WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Dec 30, 2011

With 2011 dawning on us, we bring you our last weekly Cloud sum-up for this year. Looking back on 2011, what stands out most of all is that the cloud became mainstream. Cloud computing even got its own Gartner hype cycle, and while some aspects of the technology are still deemed to be in the early wave of the cycle, others are far beyond any hype. Indeed, SaaS is so well established today that Gartner positions it firmly on the ’slope of enlightment’, well on the way to achieving productive enterprise adoption. 

 

Read More to find out how Cloud has been in 2011 and a short insight to 2012

Flexibility makes cloud computing more appealing

Flexibility is one of the key benefits of cloud computing, allowing businesses to adapt quickly and easily to unexpected challenges. According to the founder of cloudonomics.com, Joe Weinman, increasing capacity fourfold at the drop of a hat is now possible with the pay-as-you-go service model offered by cloud computing providers. Speaking to PC World, Mr Weinman said: "Let's say you're a retailer who 11 months out of the year might be able to use their own data centre to do things. For one month [you might want] to be able to double or triple or quadruple capacity."

How Cloud Computing is Changing Many Job Descriptions

Just as cloud computing is a game-changer for many companies, it is also changing the nature of jobs – not only within the information technology department, but in other parts of the enterprise as well. For senior-level executives, especially chief information officers, the changes reflect the more strategic role IT plays in the direction of businesses. For the business, it introduces more reliable and predictable supporting technology.

Cloud computing issues have a familiar ring to them

eWeek’s Howard Cohen reports that cloud adoption is running into some problems in enterprises, and the tone of these issues has a familiar ring to them. He quotes Greg Onoprijenko, president of e-ternity Business Continuity Consultants: “Education is always a big one, because people in general are still trying to wrap themselves up on cloud. They don’t know what they don’t know, so we’re spending a lot of time educating customers on just exactly what it means because there’s still a lot of confusion around what cloud is.”

IT pros will take a harder look at cloud computing in 2012

Despite slow adoption by enterprise IT in the years since cloud computing emerged, 2012 may turn out to be the year when cloud technologies finally begin to gain parity with more traditional data center staples such as virtualization and tape libraries. TechTarget's 2012 IT Priorities Survey found that a growing number of enterprises -- some 24.1% -- plan to grow their expenditures for cloud services over the next year. In fact, 27% of respondents said that cloud computing initiatives were viewed with high importance at their companies. Another 53% rated the importance of their cloud projects as medium.

We hope these short sum-ups on Cloud Computing in 2011 helped you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming year.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later. For Now Wish all my readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year, 2012
Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012

Before the clock strikes '12, we're going to steal a moment to wish our partners, customers, friends and well-wishers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012.

2011 was an exciting year for WOLF from start to finish, filled with customers/partners, great ideas and exciting challenges. With every passing year we realize the endless opportunities that the Cloud presents and new ways that it helps us solve the unique challenges of our customers.

So here's looking forward to 2012!


Thanks again and Best wishes,
WOLF Frameworks Team

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Dec 23, 2011

Cloud computing has drawn a great deal of attention as a way to reduce IT costs in healthcare. But are the companies that offer cloud computing well-prepared to meet the HIPAA privacy and security requirements? As hospitals and clinics alike consider their options for adding new applications in a hurry, on a tight budget or lacking necessary resources, many are considering the cloud computing option. With the HITECH EHR incentive payment program kicking into high gear, organizations are feeling pressure to devise ways to roll out new systems quickly so they can earn the maximum payments from Medicare and Medicaid.



Read more to find out about the Key Security Issues of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Top 10: Private Cloud FAQs

10 of the most common questions about building the private cloud by using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (VMM 2012):

1. How is the private cloud different from the public cloud? 
2. Isn't cloud computing, and especially the private cloud, really just the same as virtualization? 
3. How do you build the private cloud for Windows Server and its applications? 
4. What makes up a private cloud built with VMM 2012? 
5. Is a service the same thing as a VM? 
6. What is the Fabric? 
7. Can a VMM 2012 private cloud use other virtualization platforms besides Hyper-V? 
8. So what gives the private cloud self-service capabilities? 
9. When is VMM 2012 due to be released? 
10. Is VMM 2012 the only product that can build the private cloud? 

Cloud computing 'could have many advantages'

Cloud computing solutions can provide many advantages to businesses, but those implementing the service must carefully consider the security aspects of the systems. This is according to one expert who suggested that, like other advanced technologies, cloud computing will rise in popularity as more and more companies realise the benefits, but the trend will also impact on the need to work harder on the quality and safety of software. Phil Codd, managing director and chief markets officer for northern Europe, India and South Africa at Software Quality Systems, said that security and performance are critical to the nature of virtualisation. "Cloud computing can provide tremendous advantages to an organisation and there are additional considerations such as performance testing [and] security testing, as well as the need to ensure consistent functionality," Mr Codd commented.

Cloud Computing Integration – Challenges and Solutions

Often referred to as the ‘ugly part” of cloud computing. Integration plays a crucial role if you want to deliver cloud based solutions to your business. Outlining a cloud strategy could be a time consuming and difficult process, but the planning part must also take into account the fact that the on – premises resources and infrastructure a company has must be coordinated with the applications to be hosted in the cloud.

Cloud Computing: Forecasting First Steps of Adoption

While the fast path to cloud computing varies, it looks like many enterprises, as well as consumers, were already on the way before they really knew what cloud computing meant. Consumers who have been using online services for more than a decade may have become confused when popular software providers such as Microsoft started declaring “to the cloud” in reference to just about every imaginable online service. The typical consumer computer user didn’t realize they were using what is now called cloud services.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later. That's all for now. Wish all readers a Merry Christmas. 

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Dec 16, 2011

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in the Cloud has been covered multiple times and there have been many articles written on the topic, but still there is confusion about the importance of SLAs. Most people require a blueprint for architects and contractors to start building a new home and similarly would expect a new car to come with a warranty. An SLA serves as both the blueprint and warranty for cloud computing. There is an article written for Educause Quarterly by Thomas J. Trappler called “If It’s in the Cloud, Get it on Paper: Cloud Computing Contract Issues”.



Read more to find out what he recommends in his paper.

10 Ways Cloud Computing Will Disrupt our Businesses in 2012

If anything, 2011 should be remembered as the “Year of the Cloud.” The past year was an energizing one in terms of the advancement of cloud computing. The cloud approach was adopted by many organizations, and most vendors have now gotten into the game as well. What will 2012 bring?

Take a look ahead:

1. “Cloud” will begin to fade as a differentiating term — because it will just be the way we do things
2. Many businesses will follow the federal government’s example of a “cloud-first” policy
3. Pressure will grow to demonstrate cloud ROI
4. Private clouds will proliferate faster than public clouds
5. Private cloud will elevate IT’s role in the business
6. IT departments will both act as facilitators and competitors to public cloud providers
7. Lines between service providers and consumers will blur – on many cases, companies will be both
8. Public clouds will increasingly be seen as more secure than on-premises systems
9. Economic growth will accelerate as more businesses are formed in the cloud
10. Cloud will disrupt the outsourcing model

Security, compliance often lacking in cloud computing strategy

Despite enthusiasm surrounding setting a cloud computing strategy, IT professionals lack confidence in their organizations’ abilities to secure cloud solutions and keep them compliant, a new SearchCompliance.com survey finds. Only a third of survey respondents said they were confident that their cloud solutions were adequately secure and in compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements. Another 22% said their solutions weren’t secure or compliant. Perhaps most disconcerting? Close to half (45%) weren’t sure, meaning two thirds of respondents either do not know if their cloud solutions are secure, or are absolutely certain they are not.

Any business can use cloud computing

All businesses, not just technology companies, can use cloud-based services, said Rakesh Hegde, founder and CEO, Rezopia, a U.S.-based cloud technology provider for travel companies. The company provides cloud-based end-to-end travel reservation, contracts, operations, and distribution management system for packaged travel providers. Delivering a talk on “Recent trends in IT in the U.S.”, organised by Mangalore Management Association at the SDM College of Business Management, here on Wednesday, Mr. Hegde, an alumnus of SDM institutions, said that cloud-based services enabled businesses to focus on their core strengths by helping them do the peripheral tasks.

Cloud computing: Technology’s next big thing

Cloud computing means different things to different people. As a consumer, I am using a service from a cloud that someone else is running and paying for this service based on my consumption. Meanwhile, as a provider, a cloud provides efficient, cost effective IT services to clients, and makes the provider a broker of services. The importance of cloud computing to businesses is that it is about accessing and providing services instantly and cost-effectively, whereas years ago, the same would have required high startup costs and lengthy periods of time. Cloud computing solves this issues for businesses due to its low barrier of entry and elasticity.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Dec 09, 2011

Most experts agree that cloud is moving past the hype stage and starting to deliver tangible benefits, primarily increased flexibility and agility. But moving to the cloud can also mean added costs, some of which are unexpected, according to IT executives whose organizations have implemented or are considering cloud services. While these costs wouldn't necessarily prevent companies from getting real business value out of cloud computing, they could have an impact on the overall cost-benefit analysis of cloud services. 

Read more to find how companies preparing for the real costs of cloud computing

Cloud Computing a Top IT Investment Priority

Half of respondents to a Unisys poll say cloud computing is their top IT investment priority for 2012. As businesses get ready to capitalize on emerging technology trends in 2012, cloud computing remains at the top of many companies’ lists: Fifty percent of respondents to a recent Unisys (NYSE: UIS) online poll said cloud computing is their top IT investment priority for 2012. This is the second straight year respondents to a Unisys poll named cloud as the chief priority for IT investments in the coming year.

Public vs. Private Cloud Debate Goes On

While there are important differences between a public cloud and a private cloud computing environment, industry leaders say the pros and cons of each aren't as significant as the fact that both options are available for businesses and enterprises. At the recent CloudBeat 2011 conference in Redwood City, Calif., executives of various companies delivering cloud technology and services said any combination of public, private or hybrid clouds may be the right solution for any company based on its needs.

Talking about the benefits of cloud computing

The primary benefits of Cloud Computing are:

1. Responsiveness: Cloud computing gives IT the ability to respond to demands from business units faster than ever before. 
2. Efficiency and lower operating expenses (OPEX): By automating the provisioning of workloads and the control and management of resources, organizations see improved efficiencies and higher admin-to-server ratios (reducing OPEX). This automation allows organizations to present elements such as self-service provisioning to a line of business. 
3. On-demand elasticity: By controlling and managing resources, cloud computing reduces the need to design infrastructure for peak use. This allows resources to be scaled up when required and then recovered when the resources are no longer needed. 

Cloud Computing Grows, Interest in Data Centers Remains

Despite increases in cloud computing, 50 percent of companies are investing and planning over the long term to build or expand data centers that they manage as a corporate entity, according to a survey conducted by CoreNet Global and Newmark Knight Frank. The survey indicated companies are most concerned with risk management and business continuity when deciding where to locate their data centers. One result is a preference for most companies to maintain management of data center operations internally, and not to outsource the function.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Dec 02, 2011

Cloud computing is real and here to stay. Executives are seriously considering the cloud’s financial and productivity benefits versus continuing to perform all IT functions in-house. As 2012 nears, the success of cloud computing is undeniable. But, as with any new technology or consumption model, the cloud brings with it a variety of teething issues. Here’s what to watch out for in 2012:

• Cloud Wars 
• Large-scale Attack 
• The Giffen Good Phenomenon 
• Operational Business Intelligence 
• Horizontal Acquisitions and Failures 
• New Levels of Cloud Management 
• Regulation at Home and Abroad 

Read More about the Maturing, But With Growing Pains of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is misunderstood, but maybe it doesn't matter

2012 will be the year that cloud computing loses a lot of its luster for enterprises. Not because it is going away or anything like that. Rather, the opposite is happening — it is becoming so ubiquitous and commonplace that business and IT end-users alike will almost forget that they’re even using software off the cloud. Three recent industry surveys conducted over the past couple of months point to the ubiquity of cloud:

1. Many people are using cloud and not realizing it 
2. Cloud is being woven into new technology initiatives 
3. IT departments are driving cloud adoption 

Cloud computing is at the heart of the new world of work

Increasing numbers of Irish office workers have better technology at home - better broadband and better computers, for a start - than in the workplace and the demands of modern lives ought to make flexible working both at home and on the move a reasonably viable option. Yet one-third of Irish workers have never worked from home, while slightly less than 10pc work exclusively from home, according to a new Microsoft study.

Cloud security to focus on technologies

Security around cloud computing is likely to focus on accreditation for individual technologies rather than wide ranging guidelines, according a leading official from CESG. Chris Ulliot, deputy technical director for CESG, the National Technical Authority for Information Assurance, told the Socitm conference in Birmingham that cloud services make the technical elements of information security easier to deal with, as services can be certified before they reach the market.

Is Cloud Computing for You? Five Points to Consider

If you’ve been too preoccupied with the business of growing your business to consider what cloud computing could offer, don’t fret. Here are five points to help you decide whether the time is ripe for your business to invest in the cloud.

1. Lower Cost of Ownership 
2. Dependability 
3. Scalability 
4. Mobility 
5. Future-Proofing 

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.
Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Nov 25, 2011

For more than a decade, IT managers and advocates have been working tirelessly to enable solutions based on common standards and protocols that can be built, supported, swapped out and replaced, regardless of vendor. And they almost succeeded — until lately. Cloud computing may be erasing the gains we’ve made in terms of vendor dependence lock-in. Going with a cloud solution means buying into the specific protocols, standards and tools of the cloud vendor, making future migration costly and difficult. How is this so? Because standards are still being formed, and cloud computing is still too immature to reach the point where customers are demanding vendor independence. The problem is, when companies sit down to calculate the cost of using cloud computing services, they don’t factor in the costs of migrating off the system – expenses which could be prohibitive and unexpected.

Find out Why the Industry is taking a Step Backward at Cloud Computing's Vendor Lock-In Problem

Cloud Investing, Buffett-Style

For a way to invest in "cloud computing" without paying a stratospheric price, take a cue from Wall Street's newest tech enthusiast: Warren Buffett. Mr. Buffett, who has long avoided computing stocks while favoring railroads, soft drinks and insurance, announced this week that his Berkshire Hathaway has amassed a $10.7 billion stake in International Business Machines, making it the second-largest shareholder. Last year, the century-old tech giant announced a goal to boost yearly cloud-computing revenues by $3 billion by 2015, to $7 billion. That is a sliver relative to its current total revenues of $106 billion, but it is an important source of growth.

You Say Cloud Computing Cuts Costs - But Where?

Recent business surveys indicate a much higher level of understanding of cloud computing among business executives than in recent years, but still a majority of these executives still say cloud is not very "relevant" to their own situation. “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Daniel Wang, owner of Jexet Technologies. “Cloud IT solutions require a change in the business model, which a lot of business owners see as too high cost in terms of implementation.”

Three Myths about Cloud Computing

1. The first myth is that companies are abandoning their existing infrastructure in droves to adopt the new computing paradigm. The reality is that the majority of their IT infrastructure resources is in a traditional data center environment now and will be in three years. 
2. The second myth of cloud computing is the rise of the public cloud. Well, yes, lots of individuals and companies are using the public cloud for email, document sharing or other non-strategic tasks. But IT resources from the public cloud will only be 7% of the overall infrastructure, on average. 
3. The third myth of cloud computing is the most interesting: the key concerns. We all know about the security bugaboo surrounding the cloud and smart IT pros realize there are integration, governance and compliance challenges in adopting cloud architecture. What most people outside of the data center don't realize is the challenge of transforming existing applications to run in a cloud environment. 

Cloud computing to become an ‘urgent and compelling force’ in India

India has been highlighted as a location where cloud computing is set to boom over the years to come, as the country ramps up its investment in IT. Research body Gartner has revealed that there are several "urgent and compelling forces" that will come to prominence in the nation in the near future. One of these is cloud computing, which it said is still in the "early stages" but is sure to grow rapidly.


We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Nov 18, 2011

Cloud computing will reach mainstream adoption in the enterprise market by 2015 when key issues such as security, service availability and data sovereignty are expected to be ironed out. According to Simon Piff, associate vice president for enterprise infrastructure research at IDC Asia-Pacific, businesses today are still hesitant in utilizing cloud computing for much of their IT needs due to concerns over security, service reliability, data location and sovereignty, as well as vendor support. He further cited a poll conducted at an IDC cloud forum held in May, which revealed that 49.7 percent of respondents agreed that, by 2015, major public cloud providers would have addressed uptime concerns so effectively that reliability would be a non-issue in moving to the cloud.

Read More to find out how Cloud Computing will come of age by 2015

Why cloud computing will kill programming - and make us all developers

In this new cloud computing world, any element needed to build an application will already exist on the web somewhere, so all that will be needed is for someone to connect up this series of ready-made modules and APIs in order to create a new application. In this scenario, no coding is required, or at least not at the level that it is done today - we need architects, but can do without builders.

Cloud Computing - soon but not yet

Forty per cent of respondents to IBM’s global tech trends survey are yet to engage in cloud computing. However 75% say that in the next two years their organisations will build cloud infrastructure. New applications will be build for the cloud – activity in this area will outpace virtualisation says the report – the findings were 25% and 24% respectively. Twenty two per cent will invest in private cloud, 19% in enterprise and/or mission critical down to 11% who expect to buy out of the box cloud applications.

Implementing, serving, and using cloud storage

It’s important to recognise that cloud computing is not a new technology, but rather, a new business model that encompasses an existing set of technologies—such as server virtualization—that reduce the cost of using information technology (IT) resources. Cloud computing takes advantage of Web-based mechanisms that allow scalable, virtualised IT resources to be provided as a service over a network. The advantages of cloud storage and other cloud services include “pay as you go” (i.e., billing only for services consumed—no fixed costs), the perception of infinite capacity (elasticity), and the simplicity of use/management.

PAAS–All You Need To Know About [101]

The cloud appeals strongly to end users in startups and SMBs. Platforms as a Service is popular because of its ease of use and perception of a low entry cost. Contrary to orthodox solutions for small companies, they can now benefit from the availability of AIM capabilities over the cloud, which would give them quickly accessible, rapidly created custom-built applications deployed as a service in the cloud.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.


Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF dominates the Cloud says Business World

"Everybody knows there is money to be made from the cloud, but nobody knows how."

This week's cover story on Business World details opportunities in Cloud Computing and how a few Indian tech entrepreneurs have grabbed the opportunity to build a viable business in the Cloud.

The story explores the S, P and I of the Cloud: SaaS, PaaS and IaaS and details how some Indian entrepreneurs have recognized and harnessed the potential of each segment  in their own way to get a quick start and build a business around the same.

The story also takes a keen look at Platform as a Service and its current landscape. Some excerpts:

"Platform-as-a-service is the catalyst for most innovations in SaaS. PaaS refers to an underlying chassis for software development, storage and hosting SaaS over the Internet. It facilitates operations without the cost of buying and configuring the hardware, middleware and software. PaaS has been dominated by players such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Wolf Frameworks and Salesforce."

Some thoughts on WOLF frameworks:

"Bangalore-based Wolf Frameworks has another model. It creates platforms for startups to build their own SaaS applications, much like a Microsoft or Google’s, but at an affordable price. “With our platform, small firms can create their own business apps without having to write technical code,” says its CEO Sunny Ghosh. Wolf also offers back up and storage. It has 80 customers that have 55,000 users. It charges on a per-user basis and offers 3 GB storage per head: the peak tariff is Rs 3,088 per month. Wolf has been in the business for six years and has clocked revenues of $1 million. “Our platform gets rid of any IT investment an SME has to make,” says Ghosh."

You can read the full story here or rush to your nearest newsstand to grab a copy.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Nov 11, 2011

A rocky economic picture is likely to speed up the migration to cloud computing—again. In the 2008-2009 downturn, companies moved to software-as-a-service vendors. CFOs liked the ability to shift capital spending (build your own data centers and applications) to monthly expenses (subscribing to your software) and gave technology executives a shove to the cloud. Fast forward a few years and technology executives are mostly on the cloud computing bandwagon. In 2008, small and midsized businesses ran for the cloud. In 2011 and 2012, large enterprises are going to make the move.

Click here to find out why recession is not a worry for the cloud.

SMB cloud computing adoption nears 50 per cent

The latest Spiceworks survey shows enthusiasm for cloud is continuing to grow in the small and medium business space. Almost 50 per cent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) are using cloud computing, with even more adopting virtualization technologies. “Despite market fluctuations, 2011 proved to be a great year for disruptive technologies as SMBs increasingly adopted tablet computers, cloud services and virtualization technology,” said Jay Hallberg, co-founder and vice president of marketing for Spiceworks.

7 Poor Excuses for Not Measuring Cloud Computing Costs

Saugatuck Research recently attempted to shed some light on ways to measure the total cost of ownership, or TCO, of private cloud. Here is what people tend to get wrong when applying TCO metrics to their internal cloud efforts:

• TCO is not a useful metric 
• TCO is not a useful metric for cloud 
• TCO is not a useful metric for the “soft costs” of cloud 
• Cloud is too immature for TCO 
• Cloud IT has an obvious lower TCO than traditional IT 
• Lower potential TCO is a good reason to go to cloud 
• Cloud IT TCO is the same across the board 

Cloud computing turns from buzzword into business reality – but not yet in HR

While the cloud is exciting for the IT sector, HR directors, for the most part at least, have been slow to realise the benefits – or, in some cases, even define it. The famous catchphrase of wobble-board supremo Rolf Harris springs to mind: "Can you tell what it is yet?" A snap poll of readers on HR magazine's website last month found an overwhelming 91% of the HR professionals surveyed believe they are not using the cloud effectively in their organization.

Cloud-Computing Market Set To Burst

The selling points for cloud services are that it frees companies from having to spend big on technology support and nullifies geography as a barrier to in-house information, which can be plugged from the cloud as needed. The growth of the cloud market suggests companies are buying the pitch. The market for global cloud-computing services is projected to double from US$68.3 billion in 2010 to US$148.8 billion by 2014. Data suggests that 81 per cent of businesses globally are either evaluating, planning, implementing, or have already adopted a cloud strategy.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Nov 04, 2011

By now, it’s no secret that cloud computing will change the IT landscape immeasurably in the next 10 years. Much of the discussion to date has been somewhat narrow, focusing on cost-savings to the enterprise and the public versus private cloud debate. When viewed from a global perspective, however, the potential of cloud computing is far beyond server consolidation and virtualization. Cloud computing fundamentally shifts the benefits of the Open Source movement, fueling innovation from new sectors, and impacting our culture at large in ways that parallel how we have seen Twitter and Facebook up-end the status quo. Now imagine these changes in the context of the billions of citizens joining the digital economy in India, China or the Next-11.



Read more to find out how Cloud Computing Can Boost Developing Nations.

How do you transition from Traditional IT to Cloud Computing?

Here are a few ideas:

• Consult on the opportunity to move to the cloud versus in-house IT; 
• Consult in helping to figure out what is needed for the company to move to the cloud; 
• Consult on choosing the best cloud provider based on the company’s specific needs; 
• Assist integration with existing systems; 
• Help other company members adapt to the new technology; 
• Troubleshoot the remaining IT infrastructure that can’t yet be moved to the cloud; 
• Show the plan after the cloud transition is complete — and show where you bring in value once the company is operating more efficiently and saving money! 

Cloud computing platforms ‘are a huge advantage’

Businesses have been advised to take advantage of cloud computing platforms and applications wherever possible. Phil Wainewright, vice-chairman at Eurocloud, explained there are numerous ways to use the technology in order to drive down expenditure. "It's not just managed hosting, you're getting a complete application that is a complete service in the cloud," Mr Wainewright stated.

Gartner Symposium: IT Solution Providers Take on the Cloud

The omens all pointed upward at this year’s Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2011: Attendance was up by about 1,000, the vendor headcount increased by almost 100, and everywhere solution providers and consulting firms and vendors espoused the opportunities new technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing were transforming into signed contracts. In fact, 85 percent of attendees surveyed at random by Appiro said cloud computing will dramatically change the way IT works over the next five to 10 years. Thirty percent said they already have more than five applications in the cloud, while only 13 percent said they have no cloud-based applications, according to Appiro’s poll.

Cloud computing investment accelerates

Leading global banks and other members of the Open Data Center Alliance, a group of more than 300 companies representing over $100bn in annual IT spending, are adopting cloud computing much faster than previously thought. Members of the Alliance will triple their cloud deployment in the next two years according to a report published by the organization on Thursday. This adoption rate is five times faster than broad market forecasts for the $90bn cloud computing market and reflects growing confidence in the delivery of cloud services based on industry standards.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.


Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Highlights from Bangalore IT.biz 2011 - Exploring the various facets of the Cloud

"India Innovates" was the the theme for the 14th edition of the Bangalore IT show, Bangalore IT.biz held between October 18 to 20th at the Lalit Ashok at Bangalore.

A meeting ground for ICT majors such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS, Intel, etc. and over 600 companies from Indian states as varied as Rajasthan and Bihar, the conferences and seminars focused on a wide spectrum of topics such as  Animation and Gaming, National GIS, Green Technology, Cloud Computing and Aadhaar, the ambitious project of UID.

Sunny Ghosh, CEO, WOLF Frameworks was a panelist at the session on Cloud Computing chaired by Mr.Narasimhan (Kishore) Mandyam. Details of the session panelists can be found here.

Insightful and interactive, the Cloud session saw a packed auditorium as the panelists delved into different facets of Cloud Computing. Staring with an attempt to define Cloud Computing and touching briefly on the history of the Cloud, the session went on to touch Cloud applicability domains - looking at the practical applications of the Cloud in enterprises and SMEs, by the government and consumers, etc.

The session also explored the various segments of the Cloud: SaaS, PaaS and IaaS,  their adoption, their ideal customer scenarios and how organizations could leverage the different segments for their benefit. Kishore also explored the value-proposition of the Cloud, asking each of the panelists why would a consumer buy/adopt their service. Moving on the session explored specific issues about Cloud Computing such as End-user experience, Trust/security and mobile-to-cloud.

Time constraints and a ringing lunch bell meant that the discussions between panelists and the audience carried on well past the designated time into the lunch session. But the flavor of the day was predominantly Cloud and seasoned with a high level of optimism.


We are proud to be a part of the Bangalore IT.biz 2011 and are particularly keen to see the direction that the Cloud will take in India.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Oct 28, 2011

Pushed by rapidly evolving technology and changing user demands, the tectonic plates of the IT industry have shifted during the year. Across hardware, software and services, established players have had to rethink their strategies, finding a business-as-usual approach no longer works. Topping the list of seismic shifts was cloud computing. Having wafted quietly on the outskirts for the past few years, the cloud billowed into the mainstream this year. Substantial investments by IT vendors and service providers took what was an innovative but non-compelling concept and turned it into a critical business platform.










Read More about the seismic shift ahead as data goes sky-high.


Demystifying the Cloud

The way people and companies, big and small, define the cloud at the moment is also quite vague. “A common user may be interested in SaaS (Software as a Service) whereas a developer would love to play around with PaaS (Platform as a Service),” says Singh. On the other hand, some solution providers are only talking about IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) when talking about the cloud. The quintessential example is a company that outsources its IT needs, doing away with the hassle of servers, storage space and networking in its own premises. They turn to cloud solutions companies who give them flexible, customized plans or bill them according to usage.

What Is Cloud Computing?

Everyone is talking about cloud computing. Forrester projects that the total market for cloud computing will be $241 billion by 2020. But what does cloud computing mean, exactly? Cloud computing means computing can be used as a service rather than a product. This has become possible because it's now cost-effective for companies to build huge data centers where computing and software can be provided remotely at massive scale and rented out, like a utility service.

Getting cloud security right from the start

Steve Durbin, vice president sales and marketing for the Information Security Forum thought the issues around cloud security would have been nailed down by now, "but I couldn't have been more wrong," he told iTWire. The ease of getting started with cloud services is a nightmare from a security perspective, he suggested. People on the business side of an organization can simply sign up and put the usually modest charges on their credit cards, bypassing (though probably not maliciously) the normal security procedures.

Is the cloud living up to CIO expectations?

Is the cloud living up to CIO & CTO expectations? There has been a lot of speculation about what top computing experts think of the cloud and its advantages. Knowing how CIOs and CTOs view the cloud can help us shape our cloud offerings in a way that works well for them. This data also gives us a direct line-of-sight into the point of view of IT leaders on the cloud market and where it is going.”

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Oct 21, 2011

The idea that cloud services will make a big difference to businesses has been a recurrent theme of technology discussions for the past 10 years or so. Certainly, businesses have indicated that they are ready to adopt cloud computing. A study in the first half of 2011, which polled IT and business decision-makers across the private and public sectors, found that almost half already use cloud services. The private sector leads the way, with those employing more than 20 people ahead of smaller businesses in adoption (52% v 38%) – even though the latter could gain more because of the lower capital spending Cloud Computing requires. The driver for adoption is overwhelmingly cited as flexibility, with only 16% citing cost savings, though that figure rockets up to 69% among those already using cloud services.



Read more to find out why Cloud Computing is a bright light for business.

Clouds vs. Outsourcing: The Next Battleground

Established vendors entering cloud computing are often already outsourcing partners to the firms that are now frequently looking for an infrastructure service provider. But that doesn't mean they have an inside track on the business. They do not. Established vendors are going to face stiff competition for outsourcing business from the new infrastructure providers: Amazon, Rackspace, and others, according to a report by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. "Service providers in the IT outsourcing space have, after all, profited handsomely by taking on their customers' highly complex, one-off collections of IT assets and finding ways to manage them more efficiently than their customers are able to," states the Pricewaterhouse report.

SMB Nation: Where Did All the Cloud Supporters Go?

Held Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 in Las Vegas, SMB Nation caters to the thousands of mostly smaller IT providers who serve companies with a few to a few dozen employees. While last year's show was packed with sessions about building a cloud service practice, this year's agenda leaned more heavily toward technical content about conventional, on-premises infrastructure solutions. That change stemmed from a poll of potential conference-goers indicating tepid interest in cloud-related topics, according to Harry Brelsford, founder and chairman of SMB Nation Inc., the Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based company that hosts SMB Nation.

Computing: On cloud nine?

Will cloud computing, the latest buzzword on everyone’s lips in the IT business, provide the answer that Indian IT majors, faced with the prospect of volatile if not declining revenues, are looking for? Or will it go down in history as another overhyped idea that was destined to remain just that? Despite its potential, cloud computing has not yet taken off in a big way. Why? According to a research paper from Deutsche Bank, quoting from a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers into the German cloud computing market, the reasons have to do with data protection and compliance (60%), standardisation of internal processes (53%) and arranging individual service-level agreements (49%). So, if cloud computing is to deliver on its promise, service offerings will have to satisfy individual and legal standards with regard to data privacy.

Clarifying Cloud Service for Your Business

The term "cloud computing" has been used to describe a wide variety of services and frameworks recently, which has caused confusion among many in the industry. In one definition of the cloud Google provides a cloud service such as Gmail or Google Docs that you might use but do not need to maintain. Another cloud definition is a lower-level service such as Amazon’s EC2. This service provides server and storage instances that you can then manipulate to run your own applications and services. Essentially, they build and maintain the servers and storage, and you are responsible for installing and maintaining the applications that run on those instances. In this particular case, the servers and storage are not physical, but rather virtual instances that are largely independent of the hardware.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don't forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Oct 14, 2011

Companies using the latest cloud computing solutions have been urged to ensure they have a good relationship with the manufacturer that is providing them. Seth Robinson, one of the authors of the CompTIA second annual Trends in Cloud Computing report, explained that a service level agreement (SLA) is a key factor in any deal to purchase and use a particular product. "With the cloud, (companies are) trusting a significant portion of their IT to another provider and then you would have something like security goes down or even some downtime," Mr. Robinson stated.




Read More to see why Cloud Computing users are advised to focus on relationship with providers.

Cloud Computing Now Makes It Easier (and Cheaper) to Innovate: Study

A recent survey of 1,035 business and IT executives, along with 35 vendors, conducted by the London School of Economics and Accenture, has unearthed this new emerging role for cloud computing — as a platform for business innovation. Many people these days still see cloud within its information technology context, as a cheaper alternative for existing systems. But this may only be the first and most obvious benefit. The study’s authors, Leslie Willcocks, Dr. Will Venters and Dr. Edgar Whitley — all of the London School of Economics and Political Science — identified three stages cloud computing moves into as it’s adopted by organizations:

1. Technology and operational changes 
2. Business changes 
3. New ways of designing corporations themselves 

How to Choose a Cloud Computing Vendor for your Start-up

Selecting the right cloud is just as hard as predicting the weather correctly. Small and medium sized businesses need to finish their part of homework before plunging into an agreement with any cloud-computing firm. Check out some of the few points that can guide you in selecting the right vendor.

Securing the Cloud

Some people describe securing the cloud as a datacenter challenge, sometimes as a software issue, and sometimes as a data or device access issue. In reality, securing the cloud depends on working out where and how to apply those measures specific to your end user. Indeed security services are continuing to develop, enabling a cloud delivery model and allowing us to have security increasingly delivered in cloud services. This will be applied to both the cloud infrastructures and to services in their own right. In essence the cloud model is evolving as one of the core models for delivering services.

7 Stubborn Myths about Cloud Computing

Some common cloud myths that are holding back Cloud adoption are:

Myth 1) Building a cloud can take months
Myth 2) You need new hardware to deploy a cloud
Myth 3) There aren't many applications available for the cloud
Myth 4) Developers need to learn new languages to deploy services in the cloud
Myth 5) It's complex to move from public to private clouds (and vice versa)
Myth 6) The cloud isn't secure
Myth 7) It is hard to support a cloud environment

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Oct 07, 2011

We're probably less than half a percent into the full realization of public cloud, yet there already are more cloud computing providers in the market than users can count. So how are you supposed to settle on the right cloud services provider when the multitude of types and choices is dizzying? Enterprises that want to contract for cloud services might be frustrated to find it takes months just to compare what's out there in any thorough way. What's even more frustrating is that, after all that work, many new cloud providers will have been added to the list while others may have changed their financial and service terms, been acquired by a larger vendor, or gone out of business altogether.




Read More to find out why you should choose one cloud computing provider over another.

Small units to get cloud computing, says govt.

The government would collaborate with service providers to provide latest technology and software to micro-enterprises at cheaper rates. "Small entrepreneurs are unable to afford expensive software packages... Keeping in mind, our ministry proposes to launch in collaboration with service providers, cloud computing for the sector," Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Minister Virbhadra Singh said. He said the ministry would combine with software providers; the move would help small units access world class computing packages at lower rates.

With great cloud comes great responsibility

There’s a good reason why everyone is talking about cloud computing. With infrastructure-as-a-service, for example, whatever computing power and storage capacity you might need is immediately available on tap. Combine this with virtualization technology and organizations gain unprecedented flexibility to deploy virtual servers whenever and wherever they are needed. Organizations should never just assume their data is safe when they expose it to a publicly available service. When you get a private line from a telco, is it really ‘private’? The fact is that it uses shared infrastructure and it is up to you to secure it. The same is true when you put data in the cloud. It is still your responsibility to secure it.

Cloud computing disappoints early adopters: Survey

Few organizations have moved to cloud computing - the delivery of computing as a service from remote centers - and of those that have, many are disappointed with the results, a survey published on Tuesday found. Fewer than one in five organizations questioned have outsourced the hosting of their applications to cloud computing providers, with two-thirds in early discussions, in trials or not considering a move, said computer security firm Symantec. Concerns about security and a lack of expertise among IT staff are the main factors holding companies back, according to the survey of 5,300 organisations carried out by Symantec.

Cloud computing needs blue sky thinking too

Several years after IT gurus first spoke about cloud computing, it is still something of an ethereal concept. But as the availability and affordability of African bandwidth increases, corporations are beginning to see how the cloud can help them expand their physical presence without equally heavy investments in IT infrastructure.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Sep 30, 2011

Initially adopted by large companies as a way of streamlining their IT infrastructures, cloud computing is now being embraced by growing numbers of smaller businesses around the country. Lured by the promise of lower costs, small companies are finding cloud computing can also offer improved flexibility, better security and lower risks. In its simplest form, cloud computing involves a business handing over responsibility for its IT systems to a third-party service provider. Rather than needing to worry about managing computer servers, updating software and performing data back-ups, the business "rents" the capacity it needs, accessing applications and data that sit on remote servers via the internet.



Read more to find how SMEs find brighter prospects in Cloud Computing.

Eight cloud computing risks, and how to quash them

In their latest book, Cloud Computing for Business, Dr. Chris Harding and his team of co-authors affiliated with The Open Group — a key standards body for enterprise architecture — detail some of the key risk areas that need to be looked at with any cloud project:

1. The solution may not meet its financial objectives 
2. The solution may not work in the context of the user enterprise’s organization and culture 
3. The solution may be difficult to develop due to the difficulty of integrating the cloud services involved 
4. The solution may not comply with its legal, contractual and moral obligations 
5. A disaster may occur from which the solution cannot recover 
6. System quality may be inadequate, so that it does not meet users’ needs 
7. Security may be inadequate 
8. There may be an existing lack of service orientation 

Cloud computing rewrites rules for network managers

The proliferation of cloud computing and web-based applications in the corporate environment has rewritten the ground rules of enterprise network security. Businesses have cut costs and increased efficiency by using cloud computing, such as web-based applications that replace traditional desktop functions and services that power operations and infrastructure. However, by extending functions beyond the reach of the traditional network defenses, organizations have exposed themselves to a new realm of security vulnerabilities. Experts warn that applications can be outsourced, but not risk. Further, the shift emphasizes the importance of enterprises regularly auditing network and security assets.

Some companies view cloud computing as a threat to their IT security

Research just released by Kaspersky Lab claims to show that around a quarter of companies (23%) see the cloud as a threat to their IT security. David Emm, senior security researcher with Kaspersky Lab, said there are two key factors driving development of cloud services. “The first is cost. The economies of scale that can be achieved by storing data or hosting applications in the cloud can result in significant savings for businesses”, he said. “The second is flexibility. Employees can access data from anywhere, at any time, using any device – including mobile devices. So businesses can benefit from an 'always-on' workforce. However, this research proves companies still harbor concerns about implementing cloud services”, he added.

Business meets IT in the Cloud

Saji Thoppil, GM, Wipro Infotech discussed the importance of aligning business requirements with IT by means of Cloud adoption. It is an established fact that the Cloud is one of the hottest technology trends that is being talked about across the industry and in various discussion forums. Thoppil talked of the importance of exploring and harnessing Cloud computing. According to Gartner, the Cloud is one of the top technology trends driven by technologies like mobility, video, social media & collaboration and ubiquitous computing. “Looking at all of these technologies, enterprises have to analyze if they can scale up their infrastructure to meet growing needs; you will find that there is a bottleneck here,” he noted.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Sep 23, 2011

Cloud computing is often referred to as a technology. However, it is actually a significant shift in the business and economic models for provisioning and consuming information technology (IT) that can lead to a significant cost savings. This cost savings can only be realized through the use of significant pooling of these “configurable computing resources” or resource pooling. According to NIST, this capability is an essential characteristic of cloud computing. Resource pooling is the ability of a cloud to serve multiple customers using a multi-tenant model with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to demand. Cloud computing economics depends on four customer population metrics:

1. Number of Unique Customer Sets 
2. Customer Set Duty Cycles 
3. Relative Duty Cycle Displacement 
4. Customer Set Load 

Read More



Tackling the Challenges of Securing the Cloud

By moving the focus of IT applications beyond the confines of traditional corporate infrastructures, business processes are also simplified and streamlined. Some, however, consider the technology “too risky” and question the levels of data security and transparency in the cloud, which has been accused of exposing organizations to unnecessary security risks. It cannot be taken lightly, nor can it go unchallenged.

The secret to cloud success: Get a grasp on SOA

Those IT organizations that move to cloud computing are moving to SOA (service-oriented architecture), whether they understand it or not. Private and public clouds often rely on APIs for their functionality, which are typically Web services that can be combined and recombined into solutions. The result: SOA, at its essence.

Cloud computing market is starting to look a lot like one big data center

An interesting thing has been happening on the way to the fully cloud-ified IT universe in which every company is able to call on as much computing power as it needs, of whatever kind, using whatever software, then return it to the vast, immutable ether, paying later only for what the used of this vast and magical power without being responsible for creating, training, feeding or protecting anything at all.

Cloud computing a serious contender for email services

Companies are increasingly using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing applications in place of traditional email platforms, it has been claimed. A new report published by Gartner has found that Google's Gmail service is beginning to rival Microsoft's platforms in companies with more than 5,000 seats for the first time. It is likely that cloud email will amount to 20 per cent of the market by the end of 2016 and more than half by 2020.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Sep 16, 2011

Though cloud computing is still relatively new, it’s already been advertised in so many ways that it can be difficult to know if it should be used as a tool for business or personal use. The answer is simple: it can (and should) be used for both! The Wall Street Journal recently polled a small group of their online readers to see if they were using cloud computing, and, if they did, whether they used it for business or personal purposes. Practically half of the people responded saying they used the cloud for both, with the next largest group saying they don’t use either. Perhaps it’s because they aren’t aware of the benefits…

Read More to find how you are using Cloud Computing in your business and personal lives.



Benefits of Private Cloud Computing: Compliant & Cost-Effective

When it comes to security and compliance, private cloud computing trumps the public cloud. According to a recent study by the Aberdeen Group, the private cloud saves a total of 12% combined annual cost savings over public clouds on a per-application basis. When it comes to computing costs, everything adds up fast – including personnel and training, process and technology, hardware, software, services and support.

Cloud Computing in Healthcare

As Cloud adoption in healthcare evolves, we expect a major chunk of healthcare services to move onto the Cloud, allowing healthcare players to focus on providing cost effective and efficient healthcare services, says Vishal Gupta, VP Advanced Services and Leader Healthcare Practice (East), Cisco. More and more vendors are offering healthcare solutions and services such as telemedicine, electronic medical records, medical imaging, and patient management that can be consumed or integrated by healthcare providers, payers and customers over a cloud.

Cloud: Accessibility, Availability and Scalability

As the world of industry changes, the outsourcing sector has found it increasingly important to adapt to new technologies which are continuing to drive forward new, innovative services. As such the industry is now beginning to implement cloud computing, rather than just talk about adopting cloud services, and the benefits of accessibility, availability and scalability are more evident than ever.

Cloud computing can make flexible working easier

With so many benefits of Cloud Computing for businesses and organizations, what’s there for the employees? Here is some refreshing news. Employee engagement and motivation can be dramatically improved with the adoption of cloud computing and other flexible IT technologies. According to mobile phone operator O2, the growth of cloud computing has pushed remote working up many businesses' agendas. Many companies are now offering work-from-anywhere policies as a flexible benefit and, according to Nicola Mortimer, head of ICT and business development at the telecoms operator, office based working appears to be quickly becoming a thing of the past. So Cloud is bringing good news for all - employees and employers.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.


Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Sep 09, 2011

Phil Wainwright, vice-chairman of EuroCloud, noted that it is not just the larger organizations which can make the most of the benefits of the cloud, with small to medium-sized businesses having similar needs for facilities like home-working. He added that small firms are using online applications as a way of fulfilling their computing needs. "If you look at the market research that's being published now, I think in particular, the ready-made cloud applications that we call SaaS (software as a service) are certainly becoming a big element of choice for small businesses to quickly and cost effectively fulfill computing needs that they find emerging," Mr. Wainwright said.

Read More to find out Cloud Computing viable solution for small business



IT's consumerization of the workplace

As the world shifts to a post-PC era, in which non-traditional devices like mobile phones have become the primary access tools, especially in emerging economies like India, and 'IT-as-a-service' model gains momentum, applications, like say an Excel spreadsheet, can be ordered the way we order a DVD movie or an email. Companies are now working to bring consumer life experiences to the work place. Virtualization and cloud computing, which dramatically reduce the number of servers that are needed and with it the costs of building and maintaining large IT infrastructure, will help drive the consumerization of the workplace.

Cloud computing 'offers great mobility'

Businesses will find making the switch to cloud computing offers them numerous benefits across all areas of their work. Cloud computing users to only pay for services as they use them; it's a utility-based type of computing. That would be a very key aspect for reducing costs within a business. Great mobility will provide the opportunity for employees to keep up to date with work via a number of different devices while working from home or on the move.

Cloud Computing: What You Need to Know About PaaS

PaaS or Platform as a Service development offerings bring tremendous power and productivity to IT departments, along with a host of new challenges. Bernard Golden explains what CIOs need to know about this nascent segment of the cloud computing market. Cloud providers of every stripe are converging on what will be the development battleground of tomorrow—PaaS. They've clearly identified this as a crucial market—one in which the victors will enjoy huge spoils. It's also a market that will present significant challenges to users.

How 'cloud brokers' help you navigate cloud services

What's a cloud broker? Gartner defines it as "a type of cloud service provider that plays an intermediary role in cloud computing." Perhaps better put, they help you locate the best and most cost-effective cloud provider for your needs. The idea is compelling. You're looking for a storage-as-a-service provider, and instead of going to them directly, you use a broker to gather your requirements and find the best fit - in some cases, several good fits that you can use based on the best cost, availability, and performance.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.

Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks

NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective

Job openings at WOLF: Cloud Computing, openness and much more..

We’re looking for colleagues who can join us as (1) International Sales Lead and (1) Social Media/Content Writer 


Open positions and brief job descriptions:

1. International Sales Lead (Relevant work experience: 4years, Location: Bangalore-India)

•  Understanding the Cloud Computing eco-system
•  Engaging with International prospects (Enterprise)
•  Running web-conference meetings
•  Presenting concepts, case studies and products
•  Developing ROI and TCO analysis for customers
•  Achieving sales targets QOQ
•  Developing inside sales process
•  Reporting directly to Sales Director

2. Content Writer and Social Media Executive (Relevant work Experience: 2 years, Location: Bangalore-India)

• Proof read, edit and create content.
• Create product descriptions, sales/marketing collateral.
• A creative thinker that can turn ideas and briefings into marketing messages.
• Engage and open conversations using Social media.
• Manage all aspects of our Social Media strategy- champion new ideas and initiatives.
• Work in parallel with Sales and Marketing to achieve the marketing goals.

What you can expect:

We guide every member of our team to think openly, participate in different COP’s & cross domain initiatives, nurture creative abrasion, engage in learning and relearning, challenge self limits, interact with customer communities and drive social interactions to realize their best potential. You should expect:

• Hands-on experience in Cloud Computing 
• Casual, startup environment
• Plenty of challenges 
• Lots of independence 
• Open debates & dialogues 
• Exposure to International Markets & customers

Beware of the following:

We are not managers, only a few hands-on practitioners working in a lean cloud start-up. Work is religion - goal is GOD. This role is for smart and talented individuals with content/sales/marketing/social media experience in web based technology with product background as an added advantage. This job could see you as a hands-on leader in our small Business Units in time. Sounds interesting? If you’d love to do this every day, we want you. We need you!

Please get in touch by emailing hr [at] wolfframeworks dot com and include “ISE” and “SM” somewhere in the subject. Thanks!

WOLF Weekly Cloud Sum-up, Sep 02, 2011

Clouds are the fluffy white or grey things floating in the sky that bring rains. And these clouds hold the key to the prosperity of the Indian economy. According to the study done by leading management consulting firms, the total cloud market in India is estimated to be around US $ 400 million currently. Further, it is expected to reach a market value of US $ 4.5 billion by 2015. So what will drive this spectacular growth? SMBs who do not have legacy IT infrastructure and those who use third party, are moving to public and private cloud thereby giving a boost to the market.

Read more to find out more about scope of cloud in Indian market.













Cloud computing still weighed down by concrete set-backs

While cloud technology is constantly touted as the next big thing in IT, only 6% of companies are planning on moving to the full public cloud. Which suggests that concerns over security become even more real once applications move beyond a business’s own firewall. The fact that the private cloud is proving so popular shows just how unwilling firms are to put their crown jewels in a public cloud environment.

Security the key issue in cloud computing

Concerns over information security are the biggest barrier to businesses moving to online cloud-based computing services, says Kgomotso Kganyago, chief security advisor at Microsoft SA. As companies move to seamless computing and as more international cables land on the shores of the African continent, companies need to realize that security attacks will rise and secure their systems appropriately, he says. “The cloud is no longer a choice,” says Kganyago. Cloud computing is a “great equalizer” for small businesses and is making IT more dynamic.

Shape up before heading to the cloud

Enterprises looking to implement cloud computing typically have numerous issues that they hope the move to the cloud will magically solve. It's no surprise that many of today's IT shops face a huge number of negatives: overly complex enterprise architecture, out-of-control data sprawl, and a huge backlog of app dev work that's not being met, typically in an environment of diminishing budgets. To make cloud computing work for your enterprise, you need to drive significant changes in the existing on-premise systems before or as you move to cloud.

Fear of Change Makes Many Organizations Hesitant

A recent study by theInfoPro, a part of the 451 group, found that reluctance to accept any change is the most frequently cited reason for what holds back organizations from adopting the cloud. In fact, 52 percent of organizations said that change was the biggest roadblock. That compared to 15 percent who said that up-front costs was holding them back and another 13 percent that said that security was their main issue with the cloud. Internal change and learning are difficult for organizations to accept.

We hope these short sum-ups on cloud computing will help you to take a more knowledgeable approach towards moving to the cloud. Stay tuned for more sum-ups on in the forthcoming weeks.

Don’t forget to add your comments and suggestions. I will have more around the cloud a week later.


Santanu Das
Marketing Evangelist, WOLF Frameworks


NOTE: The views expressed above are purely personal and for informational purposes only. WOLF FRAMEWORKS INDIA PVT. LTD. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.