June is cloud month, is this strategic cumulo stratus real?
April 6, 2011
The time is right for cloud computing – discuss. The hype of cloud computing launch fever has (to some degree) settled down to a pleasing cloudscape of strategic cumulo stratos has it not?
So why should you look skyward to the cloud this summer.
Firstly – and most importantly, the deployment of truly workable hybrid clouds is starting to become the new norm. The combination of public cloud efficiency matched with private cloud security makes so much sense that we are perhaps just witnessing phase #1 of its total evolution; there is much more to come.
Secondly – and most of the reason for this blog if I am honest; there’s a whole heap of cloud conferences, conventions, symposiums (call that what you will) scheduled for the early summer of 2011.
6 – 9 June – is the 8th International Cloud Expo – in New York.
http://cloudcomputingexpo.com/
22 – 23 June – is the 4th Structure 2001 event (this is GigaOm’s cloud event) – in San Francisco
http://event.gigaom.com/structure/
21 – 22 June – is the 3rd Cloud Computing World Forum – held in London
http://www.cloudwf.com/
Backing up this kind of content is the fact that companies like Rackspace are saying that the interest of small- to medium-sized businesses has been piqued by the computing power of the cloud in recent years — and uptake among such firms will continue, resulting in nearly 40 per cent of SMBs paying for cloud services by 2014.
Rackspace is quoting a survey – conducted by market research firm Edge Strategies and collecting data from across 16 countries, including the UK, the USA, several European countries and emerging economies China and India – which polled businesses with fewer than 250 employees and found 39 per cent of them expected to be paying for at least one cloud service in three years’ time.
So – anyone attending these events might do well to ask for customer case study materials. Although these can be somewhat dry at the best of times. We are looking for what I would call EMPIRICAL PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION BY REAL WORLD PRACTITIONERS.
So let’s not let the vendors simply cloud the issue eh?
Sorry – worst technical pun I have ever made.