Distraction is the bane of traders existence because it affects the single most important function of the job - focus. Yet, as annoying as the miss of the pound trade was, what happened to me at the end of this week was even worse. I was trading live in our private BK member room and we had done very well nailing the positive price action in the post IFO morning European trade.
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Friday, 24 June 2011
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Amazon CTO: Cloud computing is defined by its benefits
By Rachel King
There’s a lot of talk that cloud computing is the next era of IT, but Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels argues that the cloud will only be successful depending on the benefits it offers.
Speaking at the State of the Cloud address at GigaOm’s Structure conference in San Francisco on Monday, Vogels argued that “the cloud has nothing to do with technology,” and that in essence, “the cloud is defined by all its benefits.
Although many benefits are obvious to any average computer owner (i.e. being able to access documents from anywhere, etc.), we all know that cloud computing isn’t perfect just yet and likely won’t be for a long time. Just look at Amazon and Google’s outages back in May. If businesses are going to put their data and apps on the Web, they can’t afford downtime.
According to Vogels, there are several key points that cloud computing needs to accomplish nows:
Must lower costs
Eliminate capital investments and
Reduce operational costs and time-to-market speeds
Remove the “heavy lifting” in moving data, apps, etc.
Increase agility
Leverage scalability, reliability and
These steps, Vogels proposed, should also lead the way to establishing ”21st century” architectures that will allow developers to build higher-quality, more sophisticated applications for enterprises.
Many execs at Structure asserted that we are on the path to where enterprises are moving more and more of their businesses to the cloud.
Speaking specifically about Amazon Web Services, Vogels noted that AWS adds “the equivalent server capacity to power Amazon when it was a global $2.76 billion enterprise (circa 2006)” each day. AWS has also expanded to five regions worldwide, with a new base in Tokyo that was highlighted as businesses in Japan are more concerned about building “survival” apps following the earthquake and tsunami in March.
Additionally, Amazon is focused on building multiple availability zones on a global scale for backup purposes. Vogels offered the following (rather extreme) example): U.S. customers are normally served out of AWS’s U.S. region, and that data is backed up in the AWS European region. If the East Coast of the United States were to ever disappear off the map, their customers could still be served out of the E.U. region.
In comparison to corporations such as Amazon and even new, smaller businesses that are building their clouds from the ground up, Vogels noted that most enterprises are buying their way into the cloud with software help from mostly Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.
Gaurav DIllon, CEO of Snaplogic, said during the keynote that we’re “seeing smart companies move their business tasks onto the cloud,” and that these businesses want a “collection of services - not a stack.” Even going so far as to label the shift to cloud computing as a “phenomenal revolution,” Dillion explained that the cloud needs to provide an “allocation of services that comes together to solve overall business problems.”
Debunking 5 myths on Cloud computing
by Peter Alpern
For all the excitement and buzz created by cloud computing, the very idea of customers being able to access information in big data centers remotely over the Internet from anywhere has also spawned a fair share of questions, concerns and myths.
But that skepticism, about its security, compliance and visibility, has been widely overblown, says Michael Hugos, a former CIO and a principal of the Center for Systems Innovation, whose newest book is "Business in the Cloud: What Every Business Needs to Know About Cloud Computing" (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010).
The evolutionary shift toward cloud technology will span several years, even a decade or more, some analysts say. Hugos believes people set the pace of technology adoption, and corporate data centers are filled with people whose skills and livelihood are fundamentally based on older technologies and mindsets.
Here are five myths about doing business on the cloud and why they shouldn't be believed:
Risk 1: Data security issues make cloud applications riskier than in-house applications. According to Hugos, the continuous harping on data security has more to do with threatening IT jobs than it does to any real security issue.
This might not comfort companies that see high-profile attacks on companies such as Citigroup and Sony. But that misses a more important point, says Hugos.
"When private companies get hacked, it's rare they even discuss it," he says. "If they're not publicly traded, they don't even have to divulge that information. The notion that a Google or an Amazon isn't as good at data security as some small company is nonsensical. Their systems are being attacked hundreds or thousands of times every day, and they have a highly trained and continuously engaged security force who are learning the latest tricks that hackers are using.
"Security is part of how these companies make money," he adds. "When was the last time that a private company enthusiastically invested a whole bunch of money in something like data center security? Quite the opposite."
Risk 2: Cloud applications are less reliable than running systems in-house because you can't fix them in the event of a crash. This is another myth created by the idea that having a data center on premises gives a company more sense of control. Not true, says Hugos.
"Most companies are continuously trying to reduce data center expenses because they are a cost center, not a profit center," he says. "When you're a cloud vendor, your data center and your IT infrastructure is how you generate money, so you are always investing more money in it. For most other companies, it's the opposite. Its overhead and data center budgets are being relentlessly cutback."
Risk 3: The main reason for companies to move to cloud computing is to save money. Reducing IT costs certainly sounds great, but the most compelling incentive to move to the Cloud is to switch from a fixed cost capital intensive business model to a variable cost pay-as-you-go operating expense model, says Hugos.
"When you invest in a lot of new IT infrastructure and software, that's typically a big upfront capital expense," he says. "You might put down several millions of dollars in a new ERP system and then just hope that that system will actually still be relevant to your business and not become technically obsolete before you've even finished depreciating it."
A harsh reality of IT investment today is that technology with a supposed shelf life of five years can be obsolete in less than half that time. That element of risk is removed with the Cloud. If a company wants to pull the plug on a vendor after two years, there's minimal penalty, which counts for a lot in an unpredictable, volatile economy.
Risk 4: It is cheaper for big companies to run their own application systems in-house than in the cloud. Large corporations often compare the cost of provisioning a server in the cloud for three years and assume the spend is practically equal to just buying and owning their own data center. In truth, that's only the most surface form of comparison.
"What they forget to do is add in all of the indirect costs," explains Hugos. "You need more people to run those additional in-house servers. What is the additional cost of insuring those additional servers? What is the additional cost of the energy to run them and the air conditioning to cool them?"
Risk 5: It requires a whole new set of skills for companies to make good use of cloud computing technologies. This is arguably the most hot-button topic regarding the Cloud because entire departments within companies are now fearing for their jobs. According to Hugos, certain skills that have been traditionally dominant in most in-house IT groups will be threatened, such as system administrators, those who patch servers and install new operating systems and install new software.
"Those traditional skills have made up about 70 percent of any in-house IT group," says Hugos. "Those people will be much less in demand, but there are a lot of other skills that have been around for a long time such as business analysts, enterprise architects who know how to integrate different systems together."
What gets lost is that companies will not move their entire infrastructure to the cloud—only pieces. Because of that, there will still be the need to integrate cloud based systems with in-house systems.
No one in IT stands to gain from this more than business analysts and those who specialize in enterprise architecture.
"They will become more prominent," says Hugos. "Their skill sets will evolve, but it won't be entirely new. Business analysts have had a checkered career over the last 30 years. In many companies, business analysts have been reduced to being a glorified note taker. That person is suddenly going to become much more important because they're the ones who translate business needs into technical solutions. When I no longer have to worry about systems administration stuff, then all of a sudden the business analyst and solving the business problem becomes much more important than solving a technical problem."
Monday, 20 June 2011
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Internet Start-Ups Find New Metrics to Look Profitable; - NYTimes.com
For all you Start-up people, learn how to juggle your numbers and manifest Some extra zeros.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/abracadabra-for-internet-start-ups-magic-trumps-math/
Friday, 17 June 2011
The Cloud and you
A recent survey from the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) found two-thirds of outsourcing customers currently do utilize or have plans to implement cloud computing solutions. Eighty percent of those surveyed indicated their organization intended to deploy more outsourcing services in the next year.
In a recent Forrester report titled "Sizing the Cloud," it estimates a move from $40.7 billion spent on the global market for cloud computing in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. The public cloud, which is under considerable scrutiny for security risks, will account for more than 66 percent of the total in 2020.
For many enterprises, moving data and applications is really a question of "when" instead of "if." The cloud is a sea change in business, and is moving well beyond a fad stage. Security breaches and large-scale outages might prove to be hiccups in cloud adoption rates, but the cost savings and increased flexibility will win out long term. Addressing the concerns about the cloud will allow you to see the benefits more clearly, and promote an informed decision in selecting a provider.
Time and Money
When IT managers are asked by senior executives why they should move their mission-critical data or applications to the cloud, the answer shouldn't be "because everyone is doing it." If IT comes back with a compelling list of reasons that increase efficiency and revenue while also costing less, then they have a compelling case.
As with most things in business and life, it all comes down to time and money. Spending less money and also freeing up time to earn more money efficiently. The simplest benefit for the cloud is the lower total cost of ownership. Moving to the cloud means less physical hardware purchases or upgrades. An enterprise with an on-premise server setup simply cannot compete with a multi-tenant cloud provider. You can't defeat economies of scale. Electricity bills are lowered as there are no longer server rooms that require optimal temperatures to function, and you don't need to operate all of the related equipment. Servers don't need to be frequently upgraded or repaired. In the cloud, the provider fixes the problems and ensures the platform is built with modern components and is working properly.
"Scalability" is another benefit tossed around so much that it almost loses its true meaning. It really means adaptability, where the cloud solution adjusts to user demand, which translates directly into cost efficiency and avoids overcapacity. If your company's product goes viral and daily demand increases ten-fold, cloud-based solutions can be quickly ramped up to handle the demand without the risk of not fulfilling orders.
For some enterprises that move large amounts of their data and application requirements to the cloud, some reductions in IT staffing may naturally follow. If staff reductions are not forthcoming, it's important to frame a move to the cloud not as simply the removal of an obstacle that will allow the staff to work more efficiently. For enterprises where the IT staff are already overworked and only a fraction of requests are handled, moving to the cloud can free up time for more mission-critical tasks. Perhaps now that new back office functionality can be completed or a sales team can be better trained on using the latest business intelligence suite.
For many enterprises, using the cloud initially for replication and disaster recovery efforts is a way to dip their technology toes into the water. Companies that want to hold on to the control of on-premises data centers can still benefit from the cloud's safeguards by trusting it with data backups. As competition rises and costs continue to fall for cloud-related services, disaster recovery efforts will become more and more cost effective.
Lingering Concerns
With the recent Amazon Web Services and PlayStation Network security breaches, many enterprises are understandably worried about the security measures of various cloud providers. Change will consistently be met with hesitation, and when it comes to moving critical data to the cloud, some concern is warranted.
IT management has considerable concerns about giving up governance of corporate data. However, the management and security of this data is still the responsibility of the enterprise, creating a scenario where doing nothing can be perceived as the proper course. In order to move forward with progress, IT will need the right cloud provider that can allay the governance concerns and provide assurances to data safety.
Data breaches of private information or sensitive intellectual property can have a ruinous effect. Regulatory compliance adds another wrinkle, especially for global firms, where strict rules about the "location" of data conflict with many cloud providers lack of transparency. If your company is based in the U.S., but the data is technically residing in the United Kingdom, which privacy laws do you need to follow?
The lack of transparency in regards to outage or breach notification is another often voiced concern. IT managers want to learn about breaches immediately from the provider, not hours later from the blogosphere. IT wants the service provider to go on auto-pilot in the face of disaster, and to follow documented call-out and escalation procedures. Concern about breaches and outages is certainly justified, and in-house IT should have a direct hand in reviewing the cloud provider's processes and track record in handling problems.
Diving into the Cloud
For larger enterprises with multiple applications and massive data sets, it pays to start small in the cloud. There is no rule saying it's an all or nothing choice. Instead of moving applications that need to be fast down to the millisecond, consider setting up some back-office applications to test out the cloud provider's performance and security. While a piecemeal approach might result in higher initial costs, it does provide you with a testing environment where you can perhaps introduce failures to check the provider's systems. If the solution provider can't handle routine non-critical tasks, they can't be trusted with personally identifiable customer data.
Look ahead to your growth rate as well and consider your likely data and application needs. If you have confidence in a growing business, your related systems will need to handle that movement without interruption. Few things derail a growing firm's chances faster than outages due to unexpected data or application demand. With a cloud solution in place, spikes in demand can be transformed from an issue to be feared to a welcome sight that heralds new milestones for the business.
Finding That Trusted Partner
The barriers to entry for the cloud are quite low, with new companies entering the space or established companies launching cloud divisions by the minute. Many vendors dive into this arena without sufficiently trained staff or the right technology expertise. They might not understand the regulations surrounding PII or have the right controls in place to protect from breaches.
To properly screen your solution providers, you need to ask them to be upfront with their protocols for data security and also pricing. Demand visibility. As the industry matures, customers who only accept transparency and don't tolerate confusing service agreements or evasive answers will help weed out the poorly run cloud outfits.
While moving to the cloud often takes some responsibility away from internal IT staff, you still need them involved in the process from the beginning. Ask your IT security staff to carefully review the cloud providers security and network procedures and to raise any red flags. Use their knowledge to poke holes in the provider's system and call out any outlandish claims about security or uptime.
Another key consideration is to look at any other SaaS providers that are interrelated with your chosen vendor. Every organization that has access to your data needs to follow set standards to be sure you don't have security holes for your data management. This chain of outsourcers can reach three or four levels removed from your company, so you need assurances from the cloud provider that these company's data standards are sufficient.
Outsourcers should be able to provide you with clear password creation and management standards that will help prevent password hijacking. Especially for multi-tenant cloud environments, the vendor needs to have controls in place to keep your data separate from other tenants.
For localized outages where there are hardware failures, how does the vendor handle such problems? Will they fix it within the hour, or within 24 hours? The best vendors will have extra hardware equipment on hand to proactively handle failures.
Finding the right vendor will allow the enterprise to experience lowered costs and operational flexibility so they can reach greater heights that would not be attainable with on-premise solutions.
In a recent Forrester report titled "Sizing the Cloud," it estimates a move from $40.7 billion spent on the global market for cloud computing in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020. The public cloud, which is under considerable scrutiny for security risks, will account for more than 66 percent of the total in 2020.
For many enterprises, moving data and applications is really a question of "when" instead of "if." The cloud is a sea change in business, and is moving well beyond a fad stage. Security breaches and large-scale outages might prove to be hiccups in cloud adoption rates, but the cost savings and increased flexibility will win out long term. Addressing the concerns about the cloud will allow you to see the benefits more clearly, and promote an informed decision in selecting a provider.
Time and Money
When IT managers are asked by senior executives why they should move their mission-critical data or applications to the cloud, the answer shouldn't be "because everyone is doing it." If IT comes back with a compelling list of reasons that increase efficiency and revenue while also costing less, then they have a compelling case.
As with most things in business and life, it all comes down to time and money. Spending less money and also freeing up time to earn more money efficiently. The simplest benefit for the cloud is the lower total cost of ownership. Moving to the cloud means less physical hardware purchases or upgrades. An enterprise with an on-premise server setup simply cannot compete with a multi-tenant cloud provider. You can't defeat economies of scale. Electricity bills are lowered as there are no longer server rooms that require optimal temperatures to function, and you don't need to operate all of the related equipment. Servers don't need to be frequently upgraded or repaired. In the cloud, the provider fixes the problems and ensures the platform is built with modern components and is working properly.
"Scalability" is another benefit tossed around so much that it almost loses its true meaning. It really means adaptability, where the cloud solution adjusts to user demand, which translates directly into cost efficiency and avoids overcapacity. If your company's product goes viral and daily demand increases ten-fold, cloud-based solutions can be quickly ramped up to handle the demand without the risk of not fulfilling orders.
For some enterprises that move large amounts of their data and application requirements to the cloud, some reductions in IT staffing may naturally follow. If staff reductions are not forthcoming, it's important to frame a move to the cloud not as simply the removal of an obstacle that will allow the staff to work more efficiently. For enterprises where the IT staff are already overworked and only a fraction of requests are handled, moving to the cloud can free up time for more mission-critical tasks. Perhaps now that new back office functionality can be completed or a sales team can be better trained on using the latest business intelligence suite.
For many enterprises, using the cloud initially for replication and disaster recovery efforts is a way to dip their technology toes into the water. Companies that want to hold on to the control of on-premises data centers can still benefit from the cloud's safeguards by trusting it with data backups. As competition rises and costs continue to fall for cloud-related services, disaster recovery efforts will become more and more cost effective.
Lingering Concerns
With the recent Amazon Web Services and PlayStation Network security breaches, many enterprises are understandably worried about the security measures of various cloud providers. Change will consistently be met with hesitation, and when it comes to moving critical data to the cloud, some concern is warranted.
IT management has considerable concerns about giving up governance of corporate data. However, the management and security of this data is still the responsibility of the enterprise, creating a scenario where doing nothing can be perceived as the proper course. In order to move forward with progress, IT will need the right cloud provider that can allay the governance concerns and provide assurances to data safety.
Data breaches of private information or sensitive intellectual property can have a ruinous effect. Regulatory compliance adds another wrinkle, especially for global firms, where strict rules about the "location" of data conflict with many cloud providers lack of transparency. If your company is based in the U.S., but the data is technically residing in the United Kingdom, which privacy laws do you need to follow?
The lack of transparency in regards to outage or breach notification is another often voiced concern. IT managers want to learn about breaches immediately from the provider, not hours later from the blogosphere. IT wants the service provider to go on auto-pilot in the face of disaster, and to follow documented call-out and escalation procedures. Concern about breaches and outages is certainly justified, and in-house IT should have a direct hand in reviewing the cloud provider's processes and track record in handling problems.
Diving into the Cloud
For larger enterprises with multiple applications and massive data sets, it pays to start small in the cloud. There is no rule saying it's an all or nothing choice. Instead of moving applications that need to be fast down to the millisecond, consider setting up some back-office applications to test out the cloud provider's performance and security. While a piecemeal approach might result in higher initial costs, it does provide you with a testing environment where you can perhaps introduce failures to check the provider's systems. If the solution provider can't handle routine non-critical tasks, they can't be trusted with personally identifiable customer data.
Look ahead to your growth rate as well and consider your likely data and application needs. If you have confidence in a growing business, your related systems will need to handle that movement without interruption. Few things derail a growing firm's chances faster than outages due to unexpected data or application demand. With a cloud solution in place, spikes in demand can be transformed from an issue to be feared to a welcome sight that heralds new milestones for the business.
Finding That Trusted Partner
The barriers to entry for the cloud are quite low, with new companies entering the space or established companies launching cloud divisions by the minute. Many vendors dive into this arena without sufficiently trained staff or the right technology expertise. They might not understand the regulations surrounding PII or have the right controls in place to protect from breaches.
To properly screen your solution providers, you need to ask them to be upfront with their protocols for data security and also pricing. Demand visibility. As the industry matures, customers who only accept transparency and don't tolerate confusing service agreements or evasive answers will help weed out the poorly run cloud outfits.
While moving to the cloud often takes some responsibility away from internal IT staff, you still need them involved in the process from the beginning. Ask your IT security staff to carefully review the cloud providers security and network procedures and to raise any red flags. Use their knowledge to poke holes in the provider's system and call out any outlandish claims about security or uptime.
Another key consideration is to look at any other SaaS providers that are interrelated with your chosen vendor. Every organization that has access to your data needs to follow set standards to be sure you don't have security holes for your data management. This chain of outsourcers can reach three or four levels removed from your company, so you need assurances from the cloud provider that these company's data standards are sufficient.
Outsourcers should be able to provide you with clear password creation and management standards that will help prevent password hijacking. Especially for multi-tenant cloud environments, the vendor needs to have controls in place to keep your data separate from other tenants.
For localized outages where there are hardware failures, how does the vendor handle such problems? Will they fix it within the hour, or within 24 hours? The best vendors will have extra hardware equipment on hand to proactively handle failures.
Finding the right vendor will allow the enterprise to experience lowered costs and operational flexibility so they can reach greater heights that would not be attainable with on-premise solutions.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Startup tips
Any startup business should have a business plan that assesses strengths and weaknesses of a business as well as suggested safeguards.
Some assessments that may have integrity may change when factors and variables of how the business is operating change as well. The number of employees may have been insufficient to get health insurance, for example, or the payroll responsibilities may be too expanded for one person to handle anymore.
The financial health of a business may be sound, but demand and customers thin on the ground. Customers may be standing in line for a product, but the owner may not have money to pay employees anymore.
These types of problems can be provided for by making plans ahead of time to secure financing or get a personal credit loan. Determine the correct labor department registration and tax filings. These should be done promptly to avoid waiting in lines and paying additional fees.
Unforseen legal difficulties can drain cash from a startup. Negotiate agreements in advance, instead of trying to sort out service levels when court deadlines loom. Do not assume personal relationships will cover any gap in money, time, or complexity of the legal mater at hand. A sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation/LLC can benefit from disinterested advice.
One bad habit of startup business entrepreneurs is to consume vast amounts of workday talking on the phone. Do your suppliers efficiently carry through deliveries, or do you need to call and babysit them through every order? If you send an email on Thursday, does the other party wait around for your telephone follow up on Tuesday? Find contacts who can shrink the cycle of your workday and not make you perform half their job function for them. These tasks can rob the home business entrepreneur of the very flexibility they started their sideline to avoid!
Changing vendors as a standard operating principle can weed out bad suppliers and eradicate inventory shortages. if your entire staff has to stop and inventory the contents of a delivery from company A every time it arrives, there is a problem. Heighten your logistical efficiency by ordering from qualified shippers and suppliers. Beginner businesses have an advantage in that no vendor can expect steady orders, and so they can feel less obligated to obtain resources from second class suppliers.
Remember that your purchases and your repeat business is a selection you make every time you execute a purchase order or fax an order form. If a company assumes they can expect a weekly or monthly order, don’t let them get away with it. In the current economy any business person should be ready and willing to capture a big account or score an initial order. Know who key personnel are in-house to complete the details for whatever internal requirements are that this vendor requires. Ask questions about what elements of the order might present problems and how you can anticipate handling these in advance.
Look for customer service as a business partner that makes a supplier stand out. Is an owner willing to drop a part, small shipment, or custom order off at your location on the way home from work? Can you get an early meeting with decision makers before your premises pen for business? Look for business suppliers that want your business, instead of just stacking your order in a pile. make sure any recurring terms are printed on your purchase orders and subject to renewal in writing.
The biggest most overlooked cost item in the startup business tool arsenal is the business license. This must be registered with local commerce authorities and applied for using accurate information in accordance with zoning regulations. Get the most from a local business license by using local resources like farmer’s markets or ecological recycling centers for needed supplies. Never change a delivery schedule because the vendor can’t get orders in-house in a timely manner.
While a blog website can very good for publicizing and marketing, a website can have a legitimate business use as a publication. When selling goods and services within a B2B framework, setting prices and charging costs for additional items is at the discretion of the seller. Stipulating costs for services is the responsibility of the seller as well. Articulating these factors as your business drivers can be done via a website. In court and during arbitration of breached faith, this dated publishing of expectations and practices can convince a judge or panel that thought went into your business organization, instead of merely a set of convenient assumptions.
Some assessments that may have integrity may change when factors and variables of how the business is operating change as well. The number of employees may have been insufficient to get health insurance, for example, or the payroll responsibilities may be too expanded for one person to handle anymore.
The financial health of a business may be sound, but demand and customers thin on the ground. Customers may be standing in line for a product, but the owner may not have money to pay employees anymore.
These types of problems can be provided for by making plans ahead of time to secure financing or get a personal credit loan. Determine the correct labor department registration and tax filings. These should be done promptly to avoid waiting in lines and paying additional fees.
Unforseen legal difficulties can drain cash from a startup. Negotiate agreements in advance, instead of trying to sort out service levels when court deadlines loom. Do not assume personal relationships will cover any gap in money, time, or complexity of the legal mater at hand. A sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation/LLC can benefit from disinterested advice.
One bad habit of startup business entrepreneurs is to consume vast amounts of workday talking on the phone. Do your suppliers efficiently carry through deliveries, or do you need to call and babysit them through every order? If you send an email on Thursday, does the other party wait around for your telephone follow up on Tuesday? Find contacts who can shrink the cycle of your workday and not make you perform half their job function for them. These tasks can rob the home business entrepreneur of the very flexibility they started their sideline to avoid!
Changing vendors as a standard operating principle can weed out bad suppliers and eradicate inventory shortages. if your entire staff has to stop and inventory the contents of a delivery from company A every time it arrives, there is a problem. Heighten your logistical efficiency by ordering from qualified shippers and suppliers. Beginner businesses have an advantage in that no vendor can expect steady orders, and so they can feel less obligated to obtain resources from second class suppliers.
Remember that your purchases and your repeat business is a selection you make every time you execute a purchase order or fax an order form. If a company assumes they can expect a weekly or monthly order, don’t let them get away with it. In the current economy any business person should be ready and willing to capture a big account or score an initial order. Know who key personnel are in-house to complete the details for whatever internal requirements are that this vendor requires. Ask questions about what elements of the order might present problems and how you can anticipate handling these in advance.
Look for customer service as a business partner that makes a supplier stand out. Is an owner willing to drop a part, small shipment, or custom order off at your location on the way home from work? Can you get an early meeting with decision makers before your premises pen for business? Look for business suppliers that want your business, instead of just stacking your order in a pile. make sure any recurring terms are printed on your purchase orders and subject to renewal in writing.
The biggest most overlooked cost item in the startup business tool arsenal is the business license. This must be registered with local commerce authorities and applied for using accurate information in accordance with zoning regulations. Get the most from a local business license by using local resources like farmer’s markets or ecological recycling centers for needed supplies. Never change a delivery schedule because the vendor can’t get orders in-house in a timely manner.
While a blog website can very good for publicizing and marketing, a website can have a legitimate business use as a publication. When selling goods and services within a B2B framework, setting prices and charging costs for additional items is at the discretion of the seller. Stipulating costs for services is the responsibility of the seller as well. Articulating these factors as your business drivers can be done via a website. In court and during arbitration of breached faith, this dated publishing of expectations and practices can convince a judge or panel that thought went into your business organization, instead of merely a set of convenient assumptions.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Scaling the Cloud divide
Posted on Wednesday Jun 15th 2011 by Cameron Sturdevant.
Scaling IT means using tools and services on both sides of the
A divide as real as any weather front separates private, wholly owned data centers from public, capacity-for-hire cloud providers. There is a role for IT in creating a bridge across this divide as virtualization of all types enables more efficient application development, virtual machine provisioning and business continuity.
A bridged private/public cloud promises efficient workload relocation and an evolutionary path to more cost-effective IT operations. However, the challenges to building a bridge between private and public clouds are real. Aside from the emerging nature of cloud computing technology, IT managers must work with developers and business managers to ensure that development platforms, management controls and compliance issues are aligned between the private and public platforms in order to reap these benefits.
Debate Terms
Before covering what can be done with a bridged private/public cloud, I'd like to start with some basic definitions. In May, NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) issued a draft publication titled "Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations," which described the essential characteristics of cloud computing as an on-demand, self-service of resource pools that are rapidly elastic and provided as a measured service. To this I'll add multitenancy, in the form of segregating traffic from one organization or business unit from another.
NIST outlines several deployment models. The most important of these cloud infrastructure models are private, operated solely for an organization either on- or off-premises; public, available to the general public and owned by an organization selling cloud services; and hybrid, which is a composite of the two. In a hybrid cloud, the public and private compute environments remain unique, but data and applications are portable between them.
The newly formed ODCA (Open Data Center Alliance), an independent consortium of global IT users, also just released its first usage models. These usage models are recommendations from IT users that have a longterm view of data-center requirements, including one for virtual machine interoperability between different virtualization platforms and portability between infrastructure providers, which is an essential component in bridging between the private and public clouds.
While there is a debate of epic proportions about the definition of private and public cloud computing, for IT managers the more important questions are when might it make sense to build a bridge between a private and public cloud so that the business gains a competitive edge? And what will it take to integrate on-premises infrastructure with that running in the public cloud?
Why Build a Bridge?
Application development was among the first beneficiaries of x86 server virtualization and set the stage for running infrastructure on site and in a hosted environment. Setting up test and development environments composed of virtual machines that could be rapidly provisioned and de-provisioned on shared resources was also a driver for using public cloud services including AWS (Amazon Web Services). Corporate users can use architectural guides today to move workloads from private to public, enterprise-class cloud providers. For example, VMware partners with public cloud infrastructure providers including Bluelock, CSC, Terremark and others using its VMware vCloud Data Center Services.
In this case, the private/public cloud bridge connects infrastructure (usually processing, storage and networks) or platform (which usually adds to this the operating system and database) so that applications can be built using familiar tools. These cloud "as a service" offerings are referred to as IAAS (infrastructure as a service) and PAAS (platform as a service).
One of the earliest thoughts behind creating a bridge between a private and public cloud IAAS or PAAS implementation was to support essential computing workloads without buying all the underlying hardware infrastructure. And an early example of this was "cloud bursting," or the on-demand creation of IT systems to support peak demands. It turns out that workloads are more likely to expand and contract within either the private or the public cloud as opposed to moving across the boundary on a bridge. However, this could be an effective use case in the near future if ODCA virtual machine portability guidelines are broadly adopted. For now, this functionality usually needs to be built into the application.
BC/DR (business continuity and disaster recovery) plans don't have much chance of working when confined to a single, physical data center. These essential business operations are more likely to succeed if there is a bridge to an physically separated facility. While there are a host of concerns when executing a BC/DR move across data centers, this could be a use case for bridging a private and public cloud.
Bridging to support peak demand or BC/DR also means taking into account data security including authorized access. In addition to ensuring workload portability, the Open Data Center Alliance usage models go into detail when describing how cloud providers should be able to assure secure access while also demonstrating how identity, applications and data use are monitored to meet compliance reporting guidelines.
Challenges
These are still early days for bridging private and public clouds, which means we are uncovering potholes, both intentional and accidental. Our work at eWEEK Labs has shown that synchronizing workloads on private and public cloud platforms can be tricky. For example, an application workload created as a VMware virtual machine, which results in a .VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk Format), must be converted to an AMI (Amazon Machine Instance) in order to run on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). It's possible to convert most workloads from one format to another, but this must be taken into account up front in order to minimize problems. This points to the importance of separating the application from the underlying image in order to increase deployment flexibility.
There is a fair amount of trepidation about the suitability of a public cloud infrastructure for running workloads that handle regulated data. While the feelings of unease are warranted in the short term, regulatory concerns will likely be overcome in the medium term. IT managers should ask questions that show that a public cloud provider can meet the same level of compliance as that of a private cloud. Once these questions have been resolved, then a private/public bridge project can be assessed on the technical and cost merits. The disquiet about bridging private and pubic cloud infrastructure likely also arises from the newness of cloud computing.
Amazon's EC2 exited beta in 2008. IAAS and PAAS for the enterprise are emerging technologies. The fact that NIST and the ODCA have just in the last month released drafts and first versions of their guidelines tells us this is an area for early adopters, an area that is often foreign to enterprise IT managers.
Even though the idea of using private and public cloud resources in concert is new territory, the technique has potential as fertile ground for organizations that are in the market for a IT competitive edge.
Scaling IT means using tools and services on both sides of the
A divide as real as any weather front separates private, wholly owned data centers from public, capacity-for-hire cloud providers. There is a role for IT in creating a bridge across this divide as virtualization of all types enables more efficient application development, virtual machine provisioning and business continuity.
A bridged private/public cloud promises efficient workload relocation and an evolutionary path to more cost-effective IT operations. However, the challenges to building a bridge between private and public clouds are real. Aside from the emerging nature of cloud computing technology, IT managers must work with developers and business managers to ensure that development platforms, management controls and compliance issues are aligned between the private and public platforms in order to reap these benefits.
Debate Terms
Before covering what can be done with a bridged private/public cloud, I'd like to start with some basic definitions. In May, NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) issued a draft publication titled "Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations," which described the essential characteristics of cloud computing as an on-demand, self-service of resource pools that are rapidly elastic and provided as a measured service. To this I'll add multitenancy, in the form of segregating traffic from one organization or business unit from another.
NIST outlines several deployment models. The most important of these cloud infrastructure models are private, operated solely for an organization either on- or off-premises; public, available to the general public and owned by an organization selling cloud services; and hybrid, which is a composite of the two. In a hybrid cloud, the public and private compute environments remain unique, but data and applications are portable between them.
The newly formed ODCA (Open Data Center Alliance), an independent consortium of global IT users, also just released its first usage models. These usage models are recommendations from IT users that have a longterm view of data-center requirements, including one for virtual machine interoperability between different virtualization platforms and portability between infrastructure providers, which is an essential component in bridging between the private and public clouds.
While there is a debate of epic proportions about the definition of private and public cloud computing, for IT managers the more important questions are when might it make sense to build a bridge between a private and public cloud so that the business gains a competitive edge? And what will it take to integrate on-premises infrastructure with that running in the public cloud?
Why Build a Bridge?
Application development was among the first beneficiaries of x86 server virtualization and set the stage for running infrastructure on site and in a hosted environment. Setting up test and development environments composed of virtual machines that could be rapidly provisioned and de-provisioned on shared resources was also a driver for using public cloud services including AWS (Amazon Web Services). Corporate users can use architectural guides today to move workloads from private to public, enterprise-class cloud providers. For example, VMware partners with public cloud infrastructure providers including Bluelock, CSC, Terremark and others using its VMware vCloud Data Center Services.
In this case, the private/public cloud bridge connects infrastructure (usually processing, storage and networks) or platform (which usually adds to this the operating system and database) so that applications can be built using familiar tools. These cloud "as a service" offerings are referred to as IAAS (infrastructure as a service) and PAAS (platform as a service).
One of the earliest thoughts behind creating a bridge between a private and public cloud IAAS or PAAS implementation was to support essential computing workloads without buying all the underlying hardware infrastructure. And an early example of this was "cloud bursting," or the on-demand creation of IT systems to support peak demands. It turns out that workloads are more likely to expand and contract within either the private or the public cloud as opposed to moving across the boundary on a bridge. However, this could be an effective use case in the near future if ODCA virtual machine portability guidelines are broadly adopted. For now, this functionality usually needs to be built into the application.
BC/DR (business continuity and disaster recovery) plans don't have much chance of working when confined to a single, physical data center. These essential business operations are more likely to succeed if there is a bridge to an physically separated facility. While there are a host of concerns when executing a BC/DR move across data centers, this could be a use case for bridging a private and public cloud.
Bridging to support peak demand or BC/DR also means taking into account data security including authorized access. In addition to ensuring workload portability, the Open Data Center Alliance usage models go into detail when describing how cloud providers should be able to assure secure access while also demonstrating how identity, applications and data use are monitored to meet compliance reporting guidelines.
Challenges
These are still early days for bridging private and public clouds, which means we are uncovering potholes, both intentional and accidental. Our work at eWEEK Labs has shown that synchronizing workloads on private and public cloud platforms can be tricky. For example, an application workload created as a VMware virtual machine, which results in a .VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk Format), must be converted to an AMI (Amazon Machine Instance) in order to run on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). It's possible to convert most workloads from one format to another, but this must be taken into account up front in order to minimize problems. This points to the importance of separating the application from the underlying image in order to increase deployment flexibility.
There is a fair amount of trepidation about the suitability of a public cloud infrastructure for running workloads that handle regulated data. While the feelings of unease are warranted in the short term, regulatory concerns will likely be overcome in the medium term. IT managers should ask questions that show that a public cloud provider can meet the same level of compliance as that of a private cloud. Once these questions have been resolved, then a private/public bridge project can be assessed on the technical and cost merits. The disquiet about bridging private and pubic cloud infrastructure likely also arises from the newness of cloud computing.
Amazon's EC2 exited beta in 2008. IAAS and PAAS for the enterprise are emerging technologies. The fact that NIST and the ODCA have just in the last month released drafts and first versions of their guidelines tells us this is an area for early adopters, an area that is often foreign to enterprise IT managers.
Even though the idea of using private and public cloud resources in concert is new territory, the technique has potential as fertile ground for organizations that are in the market for a IT competitive edge.
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Shared from BNET:5 Things to Keep Out of Your Business Plan
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5 Things to Keep Out of Your Business Plan
By Kathryn Hawkins If you're hoping to attract investors, short and sweet is the key to success. Here's what to leave out of your business plan if you want to be taken seriously and raise capital fast: 1. Jargon. If you've been wrapped up in your business idea for months, it's easy to go overboard on geeky details. Investors want to know what you're building, but they don't need to know the nit...Read more
Monday, 13 June 2011
Sunday, 12 June 2011
market research is critical to business plan
Market research is the most important section of the business plan. Using what you learn, you position yourself in the marketplace by specifically defining what you will sell, to whom you will sell it, why they will pay you and not someone else, and whether you will earn enough to make it worthwhile.
The time and effort you spend in careful research will more than pay for itself in launching or running a business.
Start by relying on your own experience and training in your line of business. And, if you don't have any experience, gain some by working as a full-time, part-time or temporary employee.
Read newspapers, books and trade journals. Ask a reference librarian to assist you in finding information about your industry.
Attend trade shows and training seminars sponsored by your association.
When you are in other cities, talk with small-business owners in your industry. Because you will not be a direct competitor, many will be willing to share valuable information. Be aware, however, that their business climate may be different, so you may have to make adjustments. Their experience with sales trends, for instance, may not be applicable to your situation.
Conduct informal surveys of potential customers. Ask if they would be interested in your product or service. What would they be willing to pay? What's important to them in making buying decisions?
Learn as much as possible about your potential rivals. Visit their businesses and observe their operation. Purchase their products or services and evaluate them. Talk to their customers.
Talk to your potential suppliers. They have an interest in seeing that you succeed if you will be buying from them, so they normally are willing to provide useful information.
For local demographic and economic data, visit the offices of your local school district, chamber of commerce or economic development organization.
And don't forget the Internet, where there's much free information. For instance, gather national business statistics at www.bizstats.com and demographic data at www.census.gov. Visit your rivals' and customers' sites. Your public library card allows you access to the library's website and business databases for which you otherwise would have to pay.
The time and effort you spend in careful research will more than pay for itself in launching or running a business.
Start by relying on your own experience and training in your line of business. And, if you don't have any experience, gain some by working as a full-time, part-time or temporary employee.
Read newspapers, books and trade journals. Ask a reference librarian to assist you in finding information about your industry.
Attend trade shows and training seminars sponsored by your association.
When you are in other cities, talk with small-business owners in your industry. Because you will not be a direct competitor, many will be willing to share valuable information. Be aware, however, that their business climate may be different, so you may have to make adjustments. Their experience with sales trends, for instance, may not be applicable to your situation.
Conduct informal surveys of potential customers. Ask if they would be interested in your product or service. What would they be willing to pay? What's important to them in making buying decisions?
Learn as much as possible about your potential rivals. Visit their businesses and observe their operation. Purchase their products or services and evaluate them. Talk to their customers.
Talk to your potential suppliers. They have an interest in seeing that you succeed if you will be buying from them, so they normally are willing to provide useful information.
For local demographic and economic data, visit the offices of your local school district, chamber of commerce or economic development organization.
And don't forget the Internet, where there's much free information. For instance, gather national business statistics at www.bizstats.com and demographic data at www.census.gov. Visit your rivals' and customers' sites. Your public library card allows you access to the library's website and business databases for which you otherwise would have to pay.
business plan mistakes
1. Projecting outrageous profits.
High profitability projections indicate that the business owner is underestimating costs and expenses. They also suggest that the owner is choosing profits over growth. The best startups generally invest whatever money is left over from costs and expenses into marketing for higher growth.
To avoid doing this, find some standard financial reports for an industry like yours and figure out what real companies generate in profits. Then go back and rethink your estimates. Is your gross margin higher than average? Can you justify that? Are your marketing expenses lower than average?
2. Incomplete financial projections. Every business plan should include a realistic cash flow projection and a breakdown of starting costs. It’s good to use charts to do this but also make the details available somewhere in the document, even in an appendix. Show how much investment you need and what you’ll do with the money. Just projecting sales and profits isn’t enough.
If you plan on selling your products to businesses, you’ll need to show that you understand the cash flow implications of waiting to get paid. If you want to build products or websites, show that you understand the cash flow implications of building things or buying things before you sell them.
3. Top-down forecasting.
Start with specific assumptions and work upward to the sales forecast. Build your sales forecast up from the unit economics and on detailed assumptions that you can illustrate.
4. Inflating the market.
No one is going to believe you when you say, for example, that your musician tutorial website is going to appeal to 50 million people. When talking about total market value, you need to be realistic, skeptical and make assumptions to bring those huge market numbers down.
Consider the market projection based on words — a story — instead of using numbers. Talk about what market you will disrupt and let the readers use their imaginations about how big it is.
5. Too “big picture.” Business plans often deal only in global strategies, showing only the big picture. A business plan needs to illustrate the economics of a single unit — from production, to channels, to end user. Show what you get, what it costs you and what the buyer pays. Also show how you’re going to scale up, how you’re going to build a direct sales force, how you’re going to build web traffic and how long your sales cycle will take.
6. Unrealistic about selling channels.
understanding how retail channels work is a big mistake. Don’t assume that retailers will want to buy your product directly from you. Most often, they want to go through a distributor. If you plan on selling through channels and to take home more than 50 percent of what the end consumer pays, then you don’t know your channels.
Know your margins, including administrative costs and co-promotion dollars for distributors and retail stores that carry products like yours. Once you’ve got that down, you’ll need to remember to allocate enough working capital to support your business while you wait for distributors to pay your invoices.
7. Buried treasure.
Communicate your key points quickly. Some key points that investors look for include market, sales projections, your management team, scalability and defensibility.
Also remember to communicate your points clearly and in plain language. Prove your technology by quoting experts and showing your degrees and qualifications. Then show sales, channels, markets, strategy and your team.
Friday, 10 June 2011
INFOGRAPHIC: The Current State Of Venture Capital Funding And Startups
http://www.scribbal.com/2011/06/infographic-the-current-state-of-venture-capital-funding-and-startups/
Scribbal
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Scribbal
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Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Some Tech Start-Ups Founder in Rising Tide of Fund-Raising
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/some-tech-start-ups-founder-in-rising-tide-of-fund-raising/
New York Times
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New York Times
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Sunday, 5 June 2011
Power? Thanks, but I'd Rather Have Influence
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/business/05corner.html
New York Times
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New York Times
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Saturday, 4 June 2011
Microsoft to unveil Office 365 with an eye on small businesses
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/06/microsoft-readies-to-unveil-office-365.html
TechFlash
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TechFlash
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Music Industry's Blessing Lifts Hopes For iCloud
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=136949130
NPR
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NPR
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Disney To Offer It's Own Cloud Service?
http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/06/04/disney-to-offer-it%E2%80%99s-own-cloud-service/
Unwired View
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Unwired View
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Apple's iCloud to Skirt Security Woes: Analyst
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11142472/1/apples-icloud-to-skirt-security-woes-analyst.html?cm_ven=GOOGLEN
TheStreet.com
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TheStreet.com
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Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Survey Finds Cloud Computing Has Matured, But It Can Be a Pain
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386275,00.asp
PC Magazine
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PC Magazine
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The first 100 days of business: where to start
http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/managing/the-first-100-days-of-business-where-to-start-20110601-1ffm4.html
Sydney Morning Herald
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Sydney Morning Herald
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How safe is cloud computing?
http://www.citywire.co.uk/global/how-safe-is-cloud-computing/a495836?ref=citywire-global-latest-news-list
Citywire.co.uk
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Citywire.co.uk
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