2009年11月4日水曜日

SKテレコムがIBMと組み、韓国でPaaS事業開始。アプリケーションやツールの品揃えの充実に力を入れている模様。

やはり、対象は中小企業で、開発運用コスト削減を希望するユーザを狙う。

SK Telecom, IBM ready to offer cloud computing

Submitted by TKorea on 2009/11/02 – 11:25 pm

SK Telecom, the leading mobile operator in Korea, and IBM Korea announced that they have completed a cloud computing environment for Platform-as-a-Service, offering not only hardware but also software to consumers to access Web-based applications, and to save computing resources. IBM Korea has offered a wide range of support, including hardware, software, services and consulting to SK Telecom's clouding computing service.
According to SK Telecom, with this total solution, especially small and mid-sized companies which are burdened by having to set up independent service platforms, can expect to save costs and use leading-edge clouding computing service. Mobile content providers will be able to develop and test their service in a convenient environment and with lower risks due to new service launches, and entry barriers for new mobile service introductions will be reduced, the company said.

For the clouding computing offering, SK Telecom has secured about 80 servers and software technologies, such as automation programs for automatic server partitioning allocation and software installation to meet customer needs.

SK Telecom has established a target to secure 20 consumers for its new clouding computing service, including service developers and mobile content providers. SK Telecom is also considering expanding its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud computing basis.

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投稿者 時刻:

MITとUC San DiegoがAmazonのEC２のセキュリティ問題を指摘。Side Channel攻撃、という=>

仮想化技術では良く知られている手法で、EC2で管理されているデータを仮想化レイヤーから蒸す乱す事が理論上可能である、という指摘。
この研究に対してAmazonが事実上難しい手法である、と反論、さらに対策を施している、と報告。
 
産学間のこういうやり取りを通してセキュリティの問題を議論する事は、ビジネス上の利益が絡まないから健全な関係でかかる問題の解決に繋がる、という期待がある。

Amazon downplays reports of vulnerabilities in its EC2 cloud service

Hypothetical security issue described in a recent report is much harder to pull off in reality, Amazon says

By Jaikumar Vijayan | Computerworld

Amazon says it has taken steps to mitigate a security issue in its cloud computing infrastructure that was identified recently by researchers from MIT and the University of California at San Diego.

The report described how attackers could search for, locate, and attack specific targets in Amazon's Elastic Computer Cloud (EC2) because of certain underlying vulnerabilities in the infrastructure.

Though the attack described in the report was conducted against Amazons infrastructure, the researchers concluded that similar targeted attacks could be carried out in other cloud services as well because the vulnerabilities were generic.

In response, Amazon spokeswoman Kay Kinton said Wednesday that the report describes cloud cartography methods that could increase at attacker's probability of launching a rogue virtual machine (VM) on the same physical server as another specific target VM.

What remains unclear, however, is how exactly attackers would be able to use that presence on the same physical server to then attack the target VM, Kinton told Computerworld via e-mail.

The research paper itself described how potential attackers could use so-called "side-channel" attacks to try and try and steal information from a target VM. The researchers had argued that a VM sitting on the same physical server as a target VM, could monitor shared resources on the server to make highly educated inferences about the target VM.

By monitoring CPU and memory cache utilization on the shared server, an attacker could determine periods of high-activity on the target servers, estimate high-traffic rates and even launch keystroke timing attacks to gather passwords and other data from the target server, the researchers had noted.

Such side-channel attacks have proved highly successful in non-cloud contexts, so there's no reason why they shouldn't work in a cloud environment, the researchers postulated.

However, Kinton characterized the attack described in the report as "hypothetical," and one that would be "significantly more difficult in practice."

"The side channel techniques presented are based on testing results from a carefully controlled lab environment with configurations that do not match the actual Amazon EC2 environment," Kinton said.

"As the researchers point out, there are a number of factors that would make such an attack significantly more difficult in practice," she said.

At the same time, Amazon takes all reports of vulnerabilities in its cloud infrastructure very seriously, she said. The company will continue to investigate potential exploits thoroughly and continue to develop features bolster security for users of its cloud service, she said.

Amazon Web Services has already rolled out safeguards that prevent potential attackers from using the cartography techniques described in the paper, Kinton said without offering any details.

She also pointed to the recently launched Amazon Web Service Multi-Factor Authentication (AWS MFA) as another example of the company's continuing effort to bolster cloud security. AWS MFA is designed to provide an extra layer access control to a customer's Web services account, Kinton said.

The research report that highlighted the security issues in cloud computing infrastructures is scheduled to be presented at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security next month.

投稿者 時刻:

オフィスアプリケーション（email、コラボ、等）のクラウド化が促進、価格競争も激化：MS社が=>

自社のBPOS(Business Productivity Online Suite)の価格を引き下げ、Google Appsと同等の価格帯まで落とした事を発表。
この市場は、Googleのほかに、Zoho、Yahooが買収したZimbra、IBM Lotus Notes Hosted Message等があり、競争が激しい。 
 
この中で、Microsoftが未だにOfficeのクラウド化を行っていないのが興味深い。 クラウド化によるパッケージ事業の収益が大きく下がる事に未だ大きな懸念が残っている、という読みが多い。 

Microsoft Drops Prices Of Cloud Apps

Exchange Online's monthly price drops from $10 to $5, and storage increases to 25 Gbytes, matching Google Gmail.

By Mary Hayes Weier
InformationWeek
11 3, 2009 08:45 HM

One week after a high-profile loss to Google for 30,000 e-mail accounts for the city of Los Angeles, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has come out swinging.

Microsoft has lowered the subscription prices for its cloud computing applications, and has announced new customer wins and broader geographic availability for the apps.

The software giant has lowered the price of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), which includes online versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications and Office Live Meeting, from $15 a month per seat to $10 a month.

For Exchange Online alone, its email software-as-a-service, the price drops from $10 to $5. Microsoft also has increased its standard e-mail storage per user from 5 Gbytes to 25 Gbytes -- the same amount that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) provides for Google Apps subscriptions.

Microsoft BPOS has been generally available for just several months, and competes with Google Apps, Zoho Mail, Yahoo Zimbra, and the newest entrant, IBM Lotus Notes Hosted Messaging. Although Microsoft has disclosed the names of several large companies that are implementing BPOS or Exchange Online -- including its largest, GlaxoSmithKline, with 110,000 seats -- it has released 11 more names, including Aon Corp., Aviva PLC, McDonald's Corp., and Tyco Flow Control. Aon, which is transitioning all 36,000 employees to Exchange Online, is the largest customer win disclosed this week.

Microsoft also announced that BPOS and Exchange Online are now available in Singapore, and will be available in India later this year. The SaaS apps already are available in more than 15 countries, and Microsoft has trials underway in more than a dozen additional countries.

European customers will be served their SaaS apps from a new data center in Dublin and another in Amsterdam. Asian customers will be served from Microsoft's Singapore data center and a newly built one in Hong Kong. U.S. and Latin American customers will be served from from data centers in Texas, Virginia, Washington, and a newly built one in Chicago.

These announcements come one week after the city council of Los Angeles voted to replace an aging Novell (NSDQ: NOVL) GroupWise email system with Google Apps, beating out Microsoft Exchange Online.

Rob Markezich, corporate VP of Microsoft Online, says the price drop is not in response to what happened in Los Angeles. "We've achieved a level of scale we didn't have a year ago, and have made a number of software investments that allow us to drive down costs and have more efficiencies," he said.

Still, are Microsoft's cost cuts enough? Google Apps, by comparison, which includes apps for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, in addition to email, costs only $50 per user per year. Markezich's response is that Microsoft offers a scaled-down version of Exchange Online, designed for employees who aren't frequent PC users, for $24 a year, and a scaled-down version of BPOS for $36 a year. What's more, "we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office]," he said.

Microsoft's online, subscription-based versions of Office apps are in development and aren't due out until the first half of 2010.

CIOs choosing BPOS or Exchange Online over Google Apps and others typically cite three key factors: seamless integration with on-premises instances of Exchange or SharePoint; familiarity with the Microsoft platform; and an easy exit strategy if they decide they don't like cloud computing.

"I don't think it's any secret that it's a big change to take your company to Google; it's a different environment," said Tony DeGregorio, VP and Global CIO at Tyco Control Flow, a manufacturer that will have 12,000 employees on Microsoft Exchange Online by December.

Tyco is replacing a combination of on-premises Exchange and Notes platforms that it's adopted due to various acquisitions in recent years. And with Google Gmail, "an exit strategy for that type of environment lends itself to challenge," DeGregorio said. "With Microsoft, I'm in an Exchange environment. If I want to leave (Exchange Online) I can pick that up and move it to my own Exchange environment. It's not a proprietary type of environment."

投稿者 時刻:

2009年11月3日火曜日

LA Police DeptがNovellからGoogleにemailシステムを移行。 Novellの反応に厳しい意見が=>

飛び交っています。
Novellの公式ブログに下記の記事がNovell自身から掲載されました。
内容は、Google Appsのセキュリティの懸念、LA Police Deptの間違った判断等、顧客や同業他社に対する中傷とも言える文言が述べられ、最後に「それでもサポートは継続します」と述べている。 
これに対して、コメントが殺到、かなりNovellに対する厳しい意見が寄せられている。
 
営業上、いろいろな要因で失注することもあるのが世の中。 それに対してこういった公式の場で苦言を呈するのは問題だな、と感じると共に、クラウドが世の中を変えつつあるのかな、と考えさせられる。 
 

Novell News

The City of Los Angeles

October 29th, 2009 by Ian Bruce

This week the Los Angeles city council voted to move forward with a proposal to replace the City's existing e-mail and productivity solutions with cloud-based e-mail, calendaring and document services from Google.

Like the LA Police department and others, we continue to doubt the economics and security of the City's decision to move to a Google system. The City Council was presented with clear evidence that Google posed a very significant risk to the security of City and citizen data, much of it highly confidential. In addition, independent financial data showed that the new system will actually cost more, not less.

With the City facing a massive budget deficit, the speculated budget benefits of switching to this untested application are enticing, but as a recent independent Los Angeles City Administrative Officer report has stated, the proposed system under consideration will actually cost taxpayers an additional $1.5 million in the first year. There are significant costs to migrating, training and securing Google Apps.

To set the record straight, Novell GroupWise is a world-class product with more than 30 million users in 120 countries around the globe. Over 1,200 US agencies use the product, including 47 of the 50 US states. It is a secure, trusted and proven e-mail and collaboration solution. The latest version of GroupWise 8 includes interactive Web 2.0 dashboards, rich e-mail functionality and robust calendar management capabilities all delivered securely.

The City of Los Angeles should have opted for this proven product to ensure the security of its data and to save taxpayer money. They have taken a risk with no reward. However, as a valued customer, Novell will continue to offer our world-class support to the City of Los Angeles during the transition.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 7:22 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

19 Responses to "The City of Los Angeles"

  1. Mike Glenn Says:
    October 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    This wasn't technical, it was political.
    I've seen it way too many times: Some hotshot new PHB shows up and tears the living crap out of everything, just to make themselves look "valuable." Not once do they ever look around and say "This place runs great; I think I'll just leave well-enough alone."

  2. Danita Zanre Says:
    October 29th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Ian,

    Thanks for your comments. As a consultant in the industry, I cannot tell you (nor do I have to I'm sure) how many times I have seen this. It is difficult to show apples/apples comparisons to products like GroupWise 5.5 and Exchange 2007, for example. Yet, I have had customers make such a move, and pat themselves on the back for bringing their email system into the 21st century. It's a shame that the City of Los Angeles did not bring their GroupWise system in line to be able to truly compare it to what they would receive with Google Apps.

    I'm happy to support GroupWise, and will be watching the migration of The City of Los Angeles with great interest.

    Danita Zanre
    Caledonia

  3. Rob Aronson Says:
    October 29th, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    The grass is always greener and politicians have very short attention spans for technical details.

    That being said the city isn't in the IT business, it's in the business of providing services to it's citizens. Like every other business it needs to focus on it's core competencies. No business wants to be in the IT services industry and if many have the opportunity to relinquish responsibility for something as important, as visible and as complex as a large email system then they will.

  4. Jared Jennings Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 11:53 am

    It's not about which is the better product, it's about which is more widely supported. Market share again. Why is Google getting rave? Market Share and support.

  5. don Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    wow… way to make your customer feel "valued". this is why people are leaving novell left and right.

  6. Eric Rothweiler Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 4:23 pm

    @Rob
    You speak of core competencies – that has been like a stick in the eye for most full vision business supporting professionals for some time.
    How many Fortune 1000 companies have Accounting & Finance as a core competency? How many of the rest outsource their Accounting & Finance? The question of in-source out-source has nothing to do with core competencies and everything to do with VP and CxO level persons not knowing how to valuate their IT services and thus opting for out-sourced solutions that deliver that precise balance sheet number.
    If, as a business person, you take a step back and look at the value IT delivers to your company you would be hard pressed to stand by any claim of "not our core competency". The agility required to grow and flex a business in demanding economic times makes it more important to directly control your IT infrastructure. Losing weeks or months of time while you renegotiate a contract or at least weeks to add services through channels, is time lost where you could have been leveraging the new business opportunity.
    In this manner, I believe it is the business itself that is failing to understand business. The exact claim that is made too often of IT.

  7. Keith Neilson Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    Maybe it was they didn't want to pay Microsoft more money for Office on top of it, also allows them to use none Microsoft clients much more easily (no need for the Windows 7 upgrade). It is a new way of doing business – instead of attacking it, maybe look to join it and make it better. Need I bring up IPX.

    As for GroupWise, time to move into the 21st century and work towards a cloud environment that folks can buy what they want, as Exchange has that future.

    As for spending more with Google… err… I would think not in the long run and the integration it provides is awesome. No, I am not a Google Fan Boy.. but a realist.

    It hurts to loose – but learn from it.

    Keith Neilson

  8. matt k. Says:
    October 30th, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    Obviously, Novell is going to be biased for the move OFF of Novell and onto a competitor (Google).

    Novell states cost in training. Really. Does it cost anything to show someone how to use web based email? It is common and everyday activity stuff. And if LA staff can not use a web browser, I would be afraid to have them as my government!

  9. Edvin Aghanian Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 3:02 am

    I think the City of LA made a smart decision. I have been using Google Apps since its inception, and have migrated a few mail systems to it. I think it is a wonderful product, with an excellent set of features and an very reasonable cost per user. I hope Google continues to improve this wonderful product.

  10. Novell to Los Angeles: Drop Dead! (PC World) | Breaking News Fast Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 8:00 am

    [...] the PR blog post is very real. And while Novell may (and probably does) have a valid point, how many customers do you think would [...]

  11. Novell's Blog Wheels Out Tired Criticisms of Open Source | google android os blog Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 9:03 am

    [...] with a $7.25 million, five-year deal to adopt Gmail, Google Calendar and other applications, Novell's blog has an interesting rebuttal. Of course, the reason for the city's switch to Google's corner of the cloud is to save [...]

  12. Novell to Los Angeles: Drop Dead! Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 9:30 am

    [...] the PR blog post is very real. And while Novell may (and probably does) have a valid point, how many customers do you think would [...]

  13. Jason Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 12:53 pm

    Being an administrator of your sofware for years. I can understand fully why this happens.

  14. mb Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    So it comes to this — Novell publicly criticizes their customer who has paid millions in license and maintenance fees over the years.

    I'll remember how Novell treats their customers when my clients select new messaging and collaboration solutions.

  15. Gert Says:
    November 1st, 2009 at 8:55 am

    I wonder if this can be stopped at all.

    If the mind of MGMT is set to change to another file/print/email-system, there is only little – only someone with more power – to stop it.

    I agree that the lack of keeping the GW system up to date helps here a lot. It simply means MGMT can say they're working with an out of date product.

    And hey, it's cool to say you start something new, even if the budget for it isn't there…

    In my opininon an end-user board, a group of users – secretaries, MGMT, helpdesk, other users – can be a good thing to make democratic decisions and to come up with advices concerning the USE of IT. In that case an email policy can be used. This gives users the feeling they are part of the process.

    Gert
    GWCheck.com

  16. Tom Stone Says:
    November 1st, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    I have to agree that IT decisions are rarely factually sound and logical. They tend to be trendy, based on a lame brained article in CIO magazine, personal whim, or all of the above. When I look at Google's offering, I see a huge security risk, a huge liability risk, and hidden costs that can eat up a budget.

    It sounds appealing to government and to schools on tight budgets. Free. Free. Free. However, one lawsuit will wipe out any of that savings and they will find that Google disavows any responsibility or liability for their services. They are big enough to fight the city in court and win.

    I think the police department would be wise to resist the city on this and keep their systems separate. They have much to lose going to Google.

  17. Novell kritisiert L.A. f�r Umstieg auf Google Mail | silicon.de Says:
    November 2nd, 2009 at 5:05 am

    [...] aller berechtigten Kritik an dem Umstieg, klingt es doch etwas seltsam, wenn solche Worte aus dem Blog des ausgestochenen Konkurrenten [...]

  18. Joseph Marton Says:
    November 2nd, 2009 at 7:25 am

    I agree that the move by the City of Los Angeles is rather shortsighted and does not make good technology sense. However, this blog entry has not helped Novell's case and in fact has created quite a stir online–all of which is negative. The move by the City created enough bad PR for Novell on its own without Novell creating any more bad PR.

    Novell should really issue a retraction or at least a clarification and try to limit the damage.

    Examples:

    http://swordandthescript.blogspot.com/2009/10/pr-getting-slammed-for-taking-stand.html

    http://boycottnovell.com/2009/10/31/groupwise-rejected-by-la/

    http://ostatic.com/blog/novells-blog-wheels-out-tired-criticisms-of-open-source

    http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/181119/novell_to_los_angeles_drop_dead.html

    I'm sure this isn't what Novell intended with this blog posting but alas this is the result in today's Web 2.0 world.

    Joe Marton

  19. Sam Says:
    November 2nd, 2009 at 7:34 am

    Novell are always feeling sorry for themselves (I am however a big user of Novell software and a fan of the company). Novell must start to realise that many people prefer the Outlook or Google Apps interface that users see. Novell must improve the GroupWise interface and, inmy opinion, have a stable and good way to allow Microsoft Outlook to access (with the use of all features!) the GroupWise back end. The GroupWise connector was rubbish. This would give companies a great solution – the stable and virus free backend with the world's most popular email client.

投稿者 時刻:

NY TimesでのCiscoの記事。意外と知られざる一面を知る。クラウドについては一言も言及されていない=>

ということも興味深い。

Cisco's Run of Spending

By ROBERT CYRAN
Published: November 2, 2009

Cisco, the computer networking giant, has spent the last decade acquiring rivals and buying back stock. It's time to acknowledge that this strategy isn't working. Investors who bought Cisco's shares a decade ago have received no return on their investment.

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Cisco, led by John Chambers, will post its results this week.

Results this week should give Cisco another chance to profess its optimism. Technology markets are rebounding. And John Chambers, Cisco's chief executive, will talk about the 26 new product areas that he thinks can each generate $1 billion in sales in the near term.

Eternal ebullience is nothing new from Mr. Chambers, who once claimed Cisco could increase sales by 50 percent a year over the long run. They've since grown 7 percent annually.

Yet the years of deal making may be making Cisco unwieldy. Cisco has 59 standing boards and councils. This seems like a recipe for endless meetings, management confusion and reduced accountability.

The company says it's a way to involve more people in decision-making. In any case, Cisco continues to acquire new businesses — $22 billion worth since 2002 (including some $7 billion this year), according to Dealogic.

Cisco has always acquired and plugged companies into its sales and production network. These firms either strengthened Cisco's core business, selling routing and switching systems, or helped increase demand for its products.

There was another positive side effect of this: optimistic investors valued Cisco on earnings several years in the future. So Cisco could buy small companies at lower valuations with its supercharged stock and reap the benefit as investors then rerated the acquired earnings at Cisco's higher multiple.

As the trajectories of the shares of other former acquisition machines like Tyco International and General Electric show, this strategy can stumble when companies reach a certain size. The purchaser needs more or bigger deals to show impressive growth. Cisco is indeed chasing larger ones; it recently agreed to buy Starent Networks and Tandberg for about $3 billion each.

Still, Cisco may walk away from Tandberg because minority investors want more money. That suggests the company is keeping some fiscal discipline. But if Cisco follows the acquisition machine model, the difficulty in running the company smoothly while mounting ever-larger deals will become increasingly evident.

Investors may become cautious, and reduce the value they attach to the acquisition machine's stock. When that happens, deals done using stock become unattractive and investors often begin clamoring for a breakup, rather than more acquisitions.

The other pillar of Cisco's strategy, stock repurchases, hasn't rewarded shareholders either. Returning excess cash from operations to shareholders should increase a stock price. Unfortunately, in Cisco's case, the practice hasn't measured up to theory. Cisco has spent close to $60 billion on stock buybacks since the start of its 2002 fiscal year. That's about three-quarters of cash flow from operations. So why haven't shareholders benefited?

First, the total count of shares outstanding has only decreased by 1.3 billion. This is partly because of dilutive acquisitions. However, if the number of shares hasn't shrunk much and Cisco's stock hasn't risen, this presents a conundrum. What exactly is the benefit to shareholders of these purchases? Shouldn't the price of a slice of Cisco increase if it is spending so much on buybacks?

One might argue that's because Cisco's stock is undervalued. A less appealing alternative is that Cisco is in the habit of overpaying to win control of companies it covets. In this case, the benefits accrue to the seller.

Part of the blame, however, lies in Cisco's generous use of options as compensation. Mr. Chambers was one of the loudest voices in Silicon Valley against forcing companies to show the cost of these grants. When Cisco spends cash to mop up the resulting shares, management gets the benefit over shareholders.

After 10 years of searching for the promised land of growth, it's time for something different. Slowing acquisitions would a good start. If the strategy's benefit isn't apparent after a decade of purchases, it is hard to see how it will appear magically now.

Moreover, if Cisco is so complex that it requires 59 councils, it should consider breaking into more manageable pieces. Lastly, since buybacks haven't rewarded shareholders, the company should switch to a dividend. Mr. Chambers has promised shareholders one before he retires. Adding one soon would be a great way to show that his baby has matured.

For more independent financial commentary and analysis, visit www.breakingviews.com.

投稿者 時刻:

2009年11月2日月曜日

クラウドのセキュリティと等しく重要なのは、有事の際の保証制度、いくつか提案が=>

出ており、下記の記事がそれを良くまとめている。 具体的には下記の対策が有用である、と述べている。
  • 法務上の制度：  クラウド事業者としての最低限の要件を法律として定め、俗にFake Cloud事業を取り締まれるようにする。
  • クラウドサービスに対する裁判制度を整備する
既にMicrosoft社に対して、先月起きたDanger社の障害（システム障害でスマートフォンのデータが消失した事件）に対する訴訟が何件か起こされており、事例として今後増加する可能性が高い。   

Does cloud computing need malpractice safeguards?

by James Urquhart

Recent failures to protect consumer data stored on the Internet (aka "the cloud") point to an alarming gap between the value of that data and the care with which some vendors treat that data.

Microsoft subsidiary Danger failed to put in even adequate safeguards for its customers' data. Amazon Web Services failed to discover an obvious problem that kept a loyal customer down for 20 hours. Coghead's agreement to sell to SAP without any provisions to continue support for existing customers.

(Credit: DB King/Flickr)

The truth is that cloud computing means that now, more than ever, IT operations is a profession that has a very real economic and quality-of-life effect on its consumers--in very many ways much like health care or the law. I think it's time we hold ourselves as individual and organizations to similar standards that we expect from doctors, lawyers, and law enforcement. Our ethics must reflect an understanding of the responsibility we are being granted by the rest of society.

The instances above are examples of companies failing to follow well-known professional protocols, or putting the needs of the business ahead of the needs of the client. Heck, look at just about any cloud operator's terms of service, and you see paragraph after paragraph of text that basically states, "If something goes wrong, you can't blame us."

I think its time to change this attitude. I see a couple of options, neither of which I love, to achieve this. I'd love to hear from some innovative thinkers on others.

  1. Pass "cloud consumer protection" laws. This was something that was briefly explored after I wrote my "Cloud Computing Bill of Rights" post in August of 2008. However, the folks who got involved at that time weren't a) vendors or b) policymakers, so we didn't get far.

    The biggest issue with using the law to enforce professional culpability is that it requires government bureaucracy for enforcement. That bureaucracy doesn't exist today, and would be expensive to create.

  2. Allow for "cloud malpractice" suits. Oh, I know, I know. Most of you in the IT profession are squirming in your chairs right now, ready to jump down my throat about how medical malpractice has created as many problems as it has solved. Again, I don't love this option, either.

    However, if Danger had lost arguably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of data (or more) because it didn't tangibly fear the reprisals that would come if it lost it, it would be nice to see a big ol' sledgehammer of justice ready to rain down. I'm sorry, but failure to follow known professional practices is malpractice, and malpractice suits exist to punish those who forget that.

Let me reemphasize that I don't love either option, but I do know something has to change. The public is placing an extremely high level of trust on "cloud" services, and there has to be more than the simple threat of loss of revenue to reflect this. What do you think? Is it time to wield a big stick with respect to cloud service operations, or will the natural evolution of the market do the job for us?

投稿者 時刻:

2009年11月1日日曜日

OracleとMicrosoftのクラウド戦略の違い=>

Microsoftは自社のクラウドにユーザを引き込む戦略を進める一方、OracleはパートナーISVの運用するクラウドにバックエンドでサポートする事に注力。

Sunの買収が成立したら話が大きく変わる可能性もある、という予測もある。

oracle-saas-vs-microsoft-windows-azureMicrosoft is pushing forward with Windows Azure — the company's cloud-based Windows Server system. And Oracle continues to accelerate its SaaS (software as a service) strategy for ISVs (independent software vendors). Are Oracle and Microsoft on a collision course in the cloud? Yes and no. Here's why. And here's what ultimately matters to VARs.

No doubt, Microsoft and Oracle both want to provide the foundation for cloud platforms. But they're addressing emerging cloud opportunities in different ways.

At Microsoft, the strategy involves launching the Windows Azure cloud, and then convincing ISVs (independent software vendors) to port their applications into Azure. Heck, Microsoft is evenrecruiting open source application partners to embrace Azure.

Microsoft's SaaS effort also involves recruiting channel partners to embrace Azure. True believers include West Monroe Partners, a Chicago solutions provider that has already launched applications on Windows Azure.

Oracle's Alternative

Meanwhile, Oracle isn't necessarily looking to build its own massive clouds. Instead, Oracle wants to be the software foundation for third-party SaaS providers like Cisco WebEx, BlackBoard and RightNow. Those SaaS applications run on Oracle's software — but the SaaS providers (Cisco, BlackBoard, RightNow) maintain their own systems.

Back at the Oracle OpenWorld conference (October 11, 2009, San Francisco), Oracle described a three-part SaaS strategy:

  1. Commercial agreements that empower ISVs with SaaS (known as SaaS for ISVs): Any ISV can build an application with no up-front Oracle costs, then you pay as you grow. Oracle descibed the ISV strategy in a June 2009 podcacast with The VAR Guy.
  2. Enabling partners with SaaS through the SaaS KnowledgeZone.
  3. Building a partner ecosystem that includes managing hosting providers and systems integrators. Oracle pointed to partners likeComputer Sciences Corp. and RackSpace Hosting, among others. Oracle also mentioned Oracle Validated Integrations — which ensure SaaS applications can integrate with Oracle on-premise applications and Oracle CRM on Demand. Roughly 500 integrations have been validated so far.

The Bottom Line

For now, Microsoft and Oracle are taking different SaaS and cloud routes:

  • Microsoft wants ISVs and partners to jump into the Windows Azure cloud.
  • Oracle isn't necessarily building its own big cloud — and is instead evangelizing Oracle databases and middleware to third-party SaaS and cloud companies.

Conspiracy theorists wonder if Oracle will start building its own massive clouds if the Oracle-Sun Microsystems deal gets approved.The VAR Guy loves a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy. But our resident blogger will wait for the Oracle-Sun deal to move forward before making any wild predictions.

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