Interesting read: What makes a quality Cloud hosting provider? Part 1

Over at Compare the Cloud a interesting read and, as always, a great discussion takes place. It's the post
What makes a quality Cloud hosting provider? Part 1 by Richard May.

Short break out:

"How is the supplier operating the platform? Do you have to compete with other users for resources? How does the platform deal with that contention? Different platforms handle this better than others and as many home broadband providers will notice, services can be slow during school holidays. Fine, but can you afford for your applications to be slow due to similar events occurring which are out of your control? I have heard of instances where providers are contending memory by 4 – 8 times on a server.

Cloud (summ)arise 2012!

2012 was a remarkable year for me in social media. I’ve gained more than 1 000 followers…without any follow back strategy. More than 10’ visitors on the blog and good traffic and sharing on GP’s around the web. Not bad for a rookie I think. Big THANK YOU to all readers, supporters and followers. I truly appreciate it. And by the way… what a remarkable year it was for Cloud Computing.

And by the way...what a remarkeable year it was for Cloud Computing. Who’s not impressed by true cloud…when it makes sense, fulfill needs and works like it’s supposed to?

This is my cloud, and a bit of IT Ooutsourcing and management, summary for 2012.

GP on maildistiller.com

My first and hopefully not the last guest post on Maildistiller is out: Cloud Price War Consequences

Special thank you to: Sarah-Louise, Caroline & Danielle

Short break out:

Cash is King

Yes, in a sellout price war world. Cash when it comes to services means long-term agreements. One of the fundamentals in cloud is the ability to move between CSPs, irrelevant of the reason why. Pay upfront, when it comes to IT services, is not cloud friendly: it’s a

Part 3 in the Cloud Compliance series

My latest post, Part 3, in the Cloud Compliance series is out on Newvem. Please enjoy
Cloud Compliance: Part 3 – Choosing the Right (IaaS) Cloud Service Provider
Short break out:

In this part we will dig a bit deeper and detail the standards and regulations that some of the most common infrastructure (IaaS) Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) comply with and are certified for. CSPs are not always obliged to follow all regulations, but normally they have procedures to make their consumer cloud compliant. We also look at four of the IaaS giants

My Cloud 2013 predictions

My Cloud 2013 predictions is out on Newvem: The Cloud is dead! Long live the Cloud!

Short break out:

• We don’t see cloud as a problem. You adopt a cloud service if it fits your business. You install a system/application as part of your on-premise solution if it fits your business. You make them work together; there are some orchestrating apps and people for that.
• It’s not an internal love affair between cloud service providers. It’s not even a love affair between cloud service providers and engaged IT Pros, evangelists, and journalists anymore. A sweet lasting smell of love is obviously starting to arise between cloud services and IT departments and non-IT business people.
• The transfer of legacy

What is cloud computing?

Great infographic from Microsoft Europe:

Cloud Compliance: Part 1 - The Basics

My first part about Cloud Compliance is now available on KnowYourCloud.

Short break out:

"Just for fun; a tricky question: What happens if an SaaS provider from Country A put its service on a PaaS provided from Country B? And, scary, the PaaS from Country B resides on an IaaS from Country C in Continent D? Is your organization cloud compliant in this scenario? Will any of the XaaS providers guarantee you’re cloud compliant? Let’s hope these scenarios won’t be frequent in the market in the future"

Please share if you like it.

+ the Cloud LESS control button



Success in cloud adoption; let go of detailed control.

A fact is that IT as a Service keeps taking market shares. The services are delivered as traditional SaaS, from a Managed- / Service Provider or as cloud services. We see growths in areas like IaaS and especially PaaS when application providers and vendors put applications in the cloud. But the speed is not what many expect. What’s causing this? I’ve been doing some thinking.


Shoe service description and SLA? This + brand, store and receipt is my agreement for buying a shoe. The agreement should also guarantee my choices: no children, environment-friendly transportations etc. If textile inside it doesn’t meet SLA I will return it. I shouldn’t care about transportation, logistics, sewing machines etc. IT is far more complicated but principle is the same.

#CloudWisdom 16

Is adoption of cloud equal to put everything in the cloud?

Answer: No. You should adopt services which make you more productive, efficient, you can evolve with and cause you less headache compared to hosting them on prem.

Systems that works ok on prem and is not better fulfilled by a cloud service should remain on prem...until a better solution is available.

Cloud services should kill your pains, not reversed.

10 great cloud infographics

Reading tweets I found this '10 Incredibly Insightful Cloud Infographics' on evolven.com by a tweet from @cloudwebops. All gathered on one view. Worth a view for the cloud geek as well as the cloud novice.

A peak:

Orchestration

Read a new post (Cloud Orchestration starts to play its tune!) on 'how to build a cloud' about orchestration pointing on the systems named or aimed as orchestrators. Interesting and wise read. I recommend the site (orchestrated ;) by @BuildaCloud) for those who like to read about cloud and trends.

Short break out:

"Think of cloud orchestration as an amazing CTO with a wand standing at the front of the IT room directing his team of IT people through the symphony of 24/7 consumer facing IT service. The difference is no amount of people and no size wand is ever going to direct the symphony as well as a nice tidy piece of software specifically written for the job.

Orchestration of your cloud is only part of the puzzle, a big part granted but there is more cool stuff I like to see in my clouds, specifically around reporting and billing so I’m going to stick with cloud enablement as my main catch phrase until such time I find something better!"

As you might know I focus more on the assignment than systems when I talk about orchestration so my comment to this was:

#CloudWisdom 14

Sometimes they pops up... often by articles read during a day. Here is my #CloudWisdom 14:

PaaS M-/SP's; Look at the opportunity to provide PaaS to SaaS SP's. Become a SaaS platform provider and support the application providers to reach the cloud.
Application providers; Contact M-/SP's. Can they provide a PaaS; grab the opportunity to reach out in the cloud with your application. Become a SaaS provider in the cloud without building from zero or IaaS.

Comment on the post 'Platform-as-a-Service: The Game Changer'

Great short read: 'Platform-as-a-Service: The Game Changer' by Kevin L. Jackson on Forbes.

Short break out:
"Developers can create and deploy software faster. Agencies can lower their risks, promote shared services and improve software security via a common security model. Data centers can leverage PaaS to make their infrastructure more valuable. PaaS can lower the skill requirements to engineer new systems and can lower risks by taking advantage of pretested technologies."

My comment: