Now Supercomputers Have Found Their Way To The Cloud

Remember awhile back when IBM came out with a supercomputer, named Watson, which competed against past winners on Jeopardy and won? Well, IBM has been doing a lot with Watson since then by applying him to certain industries to boost productivity. According to Geeks Are Sexy, “It’s already been used for projects such as improving automated customer help systems, figuring out the best options for hospitals trying to buy medicines and equipment, and helping tailor lifestyle and health advice to individuals.”

Other uses have been suggested and could possibly be integrated with Watson, such as deciphering ones medical condition from a list of given symptoms. Also, taking over that painstaking task of troubleshooting technical problems with computers.

However, the big news now is that IBM has migrated Mr.Watson to “the cloud” where he is free to run his complex functions at high speeds. What’s particularly interesting is that Watson will become a type of PaaS (remember the differences from our last post?). This means that he will be available to the public as a cloud-based development platform, but that isn’t IBM’s main goal. IBM has put Watson in “the cloud” to encourage new ideas of how society can use a supercomputer like Watson. They’re hoping for the next great idea to come along so that Watson can facilitate it with his blinding fast human-like reasoning. IBM has made it readily available and using Watson for development isn’t hard because according to IBM, “using Watson will be relatively simple and developers won’t need to have a working knowledge of how machine learning works. They will, however, need to provide suitable “training data” to be able to go and use Watson for real.”

So far, the next great idea hasn’t found its way to Watson’s development cloud, but it’s only a matter of time before some genius finds a way to leverage the power of an artificial brain for the greater good. This author’s suggestion would be to have Watson give Siri some pointers; she’s nowhere near ready for Jeopardy.

3 Common Types Of ‘ The Cloud’ That People Seem To Confuse

We already know that “The Cloud” is an innovative technology that has brought savings and time efficiencies to small business, large corporations, and even governments. However, now that people understand what “The Cloud” is, the industry lingo is starting to become more prevalent and it tends to confusing people. Therefore, this post will examine the different types of “clouds” that people can easily understand, but tend to get lost when they are referred to in an industry tongue.

SaaS

Let’s start with the one that most people will use for their business, SaaS, which stands for software-as-a-service. With SaaS a cloud provider, like Amazon, hosts your company’s applications on their servers. The employee then access the companies migrated data through a web browser. This is a monthly fee, like Internet service, that the company has to pay. Usually the fee is based on the number of users who have access to the SaaS cloud.

IaaS

The second most common “cloud” is IaaS which stands for Infrastructure-as-a-service and in this scenario the cloud provider offers all equipment to run the company’s applications such as servers, storage, switches, etc. to the company sort of like renting it. However, this “rented” equipment is found virtually on the provider’s cloud and is on a pay-as-you-go model. This scenario is good for bigger companies who have an integrated network.

PaaS

Finally, the third most common cloud, PaaS, stands for platform-as-a-service. This is used mainly for developers who create software using and directories from the cloud provider. This is used for IT companies and large corporations who have in house IT employees that need to create software for the company or edit code.

Each service has its own specific use, which is geared towards different size companies and industries.  Each of them provides a faster, more readily available, way of doing every day computing for your business. Whether it be developing a new application or accessing your information remotely, these common cloud services will provide an increase in cost saving and employee efficiency.

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Entrepreneurs and Business Plans (pt. 2)

After doing my research on the Economic experts of Chuck Blakeman, Carl Schramm, and Kyle Murphy, in regards to business plans, I’ve taken into account their views. I have then adopted a couple of their ideas to incorporate into my business plan in order to have a sound business plan for success. Some of their ideas seem odd, but there is some truth to them, however, without a sound foundation of knowledge, these ideas would be a waste.

One of the main things that I found interesting about business plans from Chuck Blakeman and Carl Schramm is that they do not really care for them. Odd, but they do not like business plans and they would be the first to tell you that. Don’t get me wrong they do not avoid them altogether and they feel that business plans are a great starting point to beginning a business, but it shouldn’t become the entrepreneur’s “bible.” Meaning that an entrepreneur should use the business plan as more of a guide than sticking to the plan no matter what. I find this useful, because there have been times, while formulating my business plan, where I felt something major needed to be changed, which would end up altering the end product. If I stick by my original business plan and ignore the major change, I will end up with something I feel is incomplete. In my opinion, the business plan should be treated like an outline.

The other main idea that I incorporated into my business plan was Kyle Murphy’s idea of having a savvy team. First off, this doesn’t mean I need to hire good people, it means that the people I hire should have the capabilities to execute the business plan successfully. He points out that when investors are looking at a company to invest in, they aren’t just looking for the best return, they looking to see if the company can successfully do what they say they can do. Moreover, they are looking to see if a company can be experts in the field they are trying to go into. Once they know executing wont be a problem, they’ll be more likely to invest. Therefore, in my plan I will “show off” my knowledge of cloud-computing and make sure I hire people who are as good, if not, better than myself. 

Entrepreneurs and Business Plans (pt. 1)

Carl Schramm graduated from LeMoyne College, did his undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin and acquired a law degree from Georgetown. Carl is University Professor at Syracuse University and has worked as a CEO for various large companies. He worked for The John Hopkins University, wrote several books where he collaborated with other leading economists, and won numerous awards. Furthermore, he has written a number of articles for The Atlantic, Forbes, and the Huffington Post, just to name a few. 

Chuck Blakerman is a unique individual when it comes to the world of business. According to Chuck’s site, “he has created five different businesses and two non-profits from the ground up, making every mistake possible along the way to some big wins.” He is a major business speaker on an international platform and is responsible for over 100 speeches and workshops each year. He has written articles and been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, CNNMoney, NYTimes, and several other publications in Australia and New Zealand. Currently, Chuck runs his own company called the Crankset Group, which helps other business owners get the passion they once had for their business so it can get back on course and become more successful. 

What is interesting about these two celebrated economists is that when it comes to a business plan, they are not too concerned with them. Both Schramm and Blakerman are not keen on business plans, they agree they have a place, but one should not base everything on the business plan in their minds. According to Loreal Hartwell, “Basically, it is [Blakeman’s] belief that a new company does not need a business plan to get started.” However, a business plan still needs to be a good business plan regardless of how much you stick to your plan. 

Therefore, what are investors looking for in a good business plan? They’re obviously looking for a return on their money, but the most important thing is not the idea or the company, it’s you. Investors are basically trying to see if you and your team are savvy enough to see your idea through from start to finish with few hiccups. The last thing they want to do is take a risk on an idea or business that has a bunch of flaws and an unclear way of fixing them. According to Kyle Murphy, Entrepreneurship Lecturer at Pepperdine University, “they’re betting on the jockey and not the horse.” Therefore, a good business plan must start with you. Make sure you have a clear idea, a great team, and a passion to see it to fruition.

Movies Online

There’s no doubt that ‘The Cloud’ is an efficient tool that can help businesses and governments save money.  But is that it? Is the cloud only useful for obtaining business files remotely and increasing employee collaboration? No, the cloud is a mysterious new technology that continues to morph its way into new industries and promote its core values: costs saving and efficiencies. Where has the cloud found its way to now? Well, this time ‘the cloud’ has made its way to the silver screen and put movies online. Movies are the ultimate entertainment, they allow us to escape from this crazy world for a couple hours to laugh and cry. Now it seems that studios produce movies quicker and more efficiently with the help of the cloud.

Let’s take a look at the Oscar-winning Tony Clark. Clark founded the company Rising Star Picture that had their hand in making The Great Gatsby, Wolverine, and Hunger Games. Clark is a strong proponent of ‘The Cloud’ and says that it has saved his 40 employee, $12-million-a-year company money. However, Clark has taken the integration of the cloud a step further.  In 2004, Clark received a grant of $500,00 dollars from the South Australian government to set up cine.net, which is a private network for Australian filmmakers that allow speeds up to 40 gigabits a second. This later gave birth to cineSync that, “allows directors and editors to work on a film by videoconference, sharing their ideas as images roll on their screens,” says The Sydney Morning Herald. Due to the mass use of cineSync in major productions, Clark and his team won the ‘SciTech Oscar’ in 2011.

CineSync isn’t the only cloud company out there creating cloud technology and winning awards in the film industry. Vision Cloud, a European Union startup that recently won the IBC2013 Special Award for their work with the cloud and media, is out there making waves. According to IBC’s CEO, Michael Crimp, "the landscape of our industry has been transformed, and continues to develop, from traditional broadcasting to content everywhere.” Soon, all movies will be edited, and possibly filmed, in the cloud with ability to stream them to your home instantly.

Small Business and The Cloud

In recent posts, there has been a lot of talk about large companies and governments adopting “the cloud.” It gives them remote access to their files and improved collaboration between employees. Both large companies and governments have seen significant value from the recent adoption and continue to see increased efficiency and cost savings. However, we do not hear much about the small business. Is the cloud useful for small businesses or just another headache?

First of all, we need to determine if the cloud technology is even growing? Is there an actual push to get the cloud incorporated into everyday business? The answer to those questions are yes. According to Gartner, “the public cloud services market is forecast to grow 18.5 percent in 2013 to total $131 billion worldwide, up from $111 billion in 2012.” Therefore, this growth has allowed for the large companies and governments to squeeze their efficiency belt a little tighter. For the small business, it has opened up technological opportunities that were previously not available or too costly for the small business.

Today, the savvy, quick reacting, small businesses are taking advantage of the cloud technology and putting it to use. Furthermore, there has been an overwhelming success of the small business cloud adoption that has gotten the attention of the cloud power houses. It seems that the big cloud companies are eager to get their hands on the small business in an effort to bring the innovative technology down to the small companies. According to Aaron Levie, Box’s CEO, “The cloud is driving the ability for small and medium businesses to finally have best-in-class technology to run their business off of.” Geared towards the small business, Box will offer a 'starter' plan for $5 a month per user for up to 10 users at 100GB's of storage.

Slow Changing Industries Move To The Cloud and Save Money

Businesses hear how forward thinking and exciting it is to have a cloud within their business. It makes the business run smoother, clears up unwanted paper and files, and it makes the company look digitally modern. However, can the cloud save a business money or is it just another headache?

Rackspace is one of the top cloud companies in the marketplace today. Of the top 100, Rackspace ranks 9th just behind Google and Amazon. Rackspace offers both private and public clouds for individuals and companies. Their technology, similar to most other clouds, allows for instant syncing of data to their “cloud” servers, which can be accessed by a user or company. This allows the company or individual to organize all their information into one place that can be accessed anywhere. This sounds well and good, but can Rackspace, or any cloud, save a company money? In an interview with Ajit Melarkode, general management executive at Rackspace, he says, “the save overall for companies is converting capital expenditure into operating expenditure.” This means that a company is not spending any money on costly IT setup fees and procurement costs, they use a cloud vendor, like Rackspace, to administer and manage the cloud. The money that would have been spent on costly custom IT, can now be plowed back into the business' normal operating income.

So who has actually saved money moving their business to the cloud? Let's take a look at an industry that is very slow to change, construction. Webcor Builders is a general contractor who has big name clients like eBay & Lucas Films and have recently moved their business to the cloud. In an interview with Vince Sarubbi, Webcor’s CTO, he says, “we’re using [the cloud] for architectural drawings, for virtual building files, everything down to simple PDF’s…up to very large virtual building multi gigabyte files, through Box.com.” Webcor stores a ton of data in the cloud that they then can access later through their iPads. They use an app called PlanGrid that allows Webcor to view and edit all their virtual drawings anywhere on their iPads. Furthermore, this complete business integration allows Sarubbi to harness the important data, “its really in your costs, how you control costs… that’s your true data,” says Sarubbi. This is where Webcor understands the power of the cloud, being able to control costs efficiently and not just saving money with cheap setup costs.

What about the government? Are they able to save money with the cloud and make it cost effective? Recently, the Department of Interior awarded $10 billion dollars in contracts to accelerate their large transition to the cloud. Even though their migration has a costly price tag of $10 billion, they will be able to save even more money in the long run with their new cloud system. According to Andrew Jackson, not our 7th president but Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology, Information and Business Services, “we expect to result in benefits of $100 million each year from 2016 to 2020.” Their goal is to make access to the public and DOI employees around the world easier and more efficient. “Our hosting environment, which currently focuses on managing servers in-house, will be able to transition to a modern cloud-based environment,” says Jackson.

Both Webcor and the Department of the Interior have embraced the concept of the cloud and understand its potential and both of them exist in an industry where change is cumbersome. However, the construction industry, other branches of government, and industries all over the world should look towards Webcor & DOI as a cloud guide. If construction and government can financially benefit from the power of the cloud, then there should be no excuse to transition to the cloud.

Everyone Thinks It: Is “The Cloud” Safe?

To the non-tech savvy individual who honestly thinks “The Cloud” exists in an actual cloud, would probably tell you that it is not safe. Understanding that personal & business data is instantly synced with a server in “The Cloud” doesn’t sound very safe to begin with, so one would be inclined to agree with the non-tech savvy individual. However, it turns out that “The Cloud” is actually pretty safe and we’re finding ways to make it even safer.

Google, one of the top leading Cloud companies in the market, has recently upped their cloud safety game in an effort to make data in the cloud more secure. According to The Verge, “The move is intended to protect, companies developers, and ultimately your data from prying eyes, utilizing the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).” Therefore, once you sync your data from you computer or mobile device, it will then go through Google’s 128-bit encryption process before it is “saved” on their end. Furthermore, to then unlock the data, Google’s system uses a master key. This master key, which Google refused to comment about, is rotated regularly to avoid normality and encourage uniqueness. 

Google is usually the first to get recognized when there is a change in technology just because Google is Google. Therefore, we do not usually hear, as quickly, what the other leading cloud companies have done until Google makes their statement. Amazon’s cloud security, on the other hand, does circles around Google’s mere 128-bit encryption. According to TechCrunch, Amazon’s cloud has been “using the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard since abound 2011.” Moreover, besides having more bit encryption than Google, Amazon uses a different type of master key than Google, called a Hardware Security Module, that helps manage data and master keys. According to a recent survey, Amazon was ranked 2nd ahead of Google, ranked 5th, in the top 100 cloud companies from 2012-2013. 

Although Google and Amazon have beefed up encryptions and have crazy secure master keys, ARM, a UK based chip designer, has decided to make encryption personal. ARM, best known for their work with SIM cards in Europe, has developed a chip, running on a token system, that will allow security encryption at the user level. According to Forbes, “it would give individuals direct control over their data, right from the mobile device or sensor where it is first collected and transmitted.” The token system will allow users to determine who and what gets to access their data; once all the tokens are gone, the data is locked. The article continues with Mike Muller, ARM’s CTO, explaining the concept by comparing it to a household scale. Mike does not mind his wife seeing his weight on their shared mobile phone app. He’d also tolerate his gym accessing the his weight to help guide his fitness regime. But he wouldn’t want anyone else, and certainly not his life insurer, to know when he’s gaining weight.

The Good, the Bad, and the Trolls of Cloud Infringement

The Good:

So you’ve finally finished that e-book you downloaded for vacation last summer and feeling pretty good about yourself. You do a search for more e-books you could download and run across a cloud-based site called ReDigi. You click the link, read the information and wonder, “how can a company resell digital material?” ReDigi, created by John Ossenmacher, is a new concept that takes the idea of selling used music, movies, and books and takes them to the cloud and into the digital world. However, this new startup company has got the attention of some major entertainment companies. Capitol Records, home of some big name artists such as Elton John, The Beatles, David Guetta, and Jennifer Lopez, has found themselves in a suit with ReGigi. According Capitol Records, “while ReDigi touts its services as the equivalent of a used record store, that analogy is inapplicable: used record stores do not make copies to fill their shelves." Their stance suggests that ReDigi should not be allowed to operate under the same law as a physical used record store. However, for once, it is the artists who are reaping the benefits both on their residuals and with piracy. According to Judith Rosen, “their goal is to unlock the billions of dollars that consumers have invested in digital goods by reselling them, using the partners' patented cloud-based technology, which enables them to weed out pirated goods.”

The Bad:

With companies such as ReDigi trying to find ways to limit piracy with cloud-based technology, The Pirate Bay is using the cloud to find ways to make it easier to pirate music, movies, etc. and harder to shut them down. The Pirate Bay, a notorious tech savvy Swedish based torrent site that allows the sharing of digital content over several servers, has found their way to the cloud. The cloud has enabled The Pirate Bay to move their servers into the virtual realm and change them at will when a suspecting government agency tries to shut them down. According to The Pirate Bay’s Winston Brahma, “our data flows around in thousands of clouds, in deeply encrypted forms, ready to be used when necessary…attempts to attack The Pirate Bay from now on is an attack on everything and nothing.” Therefore, as governments and hackers alike zero in on the current location of The Pirate Bay’s cloud-based server, it reacts, disappears, and then reappears in another secret encrypted virtual server. Making them virtually (no pun intended) undetectable.

The Trolls:

As some companies face cloud infringement with startup ideas or evil bad guys who lurk around virtual cloud servers, others must face the trolls. Yes trolls and not the kind that live under bridges or sit on top of your pencil with neon blue hair. These trolls live off of the fear and poor patent writing skills of companies with unique technology ideas. These trolls, according to the BBC, “are companies also known as practicing entities (NPE) or patent assertion entities (PAE).” According to the US government, “62% of all patent lawsuits in the country are brought by NPEs, and in 2011 their victims paid out $29bn, a 400% increase from 2005.” Rackspace, cloud-computing gurus, are no stranger to patent trolls and the costs associated with fighting them in court. It seems that the trolls will challenge anything in court and according to Alan Schoenbaum, general council for Rackspace, "[they] claimed to have the right to any computer function that allowed for a floating point decimal calculation, which is pure math…if you round up or round down a number based on a mathematical calculation, they said they owned that, and we have to pay them a royalty or license for that, which is ridiculous." This creates a large amount of time and money that needs to be dedicated to keeping these trolls at bay, which usually isn’t accounted for properly in a company’s business model. "It is really hard on developers, it's hard on small businesses, it creates a lot of perverse incentives, it takes up a lot of time, it is a drag,” said Mr. Schoenbaum, “I mean, there is almost as much money being spent defending and settling these troll cases as being spent in R&D - no kidding, it's crazy."

Conclusion:

With new cloud technology bringing the world closer to our fingertips, it is bound to bring unwanted headaches for some companies. However, ReDigi is finding a way to get digital content into the hands of consumers cheaper while still paying artists and protecting them from piracy. Therefore, Capitol Records should be thrilled that someone has found a way to resell their intangible product. Moreover, the cloud has turned piracy away from Somalia and into the virtual world via The Pirate Bay. Hopefully, ReDigi’s cloud-technology will be savvier than that of a roaming virtual server and weed out all the fake pirated copies of digital content. Unfortunately, that could be blocked by a bogus patent suit brought on by annoying trolls trying to make a quick buck on basic mathematics. Regardless, the battle of the cloud infringement will linger on because the new technology is only expected to grow. Furthermore, since the beginning of time and in the time to come, large companies will try to muscle out new startups, pirates will pirate, and trolls, well, they’ll just continue to be a nuisance.