How the cloud is like PCs: An IT history lesson

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Technology has always played a role in creating freedom within an organization, either by breaking down boundaries or by providing an avenue through which to reach new horizons. For a long time, the most innovative force in enterprise technology was the computer. When the first PC was introduced, it changed everything by making real computing power affordable and available to businesses and individual employees. The analysis made possible by PCs resulted in increased operating efficiency, faster innovation and dramatically improved client experiences. While computers are still the main focus of every organization, they no longer driving the freedom of innovation they once did. Cloud computing, however, has taken up the mantle, and has changed the face of enterprise IT in much the same way PCs did when they were first introduced. Businesses can learn from their own IT history and put the cloud to work for them the way they did with PCs in the following three ways:

“Cloud computing has changed the face of enterprise IT.”

1) Embrace the freedom to build
One of the reasons PCs became so popular so quickly was because they offered employees the ability to build applications, which freed them from the practical constraints of the IT department. Each user was able to pursue his or her own ideas independently and follow the ones that would make the biggest difference to the company. Any technology that expands a user’s possibilities is unstoppable, and cloud enables the same freedom as PCs before it.

Before the cloud arrived, innovative employees who wanted to create a new application to improve operating procedures had to go through an endless series of steps to get approval before anything could move forward. Now the cloud puts a massive number of resources right at users’ fingertips, allowing them to create, test and distribute programs that may never have gotten made otherwise.

The cloud is poised to change the enterprise the same way PCs did in the '80s.The cloud is poised to change the enterprise the same way PCs did in the ’80s.

2) Focus on the value of data
One of the biggest benefits PCs offered businesses in the ’80s and ’90s was the ability to gather and use data at a level previously unheard of. Now, the cloud offers businesses a similar opportunity. Not only can massive amounts of data be created through countless apps and services, but an even greater amount can be collected and analyzed through those same features to offer insights into business processes and operations.

As a recent Forbes article noted, “This changes the way IT practitioners and leaders need to think about IT. Now it’s not just about building and running data centers. It’s about marshaling tools and applications that acquire, transform, apply and protect the data that runs the organization.”

3) Recognize the power to disrupt
After PCs crashed onto the tech scene in the early ’80s, network storage systems followed closely behind. After that, PC technology moved into the data center and created even more innovations. PCs quickly became a dominate force in the data center, fundamentally changing the economics of how they were built and operated. Now cloud is here to usher in the next wave of data center disruption.

Cloud is poised to create a deep and lasting impact on the future of IT. Hybrid cloud especially is becoming a defining trend. The majority of enterprises around the world are already using multiple cloud environments for at least part of their IT workloads, changing the way people think about data.

The bottom line is that the cloud won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, and organizations would do well to look at the examples set by earlier disruptive technologies and apply them now to make the most out of their technological investments.

Enterprises turn to the cloud to spur innovation, differentiation

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Now that every company has embraced some form of technology in order to enhance their business offerings, a growing number of organizations are making competitive differentiation a priority in an effort to gain an edge in the market. A recent report by IDC revealed that enterprises are frequently employing cloud computing services in order to achieve this differentiation through the innovative capabilities they offer. The cloud allows businesses to access advanced analytics and collaboration capabilities, as well as to test new technologies that will provide a rich client experience and increase time to market for new products and services.

“Using the cloud, teams can create and test their ideas in just days or weeks instead of the months.”

Cloud platforms have proven to be the most reliable environment within which to convert ideas into applications. Using the cloud as a common platform to develop on, teams can create and test their ideas in just days or weeks instead of the months or years it would take using traditional means. The ability to create and develop at a much quicker pace means organizations can find out earlier if their ideas will succeed or fail, allowing them to invest and risk less money in the process.

Organizations are rapidly adopting cloud services to increase innovation.Organizations are rapidly adopting cloud services to increase innovation.

Top areas of enterprise focus all centered on cloud
IDC’s Australia Ecosystem Study 2014 discovered that the five IT categories that are likely going to receive the biggest increase in spending in 2015 are business continuity and disaster recovery solutions, business analytics, infrastructure audit, IT service management and security. All of these segments can be achieved through cloud services, reflecting an increased maturity of cloud computing and a broader acceptance of the technology from business and IT.

“As we look ahead to 2015 and beyond, the industry is entering the most critical period yet in the third platform era: the ‘innovation stage,’ primarily characterized by value creation across industries and a new wave of core technologies that radically extend the third platforms’ capabilities and applications,” said Raj Mudaliar, senior market analyst for IT and cloud services research at IDC Australia.

According to the report, platform-as-a-service and cloud storage services will be the two fastest growing categories. An increase in the number of big data initiatives being deployed and the use of such services from the developer community has been driving much of the adoption. More companies are realizing the multitude of benefits that cloud services offer them and are leveraging those advantages to spur innovation
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4 trends for the data center in 2015

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Data centers have been growing increasingly important to the functions of the enterprise in recent years, and as a result the technologies and processes that run the data centers have rapidly evolved and changed. This year will be the biggest one yet for the data center industry, as there will be more demand for their product than ever before. Below are four of the biggest trends ready to change the industry in 2015:

"This year will be the biggest one yet for the data center industry, as there will be more demand for their product than ever before."

1) Increase in virtualization 
This IT constant has been driving growing change in the data center recently, but as an increasing number of organizations understand the benefits of the technology, it will become an even more prominent fixture. Virtualization offers users improved testing, faster redeployments and simpler backups, as well as a whole host of other advantages. Its use is a relatively new development, and technologies are emerging all the time that help improve its performance. One such improvement, the virtual storage area network, helps to make the data center more flexible, as well as increasing automation. Similar innovations will start to appear more rapidly, constantly changing the processes in play for data center operations.

2) AI finds the data center
A growing number of companies are making strides in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the next logical step for such technology is to utilize it in a data center. Google announced last year that it had started using machine learning via neural networks in order to optimize its computing facilities. In Google's case, AI was used mainly to manage and optimize operations in the data center concerning IT load, temperature and the effectiveness of their cooling equipment and allowed the company to experience greater energy efficiency.

Big changes are coming to the <a data-cke-saved-href=Big changes are coming to the data center in 2015.

Shift to IPv6
As use of the Internet has increased dramatically throughout the last decade, options regarding addresses on the current version of Internet Protocol, IPv4, have been almost entirely exhausted. The addresses have run out and routing tables have grown too large, creating serious problems. IPv6 is intended to replace the existing protocol and alleviate the issue, though large scale adoption may still be a ways away.

Though it hasn't arrived yet globally, IPv6 will have a major impact on the data center. Addresses for IPv6 are made up of eight groups of four hexadecimal numbers, each separated by colons. This type of grouping opens up a massive new set of possible IP addresses, but it will also likely have to be compatible with IPv4. Not only will the new version offer more addresses, it will also increase efficiency, improve security and provide new services support. U.S. adoption of the new version is currently around 14.5 percent, but that number will continue to grow in the coming years and data centers have to be ready. 

More companies adopt cloud solutions
Hybrid cloud seems to be the enterprise trend of 2015, with a rising number of organizations transitioning to a mixed cloud environment. A hybrid solution allows enterprises to mix security with performance, bringing in those who were once skeptical about the ability of the technology to handle all aspects of their business' workload. As more companies migrate to the cloud, data centers will have to be prepared to handle the increase in demand.

Changes in store for enterprise cloud in 2015

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While 2014 was a big year for technology in general, cloud computing in particular experienced multiple advances last year. Major tech companies have enhanced their public cloud offerings and investment in enterprise cloud solutions saw a dramatic increase. Gartner has named cloud computing as one of the top 10 strategic trends for 2015, and as the cloud becomes an even more prominent fixture in the business world, more big changes are in store for the technology this year.

Increased use of hybrid cloud
One of the biggest changes coming for enterprise cloud storage services is a more rapid shift from either public or private environments to a mixture of both. Many organizations are realizing that utilizing a single infrastructure is not sufficient to meet their availability and security needs at once. By employing a hybrid platform, companies are able to increase access for less secure applications by hosting them in a public environment and more business-critical programs can be kept secure in a private infrastructure.

CIOs already ramped up their adoption of hybrid cloud platforms in 2014, and experts expect this trend to continue into this year. The number of organizations shifting to a hybrid solution will rapidly increase as they realize the benefits of utilizing a platform that allows them to achieve a properly managed and governed IT portfolio.

Rise of hybrid cloud management
With adoption of hybrid cloud environments growing at a dramatic rate, use of a management platform to handle the new infrastructure is bound to follow. The ability to maintain governance over business-critical data and increasing compliance within an organization will become a major selling point in 2015, leading to a rise in the use of hybrid cloud management platforms.

There are a lot of changes happening in cloud computing, and it can be difficult to make the transition without a little help. When looking to implement any type of cloud infrastructure, the most important step is to find a reliable service provider to make the transition as simple and seamless as possible. ISG Technology offers the experience and knowledge required to create the right environment for every client, as well unmatched service to keep it running at prime capacity. Working with a trusted partner like ISG can help to make the process simpler and more straightforward, ensuring reliable access and service that will improve business. 

Cloud computing trends in 2015

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According to a recent report by Gartner, cloud computing is one of the top 10 strategic technology trends for 2015. A strategic technology trend has "the potential for significant impact on the organization in the next three years."

David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow, said there are three major themes within the tech trends for the new year: 

  • the merger of real and virtual worlds
  • technological impact of the digital business shift
  • the concept of intelligence everywhere

The last theme is related to a variety of the the trends predicted for 2015, including computing everywhere, smart machine learning and the Internet of Things. Cloud computing is a key element of all of those technologies.

The Gartner study suggested that in 2015, companies will begin to focus on promoting applications that are centrally coordinated and can port across multiple devices.

"Cloud is the new style of elastically scalable, self-service computing, and both internal applications and external applications will be built on this new style," said Cearley. "While network and bandwidth costs may continue to favor apps that use the intelligence and storage of the client device effectively, coordination and management will be based in the cloud."

The large scale shift to the cloud is undeniable, and many industry experts believe the technology will only become more popular in the new year. But what kinds of changes and improvements will be seen with the cloud in 2015? InformationWeek editor-at-large Charles Babcock made some predictions about what the next 12 months have in store for cloud computing. Below are some of the top predictions:

Enterprises will move an increased number of workloads to the cloud
While much has been made in the past about enterprise cloud adoption, it has mostly been talk up until this point. Now, companies are starting to actually implement the technology and this trend will continue into 2015. A recent study by IDG Enterprise revealed that 69 percent of organizations currently have a least part of their IT infrastructure hosted in the cloud, and investments in the technology have increased 19 percent in the last two years.

Software-defined security will become the new norm
With the rising success of software-defined networking technology, a growing number of providers are beginning to offer software-defined security. Babcock suggested that this method will become a bigger part of the software-defined data center and will be used to protect workloads in the cloud.

"In the software-defined data center, software mapping systems identify system perimeters and feed intelligence into a central monitoring system," Babcock explained. "That mapping capability must be extended to define the permissions and activities allowed to the software system, with a surveillance agent ensuring that it adheres to only those activities. Any exceptions must trigger an inspection and potential intervention. "

Greater use of public cloud infrastructures in business
As cloud environments have gotten safer, a rising number of CIOs have started using both public and private clouds in order to give business teams the tools they need to succeed quickly. While most organizations will likely always employ a private cloud environment for at least a portion of their businesses, many are starting to see the benefits of utilizing public platforms for less sensitive systems and processes.

IoT and big data platforms increase cloud use
As the Gartner study suggested earlier, the IoT will become even more popular in the new year; as it does, an increasing number of organizations will utilize the information created by the connected devices to benefit big data initiatives. Such a massive amount of data will have to be stored somewhere, and the cloud will see a major boost in enterprise investment as companies deploy Hadoop and other big data programs.

Predictions for the cloud in 2015

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While much of the tech talk surrounding 2014 was focused on the frequent data breaches that took place, the star of this year was really the cloud.  Many new cloud use cases emerged in 2014, and the technology continues to evolve to meet end-user needs. According to a recent cloud computing study by IDG, 69 percent of organizations currently host some amount of data in the cloud, an increase of 8 percent from 2013.

Cloud infrastructure and service providers have also grown a lot this year, gaining a better understanding of how to offer solutions more efficiently and cost effectively. With all of these improvements taking place this year, 2015 is poised to be another breakout year for cloud computing, with rates of adoption expected to rise dramatically.

Cloud security software provider Skyhigh Networks recently released some predictions for the future of the cloud in 2015. A key element of the predictions was the suggestion that consumer cloud services will begin to enter the enterprise sphere in the coming year. As demand increases for business users to be able to access their favorite consumer cloud applications in the enterprise, major players in the industry will likely establish a more visible presence in the space. This idea is backed up by research showing increased confidence in cloud-based enterprise services. A recent study conducted by Redshift Research found that companies are feeling more comfortable deploying Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and solutions like virtual desktop infrastructure and Data-as-a-Service are earning a greater foothold within businesses as workers demand mobility and bring-your-own-device policies.

Confidence grows as security increases 
​The SkyHigh Networks predictions also pointed out that companies are increasingly employing public cloud IaaS as confidence in the security capabilities of the platform has increased. As device security has proven very difficult, enterprises are beginning to focus more on securing actual data instead. Cloud service providers are becoming very adept at securing public environments, bringing new users to a section of the cloud previously thought unfit for business use. Nearly three-quarters of respondents in the IDG study reported that they were very or somewhat confident in the security of their assets hosted in the cloud.

SkyHigh researchers predicted that 2015 will be big for distributed data management across cloud services as big data analytics and the Internet of Things grow in popularity. Organizations looking to benefit from the business insights provided through the analysis of the information they create will increasingly employ the cloud to run analytics programs and store the raw data.

Top 4 benefits of the cloud for SMBs

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While cloud computing has been lauded as one of the biggest innovations in technology in recent years and as a growing number of companies have adopted the cloud, there are still some holdouts. Despite its popularity, some small businesses in particular still don't think the cloud is within their reach. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The benefits of cloud computing are especially advantageous for smaller organizations. In fact, businesses with less than 20 employees have a 68 percent adoption rate of cloud services compared with 53 percent of companies with between 500 and 1,000 workers according to information cited by Venture Beat. The cloud provides small companies with a variety of benefits, below are the top four:

1) Collaboration
With a small company, the employees are typically more involved with one another than in a major corporation. The cloud enables collaboration to take place more effectively and efficiently, as everyone can work on the same projects and documents in one central location. Having a streamlined center for edits and changes to be made dramatically reduces the back-and-forth emails and the amount of time spent searching for the necessary materials common with traditional collaboration methods.

According to a recent survey of global workplaces by Frost & Sullivan, organizations that deploy more advanced tools achieve a 400 percent return on their collaboration investments as compared with companies that stick to traditional techniques.

2) Security
The cloud provides invaluable data security and backup. Physical document storage solutions – laptops, external hard drives, USBs, etc. – are easily lost or stolen and devices can crash without notice, leaving documents unsaved and gone forever. Cloud storage services offer a secure option available online so files will never be lost or destroyed because of human error or network issues.

Using the cloud for data storage also helps to protect against attacks by cybercriminals. Security firm Alert Logic found in its 2014 Cloud Security Report that cloud environments are actually safer than on-premises solutions. According to the study, brute force attacks occurred 30 percent more frequently in on-premises data centers.

3) Flexibility
Use of the cloud enables companies to experience greater flexibility and mobility, allowing employees to work from anywhere with a connected device. This is especially advantageous for smaller companies as it allows workers to travel and move around as necessary to grow the business while still being able to connect with the home office and be productive.

4) Low cost
Perhaps the greatest benefit the cloud offers to small businesses is the ability to pay as you go. Cloud services are incredibly scalable and easy to expand or contract as necessary. Such a model is ideal for growing companies with uncertain capacity needs. The cloud also offers inexpensive start-up costs and regular software and security updates that reduce maintenance and licensing fees.

According to information cited by Venture Beat, 70 percent of companies using the cloud were able to invest the money they saved with the technology back into the enterprise, increasing growth and revenue.

Don’t be left in the cold when it comes to disaster recovery

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David Thiemecke, co-founder of Web consulting company Algonquin Studios based in Buffalo, New York, took the time last year to prepare for the inevitability of a damaging winter storm by migrating the company's critical operations to the cloud and allowing issues to remedied remotely.

"We would use those services as our backup data center for quickly moving virtual machines, and have previously planned for the process to migrate what few production services remain in-house," said Thiemecke in an interview with CSO. "We can also move our development and test platforms if necessary."

Luckily for Thiemecke, he planned ahead. Late November brought a storm that slammed parts of Buffalo, dropping more than seven feet of snow over the course of three days. Multiple businesses were disrupted due to the storm and now rising temperatures are causing the giant mounds of snow to become flooding risks. Due to the arrangements already in place, Algonquin Studios experienced zero downtime and employees were able to work remotely, avoiding the dangerous conditions on the roads.

Keep data safe by planning ahead
Disaster recovery is an important step for any business working to avoid wasting the time and money associated with enterprise data loss. Stephen Bigelow, senior technology editor for TechTarget, has noted that while organizations face a variety of risks on a daily basis, data loss is one of the most serious. Any company operating today needs to be concerned about protecting critical information and reducing downtime to as close to zero as possible.

"Disaster planning and preparation are a critical aspect of any business plan," said Bigelow. "But there is no single approach to disaster preparedness and the emphasis on disaster response is changing."

When implementing a disaster recovery solution, it's important to do an audit of all the enterprise information that will need to be replicated and stored in order to assess storage priority. Disaster recovery and business continuity operations must be periodically tested and practiced in order to ensure a smooth transition to backup processes in case of an emergency.

By deploying disaster recovery operations in the cloud, businesses are able to not only save money, but a third-party service provider can manage and oversee testing to reduce the time and hassle of doing it in house. Many cloud-based disaster recovery providers also take steps to encrypt privileged enterprise information, so it is protected at rest.

Creating a disaster recovery plan is a good teaching tool for employees as well as a reliable way to ensure business continuity. Organizations can use the migration of information to the cloud as an opportunity to tell their workers about the importance of data security and to back up sensitive files.

Fears about cloud security can be calmed with improved enterprise awareness

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As the use of cloud computing becomes more prevalent, a major topic of discussion within enterprises has been the safety of the technology. While many organizations have implemented the cloud, some are still skeptical of its ability to sufficiently protect sensitive information and reduce the chance of a data breach. In fact, a survey of CIOs earlier this year revealed that 70 percent consider security concerns to be the biggest barrier to cloud deployment, NetworkComputing reported.

Another survey recently released by InformationWeek Reports found that IT decision-makers are most worried about security and data resiliency when considering the cloud. Four of the top 10 concerns about cloud computing were related to those two topics. However, there seemed to be a discrepancy in the level of concern about security and the level of trust in the cloud's ability to protect an enterprise network. While 17 percent of those surveyed said the cloud significantly increases the chances of a data breach, 14 percent said the technology decreases the likelihood and 35 percent reported that the cloud has no impact on the occurrence of a security intrusion at all.

According to a separate study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, the cloud is safer depending on what segment of the enterprise you ask. Almost two-thirds of business leaders surveyed said that IT security is not compromised by use of cloud computing, and 35 percent reported an increase in security due to the cloud.

Increased enterprise oversight greatly improves cloud security
One reason there is a perceived lack of security in the cloud is due to an overall insufficient use of encryption. According to information from SafeNet, only 38 percent of U.S. companies encrypt important data. Such statistics reveal that cloud computing isn't unsafe so much as enterprises don't take the steps to secure their information residing in the cloud. Another easily avoidable security issue is the lack of involvement of IT security staff in cloud decision-making. In a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, nearly 40 percent of IT security professionals reported that they were rarely involved in decisions related to procuring cloud services, and 9 percent reported never being included at all.

Many of the security risks enterprise decision-makers believe are caused by the cloud are actually the result of insufficient data security policies and a lack of involvement from in-house IT staff. While it is nearly impossible to completely prevent a data breach from ever occurring on an accessible network, there are ways to greatly reduce the likelihood of a breach and dramatically improve the security of enterprise information storage.

Organizations commonly have concerns about the privacy of information stored with a third-party provider in a multi-tenant environment. These fears can easily be quelled through the use of a private cloud platform or a hybrid solution. Only one company's information is stored within a private environment, which eliminates the chance of outside eyes prying on sensitive data. With a hybrid option, the most privileged information is stored in a private environment and less critical data and applications are kept in a more accessible public area.

Top 4 reasons more companies than ever are deploying cloud platforms

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A recent study conducted by Dimensional Research found that the majority of enterprise IT decision-makers plan to deploy multi-cloud architectures within the next 12 months.

The report, which surveyed over 650 IT leaders in eight countries, discovered that 77 percent of respondents were planning on implementing multi-cloud architectures and are interested in utilizing interconnected colocation data center environments because of their increased reliability, security and performance. Researchers also found that 74 percent of participants expect to have larger budgets for cloud services in the coming year.

The study revealed the importance of interconnection to enterprises considering the cloud. Almost 90 percent of respondents indicated a need for interconnection to sufficiently meet their cloud performance objectives, either through direct connection to cloud services or high bandwidth interconnection to other clients. This strong desire for interconnection may be driven by the popularity of multi-cloud storage. According to the report, 74 percent of participants are preparing to implement a multi-cloud migration strategy, moving critical applications to a cloud platform maintained by a third-party service provider.

Enterprise cloud adoption is becoming increasingly popular for a number of reasons. Below are some of the biggest advantages to using cloud-computing in business:

1) Cost Efficiency: Installing and eventually upgrading software for all of the computers and mobile devices in an enterprise can be extremely expensive; it can also leave organizations vulnerable to security breaches and loss of competitive advantage. With the cloud, upgrades and security patches are included in the subscription price, so the newest and most secure version is always available without additional cost. Service is also extremely scalable, allowing businesses to pay only for the amount of computing power necessary and add extra capacity for a reasonable price later on. This enables a company and its cloud service to grow in tandem and always be in lock step.

2) Improve Accessibility/Mobility: With the cloud, documents and files are available to employees from any cloud-enabled device, improving remote working opportunities and staff collaboration. That accessibility enhances organizations to enter new markets and increase global presence, as the same platform used in the office is available to staff anywhere in the world and foreign communication can be done for a low cost over the Internet.

3) Ease-of-Use: Cloud infrastructures, especially those maintained by third-party providers, are dramatically simpler to create and manage than traditional IT environments. Any necessary configuration changes are taken care of by the service provider, and hardware and software installations are practically eliminated. Additional services or features can also be quickly and easily made available, reducing time to market and improving ROI.

4) Security: With the ability to access documents from any Internet-connected device, the likelihood of employees using external hard drives or USB devices that can be lost or stolen is greatly reduced. Data security is also improved in the cloud, as third-party providers are almost certainly more comfortable with cybersecurity than an individual enterprise would be, as keeping files safe is one of the provider’s main areas of focus.