Did you miss Cloudstock? This first of its kind event brought the top cloud developers and the top cloud technologies together under one roof. If you missed a session, or if you weren’t able to come to Cloudstock, here is your chance to enjoy the event online.
Cloudstock was organized by Salesforce and the event drew a who’s who of cloud technology providers. There were 65+ sessions with a goal, “to bring the top cloud developers and the top cloud technologies together under one roof, to learn from each other, collaborate, innovate, and drive the future of cloud computing.”
The massive scale of the event makes it difficult to watch all the recorded sessions, so I’ve noted my favorite sessions below. Enjoy!
JP Rangaswami of Salesforce recently posted 10 guiding cloud principles that Salesforce has been working for quite some time. The principles are aimed to promote, “openness, standards, transparency, trust and guarantees”. So what do you think? The comments in the original post are interesting. You can read them here and post your own feedback.
Here they are, ten guiding principles, in draft form:
Transparency: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should explain their information handling practices and disclose the performance and reliability of their services on their public Web sites.
Use Limitation: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should claim no ownership rights in customer data and should use customer data only as their customers instruct them, or to fulfil their contractual or legal obligations.
Disclosure: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should disclose customer data only if required to do so by the customer or by law, and should provide affected customers prior notice of any legally compelled disclosure to the extent permissible by law.
Security Management System: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should maintain a robust security management system that is based on an internationally accepted security framework (such as ISO 27002) to protect customer data.
Customer Security Features: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should provide their customers with a selection of security features to implement in their usage of the cloud computing services.
Data Location: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should make available to their customers a list of countries in which their customer data related to them is hosted.
Breach Notification: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should notify customers of known security breaches that affect the confidentiality or integrity of their customer data promptly.
Audit: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should use third-party auditors to ensure compliance with their security management system and with these principles.
Data Portability: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should make available to customers their respective customer data in an industry-standard, downloadable format.
Accountability: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should work with their customers to designate appropriate roles for privacy and security accountability.
Just a quick reminder that the Spring ’11 release of Salesforce is right around the corner. Click here to view the release page for highlights or to download the full release notes or click here to view the release webinar.
My personal favorite improvements are criteria-based sharing which allow administrators to define data-dependent sharing rules with clicks, not code and @Mentions, #Topics and likes in Chatter, which enhances the ability to loop colleagues in and keep track of conversations.
Just this past week, the lead government IT procurement agency, the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), released a draft strategy paper (PDF). In doing so, the Australian Government has moved to encourage adoption of cloud-based services by educating and removing stigmas that have prevented cloud use by government and corporations in the past.
According to the strategy, several agencies have already begun trialling cloud services, including the Australian Tax Office, Treasury, Dept. of Immigration and Citizenship, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
It bodes well for cloud computing that those organisations are moving towards to the cloud. Interested in learning more?
The full paper includes:
An overview of cloud computing
Identification of cloud-enabling policy requirements including governance and procurement
Identification of cloud-enabling operational requirements including virtualisation, security, privacy and transition
Outline of potential risks, issues and benefits associated with cloud computing
Identification of opportunities for government to adopt cloud computing
An overview of current whole of government initiatives that relate to the cloud
A recent article in the Huffington Post highlights the spectacular growth and continued potential of cloud computing in the enterprise. In the article, Gartner predicts spending on cloud computing applications to increase at an annual rate of 20 percent, growing to a market of $150 billion by 2013.
As the article notes, “Much of the early cloud coverage centered on traditional IT concerns such as security, fear of vendor lock-in, availability and reliability of solutions maintained beyond the firewall (i.e. outside IT’s control).” A recent independent survey chartered by Appirio found, “a compelling majority of cloud adopter respondents said cloud applications were either better or “significantly better” than their in-house alternatives.” Apparently, experience breeds confidence and debunks exaggerated misconceptions.
I only see this trend continuing, even accelerating. The cloud is here and can no longer be ignored.
There are several exciting new features in the Winter ’11 update. Below are my 10 favorite features.
1. Quotes Template Editor: easily customize quote templates with just a few clicks. 2. Drag-and-Drop Dashboards: quickly chart your performance with role-based dashboards. 3. Dynamic SLA Milestones: facilitate complex support processes by allowing administrators to choose when milestones start using custom start time fields. 4. URL Redirects: maintain search engine ranking by redirecting visitors to content when links change. 5. Attach Files to Events & Tasks: Straight forward, but much needed. 6. Chatter Analytics: create reports and dashboards showing how your company uses Chatter 7. Chatter Search: easily search across files, feeds, comments, etc. 8. Chatter mobile for iPhone and iPad: experience the power of chatter on the world’s most exciting tablet – the iPad from Apple. 9. Chatter Desktop: Stay connected and be instantly updated of important activity within your Chatter feed. 10. Chatter for custom apps: provide a feed for records of custom apps.
Salesforce has always been committed to securing its cloud services and maintaining the privacy of customer data. Real-time information on system performance and security, industry standard certifications (SAS 70 Type II, SysTrust, and ISO 27001) and third party assessments from managed security services providers are just three examples of Salesforce’s commitment to security and privacy.
Click here to download a new security whitepaper that provides a more detailed security review.
Salesforce took a bold step toward a more fully integrated cloud platform by announcing VMForce, an exciting collaboration with VMware.
Both VMware and Salesforce are leaders in cloud computing. VMware is known for virtualization, while Salesforce for software-as-a-service via the Force.com platform.
VMforce is significant because it opens the Force.com platform to 6+ million java developers worldwide, allowing any company with Java developers to easily develop Java apps locally and deploy them to the cloud. Because all Java apps on VMforce are elastic, you don’t have to worry about scaling up app servers, databases, or infrastructure. You also inherit rich Force.com functionality like reporting and dashboards, full text search, calendaring, contact management and workflow.
We anticipate this will accelerate adoption of the cloud. Everyone at Myriad Minds is excited to see what innovative Java applications will soon be hosted on the Force.com platform.
Salesforce.com was recently honored for their role in shaping the Internet.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the registration of the .com domain, VeriSign and the 25 Years of .com Honorees Committee has nominated 25 online companies which have helped shape the internet as we know it today and Salesforce.com has been nominated in a category that includes industry giants such as Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook.
Salesforce.com was also recently named one of web’s most innovative companies by Fast Company for its enterprise cloud computing and overall Software As A Service innovation.
Salesforce CRM > AppExchange > SF Mobile > Force.com/Sites > Chatter…the innovation continues.
“Cloud computing represents a new dawn in enterprise computing and business leaders are beginning to ready their companies for the big changes that lie ahead,” said Matthew Oostveen, IDC research manager and analyst. “Facilitating this change will be services organisations from consultants to systems integrators.”
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