Cloud Computing
Google App Marketplace Could Revolutionize Cloud Computing
Mar 10th
You must have noticed that Google has been slowly inching towards a culture of Online cloud computing, and most companies, individuals and businesses have adapted to the culture of cloud computing because of its obvious advantages. Cloud computing allows users to manage data, applications and information in a way that traditional software or hardware don’t allow and the most important advantage is that you could access your data, application and software from any computer in the world, provided you have the ID and password.
However, cloud computing itself is not without disadvantages, and the most unpleasant one is the lack of applications directly integrated into Google. Hence, users copy and paste data, use different applications time and again in order to get everything into the cloud. Google itself has admitted that it does not have the expertise to integrate the hundreds of business applications out there into the cloud.
Thus Google has now announced that Google Apps Marketplace is now open for business. Developers and software providers can now join the new Online store for integrated business applications. These cloud applications will allow Google Apps customers to discover newer applications without having to manage each one of them separately.
At the moment, there are already more than 50 companies who are selling their applications. Some of the apps already available are
Intuit Online Payroll: It allows users to run payroll, pay taxes and check paystubs within an integrated online office environment.
Manymoon: It helps in organizing and sharing information with co-workers and partners, including tasks, projects, documents, status updates and links.
Professional Services Connect (PS Connect): This provides contextually relevant information about people, projects, customers and transactions so that one could make better decisions.
JIRA Studio: This app helps to track and manage project issues and workflow, especially in design and development of tools.
What the Google Apps Marketplace Is
It works similar to the Apple App Store, but is only cheaper. Google is asking the developers and businesses a onetime fee of $100 and 20% of the revenue in exchange to the access to 25 million Google users. Apps would be authenticated using OpenID and would be secured through oAuth. The applications would be accessible through a universal Google Apps navigation system.
How It Could Help Businesses
Businesses and companies could stop using multiple applications and get rid of the burden of having to remember multiple passwords for each applications. Whether you are an employee or a proprietor, you could use your Google account to access all these applications, and edit/use based on the permissions you have.
How It Could Help Individuals
Google Apps are used by not just companies and businesses but also students, freelance workers, and independent professionals. There are several account management apps, data related apps and other applications that could help the end user to make use of Google cloud computing and the Google App Marketplace makes it easy for everyone.
How Cool Is It Anyway?
Like I mentioned earlier, cloud computing has already become popular and most of us have been using Google Docs, and other apps successfully. The marketplace would allow us to access more applications which are not developed by Google but have been authenticated nevertheless. This allows for a streamlined system of working and managing data, software, accounts and information.
Companies and individuals could make use of payroll, data entry, management, and an office suite for instance and integrate them to the Google account. It would also help in terms of social media, data management and communication. Google App Marketplace could thus be a great beginning and a step in the direction!
Read more: Google App Marketplace Could Revolutionize Cloud Computing | Walyou
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Google Apps Marketplace Launches as New Cloud Computing Store
Mar 10th
Google March 9 opened its Google Apps Marketplace, an online store selling enterprises business applications that integrate with and extend Google Apps.
The Google Apps Marketplace will let Google Apps users access business apps for project management, billing and accounting, travel management, and other services. This will provide third-party software
developers a larger cloud computing channel into which to sell their applications.
Click here for a tour of Google Apps Marketplace.
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The move, announced during a Campfire One event at the company’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, is Google’s most aggressive play to drive growth for Google Apps, a suite of SAAS (software as a service) collaboration applications. The play also threatens existing cloud application stores such as Salesforce.com’s AppExchange.
Google Apps, which Google offers in free and paid versions, includes Gmail; Google Docs word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications; and Google Sites publishing software.
Google Apps has picked up more than 2 million business customers who opt to let Google host their business data so they don’t have to maintain on-premises solutions such as Microsoft SharePoint or IBM Lotus Notes on their own servers.
However, collaboration applications are only a part of the SAAS software ecosystem. As the success of Salesforce.com shows, there is a burgeoning market for enterprise applications based on the cloud.
To wit, the Google Apps Marketplace allows Google Apps administrators to purchase integrated third-party cloud applications and deploy them to their domains.
Google Engineering David Glazer, who shepherded Google’s OpenSocial movement, said that while many businesses
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Hybrid Clouds Hit Data Centers
Mar 9th
Merging public and private cloud computing infrastructures.
Charlotte Dunlap 
There was much buzz about merging public and private cloud infrastructures at last week’s RSA Security Conference in San Francisco. As enterprises use virtualization to step up the creation of private clouds around their data centers, security vendors are working to steer customers toward merging private and public clouds for a hybrid cloud approach.
Some security and infrastructure providers realize that private clouds are an important first step toward increasingly moving customer workloads to public clouds as the technology and security catches up.
Private cloud infrastructures are necessary for companies that are regulated under compliance mandates, but CIOs see the value of being able to tap public cloud services for obvious reasons: lower total cost of ownership (TCO), simplified management and access to dynamic global threat intelligence, i.e., malware alerts. Of course, enterprises are still very concerned about the security, reliability and governance issues associated with public clouds, but CIOs are going to be hearing a lot more about hybrid or internal/external cloud options in coming months as a way to appease concerns.
An example of a hybrid cloud solution is the merging of an internally built or private cloud infrastructure with a security vendor’s public network of threat intelligence. Examples of global threat intelligence delivered through public cloud services include Trend Micro’s Smart Protection Network and Cisco ( CSCO – news – people ) Ironport SenderBase Security Network.
Over the past year security vendors have focused their cloud messaging primarily around Software-as-a-Service offerings targeting specific pain points, such as secure messaging, namely anti-spam. CIOs should anticipate more vendor messaging focused around hybrid cloud computing, targeting those large enterprises–not to mention European customers–that are required under governance to keep company data within the folds of the private cloud infrastructure. Security service providers are acknowledging customers’ need to keep data in-house, but they’re also providing options to couple private with public infrastructures and allow customers to off-load more of the security burden.
Later this year Trend Micro has plans to expand its private cloud services to include new protocols, such as Web reputation. Trend Micro says it will create a private cloud within the public cloud to let customers store confidential data, a prospect which will likely be most attractive to Internet service providers. Keep Reading at Forbes
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2010: The Year of the Cloud Platform
Mar 9th
For the 3rd installment of our webinar recap series, we dive into what the future holds for cloud computing. In particular, will look at the role of platform-as-a-service in the broader cloud ecosystem. In particular, will 2010 be “the year of PaaS?” Read on for more about why platform-level services will be hot in 2010, and who we felt would be the big winners this year as the focus shifts from the infrastructure to the platform
2010: The Year of Platform as a Service
Michael: 2010 is going to be the year of the platform layer. If we look back at the predictions in 2008 going into 2009, people were getting excited about cloud. People were talking very much about virtualization. People were talking very much about renting resources and tying them all together.
That was great, and we saw that come together in 2009, a lot of excitement out of Amazon and VMware with their various solutions for public and private clouds. A lot of users are coming. When we talk to our customers and various users around the country, I hear a lot of application developers come and say, “But wait how do I tie all of this together? What tools are there for me to take advantage of this new paradigm?” That’s really the core of this prediction.
The platform tools are there. We have our platform tools that assist developers to put together these large applications so they can focus on their value add. There are frameworks such as Hadoop where with just writing a couple of functions of code, you get this massive platform for churning through terabytes or petabytes of data across your infrastructure.
These are the tools. This is the next tier up on the cloud technology stack. This is what people are going to be looking for. I think it’s interesting that if you look back in 2009, you see this come. I see two big points that really drive this.
First of all, there was the VMware acquisition of SpringSource. VMware is still all about the private clouds for tying together your resources and being able to control them dynamically, but you could tell they saw that, to them, the VM is still just a black box that they manage.
They really don’t have the insight into what the application is doing, and they needed those tools to go one tier up. So, here they look at SpringSource. They have more control on runtimes. They have the Hyperic monitoring system to see what’s going on inside the VM, and they can control it at a tighter level.
We talked about standards for 2009. Here at the end of 2009, I’ve seen the first talk about not standards at the infrastructure layer, but standards at the platform layer, about how to try to keep these tools together. So it’s time. People need to move up that stack.
The masses of developers don’t want to be distributed computing experts. They want a tool set to assist them on top of this tremendous infrastructure we’ve built, and I really see it all coming together with another round of great tools for application developers to build upon.
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SaaS a big winner in health stimulus
Mar 8th
One conclusion I was able to draw from last week’s HIMSS show is that Software as a Service (SaaS) is the only way clinics and small medical practices are going to get health IT in time to collect that sweet, sweet stimulus cash.
From big SaaS companies like AllScripts to smaller ones like Practice Fusion, the buzz was electric and the lesson obvious.
(Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard is shown at his HIMSS reception last week. He’s expecting a better year than the Phillies slugger of the same name. Which is saying something. (Then again, I’m a Braves fan.))
Most large hospitals have their solutions in place, or are in the process of implementation. This vendor relationship may be the most important thing on a hospital CEO’s plate right now.
From what I gathered on the HIMSS show floor, most of these vendors are lining their customers up to collect cash on investments made long ago.
Collecting on the 2011 meaningful use guidelines, watered down as they’re expected to be, will be fairly simple, and lobbying by both hospitals and vendors could water down the 2013 and 2015 guidelines so they don’t have to spend anything above current plans to collect on them.
Many small practices have been assuming that the hospitals will bring them their health IT. Admitting privileges are a powerful weapon. If the hospital mandates you go with McKesson, you may have no choice.
But small practices may well ask, what’s in it for me? Going with the hospital’s IT solution only ties you closer to the hospital. You have your clinic because you want to stay independent. And many hospital systems were not really designed to scale down.
Thus, SaaS. There is little up-front expense, no server in the closet. You can back up records overnight with Carbonite or a USB-linked hard drive — you can backup 2 terabytes at Costco now for under $300, including software.
SaaS vendors can scale quickly thanks to cloud computing. The biggest problem may be assuring clinics that their broadband connection won’t go down mid-day. But a lightweight version of the software, again on a nurse’s station, can handle that eventuality.
Services like SharEHR claim to require no training while others like Practice Fusion cost nothing thanks to ads. If the hospital demands your records, you can talk to them about that later.
Contrast that with the cost of putting in servers, wiring your office, training your staff, and learning it yourself, which is what many EHR vendors were offering clinics just a few years ago. The horror stories from that are many.
Personally I am still waiting for the glorious tech revolution to strike the doctors I use most often. My pediatrician has a PC on his desk to help with billing, but the kids’ records are still on paper. My internist is also paper driven. My dentist is a computer hobbyist but still brings out a file folder each time I visit. Last time I got new prescriptions I still drove them to the pharmacist.
This tells me there is still an enormous opportunity to automate small practices, but 2011 will be here before you know it and the only way I can see them going is to buy it as a service, stimulus cash or no stimulus cash.
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IBM Cloud Computing CTO to Keynote CloudSlam’10(TM) Conference
Mar 8th
IBM Cloud Computing CTO to Keynote CloudSlam’10(TM) Conference
Company is Named Exclusive Diamond Collaborator for Conference March 23 – March 25 2010
TORONTO, March 8 /PRNewswire/ — CloudSlam’10™, a virtual conference developed to promote collaborative analysis of the latest trends and challenges in the world of Cloud Computing, will commence on March 23. CloudSlam’10™ is organized by leading experts and authorities in the Cloud Computing industry and backed up by the world’s largest Cloud Computing community. Key topics will include Cloud Standards, Security, Transition Strategies, Compliance & Impact of Cloud Computing on the Global Economy. Attendees will hear breaking news, views & opinions which are exclusive to CloudSlam’10™.
CloudSlam’10™ gives industry leaders’ and professionals’ keen insights into published research, unique and evolving ideas and best practices, as well as an opportunity to network with leading experts within the Cloud Computing industry. The conference is designed to be a thought leadership platform for Business, Government and Academia. It’s also an ideal opportunity for corporate leaders to glean information on the latest innovations in Cloud Computing, generate new contacts and develop ideas on how to capitalize on what’s estimated to eventually become a $100 billion dollar market.
The CloudSlam’10™ speaker line-up will highlight new players in the Cloud Computing arena, as well as established players like IBM, who has been selected to be the Exclusive Diamond Collaborator for CloudSlam’10™. Dr. Kristof Kloeckner, CTO Enterprise Initiatives and Vice President Cloud Platforms, IBM Corporation, will present the Day One Headline Keynote address at the CloudSlam’10™ virtual event.
Drawing on experience of working with IBM customers and IBM’s internal cloud deployments, Dr. Kloeckner will review the conditions under which Cloud Computing can deliver its promise of cost reductions, delivery efficiency, flexibility and agility, as well as share insights around customer adoption based on careful selection of workloads and appropriate deployment models.
In addition, IBM senior software engineer Doug Tidwell will discuss the need for and status around cloud computing standards.
IBM Primary Keynote Sessions:
* “Headline Keynote Presentation” – Presented on March 23rd @ 13.30(pm) EDT.
* “Headline panel Discussion” – Presented on March 23rd @ 16.00(pm) EDT.
* “Headline Expert Session” – Presented on March 24th @ 13.30(pm) EDT.
* “Headline Case Study Session” – Presented on March 25th @ 14.45(pm) EDT.
Commenting on the announcement today, CloudSlam’10™ Chairman – Khazret Sapenov said, “We are truly delighted to have IBM join this year’s proceedings as our Headline collaborator for the event. IBM brings a wealth of expertise and know-how which we are certain will educate our event delegates, Cloud Computing group community members, as well as the Global audiences tuning in worldwide.”
CloudSlam’10™ – Produced by Cloudcor, Inc.™, is the premier Cloud Computing event. As an affordable way for industry leaders to exchange ideas and experiences, CloudSlam’10™ opens new horizons of cloud computing and serves as a springboard to success. CloudSlam’10™ will take place March 23-25 2010 -Online. For more information, contact Khazret Sapenov at k.sapenov@cloudslam.org or visit http://cloudslam10.com
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How Google Keeps Your Data Safe in the Cloud?
Mar 5th
In a blog post today, Google essentially reminds its enterprise customers that Google Apps provides an alternative to expensive, complex solutions as far as data disaster recovery goes.
Synchronous replication is a system that Google Apps uses to store customer’s info in two data centers at once, so that if one data center fails, Google says it nearly instantly transfers data over to the other one that’s also been reflecting the actions taken by the customer all along.
On the practical side this means that thanks to the cloud-based storage solution, Google customers won’t lose any data in a data center failure. Just as crucially, they are theoretically back up and running straight away — although the online giant does acknowledge that no backup solution is perfect.
This synchronous replication is applied to the entire Apps suite as well as Gmail (Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites), with the sales angle being enterprise-class back-up for all at a much lower cost than if companies were to provide or contract separately for their own data redundancy systems.
Google, ever keen to push its Apps suite to new corporate clients of all sizes, estimates that this kind of backup could cost up to $500 for 25GB of data from other providers, but says it can bundle it in because it’s already running large, fast data centers.
This is essentially Google reminding enterprise customers (and potential customers) about one of the significant benefits of cloud computing over traditional in-house server farm data storage. How does your business handle data backup and redundancy issues? Do you think cloud computing is the ideal solution to hardware failure?
