I just finished the following presentation that we will be discussing at the Tampa Bay Cloud Computing meetup in a few days. Cloud security design considerations from Mike Kavis Here are some Key Take Aways The further down the cloud stack the more responsibility you own and must build Three aspects of securing systems are apply, detect, prevent Three key strategies: Centralize, Standardize, Automate Along with the control that comes with... Read More
Disaster recovery strategies in the cloud
Cloud computing allows us to build systems faster and cheaper than ever before. There are countless stories of companies building solutions that were unfeasible and practically impossible in the old days of purchasing servers and managing datacenters. But don’t be fooled, there are no silver bullets. When it comes to uptime and resiliency it still comes down to good old architecture and planning. This post will focus on different... Read More
Cloud computing’s impact on operating models
My most recent two clients are well established and highly technical companies. Both companies are taking highly successful products and modernizing and enhancing them as cloud services (one is a PaaS, the other a SaaS). Building SaaS and PaaS based solutions for consumption by external customers is a bigger under taking than many people realize. Obviously there are technical challenges in building high available and reliable systems, but the... Read More
Data considerations in the cloud
I am working on my book called Architecting the Cloud: Design Decisions for Cloud Computing Service Models (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) and am working on the chapter about data considerations in the cloud. In this post I will share a few of the topics that are discussed in the book for this chapter. Analyzing data requirements There are many characteristics of data that should be taken into consideration when building cloud services. Here is a... Read More
Responsibilities in the Cloud
I am working on my book called Architecting the Cloud: Design Decisions for Cloud Computing Service Models (SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS) and thought I would share some content for those readers who are relatively new to cloud computing. It is critical that people working on cloud initiatives understand what the responsibilities are within each service model. The following diagram shows a subset of the different components within each service model... Read More
Cloud Economics – Part 5: The Founder’s Dilemma
Welcome to part 5 of my 6 part series on how the cloud is changing the economics of business. This post focuses on an economic challenge that many founders are facing: The SaaS model is driving the prices of services down while the engineering efforts required to deliver on-demand services is more complex than in past models driving costs up. In other words, it takes a significant amount of engineering to build a real time, highly... Read More
Cloud Economics – Part 4: New Business Models
Welcome to part 4 of my 6 part series on how the cloud is changing the economics of business. In this post I will discuss how enterprise software is moving away from large, complex systems with expensive software licensing models to simple, focused, pay-as-you-go pricing models. Huge opportunities exist to solve existing business problems better than they have been solved in the past. One of the hardest things for entrepreneurs is deriving... Read More
How the cloud is changing the economics of business
I am writing a book on cloud service models and have been real busy interviewing architects, C-level executives and founders of both cloud based companies and companies rearchitecting legacy applications to take advantage of the cloud. I have talked with IaaS providers, PaaS providers, SaaS providers, B2C plays, B2B plays, 20 year old companies and stealth startups. I attended several meetups in Silicon Valley and met with a number of peers... Read More
Can you really be agile without an agile architecture?
The answer to that question depends on how agility is measured. If agility is measured in the delivery of user stories then the answer is yes. If a team is very good at an agile process yet the underlying architecture prohibits the types of changes the business really needs and wants, then the answer is no. I think agility should be measured in a team’s ability to meet business demand. Delivering quickly is one thing, being able to... Read More
Is the Cloud driving better software?
As companies shift to delivering software as a service (SaaS) or platforms (PaaS) the customer demand for increased security, closely measured SLAs, complete disaster recovery plans, and 24×7 availability is driving more rigid technical requirements. You can thank the cloud for this. Traditionally software companies built packaged software that only required a fraction of the technical requirements that today’s cloud services... Read More
