INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS Computing Takes Off in the Cloud Cloud computing is now the fastest-growing form of owning information technology, it doesn't always computing. The biggest players in the cloud com deliver on its promise. Por large companies, paying puting marketplace include Amazon Web Services a public cloud provider a monthly service fee for (AWS), Microsoft, and Google. These companies 10,000 or more employees may actually be more have made cloud computing an affordable and sen expensive than having the company maintain its sible option for companies ranging from tiny Inter own IT infrastructure and staff. Companies also net startups to established companies like Netflix worry about unexpected runaway costs" from using and FedEx a pay-per-use model. Integrating cloud services with For example, Aws provides subscribing companies existing IT infrastructures, errors, mismanagement, with flexible computing power and data storage as or unusually high volumes of web traffic will run up well as data management, messaging, payment, and the bill for cloud service users. The more data and other services that can be used together or individu systems that a company uses in the cloud, the big. ally as the business requires. Anyone with an Inter ger the job of changing cloud providers. When you net connection and a little bit of money can harness buy cloud software, you may be stuck with it for a the same computing systems that Amazon itself uses long time. to run its retail business. If customers provide speci Gartner, Inc. technology consultants advise cli- fications on the amount of server space, bandwidth, ents contemplating public cloud services to take into storage, and any other services they require, AWS account the number of machines an organization can automatically allocate those resources. You don't will run, the number of hours per day or per week pay a monthly or yearly fee to use Amazon's com they'll run, and the amount of storage their data will puting resources-instead, you pay for exactly what require. Additional costs include licenses that need you use. Economies of scale keep costs astonishingly to be paid for on a recurring basis, the rate of change low, and AWS has been able to keep reducing prices for the data, and how much new data the business To remain competitive, other cloud computing ven is expected to generate. A very large company may dors have had to follow suit find it cheaper to own and manage its own data cen Cloud computing also appeals to many busi ter or private cloud. But as public clouds become nesses because the cloud services provider will more efficient and secure and the technology grows handle all of the maintenance and upkeep of their cheaper, large companies will start using more cloud IT infrastructures, allowing these businesses to resources spend more time on higher-value work. Startup A major barrier to widespread cloud adoption is companies and smaller companies are finding that concern about cloud reliability and security. Ama- they no longer need to build their own data center zon Web Services experienced an outage on Septem- With cloud infrastructures like Amazon's readily ber 20, 2015, that affected Netflix, Reddit, IMDB, available, they have access to technical capability Product Hunt, Social Plow, and Amazon's own that was formerly available to only much larger Alexa and Instant Video services for users across businesses. Oscar Insurance is a New York-based eastern North America. There were also significant health insurance company that relics heavily on Amazon cloud outages several times a year in the information technology to help customers obtain preceding five years. As cloud computing contin- better care and keep track of their health. The com mes to mature and the major cloud infrastructure pany built its HIPAA-compliant health insurance providers gain more experience, cloud service and platform and analytics applications on AWS in just reliability have steadily improved. Experts recom- three months. By using AWS, Oscar can scale to mend that companies for whom an outage would support the traffic spikes during healthcare open be a major risk consider using another computing enrollment season as well as support more than 125 service as a backup production changes a day that continually improve In February 2016 Netflix completed a decade- customer experience long project to shut down its own data centers and Although cloud computing has been touted as a use Amazon's cloud exclusively to run its business. cheap and more flexible alternative to buying and Management liked not having to guess months beforehand what the firm's hardware, storage, and Most midsized and large companies will gravitate networking needs would be. Aws would provide toward a hybrid approach. The top cloud provid- whatever Netflix needed at the moment. ers themselves-Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix had experienced a major hardware failure IBM-use their own public cloud services for some in 2008 at its own data center and began moving purposes, but they continue to keep certain func its computing to AWS the following year. The first tions on private servers. Worries about reliability, thing Netflix shifted was its jobs page, followed by security, and risks of change have made it difficult functions such as its video player, iPhone-related for them to move critical computing tasks to the technology, discovery and search, and accounts public cloud. pages. Netflix shifted its big data platform to AWS Giant Eagle, one of the largest U.S. privately in 2013 and billing and payments in 2014. Netflix held multiformat food, fuel and pharmacy retail- is now fully reliant on AWS, using a variety of ers, is adopting a hybrid cloud solution from IBM web-based software tools such as human resources Cloud. The hybrid cloud will provide capablilties software from Workday Inc. for its business for consumption-based pricing, faster procurement, applications and customized deployment of applications along Netflix also maintains a content-delivery network with integrated system management for greater through Internet service providers and other third visibility into enterprise data. Marriott is keeping parties to speed up the delivery of movies and web its own data centers but updating them to use the traffic between Netflix and its customers. Netflix latest cloud technology. It also uses IBM's cloud competes with Amazon in the video streaming busi to host apps that it doesn't want to host itself. The ness, and it wanted to retain control of its own con hybrid cloud environment offers faster digital ser- tent delivery network vices to web-savvy guests and helps Marriott use About 12 percent of companies run IT operations analytics to cover insights about traveler prefer entirely in the cloud, and nearly all of these compa ences for its more than 4,000 properties across the nies are small or medium-sized businesses, accord globe. ing to a recent survey by Better Cloud, which makes management and security products. BetterCloud predicts that by 2022, slightly more than 20 peront Source: "AWS Case Staty Oscar Insurance, www.n.com, of large enterprise companies will operate entirely in sed May 4, 2016 Robert Milan, Cload-Computing Kingpins the cloud Slow to Adapt to Own Movement, St. August 4, 2015 Glenn O'Donnell, vice president and research Robert McMillan and Rachael King, Nefis is Ready to Pull Plug on Its Final Data Center Wall Street August 14, 2015, Dan Ber director at Porrester Research, believes that a theme, Giant Eagle Flies to the Cloud Chair Desember 100 percent cloud operation will be extremely rare 4, 2015: Daryl KTA, TIM Land Cloud Deals with Mattoth for large established companies. Many large com- en Weebruary 2, 2015, Kelly. "The $10 Hedge Pund Super panics are moving more of their computing to the computer That's Sweeping Wall Street, Boomberg Business Werk May 20, 2015, David Strefield and Nick Wingfield, With Amon cloud but are unable to migrate completely. Legacy Atop the Cloud, Big Thch Rivals Are Giving Chanh Times systems are the most difficult to switch over Apell 23, 2015 Questions 1. What is cloud computing, why company user/business want to use cloud computing services? What are the types of cloud? 2. What kind of cloud services does Amazon's AWS provide? What do you see as the special characters of AWS' cloud services? 3. Why cloud computing become so popular in these 2 years? Who are the major providers? 4. What are the major concerns of the IT managers before moving to the cloud? 5. What are the major barriers of the wide adoption of cloud? Any example? 6. Why large companies are hesitating to move 100% of the operation to the cloud