Yahoo! Reaches for the Sky
More competition is good.
Add comment June 27th, 2008 at 08:12am
CIO Concerns about Cloud Security
There is a little here on CIOupdate about CIO concerns with cloud security. The article is short and a little overblown in how both sides are represented.
I’m currently talking to CIOs and CISOs at large enterprises and I’m not hearing any ‘panic’ so much as pragmatic concerns about securing cloud usage. The folks who are in charge of evaluating cloud services seem to be more concerned about auditability, accountability, and cost controls than enforcing enterprise security mechanisms on cloud systems.
To paraphrase a VP of Enterprise IT at a Fortune 50 company
This looks like an identity management problem to me. I’m more concerned about knowing what a user stored in the cloud or what servers are in use. How do I remove those files or turn off those servers when that user leaves us?
CloudScale will elegantly enable the secure management of clouds. Best of all, it was developed by infrastructure and security experts!
Add comment June 23rd, 2008 at 06:29pm
Cloud Values
If you haven’t noticed, the cloud computing conversation is in full swing. There has been a vigorous discussion recently on both blogs and the Cloud Computing Group around defining ‘cloud computing’ and everyone is taking a swag at it; usually with their own bias. Of course, I already have my own bias (ha!), but Reuven Cohen, CTO of Enomalism, had a recent posting, Describing Cloud, that I want to respond to.
Internet Centric Services
Reuven uses the notion of ‘internet centric software’ to describe cloud computing services and talks about a shift happening from a ’single tenant approach to software development’ to a ’scalable, multi-tenant, multi-platform, multi-network’ approach. I like the notion of ‘internet centric software’ and for me, it says much about the fact that the latest boom is one where people are trying to find new Internet-relevant business models rather than trying to move bricks and mortar online.
Calling it ’software’ still irks me, though. Developers aren’t consuming software in this new world. They are consuming cloud services, adding traditional software development, and putting together all new applications that are greater than the sum of the parts.
The Real Buzzword
What really irks me more is the notion that there is one problem: scale. If there is one buzzword that is more useless or more watered down than ‘cloud computing’, it’s got to be so-called ’scale’. Beyond the fact that it’s misunderstood and treated like a panacea is the fact that it masks a whole set of real, compelling problems and solutions.
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1 comment June 22nd, 2008 at 08:42am