Ynema Mangum: The Human Cloud

I can't comment about anything related to Oracle's proposed buyout of Sun. But, I can be transparent and say that many things are up in the air right now. This blog, for instance, which Ingrid Van Den Hoogen asked me to start writing last year, might change. I simply don't know if it will transition or how or if it will end entirely. So, that leads me to believe that I must ensure my readers understand what I mean by Human Cloud. It's how I want to leave it, just in case I have to leave it.  It makes me feel more prepared for change.

Is It About Social Media?

A piece of the Human Cloud is about the democratization of media. But, it's not the whole thing. Web 2.0 technologies have played a huge part in enabling individuals to take advantage of social media to further their personal brand. The eyes and ears of the masses no longer belong to just the huge enterprise. Media has come to the individual, the average Joe or Jane, who can use it to build community for their business or to help others across the globe.

According to a PEW study, only 5% of average internet users took advantage of social networks in the beginning of 2005. At the end of 2008, that number grew to 35%. Numbers from comScore by geography are even more impressive, with a worldwide year-over-year increase of 25% 2007 and 2008. {UPDATE 6/16/09: The Conference Board and TNS just released their quarterly Consumer Internet Barometer, which states that 43% of the online community now uses social networking sites.} If it is possible that social networks will reach a tipping point where growth is almost vertical, then that tipping point starts now.

I believe the democratization of media is one of the most important and transformational events in human history. It changes everything:

• It changes business -- in the way it is created and the way it gets done.  It also is a huge contributor to brand relevancy.  If communities are built around companies that don't get it, community leaders will walk away and the brand runs the risk of fading into the sunset.
  


• It exponentially increases innovation through sharing of individual bits of knowledge that enable things like social development projects and social programming and allows humans to solve problems much more quickly than before.


• It changes human relationships. I have more virtual friends than physical friends, and through those relationships I understand worldwide trends and events, even getting notice of them before big news channels report them.  Through these relationship, I am able to understand just how many people are really trying to help others, at a global scale.
  

The democratization of media makes this time the best time in human history to build a business, leave a legacy, help others, and change the world.

Is It About Mobility?

Mobility is part of the definition of the Human Cloud, too. The proliferation of mobile devices is amazing. I was reading a forecast by Cisco about global mobile data traffic and wasn't surprised about many of the numbers about potential growth in data traffic from a single mobile subscriber.

• In 2005, the average person used one mobile device (a mobile phone) and consumed 30 MB from the
  cloud.


• In 2009, the average person will use two mobile devices (add a laptop) and consume 1050 MB from the
  cloud.


• By 2015, the average person will use six mobile devices (add a video camera, auto GPS system, Sony Playstation, and Nintendo DSI, for example) and consume 14,275 MB from the cloud.

I think the last number is wrong because I believe the average technology user will consume much more than 14,275 MB from the cloud by 2015. A blu ray disc can hold up to 25GB for a single layer and 50GB on a dual-layer. That technology alone will take us far beyond the 14K+ MB usage forecast because we'll surely be downloading blu ray media to our cloud enabled TVs and mobile phones soon.

Why is mobility and the proliferation of mobile devices important to the Human Cloud discussion? Because humans demand these devices and demand we have instant access to the cloud, everywhere we go. Mobility demands will continue to drive user interface design, device design, and growth of social networks for many years to come. Mobility is a huge part of being human. We're geeky nomads who want data now, wherever we happen to be.

Is It About Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing plays a big role in the Human Cloud. As Kevin Clarke puts it, cloud computing represents the “democratization of computing” to the masses. It provides the infrastructure and the platform for social tools which link to networks that enable mobility. Without cloud computing, the Human Cloud would not be possible.

Cloud computing is the great enabler of the Human Cloud. That is why I have been so excited and so passionate about the Sun Cloud, intended to be an answer to our customer's demand for an alternative to other public clouds. As a product manager in a very engineering-centric environment, it's been a frustrating and exhilarating experience.

There is more to cloud computing than the public cloud, though. Despite the repeated argument that private clouds cannot exist, they actually do. And the demand for them is immense.

Private clouds have several forms.

• Private cloud in a data center hosted and managed by a cloud service provider


• Private cloud data center on site in the enterprise managed by a cloud service provider.
  


• Private cloud data center on site in the enterprise that is wholly managed by the enterprise.

I've seen a surprising amount of interest in the private cloud concept. And, that will be where the bulk of revenue is generated for cloud service providers. But, it's not going to represent the major use of cloud computing for enterprises.

The hybrid cloud represents the most useful way to take advantage of cloud computing for any business. I think the hybrid cloud will be a reality for a long time. While individuals use the public cloud, enterprises will host their own private clouds to tightly control security, privacy, best practices, and ensure regulatory compliance. Those same enterprises will take advantage of the public clouds for spikes in activity, development and testing, backup and disaster recovery, and information gathering and intelligence. The value model is simply too good to ignore.

It's About All of These.  And, It's About Change.

The democratization of media, the democratization of computing through cloud technology, and mobility trends all contribute to the evolution of the Human Cloud. And, change will come, so I expect that definition to change
over time. Right now, I'm just glad to be a fish in the big pond.

The era of the huge conglomerate is over.
Illustration credit: Andy Gilmore

Yes, 'New' is in there twice.

Wired Magazine online called out cloud computing in its headline story today:  The New New Economy: More Startups, Fewer Giants, Infinite Opportunity.  Chris Anderson aptly wrote about the disaggregation of large corporations that is happening now and the growing diseconomies of scale:

"As venture capitalist Paul Graham put it,"It turns out the rule 'large and disciplined organizations win' needs to have a qualification appended: 'at games that change slowly.' No one knew till change reached a sufficient speed.  The result is that the next new economy, the one rising from the ashes of this latest meltdown, will favor the small."

Moving to the topic of technology that powers this change, Chris says:

"To all the usual reasons why small companies have an advantage, from nimbleness to risk-taking, add these new ones: The rise of cloud computing means that young firms no longer have to buy their own IT equipment, which helps them avoid having to raise money or take on debt. Likewise, the webification of the supply chain in many industries, from electronics to apparel, means that even the tiniest companies can now order globally, just like the giants. In the same way a musician with just a laptop and some gumption can accomplish most of what a record label does, an ambitious engineer can invent and produce a gadget with little more than that same laptop."

#goodread

I got a follow from Twitter today from Jon Aydinova (@jonaturk).  I like to look at who follows me and read their profile or whatever they choose as their only link to share from their Twitter profile.  His led to a community called Disruptive Thoughts, Game Changers and New World Order.  If that name doesn't compel you to continue, I don't know what will.  At this point, I couldn't possibly leave.

Reading through it I was pleased he pointed to this blog, but really loved the videos he posted from John Underkoffler.  Most intriguing was the brief video clip by Oblong Industries that describes the revolutionary g-speak spatial operating system.  It's described as a spatial operating environment that represents a completely new platform for computing, which seems to get all of its input from human gestures.  Optimized for metadata, it's the perfect cloud computing application.

#cool

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Honoria Starbuck did a bit of live art conference blogging at IA09.  I was pleased to see some of her work depicting the "Human Cloud".  These are shared with her permission.

Here's the slide deck, which represents a more comprehensive view of the conference.

I disagree a bit with Pine and Gillmore about the Experience Economy.  They describe it as following the agrarian, industrial, then service economy.

To me, all of the economies they outline are about service.

Services are supposed to be the exact opposite of physical goods, but the line between a material good and a service is often cloudy.  To me, it's all about the ultimate experience my dollar (or time) buys.  It's no longer important whether I get something physical in return.

For instance, if I could buy a subscription to a service that would transport me instantly from place to place, I would no longer have any use or inclination to have my own car.  There are plenty of examples like that in my life, and I'm sure yours too, where things we thought were important because they were physical have become not as important because digital or service alternatives exist.  It's why I read (well, for years now) online news channels like cnn.com and wired.com instead of picking up a newspaper or magazine.

So, I've tweaked a bit the spreadsheet I shared in a previous entry about the Cloud Economy.  I changed the Virtual Economy (the last column) to the Experience Economy.  That's a bit more descriptive and on the mark.  The service economy is not included because, again, I believe they are all about service.

A brief summary:

The agrarian economy marked the rise of civilization, where raising crops and domesticating animals enabled food surpluses, which resulted in stratified and higher density populations.  Mercantile and feudal economies followed.

The industrial economy was an evolution of this, where technology advances were made rapidly, allowing goods and services to be delivered on a much wider scale.  This was when marketing and PR used practices akin to "yelling at strangers" (Seth Godin).  The audience volume had to be large because only a very small percentage of those reached would buy what you had to sell.  Heads of industry chose and drove technology improvements and upgrades.

The digital economy marked the beginning stages and the adoption of what we now know as the Web.  In this economy, Web 1.0 marked the rise of permission-based communication and search engines.  Although there were almost innumerable bits and bytes traveling around, we simply didn't know or understand the value of it all.  It was a very chaotic time and business larges chose and drove technology improvements and upgrades, trickling those down to the lower layers of consumers.  Content was king.

The knowledge economy (Web 2.0) is driven by people who now have tools for collaboration and connection to each other.  Folksonomies and trusted content rule and businesses now find themselves required to have 2 way or multiple level conversations with their constituents. Conversation and your social network is king, with consumers largely driving technology innovation and adoption.

The cloud economy (Web 3.0) is about the democratization of raw computing resources, allowing anyone to be a developer and deliver a service with virtually no IT infrastructure.  Problems that were in the realm of IT will be resolved by knowledge workers.  Cloud computing will be the infrastructure for the vast and complex "social brain" which will dictate the direction and relevance of the conversation.  This provides the building blocks for the next economy.

The experience economy (Web 4.0) is enabled by the cloud infrastructure and technology improvements (such as TB/s bandwidth speed) that will enable truly real-time interaction between a person's physical and virtual social networks.  Devices will become smaller and the large portion of computing will be done in "the cloud".  The "experience" will be immersive and real-time.

It's critical for the leaders who take us into these new territories to understand these different economies and have a passionate vision for their place in the future phases.  Great leaders I've had the opportunity to work with in the past always know where they've been, where they're going, and can sprinkle inspiration and motivation on those around them like it's fairy dust.

Enjoy. -Y

So, the Sun Cloud has finally been announced.  And, on the same day, IBM leaked news about a bid to buy Sun.  Fortunately, the IBM stuff did not rain on our cloud.  Developers, startups, and partners were buzzing all over our booth at Community One East asking about storage in the cloud, how we are different from Amazon and the rest of the market, how we are alike, and when they can give us their credit card.  Wednesday was an exciting day, especially for this product manager.

Here's where you can go for more info leading up to our summer launch:

1. sun.com/cloud - This site will keep you up to date with what we are doing across the board in cloud computing.
   


2. kenai.com - We're using our own "forge" to host the project containing the APIs for the Sun Cloud.
   


3. network.com - Well, that now just redirects back to the sun.com/cloud page.
   


4. wikis.sun.com - You can find some other stuff there about the Sun Cloud that is delivered from our business operations side.
   

Make sure you sign up for CommunityOne West in San Francisco and JavaOne, where we'll be announcing more about the Sun Cloud.  Or, just stay tuned to our Web announcements.  Either way, if you're interested in the cloud computing space, Sun has some intriguing services coming your way.

It's 10:30pm on March 17th and here's what you see if you go to CommunityOne or if you go to Network.com:

I flew into New York today, headfirst into a sea of green.  It is St. Patrick's Day after all, and there doesn't seem to be a better place to be Irish than NY, NY.

I missed the parade.  I also missed the memo that would have reminded me to wear green.  Thankfully (though there were many opportunities), I escaped the crowds without a single pinch.

Now, I'm in my hotel room anticipating an exciting day for Sun tomorrow.  I'll be tweeting live from the event and also doing some demos.  So, if you're in town, swing by the Marriott Marquis and look me up.  Meanwhile, tune into the Web event.

WEB EVENT DETAILS:

• Rich web event at sun.com/communityone including a live chat and live and on-demand webcasts of CommunityOne content. 


• Where: sun.com/communityone (Page goes LIVE at 9 a.m. ET on March 18.)
  

LIVE EVENT DETAILS:

• What:  Dave Douglas and Lew Tucker will unveil details about Sun's public cloud service during the opening keynote of the CommunityOne East Conference


• When:  March 18, 9:00 a.m. ET


• Where:  New York Marriott Marquis, Salon 1 & 2.  1535 Broadway, New York, NY


• Registration: http://developers.sun.com/events/communityone/2009/east/


• CommunityOne East website: http://developers.sun.com/events/communityone/2009/east/

CommunityOne East Web Event Agenda - (all times are EDT)

9:00 a.m.  General Session featuring Dave Douglas and Lew Tucker, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
10:10 a.m.  MySQL and PHP - State of the Union, Hans Zaunere, New York PHP, LLC
11:10 a.m.  Open Storage with OpenSolaris, Peter Buckingham, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
12:40 p.m.  NetBeans 6.5 and Glassfish v3 - The Synergy for Pragmatic Java EE 6 Development, Adam Bien, Consultant
1:40 p.m.  Analyzing PHP Web Applications with DTrace, David Soria Parra, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
3:00 p.m.  The Third Wave of Open: Open Source and Business Models, Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
4:00 p.m.  Persistent Clouds: New Models for Data Storage, Geir Magnusson Jr., 10gen
5:00 p.m.  Cloud Panel discussion, moderated by David Berlind

~John M. Willis does a nice interview with a man from Cloud Camp Toronto about his exploration of different cloud providers for his Web video service startup.  There are pros and cons with RightScale, 3tera, Elastra, Mosso, Amazon Cloudfront, etc.  I think he said his name is Mark Bobson, but Willis doesn't tag it.  Hope I got the spelling right!

(By the way, John, I enjoyed this interview, but I think your Science Logic You're on my Fedora video was a riot... )

~Another interesting one is on the up and coming whurley cloud computing blog on Infoworld has him discussing the costs of downtime for the cloud.  Will this be a barrier to adoption?  I wondered why all the research I've been reading misses availability as a top barrier, and whurley nails it.

~Is the relational database doomed?  You tell me.

~IBM is tapping AWS. 

~Here's something to stimulate the cloud economy.  Mark Cuban's offering funding for startups, as long as you're totally open.

Happy Valentine's Day and President's Day to everyone!

~Y

So, Lew and Jonathan announced that at SugarCon 2009 this week.  Finally.  The news is out.

Since you read the blog of a cloud computing product manager at Sun, you shouldn't be surprised.  What you should be surprised about is the positioning that this is something new.  If you count HPC (high performance computing), Sun has been building clouds for years.  And, there's no better place to be at this point in the evolution of cloud computing.  From chipsets to hardware to applications, Sun has all the building blocks for a complete cloud offering.

We're in the middle of building the cloud economy, where any business can begin without the need for IT infrastructure.  In fact, venture capital firms now refuse to pay for IT infrastructure, instead pointing their startups to cloud and the notion of zero-infrastructure.  This greatly reduces the barrier to entry for many businesses and also provides an opportunity for existing enterprises to investigate the notion of private and hybrid clouds.

You'll hear more details at CommunityOne East.  New York will be a good place to be in March, don't you think?  

A few months ago, on http://www.ObamaCTO.org, I saw this question:

Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation's first CTO. What are the top priorities?

One of it's answers:

Build a nation-wide smart grid

Embed intelligence throughout a nation-wide electrical grid, on both sides of the meter to enhance the efficiency of distribution and use. This will (A) accelerate the penetration of sources like solar & wind that
are diurnal or intermittent; (B) take advantage of smart meters and distributed storage as plug-in cars become available; (C) permit power to be wheeled from where resources are rich to where electricity is needed; (D) provide tens of thousands of jobs and train workers to replace the baby boomers who will retire from utilities over the next 5-10 years. Start with the government-owned Bonneville Power Administration in the Northwest, learn what works, and extend the network across the country.

Neato.

On another note, whurley is calling for President Obama to build out a national computing cloud specifically for higher education.   Of course, this will benefit open source peeps (beyond students).  Maybe this is ala Eucalyptus?  Hi, Rich!

Looks like cloud computing is going down the thought path of the traditional computing model, so the analysts are right on.  At some point in time, someone might even suggest a government built and regulated cloud computing model.  We live in interesting times.

A very insightful post from George Reese, author and founder of Valtira and enStratus, on the Economics of Cloud Computing on O'Reilly.  He gives a side-by-side comparison of the cost of Internal IT versus Managed Services versus The Cloud. 

Don't miss his final analysis:

Cloud savings over internal IT jump to 29% without getting into the discussion of buy for capacity versus buy what you use!

Between managed services and the cloud, the cloud provides 18% savings.

While 18% and 29% savings are nothing to sneeze at, they are just the start of the financial benefits of the cloud. It goes on.

• No matter what your needs, your up-front cost is always $0


• As the discrepancy between peak usage and standard usage grows, the
  cost difference between the cloud and other options becomes
  overwhelming.


• The cloud option essentially includes a built-in SAN in the form of
  the Amazon Elastic Block Storage. The internal IT and managed services
  options would go up significantly if we added the cost of a SAN into
  the infrastructure.


• Cheap redundancy! While the above environment is not quite a "high
  availability" environment, it is very highly redundant with systems
  spread across multiple data centers. The managed services and internal
  IT options, on the other hand, have single physical points of failure
  as the application servers and database servers are likely located in
  the same rack.
  

Let's say, however, that you need 10 servers to handle peak usage
for 1 hour each year and just 2 to operate the rest of the year.
Ignoring the impact of the cost of capital:

• Internal IT adds another $40,000 in total costs over 3 years.


• Managed services adds another $144,000 in total costs over 3 years.


• The Amazon Cloud adds about $24 in total costs over 3 years.

No, that was not a typo. That's forty THOUSAND dollars against one
hundred forty-four THOUSAND dollars against 24 dollars. And as I
mentioned earlier, this setup is based on an actual Valtira client that
was considering a dedicated managed services option before Valtira
began deploying customers in the Amazon cloud. It is not some contrived
example.

---

Go, George.  Finally something with numbers.  Thanks for sharing!

whurley called yesterday, letting me know about his new InfoWorld blog on cloud computing.  He's my friend, so I felt comfortable chiding him a bit.  "Aren't you the one who told me last year that cloud computing was bull&!@*?", I asked him.  Of course he was.  But, he explained he is taking a contrarian approach.  That makes sense to me.

His first entry "Romanticizing Cloud Computing Will Destroy It" is a bit dramatic.  Cloud computing won't be destroyed by romanticizing it.  His point is that he believes cloud computing is ill-defined and that it is practically the same thing and holds the same promise as grid computing, utility computing, and SaaS.  Will it help the economy or decrease global warming?  His questions are simply intended to make us all think.

whurley invites everyone to participate in cloud computing's definition.  Jump on the cloud and give your two cents.  The fact that whurley has joined the fray makes me happy.  It's going to make the journey not only much more enlightening, but a lot more fun. 

(Disclaimer: whurley makes me write his name with no caps, even when it's at the beginning of a sentence...)

Like many, I now have more virtual friends than "real" friends.  In fact, some of these virtual friends feel like "real" friends.  And, by "real", I mean people I've seen, touched, hugged, or spoken with directly...face-to-face.  But, most of my virtual friends I met through other virtual friends.  I have a large network of people who are a Friend Of A Friend (FOAF).  And, darnit, sometimes I just want to take my whole social network with me to a new site rather than starting over from scratch.

A small snapshot of one of my FOAF files.

 I'm reminded of those Verizon commercials where you look out the window and there they are. Your whole darn network.

Take your social network with you with FOAF + SSL.  Thanks, Henry Story, for simple user story #1!

 I'm stoked about the coming year and exploring all the devices that will be powering apps on the cloud.  I saw this demo today that highlights surface computing, Semantic Web, and a new little thing called "spotlets".  Web 3.0 is really cool.

From Marketwatch on 12/8/2008:

Appirio has an interesting post about their top 10 predictions for cloud computing in 2009.

Sign into Google Moderator Beta to agree, disagree, or add your own.

Fourteen thought leaders share what 2009 may have in store for social media.

Social Media 2009

In lieu of a blog entry, let me point you to another.  My social media pal Dave Evans just penned one called "Participating in the Visible Backchannel".  Quotes from John Moore (Brand Autopsy) and a study from Peter Sorgenfrei and Warren Sukernek.

Oh, and the next round of discussions regarding the Cloud Economy is coming.

Want to know which Venture Capital firms are putting money into the cloud?  Cloud application service provider startups abound, and money for them will only be flowing until 2010.  At least, that's what James Staten of Forrester says.  After that, James doesn't think that any VC firm would give you a second glance if the word "cloud" is in your business proposal or in your name.

Why?  Because we're in the "trough of disillusionment", according to the cloud Hype Cycle.  The cloud bubble will be bursting around 2010.  Losers in this space will disappear as we reach the "slope of enlightenment", and then those who are doing interesting things will continue on and experience real productivity and profitability.

Enough about that.  You need to know where to get money for your startup.  Here's my list of VCs, angel investors, and companies in this space who have provided funding recently.

• Allen & Co. (Ning)


• Amazon (Elastra, Engine Yard)


• Bay Partners (Elastra)


• Benchmark Capital (FriendFeed, Mint, Yelp, RightScale, Engine Yard)


• Bezos Expeditions (Skytap)


• Bob Pittman (Zynga)


• DAG Ventures (Yelp)


• First Round Capital (Mint, MyYearbook)


• Greylock and Omidyar (Digg)


• Hummer Windblad Venture Partners (Elastra)


• Ignition Partners (Skytap)


• Kleiner Perkins (Zynga)


• Legg Mason (Ning)


• Madrona Venture Group (Skytap)


• Mission Ventures (Nirvanix)


• New Enterprise Associates (Engine Yard)


• Northwest Venture Partners (MyYearbook)


• Sequoia (Appirio)


• Shasta Ventures (Mint)


• Ticketmaster (iLike)


• US Venture Partners (MyYearbook)


• Valhalla (Nirvanix)


• Washington Research Foundation Capital (Skytap)


• Windward Ventures (Nirvanix)

For those of you who want to jumpstart your startup, check out Sun's Startup Essentials.

Everyone in the U.S. seems to be talking about our economy.  It's in poor shape.  We're spending billions on wars and bailouts.  Job loss is on the rise (with 1.2M jobs lost so far in 2008), home sales are losing ground, and we're in a leadership transition that leaves some people feeling in limbo.

So, what does the economy have to do with cloud computing?  I think the better question is "What can cloud computing do for the economy?"

There is a new business trend emerging -- one that begins with a partially or completely outsourced cloud IT infrastructure.  Some businesses are cropping up that could not exist without cloud computing.  Why?  Because  if they needed  to put in place a viable IT infrastructure, they couldn't afford to open the doors, especially if they do not have enough cash to fund their idea or they fail to get a venture capitalist interested in chipping in.  Cloud computing allows these very businesses to open shop without a big outlay of cash, take less risk, be more agile, experiment until they find success, and grow much faster and more independently than their predecessors.

I believe this new generation of business will take hold and take off -- and that this will take us into the "cloud economy".  Here's a spreadsheet that explains a bit of the thought process.

Discuss amongst yourselves.  Part 2 will be delivered shortly.

Our team was kicking around all the definitions of cloud computing that are out there at the moment.  Forrester, Gartner, and O'Reilly all have intriguing takes on it.  But, they are all too complicated.

We're aggressively trying to find some simple way to describe it -- preferably in one sentence.  So, how's this?

~ Cloud Computing:  Internet-based access to highly scalable pay-per-use IT capabilities.

Is there something simpler out there?

 Sharing an interesting article in Newsweek:

Today’s Forecast: Cloudy

Newsweek, Daniel Lyons; November 1, 2008

Newsweek discusses the technology trend of cloud computing, noting, “Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems used to call it "the big friggin' web-tone switch" ("Web tone" being the digital successor to "ringtone"). IBM dubbed it "on-demand computing." Others have called it "grid computing" and "software as a service." The latest name is "cloud computing," and it's the hot new dance craze—er, tech trend—that's sweeping the computing industry.” Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, speaking at a conference recently, said of the cloud phenomenon, "Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane.” The basic idea is simple enough. Instead of storing your data on your PC, you store it on a server on the Internet. You don't know, or care, where that server is located. Your data might, in fact, be scattered across a bunch of different servers. It's just all up in the sky someplace (hence the name "cloud").

The "big friggin' web-tone switch"?  Go Scott!

As cloud computing takes hold, PCs are getting smaller.  Just look at the data.

The Pew report, Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services (PDF), is based on a survey of more than 1,500 American Internet users conducted in April and May of this year, and has a margin of error of 3 percent.  An interesting conclusion of the report is that 69% of those surveyed use cloud-based online applications, even though they don't yet understand cloud computing. By far, the largest usage is for webmail (56%) and personal photo storage (34%).

Cloud computing is taking hold and growing phenomenally, with no end to the growth curve in site.  The highest adoption of cloud computing applications are among the 18-29 age group at 89%, while usage declines with each successive age category down to 46 percent for those over 65.

The use of online services using cloud infrastructure is definitely taking the place of desktop applications.  The personal computer no longer has to do all the work, so it's getting smaller.  HP just launched a $400 mini notebook, a portable and inexpensive Netbook designed specifically for Web browsing.

$400 bucks for a PC.  And, that's reality, unlike the failed $100 laptop project.  $400 bucks is the cost of 2 iPhones.  Eventually, maybe Apple will make the iPhone with a holographic and resizable screen and keyboard.  I don't know about you, but if Apple makes that happen, I won't need a PC anymore.

Today, I was reading a post by Paul Murphy on ZDNet and realized there is a perfect storm brewing in cloud computing, especially for Sun Microsystems.

First, Paul gives some advice to "...focus a lot more effort in the small to mid range market: the people who desperately want stuff that “just works” and now think they have nowhere to go. These people are angry about IT, about something that looks so simple but costs them money and aggravation every single day of the week -and no one’s telling them that Sun has exactly what they need. "  He's right.  Sun's product set -- especially in software -- is largely undiscovered and hasn't reached its full potential in the marketplace, especially as it relates to brand recognition.  

Second, Sun has very publicly announced its investment in cloud computing by creating a separate business unit for it, led by Chief Sustainability Officer Dave Douglas.  Sun's investment in the cloud isn't a "me too" thing.  We've been in this space for years.  But, the open and specific investment in the future of cloud computing is not just exciting for me as a product manager, but should make potential customers and current shareholders tingle in their toes.  Don't forget that cloud computing is largely a trust proposition.  The most trusted brands will do well in this space, and Sun has that in loads.

Third, the economy is on a downturn.  Jonathan recently blogged "Innovation Loves a Crisis".  He clarified this by stating, "You're not going to hear from any of our customers, "let's stop buying technology and hire more people to do the work." They're going to default to the opposite - automating work, and finding answers and opportunities with technology, not headcount. And in that process lies an opportunity for Sun - to engage with customers in driving down cost, driving up utilization, and driving the changes that yield immediate and long term benefit."  The value of cloud computing to a business is in the reduction (potentially down to zero) of it's IT infrastructure by utilizing a cloud computing infrastructure service provider and only paying for what they use.  This value model is too good to pass up.

So, the equation is this:

    Largely Untapped Software Brand

+ Investment in Cloud by a Trusted Brand with Amazing Intellectual Property

+ Economic Downturn

------------------------------

= PERFECT STORM for Cloud Computing

I feel like a storm chaser.  Makes me kind of breathless.

Cloud computing is considered controversial by those who mock it as a marketing fashion statement.  Yet, analysts believe that cloud computing will closely follow the adoption curve of traditional computing.  What that means to me is that CC starts with high performance and very traditional computing applications, will begin to focus on a much wider and less technical user base, and become the de-facto infrastructure for entertainment and education -- the invisible and unwired platform whether you are at work, rest or play.  Cloud computing in the future will represent a confluence of technologies and trends and virtual worlds, enabling a deeply immersive experience. Reminds me of gaming.  (Play me on Halo3 online.  I'm YAMY34.)

Have you noticed that game designers are a bit more sophisticated than other software developers?  Not sophisticated as in having a deep understanding of the tender differences between years, types, and brands of wine.  By "sophisticated", I mean that they seem to have a deeper and more passionate understanding of the end-user and they build their game software with this in mind.  Audience immersion and experience is the ultimate end goal.

How video games and computing in general have evolved is similar.  First, designers had to build in primitive features that required touch (keyboard/mouse) and sight (reading and interpreting words or symbols on the screen).  Sound came from mechanical interactions with the hardware itself, like the sound of a mainframe punchcard, the sound of the keys clacking, or the fan cooling down the processor.  Now, gaming is much like the entertainment industry, where the aim is to build as much sensory interaction as possible and make it much more complex.  This gives the audience almost total submersion in an evolved, complex, sensory interaction which enables reality to blend with fantasy.

Good game design requires a hybrid understanding of the entertainment industry and computing.  It involves an understanding of the evolution of human senses with technology like sound (ex:  surround sound) and sight (color/digital/HD).  Touch technology, right now, is still in an emerging state -- even though multi-touch technology exists today.  Smell technology is still in its infancy.  (Actually, I saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist recently and was very thankful that I couldn't smell what I was watching and hearing.)  The more senses are involved, and the more complex their interaction is with technology, the more immersive the total experience. 

As I've thought about this, I've also wondered about immersive experiences in the cloud.  What will they be?  How will my senses work with the technology?  Will it include interaction through a virtual world cocoon?  Will education, gaming, and entertainment collide to create a one-stop ultimate immersion?

I've had a recurring dream about this very thing for the past year and a half.  My sci-fi dream is set in 2050, when all of these technologies and trends have collided with global ecosystem events.  It's fascinating to think about, and I'm not sure when the details of this dream will stop coming to me.  But, I pack away research about this subject every so often.

How immersive do you think our experiences will be when cloud computing reaches its full potential?

It's no wonder cloud computing has some people a bit foggy.  If you do a small amount of research, you'll find a plethora of definitions for it.

• James Staten at Forrester - "A cloud is a pool of highly scalable, abstracted infrastructure that hosts your application, and is billed by consumption."
• Gartner - A style of computing in which massively scalable IT-related capabilities are provided "as a service" using Internet technologies to multiple external customers.
• Wikipedia - Cloud computing is Internet-based ("cloud") development and use of computer technology ("computing").
  
• Stallman - "It's stupidity. It's worse than stupidity."
  
• Ellison -  "It's complete gibberish. It's insane."

Forrester's definition is the most elegant to me, though it might be limiting for the future. Gartner's definition might prevent the presupposition of private clouds (which I'll talk about in later entries).

Ellison had very interesting timing with his statements, having announced in the same month cloud computing initiatives with both Intel and Amazon.  One point on which we both agree?  There is a certain amount of "cloud-washing" (credit Forrester) going on right now, with companies taking their already packaged apps and remarketing them to include "cloud" in the name.  I think this is what he might have been trying to say, though James Staten's explanation was much more articulate.

Stallman's comments, if taken out of context, put him at risk to go down in history with that guy who said that no one would ever use a computer in their home.  Who was that guy?  Not memorable, but his quote surely was.  I have to Google it.  (Pause.)  Here's the quote: 

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” ~ Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977. 

Ouch.

People in visible positions talking about cloud computing in uneducated ways reminds me of Senator Ted Stevens trying to explain how the Internet works (back in 2006).

"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why ? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially... They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

Unlike that quote, I believe the value proposition of the cloud is clear.  It is the ability to automatically scale up and scale down on someone else's IT infrastructure.  The promise is in the utility - pay only by consumption.  Cloud computing is breaking down the digital divide by ensuring every company, no matter how tiny, can grow quickly and scale massively without having to pay one cent for their own IT infrastructure.

Stallman's arguments include insisting that we all keep our information in our own hands, rather than hand it over to a third party.  That's like telling me that I should put my money in my mattress. 

Actually, that might have been good advice for the last six months... 

However, in general, I've been outsourcing my information for years.  I use the Internet and Web based applications for free (ex:  Google, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter).  In return, I share information about myself.

A better example is my one-to-one relationship with service providers.  I share information with every utility and every outsource provider who provides me a service for a fee -  whether it's the electric company, the phone company, my cell phone company, the lawn guys, my bank or my dry cleaner.  Maybe I was paranoid at one time about beginning a relationship with one or all of these companies.  I don't remember.  I only know that I've evolved.

What's the ROI of paranoia anyway?  Zero for me.  It's simply not valuable enough for me to reduce the quality of my life.  And, I don't think it's worth reducing a promising startup's potential to utilize cloud computing in its intelligent no-infrastructure business model.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my good friend whurley about cloud computing.  He told me he just didn't believe in it.  He is a true contrarian mind, so I instantly found myself curious about a general audience's view of cloud computing.  Does anyone even know what it is?  In order to get some quick data, I reached out with my social network at LinkedIn and asked the questions:   Do you believe in Cloud Computing?  What is Cloud Computing to you? What SHOULD it be? And, what problems do you see it solving in the future?  I'm sharing these answers with you because they were given in a public forum (LinkedIn's Q&A).   

 I received some very interesting responses, of which some are edited for clarity and content:

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• Niclas Westling:  Cloud computing to me is to be able to work anywhere, independently of the type of hardware and operating system etc which happens to be to hand at the moment. Not having to maintain and upgrade software applications is also a big plus to me, as well as not having to worry about backups.
  
  Too a large extent this exists today already, although what it lacks is the variety of applications I can use locally. To be ideal I would also need all my personal data available, which also is technically feasible but a little scary from a security and integrity perspective - it also costs a fair amount having it hosted if you have a lot of data.
  
  The future problems it would solve is pretty much already covered above but in more detail;
  - problem free computing. No upgrades, virus cleaning, backups
  - Having access to an "unlimited" number of applications allowing me to resolve whatever task is at hand
  - it would also work equally good for business and personal tasks
  - For people travelling or being away from home (at hospital e.g.) having full access to their data
  
  As you probably realised by now, I like the concept and look forward to continued development and improvements.

• Mayur Udernani: Cloud computing to me is to be able to setup my PC anywhere and access all settings and files from wherever without actually connecting to or carrying my laptop.  Though it is not quite there, it seems to be fast evolving. ...one problem that cloud computing will definitely solve is the constraint to personalize the settings of every device(laptop, desktop etc) you work with.  It will also do away with the idea of having to carry heaploads of data in hard disks. Whether it will actually do away with the hard disk storage entirely is a bit speculative as of now.  

I will also add another part on my own, what are the potential hiccups?

• Security, Security, Security!
• Anonymity
• Data privacy protection
• Authentication
• Connection Speeds and Internet Protocols
• Consumption for the internet has gone hungrier with rich media being supported by browsers in Web 2.0. It will be a challenge for protocols to be updated to cope up with the data explosion.
• Also connection speeds in many parts of the world will be a bottleneck for further development and a maturity stage being reached in cloud computing.
  
• Sustainble Revenue sources for service providers.

• Stuart Charlton: I believe in Cloud Computing, but I also believe in Santa.
  
  The cloud has emerged as a response to a simple questions:
  "Why are my online consumer services so easy to use and inexpensive to provision, but my enterprise IT services are so hard to use and expensive to deliver?"
  
  The cloud claims that...
  - You should be able to provision and change your IT infrastructure on demand, with low lead times.
  - You should be able to have flexibility in how you invest in infrastructure; instead of a multi-month RFP and huge capital outlay, one can adopt an "on demand" pricing and payments model, supplemented by capital-intensive pre-payments when appropriate.
  - Changes to your IT infrastructure should be considered the norm, not the exception. This includes adjusting to demand without requiring major downtime.
  
  So, put another way, Cloud computing is about enabling a more visible, frictionless relationship between the producers and consumers of IT infrastructure. It's about enabling an "on demand" provisioning, management, and recovery experience both inside one's own data center and across global independent data centers.
  
  The primary work being done now in industry is to build the technical foundations of clouds and figure out how the ecosystem should shape up: the relationships and interoperability between hardware providers, hosting providers, software vendors, IT architects, developers, and users. Some want to promote one stakeholder over all of the others, some are more about playing a niche, and some are "market makers".
  
  A simplistic view of clouds is that it's all about outsourcing. I think that's a shell game; the real change is a mix of technical and business-led evolution.

• Tom Welke:  I am not a believer in Cloud computing for a few reasons. However, here are a few points that may be of interest.
  
  A great many firms in both large and small geographical markets have attempted to become something of a hardware service / infrastructure service provider in a JIT format. Very very very few have been successful at this due to a very simple point. Often times infrastructure / break fix needs are immediate, and require immediate attention. And, guess what, if you have many customers, needs will come up not with just one customer - but many of them, again on an urgent response time. Now, you must staff up for these needs. However, just as their are times when a firm has its resources fully utilized, there are times when utilization is not high at all and then, essentially, you are spending a great deal of money as a consulting firm paying people to sit on chairs and not bill. This, in the long run, is a recipe for trouble...and lots of it.
  
  Now, Cloud computing - in my opinion - can work if you have enough resources to handle critical needs, and can manage your resources and their utilization to minimize non-billable time...if you can do that, you have an awesome business model indeed.

• Tarry Singh: Cloud Computing is a platform which will be the playground of new trends such as CrowdSourcing where a lot of problems will be solved by Global Crowds in the Cloud.   To me it is the next step towards the commoditization of some core technology areas where we have been under utilizing our potential (people, I mean), that will free our resources to do much larger and bigger things.

• Dave Stratford: Cloud Computing is the latest catch phrase for what used to be called application service providers. It is basically using the internet to offer applications as a service. Google Apps is a good example. I think it would be really cool if someone were to marry this to virtualization. Then you could logon to your own virtual machine from where ever.

• Anthony Plack: Cloud computing is less about how you serve the application (as middle-ware component or web application), than how you keep it running and grow the resources.   It also differs from new people sourcing options like Crowd Sourcing. This is more about a flexible workforce.
  

Cloud computing makes sense if you have an application which has the following characteristics:
• A middle-ware or web based application
• An uncertainty or (alternatively) rapid growth usability.
• A need to always be available

Desktop applications or fat clients do not work well on cloud computers. Cloud computing ramps up to Globally large systems very well. Cloud computing is the next step in clustered computing for availability and performance.  I personally have only one application which makes sense for cloud computing, but because of the nature of the internet, I do not have a need for it (yet?). There are many services that cloud computing makes sense, but not all.

• Russell Wagner:   Cloud computing has been around, in on form or another, since my bad, old mainframe daze.

• Rick Jones:  Cloud Computing to me is a new term to encapsulate Application Service Providers (ASPs), Software as a Server (SaaS) and other related activities on the Internet.
  
  What it SHOULD BE is a vast number of online services, each conforming to agreed interoperability standards that allows virtually any IT service to be consumed by an organisation. It isn't there yet, and this is still a way off, but applications are getting there and the pieces are in place.
  
  As a framework it has the potential to solve many IT problems, most specifically the high cost of establishing robust IT infrastructure within the Enterprise. Cloud Computing will ultimately allow an organisation to choose the best solutions from around the world without having to worry about how these solutions are actually hosted, and without the high entry-level costs involved in large scale IT.
  
  These benefits will apply to everyone, but the biggest winners will be the SMEs who cannot afford robust IT, but still have an operational and often legislative need for it. For example, new legislation requires specialist systems in areas such as corporate governance. SMEs cannot afford a new IT system, but can use a turnkey system provided by an external provider.
  
  As interoperability standards further evolve, these remote systems will be able to be integrated into existing LOB applications with very little effort.
  
  There are no IT services that could not be delivered via Cloud Computing once security and interoperability are fully addressed. With the increases in network performance and availability, even physical services such as storage networking will become viable.
  
  Of course, we are still a long way off....

• Benjamin Smith: As a traveler, I tend to use a lot of the "cloud" services to limit the amount of time I spend syncing between my work laptop and personal netbook and desktop.

• Rajat Mehta:  Cloud computing in near future will appeal a lot to organization who have spikes as far as computing resources are concern. Typically these customer do regression testing, CAE analysis, Monty Carlo Simulation, etc.  These organization need spike performance <infrastructure> and not sustained compute power. 

In the mid-term, you will have office productivity tools moving to Cloud computing and finally if all goes well you could have business critical function moving on Cloud. (Long way to go).

The problem currently is mainly around security and also uptime. Even Likes of Google have had black outs in recent time and hence corporations will not have confidence to host critical apps out of cloud.

In the current generation, spike computing is at best addressed by Cloud.

• Ari Herzog:  Cloud computing is another name for Web 2.0, and that's straight out of Tim O'Reilly's mouth. Tim is the credit for bringing Web 2.0 into vogue.
  
  
• Jeffrey Young: Cloud computing is what you make of it. It can be a great option for IT departments to offload areas of their current infrastructure (email, collaboration tools, etc.) and allow for more focused IT projects. What it should be is a solution that should be able to freely integrate with current core infrastructures. Cloud computing is still in it's early stages but I believe the future is very bright for this space. I believe we will see some great advances in this arena in the next 3 yrs. In regards to problems the major problem that I can forsee would be Security. The "cloud" will be a big target for hackers in the future.
  

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Weeding out those quoting others rather than giving their own opinions, it seems like the understanding of the definition of cloud computing is varied and muddy.  Definitions of what it is range the gamut.  Cloud computing, to these folks, is:

• "Web 2.0" (or at least that's what that other guy said)
• what you make of it
• virtualization
• really for computing activity spikes
• something that limits the time I spend syncing my devices
• or it SHOULD be a vast amount of online services (each conforming to interoperability standards) that allow any IT service to be consumed by an organization
• the ability to work anywhere independently of hardware or OS
• less about the application than about running it
• a response to the problem of IT services being so expensive and difficult to deliver

Concerns about the technology include scalability, performance, dependability, uptime, standards and protocols, and adoption.  The doubt about adoption and how far off we are with cloud computing gaining traction conflicted a bit with the notion that cloud computing has been around for a long time.

Cloud computing is much more pervasive than most people think.  In fact, many of today's social applications and Webware are delivered very successfully by cloud service providers, who are in turn powered by cloud infrastructure service providers.  Consumer demand is driving this explosive growth, creating innovation at that level which is now trickling down into business layers.

Peter Laird put together a Visual Industry Map (September 2008), which is a brain map of sorts for the cloud computing industry.  Likewise, Forrester has some great explanations and insight in their August 2008 paper called Future View:  The New Tech Ecosystems of Cloud, Cloud Services, and Cloud Computing.  The cloud is not one large market, they say, but a group of service offerings - virtual infrastructure, software platform, and application components.  (I've taken out the tired as-a-service endings.  Ugh.)  These are the emerging markets in cloud, compartmentalized by physical infrastructure on one end and Web-based and SaaS on the other.

This blog entry is long enough for now.  I'll continue exploring cloud computing definitions, myths, and the confluence of it with social networks / people in future entries.

~Y

 Ynema Mangum, cloud computing product manager