Presented by David Huseonica
Written by Ronke Oyemade, MBA PMP, CISA, CRISC

David Huseonica, President and CEO of Cloud|AG, was the keynote speaker for the February Alpharetta Lunch meeting.  David Huseonica, presented how technology has evolved, shifted, and the forecast outlook for cloud computing in 2014.

The Technology Pendulum
The Technology Pendulum continuously swings due to significant shifts in the computing architecture. Computing started off with the mainframe systems which were built based on the centralized computing architecture. The central computing architecture supports centralized computing and storage with thin clients. Resulting in businesses having high upfront costs for hardware and software.

Later on, there was a shift in computing to the distributed computing architecture. Storage and computing were decentralized with the use of PCs and servers. Leading businesses to acquire perpetual licenses for operating systems and software they used.

Now the technology pendulum is swinging back to centralized computing with the advent of the “Cloud” environment. The “Cloud” technology entails the use of large Data Centers and commodity hardware which are capable of being scaled-out to accommodate the needs of the customers. As a result, businesses obtain technology on a pay-as-you-go basis and only for what they use.

Today’s Business Environment
According to David Huseonica, the business environment of today is structured in such a way people who do not work in the same location, need to work together and also need to work on many different devices. Consequently, managing complex infrastructure takes IT staff away from the important projects. He further stated businesses are more cost conscious than in the past. Based on the above, adopting a cloud environment resolves these problems.

What is the ‘Cloud’ Environment?
Physically, the cloud environment is a data center made up of buildings and trailers which house servers (with data) and equipment. The cloud provider who owns the cloud environment provides software, platform or infrastructure as services and these services are classified as follows:

        •Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) - The cloud provider provides businesses, with use of software in form of a service.
        •Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) - The cloud provider provides businesses, with use of a platform in form of a service.
        •Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) - The cloud provider provides businesses, with use of infrastructure in form of a service.

The Cloud environment can be delivered through 3 delivery models which are:

        1. Public Cloud – The cloud provider runs a shared service computing environment accessible to any buyer.
        2. Private Cloud- The enterprise has exclusive use of an isolated cloud, by implementing a cloud itself or offloading to a cloud provider’s virtual private environment.
        3. Hybrid Cloud- The enterprise combines the external cloud services (public cloud) and the internal resources (either private cloud or traditional infrastructure) to assemble a solution, hybrid model.

According to David Huseonica, the three reasons for a business to move to the cloud environment are:

        • Financial- When a business moves to the cloud environment, the business will experience a decrease in equipment, personnel, support, upgrade and backups/storage costs, which businesses will have had to incur if services provided by the cloud provider were provided in-house. In addition, businesses will be able to focus more of their limited resources on its operations and less on capital expenditure.
        • Business Agility – When a business moves to the cloud environment, the resources provided within the cloud environment align with the needs of the business. With the cloud environment, instead of buying technology, the business subscribes only to technology it needs. The business also can expand or reduce the technology it has access to use. With the ease of obtaining access to required technology, it becomes easy for a company to bring a new employee onboard.
        • Collaboration - The cloud environment allows users to access technology from anywhere in the world and also provides a central repository. These promote effective internal and external collaboration between the business' employees. 

Cloud Architecture: 
According to David Huseonica, in the past a company had to create its own computing environment but with the cloud environment, several businesses (clients) can access and use the same computing environment provided by and maintained by the cloud provider. He further stated are 2 forms of cloud architecture a business can adopt: Single Tenancy Model and Multi-Tenancy Model.

Single Tenancy Model
With single-tenancy, each client is assigned a set of fixed resources with dedicated instances of these resources. Each of these instances is separately administered.

 

Multi-Tenancy Model 
With multi-tenancy, fixed resources are shared by clients but an instance of these resources is separately administered for each client.

 

There are several types of applications provided in the cloud environment by the cloud provider. These applications/ systems include email Collaboration, PSA, MS Project, Time Entry, Office, CRM, ERP, Telephony, Portals, Commerce, File storage, Social networking, Productivity tools, Games, Media/Music, and Business Intelligence.

The Cloud environment allows for businesses especially small businesses to gain access to world class solutions at the fraction of the price.

Concerns of Cloud Environment
According to David Huseonica, there are various common concerns with regards to the Cloud environment; they include: access, security, data location, availability, performance, and control of cloud environments. He further stated despite numerous concerns, the cloud environment is here and is here to stay. Businesses worldwide will spend $98 billion on public cloud-delivered IT services in 2016 (which is 5 times the growth rate of IT spending overall).

‘Cloudy’ Predictions
David Huseonica made 11 predictions about the future of the cloud environment:

Cloudy Prediction #1
SaaS becomes de facto for buying a new application such as HCM, CRM and collaboration.
Solutions once available in multiple deployments are now provided via SaaS and seldom offered on premise by the business any longer. Businesses are also offered offline versions of the online applications in the cloud environment by the cloud provider. These offline versions can be synced back to the online versions.

Cloudy Prediction #2
Sales taxation for SaaS providers/buyers.
Electronically delivered software currently enjoys tax exempt status in most states. The state of Washington has started the movement towards taxing SaaS products and other states will follow to capitalize on this missed revenue opportunity.

Cloudy Prediction #3
Hybrid clouds will become the business standard.
Enterprises will bring together the use of public and private clouds services to create hybrid cloud solutions that will meet their business needs. Managing this composition will be the responsibility of the cloud service broker (CSB). The CSB role will handle aggregation, integration, and customization of service providers based on policy and utilization.

Cloudy Prediction #4
Perimeter security shifts outside perimeter.
The combination of cloud and mobility means there is no longer a perimeter to an enterprise that it (the enterprise) is capable of controlling. The focus will shift from protecting the network and the devices to protecting the data.

Cloudy Prediction #5
Bring-your-own-encryption will dominate the security discussions.
Enterprises will encrypt their data before the data hits the cloud environment. Therefore getting into the data center does not guarantee data access because the data will be encrypted.

Cloudy Prediction #6
Cloud-to-cloud continuity will get serious with SaaS.
Disaster recovery (DR) is a leading driver for public cloud use, but mostly by enterprises looking to improve the resiliency of mid- to low-end apps and for smaller companies putting their entire recovery strategy in the cloud.

Cloudy Prediction #7
Small companies have access to big software.
The cloud has democratized the software and application procurement process to the point where even the smallest company can have access to game-changing solutions.

Cloudy Prediction #8
The cloud gets intelligent.
Organizations are increasingly focusing on leveraging their data to enhance decision-making, drive revenue, reduce costs and improve customer experiences. Cloud providers will move strongly to support their customers (organizations) in these efforts.

Cloudy Prediction #9
The internet of everything.
The internet is expanding beyond PCs and mobile devices into enterprise assets such as field equipment and customer items, such as cars.

Cloudy Prediction #10
The era of personal cloud.
The personal cloud era will mark a power shift from devices towards services. In the new world, the specifics of devices will become less important for the organization to worry about, although the devices will still be necessary. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared from the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.

Cloudy Prediction #11
Project managers with cloud experience will thrive.
There will be a demand for specialized skills to plan, design, select, implement, integrate and manage cloud solutions to meet the business needs of enterprises.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
David Huseonica is the President and CEO of Cloud|AG, a “born in the cloud” product and services company.  Prior to founding Cloud|AG, David spent the past 25 years in the software and consulting industry with companies such as Accenture, Avanade, JD Edwards and CD Group.