Many financial sector firms are realizing that the “cloud” can be used for purposes other than the conventional wisdom which was restricted to only back office and administrative systems. This session will focus on how cloud computing can be used in connection with core operations. What developments can we expect to see in the clouds in the near term? Long term? This session will explore available options and the trajectory of the “cloud.”
IBM Case Study - Tushar Vatsa (BITS Pilani - Dubai)Tushar Vatsa
IBM has had a long history with many ups and downs. Some keys to its recent success include embracing consulting and data analytics through acquisitions, heavily investing in R&D spending $50 billion with 30% allocated to long-term research, and having a large, skilled workforce. IBM's plans to solve world challenges through targeting issues like pollution may face risks as the solutions to large problems are difficult with uncertain timelines and technologies that could become outdated. IBM also decentralizes and spends heavily on R&D.
The Context For Information Technology Since The Late 20th CenturySumeet Raj
The document discusses a presentation about productivity, technology, and the global economy. It notes that productivity increased at different rates from 1870-1950, 1950-1973, and 1973-1993. It questions why technology takes time to impact productivity and how the rate of diffusion varies between industries. It also discusses how the world economy became globalized in the 1990s, driven by developments in technology and the deregulation of financial markets. This led to the rise of internet and information technology industries in the US.
This document discusses the challenges of technological disruption and how it will require more than institutional reform alone. It notes that the next wave of technologies may be highly disruptive to the workforce. Additionally, many firms are already failing to adopt even basic technologies, and this could worsen with further disruption. The lingering effects of the financial crisis have increased economic anxiety, particularly for young people. While good market frameworks are necessary, the experience of the last 20 years shows they are not sufficient to drive private investment and address the challenges of technological disruption.
Nonprofits are increasingly using mobile devices to conduct fundraising as mobile usage continues to rise. The document discusses various mobile fundraising methods including text-to-give campaigns, scanning QR codes, using mobile card readers, creating mobile-optimized websites, and developing nonprofit mobile apps. It provides the pros and cons of each approach as well as vendor recommendations. The key message is that including mobile fundraising can help nonprofits raise more funds by meeting donors where they are - on their mobile devices.
Moving to the Cloud - Risk vs. Reward.
Presented at Green Data Center Conference: Innovation in the Cloud, by Steven Robert in San Francisco, CA - May 25th, 2011.
In this slide deck, we cover:
- Common obstacles that stand in the way of tracking ROI
- How others in the association space are tackling these challenges
- What drives ROI
- How to start tracking individual component performance
You can view the recording here: https://youtu.be/SuKQnBA3wzs
Are you haunted by volunteer turnover and burnout? Billhighway
If volunteer turnover, burnout or challenges are part of your association's daily life, we're hear to tell you, there is a better way! Walk through the common causes of volunteer challenges along with tactics and strategies to help counteract and get ahead of them in the future.
IBM Case Study - Tushar Vatsa (BITS Pilani - Dubai)Tushar Vatsa
IBM has had a long history with many ups and downs. Some keys to its recent success include embracing consulting and data analytics through acquisitions, heavily investing in R&D spending $50 billion with 30% allocated to long-term research, and having a large, skilled workforce. IBM's plans to solve world challenges through targeting issues like pollution may face risks as the solutions to large problems are difficult with uncertain timelines and technologies that could become outdated. IBM also decentralizes and spends heavily on R&D.
The Context For Information Technology Since The Late 20th CenturySumeet Raj
The document discusses a presentation about productivity, technology, and the global economy. It notes that productivity increased at different rates from 1870-1950, 1950-1973, and 1973-1993. It questions why technology takes time to impact productivity and how the rate of diffusion varies between industries. It also discusses how the world economy became globalized in the 1990s, driven by developments in technology and the deregulation of financial markets. This led to the rise of internet and information technology industries in the US.
This document discusses the challenges of technological disruption and how it will require more than institutional reform alone. It notes that the next wave of technologies may be highly disruptive to the workforce. Additionally, many firms are already failing to adopt even basic technologies, and this could worsen with further disruption. The lingering effects of the financial crisis have increased economic anxiety, particularly for young people. While good market frameworks are necessary, the experience of the last 20 years shows they are not sufficient to drive private investment and address the challenges of technological disruption.
Nonprofits are increasingly using mobile devices to conduct fundraising as mobile usage continues to rise. The document discusses various mobile fundraising methods including text-to-give campaigns, scanning QR codes, using mobile card readers, creating mobile-optimized websites, and developing nonprofit mobile apps. It provides the pros and cons of each approach as well as vendor recommendations. The key message is that including mobile fundraising can help nonprofits raise more funds by meeting donors where they are - on their mobile devices.
Moving to the Cloud - Risk vs. Reward.
Presented at Green Data Center Conference: Innovation in the Cloud, by Steven Robert in San Francisco, CA - May 25th, 2011.
In this slide deck, we cover:
- Common obstacles that stand in the way of tracking ROI
- How others in the association space are tackling these challenges
- What drives ROI
- How to start tracking individual component performance
You can view the recording here: https://youtu.be/SuKQnBA3wzs
Are you haunted by volunteer turnover and burnout? Billhighway
If volunteer turnover, burnout or challenges are part of your association's daily life, we're hear to tell you, there is a better way! Walk through the common causes of volunteer challenges along with tactics and strategies to help counteract and get ahead of them in the future.
Speaker: Chris Sullivan, Vice-President, Finance & Operations, IDC (Canada) Ltd.
More information including webcast found on the MaRS site at: http://www.marsdd.com/Events/Event-Calendar/Ent101/2008/marketing2-20080116.html
The document discusses the challenges facing IT leaders in aligning technology with business strategy. It argues that IT must adopt the language of business, demonstrate value through credible data, and engage early in strategic discussions to be seen as a trusted advisor rather than just an order taker. The document recommends that IT leaders develop leadership skills, move technology investment decisions out of IT, and focus on developing people to successfully partner with the business.
The document discusses the evolution of IT management over four eras from the 1960s to present. It describes Cash and McFarlan's strategic grid model which categorizes IT management environments based on dependence on existing vs planned applications. Various generic IS strategies and principles of developing killer apps are outlined. Challenges of digital transformation and leveraging IT for competitive advantage are also summarized.
This panel will examine the impact of the growth of the service economy on organizations and information systems from four perspectives: (1) internal changes in organizations, both service providers and service clients, in terms of their structures, processes, and competencies; (2) redefinition of inter-organizational relationships and re-drawing of organizational boundaries and identities; (3) the role of IS in enabling these new collaborative relationships; and (4) the possibility of designing better applications to enhance organizations’ capacity to engage in service exchanges.
The document discusses strategic IT management and the evolution of IT over different eras from the 1960s to present. It outlines different IT management environments including strategic, turnaround, factory, and support based on an organization's dependence on existing and planned applications. Different IT strategies and challenges of implementation are also summarized.
GSA Asia Pacific Executive Summit 2019, Taipei, TaiwanJohn Ciacchella
This document provides an overview and summary of the semiconductor industry outlook presented by John Ciacchella of Deloitte Consulting LLP at the GSA Asia Pacific Executive Forum on November 13, 2019. The presentation discusses the current outlook for the semiconductor industry, crosswinds impacting growth, opportunities in the shift to an "everything connected and data" era, and challenges companies face in capturing value in the new environment. Key takeaways focus on questions companies should consider around their business models, operating models, partnerships and other strategic issues.
GSA Asia Pacific Executive Summit 2019, Taipei, TaiwanJohn Ciacchella
This document provides an overview and summary of the semiconductor industry outlook presented by John Ciacchella of Deloitte Consulting LLP at the GSA Asia Pacific Executive Forum on November 13, 2019. The presentation discusses the current outlook for the semiconductor industry, crosswinds impacting growth, opportunities in the shift to an "everything connected and data" era, and challenges companies face in capturing value in the new environment. Key takeaways focus on questions companies should consider around their business models, operating models, partnerships and other strategic issues.
Transforming wealth management customer onboarding with the power of process automation, rules based straight thru processing and data driven real time intelligence.
Crawl, Walk, Run: How to Get Started with HadoopInside Analysis
The Briefing Room with William McKnight and Splice Machine
Live Webcast Jan. 20, 2015
Watch the archive: https://bloorgroup.webex.com/bloorgroup/lsr.php?RCID=b7509f6e4072f18344831dc83a20161a
People get excited when shiny a new technology comes along, especially when it promises to solve major pain points. But sometimes jumping in with both feet too soon can cause unforeseen and unpleasant consequences. When organizations want to take advantage of the next big thing, it’s important to first take a hard look at what the company’s needs and resources are before making the big leap into the unknown.
Register for this episode of The Briefing Room to hear veteran Analyst William McKnight as he explains how Hadoop is transitioning from a novel concept to a key component of modern data management architectures. He’ll be briefed by Rich Reimer of Splice Machine, who will discuss how they have helped customers get started in Hadoop with an Operational Data Lake, a Hadoop-based, scale-out solution designed to replace stressed out Operational Data Stores (ODSs). He will show an Operational Data Lake becomes a great on-ramp to Big Data, ensuring that companies get immediate value from their Hadoop investment and avoid the trap of the never-ending "science" project.
Visit InsideAnalysis.com for more information.
E Commerce Panel New Generation E CommerceDave Liu
The document summarizes a panel discussion on new frontiers in e-commerce. The panelists represent companies in business-to-business user generated commerce, digital goods distribution, and online document printing and distribution. One panelist discusses their company that streamlines the used vehicle resale process. Another discusses their company that provides an online virtual world where users can purchase virtual goods using real or earned currency.
The Power of a Complete 360° View of the Customer - Digital Transformation fo...Denodo
Watch here: https://bit.ly/2N9eNaN
Join the experts from Mastek and Denodo to hear how your company can place a single secure virtual layer between all disparate data sources, including both on-premise and in the cloud, to solve current organizational challenges. Such challenges include connecting, integrating, and governing data to prevent your enterprise architecture footprint from becoming untenable and laborious. It is not uncommon for an organization to have 50 to 100+ data sources, applications, and solutions, and the ability to tie them together for actionable insights, is undoubtedly a competitive advantage.
Learn how data virtualization can benefit organizations with the following:
- Accelerated data projects - timelines of 6-12 months reduced to 3-6 months with data virtualization
- Real-time integration and data access, with 80% reduction in development resources
- Self-Service, security & governance in one single integrated platform - savings of 30% in IT operational costs
- Faster business decisions - BI and reporting information delivered 10 times faster using data services
- With data virtualization, businesses can create a complete view of the customer, product, or supplier in only a matter of weeks!
Join Mike (Graz) Graziano, Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Mike Cristancho, Director, Solutions Consulting from Mastek along with Paul Moxon, SVP of Data Architectures and Chief Evangelist at Denodo.
...how quickly venture backed
technology companies market capitalization changed (grew) and whether there had
been a change in the “Time To Market Cap” during different periods of history. November 2014
Microsoft has the opportunity to reach a $1 trillion valuation by the end of 2019 by optimizing its platform-based business model and leveraging changes in the device industry. Microsoft understands customer needs but is not fully exploiting the devices market, as hardware revenues underperform the industry. If Microsoft increases its devices revenues by $11 billion to close the profit gap, it could achieve $102 billion in additional market value.
2014 Tech M&A Monthly - Deal Structures TodayCorum Group
With healthy capital markets, booming public markets and a resurgent IPO environment, deal structures are beginning to move away from the cash-only rules of the last few years. Buyers are using more stock and earn-out, while leveraging cheap debt to sometimes make acquisitions beyond their reach just a couple years ago. When should you consider stock? What’s the role of earn-outs? How should you approach non-competes? Find out during the September edition of Tech M&A Monthly.
A Venture Capital Perspective - Gamiel Gran Partner Sierra VenturesStartup Monthly
This document provides an overview of emerging technologies from a venture capital perspective. It discusses the state of venture capital investment and highlights opportunities in big data and analytics, cloud computing, mobility, and social media. It also summarizes Sierra Ventures' investment approach, focusing on early stage investments in information technology sectors globally. Sierra Ventures aims to track disruptions across private cloud software, social media presence, predictive analytics, and mobile application development platforms.
The document provides an overview of IBM's capabilities in big data and analytics through a presentation given by Piyush Malik. It includes:
- Details of IBM's investments in big data and analytics capabilities including over $24 billion spent on acquisitions and 15,000 analytics consultants.
- Examples of big data use cases across various industries and IBM's work with clients in areas like customer retention, fraud detection, and supply chain management.
- Three case studies including how big data transformed industries like industrial manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services by providing more personalized services and improving operational efficiency.
Open U Talk from the Institute of Financial Technologists of AsiaNicole Kuo
Founder of Institute of Financial Technologists, Mr. Paul Pong's, talk for MBA students at the Open University of Hong Kong. Outlining opportunities and effect from Chinese depositary receipt and weighted voting rights. Also urging the needs of lack of fintech talents in the industry!
Speaker: Chris Sullivan, Vice-President, Finance & Operations, IDC (Canada) Ltd.
More information including webcast found on the MaRS site at: http://www.marsdd.com/Events/Event-Calendar/Ent101/2008/marketing2-20080116.html
The document discusses the challenges facing IT leaders in aligning technology with business strategy. It argues that IT must adopt the language of business, demonstrate value through credible data, and engage early in strategic discussions to be seen as a trusted advisor rather than just an order taker. The document recommends that IT leaders develop leadership skills, move technology investment decisions out of IT, and focus on developing people to successfully partner with the business.
The document discusses the evolution of IT management over four eras from the 1960s to present. It describes Cash and McFarlan's strategic grid model which categorizes IT management environments based on dependence on existing vs planned applications. Various generic IS strategies and principles of developing killer apps are outlined. Challenges of digital transformation and leveraging IT for competitive advantage are also summarized.
This panel will examine the impact of the growth of the service economy on organizations and information systems from four perspectives: (1) internal changes in organizations, both service providers and service clients, in terms of their structures, processes, and competencies; (2) redefinition of inter-organizational relationships and re-drawing of organizational boundaries and identities; (3) the role of IS in enabling these new collaborative relationships; and (4) the possibility of designing better applications to enhance organizations’ capacity to engage in service exchanges.
The document discusses strategic IT management and the evolution of IT over different eras from the 1960s to present. It outlines different IT management environments including strategic, turnaround, factory, and support based on an organization's dependence on existing and planned applications. Different IT strategies and challenges of implementation are also summarized.
GSA Asia Pacific Executive Summit 2019, Taipei, TaiwanJohn Ciacchella
This document provides an overview and summary of the semiconductor industry outlook presented by John Ciacchella of Deloitte Consulting LLP at the GSA Asia Pacific Executive Forum on November 13, 2019. The presentation discusses the current outlook for the semiconductor industry, crosswinds impacting growth, opportunities in the shift to an "everything connected and data" era, and challenges companies face in capturing value in the new environment. Key takeaways focus on questions companies should consider around their business models, operating models, partnerships and other strategic issues.
GSA Asia Pacific Executive Summit 2019, Taipei, TaiwanJohn Ciacchella
This document provides an overview and summary of the semiconductor industry outlook presented by John Ciacchella of Deloitte Consulting LLP at the GSA Asia Pacific Executive Forum on November 13, 2019. The presentation discusses the current outlook for the semiconductor industry, crosswinds impacting growth, opportunities in the shift to an "everything connected and data" era, and challenges companies face in capturing value in the new environment. Key takeaways focus on questions companies should consider around their business models, operating models, partnerships and other strategic issues.
Transforming wealth management customer onboarding with the power of process automation, rules based straight thru processing and data driven real time intelligence.
Crawl, Walk, Run: How to Get Started with HadoopInside Analysis
The Briefing Room with William McKnight and Splice Machine
Live Webcast Jan. 20, 2015
Watch the archive: https://bloorgroup.webex.com/bloorgroup/lsr.php?RCID=b7509f6e4072f18344831dc83a20161a
People get excited when shiny a new technology comes along, especially when it promises to solve major pain points. But sometimes jumping in with both feet too soon can cause unforeseen and unpleasant consequences. When organizations want to take advantage of the next big thing, it’s important to first take a hard look at what the company’s needs and resources are before making the big leap into the unknown.
Register for this episode of The Briefing Room to hear veteran Analyst William McKnight as he explains how Hadoop is transitioning from a novel concept to a key component of modern data management architectures. He’ll be briefed by Rich Reimer of Splice Machine, who will discuss how they have helped customers get started in Hadoop with an Operational Data Lake, a Hadoop-based, scale-out solution designed to replace stressed out Operational Data Stores (ODSs). He will show an Operational Data Lake becomes a great on-ramp to Big Data, ensuring that companies get immediate value from their Hadoop investment and avoid the trap of the never-ending "science" project.
Visit InsideAnalysis.com for more information.
E Commerce Panel New Generation E CommerceDave Liu
The document summarizes a panel discussion on new frontiers in e-commerce. The panelists represent companies in business-to-business user generated commerce, digital goods distribution, and online document printing and distribution. One panelist discusses their company that streamlines the used vehicle resale process. Another discusses their company that provides an online virtual world where users can purchase virtual goods using real or earned currency.
The Power of a Complete 360° View of the Customer - Digital Transformation fo...Denodo
Watch here: https://bit.ly/2N9eNaN
Join the experts from Mastek and Denodo to hear how your company can place a single secure virtual layer between all disparate data sources, including both on-premise and in the cloud, to solve current organizational challenges. Such challenges include connecting, integrating, and governing data to prevent your enterprise architecture footprint from becoming untenable and laborious. It is not uncommon for an organization to have 50 to 100+ data sources, applications, and solutions, and the ability to tie them together for actionable insights, is undoubtedly a competitive advantage.
Learn how data virtualization can benefit organizations with the following:
- Accelerated data projects - timelines of 6-12 months reduced to 3-6 months with data virtualization
- Real-time integration and data access, with 80% reduction in development resources
- Self-Service, security & governance in one single integrated platform - savings of 30% in IT operational costs
- Faster business decisions - BI and reporting information delivered 10 times faster using data services
- With data virtualization, businesses can create a complete view of the customer, product, or supplier in only a matter of weeks!
Join Mike (Graz) Graziano, Senior Vice President of Global Alliances and Mike Cristancho, Director, Solutions Consulting from Mastek along with Paul Moxon, SVP of Data Architectures and Chief Evangelist at Denodo.
...how quickly venture backed
technology companies market capitalization changed (grew) and whether there had
been a change in the “Time To Market Cap” during different periods of history. November 2014
Microsoft has the opportunity to reach a $1 trillion valuation by the end of 2019 by optimizing its platform-based business model and leveraging changes in the device industry. Microsoft understands customer needs but is not fully exploiting the devices market, as hardware revenues underperform the industry. If Microsoft increases its devices revenues by $11 billion to close the profit gap, it could achieve $102 billion in additional market value.
2014 Tech M&A Monthly - Deal Structures TodayCorum Group
With healthy capital markets, booming public markets and a resurgent IPO environment, deal structures are beginning to move away from the cash-only rules of the last few years. Buyers are using more stock and earn-out, while leveraging cheap debt to sometimes make acquisitions beyond their reach just a couple years ago. When should you consider stock? What’s the role of earn-outs? How should you approach non-competes? Find out during the September edition of Tech M&A Monthly.
A Venture Capital Perspective - Gamiel Gran Partner Sierra VenturesStartup Monthly
This document provides an overview of emerging technologies from a venture capital perspective. It discusses the state of venture capital investment and highlights opportunities in big data and analytics, cloud computing, mobility, and social media. It also summarizes Sierra Ventures' investment approach, focusing on early stage investments in information technology sectors globally. Sierra Ventures aims to track disruptions across private cloud software, social media presence, predictive analytics, and mobile application development platforms.
The document provides an overview of IBM's capabilities in big data and analytics through a presentation given by Piyush Malik. It includes:
- Details of IBM's investments in big data and analytics capabilities including over $24 billion spent on acquisitions and 15,000 analytics consultants.
- Examples of big data use cases across various industries and IBM's work with clients in areas like customer retention, fraud detection, and supply chain management.
- Three case studies including how big data transformed industries like industrial manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services by providing more personalized services and improving operational efficiency.
Open U Talk from the Institute of Financial Technologists of AsiaNicole Kuo
Founder of Institute of Financial Technologists, Mr. Paul Pong's, talk for MBA students at the Open University of Hong Kong. Outlining opportunities and effect from Chinese depositary receipt and weighted voting rights. Also urging the needs of lack of fintech talents in the industry!
13. Define: Cloud Computing Platform or “service” accessed over a network to provide advanced, often transparent functionality for mass consumption and high-availability. Seasonal or as-needed utilizationis a classic use case. Evolutionary:ASP -> SaaS/PaaS -> Cloud
14. Generally Accepted Characteristics Self-Service Delivered over the network Elastic scalability (grow as big as you need, pay as you go...) * Think of it as renting IT resources vs. buying.
15. Some Challenges We Faced Customer base growing exponentially Limited resources (budget, staff, & time) Compounding system complexity Increasing scrutiny around financial integrity, compliance & regulations System performance suffered
16. Solutions We Found “Service” Oriented Architecture (SOA) GRID Computing – distributed computing Service Broker – asynchronous messaging Rules Engine – layers of abstraction Virtualization – HA, DR & Scale Storage Area Networks - iSCSI We discovered the “cloud” out of necessity.
17. Cloud -> Business Translation Consider the cloud a technical utility. Understand your risk tolerance and current business stage to establish a threshold for use. Stages of a business*: Stage 1: Existence (Speed to Market) Stage 2: Survival (Competitive Differentiation) Stage 3: Growth (Core Competency) Stage 4: Take-Off (R&D) Stage 5: Maturity Other: Declining Conditions (Defense) *Five Stages of Small Business Growth ~ Harvard Business Review 1983
18. Growth Phases *Five Stages of Small Business Growth ~ Harvard Business Review 1983
19. Technical Flavors Infrastructure Platforms Application Development Platforms Business App Platforms Special Purpose/Social Platforms:
21. Spotlight: Financial Institutions Mine masses of data for business value Private vs. Public cloud offerings Ideal future for infrastructure lifecycle upgrades MoSes – Risk & Financial Modeling Software Asset Price Generator Multi-Segment Corporate Modeling Variable Annuity Hedging
22. Why Consider the Cloud? IT Budgets have not kept pace with growing business needs Managing data growth & extracting value = major challenges Lack of scalability & capacity Firms are ill-equipped to handle infrastructure growth needs Enforced lack of agility + constrained budgets
23. Sounds Great – Right? Microsoft Azure - March 2009, ~22 hours RackSpace - June 2009, ~ 24 hours Salesforce.com – January 2010, > 1 hour Amazon – Numerous 2009-2010, ~ hours ea. Intuit – June 2010, ~ 2 days Cloud <> Perfect Transparency is Key!
24. Cloud Trajectory Enhanced Virtualization (DR, HA & Security) Hybrid Clouds Data Storage as a Service; Peering No SQL key-Value Stores Intelligent Workload Management (IWM) PaaS – to integrate private/public clouds
Hi, my name is Steve Robert & I’m an entrepreneur.I was fortunate enough to join a startup when my risk tolerance was high and my mental health low.10 years later, we’ve built a sustainable, profitable business that employs 35 people and is growing @ 70% per year.Therefore, my perspective is that of a Small Business, and what I believe are the characteristics for enabling growth and opportunities the Cloud can provide.
Billhighway is a “Quickbooks for Communities” – we serve due & fee-based organizations.We’ve been growing > 70% per year. We’re approaching 300k customersWe’ve been an early adopter of technology, leveraging many of the pillars of Cloud Computing; such as Service Oriented Architectures, Virtualization & Grid Computing – with datacenters distributed across several geographic regions.
I feel this quote adequately sets the stage for Cloud Computing – as it means a lot of things to a lot of different people, and standards are yet fully baked.
The word “Cloud” has created about as much debate as terms such as “Web 2.0” or “Social Media” so depending on your audience, they can be as dangerous as discussing Politics, Religion and in Michigan – Unions. Simply put, Cloud-computing offers resources accessed over a network – paying only for what you use.ToastMasters:[Think of it as an applicationservice that doesn’t run locally on your machine] – MS refers to it as “3 Screens” - The “cloud” has become an acronym for distributed services, or increasingly “experiences” - For example, you can access Facebook via your 1.) computer/browser; 2.) Smartphone; or 3.) multi-media devices such as xBox 360, iPad and soon TV. - When you update text or add a picture, it’s not stored on the device locally – close your browser and it’s available on the phone, etc. – all in the “cloud”
Here are a few generally accepted characteristics..In a nutshell, the conventional IT model front-loads capital spending on infrastructure, either buying capacity in advance or adding later at a higher costs and substantial business disruption.The Cloud on the other hand, enables new systems to be built/tested with minimal upfront investment resulting in systems that can be rapidly scaled to respond to improving conditions and business growth.
Quickly, a few lessons we learned – starting with the challenges we faced in 2004/2005. [insert picture of diagram?]Read, study, travel and consolidated practices by SUN (grid), Oracle (BPEL) & MS (XML & Service Broker.)At the time we were a Stage 1 business: StartupThousands of customers per weekHad to accomplish a lot in a short period of timeAccounting methods were difficult for developers to understand, lots of room for error – too many “decisions” within our logicnTier architecture limited scalability
2006 – OIGEssentially, without realizing it, we rolled our own customized geographically disbursed “private cloud” – each of the items listed here serve as fundamental tenants for many cloud initiatives.Lots of integrities, dashboards, scorecards & BIBy keeping our heads down, & flying under the radar we emerged at a market leader, with several patents and some unique service offerings that, now as a Stage 2 business, we had significant competitive differenciation.
Evaluating the cloud is different for everyone. As an executive or investor, we’ve found it helpful to correlate the business’ (or product) stage to establish a threshold for use.Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Goals and/or opportunities for a startup are quite different than that of a mature business. Financial institutions specifically have hurdles of their own, which we’ll touch on in a few moments.
Stage 1 Business or Incubator (startup) – Growth through Creativity. May want to leverage quick iterations & potentially more volatile deployments (speeding your time to market.) - EXAMPLE: Consume third-party APIs, leveraging the open source community and reduce ground-up development time & cost. - Remain Agile. Fail Fast. Iterate.A Stage 2 Business is about Survival – Growth through Direction. May consider business process outsourcing/scale & high availability - Consideration here may be to outsource non-core-competencies to industry; think: email, virtualization/storage/infrastructure - Determine what you’re in the business of, and strategically outsource everything else.As a Stage 3 Business experiencing Expansion – Growth often occurs through Delegation. Opportunities likely exist for product innovations, process efficiencies, increased productivity & potentially cost-savings - Here it might be time to consider Amazon Web Services or Google App Engine, if you haven’t already for pilot programs to quickly roll out product enhancements.As a Stage 4 Businesses begin to grow through coordination. A Maturing business may utilize the Cloud for strategic product management; maintaining today while building for tomorrow. - An EXAMPLE here may be an enterprise evaluating alternative platforms such as Windows Azure for green-field application development to compliment your XP & Scrum methodologies – your teams are doing Agile right??A Stage 5 business grows through Collaboration. A consideration here may be through strategic partnerships, extending functionality or integrating with 3rd party communities such as Facebook, Salesforce.com or Mobile app stores to continue perception of market leadership.And, often not discussed are businesses facing a Decline or challenging market conditions present opportunity for creativity & resourcefulness - Here it’s all about staying current, understanding what all the cool kids are doing, cherry-picking opportunity and making sure your brand isn’t becoming MySpace. - It’s important to remain current and relevant to your customers. What customer habits are shifting and how can you re-align yourself?
Now, based upon your type of business, there are several variations of Cloud services you may look to consume. These can apply to any business, based upon your pain points or perceived opportunities. [Hosted] Email has emerged as an early winner, at least for Google & Microsoft.For example, a company looking to quickly scale their applications up may look to offset infrastructure needs such as storage, processing & bandwidth using services such as Amazon Web Services (EC2/S3)Another example may be a development shop looking for a one-stop solution for development & delivery whereas Google App Engine & MS Azure offer tools & APIs to build custom web applications from the ground up.On the other hand, if you have a product and want to gain more exposure, you might consider extending functionality into an existing vendor ecosystem, platforms such as Salesforce.com.Last but certainly not least are special purpose [application] platforms such as Facebook, Google’s open-social and even the iPhone app store – which present tremendous opportunity catered to specific environments. Mobile isn’t going anywhere and people are now consuming products and services in very different ways then they used to. The internet space changes quickly, you should re-evaluate your strategy every 6-12 months. Example: Google. Lot’s of beta software, quick proof-of-concepts. Some stick, most don’t. - Chrome & Android adoption are two examples that are both exploding! Why? Because they push product to the market in extremely short development cycles, where many of their competitors wait a year or more. They understand the marketplace opportunity and strike while the iron is hot.The underlying idea is, the easier it is to develop and deploy highly scalable web applications, the more innovative and creative solutions we’re going to start seeing. We’re lowering the development bar and speeding time to market = REAL TIME WEB.
So, who are the Cloud Providers?Essentially, anybody with internet ground to loose (or gain.)This slide shows a small sampling.According to Gartner Research: “Cloud Computing will be as influential as E-business” - That’s a bold statement.Merrill Lynch analysts predict that by 2011 the volume of cloud computing market opportunity will amount to $160BN, including $95BN in business and productivity apps (e-mail, office, CRM, etc.) and $65BN in online advertising.
Large banks and financial institutions are sitting on masses of data that executives are eager to mine for business value. Many are turning to public cloud and private cloud technologies to free up this data from legacy IT systems, but the shift is challenging.While some financial giants have advanced into public cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), that's mostly for simulations, experimentation and "safe" data. Regulatory and privacy concerns are paramount. The advent of private cloud technologies -- software platforms that turn pools of computing resources into metered, self-service and flexible services -- are catching on fast, and 2010 may mark the beginning of an overall trend in how large financial firms think about IT.Finding the value in cloud servicesIn some cases, public cloud services can look like an ideal future target for infrastructure lifecycle upgrades. The Hartford Financial Services Group sees a natural fit for its compute grid on AWS, using things like the distributed MoSes modeling software. Deustche Bank is experimenting with hybrid cloud -- computing and provisioning platforms that can span between a service like AWS and internal, private cloud-style infrastructure provisioning and management systems.Mats Andersson, CTO of Nasdaq’s OMX Exchange, said Nasdaq uses cloud computing systems, but only inside the company’s firewall and only to access historical market data. Exchange IT officials aren’t yet ready to trust “the cloud” with transactional data, he added. http://www.privatecloud.com/2010/10/05/wall-street-eyes-cloud-computing-cautiously/ MoSes = financial modeling software - http://www.towerswatson.com/united-states/research/1161/ - http://www.towerswatson.com/united-states/services/Financial-Modeling-Software - http://www.privatecloud.com/2010/10/05/wall-street-eyes-cloud-computing-cautiously/
Banks havealready invested heavily in their grid and cluster computing environments and will continue to do so; cloud is just a continuation of that pattern."There is a much stronger focus on risk, both for compliance and to keep themselves solvent," said John Barr, financial sector analyst at the 451 group.Barr said he expected increased use of private cloud software within the industry, but vendors hopeful for a gold rush would be wise to watch their ambitions. Cloud is neat, and banks clearly need help with their IT demands, he said, "but whether there are big budgets for increased IT spending…that isn't clear."
So all this sounds great – right? Here’s a few things to consider..What is your tolerance for disruptions, if any? A question you may want to ask yourself is – is being an early adopter or pioneer of more value than a reliable service? I think we know Twitter’s answer.Lastly, when households first bought light bulbs and signed up for electricity service from the utility, they still chose to keep some candles and matches around the house. With Cloud, common sense and basic risk management will determine how you protect cloud assets or if you go into the cloud at all. - Microsoft beta service = unexpected outage during beta period. low/acceptable impact- Rackspace = high impact, UPS/Generator failure, banks of racks went down. BUT, transparent and accountable – tweet & blog the entire event! Competitors = #rackspacefailSalesforce.com – 68k customers impacted, visibility of force.com dependent on salesforce.com being up.Intuit – entire online presence & main website impacted for almost 2 full days. Occurred again < 30 days later, for several hours.Amazon, service iteruptions & disasters. Jun 2009 = Lightening damaged power supplies to several racks, down ~ 5 hoursMay 2010 = 3 [unrelated] outages over 1 week; UPS failure, power distribution short-circuited (8 hours) & 2 days later, car struck utility pole cut off power to data center for 30+ minutes.
Technologies tend to take different routes:A linear trajectory, when the technology matures in sync with the adoption - VirtualizationA trajectory where the technology matures and then veers into the mainstream – noSql, cloud storageA trajectory where the users force standardization and maturity in a technology – Hybrid Clouds, PaaS, IWMNo SQL (Google’s BigTable, Amazon Dynamo and Cassandra, used by Facebook ) These data stores may not require fixed table schemas, and usually avoid join operations and typically scale horizontally - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoSQLI am sure Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Rackspace, Savvis and others have implemented some form of IWM; but the algorithmics and programming models are not yet available as mainstream packages. I believe that this is a domain that will be driven by the users.http://doubleclix.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/virtualization-and-cloud-computing-road-ahead-trends/
So you need to do your homework. Green-field projects are one thing, while enterprises may opt to Maintain today, while building for tomorrow.There are significant PROs & CONs and only you can determine what is best for your business.Reduced costs & speed to market are certainly compelling.However; latency, SLAs and reliability are still concerns for many.With a little due-diligence, some strategic risk-taking, there is a tremendous opportunity to leverage the cloud to some capacity – but you’ll ultimately have to decide for yourself.
Hopefully this session helped raise some awareness around what the cloud is and what it can do for you. Remember to align your business’/product’s stage & risk tolerance to the various cloud flavors and you’ll be able to cut through some of the noise.Thank you very much.