The Intersection of Cloud, Mobile and Social — Increasingly organizations are looking to tap the collective power of social, mobile and cloud technologies. We asked Ric Telford, IBM VP of Cloud Services, to share his perspective on the trend in light of IBM's new social business software including SmartCloud Docs, a cloud-based office productivity suite. University of Texas at El Paso is using the software to collaborate in the cloud using mobile devices. Cloud Computing Journal: What’s the connection between Social, Mobile and Cloud. Are they just three tech buzzwords? Ric Telford: Social, mobile and cloud are inextricably linked as three facets of the same movement – a new era of computing. Some call it the "third platform," others "SoMoClo, let's just call it "new era" for now. Cloud is the delivery, mobile is the ubiquitous access and social is the personal engagement. Cloud is scalable, flexible IT resources on-demand with the compute power to handle real-time analytics and Big Data; mobile is having simplified, user-friendly access anywhere. Social adds the power of collaboration. As one consolidated framework, this "new era" enables flexible delivery of services and expanding reach – bringing communication and productivity to whole new levels.Article URL: http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2474846
Advisory Learning Content Developer, IBM Application Runtimes, IBM Learning, based in Pittsburgh, PA. Opinions are my own.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
#SoMoClo
I have been interested in social, mobile, and cloud for several years, but only in the last year or two have I noticed that these areas have become closely intertwined. It's as if they were destined to work together in a new paradigm. I almost can't think of one without the other two. Mobile lets me be more social. Social led me to cloud. Cloud just is.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Power of Mobile (and Social): Makes a Happy Coincidence
I just got back from attending the most amazing IBM Redbooks social media residency on Mobile Enterprise, where I spent a week face-to-face with colleagues from across IBM to discuss mobile computing, and an interesting thing happened on my way home today.
I got to the airport well before my boarding time, so I had some time to kill. I found a comfortable place to sit near my gate, and pulled out my smartphone to check emails, read news - catch up with the rest of my life, basically. I looked at Facebook to see what my friends were doing, and noticed that an old acquaintance, Margaret, who I hadn't seen in a while, posted an update to her wall saying that she would be in Pittsburgh (where I was heading) and asked if any of her friends there would like to meet up and hang out while she was in town.
As I read it, I admitted to myself with a pinch of regret that I had lost touch with this person. I didn't even know that she moved away from Pittsburgh. Several years ago, we studied dance together, and even performed in the same troupe together. She was kind, fun to be around, and had a tall graceful figure that I envied. Dance was a big part of my life at the time, and I shared a significant bond with my dance classmates. I have since lapsed from dance to focus on other pursuits, but I miss those days. While I sat there and considered making a reply, and as boarding time drew near, a tall graceful woman sat down right next to me. It was her! We were on the same flight back to Pittsburgh.
Of course, we had a nice chat to catch up, and here I am, marveling at the coincidence - all made possible by the ubiquity of wifi, mobile devices, and social media. I was glad to see her again.
So why do I find that so remarkable, and important? Well, I like connecting with people, and I have a lot of connections. A quick check of social networks that I use mostly for friends and family tells me that:
I have 620 friends on Facebook.
I'm following 450 people on my (personal) Twitter account.
Granted, they aren't all close connections, but I'm following them all for one reason or another. Without social media, and the ability to take it with me (on a mobile device) where ever I go, I wouldn't be able to stay connected to nearly as many people as I do.
As time rolls on, the memory fades, and as we lose touch with people, we forget about them. It wasn't all that long ago that I last saw Margaret, and I'm sure that I would have recognized her in the airport, even if I didn't see her status update on Facebook today, but if it had been a much longer span of time, I'm not quite so sure. I can thank mobile (and social) for making it a happy coincidence today.
Needless to say, you will be hearing more about my week at the residency. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Mobile Application Development: Starting from Scratch
That's where I was only a few months ago - starting from scratch. Now that I've been through the "crucible" so to speak, I have some wisdom to share about my experience, and a few tips to pass on. Here is my guide to getting up to speed quickly.
ZU370 Introduction to HTML5 and JavaScript Programming - no travel required. Once you sign up for the course, you have 60 days to complete it online at your own pace. You also get access to a remote lab environment to do the hands-on labs.
ZU371 Developing Mobile Web Applications with Dojo - available now as a self-paced virtual course.
ZU372 Developing Mobile Web Applications with jQuery - coming soon!
These tools, conveniently, also happen to integrate well with IBM Worklight.
Meet new course - WU503 Mobile Application Development with IBM Worklight V5 – Early Education. This is a 5-day instructor-led deep dive into using Worklight to develop, deploy, and manage mobile applications. Look for open enrollment classes to be scheduled in the near future, or request onsite training at your facility.
HTML5
HTML5 is a blanket term used to describe the latest web technologies from W3C, including HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. The web revolves around this now, but it still has yet to prove itself on the mobile front. It might not be as fast or efficient as using native code. However, it's the logical choice when developing for multiple platforms, and better to brush up on these skills before diving into any enterprise web project. Here's a "crash" course:- Learn HTML in 15 minutes - http://youtu.be/Ggh_y-33Eso
- HTML5 - http://youtu.be/pJz5RRrloBE
- CSS part 1 - http://youtu.be/I-rTKuEhrCM
- Learn JavaScript in 30 minutes - http://youtu.be/_cLvpJY2deo
ZU370 Introduction to HTML5 and JavaScript Programming - no travel required. Once you sign up for the course, you have 60 days to complete it online at your own pace. You also get access to a remote lab environment to do the hands-on labs.
UI Frameworks
Another technology you will run across in the world of mobile app development is the use of UI frameworks. These are collections of tools, libraries, and controls that can simplify the development process, provide a rich web experience, and a consistent user interface. Among the more popular UI frameworks (this is not an exhaustive list) are:- dijit - Dojo's UI library
- jQuery TOOLs and jQuery UI
- Sencha Touch
ZU371 Developing Mobile Web Applications with Dojo - available now as a self-paced virtual course.
ZU372 Developing Mobile Web Applications with jQuery - coming soon!
These tools, conveniently, also happen to integrate well with IBM Worklight.
IBM Worklight
IBM Worklight is a complete mobile application development platform that you can use to create all kinds of native, web-based, or hybrid mobile applications. Here's a white paper that explains in detail what the difference is and why you should care. Each approach has it's benefits and limitations. An hybrid application combines both native and web code, and therefore can take advantage of each of those approaches. IBM Worklight makes it easy to develop hybrid applications - and believe me when I say, if I think it's easy, it's super-easy. If you have the aforementioned basics covered, you can get up to speed on Worklight very quickly. There's also a new course offering (see below). You can download the IBM Worklight V5 Developer Edition from here for free.Meet new course - WU503 Mobile Application Development with IBM Worklight V5 – Early Education. This is a 5-day instructor-led deep dive into using Worklight to develop, deploy, and manage mobile applications. Look for open enrollment classes to be scheduled in the near future, or request onsite training at your facility.
Lawrence Wilkes on SOA, EA, AM and CC: Developing Reference 'Things' - Reference Architec...
Developing Reference 'Things' - Reference Architec...: I have spent a lot of time in recent years developing various reference 'things' for clients and as part of our own research. Whether it has...
Thursday, April 12, 2012
OpenStack announcement & #cloudchat today!
Big announcement today about IBM and the OpenStack Foundation. OpenStack enhances the IBM SmartCloud Foundation offerings by expanding support for different hypervisors at the IaaS Cloud layer. It uses standards such as TOSCA and Linked Data to integrate workload optimization and deployment simplification higher in the cloud management stack.
You can learn more about the OpenStack Foundation at http://www.openstack.org.
Today's #cloudchat (April 12) will discuss the newly announced OpenStack Foundation. Join from 4 to 5 p.m. ET on Twitter. Panelists will be:
Also check out these articles:
Follow @ibmcloud and @openstack for up-to-the-minute tweets from IBM and OpenStack members.
You can learn more about the OpenStack Foundation at http://www.openstack.org.
Today's #cloudchat (April 12) will discuss the newly announced OpenStack Foundation. Join from 4 to 5 p.m. ET on Twitter. Panelists will be:
- Rackspace’s VP Business & Corporate Development Mark Collier
- IBM’s VP Standards Angel Diaz
- What: A tweetchat is an online conversation held at a pre-arranged time following a specific hashtag, in this case #cloudchat. You will need a Twitter ID to take part.
- When: Thursday, April 12, at 4 p.m. ET, repeating the 2nd Thursday of every month at 4 p.m. ET.
- Where: The chat can be followed on Twitter using the hashtag #cloudchat. Alternatively, log on and access the chat on twebevent. A recap will be posted on this blog the following Friday.
- Why: To facilitate additional industry dialogue and provide a forum for questions, idea sharing, and problem solving. We want your input on what you’d like to discuss during future chats, so please leave a comment on this post or tweet @ibmcloud with topic ideas.
- Who: Anyone and everyone is welcome to join!
Also check out these articles:
- Thoughts on Cloud blog -
http://thoughtsoncloud.com/index.php/2012/04/openstack-foundation-the-next-step-for-iaas-in-the-cloud-eco-system
SmarterPlanet blog -
http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2012/04/16677.html - Wired.com blog -
http://www.wired.com/cloudline/2012/04/openstack/
Follow @ibmcloud and @openstack for up-to-the-minute tweets from IBM and OpenStack members.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
IBM Technical World for Smarter Computing
IBM Technical World for Smarter Computing
featuring Cloud, Power Systems and System z
April 16-19, 2012
San Francisco, CA
http://ibm.co/HsVCha
Very excited about speaking at this show next week! I will be giving these talks on cloud computing:
- cBU09 – Birds of a Feather: Cloud and Social Media – Tuesday 10:30 - Franciscan C
- cBU06 – Planning Your Cloud Education – Wednesday 1:00 - Union Square 1/2
- cBU07 – An IBM Cloud Offering Decoder – Wednesday 2:30;
repeat Thursday 9:00 - Union Square 1/2
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
When your audience says: “No time. No money. No thanks.”
I ran across this article on John Stepper's blog, and it does a great job of explaining how to make the case for social media to an audience that is particularly resistent. His conclusion:
Social business platforms are good for the individual. They make their job easier while giving them a way to shape their reputation and access opportunities.
And they’re good for the firm. Good for finding waste and eliminating it. Good for finding commercial opportunities and exploiting them. Good for finding great people and giving them the best jobs.
The audience had warmed up. Heads were nodding. Eyes were shining.Well said, and nicely done.
“Now, let’s set up our next meeting. Let’s start changing the way you work.”
Friday, February 10, 2012
Cloud Computing: My Very Short List
A coworker just told me that she knew nothing about cloud and wanted recommendations on where to start. Here is my very short list of links, for those who are otherwise tech savvy, just not about cloud:
The IBM Cloud blog:
http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com/
The learning path on developerWorks:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/training/kp/cl-kp-cloudfundamentals/?S_TACT=105AGY82&S_CMP=MAVE
The IBM Cloud YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/IBMCloud
The developerWorks Cloud Computing Central community:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=c2028fdc-41fe-4493-8257-33a59069fa04
See also, my articles on Planning Your Cloud Education, and the IBM Cloud Offering Decoder.
The IBM Cloud blog:
http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com/
The learning path on developerWorks:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/training/kp/cl-kp-cloudfundamentals/?S_TACT=105AGY82&S_CMP=MAVE
The IBM Cloud YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/IBMCloud
The developerWorks Cloud Computing Central community:
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/groups/service/html/communityview?communityUuid=c2028fdc-41fe-4493-8257-33a59069fa04
See also, my articles on Planning Your Cloud Education, and the IBM Cloud Offering Decoder.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
IBM leading in application infrastructure and middleware space
I'll say again that 2011 was a good year for IBM, and especially for WebSphere.
- Gartner named IBM the worldwide share leader in the application infrastructure and middleware software segment - for the 10th consecutive year;
- Leader in 2012 Gartner Magic Quadrant Reports on Business Process Analysis Tools, SOA Governance Technologies, and Enterprise Application Servers;
- Leader in 2012 Forrester Wave Reports on SOA Application Gateways and Enterprise Service Bus;
- Ovum named IBM the leader in its Decision Matrix for BPM;
- Forrester named IBM the top vendor in its Decision Management market report.
- Impact 2011, IBM annual customer conference, was a huge success.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Privacy in a Public Cloud
[This article was submitted for future publication on ThoughtsOnCloud.com]
Remember the skepticism around online
shopping and e-commerce sites back in the day when the web was young?
Everyone was afraid of giving out their credit card information over
the Internet, for fear it would be intercepted. We eventually got
over that fear, thanks to encryption technologies such as Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL), which make e-commerce much safer today. That
same technology also plays a role in cloud security, and that is one
thing to consider, along with other security issues when moving your
application to the cloud.
Public
cloud versus on-premises
You basically have the same security
issues and considerations for deploying applications on the cloud as
you do for running them on premises. The difference is that on cloud,
some of those issues are handled by your cloud service provider. The
important thing to consider is how far the cloud service provider's
responsibilities extend, and where your responsibilities as the
client, or virtual machine (VM) instance owner, take over.
First, thoroughly investigate your
cloud service provider's policies. Treat them like any other
outsourced service. Check their references. Clearly define the
service level agreements (SLAs) in your contract. SLAs can cover
things like backups, up time, disaster recovery, change management,
and so on. Audit your cloud provider or consider third-party audits
to ensure that those policies are enforced.
For example, the IBM
SmartCloud Enterprise has many mechanisms in place to offer a
safe and secure environment, such as:
- Firewall and intrusion protection system (IPS) between guest VMs and the Internet
- IP-filtering technology and multiple IP addresses per instance for enabling security zones
- Optional virtual private network (VPN) and virtual local area network (VLAN) isolation of account instances
- Encrypted connections: IBM is isolated from customer VMs through customer secure shell (SSH) keys and server passwords
- Hypervisor-based (kernel-based virtual machine) isolation with client-configurable firewall rules
- Public images patched and scanned regularly
- Patch servers for private images
- Root access for customers to guest virtual machines, allowing further hardening of VMs
- No sharing of private images between accounts on the cloud
- Access to the portal and APIs, which requires a user ID and password
Users must comply with IBM's stringent
security policies, and are subject to regular security scans.
Not all cloud providers offer the same
kind of protection, so do your homework!
Image
— or instance — is everything
As a VM instance owner on the IBM
SmartCloud, you have root access and control over that instance as if
it were one of your own on premises, and you are responsible for
security on the instance itself. That means that it is up to you to
configure access to that resource, install and run anti-virus
software on it, and so on. Treat it like any other client in your
enterprise; it is just as vulnerable to threats and attack. This blog
post lists several useful links to articles about securing and
managing your instances.
Get
started with the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise: This article
describes how to securely connect to, configure the firewall of, and
manage (encryption) keys for your instances. You should take care of
these tasks immediately upon creating your instances. Determine who
will need access to your instances, determine the firewall ports that
need to be open or closed, and be prepared to use and manage keys for
access.
Why key management
is important
IBM SmartCloud employs encryption so
you can control access to your applications and data in the cloud.
However, encryption alone does not guarantee security. Keys must also
be stored and managed properly.
Secure
multi-user access to IBM Cloud instances with VNC and SSH:
Provides a detailed description of how to configure cloud instances
and clients for secure access.
IBM
SmartCloud Enterprise tip: Integrate your authentication policy using
a proxy: Describes how to create a proxy bridge between your
homegrown applications and the IBM SmartCloud. This bridge can allow
you to implement finer-grained access control that cannot be directly
implemented in the IBM SmartCloud portal. In other words, you can use
this technique to control not only who can access, but how, where, or
when they can access data.
IBM
SmartCloud Enterprise tip: Secure access for Android devices:
Describes how to set up secure access to a cloud instance for Android
mobile devices.
Cloud
security considerations: This good general article is about
high-level cloud security concepts. This is just the tip of the
iceberg, but it does give a very concise overview.
Extra credit
Model-driven
cloud security:
This article discusses the challenges of cloud application security
policy automation and describes how it can be achieved through a
model-driven security architecture and deployment.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Cloud for “Everyman”
[This article was submitted for future publication on ThoughtsOnCloud.com]
There is a lot of discussion here about
cloud for business, but what about cloud for Everyman – the average
Joe – the man on the street? How will cloud computing change life
for the average person? In short, cloud has already changed things
significantly, and will continue to have an impact on our lives for
years to come.
A
cloud of sound
There are numerous applications now
available for people to create, record, upload, and share music with
the world. As a musician, I think this is awesome and amazing. I can
share my favorite songs with my friends on social networks, and I can
listen to their favorite songs – all for the price of “a song”
(essentially, for free). I wonder how this has affected the music
business, and how it will impact the future of the music industry? I
imagine that it has provided more opportunities to musicians, and
made music more accessible to a wider audience. It has been a boon to
the independent artists and small record labels, but have the big
record companies suffered as a result? I grew up in an era of
mega-rock stars and arena tours, but those days are gone. They will
be the stuff of legends that I will tell my grand kids.
A
cloud of words
If you want to publish your own book or
magazine, there are many options available to you, thanks to cloud.
Actually, cloud has made the term self-publishing essentially
meaningless. All of the publishing tools that you could possibly need
are now provided on the cloud – everything from editing and
production, to distribution and finding an audience. It has taken
self-publishing quite a number of steps further than merely making a
book. The distinction is more a matter of “corporate” publishing
(the big companies) versus independent presses and smaller co-ops.
For the rest of us, this means that if we have Internet connection,
we can find something to read about anything. ANYTHING. The history
of the Belgian lute? How to make beef jerky? Card games of the middle
ages? It's all there.
A
cloud of images
...and most of those images are of
cats. Seriously. Do you know anyone with a cat who hasn't posted a
photo of it on the Internet? But it's not just about the Internet.
The Internet gives us the network to share our books and music and
images with the world, but cloud gives us the tools and
services that make it possible for us to create those books, songs,
and images. We are not merely uploading our photos, we are editing
them, collecting them into albums, turning them into videos with
sound, and so on.
We will soon rely on cloud for all
kinds of services. When we go shopping, the cloud will send coupons
for the products we want to buy directly to our smart phone or mobile
device. When we seek medical care, our diagnosis will come from the
cloud. When we are traveling in a foreign country, cloud will
translate for us.
How has cloud changed your world?
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