The SHI Industrial-Strength Cloud Computing blog

SHI is setting up shop at a new blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 06:44:47 PDT

We've moved! We have a new look with broader content at blog.SHI.com. On our new blog, we'll be analyzing the trends driving technology development; providing insight about product releases from major vendors; and educating you on what you need to know when sourcing, deploying, or upgrading your technology. Come check it out!

OUR NEW LOOK: We've made the move to blog.SHI.com

SHI helps Franklin Township observe Earth Day

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Wed, 23 May 2012 12:17:38 PDT

We understand all the fuss about Earth Day, but at SHI, we don't observe Earth Day, we observe Earth year. As we mentioned in our last post, we think everyone should drop the day and get into an eco-friendly routine that lasts all year.

And we practiced what we preached last Friday when Guardian Data Destruction came to our campus to help us and those who work and live in Franklin Township disassemble and recycle their old electronics.

The chemicals in old electronics can have a harmful effect on the environment if they're not recycled properly, so we were happy to see that a lot of people came out with their old hardware. Guardian set up camp in our East parking lot from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Friday.

Take a look at some shots of the event below:

Couldn't make it out to the event? Contact your SHI Account Team for more info.

Don't have an SHI Account Team yet? Call us at 1-888-764-8888 to find the SHI office nearest you!

SHI helps move the campus to the cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:19:03 PDT

If you went to school when I did, your college library experience was more "Dewey Decimal" and less "digital download."

That's assuming you could FIND the library or the Registrar's office before they closed!

But today's colleges and universities are on the verge of moving the campus to the cloud. That means they'll be bringing the centuries-old experience of enlightenment directly to the dorm room, the quad, and the offices of faculty and staff in seconds at any time, day or night.

In the past few years, universities across the country added online degrees to better serve students managing careers and families in tandem with school. Today, students can view grades, pick classes, access campus facility management, and even check out the meal plan menu from their smartphones.

So, what's the next step for 2012? Experts agree that moving the campus to the cloud can help universities manage mission critical applications such as ERP, email, collaboration, business intelligence analytics, and many others. That's why SHI and HP have helped develop an offering under Internet2 NET+ services to address the evolving needs of higher education computing by delivering an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) community-cloud service.

Providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for I2 members to deploy mission critical applications to the Net+ cloud will allow a safe, simple, secure, and cost-effective way to align existing IT policies, giving universities the ability to dynamically provision and consume IT. This combination of the high-performance network capabilities of Internet2 and the enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure of the HP Net+ cloud will let universities efficiently provision an infrastructure capable of supporting mission-critical applications.

Right now, we are proud to announce that the HP Net+ cloud offering has been in a pilot phase with Indiana University, The University of Notre Dame, Penn State University, and The University of Utah since late 2011.

Although the SHI-powered HP Net+ cloud is an extension of universities' existing IT infrastructure, universities are given their own isolated network within the cloud that is bridged to their internal network.

Because universities are isolated within the cloud, any machines provisioned in the cloud are mapped to IP addresses on each university's internal network. This design provides both a high degree of structural security, as well as a unique capability to seamlessly incorporate cloud-hosted, virtual machines into on-site domain and application architectures. As a result, the university will maintain control and governance through:

A personalized on-boarding process.
Self-service functionality granting customers access to a secure cloud portal through which they can request and manage services, report on usage and billing, and manage their organization's access to the cloud.
A managed private cloud.
Financial management through granular reporting, so that universities can effectively manage internal charge-back efforts.
A responsive, U.S.-based operations team.
A user-experience improvement program that gathers feedback from every university as part of our customer-interaction model. University input is analyzed, and our road map is prioritized based on use cases and functional requirements.

Our mission through this offering is to help colleges and universities manage their mission critical applications in a cost-effective way, giving them the ability to dynamically provision and consume IT capabilities.

So be sure to watch this space, because we'll be delivering more on HP and SHI's cloud offering for higher-ed customers as it develops.

Every day is Earth Day at SHI

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 11:40:59 PDT

Earth Day is April 22, but we like to stick to a green initiative all year round. In fact, you might remember our post on our new solar panel array, and when we designed our new data center. Our next green move is to help the community properly dispose of their old hardware.

On April 20, SHI is partnering with Guardian Data Destruction to offer safe, effective disabling and recycling of old hardware for SHI employees and our neighbors who live or work in Franklin Township.

Don't think recycling your old electronics is that important? Think again. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that between 2000 and 2007, 500 million computers (alone!) were discarded. When that happens, mixtures of hazardous and toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury can trickle into the groundwater and be released into the air. Most of these chemicals release dioxins, which can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, and have been known to cause cancer.

No need to worry! Organizations like Guardian Data Destruction know how to disable and recycle your old hardware to prevent toxic chemicals from leaking into the air. So come out on Friday, April 20th from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm and take your recyclables to the Guardian truck, stationed at SHI's East parking lot.

But there's more going on than just recycling. SHI will also be scouring the crowd for creative, driven folks to begin their career at SHI. As Thai announced on Fox Business News last week, we're hiring! An SHI rep will be onsite during the event collecting resumes. And if you need any persuasion on whether or not to look into a job with us, take a look at why we were named one of the best places to work in N.J. by NJBiz.

See you next Friday!

How second-generation PaaS will change and challenge IT

noreply@blogger.com (Henry Fastert) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:30:40 PDT

No doubt about it, the cloud has become mainstream, especially so for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). How do I know? Because I meet with customers five or six times a week, and I'm no longer educating folks about the cloud, or about IaaS and how it works. Instead, we get right down to why SHI's approach to the cloud and our IaaS services are the best choice for them.

It's fantastic that our customers are seeing great benefits from using the cloud for IaaS. But looking forward, I see some big changes coming to the IT world, driven by what I call second-generation Platform as a Service (PaaS).

IaaS offers significant ROI, and IT loves it because it fits well with the current IT paradigm. Second-generation PaaS, however, will challenge the way IT is done today in most organizations. And CIOs should be preparing now for the changes. Those who don't will soon be facing hard questions from their CEOs.

From first- to second-generation PaaS

In the first generation of PaaS offerings, the providers developed what turned out to be proprietary platforms. You had to custom-build your applications for a specific platform, using a specific set of development tools. You couldn't write your application using any other toolset, and you certainly couldn't upload purchased enterprise application software.

Frankly, this was (and is) a waste of time. Most organizations rely extensively on purchased or licensed third-party software, and even custom software development is done using a wide range of tools purchased from an open market. It's not surprising that first-generation PaaS has seen slow adoption. The current generation of proprietary platforms doesn't answer the market need for a flexible, open environment.

Second-generation PaaS, on the other hand, lets you to develop custom applications using any set of development tools. You can also purchase or license applications from wherever you currently buy applications, install them on the second-generation PaaS platform layer, and let 'em rip.

What second-generation PaaS means to IT

With IaaS, IT might be offloading some infrastructure, but they still have a virtual infrastructure to architect, man, and maintain. Costs are reduced, but the structure of the work and of the IT department remains essentially the same. You no longer need someone to maintain your storage area network (SAN), for example, but all the other people remain in place.

Once you move to second-generation PaaS, all that virtual infrastructure disappears. Suddenly a large portion of what IT had to worry about is gone. And that's a good thing. Right now, IT spends most of its time doing something it gets no credit for. Nobody gets credit for keeping the infrastructure going. The infrastructure only gets noticed when it's down!

Let's say IT is spending 80 percent of its time on something that has no perceived value to the organization, and spending just 20 percent of its time on the things that make a difference. Where would you want your IT investment deployed? Where should IT resources be focused? On the care and feeding of infrastructure? Or on adding business value?

With second-generation PaaS, IT has a chance to return to the role that used to be called management information services (MIS). Look back to the 1960s and 70s, when mainframe computing was the primary model. Companies rarely owned or operated their own computer systems. Few had their own data centers. Instead, the MIS department focused on delivering applications that made the organization more efficient and effective.

As I pointed out in a recent CRN article, by automating the creation, monitoring, and tuning of application deployment architectures, second-generation PaaS frees IT to focus on the tasks that deliver business value to the line-of-business customers

What this means to today's CIOs

With IaaS going mainstream, I doubt any CIO would have a hard time convincing the organization to leverage the cloud. In fact, I think we'll soon see organizations asking CIOs why they aren't already planning for the cloud.

It's enormously expensive to build, maintain, and nurse your own infrastructure and the headcount overhead of the necessary specialists. You don't have to be a CIO to know this. The message is being received by CEOs. When it comes to IaaS, CEOs are increasingly marching into their CIO's office and asking, "Why aren't you doing this and saving me all this money?"

And now, with the new generation of Platform as a Service offerings coming to market, the process is only going to accelerate. Smart CIOs can prepare their organizations for this new world, where IT will spend the vast majority of its time developing software or choosing and implementing software that adds direct business value -- and running it all in the cloud.

Fox Business spotlights SHI CEO Thai Lee on IT growth and hiring

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:56:27 PDT

I'm sure you've heard the news on the jobs front last week. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, employers added only 120,000 jobs in March, when economists expected 205,000.

The silver lining is that the unemployment rate did dip a little, to 8.2 percent. But clearly, as any business leader knows, these numbers are not one-size-fits-all. Some companies are growing fast and hiring aggressively. One of those companies is SHI, and Fox Business News turned to us because of our growth and success against this bleak economic background.

Moreover, we're a woman- and minority-owned business, and Thai's leadership has caused SHI to grow, despite an oppressive recession and very slow, but steady, economy.

Thai stopped by Fox Business on Friday to give her take on SHI's success over the past few years.

In case you missed it, be sure to head over to Fox to catch the segment.

Is there something Thai didn't cover that you'd like to know more about? Leave it in a comment below!

Here's why SHI was voted one of N.J.'s best places to work

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:19:23 PDT

Our corporate Somerset, N.J. headquarters, which is home to about 1,000 of our employees, was selected by NJBIZ as one of the "Best Places to Work in New Jersey" for 2012, and later this month we'll be attending an event honoring all of the nominees.

The aim of the award is to benefit our state's economy, its workforce, and businesses. To determine who made the list, NJBIZ looked at workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems, and demographics.

That's what NJBIZ had to say about what makes a workplace one of the best. But what really makes SHI one of the top offices in the area to work in? Instead of telling you, I decided to show you.

Click play below to gain an all-access pass to the SHI Somerset headquarters:

Is there something else you'd like to see about our headquarters that you we didn't show in the video? Tell us in a comment, and maybe you'll see your request featured in a follow-up segment.

SHI achieves Cisco Gold Certification

noreply@blogger.com (Thai Lee) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:08:28 PDT

Yesterday, we were excited to announce our Cisco Gold Certification. We earned this by meeting the standards that Cisco has implemented for their partners on networking competency, service, support, and customer satisfaction.

SHI employs dedicated and talented Cisco teams within our organization, and this certification further solidifies our commitment to this partnership. We expressed our excitement about continuing our work with them as a Gold Certified Partner in a press release:

CERTIFIED: SHI becomes a Cisco Gold Partner

We're looking forward to many more successes throughout out partnership with Cisco!

Shining a light on SHI's new solar-powered data center

noreply@blogger.com (Ed McNamara) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:41:34 PDT

There's not much you and I can do about rising gas prices in the short term, but there is something we can do about America's energy challenges in the long term. Cloud computing is part of the answer, but not in the way you might think.

One of the core benefits of cloud computing that most people have heard before is that it makes your organization greener while reducing costs. You no longer have to care for and feed a power-hungry data center in your facility. Your organization is free from the data center's electric bill, and has eliminated any carbon that's belched into the atmosphere as a result of that electric bill.

But that's only half of the equation. What about your cloud service provider's data center? Its data center can and should be as green as possible to complete the equation. At SHI, that's one of the reasons we factored environmental considerations into the design of our new data center in Somerset, N.J. last year. In fact, one of the goals we had in mind when we built the SHI data center was to make it as environmentally friendly and as cost efficient as possible, not just for our customers, but for our country.

Now we're adding to that initiative with the first rooftop solar panel array at headquarters, and the second set of solar panels at our warehouse.

The 500 kW solar panel system, which was installed by Cornerstone Architectural Group, LLC, has been up and running at our headquarters since Monday. The solar panels are powering both the east and west wings, and we're expecting the system to produce about 10 percent of our electricity.

The new array of panels at the SHI warehouse is adding to the system we already had installed back in July.

We took some snapshots of the finished system and put them together in a slideshow. Take a look:

Once again, a special thank you to Cornerstone Architectural Group, LLC for all their hard work on our new solar panel system!

Technical training takes SHI to the top of the Tech Elite

noreply@blogger.com (Thai Lee) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:45:25 PST

Last week, we found out that CRN placed SHI on its second-annual Tech Elite 250 list, naming us one of the top solution providers in the channel. The Tech Elite 250 honors those solution providers that have invested significant time and resources into the highest level of technical IT training and education. There's more about the criteria for landing on this list in the news release we issued.

SHI works hard to make sure our business and technology skills are up to par and closely aligned. The result has been the ability to deliver premium products, service, and support to our customers. Thanks to CRN for recognizing our hard work, and for promoting these high standards of training and education throughout the industry!

How financially strong is your cloud services provider?

noreply@blogger.com (Thai Lee) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:56:08 PST

When you're choosing a cloud services provider, you're certainly looking at the technology platform, its partners, and who's using the services. One thing that you should also consider is how financially sound the vendor is.

A lot of companies are vying for a spot in this crowded cloud marketplace. But you want to be sure that your technology partners never have to make a business decision based on anything other than answering this question: What is the best solution for this particular client?

Since joining SHI in 1989, my top priorities have always been to ensure that SHI's fiscal responsibility and strength remain among the most respected in our industry. And that we always focus on the long-term strength of our mutually beneficial partnerships with customers and partners.

While we're not a publicly traded company, we DO answer to our customers. That's why we feel it's important to share our numbers to maintain the transparency that we believe is crucial to building and maintaining strong bonds with clients.

SHI added the industrial-grade cloud to our suite of IT products and services in August. Of course, we had internal projections for revenue growth and staffing, but no business has a crystal ball. That's why when we recently wrapped up our fiscal year and crunched the numbers, we were happy to see that they looked great. We announced those results in a news release.

Thanks again to our partners, customers, and employees for making 2011 a great year. We're looking forward to a fantastic 2012!

SHI + VMware = true love on Valentine's Day?

noreply@blogger.com (Sal Bruno) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:22:23 PST

Roses are red, violets are blue, dear VMware -- we love you too! (Not that we're cheating on Dell, our BFF's from January). We've got plenty of love for ALL our partners!

But we really felt the love from VMware on Valentine's Day at the VMware Partner Exchange, where SHI was presented with both the Partner Executive MVP and the VMware Corporate Reseller of the Year awards.

The love letter -- I mean news release -- we issued, SHI International Corp. Named Americas Partner Executive MVP and VMware Corporate Reseller of the Year Award Winner at VMware Partner Exchange 2012, has all the lovey-dovey details.

Thanks to VMware for recognizing us. We look forward to continuing our successful partnership into 2012 and beyond!

SHI lands the #1 spot on Diversity Business Div500

noreply@blogger.com (Thai Lee) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:24:40 PST

Last month, we were listed as #1 on DiversityBusiness.com's list of the Top 500 Diverse-Owned Businesses in the U.S, also known as the Div500.

DiversityBusiness.com is dedicated to battling the concept that diverse-owned businesses are either small or not as profitable as other businesses, and we're honored that SHI comes to mind as a company that defies that stereotype.

And here's another statistic that defies that stereotype: Diverse-owned businesses contribute over $495 billion to the U.S. economy -- and that's not just a lot of small businesses. If you take a look at the Div500, the annual revenue of the companies on the list ranges from $20 million to over a billion dollars.

And if you're interested in SHI's 2011 revenue, keep your eyes on the blog -- we'll be putting out an earnings press release shortly.

We wrapped up 2011 with accolades from several publications, and this is another one that we are very proud of.

Thanks to DiversityBusiness.com for mentioning us!

The SHI approach to mission critical applications and the cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Henry Fastert) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:56:07 PST

Nobody can dispute that the term cloud computing now has a permanent place in the IT lexicon. But despite how often this word is bantered around among IT professionals, the fact is that cloud providers, such as SHI, find themselves dispelling myths about what can and can't be done in the cloud on a daily basis.

I recently decided to tackle one of these myths head on at the International Cloud Expo in Santa Clara, CA. My session was titled, "Mission Critical Applications and the Cloud: Myth or Reality?" And here's the myth: The cloud isn't ready for mission critical applications.

There's one thing about my presentation that may be different from other cloud services providers. At SHI, we don't just market the cloud and evangelize it, we put it to the test. We made the move to a mission critical cloud, on our own platform, over 18 months ago. And that move formed a core part of my presentation when I addressed the crowd at Silicon Valley.

But even if you were not among the folks in attendance, fear not! We shot full video of my session and I wanted to share it with you here today.

Mission Critical Applications and Cloud: Myth or Reality?

I'd love your feedback on this. Having seen the presentation, are you confident that the cloud can handle your mission critical needs? If not, I urge you to contact me, and I can share more data that supports the facts that you can indeed reap the time, cost, and business continuity benefits of cloud computing for your mission critical systems.

Dell Inc. names SHI Partner of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Thai Lee) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:00:26 PST

If you happened to stop by the Hilton in Austin, Texas, yesterday, you'd have found over 350 of our employees from 26 offices throughout the U.S. and Canada all gathered in one place for this year's SHI Corp. Kickoff Sales Conference.

Our special guest was Michael Dell, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Dell Inc. (but you knew that). Michael presented us with the Dell Partner of the Year award, which recognizes us for securing over $100 million in revenue for Dell products and services over the past year.

In the same ceremony, we presented Michael with one of our Platinum Partner of the Year awards, which recognizes Dell Inc. as an SHI top-five partner, and second-largest hardware vendor.

Thai and Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Inc., pose with their awards

All the details are in the press release we issued today.

SHI presented with Dell Inc.’s Partner of the Year Award

Dell Inc. Chairman of the Board and CEO Michael Dell personally presents award to SHI CEO Thai Lee

SOMERSET, N.J. & AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On Monday, Michael Dell, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), presented SHI President and CEO Thai Lee with The Dell Partner of the Year award for the second consecutive year. The ceremony took place at the third annual SHI Corp. Kickoff Sales Conference, held this week in Austin, Texas.

SHI’s Lee was joined by Hal Jagger, Vice President and General Manager of the SHI Corp. Sales Division, and over 350 SHI account executives that gathered at the Hilton in Austin, Texas from 26 SHI offices across the U.S. and Canada.

Dell’s Partner of the Year award recognizes SHI for securing over $100 million in revenue for Dell products and services over the past year, representing a 14 percent increase over the prior year. In turn, SHI presented Dell with one of its Platinum Partner of the Year awards, celebrating Dell as an SHI top-five partner, and second-largest hardware vendor.

During her introduction, Lee drew a comparison to the worldwide celebrations of the Chinese New Year. This year is the “Year of the Dragon.”

“The Year of the Dragon celebrates boldness, strength, and auspiciousness, which is a perfect segue to introduce our next speaker. We have an extremely strong relationship with Dell and our business numbers reflect that strength.”

Michael Dell accepted the award accompanied by Steve Felice, President and CCO; Greg Davis, Vice President and General Manager of Global Commercial Channels; and Jim De Foe, Executive Director of Global Commercial Channels, North America.

As part of the ceremony, Michael Dell delivered a brief summary on his channel partnership with SHI as part of the conference’s keynote address.

“Thank you for this great honor,” Dell said. “For the second year in a row, SHI is Dell’s #1 DMR partner in the world, which is representative of the fantastic growth we have both driven, as well as SHI’s success in customer retention. On behalf of everyone at Dell, to you and your team, thank you for your support!”

ABOUT SHI

Founded in 1989, SHI International Corp. is a $3.8 billion+ global provider of technology products and services. Driven by the industry's most experienced and stable sales force and backed by software volume licensing experts, hardware procurement specialists, and certified IT services professionals, SHI delivers custom IT solutions to Corporate, Enterprise, Public Sector, and Academic customers. With over 1,750 + employees worldwide, SHI is the largest Minority/Woman Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) in the U.S. and is ranked 19th among Everything Channel's VAR 500 list of North American IT solution providers. For more information, visit http://www.shicloud.com.

Press Resources:

SHI Press Room- http://www.shicloud.com/dev/MediaPressRoom.html

SHI Cloud Burst Blog- http://blog.shicloud.com/

SHI Cloud Burst Blog RSS Feed- http://feeds.feedburner.com/SHI-Cloud-Computing

SHI Twitter Handle- @SHICloud

SHI Corporate Website- www.shi.com

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50144103&lang=en

Contacts

Gregory FCA
Mike Lizun, Senior Vice President
610-642-1435
Mike@GregoryFCA.com

So where does SHI rank in the who's who of New Jersey industry?

noreply@blogger.com (Thai Lee) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:49:32 PDT

Not everything shows up in your email. Last week, we found something really big stuffed in our mail box: the hefty NJ Biz Book of Lists. If you need some exercise, you can put one in each hand and do some lifts. These things have some heft, because they're so comprehensive in terms of providing an abstract of New Jersey industry.

In case you haven't gotten your copy yet, here's how SHI measures up.

NJ Biz found us at #1 on the list of Women-Owned Businesses, #1 on the list of Minority-Owned Businesses, and #4 on the list of the Top 100 Private Companies. They also added us as a List Leader.

If you're in business in New Jersey, take a look at the 2012 Book of Lists. It's a great annual directory that features the most comprehensive listing of companies, by industry, in New Jersey.

But because this is an old fashioned directory, you'll have to subscribe to get you own copy, or take a look at the sections by list on their website.

When it comes to the cloud, protection is the best prevention

noreply@blogger.com (Sal Bruno) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:39:35 PST

This is obvious, but I'll say it anyway: When you're moving to the cloud, your first order of business should be to make sure it's secure, and also to make sure it will comply with your industry's compliance requirements.

That's one reason SHI chose Solutionary as one of our third-party partners. Solutionary's technology is one of the key components that helps us define our industrial-strength cloud with its virtual active guard appliance log gathering, firewall monitoring, intrusion detection, and vulnerability scaling.

OK, that's a lot of industry buzz-words to take in, so let's put it in plain English. We talked to Don Gray, Chief Security Strategist for Solutionary, who gave us the inside scoop on their prevention methods and compliance appliance.

How did you choose your security provider? Tell us in a comment.

E-Commerce Times features my comments in "10 Things to Remember When Reaching for the Cloud"

noreply@blogger.com (Rich Taggart) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:29:58 PST

We love to hear that people are switching to the cloud, but we love it even more when we hear that they have put the proper preparation in place before doing so.

To get the most out of your cloud services provider, you need to look carefully at your company's legal, security, and business affairs prior to the move in order to confirm the perfect match.

I shared this important point with E-Commerce Times, and it asked to me elaborate with an easy-to-use checklist for its readers. I made it to help purchasers understand the issues that should be on their radar as they move to the cloud. Jump over to the article to see what I came up with.

Did you take anything on this list into consideration before you switched to the cloud? Is there something you would have done differently? Let us know in a comment!

What does ironclad cloud security mean?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 06:49:59 PST

SHI Cloud CLOUDVILLE Cartoon by Dave Blazek is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at blog.shicloud.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://blog.shicloud.com.

CRN takes a pass at my 2012 prediction: Prepare for PaaS

noreply@blogger.com (Henry Fastert) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:46:40 PST

The cloud holds a lot for 2012. But when we say that, what do we really mean? What exactly is it that cloud providers and customers will be capitalizing on over the next year?

CRN asked me and nine other IT professionals to add our input to its "10 Cloud Predictions for 2012" slideshow. My prediction -- that Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) will be the new cloud battleground in 2012 -- is in good company. The slideshow features predictions from companies such as Bluewolf, Kroll, Egnyte, Salesforce, Rackspace, and more.

Make sure to click through the full slideshow to see what else you should be looking for in 2012. Are you making any changes to your cloud services in 2012? Tell us in a comment.

Why 2012 will be the year that the cloud gets budgeted in IT

noreply@blogger.com (Sal Bruno) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:48:03 PST

I attended a summit where I presented to 42 CIOs in the beginning of December. During the breakout session, I asked how many of them had budgeted for the cloud in 2011. Three CIOs raised their hand. Later in the session, I asked the same question, but about their budget for 2012. Twenty-five CIOs raised their hand.

The cloud has changed the way CIOs do their job, but 2012 promises to bring even more change. So, I've put together a list of eight things that every CIO should do as a part of his New Year's resolution to stay current in the IT industry in 2012.

Migrate to the cloud. As I mentioned above, more CIOs are realizing that the cloud is the next stop on the technology curve, and they're planning accordingly. CIOs should do their best to be on the front end of the technology adoption curve as innovators and visionaries, and I believe that in 2012 CIOs will want to ramp up that cloud-adoption curve to get it rolling towards mass adoption.
Set up project management office (PMO). Increasing the number of successful projects is part of anyone's New Year's resolution. But CIOs need to be able to deliver quality projects that satisfy the needs of the business all the time. To help with this, CIOs can put a product management office in place. It's a function that will scrutinize how you execute projects. It looks at how you estimate the work, and then offers methodologies for how to deliver the work. If you do that, you can be focused on continuous improvement. You will improve the overall quality of each project, tighten your estimates, and get your delivery methodology right so you deliver on time and with a high level of satisfaction.
Consider creating the new position of Chief Cloud Officer (CCO). This will reflect the increasing importance of cloud computing within your company. If you look at the way CIOs have organized IT today, you'll see that it has not been organized around the cloud, and the cloud is now a major transformation enabler. Cloud means the convergence of technologies. It means the convergence and the sharing of servers, storage, and networking in the infrastructure. And now that all the technology is converging, the organization needs to change. That's why you need someone to take the lead and begin thinking about the cloud at an executive level, as well as how to organize around cloud and how to use that enabling technology to deliver better service to support the needs of the business.
Mature the IT organization. It's time for your company's IT preferences to get a makeover, and it's all about rationalization and optimization. CIOs can mature their IT organization through the use of standard processes and tools that make IT more predictable and efficient.
Review service levels across the portfolio and align with business needs. Most organizations fall into the trap of having no service levels at all, or employing one-size-fits-all service levels. CIOs need to be categorizing the business and what it needs, and then aligning it to different classifications of service and price points.
Embrace the concepts of consumerization of IT and bring your own device (BYOD). There are two parts to this. The consumerization of IT is the notion that IT can offer a self-service portal for its services where end users can actually interface with that portal and request services. The notion of bring your own device says everyone now recognizes that it's no longer about the device. It's about the users' workspace. It's about their professional workspace and their personal workspace. IT leaders want to put the workspace in a secure, high-performance industrial-grade cloud like SHI's and deliver the workspace in a consistent way to any device anytime, anywhere.
Modernize applications. Modernizing apps will help CIOs meet the increased demand for flexibility by the business. There are still organizations that have major workloads on mainframes and are deciding what their modernization strategy should be, as well as the replacement strategy for their application portfolio. CIOs need to ask themselves which applications are worth moving to the cloud and which aren't. As we move towards the cloud, modernization is defined more as migration at this stage. Of course, the best CIOs will find a way to infuse some innovation into their apps during the migration.
Transform IT from solution provider to service broker. This is about how to incorporate all that IT offers into well-defined services. That will help drive the notion of self-service portals and service catalogs. The biggest challenge with implementing these services is that IT has to take all that it has today, every component and technology, and transform them so they can be described as services. Once that's done, the next challenge is deciding what services should continue to be built and maintained, and which of those services should be procured through a service provider. The final product will then be a neatly wrapped set of services which are compiled in a portfolio that shows what IT offers to the business.

There you have it -- the most important things for a CIO to think about as we head into 2012. Did we miss anything? Leave it in a comment below.

Happy New Year, everyone!

5 signs your application is ready to move to the cloud - the next-generation edition

noreply@blogger.com (Bert Huelmann) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:47:46 PST

My last post, which featured five characteristics to refer to when determining which of your applications can be moved to the cloud, was recently featured by ReadWriteWeb. It was a guide to moving your apps to the first-generation cloud. But there's more to the story when you're talking about next-generation cloud computing.

SHI Labs provides a solution that is industrial-grade and enterprise IT-ready to support critical production applications. We've spent plenty of time preparing our cloud service for the next-generation cloud.

And that's why I'd like to complete my earlier analysis by talking about the next-generation of cloud computing, and how the SHI Cloud combines best-in-breed technologies to utilize it. So let's revisit the five characteristics I introduced in my last post, in the context of the second-generation cloud:

Virtualization. Many organizations have already virtualized applications within their application portfolio. But, they often virtualize the low-hanging fruit, shying away from mission-critical production applications. SHI has certified experts on staff who specialize in virtualization technologies such as VMware vSphere and Hyper-V. We can help you to increase the number of virtualized applications in your environment, and ensure you reap the enormous benefits of virtualization throughout your portfolio of applications.
Modular design. Modular design of an application ensures that application components can be scaled up and down to avoid performance bottlenecks. SHI and its partner network have acquired extensive knowledge in helping customers analyze their application portfolio, design their application migration strategies, and perform application modernization. As we move into 2012, we are formalizing our cloud application migration methodology into a factory approach that leverages best-of-breed analysis tools, automatic code translation, and a rigorous quality process to ensure application modernization success.
Security and Privacy. All IT organizations are concerned about security and privacy, and it's not surprising given the approach some cloud service providers take. However, that's not the case with the SHI Cloud. It uses switch-based encryption for data at rest, as well as traffic isolation in addition to encryption of data in transit coming over the Internet. We made sure that by using multiple technologies, we fully address security and privacy concerns so customers can be assured that their data is safe and secure. The SHI Cloud even goes one step further, and places customer VMs directly onto the customer's network. Now, application-specific security policies and procedures can be easily enforced.
Latency. For cloud solutions that route traffic between a public cloud and one's own data center, latency is often an issue. But not with SHI's Managed Private Cloud (MPC), because the hardware is placed at the customer data center or co-location site. This eliminates latency for application-specific traffic, so customers don't see any degradation of application performance.
Compliance. Regulatory compliance is often cited as another issue that prevents organizations from moving to the cloud. But the good news is that the SHI Cloud helps to eliminate the compliance issue by completely isolating application traffic and placing VMs directly into the customer's network. With this setup, customers will be able to enforce regulatory requirements and policies.

Whether you're looking to move your apps to the first- or next-generation industrial-grade SHI Cloud, these five characteristics should always be considered carefully. The cloud services at SHI have been specifically designed to counter these industry issues. You can take a look and get more information about our solutions and services by visiting the SHI Cloud website or contacting us directly via e-mail.

Cloudville gets stuck on security

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:42:09 PST

ReadWriteWeb covers the 5 tell-tale signs that an app is ready for the cloud

noreply@blogger.com (Bert Huelmann) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 08:36:38 PST

Yesterday, ReadWriteWeb ran my article detailing the five signs that let you know an application is ready for the cloud.

I wrote this because customers ask me all the time what the first step in cloud migration is. Well, the first step is to figure out what can be migrated, and then when it should be migrated. You need to know what comes first, what goes next, and what extra work has to be done.

Take a look at the article here. Since I wrote it, I've thought of a couple more things I'd like to add. After you read the piece, come back here for a few additional points:

If an application or its data must remain utterly secure, then you need to seek out a cloud services provider that provides a truly secure cloud. Ditto compliance. Some cloud services providers can't support compliance requirements. At SHI, we've invested several million dollars in compliance technology to ensure that customers who need to adhere to IT risk and compliance programs can do so with confidence in our cloud.

Ditto again for applications that do not tolerate latency, and so on. There are no applications that can't be moved to a cloud computing model. You just have to choose the right partner, and make sure you understand going in how to identify the fast movers versus those apps that require more sophisticated planning and migration.

In the end, once applications are moved, and regardless of how perfectly they align to these points I've highlighted, the benefits of cloud computing will be delivered: dramatically lower operational cost, universal access, reduced capital expenditures, and easier maintenance. The rewards -- financially and from business agility and productivity standpoints -- are worth the effort.

Over time, some or all of these characteristics will no longer be tell-tale signs for cloud migration. Bandwidth costs will continue to drop, while performance will go up. Regulatory, privacy, and security requirements will evolve, as technology providers and regulators respond to market conditions. It wasn't so long ago that people were afraid to use their credit cards online or post content under their own name. In 2011, e-commerce is projected to top $680 billion in revenue, and nearly a billion people share their lives on Facebook.

Whether your applications meet some or all of these criteria, you're going to need a partner who can help you conduct assessments and facilitate migrations. This is where SHI can help. We can perform a complete assessment of your architecture, infrastructure, application portfolio, and data. The result is a thorough roadmap that prioritizes what applications can and should be moved to the cloud, a punch list of things needed to make it happen, and a total cost of ownership model you can rely on.

How do you fight viruses in the cloud?

noreply@blogger.com (Henry Fastert) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:41:14 PST

Are there viruses specifically designed to attack cloud infrastructures? Are viruses more or less dangerous in a cloud environment? Are you able to manage a virus outbreak easier in the cloud, or is it harder?

These are questions we're asked all the time, because the cloud is a different architecture that you might not have any experience with.

We talked to Tyler Carter, Senior Group Manager of Product Marketing at McAfee about its approach to combating malware in the cloud. Listen in to hear what he had to say.

Thanks Tyler for giving us an inside look!