November 28th, 2012
Although development news involving OnLive and Gaikai, two of the pioneer cloud gaming service providers in the market, have not been prominent lately, cloud gaming is still considered by most experts as the future of this industry. This is because it solves 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.
It is clear that, despite what many thought initially, the technology for cloud gaming is already here. In fact, the potential for the future is still far from realized. Perhaps with a few tweaks to their business model, cloud gaming service providers can start making gains in this market. Hardware manufacturers and developers have started to bet on cloud gaming, creating products that anticipate the rise of many new cloud gaming projects for 2013. This is especially true when it comes to graphics card manufacturers, particularly Nvidia that has pushed the envelope in developing graphics cards specifically for cloud gaming servers.
What makes cloud gaming services attractive for graphics card manufacturers?
Only a few years ago, the idea of computing games at a data center and allowing computer users to log in from any location started to gain traction as network technology advanced. When these kinds of ideas were restricted to remote desktops and enterprise, graphics card manufacturers had little reason to become involved. However, when cloud services providers started to adapt their technology to gaming, this spurred more interest on the part of graphics card companies.
One of the main reasons for this is that it has the potential to allow graphics card manufacturers 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 of gaming. While these companies have supported television gaming by manufacturing components for gaming consoles, this more direct approach allows graphics card manufacturers more freedom to innovate.
High-end graphics card used in both domestic and public clouds across multiple platforms
When most people think of this kind of cloud gaming, it involves using high-end graphics cards located in data centers that stream to end users’ homes for use on televisions or terminals. Many graphics card manufacturers are also looking at the idea of creating home-server based graphics cards that allow users to use their own gaming computer system to stream to different screens within a single home.
One of the most important reasons why this market is particularly attractive for graphics card manufacturers is that it solves one of their main problems: cross-platform compatibility. Graphics cards are notorious for having multiple releases and versions designed to deal with the many different idiosyncrasies of specific platforms, often making debugging, installation, and customer support a nightmare. However, by using the cloud gaming model, graphics card companies can now create versions of their hardware ideal for a specific hardware setup and platform which can then be streamed to a variety of platforms (including mobile phones and tablets) without the need for adapting to their hardware to an infinite number of possible hardware and software setups.
Coming up with possible financing models for the future of cloud gaming
It is possible that, in the 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 go into the business of providing their graphics processing power on a 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 these kinds of systems. At this point, the main problem that needs to be solved is one of finding financing models – the technology exists already. Of course, there may be companies wanting to find a solution that integrates all of these better in order to retain control of their own services directly.
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. The main reason for this is that it expands the number of gamers and attracts new consumers in proportions that would not have been possible before. PC gaming has always had a high entry barrier. However, with PC gamers now having access to these games from any device, it opens up a huge, untapped market that is very attractive to everyone involved in this industry.
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.
November 26th, 2012
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. This is bringing the emphasis back to the basic principles of computer science and software engineering. In many cases, operators may only be interested in getting the application up and running, but it is important to realize that any shortcuts taken in the early stages will cause major problems if the application is to expand later and connect to other applications – 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. Implementing SOA will lead to applications that are well governed, can be shared, can grow and expand and are language independent. Such an application stack will be stable and more secure. Implementing SOA also ensures that you do not create silos in your application stack. Silos lead to wasted effort, duplication of data and restrict the growth of your applications. I have chosen to harp on the importance of good governance of your cloud based applications because of several reasons –
Another important issue to be considered is the calculation of the Return on Investment (ROI). This is an important figure if you wish to expand your presence on the cloud. Once again, the PaaS model gives you certain responsibilities in this regard. Using the SaaS model will give you fairly well documented ROI figures. However, this is something that needs to be calculated for PaaS application stacks. Remember also that 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:
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. This can be huge if you consider that more than two thirds of the 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 as compared to on-premise hosted systems. The stability of applications improves and work gets done better. An extreme example is provided by 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 continues operations without a glitch.
Revenue transformation – prior to cloud computing, most of your IT expenditure (less the manpower costs) was capital expenditure. In the cloud model, this is generally operating expenditure. In addition to this, the pay as you go model fits very well into the operating expenditure mold.
To summarize, using PaaS gives you the flexibility to create applications that fit your niche area perfectly. However, this flexibility gives you scope to make mistakes and create inefficient code and silos.
Finally, calculation of RoI is a critical factor in the governance of your PaaS application stack. It brings in a more structured approach to writing applications.
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.
November 23rd, 2012
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. This is especially interesting when we consider that DeNA and GREE use multiple platforms for their products. For example, GREE has browser-based products, which are among the most common in Japan for Japanese feature phones. However, it also has iOS and Android apps and browser-based games for multiple smartphones.
Why these companies avoid Western app and game 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. It also helps that Japanese iPhone users can even pay for games and other services directly through their carrier. This effort is worth it since the thirty percent tax Apple and Google charge applies over the revenue every one of their games and apps generates during its entire run! This kind of distribution strategy actually works well in Japan. The main advantages of this hybrid distribution model are:
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, a clear step in taking their hybrid distribution model outside of Japan. Although this may be part of an attempt of avoiding going through the Apple and Google distribution models, it may not prove successful for these companies when trying to reach an international market. Some market experts have expressed skepticism about this move, considering that HTML5 is not at a stage where it is practical or ready for gaming. Some of the most popular mobile games today require native apps due to the fact that a browser-based model simply cannot support them. In fact, in Japan the newest games are only in app form while those using browser based gaming are from previous generations rather than using cutting edge technology.
Why this hybrid distribution strategy may not work well outside of Japan
Many of the advantages for customers that apply in Japan may not be available on the international market if companies attempt to adopt this hybrid distribution strategy. One of the main obstacles that they would have to overcome is the fact that they came very late in the market. Although these companies promote the convenience of being able to pay for games through mobile carriers, most gamers outside of Japan are already accustomed to paying using the iPhone App Market or Google Play and consider it the most convenient and easy to manage option. These two companies already have millions of users and their credit card information in their files. In fact, Google already allows many of their customers to pay for their apps through their carrier in various markets such as the United States and Japan itself.
One of the main disadvantages for gaming companies wanting to use this hybrid model outside of Japan is that it means creating two versions of games when a single one can work. After all, it requires developing both an app version and a browser version of popular games. History is also not on their side. Despite the fact that this hybrid distribution strategy is 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. It is also worthwhile to note that this move toward a hybrid distribution model draws unwanted attention from Apple and Google. By not recommending games using this model they are closing off millions of potential customers while at the same time making it more difficult for companies wanting to adopt this model to establish their hybrid distribution strategy successfully. It is important, though, to note that Western social gaming companies wanting to break into the Japanese market should be aware of the existence and advantages of this unique distribution model in Japan.
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.
November 22nd, 2012
Every company, irrespective of its size or location, has loads of computing activities to undertake in order to maintain its business operations. This can include but are not limited to data entry, data processing, storage and retrieval. In more complex circumstances, it could involve data transmission, communication, customer/client services management, centralization of IT systems and network administration. Whatever these IT requirements turn out to be, the good news is that cloud computing has been identified as a technology for increasing companies’ computing powers.
A typical example of how this works can be seen in Zillow, a US real estate company that helps clients solve their real estate problems, which include finding homes, apartments, properties to rent or buy in some states in America, seeking advice on mortgage rates and interests, and requiring periodical communication in order to be aware of the latest developments in US real estate. Interesting enough, Zillow has been able to accomplish these tasks more efficiently than ever before due to its adoption of cloud technology. As a matter of fact, Zillow benefits from cloud computing in these two major ways explained below:
There are other positive impacts of improved or high computing power on business activities. Apart from the two main merits discussed above in relation to Zillow, companies can be rest assured that the quality of their operations will be optimized and maintained over a long period of time. In the absence of internet connection disruption, loss of data and human errors sometimes caused by in-house IT employees, companies can work towards achieving their expected profitability level and business success rates. They can improve the quality of services or goods they offer to their clients without having to spend more on their IT requirements.
As a matter of fact, businesses are adopting cloud technology in droves nowadays simply because of the promise of cost efficiency and high business performance. Funds that should have been squandered on hiring, training and maintaining in-house IT staff can be utilized to expand business activities and diversify business interests. Some companies that utilize cloud technology are able to increase their profitability projections for the years succeeding when they switched their daily operations to the clouds. This is because they do not have to spend much money on keeping their IT systems running, which are monitored and looked after by third-party cloud computing service providers. This smoothness of running one’s business without any observable hitch is transferable to the quality of services or goods that are delivered to the end-users or consumers. And this, without doubt, has a far-reaching effect on the issue of client relationship.
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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/
November 21st, 2012
For developers who want to enter the Japanese market, the good news is that with the use of Android and iOS apps, they would have an easier entry point. The reverse is also true: Japanese application developers are also now seeing this same situation as a way for them enter the worldwide market. This is just a side effect of market forces and an automatic reciprocity out of real world realities.
The fact is that Android and iOS are the new platform portals for entering almost any other country’s apps market. This is one example of a true world market with a central repository. In this case Google Play and the App Store have opened a flood gate for every developer to transact business anywhere in the world. The only thing that needs to be done is to develop an app which can be used and enjoyed by anyone, young and old alike.
Apps which easily come to mind are those for established browser based apps like Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Seismic and Facebook. Other app which has crossed borders with great success is Angry Birds.
Japan has always been a very insular market. Even at the height of Nokia’s domination in the 3G phone market, they could not get a good foothold of the Japanese market. In fact, due to their poor performance, Nokia was forced to pull out of the Japanese market. They still sell phones in Japan, but they no longer support the market.
Entering the Japanese mobile app market is not that easy for foreign app developers. Besides the fragmented nature of the market, with lots of feature phone brands, there is also the matter of a portal or platform. Developers know that they need to localize and revise to the local culture. The fragmented market is a daunting hurdle because the developers have to change their apps for each feature phone.
At least that was true until this year. The sales reports for 2012 indicate that iOS and Android now account for the majority of sales in smartphones. With the dominance of Android and iOS, foreign developers now have an avenue where they can develop for the Japanese market on the two major platforms and can hope to be represented in the market without any need for further revisions to account for different hardware and feature phone operating systems. The familiarity with the tools for developing are a big help. That leaves the app developers with only the slight problem of localization and culturization for the Japanese market, which is a totally different concern.
Additionally, app developers who want to get into the Japanese market may skip the need for a Japanese mobile app portal like GREE and DeNA. They can instead rely on traditional strategies for marketing: social media and word of mouth. However, this approach might not be the best strategy when dealing with Japan. GREE, DeNA, and other mobile app portals are much more than just companies which push apps. In Japan, these companies do the same work for apps like Google Play and App Store as well as promote and run these in the same manner that Facebook and Twitter do in Western countries. For at least until the foreseeable future, these companies with their userbase would still control a big part of mobile app market in Japan.
The success of these companies can be seen in the way they monetize mobile apps, to the point that Japan is the second largest country when it comes to app monetization, and it ranks third in app download volume.
A reverse trend is inevitable. Japanese game and app developers can also use Google Play and App Store to sell their apps. It is no secret that Japanese game developers and app developers are a different breed. Coming from a very competitive market, and a marketing culture which is famous for being persistent and patient, Japanese app developers can wait a long time till the rest of the world starts to appreciate their style and genre of games.
For now, app developers from outside of Japan have a way to get into the Japanese market, and they should take advantage of it. Of course, it is not a simple matter of placing an app on App Store and Google Play. There is still the matter of support, and if there is a central database for social gaming, then a cloud hosting service is still required. Getting into the Japanese market just got easier, but with staying and competing, app developers need all the help they can get.
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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.
November 20th, 2012
The writing on the wall is clear – there is a visible decline of on-premise hosting and a continuous increase in hosting software on the cloud. If current trends are maintained, the crossover will occur somewhere in 2014. In this year, there will be about equal instances of both on-premise and cloud based software deployment. Thereafter, the cloud will go ahead of on-premise hosting at an ever increasing rate. There is every possibility that the crossover may occur even before 2014 since SaaS is seeing an increasing rather than a linear growth trend.
If you are a cloud service provider, you have to help your customers make the transition.
It’s got to be hybrid for a while…
While the on-premise market may be shrinking, there are still very substantial investments in hardware and software that have gone into the current equipment. Much of this will still have residual life in 2014. Therefore, even though the SaaS model may appeal greatly, a mix of on-premise and cloud based systems will continue to stay for a few years to come. Any cloud service provider that wishes to lay a claim to the business opportunity that exists must find a way to help companies make the transition.
The key questions service providers have to ask are –
If the top few reasons for a move to the cloud are analyzed, then these are found to be–
Besides this, users also expect to get benefits such as global operations, obtain a single view of their organization and so on. The cloud service provider has to approach customers keeping in mind the top reasons for the migration and the additional benefits users seek.
Service providers themselves have to change their business model. In the good old days of up front software sales, vendors got their profits at the beginning of a sale. However, with a cloud model, the revenue comes over the years and hence managing a relationship with the client becomes critical. The low revenue per customer per month implies that a larger number of customers have to be registered for the business to make financial sense.
Customer loyalty is a direct function of perceived value. The customer will only make the transition to cloud services if he is confident about the quality of service. This is especially true due to the tight competition among providers; that is why GMO Cloud takes the quality of service it renders very seriously, not only in the core service that they provide but as well as forward thinking on what customers would want after. One example is the Setup Service where professional services ranging from preparations to troubleshooting are rendered.
Key areas of focus
Follow a hybrid approach – as mentioned earlier, existing software investments will mean that on-premise software will stay for some time. In such a situation, going hybrid is the best answer. The cloud vendor has to see where he can add value by moving some functions to the cloud. A case in point is disaster recovery. Even if the primary functions stay on-premise, the vendor can offer DR, back up and long term storage of data in the cloud. Over time, this base will tend to draw the software to the cloud as well.
Introduce additional functionality – While many customers may continue to hold on to their existing software investments, many small businesses cannot afford high end software. This functionality can be offered to small businesses in the cloud to enable them to use most functions at a fraction of the cost. Additional business can be tapped this way.
Manage licensing changes gently – many users of on-premise software have perpetual licenses. If these users are to migrate to the cloud, do not be in a hurry to change the licensing model for these users. Try and extend the licensing to the cloud so that the customer does not lose the incentive to migrate. The licensing model can be changed during the next upgrade cycle.
The key factor in helping your customers move from an on-premise model to a SaaS model is to make proposals that leverage the existing investment that the customer has already made. Add value over and above this so that the customer has the incentive to migrate.
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.
November 19th, 2012
Recession is not a surprising economic situation today. It is rather a common occurrence. The World Economy has witnessed some of the most gruelling forms of this phenomenon recently. Whether it is the Americas or Europe or Asia, recession has caused far spread concern in the business world and especially for IT enterprises. Owing to recession, companies have limited budgets for their expenses and the need to cut down significantly on IT operational costs is a growing headache and concern for managers.
A majority of IT expenses go towards infrastructure requirements like large scale storage involving servers, data centers, etc. IT managers and senior officials are working out strategies to cut down on infrastructure usage in order to directly reduce their spending spree on such essential entities.
As more data and information are generated, there is a need to have more storage and data management space. Adding physical servers or blade servers would provide the necessary space, but they have the huge problem of mounting operational costs, power consumption etc. Another approach that was tried out by organisations was application consolidation but it was also abandoned owing to several deep issues that pop up frequently owing to this such as resource crunch, conflicts, version incompatibility of databases, etc. As such, the need for a much more streamlined and efficient way to cut down on IT expenditure was mooted.
The most promising implementation in IT infrastructure that serves this purpose is the evolution of virtual data centers. It is most evident from the live example of Kronos – one of the pioneer names in the field of global workforce management solutions. The company was faced with increasing pressure from all sides owing to spiralling costs in its IT infrastructure. After going through detailed studies, they settled for the strategy to opt for virtualized data centers. The results were outstanding as power consumption went down by over 20 per cent and Kronos was able to shelf off nearly $1.2 Million in expenses, which they would have had to incur had they opted for more servers.
All it needs is to implement a wise virtualization strategy is to have a clear understanding of the shared storage needs as well as necessary management skills to avoid virtualization sprawls which normally occurs when virtualization goes unchecked. The benefits of moving to a virtual data center are many and these combine to lure more enterprises to leverage the features and advantages of data center virtualization. Some of the important benefits that can be associated with moving to a virtual data center are:
These characteristics are attributed to the technology’s high availability features that improve the operations of a business. GMO Cloud offers this type of feature as it delivers faster access and lower latency from any location worldwide.
Thus the strategy of moving to a virtual data center paves way for greater flexibility in administration as well as reduction of IT expenditure. It is a clear cut solution for IT organizations as well as business enterprises to streamline their operations with minimal economic burdens which is crucial at this time of recession.
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.
November 16th, 2012
Social networking and increased presence of collaboration tools in office environments have turned into a new exciting platform altogether for providing more gritty tools for organizations to coordinate their activities. What we are talking about here is the evolution of social collaboration in office space and the most recent trend is coupling this new age collaboration with the most promising technology in the IT workspace of today: Cloud computing. Basically, we are dealing with the process of taking social collaboration to the cloud – so what exactly does such an option do for the business?
First of all, we need to see a business project as a social entity where few people collaborate on it to get things done based on comments from their peers and managers. There is always a pinch of constructive criticism as well as a dose of heavy criticism at times if the people involved do not take things too seriously. The entire idea is to convert the traditional project management and control mechanism into one driven by social project management strategies. This is what social collaboration on a project aims to achieve and cloud computing adds more utility and easiness to this transformation thanks to its ability to bring resources and people who use the resources closer without geographical and technological constraints and boundaries.
With a cloud-based collaboration platform, your project management becomes more of a daily routine like using Facebook. Communicating with your peers becomes easier no matter where you are on the planet. Social collaboration in the cloud entitles you to take your work with you wherever you go, whether it is your home, holiday spots, etc. This would offer more flexibility to your working hours, reduce stress and help you concentrate on your work as well as your personal affairs equally without interference.
There are several benefits of social collaboration on the cloud and it very often streamlines the entire workflow in any kind of business organization that adopts this new age collaboration tool. Planning a well laid out solution for design and deployment of your primary work environment as well as the configuration for timelines, achievement milestones, etc. is made possible by this approach to social collaboration.
Customised development and testing environment for every product and for every person involved in each of these stages. Integration between these departments is very easy as well with such a mode of operation.
The strategy helps in guided content planning with detailed sessions being made available to developers and editors to help them prepare for the challenges that lie ahead as well as provide them with a platform for successful community management, drive participation from everyone and above all help them to mitigate risky conversations and establish the desired level of behavioral compliance.
With such a core platform that is integrated onto every business sphere, it is easier for management to assess the success of implementation of key business ideas and also monitor the status of objectives that are under different stages of execution. Providing detailed reports onto highly customised administrative panels and dashboards is made possible by social collaboration on the cloud.
With such a core platform that is integrated onto every business sphere, it is easier for management to assess the success of implementation of key business ideas and also monitor the status of objectives that are under different stages of execution. Providing detailed reports onto highly customised administrative panels and dashboards is made possible by social colThis architecture of social collaboration is something a traditional office environment has never ever dreamt of before. Just imagine the project manager conveying the respective tasks, responsibilities and instructions to each and every employee by just updating his status on the enterprise social network just like a Facebook status. He can tag the respective names of employees to each departmental responsibility he mentions in his status update.laboration on the cloud.
This approach saves time considerably and creates a more friendly approach to employee management as compared to the age-old dictatorial practice of sending custom email and messages to each employee detailing him with what to do.
When minds are needed to come together to achieve something, this platform paves the way for such a session of brainstorming. To be more specific even a project planning today becomes a social activity and the level of success that a social project can achieve depends upon the depth of cooperation and openness the employees are willing to be subjected to.
Social collaboration in the cloud is part of a bigger trend of social business which is the philosophy that brings social collaboration into the modes of operation of a business. It revamps traditional communication methodologies and creates new ways to connect, communicate and construct goals.
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.
November 15th, 2012
Super storm Sandy has highlighted the need for robust disaster recovery procedures. Luckily, there was sufficient notice of the severity of the approaching storm and most businesses were able to take adequate precautions to ensure safety of their data and ensure business continuity. But Sandy is being followed by another severe storm and therefore it is becoming clear that your disaster recovery procedures have to survive tests over several weeks.
Quality of DR
One of the critical parameters your business continuity is linked to is the quality of your disaster recovery procedures. As businesses get more dependent on the Internet, data has become critical. A recent Gartner Group study brought out that 40% of businesses that lose their data in a disaster collapse within the next five years.
Although cloud computing is said to provide a very reliable solution to disaster recovery, there are many issues involved and merely by moving to the cloud does not make you safe. DR planning needs a DR look at the subject and not simply an IT perspective. You need to think like the military does – self sufficiency and being able to handle multiple threats becomes the key.
Cloud-Based DR and Testing
Cloud based DR has a number of advantages – some are readily apparent, others are not. If you follow a virtualized approach to disaster recovery, your primary servers, their OS and applications, any software patches you may have used are all kept ready as an image that can be applied to create a new instance in any data center in any part of the world. Similarly, transactional data – data that changes regularly every day can be replicated – should be replicated – to data centers away from your primary ones. Then, if, following a Hurricane Sandy-like event, your primary data center were to go under water, you have everything available on a different location and you can be up and functional in a matter of minutes.
As compared to an on-site backup using tape or hard disks, a cloud-based DR site can handle more catastrophic events. You can also fine tune your cost and capabilities to give you the best possible return for your money. Many companies also use their DR site to take the load off their main site in times of excess demands. This also allows them to check the efficacy of their DR procedures.
Focus on Networks
With basic DR capability becoming reliable and affordable, the focus is now shifting to networks. This is one component of your IT infrastructure that cannot be outsourced or virtualized. Besides this, you need to be able to map your old IP addresses, firewall rules and VLAN configuration rules. As a result, many data center operators are now offering complete packages for DR.
DR Site Requirements
When you opt for DR packages, check the physical separation between your existing data centers and the DR center. It has been documented that some Greenfield data centers were built on land that are prone to flooding and hence cheap. While landscaping may take care of some aspects of flooding, there will always be vulnerabilities that exist which a better site will not suffer from. One major data center publishes data of about last several decades to prove that their site is intrinsically safe. Also ensure that they use different grids. If you are really concerned, there are accepted standards and audits of your disaster recovery sites. If these audits are performed regularly, there is certainty that when the push comes to shove, DR will work.
DR becoming easier?
Prior to Hurricane Sandy, many small and medium businesses found it hard to justify the additional expense of a DR site. However, seeing the damage that the hurricane has caused and the difficulty experienced in restoring power and communication to large areas so many days after the storm, it has become clear that expenses on DR are an insurance policy that will need to be taken out. Worsening weather, global warming, terrorism and hackers are making it essential to think seriously about DR.
Catastrophes like these are inevitable yet they cannot be used as an excuse for businesses suspending their operations. Every minute they are not operation is lost opportunity; this is why GMO Cloud makes sure that networks are on consistent uptime, facilities are well taken care of, and is ready for any unwanted disasters that threaten a businesses operations.
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.
November 14th, 2012
Japan is home to some of the biggest names in computer games. In fact, when it comes to console games, the Xbox is the only major non-Japanese brand in the market. Future growth however is moving away from consoles and towards social gaming and mobile gaming applications. With the slowdown in the growth of console games and the increase in the social gaming market, it is expected that social gaming will be the dominant platform by 2015.
When it comes to social gaming, the Japanese statistics are totally different from the rest of the world. For one, the games are mostly home-grown. One reason for this is that it is almost impossible to make inroads in the Japanese market without any localization and culturalization of the apps to make them more “Japanese.”
Localization is not only limited to changing the language to Japanese (Nihonggo), it also means that the graphics should also be changed accordingly by using Japanese place names and posters. Culturalization addresses the issue of being Japanese appropriate. Due to cultural differences, there are some concepts which are uniquely Japanese. A straight translation of the game app might not take into account the Japanese culture in terms of in-game character behavior. Porting social media games to take advantage of localization and culturalization means the difference between guaranteed failure and a fighting chance at the market. In most instances, getting help from a third-party which is experienced in localization and culturalization customization jobs would be the only path even before launching the app in Japan.
In the mobile game market, penetration is also a problem. Besides the same problems with localization and culturalization, there is the issue with the gaming platform. Currently, the Android and iOS platforms have a combined 50 percent of the market for smartphones. The remaining 50 percent is composed of feature phones which are sold only in Japan. This results in more market fragmentation than the rest of the world. Whereas phone buying decision-making in other countries have increasingly gone towards a choice between an Android phone and an iOS device, in Japan, the fragmented market remains as a hurdle. For game developers, this may be a barrier when it comes to selling more games. However, it can also be an opportunity to have a foothold in the Japanese market. The key is to port the games to run on local feature phones. Normally, this would be a daunting task. However, since the developer would also need to reprogram for localization and culturalization issues, overhauling the program would become a one-time cost.
Culturalization does not necessarily mean that the games have to be in genres which are almost exclusively Japanese. It also does not mean that the game has to be anime or manga related. These are different conditions which are uniquely Japanese, but can also be used as hooks for game development.
It can be taken for granted that any developer who would want to enter the Japanese market should also have a partner when as a conduit for promoting, and accepting payment for the apps. These are established companies which have a complete roster of games. Of course, the developer has the option to just license the app to these channels or to be complete partners with them. Licensing the apps would be less of a hassle. The developer only needs to sit back and relax while the money rolls in. For most small companies this may be the ideal approach. For larger companies which have a larger listing of games, and who want to have a larger presence in the Japanese market, they might opt for a more hands-on approach to managing the business.
Japanese gaming is not just a matter of installing a server and selling access to the game. The prudent game developer has to understand the major differences between Japan and the Western approach to mobile and social gaming. Developers have to have a man-on-the-ground for a better understanding of what they should be doing and what they should avoid doing.
Considering that Japanese gaming culture is more pervasive, it is expected that at some point in time, there would be a convergence of these technologies, where all social games would be able to run on mobile devices. Mobile games, running on social media however, has a lesser chance of happening.
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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.
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