A cloudy look back at 2010

Today seemed like a good day to take stock of the year in cloud computing, at least according to the view from this Data Center Dialog blog – and from what you as readers thought was interesting over the past 12 months.Setting the tone for the year: cloud computing M&AIt probably isn’t any big surprise that 3 of the 4 most popular articles here in 2010 had to do with one of the big trends of the

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Making 'good enough' the new normal

In looking back on some of the more insightful observations that I’ve heard concerning cloud computing in 2010, one kept coming up over and over again. In fact, it was re-iterated by several analysts onstage at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas earlier this month.The thought went something like this:IT is being weighed down by more and more complexity as time goes on. The systems

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Survey points to the rise of 'cloud thinking'

In any developing market, doing a survey is always a bit of a roll of the dice. Sometimes the results can be pretty different from what you expected to find.I know a surprise like that sounds unlikely in the realm of cloud computing, a topic that, if anything, feels over-scrutinized. However, when the results came back from the Management Insight survey (that CA Technologies sponsored and

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Beyond Jimmy Buffett, sumos, and virtualization? Cloud computing hits #1 at Gartner Data Center Conference

I spent last week along with thousands of other data center enthusiasts at Gartner’s 2010 Data Center Conference and was genuinely surprised by the level of interest in cloud computing on both sides of the podium. As keynoter and newly minted cloud computing expert Dave Barry would say, I’m not making this up.This was my sixth time at the show (really), and I’ve come to use the show as a

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Cloud conjures up new IT roles; apps & business issues are front & center

So you’ve managed to avoid going the way of the dodo, and dodged the IT job “endangered species list” I talked about in my last post (and at Cloud Expo). Great. Now the question is, what are some of the roles within IT that cloud computing is putting front & center?I listed a few of my ideas during my Cloud Expo presentation a few weeks back. My thoughts are based on what I’ve heard and discussed

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As cloud computing changes IT roles, which IT jobs are on the ‘endangered species list’?

A funny thing happened during my Cloud Expo presentation in Santa Clara recently that I wasn’t expecting. I was trying to come up with a few points in the session where I could get a read on whether the audience was following me or not. And since my topic was “How Cloud Computing is Changing the Role of IT…and What You Can Do About it,” I figured at least someone would have an opinion. So I asked

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Cloud Expo recap: Acceleration and pragmatism

Last week at Cloud Expo in Santa Clara was a pleasant surprise. Previous events had me a bit cautious, holding my expectations firmly in check. Why?SYS-CON’s Santa Clara show in 2009 was disappointing in my book, filled with too much repetitive pabulum from vendors about the definition and abstract wonders of cloud computing, but none of the specifics. Of course, maybe there wasn’t much harm done

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Using cloud to test deployment scenarios you didn't think you could

Often, IT considers cloud computing for things you were doing anyway, with the hope of doing them much cheaper. Or, more likely from what I’ve heard, much faster. But last week a customer reminded me about one of the more important implications of cloud: you can do things you really wouldn’t have done otherwise.And what a big, positive benefit for your IT operations that can be.A customer’s real,

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The first 200 servers are the easy part: private cloud advice and why IT won’t lose jobs to the cloud

The recent CIO.com webcast that featured Bert Armijo of CA Technologies and James Staten of Forrester Research offered some glimpses into the state of private clouds in large enterprises at the moment. I heard both pragmatism and some good, old-fashioned optimism -- even when the topic turned to the impact of cloud computing on IT jobs.Here are some highlights worth passing on, including a few

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Delivering a cloud by Tuesday

Much of what I heard at VMworld in San Francisco (and is likely being repeated for the lucky folks enjoying themselves this week in Copenhagen) was about the long, gradual path to cloud computing. Lauren Horwitz captured this sentiment well in this VMworld Europe preview at SearchServerVirtualization.And I totally agree: cloud computing is a long-term shift that will require time to absorb and

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New CA 3Tera release: Extending cloud innovations while answering enterprise & MSP requirements

Today CA Technologies announced the first GA release of CA 3Tera AppLogic.Now, obviously, it’s not the first release of the 3Tera product. That software, which builds and runs public and private clouds, is well known in its space and has been in the market for several years now. In fact, CA 3Tera AppLogic has 80+ customers spread across 4 continents and has somewhere in the neighborhood of 400

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Cloudwashing, Oracle, and the "logic" of IT product naming

After hearing cries of “cloudwashing” following nearly every product announcement from established vendors these days, I started pondering a bit about IT product naming: is it helping or hurting? From IBM in the ‘90s…to VMware’s recent moves…to Oracle’s newest product this week, some amusing patterns emerge that just have to give IT buyers a chuckle now and again.Should you hang your hat on a

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VMworld 2010: Cloud "in excess"? Some thoughts on "What You Need"

VMware threw another great VMworld event this year. If you didn’t attend, you missed another step in VMware’s evolution toward being a very mainstream, enterprise-focused software vendor. They are at that stage as a vendor where they are reaching out beyond what they grew up doing and are trying to expand into something broader and different.Last year, in my book, was a bit light on news (aside

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CA snags Arcot: Another step for cloud identity & security

Not everything in the news this week is about VMworld. CA Technologies pulled in an interesting new security-related acquisition today, one that brings in solutions focused on advanced authentication and on-line fraud detection. The idea is to leverage these capabilities to help solve some of the issues in cloud computing related to one of the key concepts that needs solving: managing identity.As

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Back to school -- for the cloud? Try not to forget the multiple paths for virtualization & cloud

Summer vacation is really a bad idea.At least, that’s what TIME Magazine reported a few weeks back. Despite our glorified, nostalgic memories of endless hours on the tire swing above the old water hole (or, more likely, trying to find towel space on a lounge chair by the gym’s overcrowded pool), apparently kids forget stuff when they aren’t in school.So, now that everyone’s headed back to the

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CA, 4Base, and why consulting is a good idea, even in the era of self-service

Sure, self-service is one of the key attributes expected from cloud services. But contrary to what you may hear from vendors, it’s not always possible to do everything you need to do to using only something that comes in a box (or even if it’s provisioned as a service, as is increasingly the case). Getting virtualization broadly adopted in your organization or a cloud-style infrastructure running

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Despite the promise of cloud, are we treating virtual servers like physical ones?

RightScale had some great data about usage of Amazon EC2 recently that described how cloud computing is evolving, or at least how their portion of that business is progressing. At first glance, it certainly sounds as if things are maturing nicely.However, a couple things they reported caused me to question whether this trend is as rosy as it seems initially, or if IT is actually falling into a

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Video: Time machines and other good uses for cloud computing

The folks working on our 3Tera AppLogic product revved up a short video that I thought was a good illustration of a couple ways customers are using the product to help them.Plus, honestly, I thought the team came up with some amusing names for the not-so-amusing quandaries that customers are in – the things they are using cloud computing to solve. Add a groovy beat behind it all, and it’s

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Internal clouds: with the right approach, you might be more ready than you think

If you saw the headline “You’re Not Ready for Internal Cloud” making the rounds last week, you might have thought Forrester analyst James Staten was putting the nail in the coffin of the private cloud market. Or maybe you just thought he was channeling Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessep from “A Few Good Men” (yelling "You can’t handle the truth!”…about cloud computing?).It turns out neither is the

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Best lessons about Cloud Computing 101 are actually for the one teaching the class

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to get a bit impatient with the pace of cloud computing adoption. Sure, there are lots of examples of leading-edge companies that are dabbling with it. And, I know some big ones that are making notable strides as well. And folks like Werner Vogels are talking about the great progress that’s been made (see his Structure 2010 conference keynote summary here).But

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One year later: a peek at what the Cassatt folks have been up to

It’s hard for me to believe that it has been a year since CA acquired people and assets of Cassatt Corp. A nice “congrats” anniversary e-mail I received from HR on the day of the event caused me to do a little reflecting. Read on for a few quick thoughts, plus something that came out of our CA World efforts: a peek into what’s been going on behind the curtain here at CA with the help of the

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Thinking about IT as a supply chain creates new management challenges

CA World has wrapped up, finally giving me time to post a few comments about the major product news of the week from the CA Cloud Products & Solutions Business Line: the announcement of the CA Cloud-Connected Management Suite. (You can catch up on the other supporting announcements, the launch of Cloud Commons and the formation of a consortium to create and drive the Service Measurement Index, in

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A new way to compare your cloud computing options

If cloud computing does what everyone is saying it’s going to do, organizations are going to end up with many, many ways to get the IT service they need to support their business. And choice is good.But having thousands of choices with no clear way to decide (or even prioritize) is not a recipe for success. Three of the announcements I’m helping with at CA World in Las Vegas this week (#caworld

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As CA World approaches: a quick guide to CA's cloud acquisitions and some session suggestions

If you’re having trouble sorting through all of CA’s recent moves, I don’t blame you. It’s sort of ironic timing that key components of what we’ve been working on since last summer have been coming together in such a compressed timeframe. The good news is it means that when we get to CA World in a few days, we should have lots of good stuff to show folks, both from the recent acquisitions and

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Too big to innovate? Can big vendors make big technology leaps?

In the past few months, as I’ve been helping with CA’s recent set of M&A activity around cloud computing and beyond (Cassatt, Oblicore, 3Tera, and Nimsoft), I’ve come face-to-face with an assumption about innovation that I’ve held onto for a while: large IT vendors are lethargic laggards that aren’t very good at coming up with technological leaps on their own. IT innovation in cloud computing and

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Cloud Expo: Some big ideas, big investments, and even a customer or two

Cloud computing events are happening fast and furiously now. SYS-CON’s Cloud Expo was last week in New York. Interop has a cloud computing track running in Las Vegas this week with a similar set of content to the recent Cloud Connect Santa Clara show. You really could spend all your time at cloud computing events these days.I’ve been picking and choosing which events to sample to get a good feel

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Forrester's Staten: Realities of private and hybrid clouds aren't what you're expecting

James Staten does not pull punches. And for an IT industry analyst, that’s a good thing. I first met James a few years back when he joined Forrester during my time at Cassatt. I heard him do a couple presentations at that year’s Forrester IT Forum, had some briefing sessions with him, and realized that with James, friendly conversations quickly turn into very specific advice and commentary. Even

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A little healthy skepticism about cloud computing

Anyone currently involved in cloud computing as a customer, software/hardware vendor, or service provider would be well-served to have a healthy dose of skepticism about them at all times.We’re (still) in the heady, early days of cloud computing. You know, the lofty part that Gartner labels on its hype curve as the “peak of inflated expectations.” Publications are filled with stories about the

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Connecting some dots from Cloud Connect: everyone was "all in"

Several folks have asked me what I thought about the Cloud Connect conference (#ccevent on Twitter) in Santa Clara. Even though I was geographically challenged for the first part of the conference because of an East Coast business trip, I made it back in time for some really good content. And judging from the buzz, the part I saw was not the exception. Kudos to Alistair Croll and team.Here are

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CA and Nimsoft: Because smaller companies have different IT management requirements, but seem eager for cloud

If you’ve been watching CA, you’ve noticed some recently announced acquisitions that, when they close, will help us enable customers to make a transition to a cloud-connected enterprise, notably 3Tera, Oblicore, and Cassatt. And while the 3Tera and Oblicore deals in particular have a strong focus on managed service providers (MSPs) as customers, much of the end user interest in these solutions

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Going rogue, cloud computing-style: what you can learn by going around IT

I have to say, the San Francisco Cloud Club (#sfcloudclub on Twitter) is a great place to hear good ideas get batted around.For the uninitiated, the group is a bunch of cloud computing experts, thinkers, and doers from around the Bay Area who occasionally give up an evening for a good discussion/argument or two about what’s happening in this market. (I wrote up one of the previous lively,

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3Tera brings powerful, simple way for customers to move apps to clouds -- and help reshape CA?

Today’s announcement of CA’s definitive agreement to acquire 3Tera has a couple of interesting wrinkles. It’s definitely of interest for those of us who have followed 3Tera and the many companies in the cloud computing space for a while. But it also has the possibility of shaking up the admittedly stodgy image of CA – and what CA can deliver for customers thinking about cloud computing.But first,

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From private clouds to solar panels: more control and uniqueness, but are they worth it?

Andi Mann of EMA wrote recently that failures are endemic to public clouds. And, by the way, that’s OK. In fact, says Andi, failures are normal part of what your IT infrastructure needs to be able to deal with these days.Even if you take it as a given that we’ll hear about cloud service failure after failure in the news from now on (a daunting prospect in and of itself), public clouds

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'Forbes' rebuttal: don’t abolish cloud computing, just swap jargon for what customers really want

I’m guessing that Lee Gomes’ article on Forbes.com this week was intended to provoke a strong reaction. The title said it all: “Abolish cloud computing!” If so, he got me.As I read the article, I couldn’t help but feel that he was missing the point. So, I crafted a quick response and dashed it off to him in an e-mail. To Lee’s credit, he was interested in the dialog, and thought his readers would

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EMA’s Mann: enable the ‘responsible cloud’ while allowing cowboys enough rope to experiment

I remember back in the '90s when the World Wide Web was being described as the Wild Wild Web. For me, that phrase always conjured up jarring visions of gunslingers waiting patiently for Netscape Navigator to download page after page of underlined, blue hyperlinks.Fast forward to 2010 and the next big wave of IT change -- cloud computing -- is being described in much the same way. Andi Mann, vice

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CA buys Oblicore: contracts & SLAs are pivotal for cloud computing

One of the most interesting aspects of cloud computing is that the conversation about what’s important for IT to deliver shifts to what’s really important: the service you’re trying to provide.With the cloud, no longer is it sufficient to simply talk about the ins and outs of your technology stack; in fact, the idea is for many of those underlying details to drop down into the mists of

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Watching cloud computing trends for 2010: the vision, customer reality, & downstream impact

We’ve crossed into a new decade (or not, if you’re a numbers purist), and it seems to be an appropriate time for a little reflection, and maybe a chance to get some feel for where things are headed in the 2010 for IT operations, especially as they look at what cloud computing is going to mean for them.Last year, I rattled off a Top 10 list of Top 10 lists. This year, I, for one, am suffering from

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