GMO Cloud

What lies behind the Cloud?

It started as an academic pastime for me. Is there a standard definition of cloud computing? You would be surprised to know that I did not get a clear answer even though I tried all kinds of search with different keywords. The conclusion I have reached is that cloud technology means different things to different people.

More about boasting about great people running great cloud companies

I don’t want to seem like a man on a mission to criticize others, but the feeling I get is that cloud computing is made to look like it’s for big players, huge diversified companies and for those who visualize thousands of servers churning out their zillion of bits of data.

What I found on the net was that Salesforce has grown leaps and bound because of the visionary owners who started off from their garage. Doesn’t this look familiar? I thought even Microsoft began their humble career from a garage. But what does that tell me about cloud computing? Nothing, I tried to search with other smart keywords and landed up with the great Jeff Bezos and Amazon. It seems that Amazon leapt into the cloud straight from their bookstore (which is what Amazon started off as). There are praises galore about Jeff competing with software giant like Microsoft and search master like Google and beating them both. Good for Amazon, I will say. But what’s in it for me? I mean, I am a small fry, trying to made do with meagre resources and running a Pop and Mom store online. Why should I go for the Amazons and Googles of this world?

The hype around big clouds is frightening

The conclusion I have reached is that there is too much of hype about Amazon, Azure and Salesforce. I don’t want to belittle anyone, but it’s a question of scale. Amazon Web Services and others of its ilk have made it big because they have mastered the art of big numbers. They are big, very big and that’s their major advantage. But for me such a large scale is meaningless. When I go to AWS, I get a feeling that I am about to scale the Great Wall of China. But what I want is a humble cloud where I can put my meagre belongings and web pages and do it at a reasonable cost. I don’t want overheads and technical staff eating into my profits. With cloud providers like Amazon, I get a feeling that I need some expert technical guy who would cost a bomb to look after my website on the cloud. The whole thing is frustrating. I am told that I will save money if I move into a cloud but it looks otherwise. Is there a cloud provider who would show me the savings and still reduce my overheads?

Is small beautiful?

It may come as a surprise but the internet is swamped by big cloud players and their triumphs. It’s tough to get hold of a small cloud vendor. I should blame Google search for this because it seems to favour large cloud providers. I always knew that Google search is biased but this is simply absurd.

Conclusion

In my next post I will dwell on the search for small but efficient cloud vendors like GMO Cloud that offers one of the highest-performing, standards-based, flexible, and robust cloud solutions in the market. By then I would have done my bit of research on this phenomenon.

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Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Online Marketing And The Cloud

Let’s face it – in the end what matters is the sale. Every one of us is marketing something or the other. Sometimes we are marketing ourselves. But the online marketing scene is a bit different, in the sense that it no longer belongs to a select few geeks who understand the technology behind the digits. The new marketing paradigm belongs to the crowd, derives power from it and is driven by the common man – the prosumer – the producer as well as the consumer. Is it just a coincidence that cloud technology has developed as an adjunct to this new marketing paradigm? Let’s look at how things in the marketing realm are going to pan out in coming years.

Marketing in the Cloud

Digital marketing spend is likely to cross the $150 Billion mark in the year 2014. Out of this, a major chunk will be taken up by IaaS providers – those who will power the entire marketing scene with their virtual hardware and software. Traditional marketing will give way to digital in a big way. It’s predicted that over 25% of market share will be gobbled up by online media. These are significant numbers which compel us to give a second look at the digital marketplace.

Vital Ingredients of Digital Marketing

A major portion of online marketing spend will go on infrastructure, more specifically the cloud computing environment. Additionally, more money will be spent on creation, distribution and consumption of search optimized content. The internet backbone will become faster and cheaper leading to a widespread use of digital technology. The traditional advertisement channels will give way to informational content which will be informal and informative. This will require companies to develop suitable content marketing strategies. Content by itself will take a portion of future marketing expenditure. Of course, PPC and other modern online advertisement channels will continue to hold sway for some years to come. Eventually, all online marketing would focus on organic content development and distribution.

Social Media and Online Marketing

Never before has social media played such a vital role in marketing. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have started impinging on marketing strategies. A significant number of companies have reported sales through social media sites. Video marketing, especially YouTube has become an important part of marketing strategy. All these social sites are built on cloud technology. Therefore, as we see bludgeoning growth in these social channels, the need for cloud infrastructure will go up, creating opportunities for those in this space.

Email Marketing, Newsletters and other Media Channels

The entire online marketing sphere will remain incomplete without the mention of email and distribution of information through digital brochures, fliers and newsletters. The email engine is a powerful medium which combines well with other online media campaigns. Email marketing consumes an enormous amount of bandwidth and requires huge infrastructure. This need can only be fulfilled by cloud technology.

With regards to bandwidth many IaaS vendors charge a minimum of $0.12/GB. But with GMO Cloud America, Inc. bandwidth is for free.

Conclusion

The future of cloud infrastructure is closely linked to developments in online marketing. The domino effect between the two is likely to result in massive infusion of new technology. This will primarily affect the way we create, distribute and consume content. Ultimately we may see hitherto unknown ways to market our products and services.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Why Every Small and Medium Sized Business Should Switch to Cloud Hosting

This is a guest posting by www.how2become.com

Cloud computing is internet-based computing that makes the whole process easy and convenient. Previously, most people ran programs or applications that were based on downloaded software, cloud computing allows people to access similar applications on the internet. There are many benefits in being able to do this. It is an affordable and high performance platform that helps build websites and applications which scale storage, servers, networking and more. Small & medium size businesses can benefit from switching to Cloud hosting in terms of saving money and less capital investment on traditional IT systems. It has been predicted that by 2014, small businesses will spend at least US$100 billion on cloud computing services. Cloud allows small businesses to increase efficiency and improve cash flow.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

If a small business needs more than the standard bandwidth, cloud based services can immediately meet the needs due to the extensive capacity of its remote servers. When companies depend on cloud based services, they are no more in need of disaster recovery plans. Most issues are taken care of faster. Businesses that use cloud are also able to resolve most issues at least a couple of hours faster than those which do not use cloud services. It has also been found that mid-sized businesses are able to deal with the problem within 50% less time required by larger businesses. In this day and age where speed counts, there is no question the benefits of cloud computing can’t be ignored.

Cloud also frees up the time and resources of the customer to do other tasks. These pay as you go services do not call for capital expenditure. As the services can be deployed faster, the project startup costs are nominal and ongoing operating expenses predictable. It allows you to increase volume and productivity with less people. Also, less 1-on-1 training is needed since it takes fewer people to do their job and gives a faster learning curve for system-related issues.

Cloud computing enhances collaboration by allowing employees to synchronize and work on shared apps and documents, it allows users to follow colleagues and records for receiving real time updates. It has been surveyed that small businesses that invest in collaboration technology experience a 400% return on investment. It allows you to pay weekly, quarterly or yearly based on demand. It allows you to spend less money on technology infrastructure. These types of investments are hard to beat.

Cloud allows employees to work virtually from anywhere with flexibility, thus enhancing their productivity and efficiency. 73% of knowledge workers have been seen to collaborate with workers in different regions and time zones through cloud computing. This allows you to globalize your workforce for less money; all they need is an internet connection.

The absence of cloud would call for workers to send files back and forth through email which means that only a single person can work on a file at a time. This would increase the time it takes to complete tasks drastically and creates a virtual red tape.

All the files can be placed at a single location, with everyone working from a principal copy. Employees can also chat with one another while making several changes in the file. All this strengthens collaboration which improves the bottom line of the business. You have access anytime you want, anywhere you want, it just flat out makes your life easier.

With cloud computing, you will not face problems even when your laptop or mobile device is misplaced. This is because you can still access the data, irrespective of what happens to the machine.

SMEs can access enterprise-class technology by allowing smaller businesses to act faster than their established competitors. Disaster management studies further prove that companies which do not use the cloud depend on tape backup methods and complex processes to recover.

If a small or medium sized business makes use of cloud computing, they only make use of the server space they need, thus reducing their carbon footprint. In fact, at least 30% less energy consumption and carbon emission is reduced with the cloud than using onsite servers. Almost 90% energy can be saved in the process.

The benefits of cloud can be summed up in a nutshell:

Cost effective: Reduced software, hardware, management and maintenance costs.

Convenient: Allows you to use efficient IT staff better while needing less people.

Simplicity: Increases employee productivity.

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About the Guest Author:

Richard McMunn is the founder of www.how2become.com and the author of this post. Richard spent 17 years in the Fire Service and now provides specialist recruitment training for those looking embark on a public sector career. You can also connect with https://twitter.com/how2become on Twitter.

The Cloud as a Game Changer

Till now, I have been giving a close look at cloud implementation. This post is more about how the cloud has changed the technology sector, especially those in the hardware side of the information technology business. The change according to me is more a tectonic shift which will dramatically transform the hosting landscape in the coming days. I am not talking about website owners adopting the cloud. I think we are on the verge of something much bigger, more revolutionary, more fundamental than we have been witness to in this century.

The switching, storage and other internet enabling technology

Look at Cisco. This hitherto hardware giant is trying to survive the cloud challenge but struggling. As we see more redundancy in datacentres, Cisco will encounter more problems. Let’s not forget that bigger giants have fallen. What about storage? An unknown pigmy called Zoolz, is giving away 100 GB of online storage for free. I call this dangerously disruptive technology. Forget the small guys; Google is planning a replacement for its workhorse Intel’s ARM technology. Google has tried its hand on developing hardware earlier, but we all know that it has not had such a spectacular entry into this arena.

These developments I am talking about may not directly impact on the future of cloud but in a way they are pointers to what kind of disruption we are likely to witness in the coming years.

File transfer, internet speed and animation studios

Animation essentially calls for transfer of huge files in the order of hundreds of GB each. This has created a massive roadblock in adopting cloud technology for animation business. I previously thought that this problem is insurmountable, but as usual I was wrong. I read recently that IBM is planning to acquire Aspera, which provides technology to move big data at lightning speed. Aspera uses a  patented technology which speeds up file transfer  – cutting a twenty six  hour transfer time of a 24 GB file, sent halfway around the world, whittled to a  bare thirty  seconds. This is what I call a game changer. I am not worried about this one company, but if they can do it, I am sure that many more such innovations are on the way. Imagine what this file transfer technology will do to the animation business. Everyone will adopt the cloud because the main bottleneck of file transfer will be removed.

Decline in PC sales

This is sad news. PC vendors are in the red and sales have dipped as never before. The internet has swallowed a huge chunk of PC business as users move to hand-held devices, tablets and mobiles to access the internet and do what they used to do earlier with a PC.  But there is a silver lining to this cloud. For example, Acer, a Taiwanese PC maker, is slowly adopting hardware cum software business model to compensate for the fall in sales. They are creating a combination of hardware and software in what the company is calling a “build your own cloud” or BYOC approach. It will be interesting to see how this strategy unfolds.

Conclusion

These are but a few examples of how shift in technology and new developments will nudge users to adopt cloud technology. There are many forces acting simultaneously and pushing users, vendors and businesses into the cloud. Let’s see what’s in store in 2014. Till then I wish everyone a very happy New Year.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.

Holiday Season, Online Stores and Cloud Technology – Part 3

Hank’s plight is not unique to him. There are hundreds of website owners and e-commerce stores who find themselves in a bind during the holiday season. On the one hand they look forward to humongous sales while on the other they have to ramp up their infrastructure and keep their fingers crossed – anything can happen during peak traffic. Now, in this era of sophistication and high technology, it really does not make sense to depend on your stars and good luck to carry you through the holiday season. But this was the case earlier. Cloud technology has stepped in to alleviate the problems faced by people like Hank.

Hank’s Cloud Solution

The main hurdle for Hank to migrate to a cloud based infrastructure was his own technical staff. His engineers were dead against such a move and argued that cloud technology was not yet mature and anyway it had too many security issues. Hank was told that his e-commerce enterprise would be robbed and he would be left with nothing but stray bits of cloud.

Overcoming this hurdle was tough but eventually he did decide to migrate after all. The primary reason for this decision was the flexibility of cloud platform. With the help of managed services provided by cloud provider, he was able to evaluate many hardware parameters which were hitherto Greek and Latin to him. Hank opted for a smaller cloud infrastructure vendor instead of going for big names for a reason – understanding their services was a complicated and complex task, much more than that of traditional server platform. Hank felt that the Amazon’s and Azure’s of the cloud community believed in serving only mega clients with huge technical staff and not people like him.

GMO Cloud America, Inc. may not be part of the big players however, when it comes to managed services, there are three types that are readily available in the market. These are security, monitoring and restoration, and setup services. These are all tailored to meet your needs.

Questions which a cloud vendor must answer upfront

The answers which Hank sought from his cloud vendor were simple:

Can I set the server load as per my convenience?

Can I do away with my existing technical staff?

How do you calculate server load in the cloud?

How does load balancing work in a cloud?

How much do I pay? Is the system of payment transparent?

Are there any hidden charges?

How do I ensure that my infrastructure does not fail due to heavy traffic?

In fact, any prospective cloud vendor should be able to answer these questions clearly.

Migrating applications and software        

Hank had been warned that the cloud hardware may not be compatible with the existing applications and software. Database connectivity was cited as a critical issue. However, ‘Hanking’ managed to migrate without a hitch. Hank felt that migration issues had been blown out of proportion.

Economy of scale for a cloud service

Another important observation was made by Hank. The cloud infrastructure became more economical as he added additional cloud instances. For example, he could now handle peak traffic which his website encountered during holiday season by adding instances dynamically and that too more economically, because he only paid for the services he used and not for idle infrastructure. What’s more, his website continued to perform optimally even when faced with a surge in traffic. The money he saved was a bonus.

Conclusion

The questions which Hank asked from prospective cloud vendors were crucial in discovering the right provider. The services must be transparent without any hidden costs. Managed cloud services are an ideal option for website owners like Hank.

Be Part of Our Cloud Conversation

Our articles are written to provide you with tools and information to meet your IT and cloud solution needs. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

About the Guest Author:

Sankarambadi Srinivasan, ‘Srini’, is a maverick writer, technopreneur, geek and online marketing enthusiast rolled into one. He began his career as a Naval weapon specialist. Later, he sold his maiden venture and became head of an offshore Database administration company in Mumbai. He moved on as Chief Technology Officer of one of the largest online entities, where he led consolidation of 300 online servers and introduced several Web 2.0 initiatives. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunication.