A bug has also emoerged in the latest version of Apple’s OS X, So the problem isn’t just with cloud services. This from the Guardian:

Apple has admitted that its latest operating system harbours a bug that can accidentally delete data belonging to the computer’s owner. The glitch occurs when some users who upgraded to the Snow Leopard – which was released at the end of August – log into a “guest” account on their machines. When they log back in under their own name, all of the files in their home directory – such as documents, music and videos – have been deleted.

Leading to some annoyance on the Apple discussion forums. OS X does include back up software (aka “Time Machine”) which enables users with back ups to restore their data. The moral? If your data is stored in the cloud, make sure someone is responsible for back ups – either by keeping a copy on local storage, by backing up to another provider, or by ensuring that your provider is responsible for back ups – although a recent informal survey of providers Ts and Cs left me distinctly unimpressed. Most of them boiled down to “we’ll try and backup your data, but we might not, and even if we do, we are committing that we’ll get your data back” – and that was for paid back up services!

Data is still data, wherever it is. Hard drives fail and operational errors happen. An independent (and separate) back up is the best insurance you have against these failures.

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The fact that a few hundred people came out on a cold wet London night to discuss Cloud Computing is a testimony to the growing fascination with all things cloud-like. One way or another, it is a phenomenon that will disrupt the status quo in software and service provision.

The evening kicked off with a set of speedy presentations: 5 minutes per presenter, brutally speedy. Their velocity and compactness made them hard to summarize, but let me try:

Simon Wardley, now with Canonical, was first on stage. Always an interesting presenter (I might have been biased by his love of ducks and the fact I that I was using his power supply, stealthily borrowed). Actually, the fact that I could use his power supply on my laptop is a testament to the importance of portability and the power of re-use, which was the theme of Simon’s presentation. It continued his XaaS theme from the last CloudCamp, making the case for the importance for standards. Simon also argued for the importance of transparency in cloud services (cf. recent happenings in the financial world as the result of opacity). Who owns and operates the equipment isn’t always obvious in cloud services. An immaculately timed 4 minute 59 second presentation.

Joe Bagley, CTO Europe of Quest Software, was next up, asking if the cloud is really green. Here we are, putting 20kw of power demand into a rack, then trying to keep it at  22′c. Less than 0.3% of the electricity used makes it through to the processor. Rather than looking at how much processing each watt gives, Joe argued that the new question people will ask is: for each service in use, how much energy is consumed? Server power consumption doesn’t scale linearly with use. An idle server still consumes huge amounts of power. Even so, virtualization doesn’t give the power savings many expect. Even worse, while VDI (desktop virtualization) is trendy, it moves even more processing into the datacentre and uses lots of RAM, and therefore even more energy. Then you throw away the old desktops… definitely not very green. Joe’s advice? Go green: take a hybrid approach, re-use and rethink. Oh, and make sure you get the (power) bills. (4 minutes 50 seconds).

Paul Watson, of Newcastle University, has been doing some work on behalf of Arjuna.  Throw away the cloud infrastructure, or get cloud from existing infrastructure? Paul suggested that you should create a private cloud, and spread the load. Put service agreements on sharing resource in place, and then share computing resources between different departments to make efficient use of (unused) computing power. Then link that to public cloud services to cope with peak demand. Paul’s model suggests the idea of many federated clouds (both public and private) – a kind of cloud of clouds. Interesting.

Duncan Johnston-Watt, Enigmatec CTO, performed a canned demo (using Elastic fox), showing how the cloud might be used for disaster recovery. Apart from his very correct use of the work “momentary”, the demo was a little pedestrian. Thankfully Cisco’s Phil Dean hopped on stage to tell us what CIOs want from the cloud. A reminder from Phil that CIOs are seeking to be business leaders. Accord to him CIOs like Cloud’s offer of consistency for all users, service simplicity (cost and 24×7 operation) and service orientation (for business agility). They don’t like the loss of control, risk management issues (business continuity and security) or migration and hybrid operation. I found myself thinking that perhaps CIOs don’t understand Cloud Computing yet, and are still wrapped around the axle trying to understand Web 2.0. Never the less, cloud needs a business focus says Phil.

Zimory’s Philipp Huber used his commanding stage presence to talk about what pervasive cloud computing might look like. He wheeled out comparisons with the energy market. Why does the energy market run so smoothly? Multi-tier supply – energy products, distributors, resellers – and 100+ years to get where they are. Both private and commercial demand, with well educated customers, and well established infrastructure standards (fuses, plugs… ). SLAs and quality standards, operating in an open market. How does cloud computing compare? New cloud providers emerging daily. Increasing demand, but driven by early adopters. The early majority still has major concerns about security and stability. Standards are emerging, but still not providing a seamless experience. Full interoperability is still “in the clouds” – fundamentally it works against the cloud producers, since it reduces stickiness. Billing models need to be transparent between clouds too, and easy to understand – again, something that might not be immediately attractive to providers.

Rhys Jones (from RBS) laid out an IT department perspective in “Clouds are cool (so why aren’t we using them yet)”. Power is nothing without control was his cautious note, before laying out some key benefits from his perspective: Switching from capex to opex is attractive. Cloud can do things that couldn’t be done before (due to resource constraints). Cloud gives ability to scale down (relevant currently). Someone else can do the optimisation, leaving you free for higher value activities. Rhys doesn’t see the cloud as just another form of box rental. Because of the cost structure, it enables rapid, low-risk trials – that opens up new possibilities for innovation. He noted that moving to the cloud is a cultural shift, and changing culture is hard. In corporate IT, demand outstrips supply, and the demand has always been upfront. That steers against Cloud technology.

Wayne Horkan, Sun Microsystems CTO (UK and Ireland), talked about the global cloud infrastructure build out. A little unsurprisingly, he sees cloud computing as becoming dominant. He cited bandwidth figures from Amazon showing S3 using more bandwidth than Amazon web sales – I’m not sure that’s a proof point, but interesting none-the-less. Wayne said, “This is the Klondike gold rush…” – I agree that the building wave is definitely starting to feel that way. Wayne drew out a nice layered model, from network up to operations…. “What’s the next stack?” open source he says. Wayne ran out of time and was gracefully ushered from the stage by a gracious host.

Neil Hutson, senior director at Microsoft, outlined their vision. Drawing a linear platform evolution from mobile, to client, to server, to cloud, Neil outlined the changing economics of software towards a consumption based model. He pointed out that Microsoft already run their own data centres, and have done for a long while, supporting their Live offerings. He outlined the Microsoft Azure announcement, and the themes contained in it: standards and simplicity, and citied support for HTTP, REST, SOAP…. The Azure announcement has been covered just about everywhere, so nothing new to add. Only time will tell where it goes…

[Open Spaces Round up next...]

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Meanwhile, ZDNet’s “Netbooks just want to be free” reports on the Asus bundle available in the UK, which gets you an Eee PC 2GG and a USB modem with a two-year data contract. That has got to be worth thinking about for a mobile workforce.

I’m addicted to my trusty Samsung Q1 (even though it’s due an upgrade now that it has been replaced by the Q1 Ultra). It is super compact and obviates the need for a keyboard with its touch screen. The poor windows tablet seems like it has been languishing a bit of late, which is a shame, as I think it is the most underrated piece of productivity technology out there. Apple might even be heading into the tablet scene itself, according to filings discussed by Apple Insider.

The Windows Tablet built in journal application is great, but Microsoft OneNote takes the concept onto a whole other level (nice example from lifehacker: Microsoft OneNote is a Note-Taking Power Tool - over 100 comments on that post). Tony Lock even blogged over at IT-Director.com “Time To Take the Tablet – Vista’s unsung platform” singing its praises and asking ”why is there very little marketing of this platform or associated business solutions? “.

Tablet PCs get away from the sub-standard sized keyboards that limit the usability of many ultra portables out there. Removing the keyboard constraint also allows for an even smaller machine. That makes an ideal tool for field automation applications and mobile workers. Standard applications can be used, rather than having to write or source apps for the various different flavours of mobile platform. Additionally, the devices are low power and the costs are low and still falling – ticking the green and ecomonical boxes.

Putting the keyboard to one side for a minute (no pun intended), UMPCs/Netbooks also make great cloud computing clients. GigaOM suggests a nice list of ideal features in “What Makes a Cloud Computer?” and reminds me that I should revisit my Digital Nomad check list).

If you are fed up of expensive laptops going astray, and want to reduce employee wear and tear from carrying huge laptops, this is a nice alternative path to getting mobile workers up and going. When you or the team get back into the office, just plug into a full size screen, a USB keyboard and a mouse and you can do the desktop thing – at lower power.

Looking to get a mobile user up and going? It might not be too long until you just point them to the nearest mobile phone shop!

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