Tools
Negotiating Cloud Computing Agreements
Mar 11th
Cloud computing has been characterized as a paradigm-shifting phenomenon that will change how we purchase IT resources. Though given different names, cloud computing has been around for some time, and the legal lessons learned from experience with traditional software licensing and outsourcing agreements can and should be applied to cloud agreements, but there are new issues which will need new solutions.
Cloud computing is a loose term that describes a variety of data storage, processing, and application services, normally provided by a third party using equipment not located on the customer’s site. These services include providing raw processing power on demand, special purpose applications on a subscription basis, and remote data storage. An early form of cloud computing was Application Service Provider or ASP services, and another is currently known as software as a service or SaaS. Cloud services are normally provided using internet technology, where the customer uses inexpensive hardware and an internet browser to access the service and/or remotely stored data.
The ease of access and simplicity of using cloud applications are part of its attraction. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the legal issues related to cloud computing. While traditional software licensing and IT outsourcing agreements can be used as a model for cloud computing, there are new risks and business practices not addressed in those older agreements that must be considered.
OUTSOURCING AGREEMENTS AS A MODEL FOR CLOUD AGREEMENTS
Cloud computing agreements are basically services agreements, as are outsourcing agreements. Many of the provisions included in outsourcing agreements have direct applicability in cloud service agreements. For example, the basic warranty that services will be performed in a good and workmanlike manner is a good starting point for warranty language.
Normally, outsourcing agreements will explicitly provide that a customer’s data belongs to the customer, and that the vendor will give the customer a copy of its data at anytime. The customer is normally only charged for media and the vendor’s time spent in providing those copies. Cloud agreements should contain similar provisions, but frequently don’t. In fact, some agreements allow the vendor to hold the customer’s data hostage if there is a dispute. Similarly, outsourcing agreements will frequently prohibit the vendor from suspending or terminating services abruptly. That prohibition prevents the vendor from exercising undue leverage in a dispute with the customer. Finally, outsourcing agreements normally require the vendor to provide termination assistance to the customer when the contract ends. This is normally provided at an hourly rate negotiated before services commence. Cloud customers will want to avoid agreements without similar protections, especially if the vendor is holding sensitive data or providing mission-critical services.
Similarly, outsourcing agreements frequently contain caps on fee increases. This prevents fees from rapidly escalating after a customer has made a long-term contractual or technological commitments to a vendor. Customers will want to include similar price protection clauses in their cloud agreements.
Outsourcing agreements also frequently contain a “litigation cooperation” clause which requires the vendor to preserve data and cooperate with discovery requests if the customer is involved in litigation. Those clauses allow the customer to fulfill its obligations in the event a litigation hold is required or it is served with discovery requests. The same issue arises under cloud agreements. If those cooperation clauses cannot be included in a cloud agreement, the customer should implement appropriate data backup plans to allow it to comply with its document preservation obligations in the event of litigation. Continue Reading at Law.com
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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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How To Move Your Business To The Cloud
Mar 5th
Tips for evaluating and implementing cloud computing technologies.
How in the world does a chief information officer or information technology professional cope with the challenge of delivering solutions for the second decade of the 21st century when they are saddled with 1980s technology?
Add the issues surrounding reduced budgets and the ongoing knock on IT workers–that they do not respond in a timely manner to changes in business–and you have the setting for change. Both in how IT delivers solutions and how IT needs to change itself.
The good news is that for once in almost 30 years, software is changing. No longer are you stuck with simply new features using outdated technology. You now have an alternative technology solution. The historical technology providers are, of course, trying to maintain their hold on you and your budget dollars by marketing “internal clouds,” alliances that merge hardware and software stacks that imply “infrastructure to application” environments but totally miss the point and the benefit of cloud computing. But of course you would do this, too, as part of the innovator’s dilemma.
As a CIO, how does your company take advantage of this changing technology and business model called the cloud?
There are a few things to consider with cloud computing. First, a number of research firms suggest that cloud implementations can take up to 50% less time, and total cost of ownership can be up to 46% cheaper. Both of these are shown in numerous white papers provided by cloud solution providers, and for the most part are reflective of the power and benefits cloud computing can provide.
However, one caution: Should you need or require multiple integrations, go cautiously. Integrating cloud solutions to on-premise solutions still takes time. Although somewhat less expensive, it still can add to project costs. Also, ERP cloud providers have some perverse view that makes integrating their solutions with other necessary cloud solutions very difficult. This is still the throwback to the “old software model” where your vendor “knows best.” Key takeaway: As you get into cloud computing, make sure your vendors not only have robust application programming interfaces, but also that they have demonstrated those integrations with other vendors you may be considering.
Another consideration in cloud computing is the vendor’s openness regarding service-level agreements, disaster recovery and security. Even the larger providers have their outages, but they still deliver higher uptimes than your internal data centers. However, with newer vendors and providers, make sure they are invested in your SLA so it is not just a contract term.
Final consideration for you in exploring cloud computing solutions: customization. One of the key benefits of cloud computing is the ability to customize the solution to some degree. So you have the advantage of changing the cloud solution to your process and behavior; with on-premise solutions, you need to change your behavior to their process.
Cloud computing will change your internal business model. It allows you to significantly reduce your capital outlays for hardware and software.
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JackBe Launches Enterprise Mashup Platform on the Cloud
Mar 4th
CHEVY CHASE, Md. – (Business Wire) JackBe, the leading provider of Enterprise Mashup Software, today announced that its award-winning Presto Enterprise Mashup Platform is now running on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. ‘Presto Cloud (Community Edition)’ is immediately available at no cost to all members of JackBe’s Mashup Developer Community.
Presto Cloud (Community Edition) combines agile mashup creation with the instant accessibility of a cloud service, enabling mashup developers to connect Internet-based data sources in their own secure workspace and easily share their mashups with community members around the world. With Presto Cloud (Community Edition), users can also take advantage of a public mashup catalog consisting of hundreds of mashable data sources from JackBe Preferred Partners as well as shared mashup applications created by other community members.
“Presto Cloud Community Edition is the fastest way to start mashing. The shared platform lets our community members instantly use an enterprise-grade mashup platform for easy mashup creation as well as benefit from collaborating with other mashers from around the world,” said JackBe’s CTO, John Crupi. “And Presto Cloud Community Edition is only our first step. We have big plans in future releases for production mashup applications in the cloud.”
“I am very excited to see enterprise software vendors like JackBe taking advantage of cloud-based platforms and services,” said Dion Hinchcliffe, Web 2.0 strategist and founder of Web 2.0 University. “The cloud has become a particularly compelling destination for enterprise developers to harness innovation and build valuable business applications. I believe enterprise mashup platforms like JackBe Presto are a natural fit for this dynamic new extension of the IT environment.”
Presto Cloud (Community Edition) is available at no charge to members of JackBe’s Mashup Developer Community. New mashers can join the 3,000+ member Mashup Developer Community at www.jackbe.com/dev. Production licensing for the Presto Enterprise Mashup Platform is also available. For more information, contact info@jackbe.com.
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Amazon cloud : Amazon EC2 Setup Guide – Easy Educational Tutorial
Mar 3rd
This tutorial guides you how to setup an Amazon EC2 cloud computing account. You may note that in this tutorial we will only be creating an account and set that up for doing the cloud computing tasks. The steps after this stage (like launching an instance, accessing the cloud from your system using command line [...]‘
This tutorial guides you how to setup an Amazon EC2 cloud computing account. You may note that in this tutorial we will only be creating an account and set that up for doing the cloud computing tasks. The steps after this stage (like launching an instance, accessing the cloud from your system using command line etc will be covered in the next tutorial).
Introduction
In cloud computing you don’t need to have your own hardware (except for accessing the cloud) to do the computational tasks. It will be available in the cloud and you can pay as you use the service.
This makes it scalable and robust. Essentially, you will be pulling resources from so many computers in the ‘cloud’ for performing a particular computational task. Hence if you are running an application that requires so much of hardware resources then cloud computing is the right choice.
Amazon
Amazon is a leading service provider in this realm. They actually extended a part of their own network (which supports the amazon.com website) for providing services to third parties. All their services are PAYG (pay as you go) and you will be charged only when you are actually using the service.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers various services as described below:
- Amazon EC2 – Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
- Amazon S3 – Amazon Simple Storage Service
- Amazon CloudFront (it is essentially an S3 to distribute the data)
- Amazon CloudWatch (as the name suggests, it is a monitoring service)
- Amazon SimpleDB (for handling data sets)
In this tutorial we will stick ourself to the first two services provided by Amazon – EC2 (cloud) and S3 (data storage).
Sign Up
Inorder to start using the service you need to go to the following site and register
You can use the same account (Amazon account) that you use to buy books from Amazon.
Once you have done that you see message like this:
Now go to this page and signup for the EC2 service. You may note that you need to signin again during this stage.
If you are using Amazon services already it will not ask you for a credit card. But if you want to use a new card, you can do the same by entering the details in the box provided at the end of the page:
Once you have done that you will asked to verify your identity. You can do the same by providing your phone number and clicking on the button ‘call me now’
Now you can expect a call from Amazon (my ADP1 phone showed the number as ‘unknown’!) and you can enter the PIN displayed in the web page, using the type pad.
Once you have done that correctly, you will be shown this screen:
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BC’s Cloud Computing Ecosystem – a comprehensive list
Feb 25th
Cloud computing is here and it is real. It is helping businesses lower costs and be more agile. It is allowing startups to lower their setup costs and large enterprises to do R&D faster. It is being used by companies in financial services, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, media, and many others. And B.C. is developing a rich ecosystem of cloud computing companies that you may not know about yet.
For those unfamiliar with the term, cloud computing is the name given to the IT industry’s shift towards delivering IT as services. This is only another phase-shift, one of many that the computer industry has already experienced. Using mainframes as a starting point (which offered computing at the “center”), we then moved to minis, then PCs (computing at the edge), then client/server (computing moved back to the center), then the web (computing at both ends), server virtualization (abstracting the applications and software from the hardware underneath), and now automation and self-service.
What’s cloud and what isn’t?
There are a lot of debates about who fits where. For the purpose of this article, we have broken the industry down in a 3×3 grid as follows.
For layers, we have the following key three that are most often referenced in taxonomies of the market: applications; platforms; and infrastructure.
Applications contains those applications used by end-users, administrators, and managers. Platforms are the middleware that sits underneath the applications, often including things like security, management tools, databases, messaging, and servers. Infrastructure includes things such as core computing and storage resources and infrastructure management.
For types, we have broken this down into “Public”, “Hosted”, and “Private” – terms that are by no means adequate and which probably cause more misunderstanding these days but they’re commonly used so we’ll use them here.
This Public column is the one that is really “new” in the sense that it is different than what came before in the Hosted and Public columns. Sometimes it helps to think about a number of dimensions that make something column 1 or 2 or 3. In column 1, you find that apps, platforms, and infrastructure have been highly abstracted from hardware, they are offered as a service over the public internet, they are designed as “multi-tenant” services (one core code base under all users), often have publicly accessible APIs, are metered (if not billed by) usage, are often designed in a way that lets users provision themselves instantly and leave when they want. Some very well-known examples that fit well in column 1 are Salesforce.com, Google’s web-based Google Apps, Force.com (the development platform), Google’s App Engine (a deployment platform), and of course Amazon Web Services, the Rackspace Cloud, and now Microsoft Azure.
In the Hosted column, you find “On-Demand” applications from the big vendors. Often these are just applications hosted by the vendor with both a perpetual license fee and a separate hosting fee. Most of the time, it is the same application or platform stack as what you could install yourself locally on your own servers. I’ve included them here because people often ask “isn’t Hosted Exchange a cloud service?” Well, not if you want “Column 1″ cloud services. It’s a single-tenant, high cost-structure offering that does not pass any of the Column 1 tests.
In the Private column, we have placed those vendors who are building anything that would fit in the “Private cloud” category. If the vendor is just simply building apps, platforms, or infrastructure that is not and never will be used for delivery “as a service”, they have not been included here. Same with software so if there are applications that are used behind the firewall and that will never be delivered across the public internet, particularly in a multi-tenanted, “as a service” model, they were not included here.
So where are the opportunities?
With every major phase shift, a lot of things need to be rebuilt. When the industry moved to server virtualization, all of the major infrastructure tools had to be rebuilt. Out of that chaos, VMWare came from nowhere and gained 80% marketshare against its closest competitor Microsoft. And many small companies were born and did great things. That opportunity is now ahead of us again as all of the industry ecosystem is refactored once again. What is up for grabs? Everything: storage, computing, management, billing systems, security, cross-cloud management tools, SOA tools, databases and analytics systems, testing tools and deployment tools. It’s a complete ten year rebuild, just like the last cycle. Some stuff will move forward untouched but much of it has to be refactored.
B.C. Cloud Computing Ecosystem
Table 1 is the overview that shows how we have broken up the ecosystem.
Table 2 contains all of the detailed entries.
B.C. companies are hyperlinked.
Non-B.C. companies are in (brackets) for context purposes only.
If you would like to suggest additional companies, please do so here:
http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bcs-cloud-computing-ecosystem-a-comprehensive-list
Table 1: Overview
| Public |
Hosted |
Private |
|
| Applications |
Software as a service |
Hosted applications |
On Premise applications |
| Platforms |
Platform as a service |
Hosted Platforms |
On Premise Platforms |
| Infrastructure |
Infrastructure as a service |
Hosted Infrastructure |
Private Infrastructure |
Table 2: Detailed View
| Public |
Hosted |
Private |
|
|
Characteristics that are traditionally associated with each of the columns on the right –> |
- Vendor Managed - Automated - Multi-tenant - Web-Services - Hosted - Self-Serve - Subscription License - Pay for use - Instant Setup - Continual upgrades - IT = 2-3% of Rev. |
- Vendor Managed - Manual - Single-Tenant - Web Services? - Hosted - Vendor Served - Mixed License - Pay for time - Setup in Days - Big migrations - IT = 7-9% of Rev. |
- Self-Managed - Manual - Single-Tenant - Few Web Services - On Premise - Self-Serve - Perpetual License - Pay for everything - Setup in Weeks - Big migrations - IT = 7-9% of Rev. |
| APPLICATIONS |
Software as a service |
Hosted Apps |
Installed Apps |
| Mobile Payments |
Mobio |
||
| Social media content companies |
NowPublic |
||
| Social applications |
Wantsa Eqo |
||
| Social Networks |
Tyze (Facebook) |
||
| Social Media Client Tools |
Hootsuite |
||
| Gaming |
EcoBuddies FitBrains |
||
| Conferencing Tools |
Mingleverse Meeting Wizard |
||
|
File backup, sharing, access |
|
|
|
| Document collaboration |
(Google Docs) |
||
|
Email / Mgmt |
(Google Email) |
(Hosted Exchange) |
Exchange in-house |
| Document routing and workflow and approvals |
Recombo Vitrium |
||
|
Customer Relationship Mgmt (CRM) & Sales Force Automation (SFA) |
(Salesforce.com) |
|
(Goldmine ACT!) |
| Mobile functionality |
Tagga Quickmobile |
||
|
Marketing & PR Applications |
|
|
|
| Partner Relationship Management (PRM) |
PartnerPedia |
||
|
Service / Support / Help Desk |
|
|
|
|
Prof. Services Automation (PSA) and Project Management (PM) |
(Quick Arrow) |
||
|
HR Management (HRM) |
(Workday) |
|
|
| Municipal Applications |
BasicGov |
||
|
Spend & Expense Management |
|
|
|
| Online Research Software |
Vision Critical |
||
|
Business Intelligence & Reporting |
(Business Objects) (Pentaho) |
||
| Performance Management |
Visible Strategies |
||
|
Business apps – other |
|
|
|
| Database applications |
DabbleDB |
||
|
Large Data Set Analytics |
(Hadoop) |
(Hadoop) |
|
| Finance – Accounts Payable |
Beanbills |
||
|
Finance & Accounting |
|
|
|
| Energy & Resource Monitoring |
Pulse Energy Carbon Networks |
||
|
ERP-Other |
|
|
|
|
Security applications (end-user) |
|
||
|
IT Mgmt application |
|
|
|
|
Desktop as a service |
|
|
|
|
Application Marketplace |
|
|
|
| PLATFORMS |
Platform as a service |
Hosted Platforms |
Internal Platforms |
|
Platform Name |
(Force.com) (Microsoft Azure) |
|
|
| Ecommerce gateways, subscription billing |
Monexa |
Hyperwallet ElasticPath |
ElasticPath |
|
BPM |
|
|
|
| Policy compliance |
Colony Layer7 |
Layer7 | |
| Website Construction Platform |
Ubertor |
Sitemasher |
|
|
Business Framework |
|
|
|
|
UI framework |
|
|
|
|
Application Scripting |
|
|
|
| Video Streaming |
LiveCast |
LiveCast | |
|
Content Management |
|||
|
Site hosting |
|
|
|
|
Web Analytics |
|
|
|
|
Mobile Application Delivery |
|
|
|
|
Application Integration |
|
|
|
|
Developer Sandbox |
|
|
|
|
Application/Middleware Provisioning |
|
|
|
|
Deployment Tools |
|
|
|
|
Testing Tools |
|
|
|
|
Development Tools |
|||
|
Code Performance Analytics |
|
|
|
|
Stack creation tools |
|
|
|
|
App/Web Server |
|
|
|
|
Portal Server |
|
|
|
|
Cacheing Servers |
|
|
|
|
Database – Unstructured |
|
|
|
|
Database – Relational |
|
|
|
|
Database Synchronization |
|
|
|
|
Web Services / SOA tools |
|
||
|
Frameworks |
|
|
|
| Security – Spam control |
Mailchannels |
||
|
DNS Services |
|
|
|
|
Billing, Payment, Metering |
|
|
|
|
Telephony |
|
|
|
|
Security / Identity Mgmt |
|
||
|
Operating System |
|
|
|
| INFRASTRUCTURE |
Infrastructure as a service |
Hosted Infrastructure |
Internally hosted infrastructure |
|
Infrastructure Name |
(Force.com) (Amazon Web Services) (Rackspace Cloud) (Microsoft Azure) |
(Rackspace) |
(Microsoft Azure Internal Services) |
|
Inside to outside bridging |
|
|
|
|
Cross Systems Mgmt |
|
|
|
|
Automation/Provisioning Platform |
|
||
|
Virtuallization Platform |
|
|
|
|
Grid Mgmt |
|
|
|
|
VM App Perf. Monitoring |
|
|
|
|
Config Mgmt |
|
|
|
|
Monitoring Services |
|
|
|
|
Compute Services |
|
|
|
|
Messaging/Queuing Services |
|
|
|
|
Edge Storage – CDN |
|
||
| Mobile Network Optimization |
Mobidia |
||
|
Primary Storage |
|
(Netapp) |
|
|
Secondary Storage |
|
(Netapp) |
|
|
Storage Compression |
(Netapp) |
||
| Network Perf. Mgmt |
Colony | Vineyard Networks Apparent Networks |
|
|
Load Balancers |
|
|
|
|
Networking |
|
|
|
|
Firewalls |
|
|
|
Read more: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/bcs-cloud-computing-ecosystem-a-comprehensive-list#ixzz0gYXCbMKm
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RELIACLOUD JOINS THE RANKS OF AMAZON AND RACKSPACE
Feb 24th
ReliaCloud and enStratus Team Up to Present CloudCamp Events and
Cloud Computing Webinar for IT Directors
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (February 24, 2010) – ReliaCloud, the new service that offers small-to-medium-sized enterprises cloud computing servers and storage space, has announced a new partnership with enStratus, a national cloud management platform that delivers governance for enterprise applications in the cloud. Together ReliaCloud and enStratus offer companies a seamless, manageable cloud computing service. The two organizations are also joining forces to sponsor 2010 CloudCamp events and an April 7, 2010, webinar to educate information technology professionals about the business advantages of using cloud computing.
“We are thrilled to offer the enStratus solution to ReliaCloud customers,” said Jason Baker, chief technology officer for ReliaCloud. “The highly regarded management platform and experience in cloud security and availability management at enStratus is invaluable to regulation-heavy businesses or enterprises that are concerned about reliability and business continuity.”
To go beyond basic cloud computing service, ReliaCloud customers now have access to a suite of software management tools from enStratus that are also used with Amazon Web Services, Rackspace and Microsoft Azure platforms to maximize:
- Security – enStratus has a patent-pending security architecture that ensures separation of security keys from encrypted data and provides advanced user management and activity logs for compliance;
- Reliability – Automated management tools, auto-recovery engine and unique clustering capabilities that minimize human error and enable support of service level agreements up to 99.9999 percent; and
- Cloud Independence – enStratus provides business continuity through cloud-independent backups as well as cross-cloud disaster recovery.
“enStratus is pleased to add ReliaCloud to its supported list of cloud providers,” says George Reese, chief technology officer of enStratus. “We’re confident that ReliaCloud is ready to serve IT directors who are seeking a reliable and secure partner that they can trust in the cloud.”
In addition to launching their affiliation, ReliaCloud and enStratus are hosting the Minneapolis CloudCamp on Tuesday, March 2, which is a local gathering of early cloud computing adopters who want to exchange ideas on the evolving topic. Other upcoming 2010 regional CloudCamps are taking place on Friday, March 5, in Chicago; Tuesday, March 16, in Philadelphia; Tuesday, March 23, in Washington, DC and Tuesday, May 25, in Denver. For more details about a specific CloudCamp go to www.cloudcamp.org.
To continue cloud computing education efforts, ReliaCloud and enStratus are also hosting a webinar on Wednesday, April 7, 2010, for IT directors and chief technology officers who want to learn what cloud computing can do for their respective businesses and hear examples of success stories. The webinar will feature Jason Baker from ReliaCloud and George Reese from enStratus. More details about the Webinar are posted on the ReliaCloud blog at www.reliacloud.com/blog.
