Unforeseen Benefits - Cloud Adolescence

In the late 1970s and early 80s the number of Personal Computers  was growing quickly.  Some organizations moved from a few dozen to hundreds of machines in a matter of months.

PCs were the cool new toy and universities were among the first to the toy box.  

I worked in IT at Harvard during that time and the big buzz was about connecting all of those machines together in  local area networks (LANs).  Seems easy and natural now but from about 1983 on, every year was "the year of the LAN" – a year that was nearly a decade long.

It did finally happen though.

The campus was finally wired and once everyone was connected the real fun began. Yes, there were some cost savings in shared resources but the clearest benefits were unforeseen improvements in communications, productivity, information access and collaboration.  For the students there were lots of neat games, and then we all discovered browsers and the internet.  Anybody remember Mosaic?

There are a number of parallels in the present move toward the cloud transformation of IT.  But it hasn't taken a decade to reach cloud adolescence.  It’s already very real – for us, for our partners and for our customers.

Clouds Quicken 

In just a few years, cloud has become core to EMC business.  It’s happened at a very aggressive pace.  Just look at our 2011 numbers.  We’re spending a lot of R&D energy on the cloud technology pieces - our virtual storage, major leaps forward in infrastructure, software, services, automation etc..  These are combined with lots of other cloud essential bits - networking, virtualization, cloud friendly applications - and then implemented to build private, public or hybrid clouds.   

Each bit is needed to make the cloud work but none are certain to make it effective.  That requires even more work, creativity and experimentation.  

Sometimes you just have to try it and see what happens. 

EMC customers and partners are all most interested in this part - what makes it effective?  What are the benefits? What are some exciting positives?  What are the unforeseen use-cases that can provide a competitive edge?

 

Think About Virtual Everything 

I start with the premise that a comprehensive approach - systems thinking -  is essential to successfully achieve efficient and sustainable IT.  That surely carries forward to the cloud.  But the potential impacts reach way beyond the obvious costs and predictable IT or business implications.  And the scope of the "system" is rapidly growing.  

Take the technology and the cost savings as a given.  Once you have embraced the cloud, what can you do with it? 

Using technology, workers can function remotely.  This has been happening for a long time.  Then come virtual companies.  Amazon may be the best known but many others have followed.  Some have been successful beyond any expectation - Facebook,  about to go public at a value of at least $5B. 

Clearly no longer limited to a few edgy start-ups, it's mainstream.  

Although not strictly virtual, many companies have standardized arrangements for virtual teams, scattered across the country or around the Globe.  Although the time zone differences can make for some weird hours and sleepy conference calls.

Of course there are the expected outgrowths of cloud capabilities.  Service Providers are offering platform, application, computing services.  Consumer options are providing on-line backup and synchronization of multiple devices and access to your personal data from any connected device. 

Then there are some not-so-obvious developments.  How about virtual schools?  Yes, I know that colleges have been doing on-line learning for years and all sorts of education gets delivered over the web.  But how about substituting virtual grade schools for the local town classrooms?  The state of Massachusetts now runs a virtual school - Kindergarten through High School.  The company, K12 Inc.,  is contracted to run it and is already doing this in 25 states.  

I know of one service provider that offers virtual city government from their cloud.

It may be news that these businesses exist but they have found a profitable model and the imitators are growing quickly. These are not edge cases.  These are fundamental changes enabled by network, virtualizaiton and cloud capabilities that change every dimension of how we interact with each other, for better or worse.

In its adolescence, the cloud technology has already enabled a unique creativity to construct new models of commerce and education, and social interaction that will continue to surprise and I hope mostly delight us. 

Imagine what it will do in maturity.

 

Comments

[Frederickas65]

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[AsuncionDo50]

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[VincentCas09]

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