Cloud Pricing: Humor and Insight
June 22, 2020
We are putting the finishing touches on my Amazon Policeware lecture for the upcoming cyber crime conference. This particular talk has to be pre recorded. Why? Not sure, but creating a program is more difficult than lecturing from a stack of note cards.
I do include a brief reference to cloud pricing. I think there are some important truths in Amazon AWS pricing with regard to the company’s reinvention and reapplication of IBM’s old-school lock in strategy.
The write up “The Three Fs of Cloud Pricing” presents one facet of the Bezos bulldozer’s approach to policeware vendors and ultimate customers. Based on my DarkCyber team’s research, drgriffin is putting horseshoes on the iron stake.
If you have a “stake” in AWS cloud technology as a partner, ultimate customer, start up AWS user, or any of the other category of players in the Amazon forest, you will find the drgriffin write up information.
Here’s a snippet, but read the original, please:
Allowing people to play with the product for free was good for customers. But it was even better for cloud adoption. The free tier was part of their strategy of selling IT infrastructure directly, without having to go through finance and executives.
Remember that Google sought to circumvent information technology professionals. The attitude was, “You are a problme, and if you were any good, you would work at Google. Since you are NOT at Google, therefore, you are useless.”
Amazon, to cite one example, has taken a different approach; that is, the free tier. Don’t contraband vendors use a similar tactic?
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2020
Who Loves the Cloud More? Vendors, IT Pros, or Bean Counters?
June 15, 2020
Cloud systems are still considered high tech upgrades for organizations, but IT professionals prefer and view them as SOP says the IT Brief article: “Over Half Of IT Pros Prefer Hybrid And Multi-Cloud Architectures-Report.” Denodo conducted a survey and discovered that 53% of the IT professional respondents favored hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. The data is consistent with deployment statistics indicating that 42% of current cloud systems are hybrid configurations.
One of the biggest complaints from the respondents were cloud security and governance, but overall they preferred cloud because they can build up resiliency, cherry-pick features, and diversify skills.
More organizations are turning to the cloud to host their systems:
“Over the past year, there has been a positive reinforcement of cloud adoption with at least a 10% increase across beginners, intermediate, and advanced adopters.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure jointly hold a huge 90% of the new-entrant market, according to Denodo.
But users are not just lifting their on-premises applications and shifting them to either of or both of these clouds; more than a third (35%) said they would re-architect their applications for the best-fit cloud architecture.”
BI, analytics, data science, and data warehousing are top priorities for cloud developers. While cloud systems are favored, data integration poses the biggest challenge for organizations. Security is up there too. Cloud systems are perfect for the way technology is shifting to more mobile devices, but total reliance on the cloud is not advised. Outages at Amazon and IBM suggest that a hybrid system that includes on-site capabilities will protect an system when the magical Internet loses some of the 24×7 LED signs posted on the information super highway.
Whitney Grace, June 15, 2020
Many Internets: Fragmentation Gains Momentum
June 8, 2020
The idea of one big digital ocean appealed to some. Now doubters are doing more than grousing at the bowling alley. GAIA-X which surfaced a couple of years ago is chugging along. Slow but steady is the catchphrase. “Legal Entity for Gaia-X Established, European Cloud Platform Now Official” explains:
The first steps to the creation of the European cloud computing platform Gaia-X have been taken, with the creation of a legal entity in Belgium. Set up to address Europe’s dependence on American or Chinese cloud providers, 22 French and German companies, with the backing of several countries, have agreed to launch the joint venture.
The US and some of its big cloudy monopolistic-oriented companies are not on the invitation list. The write up includes diplomatic-type statements. The intent is clear: Independence from US vendors and control of the cloud computing environment in Europe.
Now how does sending email work again? Eurocrats are not into the Wild West approach practiced out West it seems. The fancy talk may mean, “Tie that bronco up out back and wait until GAIA-X lets los americanos in the digital café.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2020
Amazon AWS Translation Notes
May 26, 2020
DarkCyber wants to say, “Good job” to the person who assembled “Amazon Web Services.” The write up is a list of more than 160 AWS services. Each service is identified by the often wonky Amazon name and followed by a brief description. The list is a medieval gloss for a 21st century cloud vendor’s service, product, frameworks, and features. The monks who compiled Psychomachia of Aurelius Prudentius would be envious.
Amazon wants to offer something for everyone, and as the company has emitted services, coherence has been a casualty. Worth downloading and tucking in one’s “We Want to Be Number One” folder. I assume a mid tier consulting firm or a WFHer will put the list into Excel and indicate which of these AWS offerings are available and mostly working from competitors like Google, IBM, and Facebook.
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2020
Zoom to the Oracle
April 30, 2020
One Dolphin Way is flipping with excitement. DarkCyber spotted “Oracle Wins Cloud Computing Deal with Zoom as Video Calls Surge.” From the truthy real news outfit DarkCyber learned:
Zoom and Oracle did not disclose the size of the deal, but said traffic for “millions” of meeting participants is being handled by Oracle’s cloud service and about 7 million gigabytes of Zoom data per day is flowing through Oracle servers.
With a nifty new computer security wizard providing advice, Zoom is taking steps to become a more reliable outfit. (Never mind that the security wizard was on watch when the unfortunate Yahoo and Facebook glitches took place. It is the PR that counts.)
Will Oracle deal with the Zoom feature of disallowing connections?
What’s interesting is that Oracle is working overtime to gain traction in what looks like a two horse race: Microsoft Azure on the outside and the Bezos bulldozer’s AWS on the inside rail.
Worth watching; that is, if one can connect to a meeting.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2020
HPE Signals That Its Channel Partners Cannot Move Product and Services
April 27, 2020
I was not surprised when I worked through “HPE Outlines Additional Channel Partner Relief Measures.” The language of the write up worked overtime to dodge the basic message: Channel partners cannot move HPE’s products and services.
This is a surprise?
The write up explains:
The HPE Partner Ready program has suspended revenue target thresholds so partners can keep their eligibility for the 2021 program, as well as Aruba’s Partner Ready for Networking Program.
and this:
HPE Financial Services has also allocated $2 billion towards helping customers and partners. Initiatives include providing liquidity for buying partners, virtual solutions for partner enablement, and hybrid IT solutions for partners and customers.
or this:
HPE aims to provide liquidity to partners, particularly in North America and Europe through early pay discount terms and factoring terms. The company has not stated whether these also apply to Asia Pacific partners. The company has also suspended or reduced strategic development initiative targets in most geographies – however, this incentive does not apply to partners in Asia Pacific and China (APAC). Hybrid IT solutions for partners and customers include the free-of-charge use of remote server management Integrated Lights-Out Advanced. It will be offered free for the remainder of 2020. Additionally, HPE is working to support service provider partners by providing increased business continuity services to customers, via a centralised Spotlight page on Cloud28+.
The angles of this particular nine-ball pool game are challenging.
But taken as whole cloth, the moths appear to be ruining the fabric in which HPE wanted to craft a new prom gown.
What will the HPE partners’ wear? Maybe Amazon AWS or Google Cloud t shirts?
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2020
Google Cloud: A Fog Bank Persists
April 26, 2020
Protocol published “Google’s Thomas Kurian on COVID-19, Customers in Crisis and the Big Cloud Fight.”
Let’s look at one slice of this interview with Google’s stratocumulus of cloud computing. One interesting question and Thomas Kurian’s answer is:
Google has a reputation for closing down services that it believes aren’t being used in sufficient numbers. Among people I talk to, that sometimes raises a red flag when it comes to working with Google. As you work with these new customers who are in really, really severe difficulty right now, what kind of assurances are you giving them that, as they bet on these services from you, you’ll be there over the long haul?
Our cloud services are offered under a standard support agreement. For cloud services publicly, for example, all the GCP services are exactly the same as those from our competitors. So we give them assurances that we won’t deprecate a service without the proper notice period, and the notice periods are exactly the same as competitors.
DarkCyber noticed the word support in the write up five times in the 1900 word write up.
One wisp of condensed information wafted through the write up: “Google has struggled to win the trust of the enterprise buyer.” Why? Perhaps the list of discontinued services displayed on the Killed by Google Web site explains the challenge. With little or no warning, with little or no explanation, and with little or no interest in the users and “customers” relying on these services—more than 190 products and services have been disappeared. To make Google’s “strategy” more clear, Google Hangouts which was marked for death is now trying to be like Zoom.
The article is a showcase for Google to make clear that it really, really is committed to delivering commercial grade cloud services. Google was committed to Google Plus as well as the other 190 plus products and services dismissed with a Googley insouciance.
The write up is crafted to make clear that Google is an enterprise class service provider. The company made that pitch to the US Department of Defense, only to pull out of Project Maven because employees were not happy with the application of a Google technology to a US government need. And there are other examples of the words of the Google not matching the actions of the Google. One example: Search services for China. Yep, waffling.
What’s the challenge for the online advertising company? One clue is that according to the write up, Google’s cloud revenues for the fourth quarter of 2019-2020 was $2.9 billion. Compare that to Amazon AWS revenue of $9.9 billion. Google likes data. Well, that gap is a data point.
Is the Google Cloud going to approach the enterprise with the track record of Microsoft and its partners or the go-go roar of the Bezos bulldozer?
Google has the vocabulary for the task. The Googler uses two interesting words in his clarification of the Google approach. These words are re-pivot and re-platform. Those terms remind me that Google re-placed Diane Greene, the previous stratocumulus of cloud computing.
Did the interview convince DarkCyber that Google will stick with cloud computing? Sort of. You know like the fog comes in on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.
Stephen E Arnold, April 26, 2020
Do Big Clouds Pay Forward?
April 26, 2020
This spring’s sudden increase in work- and school-from-home arrangements has been a huge boon for cloud providers. Many of their business clients, however, have suffered revenue losses of as much as 50 or 60 percent this season. You would be wrong if you thought the biggest providers would have mercy on their small-business customers. Taipei Times reports, “Amazon, Microsoft Offer Little Relief to Cloud Clients.” We’re told Google joins those two in their lack of compassion.
A hallmark of the cloud business model has been flexibility, where companies pay for what they use. However, big providers have been pushing long term contracts with minimum spending thresholds. Companies who could once cover these minimums with ease are now stretched thin, and many feel betrayed. While countless landlords and regulated utilities have offered relief programs, cloud providers are doing little to nothing of the sort. Perhaps they are too busy counting their growing piles of coin. Journalists Mark Bergen and Matthew Day report:
“By the middle of last month, John Lyotier’s travel software business Left Technologies Inc was cratering with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeking to cut costs, he reached out to his office landlord, who offered rent relief. Then he contacted Amazon.com Inc, asking to ‘explore creative financing opportunities’ for his monthly cloud-computing bill. The response was succinct: ‘Nope, that’s the way it is.’ … With the economic devastation of COVID-19, entrepreneurs such as Lyotier feel that the fate of their businesses rests on the benevolence of their cloud provider. While Amazon Web Services (AWS) is restructuring some large contracts on a case-by-case basis, according to a person familiar with the decisions, smaller companies are not receiving the same flexibility. Half a dozen start-up executives said that recent appeals to these cloud companies have gone unanswered. While older technology providers, such as Cisco Systems Inc, are offering credits to customers, the major cloud companies have not made any public announcements about deferring or cutting bills for clients.”
As this pandemic and its economic repercussions continue, perhaps big tech will decide to extend some grace to its clientele. After all, one cannot make money off of customers who have gone out of business.
Cynthia Murrell, April 26, 2020
In Cobol News: Cloudflare Gets Interested in Revealing That It Is a Time Sharing Company
April 21, 2020
Legacy systems exist. This is perhaps big news for the recently unemployed Silicon Valley types. Some states are struggling to find Cobol programmers. IBM has rolled out Cobol training.
“Cloudflare Workers Now Support Cobol” reports:
COBOL can now be used to write code for Cloudflare’s serverless platform Workers.
The write up provides a number of historical factoids, including sample code and a Game of Life example.
Quick thought: Has the mainframe returned to offer coding opportunities and a career path to the thumb typing millennials?
What’s next for Cloudflare? Lab coats, glass walls, and elevated floors, sign up sheets for keypunch machines, and greenbar paper?
Has cloud computing become a time shared mainframe?
PS. My first programming project relied on Cobol. That was in 1963. I also used Cobol for the Psychology Today / Intellectual Digest readability work I did in the 1970s. Am I relevant again? I miss JCL too.
Stephen E Arnold, April 18, 2020
About Those Cloud Services?
April 3, 2020
Okay, Amazon can’t deliver. Microsoft can’t scale. Now Google Cloud Engine just falls over. What were the techno experts saying about those cloud services?
Navigate to to “Google Cloud Engine Outage Caused by Large Backlog of Queued Mutations.” The article reports:
A 14-hour Google cloud platform outage that we missed in the shadow of last week’s G Suite outage was caused by a failure to scale, an internal investigation has shown.
But why?
The outage was caused by a lack of memory in the company’s cache servers…
To simplify. Google’s smart scaling failed. Does this mean that Google and Microsoft are more alike than different? If Amazon can’t deliver, does this mean Google cannot deliver?
About those cloud services powering decision making? Well, sort of.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2020
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