The last thing IT thinks they would ever outsource to the cloud is identity management. It didn't make sense to me either. But three years ago I didn't think the cloud was secure and I had to give this a bit of a rethink.
Here's how that one went. In the early days of the cloud, the providers were just getting their feet wet and their networks weren't that secure. But cloud providers are dedicated to the business of providing clouds. That means they have people and technology dedicated to securing those clouds. That is their business. A big provider like Amazon might have hundreds of security experts on staff.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/11/20121 comments
People have long been afraid to virtualize Exchange. I guess it's something about losing the entire corporate mail system or taking that phone call from an irate CEO (well, he can't e-mail you now, can he?) when he can't get his mail.
The cloud is a different story. If you lose the entire corporate mail system in the cloud, it's someone else's fault. And even Microsoft, through Office 360, now offers cloud e-mail.
There are some decent recent reasons to look at clouding Exchange, my reporting shows, not the least of which is the fact that no fewer than two readers, Dennis Barr and Bob Collins, had good experiences.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/29/20126 comments
Google has been in the cloud business for so long I could have sworn they already had an IaaS offering -- you know, pure raw computers with a simple version of some kind of Linux or something you can rent and process to your heart's content.
Google may be late to the game that Amazon and Rackspace basically own, but according to one Infoworld reviewer, Google done good.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/29/20122 comments
File-based storage has been the norm since there were files and there was storage. I tried to find the exact history but came up short. Better historians can fill in the details for us at [email protected].
In any event, when it comes to the cloud, that era may be coming to a close, at least if Caringo has anything to do with it. This cloud storage company thinks an object-based system is the way to go, and that file-based storage is simply not elastic and flexible enough for the cloud.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/21/20122 comments
The cloud is getting more and more worthy of your applications every day. But that doesn't mean it's perfect and that doesn't mean you should necessarily trust it. I guess the question is, which network is less perfect, the cloud provider's or yours? These are issues Margaret Dawson tackled in Cloud Computing: Panacea or Power Monger on Enterprise Systems Journal. Dawson is a vice president with cloud provider Symform.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/21/20120 comments
AppFog, a platform as a service offering (PaaS) offering formerly called PHP Fog, now works with Rackspace. New apps can be deployed on Rackspace and if you are not happy with your provider, they can be migrated over as well -- with no change to the code.
AppFog developers now have a host of targets, including Microsoft Windows Azure, HP and Amazon AWS.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/14/20126 comments
Only the most optimistic and misguided cloud salesperson would argue that the cloud is ready for every single app today. But let's face it, cloud vendors generally think and argue that their clouds can do more than they really can, reliably, securely and cheaply.
Instead of listening to cloud sales people, trust your instincts, research and years of experience.
Before stepping out on a cloud limb, take a close look at your environment. Pay particular attention to your network. If it's too slow, your cloud apps will be way too slow.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/14/20127 comments
Dedicated SaaS vendors used to say moving to their model was a no-brainer. You'd save on all those infrastructure costs and free IT staffers to do other things (and sometimes wink as those other things were often collecting unemployment). On-premises vendors used to say their model was a no-brainer. You control your infrastructure, it is more secure, and SaaS simply can't perform. And why would you want to pay every month for software you could simply own outright?
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Posted by Doug Barney on 07/31/20122 comments
One thing IT always says when objecting to the cloud is lack of control. IT can control the data center, it can't control the cloud. Usually this concerns security -- you can't protect what you can't control. Sometimes it concerns the data itself -- can you trust that it will always be there if you can't trust that the cloud provider will always be there? And there is performance. IT can control performance if it can control the network and define fast channels everywhere.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 07/31/20120 comments
Microsoft Azure keeps growing into a fuller and fuller cloud platform. The latest addition is what sounds actually like a narrow piece of function, Windows Azure Active Directory with the unfortunate acronym WAAD.
This WAAD, first shown last month in a developer preview, supports directory services such as identity management and will eventually be WAADed up into Azure itself.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 07/24/20125 comments
As CEO of VMware, Paul Maritz led the company into the world of private clouds, transforming a largely hypervisor-driven concern into a true platform player. And for this Maritz was replaced by one of its own, Pat Gelsinger, who served as COO at VMware parent EMC. My guess? EMC wants to exert more control over the largely independent VMware.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 07/24/20122 comments
I may be naïve, but I find it hard to believe that malware (especially automated malware) in these days of layered protection, can steal millions and millions of dollars from highly successful financial institutions.
But that is precisely the claim of McAfee and Guardian Analytics, who just published a report on the subject that printed loss figures (but didn't name the names of those companies who got hacked).
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Posted by Doug Barney on 07/17/20126 comments