface to cloud based systems but they are not by definition cloud computing. Why? because they are not "computing" platforms, they are very interesting Web properties.
2. Microsoft's new Mesh is not cloud computing - Let me quote the source "Live Mesh puts you at the center of your digital world, seamlessly connecting you to the people, devices, programs, and information you care about— available wherever you happen to be." HUH? I think there are clouds involved in that statement but they aren't computing clouds. This is another example of MS being lead by people who don't understand who their competition is.
3. Virtual Servers at (you name it, godaddy, rackspace etc.) is not Cloud Computing - Virtualization, while a very powerful tool in the advancement of cloud computing, does not by itself make a solution Cloud Computing. The missing element is cloud abstraction. Amazon's EC2 would not be a cloud computing platform if I had to call a sales person to buy a virtual instance. My virtual instances in EC2 are transient and I am paying for them in a utility model. I can stand up and shut down instances with a web service command (yes, a TRUE web service).
In my opinion there are three technology candidates for the title of Cloud Computing Systems.
1. The portable Web - deployable widgets, portlets or other elements that are built on top of Adobe Air, Google Gears or even (big throw back) a Java applet. These computing elements can be designed to serve a specific computing function and be deployed across multiple platforms without concern for the underlaying infrastructure.
2. Autonomic virtualized clouds - Amazon Web Services, Microsoft SSDS (when it actually happens) or VMWare based solutions for computing or storage in an on-demand configuration that provides utility computing from a Web connection.
3. Virtual Application Servers - Google Apps Engine is a great example of where Cloud Computing is going. The Google implementation on Python with it's limited API will not draw enterprise customers but it does give us the first working "appserver in the cloud". Where Google shines in this regard is simplicity. Relatively lower skilled programmers can quickly develop working applications without any concern for the underlying implementation of the services they are using.
Hopefully the message of Cloud Computing won't be completely drowned out by the over use and abuse of those who are simply trying to ride it's coattail. Maybe we can start a new trend by coining another buzz phrase. I'm not sure what the next buzz phrase will be, I'm in favor of the Semantic Cloud Computing Web Service 2.0. What do you think?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Who's paying for cloud computing?
With the advent of cloud computing for the mainstream (read any smart coder) we have seen an explosion of applications that fall into the category of "web 2.o" and social networking. The biggest majority are being hosted on Amazon AWS but with Google Apps Engine and Microsoft's announcement of an S3 alternative, competition has already begun to take effect.
One of the lessons that Amazon has learned from Google is the concept of micro payments adding up to big bucks. Every day I spend a few dollars on Google Adwords to get traffic to DigitalChalk and I spend a few dollars running server instances and streaming videos on Amazon. I'm not making Amazon or Google rich but I spend money with them every single day. There are no other vendors except my utility companies that have their hooks into me that way. I'm not complaining, to the contrary in fact, I can stop spending with either vendor with a single mouse click. I'm choosing to spend money with them because it has a very easy-to-measure return.
To my point, I read today on Charles Coopers blog about the death of Web 2.0 and the emergence of the Semantic Web which as he defines it, is cloud computing running web 2.0 apps. I think his observations are mostly on-target but I think we are going to see a the natural migration from early adopters (like me) to mainstream adoption (enterprise) as the next phase on the cloud.
We recently started working with other businesses interested in migrating from a traditional data center to Amazon EC2 & S3. The payback is typically less than a year and the option to scale will open up new doors to growth. It's only a matter of time before smart CFOs and CIOs in the enterprise market start noticing the benefits of saving 80% on bandwidth and starting up dozens of cloud servers with a single command. The mainstream is starting to realize the real risk is in staying with status quot. Now that Amazon is offering a full SLA I think we will see more mainstream adoption of these cloud computing platforms.
If you want to hear more about how we build our system on Amazon, you can email me at tonymccune(at)gmail(dot)com or visit us at DigitalChalk.
One of the lessons that Amazon has learned from Google is the concept of micro payments adding up to big bucks. Every day I spend a few dollars on Google Adwords to get traffic to DigitalChalk and I spend a few dollars running server instances and streaming videos on Amazon. I'm not making Amazon or Google rich but I spend money with them every single day. There are no other vendors except my utility companies that have their hooks into me that way. I'm not complaining, to the contrary in fact, I can stop spending with either vendor with a single mouse click. I'm choosing to spend money with them because it has a very easy-to-measure return.
To my point, I read today on Charles Coopers blog about the death of Web 2.0 and the emergence of the Semantic Web which as he defines it, is cloud computing running web 2.0 apps. I think his observations are mostly on-target but I think we are going to see a the natural migration from early adopters (like me) to mainstream adoption (enterprise) as the next phase on the cloud.
We recently started working with other businesses interested in migrating from a traditional data center to Amazon EC2 & S3. The payback is typically less than a year and the option to scale will open up new doors to growth. It's only a matter of time before smart CFOs and CIOs in the enterprise market start noticing the benefits of saving 80% on bandwidth and starting up dozens of cloud servers with a single command. The mainstream is starting to realize the real risk is in staying with status quot. Now that Amazon is offering a full SLA I think we will see more mainstream adoption of these cloud computing platforms.
If you want to hear more about how we build our system on Amazon, you can email me at tonymccune(at)gmail(dot)com or visit us at DigitalChalk.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Creative destruction in action
Listening to the debate about cloud computing and the possible impact on jobs within technology companies has me thinking that perhaps the wrong question is being asked. It's not IF cloud computing is going to take hold, it's when. The real question is what will you do with it?
This debate reminds me of the questions I use to get in the 2001-2004 time frame about Open Source in the enterprise. Many CIOs would ask me if I though anyone was using open source software for actual enterprise systems. My typical response was to ask them about the commercial software they were running. Almost invariably they would name a product that had significant open source components. The same thing is happening now, with Web 2.0 applications being used in the enterprise. Many companies are jumping into secondlife to do group events or using Twitter to notify groups of non-critical news and events. I even heard recently about a municipal fire department who is considering using twitter as an alternate method of notifying the community in the event of an emergency. And yes, you guessed it, both of these two examples run on the Amazon Web Services cloud computing environment.
Where does this leave us? It's just another turn on the technology innovation and destruction
cycle. As we push older technologies (read operating systems) down further into the stack, it's going to continue to get less mission critical and less expensive. Geoffrey Moore described this process well in his 2005 book, Dealing with Darwin.
Can the cost of servers be driven down to zero? Yes, absolutely, if a disruptive technology comes along that let's us run software in thin air. Until then the cost of computing cycles will continue to drop in a steady rate. The next iteration has already arrived. We will see most applications in the cloud running in an on-demand application service within a few years. Google app engine is the first into that game but there are sure to be more coming quickly.
This debate reminds me of the questions I use to get in the 2001-2004 time frame about Open Source in the enterprise. Many CIOs would ask me if I though anyone was using open source software for actual enterprise systems. My typical response was to ask them about the commercial software they were running. Almost invariably they would name a product that had significant open source components. The same thing is happening now, with Web 2.0 applications being used in the enterprise. Many companies are jumping into secondlife to do group events or using Twitter to notify groups of non-critical news and events. I even heard recently about a municipal fire department who is considering using twitter as an alternate method of notifying the community in the event of an emergency. And yes, you guessed it, both of these two examples run on the Amazon Web Services cloud computing environment.
Where does this leave us? It's just another turn on the technology innovation and destruction
cycle. As we push older technologies (read operating systems) down further into the stack, it's going to continue to get less mission critical and less expensive. Geoffrey Moore described this process well in his 2005 book, Dealing with Darwin. Can the cost of servers be driven down to zero? Yes, absolutely, if a disruptive technology comes along that let's us run software in thin air. Until then the cost of computing cycles will continue to drop in a steady rate. The next iteration has already arrived. We will see most applications in the cloud running in an on-demand application service within a few years. Google app engine is the first into that game but there are sure to be more coming quickly.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Community generated content = quality?
I recently read a well written posting by John Warner in the Swamp Fox that discussed the value of Wikipedia and how some academics were refusing to let students reference that as a source. It occurs to me that there is a certain element (unfortunately many teaching our youth) that value singular credentials over majority consensus.
Although I am firmly in the camp of consensus, it's worthwhile to examine both points a bit more. Is the expertise of one or two highly specialized contributors worth more than the combined contribution of a large community of contributors? I think it's probably a little of both that brings quality. We don't gain value from a mob of uninformed opinions nor do we get the most well thought out explanation from an expert who has not been challenged in his or her basis of belief. The best outcome would be based on a community of well informed contributors.
Those of us who are willing to wade into the fray on a topic we are less than expert in provide a couple benefits, first we force the expert to communicate in a more complete fashion to address a broader audience. A further benefit is the introduction of fresh and unorthodox inquiries that often become the catalyst to new thought on a topic.
Open Source software seems to be following this pattern. Over time we see that a community of contributors in any given project generate a much broader consensus of what a technology should look like and include. In the early days of my participation in Open Source it seemed that the biggest benefit was the volume of code made Open Source attractive. Now I think the community (at least around larger, longer established communities) brings it biggest value in the quality of mind-share it contains. It's fair to say that nowhere else in the history of technology has there been a time when such diversity of thought and objectives been focus onto a single objective.
I think we live in some very interesting times. The time when a single entity can control the future of a technology is past. The new currency in technology isn't code, it's creative use of code. Solving a problem and building a base of loyal users is how we will make money in technology for the foreseeable future. So, taking care of customers and giving people what they need to be successful will make you successful? Interesting concept.
Although I am firmly in the camp of consensus, it's worthwhile to examine both points a bit more. Is the expertise of one or two highly specialized contributors worth more than the combined contribution of a large community of contributors? I think it's probably a little of both that brings quality. We don't gain value from a mob of uninformed opinions nor do we get the most well thought out explanation from an expert who has not been challenged in his or her basis of belief. The best outcome would be based on a community of well informed contributors.
Those of us who are willing to wade into the fray on a topic we are less than expert in provide a couple benefits, first we force the expert to communicate in a more complete fashion to address a broader audience. A further benefit is the introduction of fresh and unorthodox inquiries that often become the catalyst to new thought on a topic.
Open Source software seems to be following this pattern. Over time we see that a community of contributors in any given project generate a much broader consensus of what a technology should look like and include. In the early days of my participation in Open Source it seemed that the biggest benefit was the volume of code made Open Source attractive. Now I think the community (at least around larger, longer established communities) brings it biggest value in the quality of mind-share it contains. It's fair to say that nowhere else in the history of technology has there been a time when such diversity of thought and objectives been focus onto a single objective.
I think we live in some very interesting times. The time when a single entity can control the future of a technology is past. The new currency in technology isn't code, it's creative use of code. Solving a problem and building a base of loyal users is how we will make money in technology for the foreseeable future. So, taking care of customers and giving people what they need to be successful will make you successful? Interesting concept.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Enterprise Architecture: From Incite comes Insight...: The Economics of Industry Certifications
I personally have been the victim of overpriced technical certifications. I found this blog to be very telling.
Enterprise Architecture: From Incite comes Insight...: The Economics of Industry Certifications
It seemed like there was some sort of scam going on to charge me $150 to take an online test (regardless of the outcome). As it appeared prometric was the only provider, I figured it was a case of single supplier economics. It appears that is the case.
Anyone interested in putting certification tests online for a reasonable price and fostering a community of certified professionals (and not line the pockets of a monopoly provider) should setup an assessment with a certificate on DigitalChalk.
Enterprise Architecture: From Incite comes Insight...: The Economics of Industry Certifications
It seemed like there was some sort of scam going on to charge me $150 to take an online test (regardless of the outcome). As it appeared prometric was the only provider, I figured it was a case of single supplier economics. It appears that is the case.
Anyone interested in putting certification tests online for a reasonable price and fostering a community of certified professionals (and not line the pockets of a monopoly provider) should setup an assessment with a certificate on DigitalChalk.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
There is no security in buying software
I had an interesting call today. Someone inquired about using DigitalChalk and began asking the usual questions. A question that often comes up revolves around "can I install this on my servers?" Although most people use software as a service in some aspect of their lives, many don't necessarily think about the difference between that and installing software that they have purchased in a box. When I explained that this is a service that he can subscribe to, he began telling me that they (his business) had explored software services such as Salesforce.com but opted to buy box software because they "own" it and they can "control" it.
The comment and underlying mindset indicated to me that there is a basic disconnect for some otherwise very bright people when it comes to software and how it's used. The truth is that all software is a service, it lives for a period of time in a computing environment and does something for us, typically with our data. The data was really what my new friend was concerned about. He perceived that his data was either lost or not usable without my software. To some extent his concerns are valid but in reality, he doesn't gain more assurance of future value of his data by running the software on his computers verses accessing it on the Web. Here are a few things to consider when looking at a buy vs. subscribe decision:
1. Can you reasonably duplicate or exceed the level of service and redundancy on your infrastructure that your service provider is offering you? This requires that you get your service provider to give you some peek under the covers and a reasonable SLA. Typically if a service provider specializes in a software service, they have much more capacity and redundancy than you would invest for your own needs.
2. Do your box software and online service provide both provide you with the ability to extract or back up your data and IP assets into an external media that you control? If either one cannot, it should be a deal breaker. Just because the data is stored on the hard drive you manage, it doesn't mean that your content can be extracted from the software that manages it.
3. Does your software or service have a community around it? Typically the best answers for how to do something or fix something in software comes from the community, not product support.
4. Determine the real cost of software. One of the reasons SaaS has risen quickly in popularity is the relative ease of use it provides in comparison to box software. The hidden costs in servers, maintenance contracts, added staff and supporting infrastructure can often add up to costs several factors greater than the cost of acquiring the software. Lower up-front cost and most importantly, lower risk is driving the adoption of SaaS.
5. With SaaS you get to use the technology from day one and you only pay for what you need or consume. This is the Killer App part of SaaS. With Salesforce for example, we were able to start using the CRM tools within hours of signing up to track live accounts. I didn't have to pick a software package and I can't imagine out growing their service.
The final reason why SaaS is something you should get comfortable with now is because soon, it may be your only choice. Most new consumer and enterprise software technologies are being developed as a service offering. Box software is very rapidly going the way of the CD. Try it out, give some thought about your risks and then put into place processes to protect your data.
Oh, one other thing... your competition is using SaaS and they are saving big bucks.
The comment and underlying mindset indicated to me that there is a basic disconnect for some otherwise very bright people when it comes to software and how it's used. The truth is that all software is a service, it lives for a period of time in a computing environment and does something for us, typically with our data. The data was really what my new friend was concerned about. He perceived that his data was either lost or not usable without my software. To some extent his concerns are valid but in reality, he doesn't gain more assurance of future value of his data by running the software on his computers verses accessing it on the Web. Here are a few things to consider when looking at a buy vs. subscribe decision:
1. Can you reasonably duplicate or exceed the level of service and redundancy on your infrastructure that your service provider is offering you? This requires that you get your service provider to give you some peek under the covers and a reasonable SLA. Typically if a service provider specializes in a software service, they have much more capacity and redundancy than you would invest for your own needs.
2. Do your box software and online service provide both provide you with the ability to extract or back up your data and IP assets into an external media that you control? If either one cannot, it should be a deal breaker. Just because the data is stored on the hard drive you manage, it doesn't mean that your content can be extracted from the software that manages it.
3. Does your software or service have a community around it? Typically the best answers for how to do something or fix something in software comes from the community, not product support.
4. Determine the real cost of software. One of the reasons SaaS has risen quickly in popularity is the relative ease of use it provides in comparison to box software. The hidden costs in servers, maintenance contracts, added staff and supporting infrastructure can often add up to costs several factors greater than the cost of acquiring the software. Lower up-front cost and most importantly, lower risk is driving the adoption of SaaS.
5. With SaaS you get to use the technology from day one and you only pay for what you need or consume. This is the Killer App part of SaaS. With Salesforce for example, we were able to start using the CRM tools within hours of signing up to track live accounts. I didn't have to pick a software package and I can't imagine out growing their service.
The final reason why SaaS is something you should get comfortable with now is because soon, it may be your only choice. Most new consumer and enterprise software technologies are being developed as a service offering. Box software is very rapidly going the way of the CD. Try it out, give some thought about your risks and then put into place processes to protect your data.
Oh, one other thing... your competition is using SaaS and they are saving big bucks.
Friday, February 29, 2008
All searches should smell fresh
I really don't get why Ask, Yahoo and MSN are scratching their heads when they see the market share numbers on search. When I am searching, I want results (seems fairly obvious right?) and by results, I mean results that mean something. Am I confusing you yet?
I'm confused, when I go to MSN or Ask, they don't have any reference to my blog and they have old very out of date references to DigitalChalk pages but when I go to Google I get my stuff displayed with my latest updates within hours. I understand that I'm not the biggest traffic draw on the web but when we did a redesign of the DigitalChalk website in DECEMBER and Yahoo still has stale references on this last day of FEBRUARY to our old site design, one begins to question the quality of ALL of the content in a search.
Ok, I'm calmer now. sorry for shouting. Here's the Crux, it really doesn't matter how good your search result relevancy algorithm is if you are applying it to stale, out-dated data in the index. I was watching the TV ads that Ask! (or is it just Ask?) ran last year that showed a better user experience. My first reaction was wow, nice but as I thought about it, I realized that all the cool visuals and AJAX driven layers that pop up are enjoyable but don't get me closer to results unless there is a relevant result in the search.
Google keeps it simple. We all know their search view is simple to view but what I am really getting at is that they keep the their goals in search simple and focused; give the user the very best quality search result. Nice. I am sure they spend a tremendous amount of time and money creating a search crawler and index that keeps ever-vigilant for new and relevant content. The value for me is priceless. I love finding my blog indexed the next day. I rest better knowing that someone pays attention to what I am saying, even if it is a robot.
Oh, I almost forgot, if you are reading this post, click on this link to visit DigitalChalk! (and make google think I'm driving lots of traffic)
I'm confused, when I go to MSN or Ask, they don't have any reference to my blog and they have old very out of date references to DigitalChalk pages but when I go to Google I get my stuff displayed with my latest updates within hours. I understand that I'm not the biggest traffic draw on the web but when we did a redesign of the DigitalChalk website in DECEMBER and Yahoo still has stale references on this last day of FEBRUARY to our old site design, one begins to question the quality of ALL of the content in a search.
Ok, I'm calmer now. sorry for shouting. Here's the Crux, it really doesn't matter how good your search result relevancy algorithm is if you are applying it to stale, out-dated data in the index. I was watching the TV ads that Ask! (or is it just Ask?) ran last year that showed a better user experience. My first reaction was wow, nice but as I thought about it, I realized that all the cool visuals and AJAX driven layers that pop up are enjoyable but don't get me closer to results unless there is a relevant result in the search.
Google keeps it simple. We all know their search view is simple to view but what I am really getting at is that they keep the their goals in search simple and focused; give the user the very best quality search result. Nice. I am sure they spend a tremendous amount of time and money creating a search crawler and index that keeps ever-vigilant for new and relevant content. The value for me is priceless. I love finding my blog indexed the next day. I rest better knowing that someone pays attention to what I am saying, even if it is a robot.
Oh, I almost forgot, if you are reading this post, click on this link to visit DigitalChalk! (and make google think I'm driving lots of traffic)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)