The phrase “razor sharp focus” is a tired cliché in our field, but you have to hand it to Google. They have just announced a “two-click data migration tool which allows employees to easily copy existing data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps.”
By building a tool to make this migration a “point-and-click” experience, they are hastening the defection rate for businesses looking for an alternative to Microsoft’s office suite. What’s more, three service providers - NuVox, Netfirms and IKANO - have already begun offering this tool to their customer base.
Google Apps Sync, as the migration tool is called, has already been put to use at enterprises like Genentech and Avago. Here’s some compelling Google propaganda:
Of course we’re still in the “early days” and the jury is still out. Microsoft will surely counter with Azure, but you can see why Ray Ozzie is worried.
For Google, on the other hand, the state of cloud computing is promising. They claim around 1.75 million companies are running Google Apps. The enterprise, as Gray noted earlier, is ready for Cloud Computing. And why is this? We’ve mentioned the economics before, but here is Google’s take on the benefits of Cloud Computing.
In a recent interview, Sajai Krishnan, CEO of Parascale, made some interesting observations about the needs of the cloud storage marketplace and how the offerings from Parascale met them.
Krishnan gives us his perspective of the cloud storage market and current opportunities in that space, primarily helping service providers build their own cloud storage offering to retain customers who might otherwise look to Amazon S3.
We welcome competition in this space.
While we agree with his assessment of the market, there are four claims that deserve a fact check:
CLAIM #1: ".. in terms of a cloud storage software solution, "pretty much" we are the only game in town"
That depends on how you define the phrase "pretty much." At Mezeo, we have focused on the service provider market from day one. And unlike Parascale, our software is in production with hosting providers - exhibit A: Softlayer. Watch Softlayer CEO Lance Crosby discuss why he chose Mezeo >>
But don't take our word alone. Here's Simon Robinson, Research Director at the 451 Group:
Unlike the myriad other companies tackling this fragmented and nascent market, Mezeo is focusing its efforts on delivering a platform that enables service providers to deploy cloud storage services to their own customers. The company, which was created a year ago, already has engagements with several managed hosting service providers...
As it comes out of the gate with its first raft of cloud storage services, Mezeo simultaneously stresses that it's not another cloud storage services company. This may sound disingenuous, but on closer examination it's clear that there's a big difference between what the likes of ParaScale and EMC Atmos are doing and what Mezeo is offering. Ultimately, Mezeo is pretty much agnostic as to the specific flavor of storage; it's differentiation is its ability to help service providers quickly deploy a range of feature-rich storage services, adding value where none exists today, and utilizing incumbent capabilities where they do exist. With so much of the interest in cloud computing focused on service providers, we think Mezeo has emerged at the right time with a novel platform.
CLAIM #3: Krishnan claims his focus is on service providers
Not quite! If we examine ParaScale's pricing model, and listen to what he says, it's the same old CAPEX.
The traditional "Pay-upfront" model is not cloud-friendly, while a "pay-per-use" model is. The major benefit of cloud storage is the economics of "pay-per-use," as we have stressed on this blog earlier.
Pay-up-front or pay-for-capacity (versus pay-per-use) completely defies the economics of "Cloud Storage" which is all about "pay for use." Asking providers to have a cost model that is not aligned with their revenue model brings into question ParaScale's focus on and understanding of the service provider market.
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CLAIM #4: Krishnan states that hosting providers will have to deploy cloud storage solutions to take on Amazon S3 and Google.
While much of the collective discussion has focused on cloud computing and trying to define it, Cloud Storage has not so quietly gone from concept to tangible business with real revenue and margin opportunities.
Those actively in the business believe that the per cent of every $1 spent on cloud computing associated with storage is growing, rapidly. It can range as high as $0.90 on backups and goes down from there, based on application type. Since storage is persistent and growing rapidly, Cloud Storage will continue to grow as a percentage of total spend on Cloud Computing.
Giants like Amazon, EMC, Google, Microsoft and now Sun have thrown their hats into the cloud storage ring, but they are not the only players. The economics for already trusted service providers like IT Hosting providers make it attractive for their continued entry into this space.
Coming on the heels of the Cisco-BMC announcement, the news of an IBM/Sun merger and the simultaneous announcement of Sun’s Open Cloud Platform are not mutually exclusive events. They’re all part of the ongoing race to capture the Enterprise Cloud. The elephants are dancing.
The announcement continues the pattern of rapid marketplace adoption of Cloud Computing in general and that includes Web services API based storage access that began with Amazon and continued with Rackspace. This space is really heating up. More and more players are stepping up to challenge Amazon.
This tells us that IT hosting providers are running to get in the cloud storage and cloud computing game sooner rather than later. Having come from that space, I can tell you that this issue is top of mind in the hosting space. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and now Sun want to be the cloud for every customer.
The hosting industry is ideally positioned to deliver cloud computing and cloud storage solutions to their existing and future customers. Cloud Computing (see previous post on Cisco and BMC) is a service offering for which both hardware and software technology is rapidly developing. Management tools are also coming online from many vendors. The ability for the IT hosting industry to effectively compete will quickly be enabled by a new market segment, “Cloud Infrastructure Providers”. When you combine the availability of solutions with the effective service oriented relationships that IT hosters have enjoyed with their customers, a significant opportunity is emerging.
The first act in Cloud Computing is underway. Another character has entered the stage and received a round of applause. They lend additional credence, and a call for more standardization, and less vendor lock in. The key to the cloud will be ease of use, reliability, security, and of course, cost.
With so much negative news on business and our economy, I find that Cloud Computing, and its new technologies and opportunities are very exciting. This is how it has always felt in our industry, which we can change for the better, innovate like no one else, and create significant businesses and new opportunities.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the real story here: Sun’s open source vision and stated commitment to interoperability and its extension into Cloud Computing:
Ideally, users of cloud computing would be able to move their applications among a variety of standardized providers who offer open-source interfaces to common services. Today, most clouds are proprietary, and even where the components offered are open source, cloud operators cultivate significant lock-in through their underlying services, such as storage and databases.
This morning, Dave Douglas, the SVP of our Cloud Computing business, announced we’re building the Sun Cloud,
atop open source platforms - from ZFS and Crossbow, to MySQL and
Glassfish. With more than 4,000 developers hard at work on these
enabling elements, and a twenty year history of network scale software
innovation, we’re very comfortable with our technology lead. By
building on open source, we’re also able to radically reduce our costs
by avoiding proprietary storage and networking products.
Second, we announced the API’s and file formats for Sun’s Cloud will all be open,
delivered under a Creative Commons License. That means developers can
freely stitch our and their cloud services into mass market products,
without fear of lock-in or litigation from the emerging proprietary
cloud vendors.
Third, unlike our peers, we also announced our cloud will be
available for deployment behind corporate firewalls - that we’ll
commercialize our public cloud by instantiating it in private
datacenters for those customers who can’t, due to regulation, security
or business constraints, use a public cloud. We recognize that
workloads subject to fiduciary duty or regulatory scrutiny won’t move
to public clouds - if you can’t move to the cloud, we’ll move the cloud
to you.
So where does IBM come in?
If you read about Schwartz’s three strategic imperatives, you learn they are as follows:
Notice too, that Schwartz is brutally honest about Sun’s challenges with imperative #3:
With Sun’s current products, we could be selling to twice the number of
customers we currently serve - our products appeal to an audience far
greater than our customer base. But we’re limited by our size - our
sales and partner force has a tenth the resources of our biggest peers.
So let’s review, Sun’s doing well on 1. and 2. with widespread adoption of “free” products like MySQL and Open Solaris, but lacks the sales and service firepower to execute on 3..
Did anyone say “IBM Global Services”?
And now, with the Cloud being touted as the future of IT, we see why a merger between IBM and Sun becomes a value creating proposition for both concerns. Sun becomes the “low-cost” open-source provider, while IBM gets to feed its highly profitable (and nowadays hungry) professional services division.
Which leaves Microsoft’s Azure out in the cold. Small wonder that Bill Gates used to say that IBM, not Google, was Microsoft’s real competitor.
On a more technical level, the rationale behind this merger can be seen more clearly if you take a look at Troy Angrignon’s wonderful Cloud Computing Ecosystem Map v1.0. Scroll down and zoom into the map; the merger seems to make more sense at this level. When you combine IBM and Sun, the resulting “tessellation” of competencies is very impressive.
As an end note, I’d like to state that this merger does not mean the race is over.
Far from it.
What we’re seeing is a new strategy developing across the IT industry. Hosting companies, MSPs, and SaaS providers will still have to provide clouds of their own to compete against Amazon, Microsoft and Google. There has always been room for a number of providers for hardware,
software and services, competing on price, value, and support. No one
player need dominate the cloud computing space. Choice and competition
always drives value and innovation.
Sure there’s plenty of room for discussion on the specifics, but the business benefits of Cloud Computing will make it an inevitable part of your future.
