Tuesday 31 January 2012

Windows 8–The Release Dates–Will they deliver as planned…

 

The windows 8 dates

image

All looks to good on paper we are currently at shipping the public beta test version sometime in Feb 2k 12.  The wait from the public beta all the way to RTM is long one 180 days which kind of takes it to FY 13 Q1, Q2. By the way there still continuing x86 & x64 bit versions, surprisingly true.

And I will not be surprised if the actually shipping slips by a quarter Smile.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Ripping Apart The Cloud Computing Reference Architecture by IBM- WIP….

 

IBM has had this notorious reputation of trying to pull out something from thin air and call it “Reference Architecture” , twisted for the purpose of either embedding sales thought for there product without much rationale. This document is no different , they have taken SOA and extended to Cloud Reference Architecture. The feedback to the grey heads at IBM please smile you are on Jay Leno. The link to the document ARC 101 - Architecture Overview Diagram

IBM has been late to enter on the cloud bandwagon. It seemed to finally jumped in with its Smart Cloud Computing initiative pretty much piggy backing on Amazon suite. How could IBM stay away from writing a grand Reference Architecture which seemingly IBM’s sweet spot for last 3 decades.  Walking through the IBM’s Cloud Reference Architecture following some of my observations.

As always the first thing I read in an IBM Reference Architecture(RA) document excerpt

The Cloud Computing Reference Architecture is intended to be used as a blueprint / guide for architecting cloud implementations, driven by functional and non-functional requirements of the respective cloud implementation. Consequently, the CC RA should not be viewed as fine-granular deployment specification of just a single specific cloud implementation  “

As you dwell further in the document pass the initial sections suddenly out of the bolt of blue or the big blue throws in the old boys lingo “SOA” , Not surprisingly that’s one the favorite topic of IBM’s grey head “senior consultant” to go gaga over it. Having done the bit of lady gaga on SOA.

“Cloud and SOA Mix” Interesting weird.SOA has been around for a long time , a lot of organizations have implemented SOA within the ecosystem and outside to integrate with other partners, businesses so what’s the idea the IBM guys are trying portray here. Very confusing for any reader to understand but here the straight forward way of looking at what IBM grey heads are talking about

Most companies have built rich SOA based platforms buying IBM complete crap of ESB and the loads of products around that how do I see the vision in the cloud, So here is the answer the Hybrid Cloud Model will continue stretch your IBM ecosystem into cloud . Cloud computing enables this paradigm by adding cloud characteristics to the services being delivered & consumed.  So what’s the big difference the cloud “alities” have been introduced into the platform and given it back to the customer & IBM makes money, smart dollars oops sorry I meant smart cloud computing.

Please IBM give me something new…..

Next the document jumps on talking about definition of SOA from an open group stand point of view. How more confusing can you get……

The entire organization ecosystem would practice SOA, have ESB and have number of other business application, moving all of this to the cloud and assuming the platform has the cloud “alities” inbuilt can make some sense, but this is likely to be the focal point for most organization , they have the option to move to private, public cloud. So IBM by upgrading its product stack to the cloud “alities” has manage to make some sense. Big Blue there needs to a more precise approach to migrating on premise to cloud & that what would appeal to most of the crowd not some SOA cloud jargon,

The document further goes interject the idea of SOA into cloud a document excerpt “If you need to understand the CCRA its important you understand relationship between SOA & Cloud”. I would tend to agree to a certain degree the Cloud stack is been built on the idea “SOA – ESB implementation used with the principles of multi tenancy and throwing virtualization, this statement will really throw a lot of cloud expert ranting that “this is complete crap”.

CCRA uses SOA to build on the Cloud Story , the different service model IAAS, PAAS , SAAS , BPAAS. If do look at a classic SOA – ESB implementation for an enterprise organization introduce virtualization and throw all the alities of cloud it is indeed the cloud, no debating.

CCRA uses SOA Reference Architecture provided by the Open Group as basic Architecture Building Block story and expand on it further duh… tell me something which I don’t know.

Saturday 21 January 2012

Cloud The Past Present & The Future

 

It’s always good to roll back a little and see what the so called experts have told in the near past and how has it really turned out , I happen to reading the 2009 prediction by network on top 10 cloud companies to watch out http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2009/ndc3/051809-cloud-companies-to-watch.html for. Well when the article was written the outlook towards cloud was more around the providers so I cant really blame the author of things really not going as expected.

Come 2010, 2011 the cloud companies have had a lot of learning’s come by between the reel and real , the so called pretty business report vs the actual moolah making machine.

Some excerpts snatched from the internet…. Yawk its for 2012 only

As 2011 begins to wind down, we can look back on the progress made over the last 11 months with a lot of pride. The market stepped significantly forward with big gains in adoption by leaders Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Rackspace, significant growth in the use of clouds for big data, training, test and development, the creation of landmark new services and the dawning of the App-Internet era. Cloud technologies matured nearly across the board as did transparency, security and best practice use and adoption. But there’s much more growth ahead as the cloud is no longer a toddler but has entered the awkward teenage years. And much as found in human development the cloud is now beginning to fight for its own identity, independence and place in society. The next few years will be a painful period of rebellion, defiance, exploration, experimentation and undoubtedly explosive creativity. While many of us would prefer our kids go from the cute pre-teen period straight to adulthood, we don’t become who we are without surviving the teenage years. For infrastructure & operations professionals, charged with bringing predictability to our company’s use of IT, this coming era of cloud computing will push us well outside of our comfort zone. We’ve all lived through market transitions like this one before but probably have forgotten that we were teens when the technologies we helped cement in place during that year were too. Cloud computing won’t play out exactly like client-server or the Internet era did, but there are strong similarities and the early years were the most painful. To that aim, it’s time to put our soothsayer’s hat back on and read the tarot for cloud in 2012. Here is what we expect over the next year and what you as the I&O parent should do about it.

1.       Shadow IT enters the light – deal with it. Tell me if this sounds familiar. A business leader invests in a new technology without the involvement of the IT team. He builds upon this investment creating new workflows, services and capabilities that become, he thinks, integral to doing business. Then the technology in question falls over. A frantic call comes in to the help desk that IT needs to take over the management and support of this “critical” application. Get ready for a lot more of this in 2012. Several I&O teams got this wakeup call in April 2011 when AWS had its well-publicized outage. While the I&O parent wanted to hold up this event and say, “See, I told you these services weren’t mature,” the developer's response was, “Well, I ain’t moving.” You can get ready for this by proactively engaging your developers and getting your hands dirty with these cloud services. Do it today.

2.       The uncool attempting to be cool – not cool. As a teen, you know it when you see it. Sadly many a marketer continues to try and latch onto a rebellious movement without the rebellion and just looks stupid. We have a name for this in the cloud market – cloudwashing. And sadly we’ve let more companies and I&O teams get away with this than we should. Expect that to stop in 2012 as the early adopters of cloud computing have enough experience now to see through these guises. In 2012, if your so-called cloud services aren’t highly standardized and automated capabilities delivering economies of scale, autonomy to the client and flexible cost control, you will become uncool. And in business that means unprofitable. Don’t let your private cloud efforts be uncool.

3.       A risky idea lands a big fish in jail. It’s a classic storyline that you can find any night on the Lifetime television network. A teen rebelling to show his independence pushes the limits going too far and ending up afoul of authority. Sadly, it’s the so-called good kids who draw the most attention when this happens. In 2012 we can almost count on the same playing out in the enterprise market. The most likely place will be an empowered business leader running afoul of compliancy laws which continue to evolve in arrears of technology advancement.  But that excuse won’t be a quality defense. You can prevent the two a.m. trip to bail out your empowered employees by getting in front of the issue through education and best practice sharing. Publish a cloud use policy today that states how your company can best use these new technologies, and write it using language that shows how to do it safely and encourages collaboration. Telling your teens don’t do cloud will just encourage misuse.

4.       Conservative leaders ban the cloud as unhealthy. Hollywood has taught us that you can’t ban dancing in rural Texas, but still conservative governments try. The reasoning is always the same – we are taking this action to protect our citizens and the community. While we don’t expect to see anyone try to outlaw cloud computing there’s already legislation underway in several countries to ban the use of cloud services not resident within that country. The USA Patriot Act had an initial chilling effect on international companies using cloud but led to strong overseas expansion in 2011. As the recession slides on, even the most successful cloud companies won’t be able to build data centers to bring their services into every country, and if your legislators think this means jobs then your country could be next. If your politicians start acting this way, make your voice heard. The Internet knows no bounds and neither should the cloud.

5.       The channel will face the music – reselling isn’t good enough anymore. For years I and my analyst brethren have been telling the value-added reseller market that they need to move away from revenue dependence on the resell of goods and services. Many have listened and now garner more revenue from consulting and unique intellectual property. Those who haven’t will get a serious wake-up call in 2012 – the cloud doesn’t need you. Cloud services are a direct-sell business and standardized, Internet-resident services don’t need local relationships to reach their customers. There’s nothing to install, customization is minimal and margins are thin and volume-based. For the channel to survive it must add value around cloud services and there’s plenty of opportunity to go around. As we’ve stated many times, while cloud services are standardized how each company uses them is not and that’s where all the opportunity lies. Just as I&O plays a role in supplementing the services provided by the cloud, the channel needs to provide expertise that’s hard to find (and hire) in-house.

6.       Cloud cred will matter. As we enter 2012 there are far more job openings for cloud experts than there are qualified candidates to fill them, and in 2012 this will become perhaps the biggest market growth inhibitor. And the hiring process is rapidly becoming untenable as hiring managers often don’t know what to look for and candidates are listing cloud experience on their resumes that they can’t actually back up. Businesses need signs of credibility and candidates need true training to fill this gap. HP and EMC have seized on this issue in Q4, both launching cloud training and certification programs for I&O professionals. A handful of universities have added cloud development courses (and even degrees) to their engineering schools. In 2012, get ready for an explosion in this market. But in the meantime, if you have true cloud credibility you will find other ways of telling the world...

7.       Cloud battles will showcase talent and advance best practices. You won’t have to go to 8 Mile to see it, but you won’t find it at CloudExpo either. Developers and operations professionals who are pushing the cloud limits are starting to show off their skills to their peers, but those who labor for brand names can’t do it in the public light, so they are finding other ways to showcase their skills. For every official corporate cloud project there is today, there are 2 to 3 innovative start-up or test and development projects being built by the same people. Some of these are simply showcases for their skills that can be shared with friends, built upon or attacked to make them better. They are often used as a test bed to drive enhancements to the corporate effort. But increasingly these micro-efforts are being used to back up claims on a resume or take its place. The biggest users of cloud computing are in the audience for these efforts and when they find one that is legit, the designer quickly finds a job offer in their in-box. These showcases are being privately shared today, and every talented cloud developer is looking to get noticed for their props. You can fuel this by sponsoring this activity in a hosted private cloud or within your public cloud tenancy. AWS  encourages it with its free-for-a-year very small VMs. The events market can fuel these efforts by creating unconferences for this purpose. Look for the first of these in 2012.

8.       Monkeys will go legit. Skateboarding used to be menacing to pedestrians and building managers until they built skate parks. Now Joe Citizen is safe to walk around and top skateboarders make millions. In the last several years, Netflix decided that disruptive behavior like this was a good thing and started menacing its developers with what it calls Chaos Monkeys, evil code crashers that invade its core services and take them down. These autobots got their thrill from goofy-footing over API calls, crashing executables and taking threads for thrill rides through endless loops. Its monkeys taught developers to code around the monkeys and the result was better code, higher uptime and leaner services. In the cloud, services are built over commodity infrastructure that is not only less reliable but expected to fail. If your code can’t handle this, it doesn’t belong in the skate park. In 2012, expect to see monkeys become a true part of the development process for cloud-targeted applications. Open source and at least one commercial monkey suite will come to market making all of us better and as a result...

9.       Your company will survive a major cloud outage. It happens to every cloud service. The sooner you learn to deal with cloud outages the better off you will be. If you have seen any Jackass movie you know that young people seem to be able to withstand an incredible amount of punishment. Put us old-line parents through the same and we might not come out of the hospital. Applications sadly hold to this metaphor. Pick up a traditional application from your data center and move it, unchanged to the cloud, and you are simply asking for trouble. This is why the cloud is dominated by new applications today. As you look to migrate more of your application portfolio to the cloud you will have to transition these applications to the new architecture, preparing them to survive component failures, service outages and “noisy neighbors.” As you gain experience with this you will start to identify the patterns of design and replication that get you past these annoyances. For every company that went down in the cloud last year there were a third as many who didn’t. Next year, that surviving company will be you. That’s when you will know you can invest more in the cloud. Which will mean…

10.   You will finally have to budget for public cloud spend. And this won’t be easy. Budgeting for your teen is a ridiculous challenge as you have to support their seemingly fickle swings between interests (basketball one day, band the next, a burgeoning rap career, then YouTube reality superstar after that) and the long-term costs of college and when they graduate and come home to live with you for ten more years. Budgeting for cloud is just as challenging  and requires I&O professionals to get comfortable with change. In IT we have had it easy thus far, as nearly every piece of technology could be bought outright or contracted long term – 3-5 years with a healthy discount for loyalty. Clouds are pay per use platforms and that’s a good thing as you don’t want to lock in your commitments to them because the use patterns will change over time. Long term, yes, you will be facing on-going cloud consumption bills and you can count on them being higher than you’d like. Right now, you can minimize costs by embracing cloud economics and working with your developers and business units to understand the cost models and how to leverage them most cost effectively. To do this, you have to engage with them on how they are using the cloud today, and through direct hands-on experience yourself, guide them on how to make better use of the cloud without incurring undo expenses.

While the idea of corporate IT being invaded by a bunch of teens may sound daunting, remember that you once were one yourself, as were the technologies you take for granted today. Think back on how you survived then, and making the most of cloud in 2012 will become clear and a lot less scary.        

Monday 16 January 2012

Cloud Continuation Series

 

Towards Consumerization is mantra from Gartner for 2k12 Cloud specific. Although the IT & P&L is moving out of the hands of the CTO's and is infact hottest topic of the debate - http://www.networkworld.com/supp/2011/20tech/index-252234.html. So whats the trend really looking like, This what Gartner has to say,

1)Low-cost cloud services will cannibalize up to 15% of top outsourcing players' revenue by 2015.

Just as low-cost airlines disrupted the transportation industry, the projected $1 trillion IT services market is facing further disruption from industrialized low-cost IT services (ILCS), which Gartner describes as "an emerging market force that will alter the common perceptions of pricing and value of IT services." Vendors will need to invest in and adopt a new cloud-based, industrialized services strategy, the research firm says.

I think this is wishful thinking,Airline is a bad example Gartner’s incomplete research really shows up here.

 

 

2. The investment bubble will burst for consumer social networks in 2013, and for enterprise social software companies in 2014.

In the consumer social network space, there's a large crop of vendors with overlapping features competing for a finite audience. In the enterprise market, small vendors are struggling to grow, consolidation is imminent, and big players such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Google and VMware are muscling in on the action, Gartner says. "While substantial excitement will be raised by private firms going public, valuations of smaller independent vendors will diminish as recognition sets in that the opportunities for market differentiation and fast growth has eroded."

Gartner is typically missing out the investment bubble pie includes the System Integrator’s & Services companies which indeed have the bulk of business in form the business ip. So kind of short sighted

 

3. At least 50% of enterprise email users will rely primarily on a browser, tablet or mobile client instead of a desktop client by 2016.

As the options for email clients continue to grow, the need for mobile device management platforms will soar and suppliers will be pressured to support more collaboration services, including instant messaging, Web conferencing, social networking and shared workspaces.

Missing again how many folks would want a limited capability on Single Window Interface like browser , MDI is something which will continue to connect with mainstream, what can happen “ I don’t care where my mail server is cloud or on premise I just need to access it from various clients”

 

4. Mobile application development projects targeting smartphones and tablets will outnumber native PC projects by a ratio of 4-to-1 by 2015.

"Smartphones and tablets represent more than 90 percent of the new net growth in device adoption for the coming four years, and increasing application platform capability across all classes of mobile phones is spurring a new frontier of innovation, particularly where mobile capabilities can be integrated with location, presence and social information to enhance the usefulness," Gartner says.

Murphy’s Law If Mobile Smart Phone is the way then it is & so is slate leading to displacement of PC’s

5.)40% of enterprises will make proof of independent security testing a precondition for using any type of cloud service by 2016.

Third-party testers won't be the only way for enterprises to evaluate cloud services for their security capabilities. Inspectors' certifications will become a viable alternative or complement to third-party testing, Gartner says. "This means that instead of requesting that a third-party security vendor conduct testing on the enterprise's behalf, the enterprise will be satisfied by a cloud provider's certificate stating that a reputable third-party security vendor has already tested its applications."

This is a good area for security companies to come up and sign for liability appetite. CA may sign up for the security SLA.

 

6. More than 50% of Global 1000 companies will have stored customer-sensitive data in the public cloud by year-end 2016.

Under pressure to reduce costs and operate more efficiently, more than 20% of organizations are already selectively storing customer-sensitive data in a hybrid cloud environment, Gartner says.

I think more than 50%

7. 35% of enterprise IT expenditures for most organizations will be managed outside the IT department's budget by 2015.

Business managers and individual employees are demanding more control over the IT expenditures related to their jobs. "CIOs will see some of their current budget simply reallocated to other areas of the business. In other cases, IT projects will be redefined as business projects with line-of-business managers in control," Gartner predicts.

I think more than 50%

 

8. 20% of Asia-sourced finished goods and assemblies consumed in the U.S. will shift to the Americas by 2015.

Many companies that serve the U.S. market will shift their sources of supply from Asia to the Americas, including Latin America, Canada and the U.S., thanks to political, environmental, economic and supply chain risks, Gartner says. "Except in cases where there is a unique manufacturing process or product intellectual property, most products are candidates to be relocated."

Wishful thinking Gartner please consider the cost of shifting these operations.

 

9. The financial impact of cybercrime will grow 10% per year through 2016, due to the continuing discovery of new vulnerabilities.

Growth in consumerization and cloud computing will lead to the introduction of new software vulnerabilities and attack methods by financially motivated hackers, Gartner warns. "The combination of new vulnerabilities and more targeted attacks will lead to continued growth in bottom-line financial impact because of successful cyber attacks."

Stricter SLA’s for security means high risk insurance and 10% cybercrime is kind of low.

 

10. The prices for 80% of cloud services will include a global energy surcharge by 2015.

Some cloud data center operators already include an energy surcharge in their pricing package, and Gartner expects to see more providers follow suit. Business and IT leaders should be prepared to see it included in future cloud service contracts.

There will be a Green Tax coming soon

11. More than 85% of Fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage through 2015.

Most organizations are in no shape to handle the technical and management challenges posed by big data, Gartner says. "Collecting and analyzing the data is not enough -- it must be presented in a timely fashion so that decisions are made as a direct consequence that have a material impact on the productivity, profitability or efficiency of the organization." As a result, most won't be able to exploit available data for competitive advantage.

Big Data – Please analyze it in context with realism

 

For more details, check out Gartner's report, "Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users, 2012 and Beyond: Control Slips Away."

Friday 13 January 2012

Worst Kept Secrets of the Big 4

The headline told the story, as good headlines often do. "What Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), IBM (NYSE: IBM) and SAP (NYSE: SAP) Don't Tell Customers" identifies, in Gaughan's opinion, the primary strategies or approaches to the market employed by the big four software companies. There's room to quibble with this, but there are also elements of truth. I hope you'll click the link and read the rather short piece; here are the major takeaways:
  • Microsoft mainly wants to protect its Windows and Office franchises.
  • Oracle products don't really work well together.
  • IBM wants to take over your IT strategy.
  • SAP confuses customers with pricing.
Complete article - http://www.technewsworld.com/story/73816.html

Domain Design- Finally getting a greater Adoption

Domain Design & Architecture have been a avid follower on this topic some good work coming our way
http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/domain-driven-design-quickly


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd419654.aspx

Lync Mobile on Android

Free Lync Mobile Clients on Android , Apple iOS, finally the inevitable is happening acknowledging Android & Apple iOS step one MSFT seems to the first thing correct.
http://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/product-roadmaps/15-enterprise-software-roadmap/3345-template-for-new-article-brief.html