Fear and Loathing of The Cloud

htismaqe said:

I could list a half dozen services that ceased to exist in my own company post-merger. Not everybody does it but it's not uncommon either. And when you say stick with the Tier 1 brands, that's who I'm talking about. I've worked on M&A deal for some highly recognizable names in the industry. And I've seen what some enterprises would call "essential services" go the way of the dodo after a merger (or even a C-level housecleaning).

Click to expand...

I've seen the M&A activities, and also the move forward - from a macro-scale it's all about cost savings - those legacy services do cost a lot of money, and they've moved into the 'cost-center' realm, and the all-IP core is where things are moving forward - in the US, we have a huge amount of bandwidth buried in the ground thanks to Qwest, Global Crossing, and to a lesser extent MCI and ATT-LongLines - so the fiber is there - but it's TDM/Circuit oriented - and there are businesses that have worked to that end - but there's also a lot of dark fiber that companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Level3, Akamai, Cloudflare, etc... they've leveraged into that space in a big way - and I should add other major telco's like Tata, Reliance, China Telecom, Verizon - big bandwidth is a very different world than what we see as basically end-mile users..

I don't have issues with the cloud at a high level - we're awash in bandwidth, and the cloud at a carrier level can afford flexibility with how they deploy bandwidth and capabilities... with NFV/SDN, things can scale and rebalance as needed to keep things running well..

I do worry about security and seperation of services inside the clouds offered by Azure and Amazon Web Services (along with others), but these are the same concerns that we have with self-hosted services - security needs to be designed in, and trust me, there's a lot of folks that are doing it right - but there's quite a few doing it wrong as well, but they've been doing it wrong on their own hosted servers...

It's the last-mile and how we move up the stack into Applications - and there, a lot of things offered to the end-user are basically free - which is a concern as someone once put - pay for a product and you own it, get it for free and the product owns you..

We worry now about things like Windows 10 from MSFT, and Google's OnHub, along with the Amazon's strong lock on what we want to buy - as end-users, this is a legit concern.

FWIW - I'm actually happy that Apple seems to find a way to screw up cloud services and social, over and over again... I can't speak for others, but basically I find many of their services unusable and as such, basically don't use them - iCloud for me is "Find my Device" and an Email spam-dropbox...

Seriously though - if you're using Netflix or Hulu (or many other media providers), you're in the cloud... same goes with many other things that we consider as a single URL, it's going into the cloud as well - buy something from Amazon or Alibaba - it's in the cloud... login into Twitter, Facebook, etc.. you're in that cloud as well...

Don't fear the cloud - understand it...

YeOldeStonecat said:

Microsofts Office 365 isn't going anywhere. The "Recurring Revenue" model came to other industries a long time ago, it's here to stay. Computer services recently hopped on this recurring revenue model also..

Click to expand...

Totally agree - I think we're at a point where SW itself is free... it's the license to use it that costs...

Going into Geezer Mode - VMS had a definite time limit and it would nag...

So what's all old, it's new again...

YeOldeStonecat said:

Well..we'll have to agree to disagree. Doing this (SMB IT services) about 20 years... I havnt seen any important services totally killed/squashed (sat and paused for a few moments to try to remember but cannot recall a single case where I've had to hand tissues to clients because some IT service pulled the carpet out from under them and lost their data).

Click to expand...

Always like chatting with IT-Services and scale/scope - I'm sure they hate me over beers as well - as we look forward, whereas IT needs to depend on what is, or what was...

One example - I run an OpenLDAP cluster that is geo-redundant across three sites that scales to 15M users - and I do this with 24 boxes with 12-way redundancy on OpenLDAP...

IT - they're running Windows AD to support 10,000-250,000 users on AD, running Windows - because AD needs Windows, and exchange needs AD to scale - and to scale - it's not 1 server, it's not dozens of servers, it's much, much more than that - and I'm sure that they hate Patch Tuesday and deploying those patches... but that's their pain, not mine, and I appreciate when they're a surly bunch - happy hour makes it all good...

IT hates Engineering - lol, just kidding, but in many ways, we're deploying clouds that scale even in house - whether it is through design with discrete hosts, or VMWare ESX/MS Hyper-V/OpenStack, those clouds do exist...

And we're virtualizing services where we can - getting away from bespoke equipment towards COTS where where possible at first, and thing moving into the near-real time and then into real-time services.

sfx2000 said:

IT hates Engineering

Click to expand...

Well, Finance hates IT, so they're even.

Actually - Engineering and IT from an infra perspective, we're cross purposes - they have many platforms, so does engineering, but we scale to different needs - there's respect across the aisle on both sides - a good example is virtualization of resources - it was their initiative to start going down that path - and when we were aware of it, we took the ball and ran with it, moving many of our low usage/low bandwidth management apps into a new, but similar cloud.

htismaqe said:

Well, Finance hates IT, so they're even.

Click to expand...

Going on 20 years of being an IT consultant for SMBs....I don't find that at all. Us outside consultants are usually chosen, and report to/work under/directed by...the head financial guy of our SMB clients. Usually the computer systems in place at SMBs is overseen by the financial peeps...the accounting software, and the primary LOB (Line Of Business) apps. They typically choose the software, they tend to like to see it run well, and tend to want good computer networks for their software to run on and keep staff happy.

sfx2000 said:

Seriously though - if you're using Netflix or Hulu (or many other media providers), you're in the cloud... same goes with many other things that we consider as a single URL, it's going into the cloud as well - buy something from Amazon or Alibaba - it's in the cloud... login into Twitter, Facebook, etc.. you're in that cloud as well...

Don't fear the cloud - understand it...

Click to expand...

Those represent cloud services that I use, and have no problem with. I am not tied to any of them. If Facebook decides that the servers are feeling a little thirsty and pours soda on all of them, I can move to another service, and count my losses of $0.000

If Netflix goes out of business or does something else stupid, then it will be heavily time dependent where if they go under at the end of a billing cycle, then I technically lost nothing as when you pay for a month of service, then you are only expecting there to be a month available, and beyond that, it is not a vital service. I have alternatives available. With paid contractual services such as Netflix, there is an obligation that if I pay for a month, that they provide me with a month or service, or give me my money back. with a cloud service tied to a physical product, (going back to the easiest example), e.g., the dropcam, you are accepting a deal where you give a company your money, while expecting nothing in return (where you are happy if you happen to get something, but have no recourse if they decide to kill it).

On the other hand, if they provided a service that was vital to the functioning of the business that I work at, then it would be an issue as there will be a rush to get things working normally again, and the best decisions are not made when you are in a hurry to get things back up in running after losing a vital service.

My main issue with the cloud is when a physical product is unnecessarily linked to a single cloud service for which there is no alternative. This means that if the service dies, or the company devices to screw you over, you are out the value of the physical product. When you buy into such a product, the company has you by the balls, and they know it. All things being equal, they know that you will be more likely to accept a slight monthly fee increase rather than having your physical product become useless.

I am 100% fine with the cloud where it makes sense. There is no practical way to implement a locally hosted Facebook (you can but unless you have a serious multiple personality issue, you will not have many friends on the LAN Facebook.

Cloud services that lock you into their service, with no alternative, are never a good choice from a financial and business standpoint.

sfx2000 said:

I do worry about security and seperation of services inside the clouds offered by Azure and Amazon Web Services (along with others), but these are the same concerns that we have with self-hosted services - security needs to be designed in, and trust me, there's a lot of folks that are doing it right - but there's quite a few doing it wrong as well, but they've been doing it wrong on their own hosted servers...
......

Seriously though - if you're using Netflix or Hulu (or many other media providers), you're in the cloud... same goes with many other things that we consider as a single URL, it's going into the cloud as well - buy something from Amazon or Alibaba - it's in the cloud... login into Twitter, Facebook, etc.. you're in that cloud as well...

Don't fear the cloud - understand it...

Click to expand...

Agree that everything not onsite is 'cloud' and some companies use the term as a sales tool. I guess 'remote access' and 'dial in' are toxic terms now, even though the mean just about the same thing.

What still mystifies me is how Microsoft, Amazon and others who direct their offerings at professionals, as opposed to consumers, actually market their cloud services. If I want to find anything I have to look for it and then try to imagine why I would want it. I never see ads that say 'You Need AWS (or Azure). If you want to do THIS, then here's why you need us .....' It seems like they automatically expect you to know what they are, what they offer, why you need it, and how much it will cost in realistic terms, both directly and compared to some other alternatives.

MS does an OK job with Office 365, I suppose. They market it like Netflix markets streaming videos. But I still have little idea about their other services and why I, or anyone, would want them.

Where do they advertise and how do they sell themselves? I rarely see AWS ads and Microsoft just expects you to know what Azure is and, to me, expects you to to go stupid gullible because they use the term 'cloud services' somewhere in the ads. They're exceptionally vague ... at least the ones I managed to find when I went looking for them a while back.

AdvHomeServer said:

What still mystifies me is how Microsoft, Amazon and others who direct their offerings at professionals, as opposed to consumers, actually market their cloud services. If I want to find anything I have to look for it and then try to imagine why I would want it. I never see ads that say 'You Need AWS (or Azure). If you want to do THIS, then here's why you need us .....' It seems like they automatically expect you to know what they are, what they offer, why you need it, and how much it will cost in realistic terms, both directly and compared to some other alternatives.

MS does an OK job with Office 365, I suppose. They market it like Netflix markets streaming videos. But I still have little idea about their other services and why I, or anyone, would want them.

Where do they advertise and how do they sell themselves? I rarely see AWS ads and Microsoft just expects you to know what Azure is and, to me, expects you to to go stupid gullible because they use the term 'cloud services' somewhere in the ads. They're exceptionally vague ... at least the ones I managed to find when I went looking for them a while back.

Click to expand...

Well since I am in the profession of a solution architect with networking background I can tell you that Microsoft's marketing these services comes via their sales channel, their free and paid events. If you have ever been to the older TechEd or Build you are presented with a cornucopia of their products along with how their partners and developers are deploying. For example there was their Ignite here in Chicago this last May. It was incredible. Overflow crowds, lots of hands on info in the showcases, great technology sessions, and information for both enterprise and consumer computing.

If you usually see an ad on TV for a technology company without a specific message one would guess they are wasting their dollars because most IT pro's depend on networking with peers, research firms, and of couse the interaction with sales. Small, medium, and large businesses are accounted for by various groups at Microsoft and Amazon and other cloud based hosting companies. Personally I prefer to see vendor roadmaps, and speak with people actually using the technology and that have a proven track record with deploying solution leveraging the appropriate implementation on premise, in the cloud, or some type of hybrid.

AdvHomeServer said:

Where do they advertise and how do they sell themselves? I rarely see AWS ads and Microsoft just expects you to know what Azure is and, to me, expects you to to go stupid gullible because they use the term 'cloud services' somewhere in the ads. .

Click to expand...

Lemmings.
Used to be IBM mainframe lemmings. Now it's Microsoft.

Don't forget that MS Windows the OS is less than 1/3 of Microsoft's revenue dollars. Their bux come from enterprise users. Microsoft forgot that fact as they took a very sad diversion into social networking users and needlessly worried about Apple taking Enterprise market share.

stevech said:

Lemmings.
Used to be IBM mainframe lemmings. Now it's Microsoft.

Don't forget that MS Windows the OS is less than 1/3 of Microsoft's revenue dollars. Their bux come from enterprise users. Microsoft forgot that fact as they took a very sad diversion into social networking users and needlessly worried about Apple taking Enterprise market share.

Click to expand...

Well, many commercial services, they running on some kind of cloud these days... whether it's Azure (MS), Amazon (EC/AWS) or others... and lot of folks are working the distribution platforms these days - good example is Akamai or Cloudflare... (and those are public clouds, imagine the operator based private clouds, and yes this is happening at the Tier 1 level)

What's funny is that Win10 upgrades to the desktop - it's all user level torrents... and they've built a file system around it..

sfx2000 said:

What's funny is that Win10 upgrades to the desktop - it's all user level torrents... and they've built a file system around it..

Click to expand...

Actually it's an extension of the enterprise software WSUS and BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) not torrents. BITS is leveraging peer caching and it can be disabled, configured to be a master and only service local nodes, or configured to serve internet peers based on available bandwidth.

Ronv42 said:

Well since I am in the profession of a solution architect with networking background I can tell you that Microsoft's marketing these services comes via their sales channel, their free and paid events. If you have ever been to the older TechEd or Build you are presented with a cornucopia of their products along with how their partners and developers are deploying. For example there was their Ignite here in Chicago this last May. It was incredible. Overflow crowds, lots of hands on info in the showcases, great technology sessions, and information for both enterprise and consumer computing.

If you usually see an ad on TV for a technology company without a specific message one would guess they are wasting their dollars because most IT pro's depend on networking with peers, research firms, and of couse the interaction with sales. Small, medium, and large businesses are accounted for by various groups at Microsoft and Amazon and other cloud based hosting companies. Personally I prefer to see vendor roadmaps, and speak with people actually using the technology and that have a proven track record with deploying solution leveraging the appropriate implementation on premise, in the cloud, or some type of hybrid.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm just looking in the wrong places, it appears. Bandwidth concerns would seem to be the biggest impediment to deciding on which system to consider for remote access. I can see the value of moving some functions to a service provider, just like most people use the electric company to power their homes. Perhaps 10 years from now, the internet access limitations of today will be like the 56k modems of yesteryear.

In fact, thinking ahead a few years, maybe a remote server (I refuse to use the term cloud too often) for personal purposes might not be too bad. I'm getting close to retirement and want to travel. I like the idea of having good, secure remote access to home but some applications might be better off at a central and secure place where I can get at them from anywhere and I don't need to worry about the lock on my front door at home. Everything is a tradeoff.

Ronv42 said:

Actually it's an extension of the enterprise software WSUS and BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) not torrents. BITS is leveraging peer caching and it can be disabled, configured to be a master and only service local nodes, or configured to serve internet peers based on available bandwidth.

Click to expand...

Torrents from a practical/pragmatic perspective...

WSUS pushes the data in, and BITS moves it around and the behavior on BITS with the Win10 deployment is very torrent like..

AdvHomeServer said:

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm just looking in the wrong places, it appears.

Click to expand...

Glad I could help.

AdvHomeServer said:

What still mystifies me is how Microsoft, Amazon and others who direct their offerings at professionals, as opposed to consumers, actually market their cloud services. If I want to find anything I have to look for it and then try to imagine why I would want it. I never see ads that say 'You Need AWS (or Azure). If you want to do THIS, then here's why you need us .....' It seems like they automatically expect you to know what they are, what they offer, why you need it, and how much it will cost in realistic terms, both directly and compared to some other alternatives..

Click to expand...

The larger amounts of money are in Business/Enterprise sales.
And they are pushing it hard...very hard...and education those of us that are in this profession. I don't know what you do for a living, but I'm an SMB consultant, we have an LLC of 5 staff and around 300 active business clients.....going on 15 years under the current business name, and over 25 years in the profession when counting prior employers.

Our wholesaler channels have been promoting cloud services for years now...and they're doing educational webinars frequently. Also including related services ...such as SkyKick (migration tools to take on prem clients to O365).

Microsoft themselves have also been promoting O365/Azure heavily....they looked at their registered Partners...and selected those above a certain level..and reached out to us for a meeting with regional reps. Introduced their new products, services, discussed plans for the near future, asked us our input, what we wanted to see, a very good back 'n forth dialogue. And the biggest benefit...their new "CSP Program"...a very good program for us MS Partners to earn a lot more than before reselling cloud services.

We are the ones in contact with SMBs...so naturally they made the smart choice educating us...and giving us good incentives and sales tools. We pave the road!

I'm old enough to be one that remembers "before personal computers".
Back then, the "cloud" was the corporate IBM mainframe or Tymeshare's computers.
We all hated being enslaved to this old cloud.
The PC liberated us.

Now, corporations want us all to go back to having a very smart "terminal" display on our desk, in the form of a PC with a virtual desktop connecting to a virtual machine server farm. Mostly due to the insecure networking we all suffer.

So it goes: today's cloud is much the same as the old one. Un-liberated we go.