“Fixing the Cloud: Business Models and Infrastructure”

Why the confusion about cloud?

with Brian Bershad, Director of Research and Development, Google; Chris Drumgoole, Senior Vice President, Terremark; Doug Gourlay, VP Marketing, Arista Networks; Yousef Khalidi, Distinguished Engineer, Microsoft; Matt McIlwain, Managing Director, Madrona Ventures; and Javier Soltero, CTO, VMware; hosted by Gregory Ness

– Cloud is cutting edge innovation, with big companies conglomerating and consolidating the old stuff.
– Hurd is confusing services and infrastructure.
– The “where” in cloud computing carries a lot of weight; companies are having trouble bridging the gab between the cloud and the customer
– Next IT shift: from hardware driven, static, manual enterprise to software driven, incredibly dynamic.
– The “where” coupled with what kinds of services are provided. Customers want to be able to control and manage, but also want elasticity.

How will clouds change things?
– Dealing with very large data sets; able to provide analytic service to any company dealing in trillion row data sets; ability to aggregate massive amounts of data and very smart computational engines
– Data.gov; fed govt has aggregated 8-9,00 data sets all available on an API call.
– Entertainment consumption: 51% of traffic online is video-based. elastic infrastructure is enabling this massive traffic
– existing application workloads are taken to the next level because of the cloud: what are the next workflows that can be managed by cloud?, eg transformation from expedia to orbitz to kayak.
– software powering our global software generally “sucks”; consumerization of IT: innovation in work-based applications to transform them to ease and enjoyment of using Facebook.

-biggest challenges to cloud adoption: misunderstanding of cloud; perception of what can and cant go on the cloud gets in the way more than reality; classified information CAN and does go on the cloud
– metrics drive adoption much faster than anything else.
– People have gone from defining the cloud to using the cloud.

Will IT become greener, or just cause more demand for electricity?
– We are absolutely becoming more efficient, but demand is ramping up so quickly that the total demand will actually increase
– cooling will be more efficient, buying and designing in bulk, you can run hotter,

Will the cost of delivering the cloud begin to track with the cost of electricity?
-only if innovation in development, etc comes to a halt.
-resurgence in the art of effective coding; one customer dropped their monthly bill by about 40%