Γεγονότα που συμβαίνουν στο internet κάθε 60 δευτερόλεπτα !!!

Ο παγκόσμιος ιστός (World Wide Web) μεγαλώνει διαρκώς με ταχείς ρυθμούς. Κατά μέσο όρο, καθημερινά προστίθενται σε αυτόν, περισσότερες από 1 δισεκκατομύριο νέες σελίδες. Για να πάρουμε μία ιδέα του μεγέθους του παγκόσμιου ιστού, επεξεργαστείτε τις παρακάτω εικόνες οι οποίες παρουσιάζουν ορισμένες πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες μετρήσεις σχετικά με γεγονότα που συμβαίνουν κάθε 60 δευτερόλεπτα, σε καθημερινή βάση!

Βρετανία: 8,3% του ΑΕΠ το ηλεκτρονικό εμπόριο

Το ηλεκτρονικό εμπόριο στην Βρετανία καταλαμβάνει το μεγαλύτερο μερίδιο επί του ΑΕΠ σε σχέση με οποιοδήποτε άλλο έθνος της Group of 20, σύμφωνα με έρευνα. Η ψηφιακή οικονομία της Βρετανίας αναπτύχθηκε με ρυθμό 10,9% ετησίως, ένα μέγεθος υψηλότερο από τον μέσο όρο 8,1% που επικράτησε στις οικονομίες της G20.

Δεύτερη στην κατάταξη ήρθε η Νότιος Κορέα με ρυθμό 7,3% και τρίτη η Κίνα με το internet να συμβάλλει στο 5,5% του ΑΕΠ.

Σύμφωνα με την έρευνα, αν το internet ήταν ένας παραδοσιακός κλάδος, θα ήταν μεγαλύτερος από τον κλάδο κατασκευών, εκπαίδευσης ή κοινωφελών υπηρεσιών της Βρετανίας.

Το ψηφιακό εμπόριο συνέβαλε με 121 δισ. στερλίνες στην βρετανική οικονομία το 2010 ή 8,3% του ΑΕΠ και το μέγεθος αναμένεται να ανέλθει στα 225 δισ. στερλίνες το 2016, ανακοίνωσε η εταιρία ερευνών Boston Consulting Group. Οι Βρετανοί αφιερώνουν το 13,5% των αγορών τους σε online κατανάλωση, σε σύγκριση με συντελεστή 7,1% στην Γερμανία, 5% στις ΗΠΑ και 6,6% στο πιο «καλωδιωμένο» έθνος του πλανήτη που είναι η Νότιος Κορέα.

Πηγή: euro2day.gr (19 Μαρτίου 2012)

Cloud Computing easily understood - IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service is one of the three delivery methods of cloud computing (the other two are Platform as a Service and Software as a Service).

Users of IaaS have the expertise to maintain operating systems and applications, but don't wish to purchase server, storage and networking hardware and a datacenter to house the hardware. The cloud provider provides these services from a shared pool. The cloud user will then use the virtual machines to fulfill their computing requirements and may install their own operating system and will install their own applications on the virtual machines.

Some characteristics of IaaS:

• Elasticity: you can provision (add) or de-provision (remove) cloud instances to scale up or down your environment.
• Firewalls: may be host-based on each cloud instance (virtual machine - see below) and/or an Internet firewall that offers the customers restrictions on who can access their cloud servers.
• Multi-tenancy: The cloud servers are hosted on a shared infrastructure. This means that your cloud instances co-exist on the same hardware as another customer's cloud instances. To understand multi-tenancy, think of an apartment building (or block of flats). The renters/tenants have their own apartment, but share an elevator or stairway, foundation and roof. The owner of the building rents out apartments as needed and is responsible for the plumbing etc while each tenant is responsible for their own furniture and interior decorations. Similarly: an IaaS customer is responsible for their own applications, the hosting provider is simply providing the infrastructure.(also see segmentation below).
• Networking: is provided at the TCP/IP layer and is usually simple networking between the customer's cloud servers and Internet access from the customer's access point(s).
• Segmentation/Isolation: While resources are drawn from a shared pool and cloud tenants co-exist, there are levels of segmentation to isolate one cloud tenant from another, just like there are walls to segment or isolate one apartment from another.
• Storage: is usually delivered as raw (block) storage.
• Utility billing: The cloud provider will bill the cloud-user for the resources used. Infrastructure as a Service is akin to a utility company providing and billing for electricity, water and natural-gas. You share electricity with everyone on the power grid provided by the power station, and only pay for what you use.
• Virtual Machines: The servers, also called "cloud instances", are delivered to customers as virtual machines. A virtual machine is a server or workstation, with operating system and applications that appears to the user as a physical server. For more on virtual machines, see wikipedia here

Infrastructure as a Service is typically offered in three forms:

1. Private cloud also called on-premise
2. Public cloud
3. Hosted private cloud

Private Cloud/ on-premise IaaS
An organization can build a private IaaS cloud and then provide infrastructure services to their internal departments or partners.
To build a private IaaS cloud, you need virtualization software to run a hypervisor.
Examples of hypervisor software are:

• KVM - Kernel-based Virtual Machine is available with most Linux distributions since kernel build 2.6 and is available as open-source software. Redhat is an example of KVM virtualization
• Xen - is another Linux based open-source hypervisor. Citrix licensed Xen and offers it as a commercial product. Rackspace and Amazon Web Services run Xen.
• VMware - the commercial company has an open-source offering as well.
• Microsoft Private Cloud

Once you have a virtualization or hypervisor layer, then you need cloud software to provide the on-demand and elasticity features of cloud computing as a Service.

Examples of IaaS cloud software are:

Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus open-source and is available commercially.

OpenStack. OpenStack is open-source and licensed as a commercial product by Rackspace, Nebula and many others

I will write tutorials in future blog posts, illustrating the steps to build an open-source private cloud IaaS offering.

Hosted private cloud
Hosted private cloud is a cloud offering for an organization's exclusive private use, but is not hosted in the organization's data center, but rather hosted by a hosting company. This provides an organization with the benefits of a private cloud, without the capital cost of setting it up.
Some hosted private cloud providers:

• Rackspace
• Gogrid
• Hosting.com

Public Cloud IaaS
Public cloud IaaS provides cloud instances to anyone with Internet access. Public IaaS is used by individuals or corporations who don't wish to use capital expenditure to purchase hardware and associated operating expenses. Unlike a hosted private IaaS cloud, the interface to a public IaaS cloud is open to anyone and access is restricted only by firewall and authentication credentials.
Some examples of public cloud:

• Amazon Elastic Compute Infrastructure (EC2), and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) - also called AWS (Amazon Web Services)
• Gogrid
• Rackspace
• SAVVIS
• Terremark
• Virtustream

Risks with Public cloud
Just as there are risks with living in an apartment building, example your upstairs neighbour's shower leaking into your living room, or neighbours eavesdropping on neighbour's conversations through the walls, so there are risks with public cloud. A neighbouring cloud customer could accidentally (or nefariously) gain access to your data on the shared storage or even view data on your cloud instance or access it directly.
Cloud management
The cloud-user may use a cloud management platform to manage public and private clouds. Cloud management is used to provision, automate, secure and govern public or private cloud instances.
Some examples of cloud management platforms:

• Rightscale
• Enstratus

Cloud Computing easily understood - SaaS

SaaS is simply software that I use for myself or my organization, but often with limited customization.
Characteristics of SaaS:

• SaaS customers are provided with login credentials (usually username/password) to the software application.
• SaaS customers are typically billed a fixed fee per month for that they use the software.
• SaaS software offers limited customization.
• SaaS software can be branded with a customer's own look-and-feel.
• SaaS customers usually don't need to install any software to use the application, a web-browser or mobile device will suffice.

Some every day examples of Software as a Service applications for personal use, small or large business, government or non-profit:

• Email, calendaring... - gmail, yahoo, or hotmail are all providers of email which a customer accesses using a browser with a login and password. (Companies that choose not to install and maintain their own email servers and software, can use email services such as gmail, Microsoft Exchange online and others).
• Productivity applications such as Word processing, Spreadsheets, presentations etc. Two examples are Google docs and Microsoft Office 365
• Financial applications such as online tax preparation and personal finance: example turbotax or quicken
• Customer Relationship Management: salesforce.com and sugarcrm are two examples used by small and large organizations.
• Enterprise Resource Planning: SAP and Oracle are two examples used by small and large organizations.
• Backup solutions: Backup files and data from servers, laptops and desktops to cloud storage, two examples: mozy and carbonite.
• Electronic Medical Records. Software as a Service to enable healthcare providers to access patient data via a browser or mobile device. Example: PracticeFusion
• Many others....

In summary, no software to to install, maintain or deploy but little customization available. Simply pay as you go...

Cloud Computing easily understood - PaaS

Platform as a Service is a cloud offering one level higher (see graphic in my first post). No longer am I dependent on the platform offered by an IaaS. I am not required to install databases, web and application servers. Instead I use developer tools provided by the PaaS company to to build applications. These developer tools could be JAVA, .NET, Python, Ruby or several other languages or tools. In my above example, if Tom instead offered Platform as a Service, it would be immaterial to me what server, application and database platform Tom offers. All I need are the development tools offered by Tom, so that I can then build applications, host them at "Tom's PaaS Company" and then offer them to my customers.

Some PaaS providers are:

• Microsoft's Azure platform
• Google's App Engine platform
• Salesforce.com's force.com platform
• Redhat
• Oracle
• Heroku (owned by Salesforce)
• Cloudbees
• Cloudfoundry

Are you ready for cloud computing?

Impressed by the lower costs and increased efficiency promised by cloud computing? You’re not alone. According to recent research, many businesses see the cloud as their top technology priority for 2011.

But just hold on a moment. While cloud computing might think it’s ready for them, not every business is ready for cloud computing.

Neil Cross from Advanced 365 explains seven key things to consider before adding cloud computing to your IT strategy.

1. Work out what you want to achieve and why

Every aspect of your business IT should be about improving how your company operates in some way.

It’s not about technology for technology’s sake. Cloud computing is no different, so make sure you understand what improvements you want to see after adopting cloud computing.

Consider cloud services alongside non-cloud alternatives and evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of each. Moving to cloud computing because it’s ‘the latest thing’ isn’t a good enough reason.

2. Understand your overall business needs – not just your IT needs

Many businesses decide to adopt cloud computing to make their IT systems more efficient.

However, cloud computing can mean fundamental changes to your IT infrastructure, so it’s vital the proposed changes are well-suited to your entire business. Cost savings alone are not enough to justify such big changes.

3. Prepare thoroughly before you start using it

It might seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many businesses don’t do this. Plan the introduction of cloud computing meticulously. Work out how it will be adopted, managed and monitored.

You can access ‘on demand’ cloud services in minutes with your credit card - this can be a good way to try out different options and see some practical examples of cloud computing in your business. However, this doesn’t mean you should become complacent about the planning required.

4. Make it less complicated as well as less expensive

Cloud computing won’t automatically work out cheaper than managing IT systems exclusively in-house. You’ll incur extra costs for accessing cloud services.

Additionally, things might get more complicated. You’ll have to work out how to manage your cloud supplier(s) and how to link the different parts of your business IT together.

Address both areas – cost and complexity – when considering cloud options.

5. Think about the risks

Carefully consider the potential risks of cloud computing, as well as the benefits. Will your data be held safely and securely? Is your chosen cloud computing supplier reliable and experienced?

6. Choose the right partner

Your choice of cloud computing supplier will be key to how easily your business can start using cloud computing. Don’t judge on cost alone. It’s far more important that your supplier can manage their services in line with your requirements.

Choose your cloud computing supplier with the same care you would pick any other key supplier. Check what level of service they guarantee, what support is available, how they monitor your service and – crucially – how and where your data is stored and protected.

Carefully check the hours your cloud provider’s support team is available. You’ll probably want to choose a provider offering 24/7 telephone support, so you can get things fixed quickly if there’s a problem.

7. Decide what service level agreement (SLA) you need

If you’ll be relying on cloud computing for crucial parts of your business IT, you need to be confident it can be trusted. For instance, if your customer database is in the cloud, losing it even for just an hour or two could cause huge disruption. A day or two and your business could be under threat.

Your SLA is a commitment to you from the cloud provider. It should guarantee you a certain level of availability for the service, and explains how quickly they’ll respond in the event of any problems.

SLAs are contractually binding and give you a performance guarantee you can hold your cloud provider too. Make sure your SLA fits your requirements.

The benefits of SaaS (Software as a Service)

SaaS allows end users to access applications with the use of a browser, while applications and relevant data are not locally installed (in user’s PC), not even in an internal infrastructure (a server located somewhere in the building).

Applications are hosted and data are stored, somewhere else, in the “internet/cloud”. This type of service, allows small or big groups of users to work in a collaborative environment, even if they are physically located in various places all around the world.

Though there are some security issues, there are many big companies that use it like, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, etc. In fact, almost all of us use a SaaS application like, Gmail, Google Docs, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Office 360, etc. Don’t you? Do you submit your Tax Declaration or Periodic VAT Report through internet? Do you trust your personal data in … who knows where (government or SaaS environments)?

Why?

Because there are significant reasons, that make these services so attractive. Here are some of the most profound:

Reduced Cost

SaaS software is provided with a “pay as you go” model that usually saves significant amounts or distributes the cost in the future. In some cases, especially in home use, the cost is eliminated (i.e. free email accounts).

Automated Distribution

No manual distribution procedure needed. A new version, with improved functionality and bug fixes, are automatically distributed to the end users, as far as the centralized software is updated.

Increased Mobility

End users can access information almost any time from any place. They can do it from their official workstations, from home, after working hours, during weekend, on vacations, etc. They can do it during new deal negotiations or during a new order receipt in the POS (point of sale).

Allows IT to Shift Focus

Many IT professionals believe that SaaS will “steal” their jobs. They believe that an application or data not located in a place where they can physically control, “is not a good thing”. Is it true? Is there any real risk? Only for those that have nothing else to offer. Modern professionals can be disengaged from daily rudimental activities and advance their innovation, becoming much more valuable than “system administration”.

Collaboration (Resources and Knowledge Sharing)

A key issue, especially for medium and big companies, with moving employees and a variety of external cooperators like, dealers, agents, lawyers, mechanics, POSs, etc. A SaaS environment, allows them all to have access in centralized resources and help the company to eliminate redundancy and duplications. An environment like this saves businesses time and money, while it increases overall control and reduces various risks.

So there are a lot of significant reasons that promotes SaaS model provisioning. These are also the reasons that balance relevant risks that drive companies not to use this model.

SaaS allows business to focus on what matters and not to worry about technology and infrastructure.

SaaS is the future; it will continue growing and will eventually overcome all other “old fashion” technologies and methodologies.

I challenge you to comment this article and provide additional advantages and disadvantages / risks for SaaS model. Let’s start gathering material and fabricate the most complete picture for this phenomenon, the SaaS.

Thank you, in advance.

Human Resources - The Most Valuable Asset

Is it true? Organizations really care about their human capital? Or this is just another moto?

In my opinion, this should be true. Organizations must realize that human brain and hands, emotions, inspiration, motivation, logic and all other relevant human characteristics are the ones that make things running.

Up until now, no machine can design or start producing by its own, no product can be sold automatically, no good deals can be established without human contact, thinking, negotiations, etc.

So, think well before you act, especially in crisis periods, what is your first priority? Minimize your "Most Valuable Asset" in order to minimize costs or try to exploit this asset with the most effective way? It is understandable that cutting salaries is an action with immediate result. The point is, is this the right way things should be done? Are dismissals cost nothing?

Finally, what is the smarter choice? Minimize payroll cost or maintain human power. I think that loosing your "Most Valuable Asset" is the same as loosing business power.

Think about it?