By wutaojun | May 8, 2011
The 8th annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is fast approaching. On May 18, this one-day, international conference for CIOs and IT leaders, will take place on MIT campus.
In plenary sessions as well as more intimate panels, leading academics from MIT join CIOs from leading companies including Brad Peterson,CIO, Charles Schwab, Kirsten O. Wolberg, CIO, salesforce.com, and Ina Kamenz, CIO, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Each will look beyond the day-to-day issues and explore a wide spectrum of solutions that will prepare IT executives for the dynamic times ahead.
One of the panels will discuss Cloud Computing Spectrum: From Low Hanging Fruit To Game-changing Transformation. The panel comprises CIOs, leaders from mainstream cloud computing providers, and management and technology consulting executives:
Ted Schadler (Moderator), VP & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
Ina Kamenz, VP & CIO, Thermo Fisher Scientific
Alexander Onik, Director of Partner Architects, VMware
Ali Shadman, VP & Chief Technologist, Technology Consulting, Hewlett-Packard Company
Kirsten O. Wolberg, CIO, salesforce.com
The panel blurb reads:
Cloud computing is an evolving concept with many different implementations. Numerous cloud computing offerings, such as public, private, and hybrid clouds, and service models, such as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS, confuse even industry veterans and slow down decision making. This Cloud Computing Spectrum panel will invite technology and business leaders of mainstream IT industry vendors to explain the ecosystem of cloud computing and characteristics of future computing. They will analyze how traditional vendors advance towards one-stop IT shop through independent R&D, M&A, or coalition with partners. The panel discussion about switching cost, technology trend and provision model will help CIOs to understand various cloud computing solutions and prepare for the cloud age.
Other industry experts include: MIT Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, author, Tami Erickson, MIT research scientist, Jeanne Ross and executives from McKinsey and the Corporate Executive Board, among others.
For more information, visit www.mitcio.com. This symposium is a part of the MIT 150th Anniversary celebration, where tomorrow is being invented today.
By annie shum | May 6, 2011
By Panha Chheng, iSoftStone – Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives
For the proponents of cloud computing, China represents a vast landscape of potential, as well as a new, complex set of challenges. Its potential comes from the sheer number of Chinese companies and public sector entities who view cloud computing not merely as a cost-savings technique, but as a cornerstone to their business strategy and execution capability. For private companies, the promise of cloud computing lies in the unique opportunity to leapfrog the decades of IT evolution that took place in the West. Even the smallest private companies can immediately tap into the today’s best-in-class computing resources and solutions, all while avoiding the cost burden of continuous hardware and software upgrades over the years. For the public sector, cloud computing is a transformative mechanism by which to link together citizen services with the “Internet of Things” – this integration of citizen data with smart devices allows China to serve its 1.3billion people as efficiently as possible.
This white paper discusses how cloud computing is a transformative force for innovation in both key market segments –private enterprise and public sector – in China.
The Public Sector: Citizen Services meets the Internet of Things
As part of China’s 12th Five Year Plan, there are seven industries which are targeted to comprise 8% of China’s GDP by 2015. Next-generation information technology is one of those seven target industries, and within the notion of next-gen IT, there are two top areas of focus: cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IOT). The IOT is a broad concept, and spans a wide range of different applications and use cases, but at its core is the ability for individual devices to relay data to one another in a concept known as Machine to Machine (M2M).
An important example of this concept at work is in the healthcare space, where sensor equipment onboard ambulances can transmit data directly to the receiving hospitals, and the hospital staff can review the data before the patient arrives. At which point, the staff at the hospital can relay life-saving instructions directly to the emergency workers onboard the ambulance, based on the data they are seeing. Because seconds and minutes can be the difference between life and death, this ability to extend medical care beyond the confines of the hospital building is fundamental to more efficiently serve citizens. Such innovation in citizen services is enabled by smart devices that act as real-time extensions of the hospital staff.
Since smart devices are not computers in the traditional sense, they hardly have the capacity for on-board applications. And since they are on-the-go, or otherwise in the field, they are not confined to a single server room that is accessible by an IT staff. So their infrastructure and applications must be in the cloud, thus paving the way for specialized private clouds that host the applications and transfer data. These specialized clouds are the cornerstone of greater efficiency in citizen services, both at the point of service in their support of rapid data exchange and decision-making, and also at a public policy level, through the rich dataset on which to base policy and resource allocation decisions.
The significance of cloud computing for the public sector goes beyond M2M, and touches on the more mainstream uses of cloud computing. In China – the process for wide-scale reform or change is gradual and usually starts with a pilot site, which serves as the template for the rest of China. Technological change is no different; as such, cloud computing is an enabler of more rapid and widespread adoption of new technologies and innovations. With cloud computing, the pilot site’s model (and applications) can be easily replicated across the rest of China, once the pilot has proven successful. The pilot site’s core technologies are provisioned to the cloud, and then deployed to other regions in China.
Private Enterprises: Leapfrogging towards Best-in-Class Solutions
The evolution of IT throughout an enterprise stretches back at least four decades. With those years of IT evolution, there came a proliferation of older, legacy applications and systems that are either orphaned when the IT department shifts direction, or are maintained at significant cost to the organization. Since many Chinese companies are relatively new, or are relatively new to the world of enterprise solutions, cloud computing presents a unique opportunity to leapfrog over the baggage that other companies carry.
Cloud computing also can be a boost for companies in China that are not otherwise mature in their own processes. Many small and medium sized businesses – of which there are many hundreds of thousands – certainly can benefit from having robust processes and controls that come in the form with an out-of-the-box solution. And as is the case with cloud computing in general, the lower upfront costs can be a major benefit, especially to the small and medium sized businesses.
Despite the demand of private enterprises in China for cloud computing, the options are rather limited for customers interested in Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Many of the leading PaaS providers do not operate public cloud data centers in mainland China, requiring Chinese users to route their needs through other countries (thus facing latency issues). This could change in the future, but as of right now the vacuum of PaaS data centers in mainland China creates a challenge because of government restrictions that do not permit certain types of data to leave mainland China. Yet, this gap presents a very sizeable opportunity for a leader to emerge. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), on the other hand, is readily available in China as there is no shortage of high performance data centers. Customers can easily tap into IaaS from a wide range of providers, ranging from traditional IT service providers to telecoms, and deploy their own private clouds as needed.
Conclusion
iSoftStone has been helping both public sector and private enterprise clients with their cloud computing needs for the past few years. We have a strong belief that cloud computing is paving the way for not only greater efficiency among Chinese entities, but also transformation for the very way in which business is done in China. During this unique time of transformation and rapid technological change, we are excited to work alongside these clients and support them throughout the journey.
By Paula Klein | May 3, 2011
Ensuring data security in the cloud is one of the most heated topics for IT executives so far this year. In fact, many wonder whether the two really can co-exist and if so, how they can fulfill the seemingly conflicting missions—gaining the flexibility and efficiencies of cloud computing and also protecting enterprise data?
To address these concerns, Smart Enterprise Exchange, a global, online community with several thousand IT executive members, gathered a panel of experts to discuss these issues recently at a live event in New York City. Now, on May 10, we want to open the discussion to a wider audience of CIOs so that you can join in and have your questions answered as well.
On Tuesday, May 10, we’ll host a live videocast, where cloud computing thought leaders will continue the debate about the realities of securing the cloud-computing platform. The panel includes: Joseph A. Puglisi, former CIO and current executive at the Stevens Cloud Computing Consortium; Elizabeth Butwin Mann, CISO, Mycroft Inc., and Lina Liberti, Vice President, Security at CA Technologies.
Each will discuss ways that businesses can truly achieve a level of security that will satisfy the skeptics in the organization and also protect sensitive corporate, customer, and business partner data in a distributed environment . In addition, they’ll offer their own successes building cloud computing environments –as well as the challenges.
MIT Sloan CIO Symposium committee members and others are invited to attend this timely webcast at 1 p.m. eastern time and to submit your own questions for the panel. Join your peers and Register here.
By Graham_Rong | May 2, 2011
The 8th annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium is fast approaching. On May 18, this one-day, international conference for CIOs and IT leaders, will take place on MIT campus.
In plenary sessions as well as more intimate panels, leading academics from MIT join CIOs from leading companies including Brad Peterson,CIO, Charles Schwab, Kirsten O. Wolberg, CIO, salesforce.com, and Ina Kamenz, CIO, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Each will look beyond the day-to-day issues and explore a wide spectrum of solutions that will prepare IT executives for the dynamic times ahead.
One of panels will discuss the New IT Innovation Models in the Digital Business World. The panel comprises MIT professor, corporate CEO, management and technology consulting executives, and innovation leaders:
• Roger P. Roberts (Moderator), Partner, McKinsey
• Prof. Michael A. Cusumano, Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor of Management, MIT Sloan
• Arthur Filip, VP & GM, Technology Consulting, Hewlett-Packard Company
• Roy Rosin, VP, Product Management & Innovation, Intuit
• Alan Trefler, CEO & Founder, Pegasystems
The panel blurb reads:
CIOs face double mandates today. Executives expect the CIO to continue to deliver unit-cost reductions and increased efficiency, while simultaneously supporting new growth and innovation efforts throughout the business. Companies like Apple and Facebook have spawned an entire industry around app development. Where will the next round of paradigm change come from? This panel will examine how some of the world’s best companies use IT as a strategic tool to drive growth and create business value. Do advances in Cloud computing, social media, web 2.0, analytics, model/event driven development and Agile SCRUM offer new innovative models that can help CIOs drive growth and create more business value? What are the lessons learned with these models? Experts on this panel will discuss various innovation models for today’s digital business world.
Other industry experts include: MIT Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, author, Tami Erickson, MIT research scientist, Jeanne Ross and executives from McKinsey and the Corporate Executive Board, among others.
For more information, visit www.mitcio.com.
Topics: Business & Strategy, Cloud Computing, Economics: IT Staffing & Discretionary Budgets, Enterprise 2.0 & Social Media, Enterprise 3.0, Improving Workforce Efficiency & Reducing IT Barriers, innovation, IT Governance, Social Responsibility & the Role of IT in Making Green Companies, The Latest Word, Virtual Organizations | No Comments »
By annie shum | April 11, 2011
Cost Is No Longer Main Driver for Cloud Adoption
By Anh Nguyen, computerworlduk.com Apr 11, 2011
Just 16 percent of UK firms consider cost to be the main driver for initial cloud adoption, a new survey from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) has found. The majority of respondents (53 percent) said that the flexibility that cloud services enable in a business is now more likely to encourage them to start using cloud computing. This was particularly true for businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
However, cost became a more significant driver for organisations (69 percent) that were planning to expand their cloud service adoption or consider how they currently access technology through the supply chain.Generally, the survey found that cloud adoption was becoming widely accepted in UK organisations. The Cloud Industry Forum questioned 450 senior IT and business decision-makers in public and private sector end-user organisations and 200 people from the channel, including IT consultancies and systems integrators, for the survey.Nearly half (48 percent) of all organisations questioned use a cloud service, with companies with more than 20 staff more likely to adopt cloud than smaller firms and public organisations.Heads of IT also tend to be the people who take the decision to move to the cloud (65 percent), compared to 25 percent who said it was still the responsibility of CEOs or managing directors.
Meanwhile, organisations that have adopted cloud services are mostly very satisfied with them. The major cloud services being deployed are email, back-up and disaster recovery, storage and webhosting services. Satisfaction was at 94 percent, which was encouraging existing users to expand their adoption to other areas of their IT operations.
Piers Linney, joint CEO for Outsourcery, a founder member of CIF, said: “With only two percent of respondents saying they would never consider cloud, it is clear that we are heralding a new era in business computing that will be disruptive for many of the existing providers of IT and comms solutions.”
http://www.pcworld.com/article/224885/cost_is_no_longer_main_driver_for_cloud_adoption.html
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