For the past few months I have not been writing much on this blog as I have concentrated on my academic writing. The first output from this project is now available:  A critical review of cloud computing: researching desires and realities via Journal of Information Technology – Table of Contents.

Through a review of literature and from evidence based on interviews with around 50 industry players, we identify a set of “desires” for those seeking to go to the cloud (split into two dimensions technological desires, and service desires:

The technological dimension of cloud desire

Equivalence:  The desire to receive a technical service which is at least equivalent (in terms of security, latency and availability) to that experienced when using a locally running traditional IT systems.

Variety:  The desire to receive a service which provides variety corresponding with the use for which the service will be put.

Abstraction:  The desire to receive technical services which abstract away unnecessary complexity for the service they provide.

Scalability: The desire to receive a service which is scalable to meet demand.

The service dimension of cloud desire

Efficiency:  The desire to receive a service that helps users be more efficient economically.

Creativity:  The desire to receive a service which aids innovation and creativity.

Simplicity:  The desire to receive a service which is simple to understand and use.

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A critical review of cloud computing: researching desires and realities

Will Venters and Edgar A Whitley

J Inf Technol advance online publication, August 14, 2012; doi:10.1057/jit.2012.17

Abstract | Full Text | PDF | Request Permission

Abstract:

Cloud computing has become central to current discussions about corporate information technology. To assess the impact that cloud may have on enterprises, it is important to evaluate the claims made in the existing literature and critically review these claims against empirical evidence from the field. To this end, this paper provides a framework within which to locate existing and future research on cloud computing. This framework is structured around a series of technological and service ‘desires’, that is,  characteristics of cloud that are important for cloud users. The existing literature on cloud computing is located within this framework and is supplemented with empirical evidence from interviews with cloud providers and cloud users that were undertaken between 2010 and 2012. The paper identifies a range of research questions that arise from the analysis.

My review (with Edgar Whitley) of cloud computing is out in Journal of Information Technology in September/December, but before then the most recent review is:

“A Descriptive Literature Review and Classification of Cloud Computing Research” by Haibo Yang and Mary Tate.

Yang, Haibo and Tate, Mary (2012) “A Descriptive Literature Review and Classification of Cloud Computing Research,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 31, Article 2. 

“We present a descriptive literature review and classification scheme for cloud computing research. This includes 205 refereed journal articles published since the inception of cloud computing research. The articles are classified based on a scheme that consists of four main categories: technological issues, business issues, domains and applications, and conceptualising cloud computing. The results show that although current research is still skewed towards technological issues, new research themes regarding social and organisational implications are emerging. This review provides a reference source and classification scheme for IS researchers interested in cloud computing, and to indicate under-researched areas as well as future directions.”

(Note: Since this post was written my article is out – CLICK HERE for details )

 

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Congratulations on this fantastic achievement, and to all those who contributed – particularly my friends at GridPP.

For five years I followed the work of those developing the Grid computing infrastructure at CERN (www.pegasus.lse.ac.uk) and the dedication they put into ensuring their ‘small’ contribution to this result (256 data-centres is hardly small). The analysis at CERN which led to this discovery was all run on the worlds largest Grid computing infrastructure – developed in a highly agile way by particle physicists themselves.

(Our research papers on Grid development at CERN)

Venters,W and Kyriakidou-Zacharoudiou,A (2012) “Interventionist Grid Development Projects: A research framework based on three frames.” Information Technology and People.

Zheng,Y.,W. Venters and T. Cornford (2011) “Agility, Paradox and Organizational Improvisation: The Development of a Particle Physics Grid” Information Systems Journal 21(4) 303-333. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2010.00360.x

For many the following video will be unsurprising – it’s just a tour of another data-centre (albeit a famous one). Yet it demonstrates the sheer physicality of the cloud. We can pretend the internet is something “out there” but these industrial buildings hidden around the world, with their pipework and power distribution systems are reminiscent of any factory producing any physical product.

The Google Data Center – YouTube.

At 11am (GMT) on the WEDNESDAY I will be giving a webinar for BrightTalk.com…. The topic is listed below so book your place now!

To book see: http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/499/44765

—- (Description of my talk)

Will Venters will focus on the strategic use of cloud computing, questioning whether our focus on private and public sets too great an emphasis on the organisational boundary. By adopting a view that we should instead look at firms as service-constellations and challenge this boundary, he will look at how future organisations may capitalise on a move to cloud. This is not however a utopian picture, with significant challenges and risks of such a move highlighted and explored.

I’ve been very quiet on the blog for the last few months. In part this is because I am preparing a detailed academic paper on Cloud Computing (details will follow in a month or so ) and in part because teaching and life bogged me down.

In any case you might like to see details of a grant I have just won with colleagues around the UK.  Creativity Greenhouse: SeRTES. My interest is in how value-networks emerge, and how we can better understand the networks of value and service which emerge through the increasing integration of companies through their development of distributed systems using architectures such as cloud computing.

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The SeRTES project aims to provide a set of requirements/specification of a visualisation to show scenarios, ‘the whole’ rather than ‘the parts’, how issues in a technological enabled society are dynamically related i.e. how entities, individuals, institutions, laws, and risks dynamically interact within the virtual realm. The research would also abstract key constructs (of entities, links and flows) for the visualisation that allow ‘non-obvious’ representation that is parsimonious and powerful. We will develop a skeletal representation and demonstrator that could have richness and layers added over time, beyond the current project scope. The project will also devise ways of extracting (queries), from the visualisation, ways it can be used, e.g. value risk, how to value stewardship, security, privacy, contingent values, trust and if there are useful inter-, intra-layer notions of ‘trust domain’ that can help us organize the architecture of the ecosystem to enable interactions, transactions, and ecosystem development. This queries would help support decisions, resulting in a tool that can be used by the policy makers, business leaders, and law enforcement officers to make intelligent decisions. The SeRTES project proposes to represent a ‘tool of tools’ that is truly trans-disciplinary and cross-cultural. Finally, the project sees its research as a seed-corn project and expects to seek more funding to add to the richness of the representation and develop a network of studies complementing this project.

Where did the term Cloud Computing emerge from? This article attempts to explore…

“For Compaq, it was the start of a $2-billion-a-year business selling servers to Internet providers. For OSullivans startup venture, it was a step toward disenchantment and insolvency.”

via Who Coined Cloud Computing? – Technology Review.

 

 

 

 

Lightning strikes cloud: Amazon, MS downed • The Register.

 

As my colleague Edgar Whitley put it:

“Don’t put all your independent data centres in the same city.”

CIOs lack adequate cloud computing knowledge | Networks Asia.

Evidence from KPMG Sourcing Advisory of the woeful inadequacy of CIO’s understanding of Cloud Computing issues…

Press release from LSE regarding our research on Cloud Computing.

The potential storms of cloud computing – 06 – 2011 – News archive – News – News and media – Home.