Cloud Computing Strategies

by Dimitris N. Chorafas

Overview

A guide to managing cloud projects, Cloud Computing Strategies provides the understanding required to evaluate the technology and determine how it can be best applied to improve business and enhance your overall corporate strategy. Based on extensive research, it examines the opportunities and challenges that loom in the cloud. It explains exactly what cloud computing is, what it has to offer, and calls attention to the important issues management needs to consider before passing the point of no return regarding financial commitments.

Illustrated with numerous examples and case studies, the book examines security, privacy, data ownership, and data protection in the cloud. It also:

• Explains how and why your company can benefit from Open Software and onDemand Services



• Identifies various cloud providers, their services, and their content as a basis for evaluating cost effectiveness



• Provides authoritative guidance on how to transition from a legacy system to the cloud



• Includes helpful tips for managing cloud vendor relationships and avoiding vendor lock-in

Whether you’re already in the cloud or just considering it, the text provides the unbiased understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of cloud computing needed to make informed decisions regarding its future in your organization. The book’s strength is that it supplies authoritative insight on everything needed to decide if you should make a transition to the cloud.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367383770
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/19/2019
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Dimitris N. Chorafas has, since 1961, advised financial institutions and industrial corporations in strategic planning, risk management, computers and communications systems, and internal controls. A graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Paris, and the Technical University of Athens, Dr. Chorafas has been a Fulbright scholar.

Financial institutions that sought his assistance include the Union Bank of Switzerland, Bank Vontobel, CEDEL, the Bank of Scotland, Credit Agricole, Osterreichische Landerbank (Bank Austria), First Austrian Bank, Kommerzbank, Dresdner Bank, Demir Bank, Mid-Med Bank, Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura, Istituto Bancario Italiano, Credito Commerciale and Banca Provinciale Lombarda.

Dr. Chorafas has worked as a consultant to top management of multinational corporations, including: General Electric-Bull, Univac, Honeywell, Digital Equipment, Olivetti, Nestle, Omega, Italcementi, Italmobiliare, AEG-Telefunken, Olympia, Osram, Antar, Pechiney, the American Management Association, and a host of other client firms in Europe and the United States.

He has served on the faculty of the Catholic University of America and as a visiting professor at Washington State University, George Washington University, University of Vermont, University of Florida, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Additionally, these educational institutes include the University of Alberta, Technical University of Karlsruhe, Ecole d’Etudes Industrielles de l’Universite de Geneve, Ecole Polytechnic Federale de Lausanne, the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

More than 8,000 banking, industrial, and government executives have participated in his seminars in the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Asia, and Latin America. Dr. Chorafas is the author of 153 books, some of which have been translated into 16 languages.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

About the Author xiii

Section I Cloud Technology and Its User Community

1 The Cloud Computing Market 3

1.1 For and against Cloud Computing 3

1.2 OnDemand vs. OnPremises IT 6

1.3 The Four Pillars of Cloud Computing 10

1.4 A Birds-Eye View of Cloud Computing Vendors 14

1.5 A New Industry Is Being Born 18

1.6 Competition in the Cloud Is Asymmetric 22

1.7 The Multi-Billion-Dollar Opportunity: Internet Advertising 25

2 What Cloud Computing Has to Offer 29

2.1 Public Clouds, Private Clouds, and Clients 29

2.2 Cloud Applications and Platforms 33

2.3 Providing the Cloud Infrastructure 36

2.4 Cloud Computing, Spectral Efficiency, Sensors, and Perspiration 40

2.5 The Technology of Enabling Services 44

2.6 At the Core of the Cloud Is Virtualization 48

2.7 Strategic Products and Tactical Products 52

3 Strategic Inflection Points 57

3.1 Strategic Inflection Points in Information Technology 57

3.2 Cloud Computing and Its Slogans 62

3.3 User-Centered Solutions and Cloud Computing 66

3.4 For Cloud Vendors an Inflection Point Is Risk and Opportunity 70

3.5 Cost Is One of the Dragons 74

3.6 The Problems of Opaque Pricing 78

3.7 Salesforce.com: A Case Study on Pricing onDemand Services 81

4 User Organizations of Cloud Computing 85

4.1 Potential Customers of Cloud Technology 85

4.2 The Cloud Interests Small and Medium Enterprises 88

4.3 Virtual Companies and the Cloud 92

4.4 Virtual Networked Objects 95

4.5 Consumer Technologies and the Cloud 99

4.6 Social Networks and Multimedia Messaging 103

Section II What User Organizations Should Know

5 Threats and Opportunities with Cloud Computing 109

5.1 The Computer Culture as We Know It Today May Disappear 109

5.2 The CIO's Career Is at Stake 112

5.3 Centralization May Be a Foe, Not a Friend 116

5.4 Budgeting for Cloud Computing 119

5.5 Outsourcing, Infrastructural Interdependencies, and the Cloud 122

5.6 Service Level Agreements 125

5.7 Is Cloud Computing a Lock-In Worse than Mainframes? 128

6 Reengineering the User Organization 133

6.1 Strategic Objectives and Reengineering 133

6.2 Organizational Solutions Are No Sacred Cows 137

6.3 The Number One Asset Is Human Resources at the CIO Level 140

6.4 Promoting Greater Productivity through Reorganization 144

6.5 The Transition from Legacy to Competitive Systems 148

6.6 Avoiding the Medieval EDP Mentality 151

Section III Any-To-Any Public and Private Clouds

7 Inside the Cloud of the Competitors 159

7.1 The Controllability of Computer Applications 159

7.2 Platforms Rising: Google Tries to Be a Frontrunner 162

7.3 Salesforce.com and Its Force 164

7.4 Microsoft Is Now on the Defensive 167

7.5 Amazon.com Leverages Its Infrastructure 170

7.6 EMC, VMWare, and Virtual Arrays of Inexpensive Disks 173

7.7 Wares of Other Cloud Challengers 175

8 The Saga of an Open Architecture 181

8.1 Searching for an Open Architecture 181

8.2 Challenges Posed by Big Systems 185

8.3 Infrastructure as a Utility 188

8.4 The Cloud's System Architecture and Its Primitives 191

8.5 The User Organization's Business Architecture 194

8.6 Financial Services Applications Architecture: A Case Study 198

8.7 The Architect's Job: Elegance, Simplicity, and Integration 201

9 Internet Cloud Security 205

9.1 Who Owns Whose Information on the Cloud? 205

9.2 When Responsibility for Security Takes a Leave, Accountability Goes Along 208

9.3 Data Fill the Air and Many Parties Are Listening 211

9.4 Many of the Cloud's Security Problems Date Back to the Internet 214

9.5 Security as a Service by Cloud Providers 218

9.6 Fraud Theory and Intellectual Property 220

9.7 A Brief Review of Security Measures and Their Weaknesses 223

9.8 Security Engineering: Outwitting the Adversary 226

10 Cloud Reliability, Fault Tolerance, and Response Time 231

10.1 Business Continuity Management in the Cloud 231

10.2 System Reliability, Human Factors, and Cloud Computing 234

10.3 Case Studies on Designing for Reliability 237

10.4 The Concept of Fault Tolerance in Cloud Computing 241

10.5 With the Cloud, Response Time Is More Important than Ever Before 244

10.6 Improving the Availability of Cloud Services 246

10.7 The Premium for Life Cycle Maintainability 250

Section IV Case Studies on Cloud Computing Applications

11 Open-Source Software and onDemand Services 255

11.1 The Advent of Open-Source Software 255

11.2 An Era of Partnerships in onDemand Software 258

11.3 Frameworks, Platforms, and the New Programming Culture 261

11.4 Finding Better Ways to Build IT Services 264

11.5 The Case of Software Dependability 268

11.6 Auditing the Conversion to Software as a Service 271

11.7 Software Piracy Might Enlarge the Open Source's Footprint 274

12 Leadership in Logistics 277

12.1 Logistics Defined 277

12.2 Customer Relationship Management 280

12.3 Enterprise Resource Planning 283

12.4 Wal-Mart: A Case Study in Supply Chain Management 286

12.5 Just-in-Time Inventories 289

12.6 Machine-to-Machine and RFID Communications 294

12.7 Challenges Presented by Organization and Commercial Vision 296

13 High Technology for Private Banking and Asset Management 301

13.1 Cloud Software for Private Banking 301

13.2 Leadership Is Based on Fundamentals 304

13.3 Cloud Software for Asset Management 308

13.4 Cloud Technology Can Improve Fund Management 311

13.5 Criteria of Success in Asset Management Technology 313

13.6 Functionality Specifics Prized by the Experts 316

13.7 Institutional Investors, High Net-Worth Individuals, and the Cloud 320

Epilog: Technology's Limit 325

Index 335