Friday, September 03, 2010

The case for the Cloud

The next wave would be Cloud Computing, I think. And along with it, would be the associated technologies like Virtualization , Data Storage and Broadband, which in turn means more ISP's, the hardware for the net (including higher end processors, routers, switches and the works). VMWare, Xen (Citrix) and Microsoft Hypervisor are all good virtualization software.

The cloud will be divided into private and public clouds. Some will opt for a hybrid model depending on the application type. Those applications that are critical would still be behind a firewall or a private cloud, so to speak. Public clouds will be primarily consisting of those applications where data security is not that much of importance.

The data centres will mushroom. (I hear that Microsoft is buying 1 data centre at least a day) Micorsoft's Desktop Software strategy will collapse, as applications like Google Apps, which have a much better ROI take off. There are other Saas (Software As a Service) contenders like SalesForce.com , Sugar CRM and others. These applications have already been in the cloud.

The initial consideration for any CIO would be the capex to opex ratio. As I understand it the Capex for the cloud is very much contained. The Opex would be a recurring cost. New licensing models would evolve, and so will the SLA's (Service Level Agreements) We are going to witness fanatical support from vendors. Those who are able to cut it, will survive. Others don't have a choice but to improve.

Going forward, I'm willing to bet on this phenomenon. Hope that the recession blues go away soon, so we can go full steam ahead.

To your success …

Guru30

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