The 'Perfect Storm' Syndrome

Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? - "During the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility."

James Weir: Agree. Cloud computing is not just about cost savings nevertheless adding value and creating new business opportunities. Many of the clients I speak to anyway see these benefits too. Cloud computing enhances business agility by providing "self-service" access to compute, network and storage resources through automation. And we're now seeing enterprise clients and cloud providers start to focus on the straightway big open question: software agility. Software delivery to the cloud needs to benefit from the same automated process to provide users with on-demand access to IT applications. UShareSoft's tools are designed to do just that.

Cloud Computing Journal: Which of the recent big acquisitions within the Cloud and/or Big Data space have most grabbed your attention as a sign of things to come?

Cloud Computing Journal: In its recent "Sizing the Cloud" report Forrester Technology said it expects the global cloud computing market to reach $241BN in 2020 compared to $40.7BN in 2010 - is that kind of rapid growth trajectory being reflected in your own company or in your view is the Forrester number a tad over-optimistic?

Weir: Cloud computing represents a paradigm shift for IT, transforming computing power into a utility. During cloud adoption remains in the early stages, this shift means that the overall market will grow massively in the coming years. We're undoubtedly seeing expanding interest in UShareSoft's products - registrations for our online platform alone have gone up by 300% in the past couple of months.

Cloud Computing Journal: Big Data has existed since the early days of computing; why, at that time, do you think there is such an industry buzz around it right now?

Weir: It's the "perfect storm" syndrome: several trends are converging to make Big Data one of the buzzwords of 2012. The amount of data we produce continues to explode, particularly with the growing use of social media. Last year's London riots alone, for instance, generated an estimated 2.6 million tweets. Analysis of these tweets helped reveal how the network was used by people to collectively dispel and clarify false information. Even more, commodity hardware, cloud computing and open source software mean the large number of machines needed for intense calculation are available at a relatively low cost without a large upfront investment. Big Data is becoming accessible to a much larger number of companies.

Cloud Computing Journal: Do you think Big Data will only ever be used for analytical purposes, or do you envisage that it will as a matter of fact enable new products?

Weir: We believe that Big Data is already being used for new products. Companies like Google and Facebook crunch huge amounts of user data and interactions to deliver customized, highly personal adverts to individual users. Technology is ripe in the cloud computing and Big Data space, so new products and business opportunities are likely to emerge in this area.

Assistant news editor at SYS-CON Events

Elizabeth is an assistant news editor at SYS-CON Events, Inc. where annual high-energy conferences are created with industry-leading players. Elizabeth works on the SYS-CON Events team behind Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, Virtualization Conference & Expo, GovIT Expo, and the UlitzerLive! New-Media Conference & Expo.