Book-review

Ifyou want to be successful,get your head in the clouds -

"Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution: How CloudComputing is Transforming Business and Why You Can'tAjford

to Be Left Behind," by Charles Babcock. New York: McGraw-Hill,2010. 272 pages, $27.95.

"Cor most of us, being accused1.-'of having our head in the

. clouds is usually taken as aninsult. In the future, however, thismight be considered more of a

. compliment.At least that's the conclusion

you tend to come to after reading"Management Strategies for theCloud Revolution: How CloudComputing is Transforming Busi­ness and Why You Can't Affordto Be Left Behind," by CharlesBabcock, an editor-at-large forInformation Week. Babcock hasalso served as art editor for Digi­tal News, Computerworld ·andInteractive Week. He defInitelyhas the credentials and the credi­bility to write this kind of book.

"The federal government now .spends $76 billion a year oninfor­mation technology," Babcockobserves. "President BarackObama has endorsed the conceptof cloud computing as one way tobring escalating costs under con­trol. Ultimately, the cloud is ademocratizing force, extendingmore computer resources to thosewhose access was formerlyrationed."

Cloud computing, according toBabcock, "is a model for enablingconvenient, on-demand networkaccess to a shared pool of confIg­urable computing resources thatcan be rapidly provisioned andreleased with minimal manage­ment effort or service providerinteraction." He goes on toexplain that cloud computing iscomposed of fIve essential ele­ments: on-demand self-service,broad network access, resourcepooling, rapid elasticity and mea­sured service.

At the heart of cloud comput­ing is the notion of "virtualiza­tion," which involves distributingthe computing process across awide range of individualmachines and servers in order tomaximize efficiency and respon­siveness to a variety of simultane­ous needs. Virtualization providesthe foundation and conceptualframework that make cloud com­puting a truly revolutionaryapproach to conducting business.

"Virtualization is one of thekey technologies that give thecloud its elastic quality, so that auser can enlist support from manyservers and, conversely, manyusers can receive services fromthe same server," Babcock notes.

One of the fIrst companies torecognize the immense potentialof cloud computing as a businessmodel was Google. "Gobgle fIg­ured out how to build cloudservers ahead of the rest of themarketplace," Babcock writes. "Acloud service can place manyusers on one machine withoutdanger that they will trespass oneach other or see each other'sdata."

A key advantage of cloud com­puting over more traditionalforms of computing, especiallyfrom a business perspective,seems to be its inherent depend­ability. "Cloud suppliers canargue that their data centers areless likely to go down than theaverage corporate data center,"Babcock nQtes. "The marvelousGoogle search engine always

seems to be available, any time ofday anywhere in the world.". Babcock acknowledges thatmost users are unaware of thebehind-the-scenes transformationthat made this kind of consistencypossible. By distributing comput­mg power across a virtual grid,interruptions in service can theo­retically be eliminated altogether,which has an enormous appealfrom a business perspective.

At the same time, a temporaryloss of service is inevitable atsome point due to unanticipatedproblems and circumstances thatare increasingly difficult to pre­dict. After all, we are in unchar­tered territory with respect to ouruse of the technology. What isclear is that, as more peopleengage in cloud computing, anyoutage will have devastatingfmancial implications for the com­pany that experiences the loss. Toaccentuate this point, Babcockdescribes the fmancial repercus­sions of a 44-minute disruption inservice at Amazon.com that pre­cipitated revenue losses that wereimmediate and significant.

"Coping with failure in thecloud means giving your applica­tion the capability to failover toanother server," Babcockexplains. ''That's one of the majordifferences between operating inthe cloud and operating in the tra­ditional data center."

One of the most challengingaspects of cloud computing is thenever-ending quest. to provideusers .with a high degree of secu­rity. Keeping personal identity

and sensitive financial data secureis an ongoing and ever moreimportarit consideration in thedigital age. Cloud computing,while offering unprecedentedopportunities on a number of tan­gible levels, does tend to exacer­bate the problems associated withkeeping transactions safe.

"Cloud Revolution," althoughwritten for a general audience,will defInitely have a greaterappeal for those who have morethan a passing knowledge of thesubject matter it covers. Forinstance, in chapter fIve, "TheHybrid Cloud," Babcock writes"Instead of Sun UltraSPARC,DEC Alpha, and IBM POWER ormainframe processors, the datacenter is constructed from a singleset of x86 microprocessors, suchas Intel's Xeon." If you under­stand what this means, chancesare you work in or around infor­mation technology.

In the final analysis, there is lit­tle doubt that Babcock is inti­mately familiar with his subjectmatter and its implications forbusiness. If you want to get someidea of what you will need toknow in order to be successful inthis arena in the future, then this isa book that defmitely needs to beon your reading list.

In other words, if you want tobe successful in the future, itmight be a good idea to get yourhead in the clouds. Literally.

- Reviewed by Aaron W.Hughey, Department of Counsel­ing and Student Affairs, WesternKentucky University

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The Daily News (Bowling Green, KY) Sunday,June 20, 2010, page 12-C