A few days ago, I published some 2012 Cloud Computing predictions from Warren Heffelfinger (CEO – GoGrid), James Urquhart (Cloud Writer for GigaOm & VP of Product Strategies at enStratus) and Larry Warnock (CEO of Gazzang). The beginning of any year is critical to not only reflect back on what transpired, but also to gaze into the future to see what is to come. With Cloud Computing, to quote an over-used phrase, “the sky’s the limit” and while there are some similarity within these and the previous predictions, there are also some distinct opinions as to where we are all headed in the cloud.

In this article, I have compiled more insightful predictions from another stellar list of cloud experts, namely:

• John Keagy (Chairman & Founder – GoGrid)
• Carson Sweet (CEO – CloudPassage)
• Antonio Piraino (CTO – ScienceLogic)

Below are their predictions so read on to see how they stack up!

John Keagy (Chairman & Founder – GoGrid)

1. There will be less use of the word “cloud” generically and more of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS or “cloud infrastructure, cloud platforms, and cloud software.” Folks are starting to understand the difference between Salesforce.com and GoGrid / Amazon. In fact, folks that really know IT are starting to cringe at folks that talk about cloud computing without understanding that Salesforce and GoGrid are quite different. We can expect some more specific dialog even from the mainstream media.
2. More vendors will be called out for “cloud washing.” Duh. No longer can you confuse outsourcing with on-demand.
3. The market will become more educated to the differences in VMware vs. XEN clouds. XEN offerings will emerge as more differentiated and cost-effective and equally secure.
4. On-prem / off-prem cloud bursting will be debunked as a primary use case. Although we may actually see cloud bursting in the wild 2012, the network costs and latency will not make it compelling. Lots of pundits will theorize boldly about how great it is from their blogger pulpits but the folks living in reality won’t see success.
5. Amazon will shine brighter than ever as the beacon of the future of computing. Thank goodness for Amazon. They are defining a new future and giving it credibility. Trouble is, other than GoGrid, no other service provider takes responsibility for building the technology of the future. And cloud = service. Hmmm.

Carson Sweet (CEO – CloudPassage/GoGrid Partner)

1. Delivery of SaaS via virtual appliance (a.k.a. privately hosted cloud instances) will take hold.
   As mid-market and large enterprises consider the pros and cons of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS, a large contingent with be dis-satisfied with the level of transparency and control provided by SaaS providers. At the same time, they will seek the ease of ownership, instant access and low effort offered by SaaS. Concerns about multi-tenancy will also continue to hold back a large contingent of potential cloud users, especially for more sensitive applications. Software delivery using hosted virtual appliances will strike an attractive balance for these potential users, offering on-demand access and scale while delivering superior control and reducing concerns about multi-tenancy. The demand for virtual appliance software delivery will drive IaaS providers to migrate towards (but not into) a PaaS model. Conversely, SaaS and PaaS providers will offer more flexibility and control over how their service offerings are deployed.
2. IaaS services will continue to coalesce around combinations of managed hardware, pure cloud infrastructure, and in-line access to software and services.
   As cloud deployments continue to grow, large cloud enterprises will hit scalability issues. IaaS providers will suffer migrations from the cloud back to collocated hardware, and IaaS providers will respond to protect the large enterprise business. Established infrastructure providers will leverage their legacies of large-scale, heterogeneous infrastructure management to offer access to combinations of multi-tenant cloud, dedicated private cloud, and traditional collocated hardware environments. Through acquisition or heavy investment in R&D, providers will leverage highly automated virtual infrastructure provisioning and delivery. The most successful will deliver a very wide variety of cloud infrastructure and virtual appliance services in a high-margin, self-service format. This will enable them to retain large-scale cloud enterprises while continuing to capture the large population of self-service, mid-market/business unit customers in a self-service approach. As the total field of cloud-hosted SaaS and consumer startups grows dramatically, IaaS providers’ ability to capture and service smaller customers at scale and grow some portion into hybrid hardware/software cloud environments will be a differentiation and competitive advantage.
3. IaaS providers will seek to differentiate and diversify to become “one-stop-shops”, and some will reach the critical mass needed to capture the emerging large-enterprise cloud services market.
   IaaS providers will seek to differentiate through partnership ecosystems that allow customers integrated access to supporting services (e.g. security, domain naming services, directory services) and application deployments (e.g. WordPress, Hadoop, Apache). The best providers will offer integrated orchestration of infrastructure, supporting services and applications (e.g. RightScale, Chef, Puppet). Providers will quickly move to increase market penetration and retention through the addition of integration, customization, training and management services. Some providers will establish stronger positions in vertical markets by packaging infrastructure, services and software to meet the needs of specific industries (e.g. regulatory requirements, specialized computing use cases, workload variability). Those providers that build the critical mass needed to obtain and retain cloud infrastructure services with large enterprises will become dominant market players; others will follow with focus on the mid-markets, and will rely more heavily on cloud broker / aggregation channels.

Antonio Piraino (CTO – ScienceLogic/GoGrid Customer)

1. Cloud management rules – Logistics usually trump management when it comes to new technologies, and the cloud is no different. Now that cloud providers have brought their platforms to market, having visibility into and control of those cloud resources will be paramount in 2012: A centralized view into performance across physical, virtual and cloud-based resources is a requirement for delivering optimal business services.
2. Security gets serious – Security breaches are nothing new but in 2012, cloud’s relative immaturity and high profile will likely motivate a serious attack. The silver lining will be that cloud computing service providers and their customers will come away stronger. Security and disaster recovery plans will be taken more seriously.
3. Acquisitions will be horizontal – Acquisitions in 2012 will be based more on the technologies needed to round out portfolios rather than simply buying smaller firms to boost market share. Look for telcos, social media firms, large system integrators and managed service providers to partner or buy out the cloud onramp providers, orchestration technologies, security technologies and IT monitoring/management firms.
4. Cloud defies the laws of demand – Cloud will act as a “Giffen Good” in 2012, meaning that people will consume more of it even as the price rises. Lower budgets make cloud’s ability to break down costs into smaller increments a more attractive prospect. As cloud service prices increase, it will take a larger portion of the already cut budget, which will mean there is less budget remaining, further driving the cost-cutting measures of cloud computing adoption. Cloud service providers tempted to decrease prices should take note.
5. Cloud wars commence – The most renowned consumer cloud environments such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Salesforce.com will start cloud wars based on price and economies of scale. And, since these companies are bringing enterprise grade services to federal and local government institutions as well as corporations of all sizes, the wars will pull in the managed hosting and data center collocation providers too. The majority will only be successful when they identify niche markets where they can deliver new services. Cloud wars will create coalitions leading to more holistic and innovative cloud solutions and differentiated service catalogs rather than traditional price wars.

Be sure to read Part 1 of this series on 2012 Cloud Computing Predictions.

What are your predictions for Cloud Computing in 2012? Any thoughts on the ones from our cloud experts above? Leave a comment and let us know.

As is customary with the passing of an old year and the exciting entrance into a new one, people try to make their best predictions as to what the future holds within their area of expertise. For GoGrid, this is obviously around Cloud Computing. This year, instead of making my own prediction list (as I have done in the past), I thought it would be important to get some other expert voices from the GoGrid and cloud community to do this task.

The important thing to always remember here, especially when dealing with the cloud, is that it changes quickly. It’s similar to buying the latest technology, the moment you buy it (or make the prediction, in this case), it’s instantly outdated. But still, the process is fun if not, educational.

Below is a compilation of 2012 cloud computing predictions from a variety of subject matter experts and thought-leaders in the field of cloud infrastructure, security and services. The contributors are:

• Warren Heffelfinger (CEO – GoGrid)
• James Urquhart (Cloud Writer – GigaOm/VP of Product Strategies – enStratus/GoGrid Partner)
• Larry Warnock (CEO – Gazzang/GoGrid Partner)
• John Keagy (Chairman & Founder – GoGrid)
• Carson Sweet (CEO – CloudPassage/GoGrid Partner)
• Antonio Piraino (CTO – ScienceLogic/GoGrid Customer)

Because of the wealth of knowledge coming from this group, I have actually broken this article out into a series of 2 posts. Without further ado, onto the first set of predictions!

Warren Heffelfinger (CEO – GoGrid)

1. At Amazon, the tail becomes the dog and the dog loses the tail. In 2012, I expect to see greater visibility on the success Amazon is seeing with AWS, to the point where they will report actual results in preparation for a spinoff in late 2012 / early 2013. Let’s face it . . . selling books online is not much different from selling TVs or flowers online, but selling raw compute and storage is radically different and deserves its own publicly-traded vehicle.
2. Telco’s continue to acquire cloud service providers . . . and competitors cheer! Having made a career out of competing with Ma Bell, this is a no brainer. Anyone with an entrepreneurial bone in their body will absolutely implode within one week of operations at a major global telco. Their primary skill set is stifling innovation. Unfortunately in 2012, we will start to see some formerly great companies fade into the sunset after being acquired and dismantled.
3. Big-Brand hardware in Big-Time trouble. Remember the last Internet boom? There were 25 year old kids making $1m selling commodity servers, routers, and PCs. Silicon Valley was littered with these sales reps. Last Fall, I was speaking with a friend in the industry who is located in The SV. Guess what . . . those sales jobs no longer exist. Why? Because getting a server shipped to you in 2 days with a “<insert big brand name here>” label no longer cuts it when you can spin up the same thing in 3 minutes with any number of cloud infrastructure providers. If you are still buying gear from “<insert big brand names here> et al you are probably also dancing the Macarena.
4. “Cloud” loses its sex appeal. Remember when “The Web” was a cool term? Ok, I’m dating myself but you get the point. We expect cloud services (SaaS, PaaS and IaaS) to grow exponentially for the next 5-7 years, but let’s face it, the term “Cloud” is getting old. By the end of 2012, the rest of the IT world will find the term passé (just as industry insiders do right now). Cloud will just be “the obvious way we consume software and hardware”.
5. Big Data gets BIGGER. From our vantage point, Big Data is gaining a lot of momentum. Adoption trends within our own customer base are clearly accelerating, creating a unique circumstance where reality actually outpaces hype. We love this area because the combination of Big Data running on GoGrid’s complex infrastructure is a powerful solution for our customers.

James Urquhart (GigaOm Contributing Author/VP of Product Strategy – enStratus/GoGrid Partner)

1. The complexity of operating application systems in the cloud will become increasingly apparent. The cloud is changing something fundamental about application architectures; they are becoming increasingly small-grained and componentized, in part due to the distributed nature of cloud computing, but mostly because of the business opportunities and work savings such an approach affords. However, as organizations deploy more and more such applications, the volume and interconnected nature of these applications will make the problem of managing them in large numbers increasingly apparent.
2. New hardware architectures will be tried. Many will fail. We are already seeing this trend, but as the needs of new IT services systems (for the most part, cloud services) are discovered, new server, storage and networking products will appear to address them. Unfortunately, most will fail to recognize the scale, consistency and dynamics of so-called “resource pooling”, and will fail to find significant market share. On the other hand, the few that survive will be a big, big deal.
3. Big data and consumer-scale web applications will continue to dominate the cloud–but change is in the air. While there will be increasing signs of enterprises addressing new classes of applications in the cloud, most of them will be applications that are already successful running in cloud services, namely big data and web applications. However, a small number of new approaches–centered on PaaS and “PaaS on SaaS” (e.g. Force.com) development technologies–will make “departmental applications” cost effective in the cloud. In fact, sometime in 2013, the new agility found in the cloud might actually lead to an explosion of “departmental apps”, which create a new operational headache for the IT department.
4. The legal needs of cloud computing are increasingly debated. SOPA, DCMA, EU privacy policy, and so on are only warning shots across our bows with respect to the challenges cloud computing will have on our legal system. There is good news and bad news here. The good news is that most developed countries will see increasing structure placed around how cloud can and can’t be used. The bad news is that many special interests (including those with political power, in some cases) will find ways to bend this law to their own benefit. This is expected, as the real challenge to the legal status of cloud computing won’t be expected for a couple of years or more.
5. Agile companies will increasingly move to the cloud, staid companies will not. This may seem obvious, but there is more at work here than just conservative company cultures. One of the primary benefits of cloud computing is that it makes trying new software a much smaller risk than it was in more traditional client-server models. If a new application fails to find value, you just shut it down and stop incurring expense for the thing. There is no capital outlay to account for after the fact. Companies that have new software to try will flock to the cloud. Those that don’t change their software often will avoid it—for now.

Larry Warnock (CEO – Gazzang/GoGrid Partner)

1. Storage Capacity concerns will increase driving greater demand for compression technologies. Recent natural disasters in Asia have created a shortage of disk drive production that is now causing a ripple effect in cloud storage costs. Compression technologies will come to the rescue for many organizations.
2. OpenSource will continue to gain momentum and OpenStack will receive increased support and become a compelling option for organizations of all sizes. We’ll see high profile use cases turn to open source databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and particularly NoSQL (MongoDB, Cassandra, Hadoop and others) due to their reduced cost, increased flexibility and extreme scalability. And being Linux based, they will continue to pull market share from UNIX and Windows Server based products, especially as enterprises move apps to the cloud or SaaS delivery model.
3. Encryption will no longer be optional, it will become a must have. This applies to all data including email addresses and student records, not just credit card information or HIPAA. The cloud will be a significant driver for encryption, especially for multi-tenant applications in the cloud, and within SaaS and PaaS.
4. Telcos will lead the way in moving enterprises to the cloud. They understand how to deliver “carrier-grade” services and are ready to take the next step.
5. Mobile device security will reach a new peak. While the cost of devices is decreasing, the cost of losing one is increasing. With every new app that is created, it opens new doors for hackers to break through – and they will.
6. Security breaches are going to happen at a faster pace than we saw in 2011 and that’s saying a lot when you consider RSA, Lockheed Martin, Epsilon, the Fox broadcast network, PBS and Citibank to name just a few – it’s only going to get worse. Enterprises need to assess their security controls and prepare accordingly before it is too late.

You can now view Part 2 of the 2012 Cloud Computing Predictions where John Keagy (Founder & Chairman of GoGrid), Carson Sweet (CEO of Cloud Passage) and Antonio Piraino (CTO of ScienceLogic) weigh in with their predictions.

What are your predictions for Cloud Computing in 2012? Any thoughts on the ones from our cloud experts above? Leave a comment and let us know.

In January and February of 2011, GoGrid polled over 500 IT professionals, CTOs and developers and asked for their thoughts on cloud computing, how they currently use the cloud and where they think the industry is headed. The results of this survey shed new light on how the cloud stands in 2011 and what we can expect as we move towards 2012.

We have taken the key findings of the survey and created several interesting charts and graphics. Because of the extensive nature of the survey, we will be releasing the findings in topical blog posts over the coming months, but you can download the full survey results data at any time by clicking here.

With much speculation and debate about what cloud computing is, the first questions we asked the industry is what they believe cloud computing encompassed – Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a Service (SaaS).

Question: When you think of “cloud”, what does it mean to you? What does the “cloud” encompass?

As seen in the responses to this question the majority of IT professionals are in agreement that all 3 services make up cloud computing, but emphasized Software as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service. More importantly, we wanted to know what percentage of the IT industry actually uses cloud technology for their business. Most people are familiar with SaaS (e.g., Gmail and SalesForce). But interestingly, IaaS seems to be almost on par with SaaS according to respondents.

Questions: Using your answer from question #1, are you currently using the cloud?

According to our respondents, 65% of IT professionals surveyed use cloud computing services. These findings highlight the fact that the industry is growing more accustomed to what cloud computing is and are beginning to migrate to using cloud services in their work and daily lives. This could be from a purely experimental perspective, or project-related. Others are implementing pure cloud infrastructure as a replacement for bare metal environments. And yet others might be creating hybrid hosting infrastructures as well. Obviously, the possibilities are countless.

To learn more about our survey methodology or to see all the results and data, please download the GoGrid Cloud Survey Report.

The word “cloud” has become a bit of a buzzword in the IT industry. Well, let me rephrase that, it has become a HUGE and overused buzzword not just within various tech sectors, it has also infiltrated the lives of us all. A year or two ago, if you mentioned “cloud” or even “cloud computing” to the average passerby, they might have looked back at you with a cloudy look on their face (sorry). Terms like “public cloud,” “private cloud,” “hybrid cloud” and “false cloud” are currently thrown around and peppered throughout conversations. And now, especially exemplified by Microsoft’s recent ad campaign, the phrase “To the cloud!” seems to have brought clouds to everyone, including the general public.

We are being bombarded from every angle. So what do they mean?

Some seem to be useful in our everyday lives:

Others seem to be a bit ominous (as is seen in this tweet from Marc Benioff – Chairman & CEO of SalesForce.com):

But even with everyone talking about “clouds” now, they are still confusing.

The truth is, clouds can take on many different forms, shapes, sizes and characteristics.

“Cloud” is one of the most confusing terms currently in the computing world, but we aim to clear up this nebulous term. Today we release a new white paper titled “Skydiving Through the Clouds” which explains what clouds are, how they work, who uses them and why they are becoming of growing importance within the IT industry.

Download “Skydiving Through the Clouds”

Today art of defence and GoGrid announced the availability of the Industry’s first Distributed Web Application Firewall running within the GoGrid cloud. This is a cloud-based SaaS (Software as a Service) solution called hyperguard™ and can be easily and quickly deployed using a GoGrid Partner Server Image (GSI). By using a GoGrid Server Image running art of defence’s hyperguard SaaS, customers can be assured that they are receiving robust application-level protection beyond simply the network layer within their cloud environment.

By deploying the hyperguard-enabled GoGrid Server Image, GoGrid users simply have to configure their applications and their respective protection levels through hyperguard‘s web-base GUI which allows for comprehensive attack detection and protection at the Web Application layer. hyperguard SaaS basic (which is currently available on GoGrid for $39/mo/server plus associated GoGrid RAM/Bandwidth costs) offers web application security monitoring, detection-only and protection modes.

Hyperguard SaaS Standard dWAF provides the following key capabilities:

• Security monitoring at the application layer of attacks like SQL-injection, cross site scripting and OWASP Top10 for all applications delivered on the hyperguard web server GSI
• Comprehensive baseline protection against known attacks at the application layer – only if rule sets are run in protection mode
• Automated updates of baseline protection rule sets by art of defence – with testing capability for these new rule sets via detect-only mode

The GoGrid Server Image is available now through GoGrid:

More information about art of defence within the GoGrid Exchange is available here.

The full press release is available online as well as below:

art of defence Expands Availability of Industry’s First Distributed WAF (dWAF) as a SaaS With GoGrid Partnership

Company Focused on Making Real Web Application Security Available for All Cloud Computing Needs

SAN FRANCISCO, CA–(Marketwire – March 2, 2010) – Today, art of defence, the leading distributed web application firewall (dWAF) provider, announced the industry’s first cloud-based SaaS solution, hyperguard™ SaaS, is now available through the GoGrid Cloud. GoGrid customers can access hyperguard SaaS by simply deploying a GoGrid Partner Server Image (GSI) with hyperguard SaaS installed.

This announcement marks another step closer to reaching art of defence’s goal of providing universally accessible web application security to companies using cloud computing. By integrating a dWAF right into a virtual image and hosted as a SaaS, customers overcome the false sense of security created by traditional network perimeter security strategies which fail at the application level.

The first of several service levels to be rolled out, hyperguard SaaS Standard, offers users web application security monitoring, detection-only and protection modes. hyperguard’s SaaS delivery model allows customers the freedom to pay on a use-case basis and avoid having to invest in owning and maintaining a solution themselves. For a limited time, art of defence and GoGrid will offer a $100 GoGrid credit to test the service. Full details for the solution and the promotion can be found http://gogrid.artofdefence.com.

Key hyperguard SaaS Standard Facts

• Web application security monitoring enables customers to understand the risk and exposure of their cloud applications to known attacks at the application layer without hyperguard SaaS Standard interfering with web traffic.
• ‘Detection only mode’ allows rule-sets to be tested but not enforced, alongside with rule-sets in ‘protection mode’ that enforce already proven security policies.
• hyperguard SaaS Standard is ideally suited for GoGrid customers who want application-level protection beyond the network layer for their cloud offerings.
• For companies relying on the GoGrid Cloud for application overflow resources, hyperguard SaaS Standard defends users’ custom applications on the cloud.

Resources

• art of defence will be exhibiting at the RSA Conference, taking place March 1-5 in San Francisco, California
• For details and a free trial of hyperguard’s SaaS offerings, visit http://gogrid.artofdefence.com
• More information about hyperguard for the Cloud, read our white paper at http://www.artofdefence.com/dokumente/Cloud_AppSec_Whitepaper.pdf
• Read art of defence’s blog http://artofdefence.wordpress.com/
• Follow art of defence on Twitter at http://twitter.com/hyperguard
• GoGrid Exchange, visit http://exchange.gogrid.com

Supporting Quotes

• “Use of cloud computing is on the rise as companies shift from testing services to beginning to rely on them for critical business applications and we’re excited to work with GoGrid who is at the forefront of providing these services,” said Georg Hess, founder and CEO, art of defence. “As the migration continues, web application security gets put under the microscope and traditional WAFs just don’t hold up to the rigors of fully virtualized environments. When we launched the world’s first distributed WAF, we targeted these challenges specifically and the uptake we’ve experienced in this approach shows we made the right decision.”

Tags
GoGrid, cloud, art of defence, hyperguard, WAF, web application, security

About art of defence
Founded in 2005, art of defence established its San Francisco-based North American headquarters in 2009. Focused exclusively on providing comprehensive web application security technology on any scale, art of defence’s distributed web application firewall (dWAF) technology, hyperguard™, is the industry’s first WAF SaaS offering. Available in many forms, hyperguard is the most flexible solution on the market today. Customers have access to the solution as a software plug-in, virtual appliance, hardware appliance or as a standalone software solution.

The company serves the financial services, eCommerce, technology, telecommunication and public sector markets exclusively through OEM/technology and reseller channel partners. art of defence partners with leading technology providers like GoGrid, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Zeus, GeNUA, and Armorize. Regensburg, Germany, remains the global headquarters for the European and Asian markets in addition to North America.

For more information about art of defence, visit: www.artofdefence.com/en.

About GoGrid
GoGrid is the Global LEADER in Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure that delivers true “Control in the Cloud™.” GoGrid enables sysadmins, developers, IT professionals and SaaS vendors to create, deploy, and control free f5 load balanced cloud & dedicated servers and complex hosted virtual server networks with full root access/administrative server control which includes personal server images (known as MyGSIs). GoGrid server instances maintain industry standard specifications with no requirement to learn and adapt to proprietary standards. Deploying GoGrid infrastructure takes minutes via a unique, award winning web control panel or GoGrid’s API. GoGrid delivers portal controlled servers for Windows Server 2003/2008, SQL Server, and ASP.NET, as well as multiple Linux server operating systems like RHEL and CentOS. GoGrid gives users the control of a familiar datacenter environment with the flexibility and immediate scalability of the cloud, a “cloudcenter.”

To learn more, visit www.gogrid.com.

To view other GoGrid Partners, we recommend that you visit the GoGrid Exchange for a variety of Software & Application, Development & Test, Disaster Recovery & Backup, Cloud Management, and Security, Monitoring & Reporting solutions now available within the GoGrid Cloud.