Cloud Revolution

The conventional wisdom on how technology will change the future is wrong. Mark Mills lays out a radically different and optimistic vision for what’s really coming. The mainstream forecasts fall into three camps. One considers today as the “new normal,” where ordering a ride or food on a smartphone or trading in bitcoins is as good as it’s going to get. Another foresees a dystopian era of widespread, digitally driven job- and business-destruction. A third believes that the only technological revolution that matters will be found with renewable energy and electric cars. But according to Mills, a convergence of technologies will instead drive an economic boom over the coming decade, one that historians will characterize as the “Roaring 2020s.” It will come not from any single big invention, but from the confluence of radical advances in three primary technology domains: microprocessors, materials, and machines. Microprocessors are increasingly embedded in everything. Materials, from which everything is built, are emerging with novel, almost magical capabilities. And machines, which make and move all manner of stuff, are undergoing a complementary transformation. Accelerating and enabling all of this is the Cloud, history’s biggest infrastructure, which is itself based on the building blocks of next-generation microprocessors and artificial intelligence. We’ve seen this pattern before. The technological revolution that drove the great economic expansion of the twentieth century can be traced to a similar confluence, one that was first visible in the 1920s: a new information infrastructure (telephony), new machines (cars and power plants), and new materials (plastics and pharmaceuticals). Single inventions don’t drive great, long-cycle booms. It always takes convergent revolutions in technology’s three core spheres—information, materials, and machines. Over history, that’s only happened a few times. We have wrung much magic from the technologies that fueled the last long boom. But the great convergence now underway will ignite the 2020s. And this time, unlike any previous historical epoch, we have the Cloud amplifying everything. The next long boom starts now.

Cloud computing represents an evolution in technology and a revolution in business, for when a fixed asset like a computer becomes variable and on demand, all sorts of agility and new cost structures open up. The Cloud rEvolution report tackles this new world of information technology in a four-volume series. "Laying the Foundation" (1) introduces the Cloud rEvolution and explores the core technologies that lay the groundwork for cloud computing. "The Art of Abstraction" (2) shows how abstraction loosens the IT stack for flexibility and efficiency, eying the ultimate abstraction: the cloud. "The Cloud Effect" (3) describes the impact the cloud is having on IT and business tactically and strategically. "A Workbook for Cloud Computing in the Enterprise" (4, downloadable separately) offers guidance for transitioning to the cloud, which is rapidly becoming a question of when and how, not if.

The must-read summary of Charles Babcock's book: "Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How Cloud Computing is Transforming Business and Why You Can't Afford to Be Left Behind". This complete summary of the ideas from Charles Babcock's book "Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution" shows that cloud computing offers a new distribution model where many services are delivered and made available online rather than by in-house computers. In his book, the author explains how this will transform not only the way in which business gets done, but also the fields of education, entertainment and the arts. Companies must learn about it, and plan how to use it, before they get left behind. This summary provides readers with a comprehensive guide to the ins and outs of cloud computing, giving examples of how it is currently being used and highlighting its advantages. Added-value of this summary: • Save time • Understand key concepts • Expand your knowledge To learn more, read "Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution" and discover why you should find out about cloud computing and what it can do for your company.

Increase efficiency while saving money with “on-demand” computing The biggest game-changing force in business since the creation of the Internet, cloud computing simplifies and lowers the cost of operations while providing flexibility and power you never dreamed possible. Make your strategic move now, with Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution! "Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution is an important work that captures the concepts and technological advances fueling the rapid adoption of cloud computing today. It illuminates how specific core technologies have led to the emergence of those patterns as the foundation for the next generation of IT-managed infrastructure." —Rich Wolski, Chief Technology Officer and cofounder of Eucalyptus Systems, Inc., and Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara “Explains in marvelously plain English how clouds will change our world. . . . If the potential of cloud computing doesn’t excite you now, it will after you read this book. Buy a copy and put it on your CEO’s desk. Babcock explains it all.” —Paul Gillin, bestselling author of The New Influencers “A valuable primer and handbook. It will help you master the technology and follow the story as innovators craft the future of cloud computing.” —Ted schadler, VP and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc., and coauthor of Empowered “This readable, thought-provoking book will be especially useful to business professionals and practitioners.” Choice magazine About the Book Everyday business as we know it is poised for a monumental shift, courtesy of cloud computing—the biggest game-changer since the creation of the Internet itself. There’s no doubt about it: If you want to compete in the future, you must begin educating yourself about cloud computing now. From InformationWeek editor Charles Babcock, a leading authority on the business benefits and pitfalls of cloud computing, Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution provides the tools every manager needs to create a new business strategy that harnesses all the power cloud computing has to offer. Cloud computing is the equivalent of renting time on a computing infrastructure over the Internet, rather than building your own from the ground up. Access to the cloud is growing quickly, and the benefits are undeniable. Those who begin incorporating cloud computing into their business strategy will enjoy: Dramatic Cost Savings: The cloud makes available innovative technologies that would otherwise be too expensive. Ubiquitous Access: Employees can access the server power they need anytime, anywhere, and send it the program they want to run. Unprecedented Agility: Business processes and business infrastructures can be altered quicker than ever. Steady Traffic Flow: Even during peak loads, systems in the cloud can overcome bottlenecks and expand to meet the user’s needs. Working on the cloud, your analysts, business intelligence experts, and researchers can access large-scale, high-speed, highly reliable systems while paying only for short-term use. You didn’t set up your own electrical grid to power your computers. Why pay big money to use them when you don’t have to? The cloud is on the horizon, and it’s looming larger by the day. Learn how to take full advantage of it with Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution.

A sneak peek at up-and-coming trends in IT, a multidimensional vision for achieving business agility through agile architectures The Agile Architecture Revolution places IT trends into the context of Enterprise Architecture, reinventing Enterprise Architecture to support continuous business transformation. It focuses on the challenges of large organizations, while placing such organizations into the broader business ecosystem that includes small and midsize organizations as well as startups. Organizes the important trends that are facing technology in businesses and public sector organizations today and over the next several years Presents the five broad organizing principles called Supertrends: location independence, global cubicle, democratization of technology, deep interoperability, and complex systems engineering Provides a new perspective on service-oriented architecture in conjunction with architectural approaches to cloud computing and mobile technologies that explain how organizations can achieve better business visibility through IT and enterprise architecture Laying out a multidimensional vision for achieving agile architectures, this book discusses the crisis points that promise sudden, transformative change, unraveling how organizations' spending on IT will continue to undergo radical change over the next ten years.

The Internet of Things offers massive societal and economic opportunities while at the same time significant challenges, not least the delivery and management of the technical infrastructure underpinning it, the deluge of data generated from it, ensuring privacy and security, and capturing value from it. This Open Access Pivot explores these challenges, presenting the state of the art and future directions for research but also frameworks for making sense of this complex area. This book provides a variety of perspectives on how technology innovations such as fog, edge and dew computing, 5G networks, and distributed intelligence are making us rethink conventional cloud computing to support the Internet of Things. Much of this book focuses on technical aspects of the Internet of Things, however, clear methodologies for mapping the business value of the Internet of Things are still missing. We provide a value mapping framework for the Internet of Things to address this gap. While there is much hype about theInternet of Things, we have yet to reach the tipping point. As such, this book provides a timely entrée for higher education educators, researchers and students, industry and policy makers on the technologies that promise to reshape how society interacts and operates.

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

Network forensics is an evolution of typical digital forensics, in which evidence is gathered from network traffic in near real time. This book will help security and forensics professionals as well as network administrators build a solid foundation of processes and controls to identify incidents and gather evidence from the network. Forensic scientists and investigators are some of the fastest growing jobs in the United States with over 70,000 individuals employed in 2008. Specifically in the area of cybercrime and digital forensics, the federal government is conducting a talent search for 10,000 qualified specialists. Almost every technology company has developed or is developing a cloud computing strategy. To cut costs, many companies are moving toward network-based applications like SalesForce.com, PeopleSoft, and HR Direct. Every day, we are moving companies’ proprietary data into a cloud, which can be hosted anywhere in the world. These companies need to understand how to identify where their data is going and what they are sending. Key network forensics skills and tools are discussed-for example, capturing network traffic, using Snort for network-based forensics, using NetWitness Investigator for network traffic analysis, and deciphering TCP/IP. The current and future states of network forensics analysis tools are addressed. The admissibility of network-based traffic is covered as well as the typical life cycle of a network forensics investigation.