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Ok, so not exactly live, but what do you want... it's a blog. I just came out of the Cloud Computing Summit here at Storage Networking World & I wanted to highlight & summarize Ben Woo's presentation. Mr. Woo is a VP at IDC focusing on Storage Systems Research. I found Mr. Woo's presentation to be informative, compelling & entertaining. The Q&A was lively & valuable as well. Mr. Woo began by laying out IDC's IT Forecast for World Wide Spending on Cloud Computing; 2009 .5% (revised down from 1.9%), 2010 4.4%, 2011 5.9%, 2012 6.2%. Furthermore, Mr. Woo indicated that IDC's research shows an increase on Cloud Computing spending from $16.2bil in 2008 to $42.3bil by the close of 2012. By any measurements a staggering increase. But Why Use Cloud Computing from a Storage Perspective? Simply because it's a logical alternative for the following reasons: -Perceived Cost Effectiveness (#1 reason); there's no Upfront CapEx (possibly True) & Lower OpEx. -Perceived Loss of liability; it's no longer the storage pro's fault when things go awry (or is it?) -Energy Efficient; absolutely in terms of your organization, but that energy is being consumed nonetheless by someone else now. -Simplifies Management; undoubtedly true. Ok, so those are the reasons to "obviously" utilize, but what are the challenges Mr.Woo? Well, he detailed those as well: -Lock In; assuming 100% efficiency of your network (which we know will never occur if let's say anyone wants to send even 1 IM) it would take 15 days over T1 or 5+ days over T3 to move... ouch. -Accessibility & Availability; your SSP becomes essentially your bank with all your valuable assets (uh oh). How has using one bank for everything worked out for people recently? Think Stanford Bank & you'll get my point. -Security; who will see it & if any non-approved parties get access or it's lost - who's responsible? This is the real problem #1 in my opinion. Mr. Woo recommends leveraging the cloud for distribution. As he said, "You don't just back it up". Rather the Cloud is a delivery vehicle so a storage professional can do more. Additionally, Mr. Woo suggests using replication for protection & performance. Why? High Capacity HDD's, that's why. He presented his 2 Rules for DIY Clouds (aka Internal): #1 Density, Density, Density & #2 Virtualize, Virtualize, Virtualize. His contention is that we're already dependent on clouds with the advent & popularity or Facebook, MySpace, et al. so get on board & utilize it. True enough. Ben Woo's Essential Guidance: -The Impact of Cloud Computing is inevitable, therefore... -Embrace & hence... -Integrate into your best practices going forward & do not think in terms of the next 5-10 years, but instead the next 15-20 years. -"Go Sign Up Today!" Remember those aren't my words, but he makes a compelling argument & I'm not in a position to argue with Ben Woo regarding Storage, maybe on the topic of drafting blogs no one reads, but not storage. Though the question that perturbs most storage pros remains... whose problem is it when something goes wrong? Mr. Woo spoke to this stating that he's had the "pleasure" of reading 17 Terms of Service from various vendors & his conclusion as a result is that they all essentially say "It's Not our Fault or Problem". Well that's not too reassuring. Another attendee stated she felt that this phenomenon reminded her of the buzz at one time surrounding ASP. Ben explained he felt the primary two differences were that the IT community has a great deal more trust in the Web now & the simple fact that it's cheap; considering the current global economy that that takes priority over other factors. Yet another attendee expressed his frustration with his feeling that "It's a black box that I can't get answers from, how do I get those answers & where is this black box?!" Mr. Woo's response was that essentially one shouldn't worry about it because it's their problem now. Mr. Woo readily admitted that this issue must evolve & is a large stick in the spokes of cloud computing growing more rapidly. He feels there will be more dramatic change as a result from the first or first series of lawsuits over this issue. That's hard not to agree with however how unfortunate a fact that may be. From that thread Mr. Woo made an excellent point that he felt storage pros needed to wrap their heads around: Think less about where the cloud is & more about how fast you can get to it. Stating that they need to begin looking at this more as a business question & less as a technical question. Well said Mr. Woo. Ok, now let's try & piece all this information together in an oversimplified linear one sentence fashion: Cloud Computing is very good for your organization for various reasons (please see above) & the main obstacle facing storage pros & service providers/vendors alike is whom will be to blame when something possibly or eventually gets lost or stolen. As this sank into my macro-storage 101-minded head someone else shouted out: "So what can a vendor do to convince end users that this will not be a problem?" (Hey,that's a great question). Mr. Woo's answer was equally as good due to its truth & simplicity: "Have a really good salesman." Thomas DelVecchio is the Director of the CIOZone Research Network (CRN). Please visit www.ciozone.com/researchnetwork for information or to join the Network.
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