December 21st, 2012
Evolution of 3D rendering service market and how Cloud Computing promises to deliver more in this unique market segment
3D rendering is something that the modern world is accustomed to frequently especially in the construction field where today’s home makers often showcase an extravagant 3D model to their customers before finalizing on a particular architecture and interior design plan.
Another area where rendering proves to be a vital asset is in the film industry and especially the Hollywood industry. The biggest testimonials to the potential of 3D rendering is the roaring success of movies like Avatar and Transformers, which would not have made it into the spotlight, if this technology had not been advanced to the level we see it today.
But architectural 3D rendering service market is where most of the action happens as per a recent study by TechNavio which has predicted that on a global scale the rate of growth of 3D architectural rendering would be over 35 per cent in the time gap of 2011-2015.
The survey was more biased towards the American market which has shown an increasing appetite for 3D rendering in architecture. Top brass from TechNavio have commented on the insights of the survey by saying that today 3D rendering service providers are moving away from conventional options offered to customers and are now developing packaged solutions which customers can choose as per their requirement. Even Value Added Services are being offered by some service providers.
Marketing efforts of leading construction providers are being given a boost thanks to new age 3D rendering which showcases a fully conceptualized view of a prospective client’s future home. It is possible to model every part of a building and thus getting approval for the whole project happens only after the client is happy in all perspectives.
Other key areas where rendering services are showing their advantages might include the ones already mentioned above i.e. the film industry and also the gaming industry. Looking into the future, service providers are trying to explore new channels of service delivery and one promising methodology that is starting to showcase its potential in the rendering service market is cloud computing.
The gaming industry for instance has now started to shift towards cloud based online gaming environments wherein the actual user is only being provided a rendered image or interface of the game for playing at his comfort level while all the heavy duty graphic processing works and game performance analysis takes place on powerful cloud servers resting in data centers globally. Users only need to play a game remotely with their browser or with perhaps an interface that requires minimal hardware configurations on your system. The rest is taken care of by the cloud based gaming service.
The whole concept behind gaming on the cloud is streaming a huge dataflow onto your remote PC via the internet courtesy of an up and running delivery model i.e. a cloud that the game service provider has offered you with.
Taking 3D rendered content to the masses is another area where cloud computing starts to make heads turn as it provides better 3D farm rendering to folks who are currently unable to do so by themselves owing to limited hardware resources on their individual system. This means that even smaller companies in the film and animation industry as well as the construction industry can develop 3D models as well as work in 3D rendering environments without heavy capital expenditure and powerful resources.
With faster cloud services, achieving 3D rendering from your local PC connected to a cloud rendering service would be faster beyond your imagination and hence you not only save on expenditure with regards to infrastructure costs, but also you get access to high speed rendering services that would work tremendously to your advantage saving you precious time as well.
With the ability of cloud computing to offer 3D rendering services to the masses and at affordable rates, the future of 3D rendering services looks very interesting. This is rightly in tune with a harmonious growth pattern which would see technology combine with other forms of art such as image design, art, architecture and conceptualisation to achieve never before seen levels of perfection in almost all of the basic utility industries and fields like engineering, graphical animation and design industries as well as the entertainment industry.
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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.
December 20th, 2012
Card-battle games are very popular in Japan and are a major offering for social game platforms. In the west, the card-battle game is not an alien concept, as shown by the popularity of Pokemon on Gameboy, as well as the Magic, the Gathering and other card-battle games of the same genre. Western social gamers are now slowly getting used to Japanese social games.
Western social gamers are now slowly getting used to Japanese social games. Kids who have played the original Pokemon are now adults and more than willing to play Japanese-style social games and card-battle games. It is fair to say that the former Game Boy users would still play card-battle style games or RPGs on the browser or with smartphones. This market segment goes both ways.
Social games have had a big growth which grew along with Facebook. It can also be said that it helped fuel Facebook’s growth during the past few years. Zynga is one company which had a phenomenal growth due to their social games. It earned more than $317 million during the first quarter of 2012. However, even with a worldwide market, it is still nowhere near the earnings of one of the biggest social gaming company in Japan, GREE which had earnings of $558 million for the same period while catering mainly to the Japanese market.
Lately, GREE and DeNA have been focusing on expanding outside of Japan. With a better model for monetizing their mobile game apps, these Japanese firms should be able to grow even more with new markets, while maintaining their hold on Japan. Even with Western companies trying to penetrate the Japanese market, it is not assured that such efforts would have the same success as local Japanese mobile gaming developers and channels.
If there’s anything to be learned about companies trying to enter the Japanese market, it is safe to say that having a Japanese partner or a distribution channel goes a long way in getting in. However, being a success is a different matter altogether. Zynga has been trying to get into Japan, as well as other countries in Asia, and it seems that they still have a long ways to go before they can compete toe to toe with the Japanese companies.
For smaller companies, partnering with Japanese distribution channels is a much better proposition. Japanese distribution channels are open to representing Western game developers which is a leg up for these smaller players. Additionally, it also helps that Japanese channels are always on the look out for new titles.
Another advantage when working with a partner is the localization and culturization which is required for any app in order to be able to compete in the Japanese market. The additional customization by a third-party (which may or may not be the distribution channel) makes the app more acceptable to consumers.
Unlike in Western countries where anime and manga fanboys live to play untranslated Japanese games, the reverse is not true. Mobile games in Japan are very Japanese. The culture and motifs are not just decorative but play a part in the game design and in the game play.
This is a rigid cultural difference which is slow in changing. It has been a lot easier to change perception and cultural acceptance of things Japanese in the West. Lately, there have have been Western cartoons which have been re-imagined as Japanese-style anime for showing in Japan, even though these same comic characters have a big following in their original western style drawings, the owners thought that an anime-style retelling would make it big in Japan – and they did.
The additional step of culturization and choosing to have a Japanese distribution channel are sound strategies, considering the size of the market and the extent of monetization by Japanese mobile game channels.
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:
Rodolfo Lentejas, Jr. is a fulltime freelance writer based in Toronto. He is the founder of the PostSckrippt, a growing online writing business dedicated to producing top quality, original and fresh content. To know more about him, please visit www.postsckrippt.ca. Like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.
December 19th, 2012
As more of the Hollywood magic is computer generated, huge server arrays to handle the heavy task of rendering have become a staple of all the major VFX and animation studios. Third party render farms have also become important players due to this market demand and, the increasing need for computing power has resulted in impressive technological breakthroughs. Rendering is an expensive business.
There are thousands of computers that need to be maintained and cooled. Security is also an essential concern – a leak can be devastating for any movie studio. The electricity costs for a render farm can run in the millions of dollars annually. These are also expensive, highly advanced computer systems which can make the infrastructure cost alone prohibitive for a smaller company. However, cloud service providers have started to offer processing and storage services both to visual effects studios and to existing render farms, allowing everyone to save in the process.
Rendering in the cloud seems like a no-brainer, so why aren’t more people doing it?
One of the main concerns with the cloud is security. It is important to note that huge strides have been made in cloud security. If the security of cloud computing is good enough for institutions like the Pentagon and the United States Department of Defense or for important financial institutions and banks around the world, then it certainly can be adapted to the security needs of visual effects studios! After all, credit card transactions and handling a nation’s defense all require exhaustive security measures, all of which have been applied successfully to the cloud. One other concern about cloud rendering is data latency, due to the huge sizes of the files involved in visual effects work. However, the monetary advantages are so substantial that many companies are starting to move to the cloud for their rendering needs.
Why cloud-based rendering is inevitable from a financial point of view
The main advantage of cloud services providers is that they give their customers computing resources on demand. Going back to the concept of the huge, expensive local render farms maintained by large visual effects studios, it simply doesn’t make sense economically. A render farm costs millions of dollars to maintain even when it is not being used. People need to be hired to guard and maintain the computers in a render farm and infrastructure costs can be huge. Cutting a huge swath of their budget with almost no downsides is what cloud services providers offer render farms and visual effects studios.
The offer is so attractive that it is inevitable that rendering will move to the cloud in the future, especially as issues of security and data latency are improved over time. Cloud service providers give studios scalability, only paying for what they need. One studio that has embraced this move is Warner Brothers, that has moved as much of their operation as possible to the cloud. Tax incentives are other reasons to get into the cloud, especially for Hollywood. Since many cloud vendors are not located in California, using their services makes many California-based studios eligible for huge tax rebates applicable in other states.
What can cloud service providers do to assuage render farms’ concerns?
The main factor is data latency. Cloud service providers must pay attention to their data latency, making clear promises on what kind of latency is acceptable. Dedicated data lines are the key here, making sure that the data flows at all times. Safety, in fact, is not such a big issue as it was only a couple of years ago.
Cloud service providers can mirror security protocols used in local render farms or visual effects studios. In fact, a computer can be locked down physically, completely preventing access from outside parties. How to be sure that your cloud service provider is doing everything they can? It is as simple as getting an independent security audit from a third party. You’ll be surprised by the results, in a positive way.
The Asian panorama for cloud-based render farms
Asia is a major market for cloud-based rendering and will continue to grow in the future. Many people forget that India produces the most movies in the world, not Hollywood. In fact, Japan also produces more movies than the United States. Other huge movie producers in the region include Hong Kong and Indonesia. Cloud-based render farms have more possibilities of establishing their services in these regions than in other parts of the world. Many studios in these countries do not have the infrastructure or resources to support a full-time render farm, meaning that cloud-based rendering is a welcome service that allows them to compete in the world market.
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.
December 18th, 2012
Understanding the results
In the previous part of this paper we discussed the essential differences between cloud based applications and on premise hosted ones when it comes to the testing of applications. A major difference lies in the control that the cloud service provider gives you over your test environment. In case you require tests at a deeper level, the answer in all probability lies in writing a program that uses your application mimicking a user. Such a program can continue to check your application at regular intervals to ensure that it is functioning as expected. Any aberrations can be detected and administrators alerted in near real time.
In most other cases, test results may need to be analyzed more deeply since subtle error conditions may give rise to situations that cannot be detected so easily. Therefore analysis may need to go deeper. This can take the following forms –
Simple Boolean checks – this is the simplest method possible. It checks if your application is giving a response or not. You can compare it to the ‘ping’ command used to check networks. If you get a response, it confirms that the application is on line and the intervening network is working.
Response threshold – under normal conditions of use, your application is expected to give a response within a certain number of milliseconds. Using the cloud, you expect this time to be maintained rather rigidly because if the application load exceeds a value, a new instance should be automatically created. If this is exceeded beyond limits you set, it indicates a problem that needs to be investigated.
Check for consistency of response – quite often, a set of answers from an application will correlate with each other. For example, the numbers of items in your shopping cart must correlate to those in the invoice. If there is a variation, it could be a serious error that needs to be corrected straightaway.
Checking statistically – while there is value in checking spot parameters such as the response time at a given instant, it is the statistical value that gives an indication of a long time trend. Good monitoring programs are able to generate statistical means and compare the spot value with this to determine how much is the variation. This ensures more intelligent checking.
Triggering responses – based on how you have programmed your testing environment, you can get it to trigger a response to critical events. Since cloud based systems are natively well-suited to connect to mobile and smartphone users, one response can be to send a mail or an SMS to an administrator. This ensures that the error condition is handled faster.
Adaptive systems – the more capable monitoring programs come with machine learning and artificial intelligence. They are able to understand results and based on this learning, their future interpretation of results could vary. They are also able to draw inferences and initiate deeper checking if required. For example, if a program is giving out an output faster than anticipated, it could mean that another module that this program depends on is not actually doing a computation but is returning a default value.
Managing corrections – many monitoring programs can follow through on a fault until it is finally resolved. The system works as both a monitoring device and a corrections manager to ensure that the error condition detected is not overlooked.
Multiple warnings – monitoring programs can use multiple methods to attract the attention of administrators to critical problems. A background script decides which problems are critical and which ones aren’t. It is also able to decide on the individuals to be alerted based on the classification of the problem. As mentioned earlier, cloud-based systems are tightly integrated with mobile phone systems and use this capability very effectively to generate appropriate warnings.
Current trends
As is evident from a reading of the above sections, cloud based application monitoring systems have been evolving into extremely capable tools that can take over a number of managerial tasks themselves. This allows for a faster response to emerging problem areas and allows administrators to correct critical issues much earlier than otherwise possible. These monitoring systems are also being used to determine when an application is experiencing light loads and this information is used to work computationally heavy tasks during this period. This kind of optimization can ultimately reduce costs by distributing load over time and ensuring that fewer numbers of processors are hired.
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:
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.
December 17th, 2012
It is interesting that some governmental bodies and national decision-makers are canvassing for the expanded use of cloud computing in their jurisdiction because of the relative economic gains it can bring to the regions. In October this year, the EU’s Digital Chief claimed that “greater use of the internet to store and process data remotely (cloud computing) could boost the European Union’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 160 billion euro annually by 2020”. Undoubtedly, this is a significant piece of encouragement that urges European business owners to migrate their digital data to the cloud. But how can this lead to national economic boost?
There are four distinct ways countries in the European Union bloc can reap the full benefits of cloud computing: First, moving their data and other digital content to the cloud has the singular power of creating a cost-cutting possibility for European businesses. This is because the overhead IT expenditure incurred annually by these businesses will be drastically reduced. They do not necessarily need to hire and constantly manage in-house IT infrastructure that may cost them billions of euro a year.
Second, cloud computing structurally engenders business innovation. The capital saved on hiring, training and maintaining IT personnel and in-house infrastructure can be channeled into a new business venture. Companies that have adopted cloud computing often have new and improved business opportunities springing up. The significance of business innovations is that Europeans can concentrate on creating more jobs while expanding their businesses.
Third, cloud technology also promises fastness and unprecedented speed of operations. The adopters of cloud technology can subsequently reduce or permanently abort downtime which plagued other companies that do not switch their operations to the cloud. Other problems non-adopters of cloud computing face include but are not limited to data loss tendency, poor connectivity, slow performance and ineffective IT system operations. All these problems naturally hinder smooth running of businesses; and if the situations are unmanaged, they may lead to huge business losses.
Fourth, the EU’s digital Chief was mainly concerned about the competitiveness of the European economy when compared with those of other regions of the world. In her words, Neelie Kroes, EU Vice-president and digital Chief said that “without EU action, we will stay stuck in national fortresses and miss out on billions in economic gains.” This statement confirms her strong conviction that cloud computing possesses the capability of helping Europe revamp its economic stagnation and make the block competitive in the global economy.
Since cloud computing entails using environmentally friendly systems, this attribute of cloud technology can assist Europe businesses to maintain an admirable culture of sustainability and business continuity. Cloud computing makes it possible to store, retrieve and transmit digital files without the hassle of using papers and other environmentally harmful materials. This development will help companies to operate with green and renewable energy resources.
EU is calling all its constituting members to proactively embrace cloud computing because of the benefits highlighted above, and to create an environment for business continuity and higher profitability. The European Union’s digital chief appears quite serious about the danger of lagging behind in the adoption of cloud technology.
Hence, she sounded a warming to all EU member states to adopt, implement and innovate on the usefulness of cloud technology. The main purpose for this clarion call is to make the bloc highly competitive with the North America, Asia and the Pacific which are seriously exploring and utilizing the opportunities offered by cloud computing. This is definitely going to be a gradual process, but EU’s digital chief has no doubt that cloud technology can help turn around the slugging European economy.
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:
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/
December 14th, 2012
Japan remains the world’s third largest economy, even with a global financial crisis coming on the heels of a Japanese recession, it has survived mainly through an export-oriented economy. With a worldwide slowdown in sales of consumer electronics, Japan is already feeling the pinch. There is, however, a nascent industry which is slowly getting exported. Popular mobile games portals are now trying to sell their social games outside of Japan.
From one viewpoint, there is the sense of the inevitable in this. Every so often, Japanese products have leaked out to the rest of the world. With cell phones, smaller Japanese manufacturers have been testing the market since the late 1990s. Besides Sony, other electronics manufacturers both big and small have tried to export their basic phone models. Manufacturers like Sharp, Kyocera, and Sendo have tested the foreign waters. Their only failure was that they were too busy selling feature phones in their homeland and the only ones which could be exported were the basic or entry-level models.
This time, it’s the software and game developers who are slowly showing off their wares outside of Japan. Traditionally, games have only been successful when these were released in conjunction with a console or game platform. This time, it’s the distribution channel which is bringing the games to the West. The two largest mobile game platforms, Gree and DeNA are expanding their market, and stepping out on to the West.
This is a big step for Japanese mobile games like Japan-specific social games and card battle games. This is also a big signal for Western game developers to get into Japan, these are convenient times because the likes of GMO Cloud are now offering market entry services that include marketing and localization. Because unlike the traditional mobile games, the newer titles are all mostly Android and iOS games. This makes it easier for Japanese developers to be able to penetrate the Western games market. Whereas before, social games were made for feature phones, games and apps on Android and iOS don’t need to be ported to another phone in order to be sold abroad. In fact, Western players have been playing un-translated games since the 1970s.
The growth in the Japanese social game market is even more phenomenal than the rest of the world. It has grown to an estimate $4.36 billion revenue from practically nothing just a few years ago. The income growth showed a ten-fold increase in the last three years.
Some of the more popular card-battle games are not represented as mobile phone apps. Console games are still a large market, with upfront sales directly translating to game revenues. However, mobile phone games are usually free downloads and free-to-play but with in-game merchandise and level ups which can be purchased with real cash. This type of monetization is common for a lot of other games. It just so happens that Gree and DeNA, along with other Japanese games and channels make more money out of their games compared with western game companies.
The export of Japanese games do not necessarily mean that the Japanese market is saturated to the point that new developers cannot get in. On the contrary, the continued exponential increase in the market is a sign that new game companies are welcome. It can even be said that the new game companies can help fuel the growth even further with newer game genres and titles.
This bi-directional flow can be wholly attributed to the success of Android and iOS devices. Apple has an aggregate market share of around 32% of the Japanese market. There are more Android devices, however, since there are more Android manufacturers, these companies have a lower percentage market share. Either way, mobile apps and games are on the increase and, for now, there is no way to predict when the bubble would burst.
It seems that the reason that the mobile apps and game market continues to grow is because there is no alternative in the horizon. Phone apps will continue to grow until a new device comes along. So far, iOS and Android devices have overturned the Japanese smart phone apps market due to sheer numbers. This is a positive feedback mechanism where the large number of apps is fueling the sales of smart phones.
Going back to established IP titles, it is only a matter of time before most of them would migrate to Android and iOS apps. One of the most popular card-battle games is Pokemon. It was introduced in 1996, and since then other card sets have been released, and these have helped push newer models of Nintendo game consoles. However, Pokemon is yet to be ported to the Android or to iOS. Like a lot of other console games, there is a need to change the monetization before these games are introduced or relaunched as smart phone apps. There is the fear that once these titles are released as smart phone apps, the sales of game consoles would decrease dramatically.
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:
Rodolfo Lentejas, Jr. is a fulltime freelance writer based in Toronto. He is the founder of the PostSckrippt, a growing online writing business dedicated to producing top quality, original and fresh content. To know more about him, please visit www.postsckrippt.ca. Like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.
December 13th, 2012
“Cloud gaming”, as the name implies, is the act of playing games that are stored and retrievable from the cloud. The fact is that without the invention of cloud computing, there would not have been cloud gaming. Cloud gaming allows players to directly access games on the web through their browsers. The applicable browsers include Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer So, how does cloud gaming contribute to the experience of satisfaction in game-playing?
Cloud-gamers, as they may be called, do not necessarily need to worry about many things while playing their games. Some of these unprecedented advantages they enjoy are highlighted as follows:
Cloud gaming gives players the peace of mind of continuously enjoying their games without the need to worry about a lot of problems, some of which had been explained above. How are these advantages made possible by the cloud? Technically speaking, cloud technology allows configurations that accommodate a sudden surge of traffic. For a better illustration, take a look at GMO Cloud’s Game Server Configuration example.
More so, game players can increase their play time through more subscriptions, periodically. In other words, if they are satisfied with the gaming services provided , they can request for more play time in order to enjoy different series of games, as long as possible.
Coreonline is an example of a cloud gaming service designed and marketed by Square Enix. As described above, this cloud gaming service works through the use of browsers and some proprietary technologies that belong to Square Enix and Google.
At the moment, only two titles are available, Mini Ninjas and Hitman: Blood Money. To play Mini Ninjas, players are just redirected to Chrome Web Store where there had already been a streaming version of the game. But for Hitman: Blood Money, this can be played directly in the Coreonline Store. Interestingly, game players can earn some play time by simply watching ads before or in the course of the game. Alternately, they can skip the ads and purchase some levels or the entire game so as to enjoy it without any interruption. Some of these cloud-games do well on some particular browsers. For instance, Mini Ninjas, Blood Money and Lara Croft Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7, while Lara Croft and Mini Ninjas will only work on Chrome on Mac.
As many cloud-gaming providers enter into the business, gamers will have the chance of selecting which provider to use and this will lead to the reduction in the overall cost of playing video games.
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:
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/
December 12th, 2012
Studies have shown that cloud computing will be a major source of employment and revenue in the next few years. Cloud computing is projected to become a $1.1 trillion dollar annual business in the next three years! This is according to an IDC research that was commissioned by tech giant Microsoft. This is actually a conservative estimate if one considers that rate at which cloud computing advances. Every couple of months, a new idea comes along making the whole sector take a huge leap forward. According to this study, fourteen million new jobs will be generated in the next three years thanks to cloud computing advances.
What makes cloud computing a special force in innovation?
The positive impact of cloud computing is different than other new technologies. This is because it transforms how companies operate. Cloud technology has a positive aspect on costs and efficiency. However, its most important effect is spurring innovation. There are several reasons for this. One of the most important is that it helps IT managers and personnel focus on more innovative projects by freeing them from more mundane tasks. Cloud technology allows different individuals and departments within a company meet and communicate more effectively. Before, IT directors had to deal with every-day crises and with what were essentially tasks related to keeping the existing infrastructure working. With the advent of cloud service providers, IT directors can now talk strategy and find ways to help the whole company succeed in its mission by applying new concepts and technologies.
Some of the predictions contained in the IDC study
There are some truly promising facts in the IDC study that should help clarify the great role that cloud computing will have in the next few years. As already mentioned, cloud computing will be responsible for almost fourteen million new jobs by 2015. Thanks to the IT innovation mentioned above, the revenue from cloud computing could reach over a trillion dollars per year. One of the best aspects of the cloud revolution is that it is truly democratic. Cloud service providers help smaller companies compete with larger sectors by giving them access to technology that was previously only in the hands of companies that were able to afford costly IT infrastructure. The study predicts that employment related to cloud technology will increase both in large business and in small and medium sized companies (those with fewer than five hundred full time employees.)
Asia is a major player in the future of cloud computing
Today, Asian economies are technological powerhouses, especially Japan and South Korea. Cloud technology will have a major effect on already established communications, media, and banking firms in these countries (these sectors are already a huge part of these countries’ markets.) An example of a technologically-influenced company is GMO Cloud where it is part of a huge internet conglomerate in Japan that caters to major companies based in the country.
Countries such as India and China are projected to be the major sites for new jobs related to cloud computing. In fact, the IDC study predicts that about half of the projected fourteen million jobs will be located in these two countries. We are already seeing the effects of this in several cloud services providers that today are taking steps to nearly double their workforce in an attempt to meet the increasing demands of the market.
Small business and cloud technology
One of the characteristics of small businesses is that they typically have less access to technology than larger companies, even though small businesses account for most employment opportunities around the world. However, with larger companies holding off on adopting cloud services because of their larger investments in legacy infrastructure, smaller companies are projected to become very large drivers of the progress of cloud computing around the world. Certain industries, like retail and services, will see a rapid adoption of these technologies due to the higher amount of smaller companies in these sectors. However, banking and other information-sensitive sectors will take longer to adopt the cloud due to the security concerns. Regardless of the speed of adoption, cloud technology is one of the most important revolutions in the history of computing and we can expect profound changes in the economy similar to what was seen in response to previous technological leaps in the 80′s (with the rise of personal computing) and the 00′s (with the mobile technology revolution.)
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.
December 11th, 2012
This is part one of a two part paper on the testing and monitoring of cloud-based applications. While the general principles are similar to those used for more traditional software, there are significant differences caused by the tendency of cloud-based applications to increase and reduce their instances.
Any cloud-based application worth its name would naturally come with a full set of monitoring tools. After all, what use is an e-commerce application that attracts clients, helps them make selections and then fails at a critical juncture? In the traditional web server environment, administrators would create elaborate checklists and track the application performance at its critical points. The same is required to be done in the cloud environment but there are a few important differences.
To begin with, the entire cloud infrastructure is not within your grasp as would be the case with traditionally hosted infrastructure. This imposes a few limitations. You are restricted to the diagnostic tools that the cloud service provider gives you (they can range from basic to comprehensive depending on what you have hired). Alternatively, you can create another application that has some privileges over your main application and runs a diagnostic program in the background. This diagnostic application works as a user and checks to see that all functions that a user would use are available and return sensible values.
A key issue is the large numbers of virtual machines that can be created and destroyed in the course of a working day. Your diagnostic tools have to cater to this changing number and keep a health check on each. This complicates the scenario somewhat (and that is an understatement).
New diagnostic software is able to monitor many more parts of the software than was possible earlier. Much better checking algorithms mean that there are fewer “false positives”. Here are a few of the testing methodologies in widespread use –
Direct testing – this is the simplest method where the checking tools mimic a real user. Standard parameters are supplied to the software as a user response and standard answers are expected. Any variation is obviously cause for further checking. In addition to the returned values, the software also monitors the time taken to produce a response. While there can be variations, any large variations are a cause for concern and must be investigated.
Back end processes – some diagnostic software check out the backend processes. They will examine the database and send test queries to the database server to see its response and performance.
Network and other infrastructure – the delivery infrastructure needs to be checked out regularly. This means the various routers, switches and other hardware including the DNS servers etc. Testing on these lines also includes the firewalls and other gateways. A glitch in any of these could mean that the application would be up and running but the end user would still not get her work done. The idea behind such testing being to ensure that while the cloud service is available, the various security and networking devices do not interfere with the delivery of the service.
Monitor Big Data Clusters – if your application uses big data, then your diagnostics have to be able to check out your Hadoop clusters to ensure that the processing is going on as desired. Failure of components of the cluster will degrade application performance very sharply.
Modern diagnostics for cloud applications handle this very fluid situation quite competently. The results are presented graphically in a very easy to understand manner. All of this is making for more robust cloud-based applications.
A special challenge is posed by mobile users. If the diagnostic results are to be seen by a user using her smartphone – say, the CIO checking out the services while in a meeting – then the dashboards have to be constructed in a way that the smartphone can handle. This means prioritizing of the data to be displayed rather than merely shrinking the display. This calls for special skills – GMO Cloud for instance, provides additional monitoring services for thorough checking of systems and applications installed within it.
In the second part of this paper, we will look for how test results are interpreted and analyzed.
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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.
December 10th, 2012
Cloud computing has been the buzzword in the world of Information Technology for quite some time and it is likely to retain that status in the coming years as well. Cloud computing has been helping business enterprises deliver services faster and less costly as compared to all existing delivery models.
Small and medium business enterprises have in fact grown substantially in their outlook towards technology thanks to the implementation of cloud computing in their core business models. It has brought down infrastructure costs like no other technology has done before, not to mention the ease (remote) access features that have become existent in critical business models thanks to this unique technology. The future looks even more promising than the current scenario. The world as we know always strives for more and it is an assured fact that we would be seeing many more implementations of cloud computing in as many discrete operational areas as possible. Let us look at what could be the state of cloud computing in the upcoming future – particulary, the year 2013.
Collaboration of Private as well as Public cloud could be the biggest trend that we could witness in 2013 as enterprises are looking for new ways to help their customers benefit from the best of both worlds. A hybrid cloud strategy that provides them with the functionality and reliability of both is thus a very interesting prospect.
Speed could be a decisive factor for next generation cloud computing technologies. Depending upon network bandwidth and speed, cloud based services could be deployed at rates never before imagined. The benefit will be for end customers who rely on bottom line services that are cloud-based. They would get speedy service rendering and hence could save them time as well as costs if we take into account charges for service time.
Integration of mobile and cloud computing could become even stronger with mobile applications calling out to back end services resting on cloud-based platforms and hence seamless service delivery happens no matter wherever you are on the planet.
It is high time people let go of the myths in security regarding cloud computing. 2013 may very well see the end of such myths as cloud delivery platforms have become more secure than ever before with state of the art security firewalls, physical protection and security of data centers hosting these cloud platforms and much more.
Nothing makes your business more portable than cloud computing. It would be possible to port your data and applications to whichever part of the world you move to and all you need would be a computer connected to the internet. Backup and recovery measures might be fully loaded onto cloud based platforms thanks to the convenience offered by it; case in point, GMO Cloud’s add-on services on top of their IaaS offering.
Software development companies would be stressing on the importance of cloud like never before. They can get teams of engineers to work together from every nook and corner of the globe and this kind of collaboration would help develop software components quickly and efficiently.
Bring your own device or BYOD is going to be the talk of the town in 2013. We are seeing a paradigm shift in work culture where the freedom and power of IT are actually given to users via a web based interface. No longer is their demand for complex hardware for working on complex software products.
Open source cloud computing platforms may see a whole new dimension of demands as they have demonstrated their ability to rival proprietary competitor platforms and has also shown the flexibility it has with regard to supporting a wide plethora of services and not to mention the huge support it offers to anyone using it courtesy of the open source tag it has.
As far as service delivery is concerned, Software-as-a-Service models would continue to improve and provide faster and less expensive user experiences via simpler interfaces. The number of platforms that can be used to access software as a service would increase with even smartphones embracing cloud based applications as we mentioned earlier.
In all 2013 as well as the imminent future after it looks more exciting than ever before for cloud computing and it is indeed going to be a more fruitful venture for business enterprises and services relying on it.
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:
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.
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