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Thread: Red Hat's CEO Discusses Cloud Computing

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    Default Red Hat's CEO Discusses Cloud Computing

    Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat discusses cloud computing on CNBC's Sqawk Box Asia. Red Hat's revenue for the last quarter increased by 20%. Red Hat's Enterprise Linux is a significant player in the infrastructure used for cloud computing.


    http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1537385859&play=1

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1537395456&play=1
    Last edited by jamrock; Jul 6, 2010 at 03:27 AM.

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    Default Red Hat's CEO Discusses Cloud Computing

    the foundation seems so be sound and solid giving reference to the security issue etc. I do like the suggestion that the iphone is not a secure device LOL. but very interesting will be following this situation.

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    Cloud Computing is the way of the future
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    Quote Originally Posted by Utech22 View Post
    Cloud Computing is the way of the future
    Maybe... Maybe not. Analysts said the same thing 10 years ago when it was called "software as a service". I have learnt to take these predictions with a grain of salt. I have heard too many of them over the years.

    Anyone who lived through the dotcom crash will understand how wrong technology leaders can be at understanding the present and predicting the future.

    I will wait and see.
    Last edited by jamrock; Jul 6, 2010 at 08:36 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jamrock View Post
    Maybe... Maybe not. Analysts said the same thing 10 years ago when it was called "software as a service". I have learnt to take these predictions with a grain of salt. I have heard too many of them over the years.

    Anyone who lived through the dotcom crash will understand how wrong technology leaders can be at understanding the present and predicting the future.

    I will wait and see.
    But now, broadband access which is a necessary ingredient to the delivery of satisfactory cloud services is more far reaching and easier to come by which, may make this trust for cloud computing a more credible and cost effective venture, especially with large companies like Google behind it.
    "God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest"

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    I am expecting cloud computing to be a part of the technology landscape going forward. However, I am not sure if it will be as all encompassing as some people think.

    Some suggest that companies will no longer invest large sums in hardware infrastructure since their operations will now be cloud based. Instead of purchasing software such as accounting packages and office suites, they will simply rent them from service providers.

    I don't know how extensive this will be. The argument states that companies that currently provide hardware/software installation/support will fade away or re-invent themselves in order to survive.

    Will this be so or will cloud computing simply be another option for companies to consider?

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    So called Cloud Computing will work for some and not for others. For the most part, expect the IT industry to remain the same. Companies will spend more on virtualization as the cost benefits will immediately materialize.

    Smaller companies who cannot afford to have an in house IT department will look towards the cloud to get the same products as larger firms without the hassle of managing it themselves. Those who are having troubles with their currently in house maintained systems will also be looking to migrate.

    As Jamrock said, Cloud Computing is nothing new, as it has just been renamed and the hype started again. Most people have been using the "cloud" for many years as its basis behind Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Salesforce, etc. Come to think of it, websites have been in the cloud forever as most companies do not bother with the hassles of serving their webpages from the servers in their data centre. Hosting providers have more bandwidth, redundant power and security benefits as your website can be hacked but it doesn't mean they have hacked your webserver and now have free reign to your internal network.

    When signing up for cloud computing from a provider be sure to the read the fine print. Agree on firm SLAs where you will be compensated for loss of service as their is no IT guy you can call into your office and scream at or fire when whatever application is down and you are losing revenue.

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    Interesting that you should mention virtualization.

    I remember with Windows 2000 that Microsoft talked about "scaling out" systems. At the time, big companies would install many of their applications on a single server. At the time hardware was expensive and big databases were running primarilly on Unix boxes.

    Dell started to sell cheap servers and it was now possible to purchase several servers and run a few services on each server. Google was (and still is) running open source software on cheap commodity servers. If one failed, they would throw it away and replace it with another.

    At the time analysts would talk about removing a single point of failure. Microsoft would talk about the benefits of using dedicated servers and using Active Directory to pull everything together. I can still remember reading interviews with Microsoft staff re: the improvements to SQL Server 2000. They argued that medium size companies could now have industrial strength databases running on cheap Intel servers with Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server 2000.

    Ten years later we are talking about consolidating services on a few servers. Companies are now talking about the savings from using virtual machines. This is the opposite of where the industry was heading ten years ago.

    If you stay in this business long enough, you will see trends like cloud computing and virtualization come and go. Every time a new trend starts, it is said to be the way of the future. Analysts will say that companies will have to adapt or die.

    Trust me on this. Technology companies have to come out with new products and hype them up in order to make money. Red Hat has a vested interest in cloud computing. Much of the cloud infrastructure runs on open source software.

    This is just business. I try to keep the whole thing in perspective and avoid the hype.
    Last edited by jamrock; Jul 7, 2010 at 09:13 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jamrock View Post
    Interesting that you should mention virtualization.

    I remember with Windows 2000 that Microsoft talked about "scaling out" systems. At the time, big companies would install many of their applications on a single server. At the time hardware was expensive and big databases were running primarilly on Unix boxes.

    Dell started to sell cheap servers and it was now possible to purchase several servers and run a few services on each server. Google was (and still is) running open source software on cheap commodity servers. If one failed, they would throw it away and replace it with another.

    At the time analysts would talk about removing a single point of failure. Microsoft would talk about the benefits of using dedicated servers and using Active Directory to pull everything together. I can still remember reading interviews with Microsoft staff re: the improvements to SQL Server 2000. They argued that medium size companies could now have industrial strength databases running on cheap Intel servers with Windows 2000 Server and SQL Server 2000.

    Ten years later we are talking about consolidating services on a few servers. Companies are now talking about the savings from using virtual machines. This is the opposite of where the industry was heading ten years ago.

    If you stay in this business long enough, you will see trends like cloud computing and virtualization come and go. Every time a new trend starts, it is said to be the way of the future. Analysts will say that companies will have to adapt or die.

    Trust me on this. Technology companies have to come out with new products and hype them up in order to make money. Red Hat has a vested interest in cloud computing. Much of the cloud infrastructure runs on open source software.

    This is just business. I try to keep the whole thing in perspective and avoid the hype.
    Jamrock the enterprise is not moving in the opposite direction of where we were ten years ago, the limiting factors have just changed. Before the limiting factors were speed, cost, reliability. With the capacity of computers exceeding moore's law currently it makes sense to consolidate services, as price is now the major limiting factor. It is now more cost effective to go virtual, or cloud based. As a matter of fact cloud computing is following the same principles as your point of splitting services across multiple machines. Virtualization for the desktop environment follows the same principle since one server can now have multiple processors etc. Basically our hardware has exceeded software requirements, so we stick more software on to one piece of hardware, with redundancy.
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    Quote Originally Posted by megiddo View Post
    Jamrock the enterprise is not moving in the opposite direction of where we were ten years ago, the limiting factors have just changed.
    It is. Back then the movement was away from consolidation towards using several servers. Today the movement is away from using several servers to consolidation.

    Quote Originally Posted by megiddo View Post
    Before the limiting factors were speed, cost, reliability. With the capacity of computers exceeding moore's law currently it makes sense to consolidate services, as price is now the major limiting factor. It is now more cost effective to go virtual, or cloud based.
    Okay.

    Quote Originally Posted by megiddo View Post
    As a matter of fact cloud computing is following the same principles as your point of splitting services across multiple machines. Virtualization for the desktop environment follows the same principle since one server can now have multiple processors etc. Basically our hardware has exceeded software requirements, so we stick more software on to one piece of hardware, with redundancy.
    Good arguments.

    That is not my point, however. My point is that people tend to expect each new trend to be a major game changer. Often times these trends are not. They tend to add something to the technological landscape but they do not radically change everything.

    We were told in the dotcom era that ecommerce was going to change the world. We were told that brick and mortar businesses would have to adapt or die. Ecommerce is an important part of how we do business, but brick and mortar business transactions still make up the majority of commercial transactions today.

    Many of the ecommerce success stories are companies like Barnes and Noble, JC Penny and Walmart who use ecommerce to extend their physical stores. Only a few of them are pure ecommerce companies like Amazon.

    I expect that many companies will adopt cloud computing and virtualization. However, I don't expect companies to stop purchasing hardware and software in a big way. Some type of mixed approach is likely.

    BTW, Red Hat is hosting a webinar on cloud computing tomorrow 08/07/10. Get the details here:
    https://inquiries.redhat.com/go/redh...mputingWebinar


    For additional webinars see:

    http://www.redhat.com/webinars/
    Last edited by jamrock; Jul 7, 2010 at 10:09 PM.

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