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Well, this is nothing new for those of us who are following the industry. However, as I go to main street around the world (as opposed to early adopter land like Silicon Valley and other places), there are many users (including businesses) who are unaware of what cloud computing can offer them and any challenges associated with the adoption of these new technologies. This is exactly why I happily agreed to keynote at an event in St. Louis with the same title as this post. It gives me an opportunity to talk about cloud computing with people who may or may not be aware of the new paradigm.
Contegix, a player from the traditional hosting world repositioning themselves to play the cloud game, is organizing an event on March 29th, 2011 called Cloud9 Technology World Tour to help organizations in and around St. Louis understand how cloud computing can help them with their computing needs. The idea is to bring people with expertise in cloud computing to talk about how it is altering the computing landscape. I hope my keynote in this event will help people understand how they can leverage cloud computing to their benefit.
My keynote will focus on the following topics
- How organizations big and small can leverage cloud computing to their advantage
- Potential challenges and how one can mitigate the risks to take advantage of the benefits offered by cloud computing
- Best practices while migrating to cloud
- The role of open source in shaping the paradigm shift towards cloud computing
- The idea of federated clouds and how it will help avoid lock-in and offer choices to both consumers and businesses
As I have argued many times in this space, we are going to see a more open and federated cloud ecosystem. Unlike the traditional computing era, users are more aware of any potential lock in issues and the consequences of any single provider gaining monopoly status. This becomes all the more important when we move our valuable data to third party providers. A major emphasis of my keynote will be on this topic and I plan to urge users to select a provider based on their needs than change their needs to suit the solutions available from some of the major players in cloud computing.
If you are in St. Louis or nearby areas and curious about what cloud computing can do for you or your organization, please register for the event here. The admission is free for all.
Related articles
- What is Cloud Computing? (techenvy.net)
- Security will rescue cloud computing (bjconquest.com)
- Unrealistic Cloud Expectations and 7 Other Bad Practices (famousbloggers.net)
Sounds like an interesting presentation, Krishnan, and let me throw out another factor companies should consider: security. Organizations must be confident their data is protected, whether at rest or in motion. I work for Symantec, and our customers are increasingly approaching us about what security threats a cloud-based environment presents compared to in-house systems, When you move to the cloud, you’re entrusting the organization’s intellectual property to a third party. Do their security standards meet the needs of your business? Even the smallest entry point can create an opening for unauthorized access and theft. Authentication and access controls are even more critical in a public cloud where cluster attacks aimed at a hypervisor can compromise multiple customers. Ideally, the cloud provider should offer a broad set of security solutions enabling an information-centric approach to securing critical interfaces – between services and end users, private and public services, as well as virtual and physical cloud infrastructures.
Pamela,
Thanks for your comments. I am going to talk about the concerns and best practices to mitigate the risks.
Thanks for linking my post on your website! Im new to the blogging scene and I sure can use all the help I can get.
Respectfully,
Mike Bettis
P.S. Cloud Computing is the future……