Nothing but the web

Nothing but the web

This year cloud computing went mainstream, and the conversations moved beyond "this is a way to cut costs" to "this is a better way to run my business." While many IT vendors have now adopted (or co-opted) the term “cloud computing” to describe a wide variety of technologies, most don’t deliver on the true promise of the cloud. Hosting single-tenant server products in a data center is not cloud computing. Nor is requiring customers to install thick client software. These solutions lock-in customers to multi-year release cycles, leave them with the significant costs of managing client software, and expose sensitive data on insecure devices. In 2011, we are committed to moving beyond the current notion of cloud computing to bring customers to a world we call 100% web.

100% web

In a 100% web world, business applications are delivered over the Internet and accessed in a web browser. The applications and the data are stored centrally and are designed to be served from a highly scalable, secure and reliable multi-tenant infrastructure. Devices like notebooks, tablets, and smartphones are portals to the data that help people be productive from anywhere, at any time. Upgrades aren’t necessary to get access to the latest innovation, just refresh the browser. Businesses no longer own or manage servers and client software: they purchase integrated applications and development platforms from others, and now devote their valuable time to business logic and features that create competitive advantage.

We are investing in a variety of technologies so that companies can be productive with nothing but the web:

• Google Apps is the world’s most popular suite of web-based communication and collaboration applications, and includes email, instant messaging, calendaring, documents, sites, video sharing, Postini services and dozens more. We will continue to improve and expand our offerings to bring more powerful technologies to our more than three million customers.
• Google App Engine lets companies build their own applications for internal or external use and host them on Google infrastructure. This allows for faster and easier development, virtually no ongoing maintenance, and the ability to easily scale to meet capacity needs at short notice. App Engine already sees more than 1 billion page views per day from more than 150,000 active applications, and we will be launching App Engine for Business more broadly in 2011.
• Google Apps Marketplace provides the other applications customers need to build their business on the web, integrated with Google Apps and installed in a few clicks. The marketplace will continue to grow beyond its 250 applications and make it easier for businesses to find, evaluate, and purchase the best non-Google applications on the web.
• Android is one of the fastest growing mobile platforms in the world and designed to drive innovation and choice. Companies can now manage Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and other ActiveSync devices right from the browser. And the Android team is hard at work on a new version of the platform that addresses the unique aspects of tablet form factors and use cases.
• Google Chrome is an open source web browser developed to provide users with a fast, simple, and secure web-browsing experience with modern web applications. Chrome has become 300% faster in just two years, and adoption has tripled over the last year. This week we announced new features for Chrome to make managing enterprise deployments easy. Also, companies using older versions of Internet Explorer for their legacy applications can use Google Chrome Frame to access modern web apps that rely on technologies like HTML5.
• Google Chrome OS is a new operating system designed from the ground up for 100% web. By building an operating system that is essentially a browser, we can make computers faster, much simpler and fundamentally more secure. Last Tuesday, we announced the Chrome notebook Pilot program (apply to pilot) and Chrome devices for business will be available for purchase in 2011.

While many companies are able to jump right to 100% web, we understand that other larger businesses have substantial investments in legacy technology. So we’re also investing in solutions that bridge existing technologies to the world of 100% web:

• Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office allows people to continue to use the familiar Office interface (including Office 2003, 2007, and 2010), while reaping many of the benefits of web-based collaboration that Google Docs users already enjoy. It will be available soon.
• Google Message Continuity is a very cost-effective form of disaster recovery that lets Microsoft Exchange customers leverage the reliability of Gmail to back up their servers.

100% web is a dramatic shift from how companies have traditionally purchased, deployed, and managed IT. But the more we talk with customers the more we realize that this is the change they’ve been waiting for. It is the ultimate extension of the cloud computing model, and it brings substantial benefits for companies that no other IT model can provide in terms of simplicity, cost, security, flexibility, and pace of innovation. If 2010 was the year of the cloud, 2011 looks to be the year of nothing but the web.

Automating business processes in Google Sites with Google Apps Scripts

Google Sites lets you create public or internal web sites, and today we’re enabling scripts to support multi-step workflows in sites.

For example, your company can create a site for employees to browse and register for training sessions and career development programs. On the page describing each training session or class, you could add a “Register Now” button, which would automatically add registrants to the class roster, add the details of the session to each participant's Google Calendar, and email users to confirm enrollment. All of these automated actions can be driven by a script embedded in the site.

Starting today, you can create, edit, and launch Google Apps Scripts from any Google Site, which allows you to automate business processes that involve multiple applications. As in the example above, an Apps Script function can automate tasks such as sending emails, scheduling calendar events, creating and updating site pages using data from other systems, and more.

You can build a script by clicking “More actions” > “Manage site” > “Apps Scripts.” Once you’ve added a script to your site, you can add links or buttons to trigger the script from any page. For tips to get started with scripts, visit the Google Apps Script site.

Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age

10 Things I Know About... Cloud Computing

10. Definition

Cloud computing is using the Internet to perform tasks which would traditionally have been performed on a computer located within your office walls.

9. Cloud Solutions

Hosted e-mail, online backup and any software-as-a-service are examples of cloud computing.

8. The Benefits

By using cloud computing, your business may find reduced hardware maintenance costs, ease of sharing data and applications with remote users, and automated backup.

7. The Drawbacks

The largest drawback is that you are 100 percent reliant upon your Internet connection being available to work.

6. A Good Fit

Cloud computing may not be for every business. You need to look at how you use technology today and how you think your organization will evolve in the coming years to determine the best fit for your organization.

5. Safety First

Data stored in the cloud is as safe as any other transmission over the Internet. You should ensure that data is encrypted not only while traveling to and from your cloud solution, but also when being stored and backed up on the other end.

4. Fee Considerations

Most cloud-based solutions charge a monthly fee for application usage and data storage. There could be a trade-off for other types of fees you are paying today.

3. Local v. Cloud

You can keep some data local while moving some to the cloud. The key to using cloud computing well is to figure out which applications will provide the most value by moving them and which should be kept in-house.

2. Second Thoughts

There is a risk if you change your mind about what data should be stored in the cloud. Your migration costs could be significant and some cloud solutions require a long-term contract.

1. Privacy

Reputable providers will take steps to ensure the proper segmentation of your data. Be sure to ask this question before making a decision on a provider.

Virtualization & State of Cloud Computing

A survey of data center and IT management professional conducted by Zenoss, an Annapolis, Md.-based data center software and service provider reveals some surprising facts about virtualization and cloud computing. The results were collated from the responses of 204 individuals. Here are the the findings of the survey plus an info graphic outlining the State of the Cloud Computing:

79.3 percent of those surveyed used VMWare’s virtualization technology, while Citrix’s Xen was the second most popular virtualization technology with 32.7 percent of users. Oracle VirtualBox was third with 22.0 percent, and Linux Kernel-Based Virtual Machines (KVM) was fourth with 21.3 percent. Many used multiple hypervisors.

Nearly 65 percent say they use virtualization technology because of cost savings.

43.3 percent of participants use virtualization because of of the flexibility they get. About a third indicate hardware savings as a reason to use virtualization, and 40.7 percent said they preferred to deploy servers virtually.

The survey noted that nearly half of the respondents wanted to deploy hosted Linux servers in 2010, while 32.6 percent indicated interest in the Microsoft Windows servers.,

Amazon was the most popular cloud service, with 43.9 percent of respondents indicating interest its service. Google AppEngine got 28 percent, and about 22.7 percent indicated that they planned to use Microsoft Azure. Rackspace’s cloud offerings interested only 15.9 percent of the cloud offerings.

When asked what tools were they using to manage their cloud infrastructure, nearly 50.8 percent said none, while 33.3 percent said that they were using web-based tools from the hosting provider. New, specialized, cloud/virtualization tools had 9.8 percent of the total share.

Nearly 39.4 percent of the respondents said they were worried about security, while 26.5 percent said they were concerned about management. Monitoring got 19.4 percent of the responses, and availability had 16.7 percent.