If cloud is or should be part of your IT delivery, shouldn’t you approach it in much the same way? I would imagine that you’d want to have an end-state in mind with interlocking and complementary pieces. At a working level, this could mean a federated infrastructure where public and private cloud, dedicated and shared infrastructure fit together. At a higher level, this could mean (as marketers might say…) an “integrated, end-to-end solution” that includes core networking, infrastructure (cloud or otherwise), applications and endpoints. In either case, your goal is to forge ahead with patience, perseverance, and strategy.

As you put together your cloud solution, here’s some food for thought: Recently, in a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of AT&T, 155 enterprise IT professionals were asked how they are buying cloud services and what benefits they’re seeing from these solutions. The study found that IT executives who buy cloud services as part of a collection of services from a managed service provider realize:

• Greater operational efficiencies

Managed service providers help buyers work through inconsistencies in services and reduce the burden on internal IT staff.

• Cost savings

Yes, we’ve heard this about cloud before. But, the respondents to the survey indicated that cloud services are less expensive through a managed services provider than a pure-play cloud provider. Why? Managed services providers modify, integrate, and operate the cloud services as part of their offerings – tasks that would normally cost organizations far more to do themselves.

• Additive benefits

Survey respondents shared that, as they added services to their portfolios, the benefits increased. The more they bought, the greater the value provided by the managed services provider.

Who could say no to those kinds of benefits?

In many ways, your IT infrastructure is your mousetrap. It works the way you need it to, but you’re probably focused on how you might make it better. Are you working with cloud to make it better/more efficient/less expensive?

What if I told you that was wrong?

I’m sure you’ve looked at a duck-billed platypus and thought to yourself, “It lays eggs. I guess the exception proves the rule.”  Turns out, it’s not an exception because what really makes a mammal a mammal doesn’t exactly match up with what I learned in school.

Why am I sharing this story?

I’ve been talking a lot about the characteristics that make a cloud a cloud. The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines a cloud as “…a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

But, I hear a lot from clients and enterprises looking at cloud that they’re willing to give up some of those things because they have other, more important requirements. As an example, if a client wants a hosted private cloud of resources that is shared by its applications, they would accept that the underlying assets would be, in fact, pre-provisioned for their use. If they give up one characteristic or another, are they giving up cloud altogether?

As organizations test their use of the cloud, they’re not launching every enterprise IT project into a full on cloud production mode. It’s a change in the way they are evaluating infrastructure projects and the way they approach IT refresh. It’s an evolution, if you will.

Speaking of evolution, we return to the mammalians, who don’t actually share all that many commonalities. Generally speaking, there aren’t many details in the fossil record that indicate warm bloodedness or the presence of fur. The fossil record does show that the middle ear of all mammals is made up of the same three bones. That’s what links you to the platypus.

What does your cloud evolution look like? Are you ready to shed your dedicated infrastructure?

I was perusing LinkedIn Today (you know, the day’s top news, tailored for me), and I ran across an interesting blog post about online search that cited a piece of Forrester Research. So, I made my way over to the Forrester site to take a gander at the report.

While I was there, I realized I had been ignoring a research task on my to-do list, and since I had taken the time to surf to Forrester, I recognized that I could knock that task out pretty quickly if I focused on it instead.

In my search for some cloud material, I stumbled upon another report that, on the face of it, doesn’t sound incredibly earth-shattering (my apologies to the creative teams who entitle research reports): Optimize IT Infrastructure Around Key Workloads. As I started reading it, I was amazed how this seemingly run-of-the-mill piece of research recalled so many of the frustrations I hear from IT folks and line of business users.

Long story short, the analyst says that we’ve siloed IT by function – network teams who don’t talk to server teams who don’t talk to storage teams. These teams identify and purchase technology based on technical specifications in their area of expertise, as opposed to building solutions based on what the business is trying to accomplish. The upshot of this is that business users have unintegrated and complex choices when they need to build infrastructure to support a business need – and if the solution doesn’t work, the siloed technology teams engage in rounds of finger-pointing before the problems are solved. That’s a bad model, right?

That’s part of the reason the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is getting so much attention from business buyers. It presents server, storage, and (sometimes) networking solutions that already work together.  And, even better, it abstracts technology away from end-users so they don’t even have to know what the servers are or how the storage works. So, business buyers are excited about IaaS.

Since the IT world is already rife with acronyms and technical jargon that most people don’t really understand anyway, I think we should take the opportunity to change the definition of IaaS. Let’s instead start saying it means “IT as a Solution.” Then, when people come to IT with any problem, you can propose IaaS. It also offers you the chance to abstract technology away from end users – IT can transform from an organization that buys servers or creates specs for applications to an organization that builds solutions based on the needs of the business.

I realize that it won’t be easy to change the definition of IaaS.. But isn’t it worth a try? How would you define Iaas?

It’s finally fall – the air is cooler, football season is in full swing (as mentioned in a previous blog post by yours truly), and conferences and tradeshows have kicked back up.

That’s all good news for me. I am thrilled that the humidity has broken; I love to spend Sunday afternoons watching football; and one of my favorite things about my job is representing the company at tradeshows and conferences.  Lately, though, as I work in our booths at these events, I’m amazed by the number of people who don’t know that AT&T is in the cloud business.

To me, our cloud makes perfect sense. The cloud, which is essentially on-demand IT infrastructure, is only as good as the network that connects you to it. Without reliable connectivity, your data and applications would be trapped there, inaccessible.

Leonardo da Vinci once said, “The air moves like a river and carries the clouds with it; just as running water carries all the things that float upon it.” I think the network works very much in the same way for the IT cloud as the air works for clouds in da Vinci’s quote – carrying the cloud to you and bringing your data to it.

We have architected our cloud to be different – It is part of the network. That means the cloud and the network work together as one. Much like logs float downriver to reach their destinations quickly and smoothly, information flows through the network and the cloud, following a defined path that keeps it safe and ensures its integrity.

There are alternatives to this holistic approach to cloud. You could buy your cloud infrastructure and your network separately and integrate them yourself. One of our networking experts recently explained to me that if you were to do that, latency would increase  by 50% and availability would be reduced by three times. Oh, and your costs would increase because you’d need to invest in some network infrastructure that you’d then have to manage.

I think that’s pretty compelling. What do you think?

If you are attending Cloud Expo West in Santa Clara November 5-8, let me know. I’d love to meet up with you. Or stop by the AT&T booth. We can chat about Leonardo, the cloud, and the air in your network.

On Labor Day weekend when some of us are having barbeques and mourning the passing of another summer, others will be excitedly heading off to their Fantasy Football drafts, building their own dream teams to follow on game days.

To those football fans and fantasy team owners and managers, this is serious business. The points are all based on how well the drafted players do. In real football, if your running back is injured, there’s typically a back-up on the bench. Fantasy football doesn’t always work that way. So, you have to know your players’ status well before Sunday kick-off.

That’s why Pritesh Damani and his partners built something called FantasyBuzzer. Once you download it from your chosen app store, you load in your lineup, and it alerts you to changes in the status of your players. No more squinting at the bottom ticker on ESPN!

Anyone who has a fantasy team probably sees the value of the app. But beyond the app itself, how it came to be is also interesting. Pritesh’s app is built in the cloud. Small businesses can take advantage of the cloud to bring apps like this to market quickly and cost-effectively. Pritesh and his partners are launching the app on our AT&T Cloud Architect, and I couldn’t be more excited for them – and for us. I had a great conversation with Pritesh about his app and how he built it a few weeks ago. Press play below to listen.

[powerpress url='http://networkingexchangeblog.att.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/fantasy-buzzer.mp3']

This year, I have talked to hundreds of developers and heard lots of really great ideas for apps. I feel like I was in on the ground floor of this one and am really thrilled to see a good idea come to life.

Speaking of things coming to life, to all you fantasy football managers out there, I know your team is real to you – and I hope you make it to your league’s Super Bowl. FantasyBuzzer might help you. Let us know if you check it out.

What apps are you using for personal and business efficiencies today? What are some of your “I wish I had…” ideas for apps?

Which, naturally, got me thinking about my favorite current fad term – “cloud”. Here’s a prediction for you: in a few years, no one will be talking about cloud. Companies everywhere will be using it in some form or another as a way to deliver services to end users, but they won’t be wrapped up in what to call it. They’ll instead be focused on what it’s doing for them.

So, with that behind us, what’s next? Well, just like we all need to manage our diets, we are all going to need to manage our clouds. Easily accessible, inexpensive junk food is making us fat, according to some pundits. Imagine how wasteful we could be with IT dollars, if we had unlimited supplies of inexpensive servers? It’s immediate gratification all over the place. 

I’m not suggesting we throw the cloud away or limit its accessibility. Instead, I’m suggesting that companies who want to effectively use the cloud are going to have to effectively manage the cloud. That means those in positions of authority over IT are going to have to monitor the cloud; they’re going to have to turn off servers and pay greater attention to how their applications are scaling. It’s actually something we’ve been talking and thinking about for a while. Not long ago, we hosted a webinar with a guest analyst from Forrester Research to discuss this very topic.

Net-net, here’s what we learned:

1. Moving to the cloud isn’t all or nothing. Choose apps that make sense to move. Don’t move them all, and test them before you move anything.
2. You need to know more about your applications than you used to. Apps run differently in virtualized environments, or so I’m told. Something to consider, for certain.
3. Monitoring is more important than ever before. You’ve got to know not only if physical assets are active and responsive; you’ve got to know that the virtual layers are working in concert, too.
4. And, my personal favorite: Cloud is only less expensive if you govern it. If you leave your cloud servers running all the time, you could (and I stress could) end up paying more money in the long-run.

I suppose the moral of the story could be that everything is good in moderation, even carbs. What problems could you end up with if you overdo your cloud?  How can you avoid overdoing it?

It’s a pretty interesting document. If you haven’t read it in a while, I recommend you check it out. As you read it, you’ll see that, while it certainly is focused on severing ties with Great Britain, it is also about building closer ties among the colonies. By the way, I’m pretty confident that at this point  you’re thinking, “Thanks, Sara, for the history lesson, but what does this have to do with Cloud?”

I’m glad you asked.

When we embarked on our journey to independence, we were looking for choice and control over our own affairs. Is that what cloud is about, too? Isn’t cloud about having choices without obligations, about having control without needing permission?

Cloud providers everywhere are building solutions for your applications – - and they’re based on choice. It’s the way we’ve created AT&T Cloud Architect. You can pick all kinds of things, from what kind of server you want to what kind of OS you want to additional options for storage and security. We’re doing it to give you choice and control so that you can act in your best interest, instead of us telling you what we think is best. Isn’t that at the very core of independence?

As always, I’d like to hear what you think — about the cloud or the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson is my favorite, by the way, primarily because he penned the above-referenced document. Who’s yours?

But, for lots of other really talented and dedicated people (who probably use things other than DOS), app development is a passion, which is why, when I saw the infographic below, I was stunned. There are really awesome developers out there working for months or years to build applications and they’re not breaking even, let alone making money. In fact, 80% of the developers surveyed can’t support a standalone application business. That’s a shame.

The advance of mobile technology has put powerful, app-driven technology into all of our hands. We are gaming, socializing, learning and conducting business on our phones. A culture of application innovation is responsible for that. That’s why I’m nervous when I see that 59% of apps don’t make enough money to cover their own development costs. Everyone with an interest in innovative, new apps has to help or else we risk driving people away from development. (I get that it’s not all about money, but, let’s be honest, some of it is.) I can’t personally buy every interesting app or persuade my friends to do so, but I think I have at least a suggestion for developers.

There’s another technology that’s gaining steam and has the potential to drive costs out of application development. It’s cloud computing, and we built AT&T Cloud Architect exactly for this reason. We want to drive costs down and innovation up. If you have a great idea for an app, I want to hear about it, and I want to know when you’ve finished building it, so my friends and I can buy it. And, if you need some resources to bring your next big idea to life, maybe you should try out AT&T Cloud Architect.

Let us know what apps you’d like to see developed. What has been the best way to market the app once you have it developed? We look forward to your comments.

In late April, I had the pleasure of attending Collaborate 12, an event focused on Oracle users. Hot topic of conversation? You guessed it, “disruptive technology” cloud. Runner up: mobility. It was an application-focused show, but those two topics are top-of-mind for every conference-goer.

Cloud has been part of the conversation since at least 2006; mobility has been part of it even longer. So, why are we still hearing that these technologies are disruptive? And, since when has “disruptive” been a good thing? When I was in school, disruptive kids ended up in detention. Are we putting the cloud in a time out?

Instead, I think what we’re finally seeing is a groundswell of support for cloud. It’s riding this wave hand-in-hand with mobility for a lot of reasons. The most important reason is that, if it’s distributed correctly, cloud pushes data closer to users. Mobile devices give users the power of anywhere access. But, the power of access without the power of information would leave both technologies coming up short.

Back to Collaborate, why do traditional apps people care? They’re tasked with helping their users access any information from anywhere – and to make sure that the costs of applications stay low. The cloud + mobility does that. However, that makes the cloud a productive tool, not a disruptive tool.

I understand that “disruptive” is a cool word, but I propose we start thinking about cloud + mobility + applications as a constructive game-changer.

What do you think, constructive or disruptive?  Is Cloud and Mobility more constructive or disruptive in your opinion?  Please leave your comments below.

James Cameron won an Oscar for romanticizing it in a movie. Hundreds of documentaries have been made about this ship. It even inspired a Broadway musical.

Why was it so famous? It was a sign of its time. It represented class warfare during the industrial revolution; it represented a new life; it was the latest in technological innovation. It was (absolutely) unsinkable.

Then, as now, we lived in world where we looked to technology to be absolute. Then, as now, we were focused on innovation. With those parallels, I wanted to take this opportunity to remind all of us that we are on the verge of greater technological innovation. We’re making it easier to collaborate, and we’re driving instant global communication. That said, we might run in to some hiccups along the way, and I want to be sure we don’t get discouraged.

As an example, there are still a lot questions surrounding enterprise adoption of cloud. Is it secure? Is it reliable? Can it meet stringent, global regulatory requirements for data control?

We’re working through the answers. We’re building these cloud-based solutions in real-time to get them into the hands of CIOs. But, there are no absolutes, just as there weren’t 100 years ago.

Here’s what’s funny about that… According to this article, the people who built  the Titanic and those who commissioned it and sailed it did not claim it was unsinkable. They relentlessly marketed their investment, but they themselves never made the absolute claim that is was unsinkable.

And, I think that’s something to which we should pay attention.

What do you think?  Are we facing any “Titanic” problems with technology that we can’t overcome?  What are the biggest threats on the horizon and how can we solve them?  We look forward to your comments.