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I am a big believer that as enterprises embrace a mobile strategy that includes iPads and iPhones, there will be a gravitational pull to the cloud.
Additionally, this transition to mobile and cloud will decrease the relevance of Microsoft in the enterprise, especially small – medium business (since they missed the boat on mobile and to some extent cloud services).
As I thought about this post and started writing, this morning TechCrunch has a post on “Box: Mobile Adoption Is The Gateway Drug To The Cloud In The Enterprise”.
“When Box tracks its enterprise sales, it tracks the reason for buying, and this past year, the company found there was a 30x increase in the number of enterprise deployments that were mobile-driven.” WOW…is that telling!
The move to iPads has enterprises adopting SaaS / cloud services much faster then originally thought. The ability to quickly (with a few swipes) deploy and enable a CRM application or a collaboration application is very compelling. Especially if the security and privacy concerns can be mitigated. Traditional IT must be agile and address this trend. Enterprise IT will need to figure out how cloud becomes an extension of their infrastructure and services or become less relevant to the value that can be delivered to business.
Years ago, while at Microsoft, we talked, blogged, preached about Software plus Services (S+S). In fact, Microsoft has been talking about the cloud in the context of S+S for years. Microsoft vision has always been that the cloud can make software better in a complimentary architectural way. As apposed to Google’s vision of cloud which is all about the web and the browser. In fact, Apple’s vision of cloud is in total alignment with Microsoft’s with iCloud! Its S+S – but although Microsoft is right on with the S+S strategy, they have struggled to really demonstrate this strategy and its valuable implications. I totally agree with Pascal’s post on SAI – Apple’s iCloud is annoying to Google, and humiliating for Microsoft. Microsoft had it right for years and they are still struggling with implementation. Whether its phone + cloud, software + cloud, or just cloud.
Cloud is different for consumer experiences versus the enterprise. A platform company that has the right strategy, needs to implement that strategy differently for the consumer market, versus the enterprise market!
OK…I guess my head is not totally out of the clouds! 
As some of you already know, I have recently made another move. After over 15 years in the Software (vendor) space in one capacity or another, I have moved back into the enterprise. Although the last couple of years I have been focused on cloud, especially cloud application platform (Windows Azure and VMware Cloud), I am now very excited to go back to enterprise architecture.
Leading Enterprise Architecture for Enterprise Functions at Chevron! The scope of the application portfolio, the enterprise architecture leadership in the company, and the leadership in ITC is absolutely refreshing!
Earlier this week VMware introduced Cloud Foundry, an Open Platform as a Service (PaaS) hosted by VMware and will be made available to service provider partners and customers, enabling them to host their on Open PaaS.
Cloud Foundry provides a PaaS implementation that offers developers choice:
- Choice of developer frameworks,
- Choice of application infrastructure services, and
- Choice of clouds to which to deploy applications
This PaaS is different from other people’s PaaS offerings that restrict developers to a specific or non-standard development framework, a limited set of application services or a single, vendor-operated cloud service; things that raises issues of lock-in by inhibiting application portability.
Instead, Cloud Foundry supports, or will support, frameworks like Spring for Java, Ruby on Rails, Sinatra for Ruby, Node.js and Grails with others promised in fairly short order. And for application services, it will initially support the open source NoSQL MongoDB, MySQL and Redis databases with plans to add VMware’s own vFabric services, the application platform in vCloud, as well as the RabbitMQ messaging system, another VMware property.
Whats really interesting is that VMware has rolled out their CloudFoundry service as an open source project! An entire PaaS platform, which they will also offer as a hosted service, but also available for anyone to run within their own company or datacenter!
Coming real soon, VMware plans to produce the Cloud Foundry Micro Cloud, a free, complete, downloadable instance of Cloud Foundry that runs in a single virtual machine developers can use on their own laptop to ensure that “applications running locally will also run in production without modification on any Cloud Foundry-based private or public cloud.” Down the road, the plan is to provide a commercial Cloud Foundry for enterprises that want to offer PaaS capabilities in their own private cloud and service providers that want to offer Cloud Foundry via their public cloud services. Enterprises should then be able to integrate the PaaS environment with their application infrastructure services portfolio and service providers hybrid cloud environments.
An article a couple of months back in VentureBeat asked if Hybrid Clouds were the path to cloud-computing nirvana. I am not sure I would go that far, but I do believe that most enterprise IT organizations will land at a place where they will have a private cloud, leverage a public cloud, and take advantage of the very compelling benefits of hybrid cloud scenarios.
Most large companies will not re-engineer their existing portfolio of applications to run in public clouds, and in fact will continue to invest in their existing infrastructure to enable the benefits of cloud and build out their own private clouds – driving costs down in their infrastructure, while gaining agility for their businesses. Additionally, some will have additional flexibility, greater business agility, and greater savings in costs, through hybrid cloud scenarios.
Hybrid cloud will enable IT in the enterprise to optimize infrastructure services and their computing resources across their data centers and service providers as necessary to respond to business demands. Hybrid clouds will provide portability for workloads, while maintaining consistent control and management, and maintaining security and compliance.
A key factor for to enable the Hybrid cloud capability is that IT will will need to build a private cloud platform that is consistent with cloud service providers and supports the portability mentioned above. One approach that is leading the way is VMware’s vCloud Powered service providers. Check it out.
I, as many others, have talked/blogged about what cloud is (as it evolves) and have briefly visited the value and economics of cloud recently. But I want to revisit why cloud computing is important to enterprise IT, and specifically why it enables IT to better deliver to the Line of Business.
If you step back and think about why cloud based services, like Gmail, Microsoft Online Services, Salesforce.com, Amazon Web Services, etc., are becoming increasingly more relevant to the business user, there are several compelling benefits that business gain from cloud based services. Among them – resource pooling thru shared compute and storage services, scalable and elastic resources to quickly react to increases in demand, as well as self-service. This last one is a big one! Business users want agility to respond to the demands of business. Traditional IT has not been able to respond as quickly to business demands would require, and cloud computing can deliver this and more to the CIO.
Today’s IT organizations need to increase their ability and capability to respond to business thru agility, while reducing costs. Additionally, while enabling this agility, they need to manage the corporate assets and corporate IP while maintaining a compliant and secure infrastructure. Not everything can move to the Public Cloud, so its driving them to build out their own Private Clouds that come with some of the same benefits and capabilities as that consumers and lines of business seek from the public cloud.
IT is optimizing their existing IT infrastructure investments, their virtualized data center, to enable resource pooling, automation, elastic compute and storage services, and finally self-service to the line of business with a Private Cloud.
Topics to come – Hybrid Cloud, a new breed of business applications for the cloud, and end user computing!
How did I get here? What led me to walk away from the hot team at Microsoft – Windows Azure, and even more interesting, leave Microsoft after 9+ years.
First, its important to note that most of the 9 years I spent at Microsoft were incredibly rewarding. I worked with some really smart and good people. And Microsoft is indeed a great company to work for.
So why leave? Well, first I need to get something off my chest – let me start with Innovation and R&D. Every year for the last 9 years, Microsoft executives remind all the employees, customers, partners, the world that they spend between $6 – 8 billion in R&D annually! Really? Now, I am not implying that there is a lack of innovation going on in the mildew forest (redmond); there are some really cool things like XBOX Live, Surface, .Net, Windows Azure, Live Mesh. But lets face it, Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 (a Vista SP) over 9 years was not very innovative – especially now that I am using OS X! Windows Mobile Phone strategy? Search? Over $60 billion in R&D over 9 years – I can probably come up with a list 10 startups that had less then $300 million in funding in total that are more relevant today and innovative. …OK. I feel better now.
I mentioned being on the hot Windows Azure team, as well as listing it as innovative, and I still think there is some really cool technology there. Some of the best innovation in the last 9 years at Microsoft. Public PaaS Cloud is certainly innovative, interesting and very relevant to future deployment scenarios (not all, but some). But I started to question the overall “cloud” strategy and approach. I really think Azure technology should have first been introduced as a private cloud (on – premise) platform, enabling enterprises to build on their virtualization footing, and start with customized private PaaS. Then compliment that with a Public PaaS strategy that included ISPs and Partners and enable hybrid cloud scenarios. Instead, its sort of a huge leap for most enterprises to think about what workloads to build onto this primarily new and proprietary platform running in Microsoft Data Centers, and have a completely different perspective and approach to cloud patterns on-premise. Sorry, its not Hyper-V and Windows Server.
Then there is Ray Ozzie’s departure (not to mention all the other executives leaving to this day). Ozzie was the new Bill Gates at Microsoft. The “architect” of the new Microsoft and leading the transformation and vision for the cloud – the driving force and vision behind Azure. All of a sudden, while on the Azure team and coming to, Ozzie resigns! And then Ozzie writes his “Dawn of a New Day” . As I wrote in my blog post regarding the memo – Its a very interesting read and as one of my colleagues tweeted; “Shut the door, turn off your phone and read Ray Ozzie’s Dawn of a New Day” .
Anyway – my Azure bubble was popped. I was no longer a believer, nor passionate about the direction. There were other things that I wont go into, and there were also things that made me want to stick around – mostly some good people. I will absolutely treasure some of the work and people I was fortunate to work with – some of who are still at Microsoft. Keep up the good work!!!
I have found a renewed love for something from Microsoft that runs on the Mac – MacOffice 2011. Now, we just need OneNote on the Mac.
I am finding an incredibly rich, innovative, and very relevant approach and strategy at my new gig! With some incredibly compelling dialogue with enterprises regarding cloud. More on that on that later….
I wrote about the Business Value of Cloud Computing back in June, 2009. I highlighted in that post, why enterprises were interested in cloud computing from a business value perspective and discuss why this style of computing has been, and will continue to be huge platform shift. As I discussed then, the transformation to cloud computing will come with significant improvements in efficiency, agility and innovation.
Recently, the Corporate Strategy Group at Microsoft did an extensive analysis of the economics associated with cloud computing, leveraging Microsoft’s experience with cloud services like Windows Azure, Office 365, Windows Live, and Bing. The outcome resulted in a blog post and a whitepaper, “The Economics of the Cloud.”
In the paper, it highlights how the economics impact public clouds and private clouds to different degrees and describe how to weigh the trade-off that this creates. Private clouds address many of the concerns IT leaders have about cloud computing, and so they may be perfectly suited for certain situations. But because of their limited ability to take advantage of demand-side economies of scale and multi-tenancy, the paper concludes that private clouds may someday carry a cost that is as much more costly then that of public clouds.
PDC 2010 (Microsoft Professional Developer Conference) was held in Redmond a couple of weeks ago and it marked a significant milestone for Windows Azure – One Year Anniversary since its production announcement at PDC 2009.
In review, the Windows Azure platform, composed of Windows Azure and SQL Azure, and Windows Azure AppFabric is supported by a rich set of development tools, management and services from Microsoft Corp. You can learn more here. It is a Platform as a service (PaaS) and is where Microsoft thinks developers and businesses will ultimately gain the true value of the cloud.
The conference included some announcements highlighting significant updates to the Windows Azure Platform. Here is a summary of those announcements with links to resources to learn more. Warning – long list / post!
Windows Azure Virtual Machine Role eases the migration of existing Windows Server applications to Windows Azure by eliminating the need to make costly application changes and enables customers to quickly access their existing business data from the cloud. Microsoft announced Virtual Machine Role support for Windows Server 2008 R2 in Windows Azure. A public beta will be available by the end of 2010.
Server Application Virtualization enables customers to deploy virtualized application images onto the Windows Azure worker role (single role, single instance) rather than the VM Role. Through this approach, customers can more easily migrate their traditional applications to Windows Azure without the need to rewrite them or to package them within a VM. Once the application is deployed with server application virtualization on Windows Azure, customers can benefit from the automated service management capabilities of Windows Azure including automatic configuration and ongoing operating system management. Server Application Virtualization for Windows Azure will be available as a community technology preview (CTP) before the end of 2010, and the final release will be available to customers in the second half of 2011
Constructing VM role images in the cloud. Microsoft is enabling developers and IT professionals to build VM images for VM role directly in the cloud. This will be offered as an alternative to the current approach of building images on-premises and uploading them over the Internet. This update will be available in 2011.
Support for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 in the VM Role. Microsoft supports Windows Server 2008 R2 in the Guest OS. In 2011, Microsoft will add support for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 SP2.
SQL Azure Reporting allows developers to embed reports into their Windows Azure applications, including rich data visualization and export to popular formats, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and PDF, enabling the users of these applications to gain greater insight and act on their line-of-business data stored in SQL Azure databases. A CTP will be available to customers by the end of 2010. The final release of SQL Azure Reporting will be generally available in the first half of 2011.
SQL Azure Data Sync is another important building block service to help developers rapidly build cloud applications on the Windows Azure platform using Microsoft’s cloud database. It allows developers to build apps with geo-replicated SQL Azure data and synchronize on-premises with cloud and mobile applications. A CTP will be available by the end of 2010. A final release of SQL Azure Data Sync is set to be released in the first half of 2011.
Database Manager for SQL Azure is a new lightweight, Web-based database management and querying capability for SQL Azure. This capability was formerly referred to as “Project Houston,” and allows customers to have a streamlined experience within the Web browser without having to download any tools. Database Manager for SQL Azure will be generally available by the end of 2010.
Windows Azure AppFabric helps developers rapidly build cloud applications on the Windows Azure platform.
- AppFabric Caching, which helps developers accelerate the performance of their applications.
- AppFabric Service Bus enhancements will help developers build reliable, enterprise quality delivery of data or messages, to and from applications to third parties or mobile devices.
CTPs were available at PDC, and both of these important building-block technologies will be generally available the first half of 2011.
Windows Azure Marketplace is a single online marketplace for developers and IT professionals to share, find, buy and sell building block components, training, services, and finished services or applications needed to build complete and compelling Windows Azure platform applications.
DataMarket is best thought of as a market within the Windows Azure Marketplace. It provides developers and information workers with access to premium third-party data, Web services, and self-service business intelligence and analytics, which they can use to build rich applications. Today there are more than 35 data providers offering data on DataMarket, with over 100 more coming soon.
At PDC 2010, DataMarket (formerly code-named “Dallas”) was released to Web, and a Windows Azure Marketplace beta will be released by the end of the year.
TFS on Windows Azure. Microsoft demoed Team Foundation Server on Windows Azure, which shows that steps have been made toward cloud-hosted Application Lifecycle Management. A CTP will be available in 2011.
Windows Azure AppFabric
- Windows Azure AppFabric Access Control enhancements help customers build federated authorization into applications and services without the complicated programming that is normally required to secure applications beyond organizational boundaries. With support for a simple declarative model of rules and claims, Access Control rules can easily and flexibly be configured to cover a variety of security needs and different identity-management infrastructures. These enhancements are currently available to customers.
- Windows Azure AppFabric Connect allows customers to bridge existing line-of-business (LOB) integration investments over to Windows Azure using the Windows Azure AppFabric Service Bus, and connecting to on-premises composite applications running on Windows Server AppFabric. This new set of simplified tooling extends Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 to help accelerate hybrid on- and off-premises composite application scenarios, which are critical for customers starting to develop hybrid applications. This service is freely available today.
Windows Azure Virtual Network. New functionality is being introduced under the Windows Azure Virtual Network name. Windows Azure Connect (previously known as “Project Sydney”) enables a simple and easy-to-manage mechanism to set up IP-based network connectivity between on-premises and Windows Azure resources. The first Windows Azure Virtual Network feature is called Windows Azure Connect. A CTP of Windows Azure Connect will be available by the end of 2010, and it will be generally available in the first half of 2011.
Extra Small Windows Azure Instance. Also announced was the Extra Small Instance, which will be priced at $0.05 per compute hour in order to make the process of development, testing and trial easier for developers. This will make it affordable for developers interested in running smaller applications on the platform. A beta of this role will be available before the end of 2010.
Remote Desktop enables IT professionals to connect to a running instance of their application or service to monitor activity and troubleshoot common problems. Remote Desktop will be generally available later this year.
Elevated Privileges. The VM role and Elevated Privileges functionality removes roadblocks that today prevent developers from having full control over their application environment. For small changes such as configuring Internet Information Service (IIS) or installing a Microsoft Software Installer (MSI), Microsoft recommends using the Elevated Privileges admin access feature. This approach is best suited for small changes and enables the developer to retain automated service management at the Guest OS and the application level. Elevated Privileges will be generally available to customers later this year.
Full IIS Support enables development of more complete applications using Windows Azure. The Web role will soon provide full IIS functionality, which enables multiple IIS sites per Web role and the ability to install IIS modules. The full IIS functionality enables developers to get more value out of a Windows Azure instance. Full IIS Support will be generally available to customers later this year.
Windows Server 2008 R2 Roles. Windows Azure will now support Windows Server 2008 R2 in its Web, worker and VM roles. This new support will enable customers to take advantage of the full range of Windows Server 2008 R2 features such as IIS 7.5, AppLocker, and enhanced command-line and automated management using PowerShell Version 2.0. This update will be generally available later this year.
Multiple Admins. Windows Azure will soon support multiple Windows Live IDs to have administrator privileges on the same Windows Azure account. The objective is to make it easy for a team to work on the same Windows Azure account while using their individual Windows Live IDs. The Multiple Admins update will be generally available later this year.
Dynamic Content Caching. With this new functionality, the Windows Azure CDN can be configured to cache content returned from a Windows Azure application. Dynamic Content Caching will be available to customers in 2011.
CDN SSL Delivery. Users of the Windows Azure CDN will now have the capability to deliver content via encrypted channels with SSL/TLS. This update will be available in 2011.
Improved global connectivity. Microsoft will add new Windows Azure CDN nodes in the Middle East and improve existing connectivity in the U.S. and Brazil in 2011.
Improved Java Enablement. Microsoft plans to make Java a first-class citizen on Windows Azure. This process will involve improving Java performance, Eclipse tooling and client libraries for Windows Azure. Customers can choose the Java environment of their choice and run it on Windows Azure. Improved Java Enablement will be available to customers in 2011.
Windows Azure AppFabric Composition Model and Composite App Service provides an end-to-end “composite” application development environment to help developers streamline the process of assembling, managing and deploying various home-grown and third-party services that span the Web, middle tier and database in the cloud. A CTP will be available in the first half of 2011.
Microsoft also announced the following developer and operator enhancements at PDC 2010:
- A completely redesigned Microsoft Silverlight-based Windows Azure portal to ensure an improved and intuitive user experience
- Access to new diagnostic information including the ability to click on a role to see type and deployment time
- A new sign-up process that dramatically reduces the number of steps needed to sign up for Windows Azure
- New scenario-based Windows Azure Platform forums to help answer questions and share knowledge more efficiently
These Windows Azure enhancements will be generally available by the end of 2010.
Finally, a great offer for partners:
“Windows Azure Platform Cloud Essentials for Partners” is an offer that replaces Microsoft’s existing partner offers. This offer will go live on Jan. 7, 2011, and provide free access to the Windows Azure platform, including 750 Extra Small Instance hours and a SQL Azure database per month at no additional charge. Partners can sign up for the Cloud Essentials Pack at Microsoft Cloud Partner.
Are PC’s, and Windows going to be less significant in the next 5 years? Its certainly a scenario that I am sure many at Microsoft (and the industry) are arguably challenged with. More so today, then ever!
Yes, cloud computing is definitely becoming a disruptive force (in a positive way, I might add) in how we deliver and consume services today, as Ray Ozzie wrote about in his memo, The Internet Services Disruption, 5 years ago. But, I think the message, warning, and context Ray raises in his new memo today, Dawn of a New Day, 5 years later, is more relevant and I am sure has folks in Redmond and the industry talking about it.
I do not disagree, as I look into the future, I have to admit it looks less like just PC’s connecting to the cloud and services, but more about “connected devices” and “continuous services” that play out in our lives thru mobile phones, gaming consoles, TVs, iPads/Slates, cars, and other everyday devices that connect to the cloud.
Its a very interesting read and as one of my colleagues tweeted today; “Shut the door, turn off your phone and read Ray Ozzie’s Dawn of a New Day” .
