The Cloud Ventures Network is an expert community of leading Cloud pioneers. Follow our best practice blogs at http://CloudBestPractices.net
One of the most powerful as well as practical ways to demonstrate the trend of Cloud 2.0 and how it will re-invent IT areas like CRM, is to consider the SaaS opportunities this presents. Greenfield Applications First In summary this is best captured from the Canadian E-Health Cloud str...Dec. 3, 2012 06:30 AM EST Reads: 2,156
With the government promising delivery of the long-awaited Digital Economy strategy by the year end, this prompts a review of what role the Cloud industry can play in this strategy. This then further encourages us to identify what particular segments of the Cloud Computing industry we ...
A critical component of a Private Cloud 2.0 architecture is what Techcello call a ‘CMAP’ – A Cloud-ready Multi-tenant Application Platform.
In the same fashion that Private Cloud internalizes the IaaS model, so this can also be repeated for both the PaaS and SaaS layers too.
Indeed w...
In the Enterprise 2.0 white paper I wrote a few years ago, I built on the core concepts of what Andrew McAfee had introduced, primarily the integrated role of Cloud Computing and also the overlap with BPM (Business Process Management). I have started bringing this up to date for 2012 t...
A key component for the enterprise IT team to consider as part of planning their Private Cloud strategy is the migration to Windows 8. This is a massive evolution for Microsoft, nicely captured in this white paper from CSC and the Leading Edge forum: Windows 8 – A New Era for Mic...
Crowdfunding has become a very in-demand concept here in Canada, following the hyper-growth of the trend in the USA. In Canada it’s viewed as especially important because of the dreaded Innovation Gap, as this features a lack of Venture Capital for new projects. Sourcing it via t...
Our headline professional service engagement is Cloud Migration Management (CMM). The issues that the service needs to address were recently identified through an auditors analysis of the progress of the US Government’s Cloud First program. In the GAO report Progress Made but Fut...
All around the world, governments at national, state, and local levels are facing huge pressures to do more with less. As cloud computing gains traction and momentum, many public sector organizations are exploring its usage to achieve large-scale efficiency savings while simultaneousl...
You don’t often hear the words ‘Government’ and ‘Innovation’ together, however while the USA`s Cloud First initiative certainly kick-started more Cloud adoption, really the important part of this development has been the emergence of the public sector as a...
Cloud Replication Services features technology that can mirror your live applications to secondary data centres running Cloud services. Example providers include Allstream, who offer Cloud Replication Services as part of their enterprise IT portfolio. They ask and answer the question a...
As the Government’s own Digital Advantage paper recommends, the key to addressing Canada’s innovation gap is for CIO’s to adopt more new technologies like Cloud Computing, and the public sector can ignite this trend by leading the way with their own adoption.
Don Drummond makes a si...
Neil McEvoy is the Founder and President of the Cloud Best Practices Network.
Neil McEvoy is a Cloud Computing entrepreneur who has been pioneering new innovations in this industry for over fifteen years.
Aged 28 he launched his first company, one of the Europe’s first ASPs (Appl...
The traditional way of performing backups includes using Oracle RMAN in combination with media management layer software ( typically Netbackup, Tivoli or similar ), which writes backup data to remote robotic tape unit. Tapes are then stored offsite to a secure location. It is well know...
A common topic when discussing Cloud is that it’s only about migrating your existing apps ‘into the Cloud’, when actually a more likely and productive scenario is keeping your legacy where it is and instead using the Cloud as an “overlay architecture“. Ind...
Guildford, Surrey – 30 May 2012 – Memset, an award-winning hosting company with private and public cloud infrastructure, has today rolled out its own API for customers to be able to manage their entire cloud portfolio. Memset’s API enables customers to perform many of...
The Canada Cloud Network (CCN), a new industry consortium intent on establishing Canada as a world leader in the field of Cloud Computing, is pleased to announce their formal launch and the immediate availability of membership services including ‘Social Cloud PR’.
One of the most powerful IT case studies I have read recently was the Microsoft one for their own in-house `Salesforce 2.0′ platform, what they call Infopedia. As detailed in the full white paper on this topic of Cloud 2.0, when it is applied to the sales activities of an organiz...
When designing applications for the cloud, or extending on-premise applications into the cloud, it should go without saying that you can't just deploy and expect good results.
This week I published our latest Cloud Best Practices white paper, called ‘Microsoft Cloud 2.0‘. The main activity of the CBPN is this vendor matching, i.e. we identify the best practice model, and then describe how different vendors can be used to implement those models. I...
Best Practices are defined as a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. What this means is that they have actually been proven. Proven? How do you prove that one method or technique is obje...
In 2008 Microsoft acquired enterprise search software company FAST, and have been integrating the software into the Sharepoint suite. While Sharepoint is an excellent document and collaboration tool, the reality of a busy corporate life is that over 80% of corporate information is spre...
Earlier today I interviewed hot Cloud venture Appdirect, a company that offers a white label platform for implementing ‘Cloud Service Brokering’. This is one of the headline R&I focus areas for our road map. On the back of a $3.25m VC deal last year, Appdirect is one of...
When it comes to embracing social media and applications, many businesses seem to question the benefit. True, if you are a consumer goods manufacturer, there is inherent benefit in associating yourself with social media and consumer applications, but what about for Government agencies?...
As Campaign 2000 reports despite Canadian Parliament resolving in 1989 to eliminate child and family poverty by the year 2000, twenty three years later they are still yet to report any meaningful progress. As many as one in ten live in what would be considered third world conditions. I...
Our next upcoming webinar is entitled GovCloud 2.0, and a headline topic we will be introducing is called ‘Harnessing Enterprise Search for IM best practices‘. IM is of course Information Management and refers to all aspects of Governments needs to managed records. Presiden...
Last week I had the huge pleasure of meeting the CIO for Ontario Province Dave Nicholl, and members of his executive team, for our upcoming white paper ‘Cloud Computing and the Drummond Report‘. Innovation Opportunities at the Touch Points As one of the team Samantha Liscio...
The other day I noticed a really interesting idea, that in the diagram for Cloud Service Brokers the author includes various technical architecture features as being component parts of the Cloud Service Broker model. For example it includes ‘Identity’, and so on a recent Id...
Faced with a need to find huge cost reductions the Province of Ontario is in the same place as many governments throughout the world – They’ve shouldered the debt to see us through the financial meltdown and now need to be smart about how they digest what they’ve taken on.
They’re als...
One of the primary objectives of our Drummond Cloud report is to establish the ‘ITaaS Business Value Alignment’ program within our Cloud Best Practices.
A foundation part of moving to Cloud services is a moved from fixed cost IT, where you pay up front for your hardware, software an...
In the Canadian GC Community Cloud standards they articulate requirements for ‘Cloud Federation Services‘, a means of inter-connecting Identity management systems (eg. Active Directory). If you want to have your staff, who are on your LAN and logged in via AD, access remote...
I wasn’t able to attend and present at the recent OMG conference on public sector Cloud Computing, however I will still be uploading my sides so they’ll be available shortly. The others are available here for download. As you’ll see it was a powerful mix of speakers f...
A keystone to Cloud 2.0 is Cloud Identity – Common identity systems for single sign-on across Cloud as well as internal applications. Implementing Cloud Identity best practices is achieved through ‘IDaaS’ – Identity as a Service, one of the services on our Roadm...
It’s key to note the potential relationships between different NIST models. In particular one key dynamic is that while IDaaS (Identity as a Service) is a standalone service, it’s also a component part of the other scenarios. For example all of the Business Use Cases define...
In addition to IT cost efficiencies, organizations should look for further benefits from their Cloud investments. Most notably they should align with and support major change programs like ‘Shared Services Canada‘. This imperative to drive hundreds of millions of dollars in...
An update on Cloud Computing from Centrilogic.
Data Centers offer numerous cost benefits for organizations looking for ways to store and manage data more efficiently and cost-effectively. Here are five key questions to take into consideration as you assess the potential financial adva...
Startup America is the Whitehouse policy program to create jobs and stimulate the economy through enabling more entrepreneurs to start new businesses.
The recent financial crisis has had such a dreadful impact on so many families that this initiative is almost like a post-war effort t...
Canada can achieve Digital Economy leadership through pioneering key Internet-scale architectures.
With the USA charging ahead with key Internet innovations like 'Trusted Identities,' what can Canada do to keep up?
'Trusted Cloud' infrastructure can refer to how Cloud Computing syst...
The RFP for Elections Canada provides the ideal blueprint for planning the development of Cloud provider services.
It typifies the majority of potential clients that web hosting providers can address, and describes exactly the technical enhancements they're looking for to begin the mo...
