Author: Rene Buest

Rene Buest is Gartner Analyst covering Infrastructure Services & Digital Operations. Prior to that he was Director of Technology Research at Arago, Senior Analyst and Cloud Practice Lead at Crisp Research, Principal Analyst at New Age Disruption and member of the worldwide Gigaom Research Analyst Network. Rene is considered as top cloud computing analyst in Germany and one of the worldwide top analysts in this area. In addition, he is one of the world’s top cloud computing influencers and belongs to the top 100 cloud computing experts on Twitter and Google+. Since the mid-90s he is focused on the strategic use of information technology in businesses and the IT impact on our society as well as disruptive technologies.

Rene Buest is the author of numerous professional technology articles. He regularly writes for well-known IT publications like Computerwoche, CIO Magazin, LANline as well as Silicon.de and is cited in German and international media – including New York Times, Forbes Magazin, Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Wirtschaftswoche, Computerwoche, CIO, Manager Magazin and Harvard Business Manager. Furthermore Rene Buest is speaker and participant of experts rounds. He is founder of CloudUser.de and writes about cloud computing, IT infrastructure, technologies, management and strategies. He holds a diploma in computer engineering from the Hochschule Bremen (Dipl.-Informatiker (FH)) as well as a M.Sc. in IT-Management and Information Systems from the FHDW Paderborn.

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Management @de

Die Datenleitungen: Das Rückgrat der Cloud

Im Cloud Umfeld wird immer viel über die Anbieter, ihre Verfügbarkeit, Ausfallsicherheit und Service Level Agreements (SLA) gesprochen. Was sehr oft gar nicht angesprochen wird ist die Hauptabhängigkeit Nummer eins: Die Backbones der Internet Carrier. Die “Submarine Cable Map 2013” illustriert sehr schön, wo welche Kabel weltweit verlaufen, die für den Datentransfer zwischen den einzelnen Kontinenten verantwortlich sind.

Die Datenleitungen: Das Rückgrat des Cloud Computing

Submarine Cable Map 2013 – Das weltweite Backbone unter dem Meer

Die “Submarine Cable Map 2013” zeigt das weltweite Backbone der Unterwasserkabel im Meer. Sie zeigt, wo der meiste Datentransfer stattfindet und welche Länder über die beste Vernetzung verfügen.

Insgesamt illustriert die Karte 244 Leitungen. Darunter diejenigen die zwischen dem Zeitraum von 1992 bis 2012 verlegt wurden oder die, welche bis 2014 in Betrieb genommen werden. Bereits bestehende Leitungen sind farbig markiert, geplante sind Grau. Weitere zwölf Leitungen sollen in den kommenden zwei Jahren neu verlegt werden.

Am unteren Rand der Karte lässt sich zudem ablesen, wie schnell die jeweiligen Verbindungen zwischen den verschiedenen Ländern und Kontinenten sind und wie stark die Auslastung ist. Zu erkennen ist z.B., dass die USA nach Kolumbien und Venezuela über schnelle Datenverbindungen verfügen, nach Frankreich und Großbritannien ist es jedoch langsamer. Die schwächste Datenleitung haben die USA demnach nach Südafrika und Indien.

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Analysis

Software-as-a-Service: Why your application belongs to the cloud as well

Software-as-a-service is the most growing part in the cloud computing market. More and more providers of classical software solutions make the change and offer their applications over the cloud. Learn why your application belongs to the cloud as well and why your customers but even you as a provider benefit from this step.

Software-as-a-Service: Warum auch Ihre Anwendung in die Cloud gehört

What means Software-as-a-service?

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is the top layer of the cloud computing service model. It provides the user with complete applications. It can be understood as a kind of distribution model in which the use of software (licenses) is offered over the Internet by a third party provider. The third party provider does inter alia the maintenance, updating and hosting of the software. For the supplier, the advantage is that only one instance of the software must be provided on the servers which utilize a numerous of users simultaneously. If the software is brought to a current status, an update operation is sufficient in a central place and the updated software is available for all users at the same time. The advantage for the user is that only one device with a web browser and an Internet connection is sufficient to use services such as e-mail, office applications or ERP systems. The purchase and maintenance of large server environments and software packages is as well as eliminated like updating local applications. The third party provider always takes care of a current state of the software and provides the complete infrastructure for hosting the software. This also includes the storage of files and documents on the provider’s servers. Therefore the provider is responsible for all the necessary parts of the operations, such as availability, backup, redundancy, and also the power supply. Settlement takes place with the pay per use model. Here, the costs will be charged per user.

What means SaaS for your customers?

In short, software-as-a-service will make your customers’ lives easier and help them to invest selectively and only when necessary.

Manageable capital costs

An IT infrastructure includes inter alia local computer systems with which the staff do their work. On this numerous applications are installed that are settled firmly per user or computer system, no matter whether the current user of the system requires the application or not. Furthermore, for the central storage of data, communication and collaboration solutions such as e-mail or systems for time and attendance and corporate planning, server hardware and software are required in the backend. Also not forget the servers and software for the directory service, against the employees need to authorize. All the listed areas, and that’s only a part, lead to high investment costs. It should also be noted that this must be maintained and updated regularly all well.

Software-as-a-service reduces the major part of the above disadvantages of a local IT infrastructure. Not pinpoint high investment costs in licenses are eliminated, such as unused software licenses. Today companies have to do with a growing staff turnover. In addition, many rely on part-time or casual workers to compensate for a particular boom, which is above the average in the year. This requires appropriate licenses, so that each employee can work productively. The result is that over the year to many software licenses are available in the company and installed on the systems. By the unpredictable number of required employees either there is an over-investment or there is a shortage, which is usually solved by workarounds.

A software-as-a-service solution allows to add more users as needed within a short time and remove them again. This means the company actually pays only for the employee who requires a certain software.

The situation is similar with local computer systems and servers in the backend. The needed servers for e-mail and ERP systems are located within the infrastructure of the provider who is responsible for the maintenance, upgrade and administration. An investment in these back-end systems is eliminated. Moreover, no local performance computer systems are longer needed. Since the application is deployed and used via a web browser, inexpensive terminals or thin clients last out.

Always up to date

Software must constantly meet new requirements. Because due to new legal requirements or bugs and security vulnerabilities have slipped during the development process, which must be corrected. And of course on a regular basis to see new versions of software that bring new features, etc. with it. In a traditional IT infrastructure usually all this is performed manually by a user or better an administrator installation process or by automated systems. Either way, the IT staff is busy to first install updates on test systems to validate the behavior of the overall system.

A software-as-a-service application is always up to date. The provider works in the background to ensure that security issues, bug fixes, updates and new features are recorded, without the user or administrator is actively involved and in most cases, none of this notice.

Working location and platform independent

Traditional software applications are bound to a local computer system, that makes location and platform independent work difficult. With mobile devices such as notebooks, applications are indeed a bit portable, but still bound to this one device. In addition, the respective native application must also be available for the local operating system, which is not always the case.

Software-as-a-Service applications are used via a standard browser. Thus they are 100% location and platform independent. Even if an employee can’t use his usual system he still can access through the web browser to the application. Another advantage is that the access to critical data is always possible, since they are stored centrally in the backend of the SaaS application and it is therefore accessed from any employee who is entitled to.

What means SaaS for you?

Software-as-a-service will save you time, money and nerves.

Software costs

If a classic application is fully developed, the real work begins. How should the software be distributed, how to provide updates and how to respond if a bug is discovered when the correction is extremely important? These are just a few questions a provider needs to face up. Traditionally software is delivered as a volume in the form of a CD. On the one hand this means costs for media, packaging, logistics, etc. On the other side also a static version of the software that needs to be expanded with updates (on CD) after each new installation. But what about when the update also contains an error or is not compatible with certain other applications? The logistical process starts again. Over time it has become to provide software and updates as downloads. This has succeeded in cost savings, but the update problem largely remains. It’s similar with the release of a completely new software version with new features and design.

Software-as-a-service fully raises these issues. The application is ​​available online through a web browser, eliminating the need for any external logistic processes. It is the same with the delivering of updates. This is completely eliminated, because you as a provider of software have all the threads in your hand and maintain the changes, bug fixes, improvements and completely new versions at a central location.

Platform independence

Some software is only available for the well-known operating systems. The development and sale for the supposed small not worth it. This not only deters the occasional user, but can be carried away by statements that the provider is not open.

Software-as-a-service provides the platform independence of the application and thus a greater range and customer satisfaction. The application is exclusively available via a browser and works without the installation of additional software components. As a result, you just have to develop for the current default browser and the local operating system and all applications installed on it are not affect by your application.

Your application belongs to the cloud as well

If we compare the traditional software market and how software is developed, provided and consumed here, with cloud computing, one thing becomes very clear. The way software is delivered to the user has changed. Sending out volumes or providing updates are eliminated. Likewise, to install software or updates. Software is provided as a service from the cloud, accordingly software-as-a-service (SaaS). The provider has all filaments in his hand and the users do not notice an update, unless changes ​​to the surface were made. The user is not involved in the update process itself because he must not install or download anything. He consumes the software only through a web browser.

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You can also support CloudUser.de and download this item as a charged PDF from “Software-as-a-Service: Why your application belongs to the cloud as well“.

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Comment

Is the channel in the cloud computing age still relevant?

During the Cloud EcoSystem Winter Meeting a panel discussed which relevants the channel still has in the cloud. Since the majority of the participants were part of the channel less critics were made. And even things about changes were not discussed, because some already delivered software over ASP and so they are since 1998 in the cloud.

ASP is not cloud computing

I will not discuss ASP (Application Service Providing) vs. SaaS (cloud). That ASP has nothing todo with SaaS (software-as-a-service) respectively cloud computing is not just propagade by me but also by other publications. (Btw, I was very thankful, that Stefan Ried cleaned up all the “cloud myths” during his talk and showed all attendees the true characteristics and benefits of the cloud, thanks Stefan!)

The channel have to change

Let’s come to the channel. It will be worse to say that it dies. On the one hand “something” is to sale everytime and the lobby behind that will do their best to keep this business model alive. But it will be worse to close the eyes and making things going on as they have been made for years. Sure, “You’ll always need hardware!” but even this amount? And are countless suppliers able to live just from selling hardware?

In my opinion, software reselling, a big part of the whole market, is dead. Just think about which type of software is shipped by media, I spontaneously just have operating systems in mind. Although it’s possible to download it from the website of the vendor as well. Just like other software which is not available as SaaS today. For example, Microsoft ships the new Office 365 Home Premium in a box with just a small card with a code on it. The software is downloaded or streamed afterwards from a Microsoft website.

From reseller to integrator

In my opinion the typical channel for software reseller is too late to save. Companies in this area should as soon as possible think about other options. One possibility is a partnership program with software vendors, to help customers migrate and integrate with consultation-intensive solutions (actually SaaS applications are intuitv to configure and use). That means, a software reseller needs to have more expertise than just sell software and become a systems integrator.

A further idea is to build an own marketplace for SaaS applications. Here the differentiation with existing offerings is necessary and besides offering solutions from different categories even integrate them (by standard) in order to have a central data management and no isolated solutions. Here you can see, that the reseller also becomes an integrator. Leaving just reselling software.

Sure, there are software reseller who even integrate. The classical systems houses. But even these needs to change, thanks to the cloud.

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Kommentar

Hat der Channel in Zeiten des Cloud Computing noch eine Bedeutung?

Auf dem Cloud EcoSystem Winter Meeting wurde in einem Panel diskutiert, welche Bedeutung der Channel in der Cloud überhaupt noch hat. Da die Mehrzahl der Protagonisten jedoch ein Teil dieses Channels waren, gab es natürlich wenig Kritik. Allerdings war auch wenig von Veränderungen zu hören, da man ja auf Grund des ASP Modells schon selbst seit 1998 quasi in der Cloud sei.

ASP ist kein Cloud Computing

Auf die Diskussion ASP (Application Service Providing) vs. SaaS (Cloud) gehe ich hier nicht ein. Das ASP mit SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) respektive Cloud Computing nichts zu tun hat, wird nicht nur von mir, sondern vielen weiteren Publikationen propagiert. (Ich war übrigens sehr froh, dass Stefan Ried während seines Vortrags mit den “Cloud Mythen” noch einmal aufgeräumt hat und allen Beteiligten die echten Eigenschaften und Vorteile der Cloud präsentiert hat, danke Stefan!)

Der Channel muss sich verändern

Kommen wir zum Channel. Es wäre falsch zu sagen, dass er stirbt. Zum einen gibt es auch weiterhin “Dinge” für den Vertrieb und die Lobby dahinter wird auch alles menschenmögliche tun, um ihr Geschäftsmodell zu verteidigen. Aber es wäre vermessen, die Augen zu verschließen und so weiter zu machen wie bisher. Natürlich, “Hardware wird immer benötigt!”, aber auch in dieser Stückzahl? Und können zig Anbieter nur vom Vertrieb von Hardware leben?

Meiner Ansicht nach ist der Software-Vertrieb, ein sehr großer Teil vom gesamten Markt, tod. Überlegen wir uns, welche Art von Software in Zukunft noch auf Datenträger verschickt wird, fallen mir spontan nur die Betriebssysteme ein. Obwohl sich diese mittlerweile auch über die Webseiten der Hersteller herunterladen lassen, wie andere Softwarelösungen übrigens auch, die noch nicht als SaaS zur Verfügung stehen. Zum Beispiel liefert Microsoft für Office365 Home Premium trotz Verpackung nur noch einen Code aus, mit dem die Software von einer Microsoft Webseite heruntergeladen oder gestreamed wird.

Vom Reseller zum Integrator

Der typische Channel für Software-Reseller ist meiner Ansicht nach daher nicht mehr zu retten. Unternehmen aus diesem Bereich sollten sich möglichst schnell Gedanken über alternative Wege machen. Mögliche Ansätze bestehen in Partnerprogrammen mit den Softwareherstellern, um z.B. bei beratungsintensiven Lösungen (eigentlich sollten SaaS Anwendungen intuitiv zu konfigurieren und bedienen sein) dem Kunden zur Seite zu stehen und bei der Migration und Integration zu helfen. Ergo: Software-Reseller müssen sich mehr Expertise als das reine wiederverkaufen aneignen und zu Sytemintegratoren werden.

Eine weitere Möglichkeit besteht in dem Aufbau eines eigenen Marktplatz für SaaS-Applikationen. Hier gilt es jedoch sich direkt von den bestehenden Angeboten zu differenzieren und neben einer Vielzahl von Lösungen aus den unterschiedlichen Bereichen, ebenfalls dafür zu sorgen, dass die von dem Kunden genutzten Lösungen miteinander integriert sind und über eine zentrale Datenhaltung verfügen und somit keine Insellösungen entstehen. Gut zu erkennen: auch hier muss der Reseller wieder zum Integrator werden. Weg von dem reinen Zwischenhandel mit Software.

Selbstverständlich existieren Software-Reseller, die ebenfalls Integrationen vornehmen. Das sind die klassischen Systemhäuser. Aber auch diese müssen sich auf Grund der Cloud verändern.

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Analyst Cast @de

Dell Technology Camp 2013 – Converged Infrastructure

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Analyst Cast

Dell Technology Camp 2013 – Converged Infrastructure

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Comment

Office 365 Home Premium – Microsoft does not rely on software-as-a-service

Yesterday Microsoft has introduced its new Office for the retail market. The new Office 365 Home Premium promises to deliver new capabilities for direct connection to social networks, SkyDrive and Skype to facilitate communication with family and friends. In addition, each user has his personal office anywhere. Use it on a PC, tablet or smartphone – and even on the Mac. The control is done in addition to keyboard by touch or pen input. But who thought that Microsoft offers its new office to the idea of the cloud as SaaS (software-as-a-service), is mistaken.

Cloud but not software-as-a-service

Office 365 Home Premium is not SaaS or a cloud service in the strict sense, because the office is not provided or used over the browser. (Although there are the completely free Office Web Apps, which have directly nothing to do with Office 365 Home Premium.) Microsoft gives the reason that not all Office functions can be operated performant in the browser. Instead, Microsoft is going an “interesting” way which is totally new. Microsoft Office becomes hybrid. Microsoft names this truly innovative technology as “Office streaming”. Through “Click 2 Run” an office suite can be installed in minutes. The interesting thing is that Microsoft initially installed the statistically most used basic functions, so you can quickly start working with Office. So you are able to work with Office already during the installation. In the background the rest is installed. The cluo: If a function is called, for example of Word, while Office is still in installation mode, this function is prioritized accurately and directly streamed. (Whether this type of installation, a user really needs is another question, but the idea is good.)

Cloud is just in the backend

Office 365 Home Premium syncs all personal settings and documents automatically to the cloud. Thus all data are available on all connected PCs. This also works on other PCs, if you log on there with a Microsoft account of hotmail.com, outlook.com or live.com. Based on the new technology “Office on Demand” the office is then streamed from the cloud for processing on the respective computer. “Office on Demand” installs Office on the local system in a virtual environment. When the session is closed, the virtual environment and the Office with all the data completely disappears from the system. Thus, Microsoft would ensure privacy when using on other computers.

Prices and goodies

Office 365 Home Premium includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and also Outlook, Access and Publisher. By subscribing a user automatically has to have the latest Office solution on the hard drive or on the road via”Office on Demand”. Other goodies: 60 minutes per month with Skype to landlines, additional 20 GB SkyDrive storage and use rights for up to five devices, laptops, tablets and smartphones, for both Windows and Mac environments.

Prices

  • Office 365 Home Premium: 99 EUR per year
  • Office 365 University: 79 EUR for 4 years
  • Office Home & Student 2013 for 139 EUR
  • Office Home & Business 2013 for 269 EUR
  • Office Professional 2013 for 539 EUR

Office 365-Business

From 27 February 2013 also new Office 365 business services with new functions will be available, which will probably also include a SkyDrive Pro version.

The strategy is consistent with Windows 8

That Microsoft does not rely on SaaS is a little surprising, but it fits into the Windows 8 strategy. The applications are mostly held locally to ensure the speed and necessarily not have to rely on a data connection. All personal settings and documents, if the user wants, are stored in the cloud in order to ensure the location and platform independent access. This is ensured by “Office on Demand” and streaming.

Is the Microsoft Office suite still contemporary?

For me, the question arises, why Microsoft continued its commitment to this massive office suite and does not offer applications separately. I understand the strategy to give end users access to Outlook. Parents can e.g. organize the family. But who does that really? After Microsoft’s research probably some. So, reference customers were allowed to talk about their use cases during the launch event. I’m not so sure. If you look at the behavior of (young) users, who prefer to self assemble their productivity suite and do not want to get dictated by mom and dad. (The influence of their friends is much greater.) Dropbox for storage, Evernote for taking notes, Remember the Milk or Wunderlist for tasks, GMail or Outlook.com for e-mail are among the favorite candidates. The Cloud and Mobile apps make it possible.

Office is good, no question! But is this powerful solution still contemporary? Do users really want to get dictated what they should use or do they prefer to assemble their own solutions. Word and Excel are an added value for each personal productivity suite, but for that they must be offered separately, and I do not mean the Office Web Apps.

Categories
Cloud Computing

Office 365 Home Premium – Microsoft does not rely on software-as-a-service

Yesterday Microsoft has introduced its new Office for the retail market. The new Office 365 Home Premium promises to deliver new capabilities for direct connection to social networks, SkyDrive and Skype to facilitate communication with family and friends. In addition, each user has his personal office anywhere. Use it on a PC, tablet or smartphone – and even on the Mac. The control is done in addition to keyboard by touch or pen input. But who thought that Microsoft offers its new office to the idea of the cloud as SaaS (software-as-a-service), is mistaken.

Cloud but not software-as-a-service

Office 365 Home Premium is not SaaS or a cloud service in the strict sense, because the office is not provided or used over the browser. (Although there are the completely free Office Web Apps, which have directly nothing to do with Office 365 Home Premium.) Microsoft gives the reason that not all Office functions can be operated performant in the browser. Instead, Microsoft is going an “interesting” way which is totally new. Microsoft Office becomes hybrid. Microsoft names this truly innovative technology as “Office streaming”. Through “Click 2 Run” an office suite can be installed in minutes. The interesting thing is that Microsoft initially installed the statistically most used basic functions, so you can quickly start working with Office. So you are able to work with Office already during the installation. In the background the rest is installed. The cluo: If a function is called, for example of Word, while Office is still in installation mode, this function is prioritized accurately and directly streamed. (Whether this type of installation, a user really needs is another question, but the idea is good.)

Cloud is just in the backend

Office 365 Home Premium syncs all personal settings and documents automatically to the cloud. Thus all data are available on all connected PCs. This also works on other PCs, if you log on there with a Microsoft account of hotmail.com, outlook.com or live.com. Based on the new technology “Office on Demand” the office is then streamed from the cloud for processing on the respective computer. “Office on Demand” installs Office on the local system in a virtual environment. When the session is closed, the virtual environment and the Office with all the data completely disappears from the system. Thus, Microsoft would ensure privacy when using on other computers.

Prices and goodies

Office 365 Home Premium includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and also Outlook, Access and Publisher. By subscribing a user automatically has to have the latest Office solution on the hard drive or on the road via”Office on Demand”. Other goodies: 60 minutes per month with Skype to landlines, additional 20 GB SkyDrive storage and use rights for up to five devices, laptops, tablets and smartphones, for both Windows and Mac environments.

Prices

  • Office 365 Home Premium: 99 EUR per year
  • Office 365 University: 79 EUR for 4 years
  • Office Home & Student 2013 for 139 EUR
  • Office Home & Business 2013 for 269 EUR
  • Office Professional 2013 for 539 EUR

Office 365-Business

From 27 February 2013 also new Office 365 business services with new functions will be available, which will probably also include a SkyDrive Pro version.

The strategy is consistent with Windows 8

That Microsoft does not rely on SaaS is a little surprising, but it fits into the Windows 8 strategy. The applications are mostly held locally to ensure the speed and necessarily not have to rely on a data connection. All personal settings and documents, if the user wants, are stored in the cloud in order to ensure the location and platform independent access. This is ensured by “Office on Demand” and streaming.

Is the Microsoft Office suite still contemporary?

For me, the question arises, why Microsoft continued its commitment to this massive office suite and does not offer applications separately. I understand the strategy to give end users access to Outlook. Parents can e.g. organize the family. But who does that really? After Microsoft’s research probably some. So, reference customers were allowed to talk about their use cases during the launch event. I’m not so sure. If you look at the behavior of (young) users, who prefer to self assemble their productivity suite and do not want to get dictated by mom and dad. (The influence of their friends is much greater.) Dropbox for storage, Evernote for taking notes, Remember the Milk or Wunderlist for tasks, GMail or Outlook.com for e-mail are among the favorite candidates. The Cloud and Mobile apps make it possible.

Office is good, no question! But is this powerful solution still contemporary? Do users really want to get dictated what they should use or do they prefer to assemble their own solutions. Word and Excel are an added value for each personal productivity suite, but for that they must be offered separately, and I do not mean the Office Web Apps.

Categories
Kommentar

Office 365 Home Premium – Microsoft setzt nicht auf Software-as-a-Service

Gestern war es soweit, Microsoft hat sein neues Office für den Endkundenmarkt vorgestellt. Das neue Office 365 Home Premium verspricht neue Funktionen für die direkte Anbindung an soziale Netzwerke, SkyDrive und Skype, was die Kommunikation mit Familie und Freunden erleichtern soll. Zudem steht jedem Anwender künftig sein persönliches Office überall zur Verfügung. Sei es auf PC, Tablet oder Smartphone – und sogar auf dem Mac. Die Bedienung erfolgt neben Tastatur auch über Touch oder Stifteingabe. Wer nun aber gedacht hat, das Microsoft sein neues Office ganz nach dem Gedanken der Cloud als SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) bereitstellt, der irrt.

Cloud aber kein Software-as-a-Service

Beim Office 365 Home Premium handelt es sich nicht um SaaS oder einen Cloud Service im eigentlichen Sinne, da das Office nicht über den Browser bereitgestellt und genutzt wird. (Zwar gibt es weiterhin die vollkommen kostenlosen Office Web Apps, die haben aber direkt nichts mit Office 365 Home Premium zu tun.) Microsoft begründet es damit, dass nicht alle Office Funktionen performant im Browser betrieben werden können. Stattdessen geht Microsoft einen “interessanten” Weg, den es so noch nicht gibt. Microsoft Office wird hybrid. Microsoft bezeichnet diese wirklich neuartige Technologie als “Office Streaming”. Mittels “Click 2 Run” lässt sich eine Office Suite innerhalb weniger Minuten installieren. Das Interessante daran ist, dass Microsoft zunächst die am statistisch häufigsten genutzten Grundfunktionen installiert, wodurch man sehr schnell mit der Arbeit mit Office starten kann. Man ist also in der Lage bereits während der Installation mit Office zu arbeiten. Im Hintergrund wird der Rest installiert. Der Cluo: ruft man eine Funktion bspw. von Word auf, während sich Office noch im Installationsmodus befindet, wird genau diese Funktion priorisiert und direkt gestreamed. (Ob ein Nutzer diese Art der Installation nun wirklich braucht ist eine andere Frage, aber die Idee ist gut.)

Cloud nur im Backend

Office 365 Home Premium synchronisiert alle individuelle Einstellungen und Dokumente automatisch mit der Cloud. Dadurch stehen alle Daten auf allen angebundenen PCs zur Verfügung. Das funktioniert ebenfalls auf fremden PCs, wenn man sich dort mit dem Microsoft-Konto von hotmail.de, outlook.com oder live.de anmeldet. Anhand der neuen Technologie „Office on Demand“ wird das Office dann aus der Cloud für die Bearbeitung auf den jeweiligen Rechner gestreamt. “Office on Demand” installiert das Office auf dem lokalen System in eine virtuellen Umgebung. Beim Beenden der Sitzung wird die virtuelle Umgebung geschlossen und das Office mit sämtlichen Daten verschwindet wieder vollständig vom System. Microsoft möchte damit die Privatsphäre bei der Nutzung auf fremden Computern sicherstellen.

Preise und Goodies

Office 365 Home Premium beinhaltet die Programme Word, Excel, PowerPoint und OneNote, darüber hinaus auch Outlook, Access und Publisher. Durch das Abonnement verfügt ein Anwender automatisch immer über die aktuelle Office-Lösung auf seiner Festplatte oder unterwegs via Office on Demand. Weitere Goodies: 60 Minuten Skype pro Monat ins Festnetz, zusätzliche 20 GB SkyDrive Speicher und Nutzungsrechte für bis zu fünf Endgeräte, für Laptops, Tablets und Smartphones, sowohl für Windows- als auch Mac-Umgebungen.

Preise

  • Office 365 Home Premium: 99 EUR pro Jahr
  • Office 365 University: 79 EUR für 4 Jahre
  • Office Home & Student 2013 für 139 EUR
  • Office Home & Business 2013 für 269 EUR
  • Office Professional 2013 für 539 EUR

Office 365-Business

Ab 27. Februar 2013 stehen darüber hinaus Neue Office 365-Business Services mit neuen Funktionen zur Verfügung, in denen wahrscheinlich auch eine SkyDrive Pro Version enthalten sein wird.

Die Strategie passt zu Windows 8

Das Microsoft nicht auf SaaS setzt, kommt zwar ein wenig überraschend, passt aber in die Windows 8 Strategie. Die Applikationen werden überwiegend lokal gehalten, um die Geschwindigkeit zu garantieren und nicht zwangsläufig auf eine Datenverbindung angewiesen zu sein. Sämtliche persönliche Einstellungen und Dokumente werden, wenn der Nutzer möchte, in der Cloud gespeichert, um damit den orts- und plattformunabhängigen Zugriff zu gewährleisten. Dieser wird mit “Office on Demand” und dem Streaming sichergestellt.

Ist die Microsoft Office Suite noch zeitgemäß?

Mir stellt sich die Frage, warum Microsoft weiterhin an diesem massiven Office Paket festhält und die Applikationen nicht einzeln anbietet. Ich verstehe die Strategie dahinter, Outlook nun auch dem Endanwender zugänglich zu machen. Die Eltern können z.B. die Familie organisieren. Aber wer macht das tatsächlich? Nach Microsofts Recherchen wohl einige. So durften Referenzkunden während des Launch Events von ihren Use Cases berichten. Ich bin mir da nicht so sicher. Schaut man sich das Verhalten von (jungen) Nutzern an, stellen die sich lieber selbst ihre Productivity Suite zusammen und wollen das nicht von Mama und Papa diktiert bekommen. (Der Einfluss der Freunde ist viel größer.) Dropbox für Storage, Evernote für Notizen, Remember the Milk oder Wunderlist für Aufgaben, GMail oder Outlook.com für E-Mail gehören zu den Wunsch-Kandidaten. Die Cloud und Mobile Apps machen dies möglich.

Office ist gut, keine Frage! Aber ist diese mächtige Lösung noch zeitgemäß? Wollen sich Nutzer wirklich noch diktieren lassen was sie nutzen sollen oder lieber ihre eigenen Lösungen zusammenstellen. Word und Excel sind ein Mehrwert für jede persönliche Productivity Suite, aber dafür müssen sie einzeln angeboten werden und damit meine ich nicht die Office Web Apps.

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Big Data in the Cloud: AWS Data Pipeline and Amazon Redshift

Amazon powerful upgraded its cloud infrastructure for big data. With the AWS Data Pipeline now a service (currently in beta) is available to automatically move and handle data across different systems. Amazon Redshift is a data warehouse in the cloud, which will be ten times faster than previously available solutions.

AWS Data Pipeline

With the AWS Data Pipeline Amazon wants to improve the access to the steady growing data on distributed systems and in different formats. For example, the service loads textfiles from Amazon EC2, processes it and saves them on Amazon S3. The main hub is represented by the AWS Management Console. Here the pipelines including the several sources, conditions, targets and commands are defined. Based on task plans it is defined when which job will be processed. The AWS Data Pipeline determines from which system based on which condition the data is loaded and processed and where it is stored afterwards.

The data processing can be conduct directly in the Amazon cloud on EC2 instances or in the own data center. Therefore the open source tool Task Runner is used which communicates with the AWS Data Pipeline. The Task Runner must run on each system that is processing data.

Amazon Redshift

Amazon’s cloud data warehouse Amazon Redshift helps to analyze huge amount of data in a short time frame. Within it’s possible to store 1.6 petabytes of data and request them using SQL queries. Basically the service is charged by pay as you use. But customers who sign a three years contract and giving full load on their virtual infrastructure pay from 1.000 USD per terabyte per year. Amazon compares with numbers from IBM. IBM charges a data warehouse from 19.000 USD to 25.000 USD per terabyte per year.
First Amazon Redshift beta users are Netflix, JPL and Flipboard who were able to improve their requests 10 till 150 times faster compared to their current systems.

Amazon Redshift can be used as a single cluster with one server and a maximum of 2 terabyte of storage or as a multi node cluster including at least two compute nodes and one lead node. The lead node is responsible for the connection management, parsing the requests, create task plans and managing the requests for each compute node. The main processing is done on the compute node. Compute nodes are provided as hs1.xlarge with 2 terabyte storage and as hs1.8xlarge with 16 terabyte storage. One cluster has the maximum amount of 32 hs1.xlarge and 100 hs1.8xlarge compute nodes. This results in a maximum storage capacity of 64 terabyte respectively 1.6 terabyte. All compute nodes are connected over a separate 10 gigabit/s backbone.

Comment

Despite from the competition Amazon expands its cloud services portfolio. As a result, you can sometimes get the impression that all the other IaaS providers mark time – considering the innovative power of Amazon Web Services. I can only stress here once again that Value added services are the future of infrastructure-as-a-service respectively Don’t compete against the Amazon Web Services just with Infrastructure.

If we take a look at the latest developments, we see a steadily increasing demand for solutions for processing large amounts of structured and unstructured data. Barack Obama’s campaign is just one use case, which shows how important the possession of quality information is in order to gain competitive advantages in the future. And even though many see Amazon Web Services “just” as a pure infrastructure-as-a-service provider (I don’t do that), is Amazon – more than any other (IaaS) provider – in the battle for Big Data solutions far up to play – which is not just the matter because of the knowledge from operating Amazon.com.