Larry Carvalho

Typical cloud computing conferences feature a large contingent of pay-to-pay sponsors who are looking primarily for ROI from marketing budgets at these shows. It is always refreshing to attend a sponsored event where speakers focus instead on energetic presentations and panel discussions aimed at gaining clarity on evolving topics. Platform as a Service (PaaS) is one aspect of cloud computing that is still evolving but maturing quickly. Deploycon 2013 was a good sponsored workshop (held in conjunction with the Cloud Connect conference) to set the tone on the future of PaaS. With the skills shortage in cloud computing skills and an effort to improve developer productivity, vendors are in a race to reduce the complexity of deploying cloud enabled solutions. Abstracting the infrastructure to overcome major barriers of security and scalability while avoiding vendor loc... (more)

Enterprise Social Adoption Challenges

I have attended IBM's Lotusphere conference many times, but this year was a different experience. The long-familiar yellow Lotus branded signs were missing as the conference was renamed "IBM Connect." The move away from Lotus branding was expected after IBM's recent repositioning of Lotus products, along with some new acquisitions under the umbrella of IBM Collaboration Solutions. The change also reflects IBM's overall direction away from selling products to customers to focusing on business outcomes. The three main themes of the Connect 2013 conference were Social Business, Sma... (more)

Can Platform as a Service (PaaS) Vendors Meet User Expectations?

As enterprise cloud adoption increases, CIOs are looking not just to use the cloud as the next shiny technology, but to also harvest major benefits. Regulations and compliance bring a set of new challenges when new transformational technologies like cloud computing are adopted. Although large technology vendors have widely promoted private clouds, recent surveys show CIOs are willing to sit out the private cloud trend until public cloud matures enough for broader use. In the same manner, many enterprises bypass some Windows releases until an upgrade is announced that is proven to... (more)

Selling Solutions to Future Generations of Enterprise IT

Enterprise IT‘s focus is moving from software development to data analytics, so it is not surprising that attention is also being paid to help them address these needs. The exhibit hall at the recent Strata conference (run by O‘Reilly Media) was packed with start-up companies demonstrating innovative data analytics solutions. One of the challenges in implementing analytics is customers‘ lack of skills. A common theme among start-up solutions was overcoming that skills barrier. Some of these solutions were designed to help users get started with simple BigData initiatives and then... (more)

Managing IT in an Environment of Change

The growth of mobile devices generated by smartphones and tablets is driving universal access to information in the multi-channel era. Similarly, social networking is a disruptive change that influences many aspects of consumer behavior. The large amount of data created through these means requires analytics to help enterprises respond to market dynamics. Cloud technologies help enterprises analyze this data in a timely manner, enabling enterprises to deliver significant advantages over their competition. On January 22, 2013, Oracle hosted an executive roundtable in Cincinnati fo... (more)