GMO Cloud

How Cloud Computing Was Instrumental to Facebook’s Growth

There is no doubt that Facebook today has become a typical example of how a small start-up can grow into a household brand. However, few realize that cloud computing played a significant part in Facebook’s rapid growth. Cloud technology did not only encourage the expansion of Facebook, but constantly contributed to the social network company’s environmental conservation policies.

The success story of Facebook is closely related to the enviable development in Data Center services. Previously, the operators of Data Centers were constantly troubled about how to manage ever-increasing amounts of servers and clients. Back then, Data Centers reportedly consumed about 30 billion watts of electricity – equal to 30 nuclear plants. Sadly, only 6 to 12 percent of this amount of energy was actually used in computing activities. The rest merely created environmental pollution. Running those Data Centers then was considered environmentally unfriendly and unprofitable. But that changed dramatically with cloud.

In 2006, Facebook housed its several servers in a server site in California. The company struggled to manage its mere 10 million users then and faced serious problems as its servers were overwhelmed by user requirements.

Facebook’s groups of computer servers that were meant to process, store and retrieve information produced from members’ accounts almost suffered sudden meltdown. According to Jeff Rothschild, Facebook VP of Technology, to arrest this dangerous situation: “We cleaned out all of the Walgreens in the area to blast cool air at the equipment and prevent the Web site from going down.” He urged the employees of the company to rush around and purchase as many fans as possible to achieve this feat.

Now with one billion profiles and counting, Facebook has finally resolved this headache by entirely moving its myriad of operations to the cloud. Facebook users have been able to enjoy uninterrupted operations and the company has created an environmentally-friendly ethic.

What could have happened to Facebook’s innovative image had its operations were disrupted for days? How would the company have gained the reputation of being energy-saving and environmentally-friendly? How could Facebook have saved on the energy wastage that occurred in its operations before and turn that to optimum performance and profitability?

The answer to these questions: cloud computing does it all. If you want to protect the environment and have more freedom to innovate, you can do far worse than cloud.

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About the Guest Author:

Jerry Olasakinju, a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree holder, is a passionate researcher and writer whose interest in everything computing is unparalleled. He blogs about his literary works at http://jerryolasakinju.blogspot.jp/

How Should an Enterprise Select a VoIP Provider?

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has existed for over a decade now. It has created opportunities for people to communicate over distances via the internet, saving them a fortune in telephone bills. VoIP-based services are used extensively by business enterprises today as they seek lower costs through virtualization.

Using a VoIP-based communication system in your business has advantages.

First, you do not have to change your local phone number as VoIP is not based on your normal telephone line. You can communicate with your customers or with your employees through an intra-enterprise VoIP right from any internet-connected device. Today internet speeds have shot up to such a level that audio and video are better quality than telephone.

Automation within your customer contact system is made possible by VOIP. You can set up an automated response for a customer call directing him or her to the concerned department automatically, thereby reducing service time and delay while providing better satisfaction.

Furthermore, VoIP-based employee communication systems are scalable. When a new employee joins the team, you do not have to assign a new telephone number – simply a VoIP extension!

Automation largely reduces service time which would translate into great savings because more satisfied customers enhance the brand’s image. However, it is unwise to choose any VoIP system without conducting a detailed study of business requirements as well as the service provided by the VoIP vendor. The following criteria should be adhered to:

Flexible Service Plan:

This is a vital norm as your business only needs what it requires – nothing more, nothing less. The provider should offer whatever services your business needs: international call management, intra-organizational calls, and much more. Choose a specific business plan that offers you with enough minutes of service to suit organizational support and infrastructure budget.

Features:

Service providers offer more utility features such as call-queuing systems, mobile-forwarding applications that direct the calls to your mobile, and several other specific call features.

Usability:

The VoIP system should be easily integrated into your business environment.

Reliability of Network:

Losing a live call due to network errors is something an enterprise cannot tolerate especially with tight deadlines. Ascertain the network infrastructure of your VoIP service provider to ensure that it is full-proof.

Support:

Any issues or faults that may arise in VoIP should be rectified ASAP because any lengthy disruption to customer service for will seriously affect brand image. The service provider should give reliable assistance and support for VoIP products.

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About the Guest Author:

Mandira Srivastava is a fulltime freelance writer who specializes in technology, health and fitness, politics, and financial writing. Equipped with degree of mass communication and having worked for both private and corporate clients, I have experience meeting a wide range of writing requirements and styles.

Graphics Card Manufacturers Foresee the Future of Gaming In the Cloud

Although development news involving OnLive and Gaikai, two pioneer cloud gaming service providers, has not been prominent lately, cloud gaming is still these powerhouses are considered by most experts to be the future of this industry. This is because they solve the main issues that have plagued PC gaming since its beginnings: Software piracy and the high cost of hardware and upgrades on the user end.

The technology for cloud gaming is already here but the potential for the future is still far from being realized. With a few tweaks to their business model, cloud gaming service providers can make gains in this market. Hardware manufacturers and developers have started to bet on cloud gaming, creating exciting new products for 2013. This is especially true for graphics card manufacturers, particularly Nvidia who have pushed the envelope in developing graphics cards specifically towards cloud gaming servers.

What makes cloud gaming services attractive?

Only a few years ago, the idea of computing games at a data center and allowing users to log in from any location started to gain traction. When cloud service providers started to adapt their technology to gaming, this spurred more interest on the part of graphics card companies.

Graphics card manufacturers now have the potential to influence television gaming directly. The union of big screen gaming and high-end PC processing and cloud computing sets a clear path for the future. While these companies have supported television gaming by manufacturing components for consoles, this more direct approach allows more freedom to innovate.

High-end graphics card used in both domestic and public clouds

This kind of cloud gaming mostly involves high-end graphics cards located in data centers streaming to end users’ televisions or terminals. Many graphics card manufacturers are also looking at creating home-server based graphics cards that allow users to rely on their own gaming computer system for streaming different screens within a single home.

This market is particularly attractive for graphics card manufacturers because it solves their main problem of achieving cross-platform compatibility. Graphics cards are notorious for having multiple releases and versions dealing with idiosyncrasies of specific platforms, oft making debugging, installation and customer support a nightmare. However, by using the cloud gaming model, companies can now create graphics cards specifically for a particular hardware setup and platform which is then streamed to a variety of platforms (including mobile phones and tablets).

Coming up with possible financing models for the future of cloud gaming

It is possible that, in future, new, more efficient models for organizing the cloud gaming industry could arise. On one level, IaaS providers may operate data centers and be charged with providing the capacity for high-end GPUs without actually providing this kind of hardware. Graphics card manufacturers may start providing graphics processing power on an HaaS basis that could be layered on top of that. Finally, companies looking to distribute games using the cloud would use these two services in order to provide their own SaaS packages.

This model may provide companies with a clear business model for financing such systems. The main problem that needs to be solved is one of finding financing models – the technology exists already.

Graphics cards manufacturers like Nvidia and AMD are putting considerable resources into developing cloud-focused strategies. While, initially, some graphics cards companies balked at the idea of reducing their direct sales to gamers, now they are starting to realize that there is a positive tradeoff by selling their products to data centers. This expands the number of gamers and attracts new consumers in unprecedented numbers. PC gaming has always had a high entry barrier. However, with PC gamers now having access to games from any device, a huge untapped market has opened up.

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About the Guest Author:

Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.

PaaS Comes With Distinct Responsibilities

Platform-as-a-Service is where the most complex work in the cloud is happening. Increasingly mission-critical applications are being ported to the cloud, bringing emphasis back to basic principles of computer science and software engineering. In many cases, operators may only be interested in getting the application up and running, but shortcuts taken in early stages will cause major problems if the application is to expand later and connect to others – many of whom may be residing in clouds belonging to customers, clients and maybe competitors.

The importance of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) cannot be over-emphasized. Implementation will lead to applications that are well-governed, shared, able to expand and language-independent. Such an application stack will also be stable and more secure, with SOA ensuring no silos are created. Silos lead to wasted effort, duplication of data and restricted growth. Good governance of cloud apps is important because:

• Using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) means well-made application programs made by professionals. However, on the PaaS model, there is scope for improperly constructed applications.

 

• Following the PaaS model, you get a ready-to-use server platform of the configuration you want. After hiring such an instance, you still need to create programs used on this platform.

 

• With a large number of tools being available, creating applications that reside on platforms hired on cloud is becoming easy. Just as a large number of visual programming languages created a breed of amateur programmers who could automate basic tasks with ease, it is becoming possible to create programs for use in the cloud that would perform most common functions with ease. Hiring of servers with specified configurations is not difficult and we are beginning to see many applications that do not follow strict rules of cloud-based application engineering and SOA.

 

Another important issue is the calculation of Return on Investment (ROI). Once again, the PaaS model gives you certain responsibilities in this regard. Using the SaaS model, however, will give you fairly well-documented ROI figures. This needs to be calculated for PaaS application stacks. You would use Platform as a Service only if existing applications do not meet your requirements. Therefore you are faced with the problem of calculating the ROI of niche programs.

Cloud ROI is composed of 3 major benefit areas:

1. Cost Reduction

 

2. Productivity Enhancement

 

3. Revenue Transformation

 

Cost reduction -  In a typical case, the transition to a cloud resulted in the reduction of servers from 82 to 11. Racks reduced from 11 to 1, there were 50% savings in capital expenditure and 80% savings in operating expenditure. There is an immediate reduction in savings on personnel, which can be huge as more than two thirds of a typical IT budget is typically spent on manpower.  There are significant savings in power and cooling requirements as well.

Productivity enhancement – The cloud gives far greater stability compared to on-premise hosted systems. An extreme example was provided in the case of super storm Sandy. While traditional, on-premise systems in affected areas had to shut down leading to major revenue-loss, cloud-based systems merely shifted their entire application stacks to data centers in other zones and continued operations normally.

Revenue transformation – Prior to cloud computing, most of your IT expenditure (less manpower costs) was capital expenditure. In the cloud model, this is generally operating expenditure. The pay-as-you-go model fits very well in the operating expenditure mold.

PaaS gives you the flexibility to create applications that fit your niche area perfectly. Calculation of RoI is critical in the governance of your PaaS application stack, bringing a more structured approach to writing applications.

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About the Guest Author:

Sanjay Srivastava has been active in computing infrastructure and has participated in major projects on cloud computing, networking, VoIP and in creation of applications running over distributed databases. Due to a military background, his focus has always been on stability and availability of infrastructure. Sanjay was the Director of Information Technology in a major enterprise and managed the transition from legacy software to fully networked operations using private cloud infrastructure. He now writes extensively on cloud computing and networking and is about to move to his farm in Central India where he plans to use cloud computing and modern technology to improve the lives of rural folk in India.

Hybrid Distribution Strategy Of Japan’s Social Gaming Companies

The two main social gaming companies in Japan, GREE and DeNA, use a hybrid app and browser distribution strategy that allows them to avoid the popular app stores, but using multiple platforms for their products. For example, GREE has browser-based products, among the most common for Japanese feature phones. iOS and Android apps and browser-based games also exist for multiple smartphones.

Avoiding Western distribution methods

Why do Japanese social gaming companies avoid the iPhone App Store and Google Play for their distribution strategies? The main reason is the thirty percent cut that Google and Apple take on all app sales… plus subsequent revenue! Japanese iPhone users can pay for games and other services directly through their carrier. This kind of distribution strategy works well in Japan, the main advantages being:

1. Avoiding profit cuts from third party distributors.

 

2. Easier porting from one generation to another, allowing companies to bring back games that were a hit on older phones.

 

3. Browser based products allow easier cross platform gaming.

 

However, these companies have avoided using web-based distribution outside of Japan… until now. GREE recently announced that they will expand their platform’s compatibility with HTML5. This attempt to avoid going through Apple and Google distribution may not, however, prove successful in the international market. Some market experts have expressed skepticism about this move, considering that HTML5 is not yet practical or ready for gaming. Some of the most popular mobile games today require native apps, as a browser-based model simply cannot support them. In Japan, the newest games are only in app form while those using browser based gaming are from previous generations.

Hybrid distribution outside of Japan?

Many of the hybrid advantages for customers in Japan may not be available on the international market. Late entry will not help them. Although these companies promote the convenience of paying for games through mobile carriers, most gamers outside of Japan are already accustomed to paying via the iPhone App Market or Google Play. These two companies already have millions of users and credit card profiles in their files. In fact, Google already allows customers to pay for apps through their carrier in the US and Japan itself.

One of the main disadvantages of the hybrid gaming model outside of Japan is that it means creating two versions of games when a single one can work. It requires developing both an app and browser version of popular games. Despite the hybrid distribution strategy being highly effective in Japan, no mobile gaming platform has been able to make a dent in Apple and Google’s absolute domination of the market.

The fact that Japanese social gaming companies have also been slow to integrate Western social media networks into their platforms also works against them. Moves toward a hybrid distribution model also draw unwanted attention from Apple and Google. By not recommending games using this model they are closing off millions of potential customers while making it more difficult for companies to establish their hybrid distribution strategy. Western social gaming companies wanting to break into the Japanese market should be aware of this unique distribution model in Japan.

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 and Twitter.

About the Guest Author:

Nida Rasheed is a freelance writer and owner of an outsourcing company, Nida often finds herself wanting to write about the subjects that are closest to her heart. She lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and can be found on Twitter @nidarasheed.