If you work at an organization that values data you likely have been asked at one point in time to run a report. The report you ran likely answered some key business question like how many sales you processed last month or data on your key customer accounts.
What about ad-hoc reporting? Where did you go when you had a specific question and no pre-built report to answer it? Some organizations build large Data Warehousing applications that churn data from multiple sources and form what's called a "Cube" or aggregate data store. This is simply pre-run aggregates (sums, averages, counts, etc.) across large data sets so that querying is faster than trying to search the base data (often millions of rows). This Cube was something that was built typically on a batch basis (weekly, nightly, hourly) depending on need and technical limitations of the environment. The IT environment could only afford so large servers to process the massive data to run the data import and analytic jobs.
Sounds like heavy computing. How could the Cloud help?
One of the unique and very valuable attributes of Cloud Computing is that it is elastic. This means you can spin up resources when you need them and spin them down when you don't. I've worked on many data warehouses in my career and most of them are very cyclical in their computing needs. For 6-12 hours a day (typically at night) the warehouse is churning data as fast as it can to build the aggregate cube for end users to use when they arrive at work in the morning. The rest of the day the cube queries are light load in comparison as end users query aggregate data.
What if you could increase your compute capacity by 20 fold for those 6-12 hours at night when the data needed to be loaded? Would that cut down on the window? Could you load more data? Could you run more analytics?
What would you do with the cost savings for shutting off the data load servers during the day? Soon, your CFO will be asking. What will your answer be?
Learn more @ www.2ndwatch.com
-KB
Monday, January 30, 2012
Workloads for the Cloud
We are going to start posting a series of posts about different workloads that are appropriate for use in the Cloud.
The Cloud is enabling new technology and business workloads that were not possible in the past.
Keep up on the blog for additional posts in the series.
-KB
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Agile and proactive use of the cloud
The companies that we are engaged with currently all share a few common traits and these companies see that their competition is not the same as it was 2 or 3 years ago. In previous years, the SMB market shared common competition, they new where the competitions offices were, they had clients in common where they gained market knowledge, and they could see the activities the competition was doing. Not so today. The SMB market is changing and the new competition is coming at them worldwide. Take software, years ago the barrier to entry was extremely high both in talent and in the infrastructure to develop, test and deploy....this has all changed with the cloud. Talent is ready and eager to work, ideas are evolving, and infrastructure is inexpensive, secure, and reliable.
The companies that are embracing the cloud as a tool are more agile and proactive about driving their business. Most of these companies are experiencing huge and rapid growth. Why? They are able to respond to their customer needs, when the customer expects them to respond, and with more relevant information. They are able to do this because they have turned a cost center into a revenue generation tool and these businesses have more time to invest in what the customer wants. They no longer spend their time on break fix or capacity planning, they spend their time on what the customer needs.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Critical Sanity Checks
I used a robust web tool today to access an account of mine online. The company had spent millions on the interface, the functionality, dashboards, etc.
I tried to enter a new form of payment to use their services - error and crash.
There are lots of forgivable errors on a website or application. Make sure that taking your customer's money isn't one of them. These should part of the sanity checks you run everytime you release code. Don't let anything go to production that stops a customer from paying.
Do you have sanity checks? Do they have the right things in them?
I tried to enter a new form of payment to use their services - error and crash.
There are lots of forgivable errors on a website or application. Make sure that taking your customer's money isn't one of them. These should part of the sanity checks you run everytime you release code. Don't let anything go to production that stops a customer from paying.
Do you have sanity checks? Do they have the right things in them?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Amazon Web Service
2nd Watch is now a solution provider for Amazon Web Service (AWS). We are excited for our customers as this means a greater level of support when leveraging AWS to expand revenues and cut IT costs. You can find us under Solution Providers at http://aws.amazon.com/solutions/solution-providers/.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Spokane Journal of Business
Linn Parish of the Spokane Journal of Business recently wrote an article about 2ND Watch. View the article at www.spokanejournal.com. From a business perspective here are the highlights of cloud technology:
- Lower IT costs (30% to 50% less)
- Best in class tools
- Increased productivity
- Safe and secure
JEFF
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Do you still run your own Exchange Server?
I was reminded by a friend the other day that one of the keys to creating and maintaining a successful business is to focus on what you do well - your core business. Its good advice but people still ignore it.
I keep running into companies that insist on running their software on their own hardware and administering the whole thing - or worse paying someone to do it for them. Things like Exchange have become utilities in the new world of Cloud Computing - this is a wasteful approach.
Lets explore the concept for a moment with a real example.
Small Business
A small business who long ago bought a piece of hardware from their IT services partner that was loaded with Microsoft's Small Business Server product - a scaled down version of several Microsoft Server skus put together in one box. With 20 users this small business likely paid $8-10,000 or more for the piece of hardware/Software and has little or no expertise on staff to run it. When the server has an issue (security patch crashes Exchange, or user downloads a virus, etc.) this small business is stuck calling the IT services firm to fix the issue. If its a nasty issue the hours rack up at an extreme cost (usually more than $100/hour) and hopefully soon the business is back on its feet. Unfortunately its checkbook is a bit lighter - possibly several thousand dollars lighter.
If the firm has a proactive management contract in place it will be paying several hundred dollars or more a month to patch and manage the server in addition to any downtime fixes or other issues that will rack up the IT service bills.
Product upgrades? Security patches? Downtime? These all require paying an IT Service provider or trying to hack it out on your own.
Small Business Solution
For $100/month this same small business can run the same software in Microsoft's professionally run datacenter (not their back room next to the mop bucket). When downtime occurs, many engineers fully trained on supporting the product leap into action to fix the issue. The cost to you for downtime? None. In fact if Microsoft violates their 99.9% uptime guarantee they credit your service for the downtime.
Isn't this how a service is supposed to work - if there are issues someone pays you instead of the other way around.
-Kris
I keep running into companies that insist on running their software on their own hardware and administering the whole thing - or worse paying someone to do it for them. Things like Exchange have become utilities in the new world of Cloud Computing - this is a wasteful approach.
Lets explore the concept for a moment with a real example.
Small Business
A small business who long ago bought a piece of hardware from their IT services partner that was loaded with Microsoft's Small Business Server product - a scaled down version of several Microsoft Server skus put together in one box. With 20 users this small business likely paid $8-10,000 or more for the piece of hardware/Software and has little or no expertise on staff to run it. When the server has an issue (security patch crashes Exchange, or user downloads a virus, etc.) this small business is stuck calling the IT services firm to fix the issue. If its a nasty issue the hours rack up at an extreme cost (usually more than $100/hour) and hopefully soon the business is back on its feet. Unfortunately its checkbook is a bit lighter - possibly several thousand dollars lighter.
If the firm has a proactive management contract in place it will be paying several hundred dollars or more a month to patch and manage the server in addition to any downtime fixes or other issues that will rack up the IT service bills.
Product upgrades? Security patches? Downtime? These all require paying an IT Service provider or trying to hack it out on your own.
Small Business Solution
For $100/month this same small business can run the same software in Microsoft's professionally run datacenter (not their back room next to the mop bucket). When downtime occurs, many engineers fully trained on supporting the product leap into action to fix the issue. The cost to you for downtime? None. In fact if Microsoft violates their 99.9% uptime guarantee they credit your service for the downtime.
Isn't this how a service is supposed to work - if there are issues someone pays you instead of the other way around.
-Kris
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