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Do we IT guys have a future (3) – in search of the next curve.

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛When I still worked at HP Beijing, it was all about E-Business (E – HP, e- IBM). Everyone thought it was the next curve. They were actually right, at least half right, depending how you spell it.

When I was doing server admin on HP-Unix and desk side support on Windows NT 3.5.1, I always thought this Windows thing could NOT possibly fly. Comparing to the mature, resource conscious, and beautifully coded HP-UNIX, NT was ugly, full of bugs, and slow. I was DEAD wrong. So, the message here is; I can't predict the future.

Looking back, there were always some key technologies that shaped IT industry, either it was concrete inventions such as Windows PC, client/server architecture, JAVA, VoIP; or buzz words like e-Business, on-Demand, SOA, Smarter Planet, and today – CLOUD COMPUTING.

Now, we are at a cross road again. I truly believe this CLOUD thing could fly (I hope I am wrong). Why? Because it is all about contain or reduce the cost of supporting business operations using information technology.

Cloud means different things to different person, depending who you are talking to.

To end users, it means nothing more than paying a monthly fee to get a bunch of business applications, such as Office, Email, CRM, ERP, and maybe even include voice/video communication suites.

To SMB CxO’s, it means releasing the expensive control of owning and maintaining and upgrading the company's server, storage, network, business application infrastructure; transition the burden of the whole IT infrastructure to someone else, like IBM, HP, or whoever, who does it better with a cheaper price because of resource sharing and optimization.

To stock holder of Technology Companies, System Integrators and Service Providers, it means everything. Who grow the market share in this decade using CLOUD technology will be the final winner. Who does not, will be forgotten in the next decade.

To employees of Technology Companies, System Integrators and Service Providers,hehe, I dare not to say it again.. Still remember the consequenence from my last article of this series.

But what is CLOUD? It is a change of service delivery model.

Shame on me, here is someone else’s article about SaaS, Virtualization, Cloud, and SOA – enjoy.

Software as a service (SaaS)
SaaS lets companies support key applications (CRM, ERP, etc.) by licensing worker "seats" on application software that's deployed by a provider. The provider maintains the hardware and software, upgrades facilities and fixes problems, thus eliminating the cost of deploying the application on a company data center. SaaS applications are accessed via a network connection -- normally over the Internet.
Because the SaaS model eliminates self-hosting of the software, it's most effective where self-hosting an application would be difficult -- for example, when there are few workers who need it (and the cost per worker would be very high) or because the skills needed to install and maintain the application aren't available in the local labor pool. Small to midsized businesses are very likely to find SaaS a better option than deploying their own applications.

Virtualization
If SaaS is an application model, virtualization is a technology. As it's popularly used today, virtualization is any technology that allows resources to be viewed as "logical" and "physical." Applications are run on logical resources, and these are assigned to an optimum physical resource based on a variety of cost, performance and availability policies.
Virtualization is a technology that allows a physical server to appear to applications as multiple "logical servers." Many companies have purchased new servers for each new application they deploy, in some cases resulting in thousands of underutilized servers that have to be individually powered, cooled and maintained. With virtualization, a much smaller number of servers housed in concentrated data centers can replace the inefficient distributed mass of servers, often reducing costs by more than 50%.
The challenge of virtualization lies in the issue of utilization. If a server truly has excess memory, disk and CPU resources available, then virtualization can provide for server consolidation and savings. If resources are limited, then virtualization will affect application performance. Some users have also found it difficult to manage virtual server farms, though tools from vendors like Cisco, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and EMC/VMware are making that easier. Most report that virtualization does require more professional skill in house to manage. Companies that can benefit broadly from SaaS are less likely to benefit broadly from virtualization.

CLOUD
Cloud computing is in many ways a harmonization of SaaS and virtualization into a much broader and more flexible model. As a model for IT infrastructure, cloud computing -- or the private cloud -- provides a way for enterprises to structure their data centers to efficiently use server, storage, and network resources. Cloud computing can extend virtualization across a wide area network (WAN) to build a single virtual cloud data center. Because a cloud data center can include the servers and storage of multiple physical data centers, it provides a larger pool of resources for applications to share than would be provided by simple server virtualization -- further improving cost efficiency.
The public cloud can offer companies a way to host applications off-site, for backup or as an overflow capacity resource in periods of peak demand. The public cloud can host SaaS applications more cost effectively, too. The cloud computing architecture provides a way to link the public resources with private cloud resources to create a hybrid cloud, enabling cloud computing to build a seamless application fabric across virtualized servers, SaaS services, and public/private cloud computing facilities.

SOA
An older and in many ways more confusing technology cuts across all three of these modern software innovations -- service-oriented architectures (SOA). SOA is a software design and development methodology that componentizes applications into modular services that are then assembled in various ways to promote customization to worker needs and reuse of common software elements. SOA facilitates cloud computing by making software easier to distribute in the cloud. It can be an alternative to virtualization in server-sharing, or it can use virtualization to improve performance and reliability. Finally, SOA makes everything a service and thus supports the SaaS model, not only for complete applications but also for components of applications. As SOA principles remake applications, SOA will transform all three technologies.
SOA may be transforming, but from the user's perspective, cloud computing is harmonizing. Many would argue that cloud computing is the unification of virtualization and SaaS, but it's more complicated than that. There will be applications of virtualization that are not "cloud computing" for years to come, and there will also be SaaS applications that do not use virtualization in application hosting. All three technologies have their place in managing capital and operations costs for IT. But it does seem likely that cloud computing will become the overarching framework in which most virtualization is applied and that the majority of SaaS providers will employ cloud computing to serve their users most economically and reliably.更多精彩文章及讨论,请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
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Replies, comments and Discussions:

  • 工作学习 / 事业工作 / Do we IT guys have a future (3) – in search of the next curve. +4
    • 很多公司都趋向: 硬件: COLOCATION -->DEDICATED; 软件: CLOUD-CLOUD---->SaaS
    • Do IT guys have a future? Yes. Do we local IT guys have a future? NO. IT技术不管往哪个方向发展,都会模块化,分散处理和集中整合,换句话说,更容易被outsourcing。 IT技术一浪接一浪,随着年龄的增大,总有一浪会把你打趴下。。。
      • 洪湖水,浪打浪,把我爹打在沙滩上.
        • 老猫是你爹?
          • 小心阶级敌人挑拨群众斗群众。 +1
    • 比较高深了。希望他们别再弄出个people virtualization来,不然真是要死翘翘了。
      • yup. time sharing
    • Cloud computing can bring more benefits to small and medium business, e.g. security, business continuity / disaster recovery planning and desktop optimization.
      • but this trend is not so good for small IT consulting firms, hard to compete at that level.
        • Yesterday, I just told a SMB owner who has 35 employee to get rid of their IT supporting firm and jumped to cloud. I would follow up with them next week. I asked them 1 stupid question if they have a fire in their factory,
          what would be their business continuity / disaster recovery plan? Did their IT supporting firm suggest any? I told them clound / VoIP should be the key components in their BCP / DRP. If I have the chance to go back, I should invite you to go with me to give them a briefing on the benefis of VoIP.
          • sure
    • I THink big companies like banks will have concerns on security and bandwidth. private clouding is option. but then it's similar to virtulaztion.
      • virtualization is about logical division on hardware. cloud is about service delivery model and end user experience. they are closely related. cloud will mostly like use virtualization and other techniques.
        • cloud, saas, virtualization are very strongly bonded.
      • Most big companies outsource their payroll, i.e. very sensitive data or even customer services (even more sensitive data). There are always pros and cons of outsourcing, using Toyota as an example; if they did not outsource,
        they may not have the problem they have now. However, without outsourcing, they might not have the chance to grow so fast.
    • Only Saint Meow, a perceptive and insightful person with profound vision can consistently think ahead of us all.
      • 哪里,哪里
    • 听说了IBM要裁员8000,IT有没有未来不重要,重要的是自己能不能顺利退休拿到DB
      • 有听说他们裁哪个国家的哪个部门?
        • IBM昨天说IBM30%的工作将被AI替代,任何能被数字化替代的都首当其冲
          • 啊,这个好像早就说过了,我以为是现在就采取行动呢。 应该是将来AI部署到办公场景之后。
            • 昨天新闻
      • 吓死我得了
    • 技术是为资本服务,搞技术是为了挣钱,切勿本末倒置。 +1
      • 老农哥说得真好,搞啥都是搞钱
        • 可以有效避免中年危机,精神内耗,否则很容易迷失方向,迷失自我。目标要明确,美元硬通货最好,这里的房产也行,其他都是扯淡。 +1
          • 老农哥句句说到心坎上 +1
      • 对挣钱一直不感兴趣
        • 马云也这么说的 +3
          看来这是钱没赚到,却得了富贵病
          • 钱挣到一定程度以后,💰和消费之间就没关系了。
        • 老猫。你不会是千里迢迢,从社会主义国家跑到资本主义国家来实现共产主义的吧。
      • 👍,千真万确
    • Cloud 免费的话可以用用存下文件,不免费的话就算了。
    • 以前在美国的IBM 干过,这是我的观察。IBM 给客户开的价很高,但管理层拿了大头,下面干活的pay 的不高。后果就是,IBM 有些人很牛,有很好的idea,但implementation 的一塌糊涂。干IT的,有点本事都不会去IBM,而 IBM 里头有点本事的早就跑了。IBM 根本代表不了 IT +1
      • IBM最近十几年已经走下坡路了,以前不是IT老大也差不太多,现在是啥都不沾边,几个大厂远远的把IBM抛在后头了,IBM的工资和其它几个大厂比差太远了,IBM和老猫一样开始显现出老态龙钟了 +1
        • 老猫自我感觉superb
    • 估計老貓也已經band10了吧, 我離職幾年前老闆説給加薪在move 到band10.. 覺得ibm從根子裏爛掉了。。 太多的overhead, 機構臃腫, 庸才太多。