CloudBzz

The diagram below gives a bit of insight into where IBM is today and where they are heading. I posted this last week, but removed the diagram at IBM’s Request. Now I’m reposting it after seeing Sean Poulay from IBM presented the chart at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.

In a stunning infringement, IBM has released a video about the story of Seamus McManus, the Al Gore of Cloud Computing (e.g. he invented it).  For some reason, IBM chose to have Seamus be a beekeeper, and they show bees in the video.  This is an outrage!

CloudBzz has retained the legal services of Dewey, Cheatem and Howe to issue a takedown notice, penned in a faux-RIAA style on faux-RIAA letterhead.  Further, we have called on IBM to stop comparing the work of SM to the creation of Cloud Computing.

In the immortal words of VP candidate Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, and I paraphrase,

“I know Cloud Computing.  Cloud Computing is a friend of mine.  And you, Seamus Mc-IBManus, are no father of Cloud Computing.”

Doth I protestetheth to mucheth? Don’t I pwn the bee?

You decideth!

The NY Times broke IBM’s embargo this morning by publishing their story on IBM’s new cloud computing initiatives.  I’ve posted the full release here on CloudBzz.

The diagram below gives a bit of insight into where IBM is today and where they are heading.

{Diagram removed at IBM’s Request – not sure why they sent it out but didn’t want it shown}

IBM is also updating their collateral with a bit more detail.  Here is a fact sheet for their Smart Business initiative:

Fact sheet: IBM Smart Business

Smart Business is IBM’s commonly branded set of cloud computing offerings for business. This set of offerings gives clients three choices to deliver and consume cloud services to drive efficiency, productivity and control.

Smart Business Services – cloud services delivered:

1: Private cloud services, behind your firewall, built by IBM.

2: Standardized services on the IBM cloud

Smart Business Systems – purpose-built infrastructure

3. IBM CloudBurst: Pre-integrated hardware, software and service offerings

On June 16, 2009 IBM will introduce all three choices for two specific workloads: development and test and virtualized desktops. There will be both public and private delivery options for both.

IBM Smart Business Test Cloud Services

IBM is unveiling a secure private environment for clients to test cloud applications before sending them to production in their enterprises. The Smart Business Test Cloud includes a pre-integrated set of services, from planning through management, for a test environment implementation. Delivered through hardened services methods for the design and deployment of integrated cloud solutions, the offering can leverage existing investments in hardware, software, storage, and virtualization management, or utilize the newly announced IBM Cloudburst as the infrastructure solution.

Based on initial IBM projections, Smart Business Test Cloud can potentially save clients as much as 50 to 75 percent on capital and licensing expenses, and as much as 30 to 50 percent on operating and labor costs through automated provisioning and configuration of virtualized test resources. Additionally, these services can improve quality and testing quality by reducing defects from faulty configurations and poor modeling by as much as 15 to 30 percent.

The Smart Business Test Cloud can include strategy consulting, design, implementation, operation and management from IBM Global Technology Services.

IBM Smart Business Test Cloud Services also support IBM CloudBurst – with this capability, IBM can help clients rapidly set up a cloud platform with CloudBurst, then provide full customization and integration for a comprehensive, on-premise test environment in private cloud environment. The new services also gives clients the option of leverage their existing systems and storage for a complete cloud solution.

IBM Smart Business Test Cloud can help clients:

· Reduce costs by over 20% — operating cost reductions through automation

· Improve provisioning time from days to minutes – faster cycle of innovation

· Improve quality by automating configuration and better modeling of the production environment.

· Reduce risks associated with human error

· Reduce or avoid capital expenses by driving higher utilization and efficiency of existing assets

IBM Smart Business will also include a public cloud version of the Test Cloud, IBM Smart Business Development & Test on the IBM Cloud.

IBM Smart Business Desktop Cloud

IBM is delivering new private cloud services to allow end-users greater levels of self-service, while ensuring they maintain the highest levels of quality and security in accessing the critical information they need remotely, from any device, anywhere.

IBM Smart Business Desktop Cloud gives end users with internet enabled PCs and other devices the ability to access applications and data through a centrally managed computing environment. The private cloud offering helps clients quickly scale their IT infrastructures to address business demands, while significantly reducing the cost and complexity associated with managing the traditional “close to the box” user environment.

The IBM Smart Business Desktop Cloud helps clients provide anytime, anywhere access for more efficient desktop management, improved security and compliance, enhanced user productivity, and lower end-user IT support costs, including power and cooling for green initiatives.

IBM Smart Business Desktop Cloud is available in two implementation strategies: Project Based Services, for organizations that are interested in client virtualization and need help with strategy, planning, design, and implementation of a virtual desktop solution; and, Managed Services, for organizations that are interested in client virtualization and would like IBM to not only design and implement a solution, but also manage the virtual desktop operations.

IBM partners with a number of virtualization software vendors, including Citrix, Desktone, Quest, VMWare and Wyse to provide the most optimal solution for customers, including virtual clients, server-based computing and OS and applications streaming.

Today’s cloud-based solutions are complemented by IBM’s on-premise virtual desktop offering, announced last year, which includes a combination of Verde’s Virtual Bridges, Ubuntu Linux and IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution Software (OCCS), based on IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Notes, and Lotus applications.

IBM Smart Business will also include a subscription public cloud version of the Desktop Cloud, IBM Smart Business Desktop on the IBM Cloud.

For more information about IBM’s cloud computing products and services, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud

For information on how cloud computing is helping usher in a smarter planet, please visit, www.ibm.com/think

One of the core predicates to true enteprise cloud computing is manageability. Enterprise IT organizations don’t like surprises, especially the kind that start with an executive calling them about an application failure before they know about it.  That’s why services like Tap In Systems are going to be critical to enterprise cloud adoption.

Tap In Systems is still in private beta at this point, and according to CEO Peter Loh they are making some changes to the system before expanding the beta in the near future.  They are actively seeking beta customers as well, particularly from enterprise organizations. Their beta today has only a few customers, and most are what Loh termed “Web 2.0 companies.”  He did reference an unnamed enterprise customer in the beta running a “core application” with 200 EC2 instances.

Tap In’s core value proposition starts with a simple question – “How can you solve a problem when you can’t determine where it exists?”  Standard application management and monitoring solutions today cannot handle the dynamic IP and non-sensical naming of public cloud infrastructures like EC2.  Tap In not only sees the performance of the system, but also knows the meta data of the instances – including configuration types, memory, and more.

They are also integrating with Amazon’s recently announced CloudWatch API and will be providing a lot of value beyond the core CloudWatch data. Analytics, visualization, and long-term archiving of CloudWatch data are some of the enhancements they are planning.

Of course, Amazon is not their only target cloud infrastructure.  They also have deals with (or plans for this) with 3tera, GoGrid and RackSpace.  Tap In is hoping to have the cloud providers OEM or resell their management tools to users.

Pricing is a reasonable $0.49 per hour of their server, and a single server can monitor 200 instances.  This is a fairly inexpensive price for a system that provides peace of mind for large-scale cloud usage.

Tap In Systems is still very early, with only 5 employees and bootstrap / friends & family funding.  It would seem like this could be a good venture-funding opportunity.

Here are some screen shots:

Symform, a Seatle company focused on cloud-based storage for the enterprise, has just taken $1.5m of venture financing according to Xconomy. The basic premise is that your data is stored on my computers, and mine on yours. Or more precisely, a very small portion of my data, super-encrypted, resides on the servers of many other customers. It’s redundant, secure and “in the cloud.” Now you get to hear a familiar refrain of many entrepreneurial types… I had this idea over two years ago. I even tried to get some of my totally smart ex-colleagues from ODI to join me (this is a big-brain storage-oriented thing, after all). My concept has several differences, but the core idea of a cooperative shared storage cloud was there. Kudos to Symform for getting it done!

Way back in 2006 when Amazon released their first enterprise web service, S3 (Simple Storage Service), I immediately wanted in. At the time we were wracking up huge data center and hardware bills (for a small company) and storing tens of terabytes of image files. We got in the S3 early beta but didn’t get too far because we needed image processing to happen in the cloud to be cost-effective. My contact at Amazon hinted that a compute infrastructure was not long in coming.

When EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) launched in 2007, I really wanted in. The digital photo business was winding down, so there was no point. My 2008 venture, did use EC2 and S3 and we saved many thousands of dollars and hours by not having to worry about hardware. While there were countless stories of Web startups using cloud services back then, only recently have I begun to hear of enterprise applications in the cloud.

I know what you’re thinking. What about SaaS vendors like Salesforce.com with their PaaS (platform as a service) models? Yes, these are in the cloud, and fit in most people’s definition of “cloud computing.” However, for me the inflection is where enterprises are now deploying any type of application, not just those that are build as ASP or SaaS frameworks, or that require you to build into a narrow framework like sforce. Truly custom apps written in any language are not what sforce was designed for.

Now I am hearing about life sciences companies putting the cloud to work in HPC environments for drug discovery or genetic mapping. And trading firms, like Majedie Asset Management, who own or manage no physical data center assets. All of their applications – from the most trivial to the most mission-critical – live in the cloud.

There are tools providers like RightScale and Stax building deployment management environments on top of Amazon and other cloud infrastutures. There are folks like Enomaly building cloud stacks for deployment by telcos and hosting providers. There are guys likeGood Data building BI in the cloud.

Think of the opportunity! Over the next 10-15 years millions of systems now operated in-house will be ported to the cloud. An increasing number of new applications will be built specifically for cloud environments. Vendors of systems management, security, indentity and access control, databases, ERP, CRM, and most other types of IT technology will create cloud versions of their systems, and new vendors will emerge for this new environment.

There will be opportunities across all aspects of enterprise IT to profit from this wholesale shift. How will you participate?