Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 7)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Yes, I think there are several of those low-hanging fruits. I think the entire domain of collaboration has lots of applications, whether it is Web conferencing, which is pretty much operating on a cloud computing basis, or something else. There are a bunch of cloud-friendly applications such as video conferencing that will probably be leading on the cloud applications front. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 6)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Yes, I think that is what IBM is trying to achieve. I spoke with Pat Toole and Rick Telford at IBM earlier as part of the Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing series, and they both talked about how they are trying to build up the integrated stack in a pre-configured manner. IBM is planning to offer such functionality to people who are trying to do private cloud deployment. Their customers are the large vendors that are looking for the kind of configuration that you have just described. I think that is where they are going to end up. Among the small and mid-size companies, say outside of this Fortune 500 list, I’m not sure if anyone is doing that soon. On the other hand, this configuration that you are describing is probably more a Fortune 500 or global 2000 type of requirement, as opposed to what smaller companies need, isn’t it? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 5)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Do you see that happening with high-powered clouds? Do you see any SaaS vendors such as Salesforce.com creating offerings that are going to be deployed in a completely private cloud mode?

DH: I think I’m not sure what Salesforce.com has planned. I’m not really engaged with those guys at all. I would say, in general you are going to have it. Salesforce.com is enjoying such success in their current offering mode that until they feel challenged by a groundswell of customer requirements for an offering with an on-premise mode; I think they will probably not look at private clouds. I think there are a lot of applications that are mid-tier applications; they are going to be forced to really offer themselves both in hybrid mode. By hybrid mode I mean both as a service where there is zero footprint on the client’s data center floor and in some general fashion where it is sustained, tested, and maintained in a virtualized infrastructure but not on their own premises – so it is more like a traditional license model, but optimized to take advantage of the major virtualization platform such as Citrix, VMWare, and the like. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 4)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: The 10% cost savings number is not what I am hearing from those who have really adapted to the cloud model. I have done a lot of these interviews. At this point, if you go through that series you will see people have been gaining a lot more than 10%. >>>

Top 10 Tech Trends For The Decade

2010 is drawing to a close. Mark Zuckerberg has just been named Time’s Person of the Year. We’ve been covering various tech companies and entrepreneurs since 2005, and this year, here is a quick synthesis of what look like the major trends from where I sit: >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 3)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Let us take these points that you mention one at a time. First, what are your observations based on your analysis? Second, can you share your observations on the cost reduction gained through cloud computing? Related to that, are you seeing definitive cost reductions? What are the percentages observed? >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 2)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

SM: Dave, can you share names of the application vendors that cater to your specific requirements for private or public cloud–based solutions?

DH: We are using EDP for our payroll systems and payroll management. We actually have a ‘Sales Tax and Use Tax’ application that we get from another service provider as well. Our HR team uses a resume management services which is a very small application, and I don’t remember the name of that, either. But it is an ASP model solution. >>>

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Dave Hart, CTO and EVP, Presidio (Part 1)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini

What is the contribution of cloud computing in today’s rapidly evolving enterprise data center – is it speed, efficiency, lower costs, or more? Cloud adoption is driven today as much by time to market as by the cost and efficiency considerations. Businesses demand a data center that is responsive to the IT needs of the organization. The next-generation data center is flexible; easy to manage; highly efficient in terms of performance with lower costs for deployment and operation; actively harness technologies such as virtualization; has mechanisms for improved power and cooling; and incorportates cloud computing and its new business models. >>>