I found this great podcast on the network world site today from Andreas Antonopoulos. Things like Web 2.0 and unified communication applications as well as virtualization all make securing an enterprise network more difficult. Nemertes’ Andreas Antonopoulos explains how security policies and systems need to become more flexible to fit the new ways we work.
Kara Swisher has the best headlines and is sniffing down the best stories these days. Here in her blog post she is tracking the Microsoft counterstrike to Amazon in the quest for what I call the LSD awards (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds).
We have been tracking the Infrastructure 2.0 and Cloud Wars at Broadband Developments (BroadDev.com). Kara is on to something here.
She writes:
Next week in Los Angeles, Microsoft will kick off its Professional Developers Conference (PDC), a place the software giant likes to unveil all kind of news in a big launchtastic flourish.
For all the noise, it’s worth paying attention, because Monday’s outlook will be cloudy, as in cloud computing.
The day will include a speech from Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie (pictured here) and others on, among other topics, its cloud infrastructure service initiatives–designed to match aggressive efforts from Amazon (AMZN) in the space.
Microsoft (MSFT) execs will probably be in a good mood, given the decent earnings results the company announced earlier this week for the third quarter. Revenue was up nine percent to $15 billion, even though net profits only increased 1.9 percent to $4.37 billion.
Still, that was a pretty good performance in a down economy, due to strength in Microsoft’s powerful Windows and Office franchises. And despite–as usual–the weakness of its online division.
While the revenue for its MSN, search and advertising network grew to $770 million or up 15 percent in the quarter, operating losses doubled to $480 million from $267 in the same period a year ago. Search grew more than display advertising, a forward outlook Microsoft that maintained.
And still no digital chief, long promised by Ballmer, in sight either. Sources said that head, who will lead the unit, has still not been selected.
My friend Amr Awadallah (whose birthday was yesterday) just announced his startup. Boy are these “cloudy” times - pun intended. It’s called Cloudera.
Amr told me about his startup on one of my visits recently to Accel Partners. Amr is one smart guy who just left Yahoo. Amr has been an EIR at Accel for the past few months incubating this startup. Amr is a virtualization tech pro and a major Halo player. Amr has been around the virutalization world for many years and his advisor at Stanford where Amr was studying for his PhD is Mendel Rosenblum.
I expect this startup to be very relevant. Amr is a great guy who is super techy and very entrepreneurial. When I started PodTech when it was just me, Amr was there with friendship and encouragement. He was my second podcast on PodTech.
Big Congrats to Amr, the founding team, and Accel. Accel is lucky to have a guy like Amr in their stable.
As the battleground between Microsoft and VMware takes shape with the launch of Microsoft’s Hyper-V, I’ve talked about what VMware should do as well as how Hyper-V could prevail. While this is a critical battle for both companies, it is only a precursor for Microsoft as Google looks to be launching the cannibals of commoditization at Microsoft’s core applications.
This morning a very interesting article on online office applications appeared in Computerworld. While the article is a feature assessment of three online office applications (Google, ThinkFree and Zoho), the strategic implications of these innovations become obvious in the first paragraph:
For quite a while, Web-based suites — which offered word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and other tools associated with desktop office suites — were extolled not because they did these things well, but because they could do them at all. But the three major competitors, Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They’re becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps.
This takes me back to a Computerworld blog discussion and Nicholas Carr’s new book The Big Switch. Carr argues in The Big Switch that enterprise IT is about to get sucked into the cloud of utility computing, similar to how electricity production went from strategic industrial age differentiator to ubiquitous commodity as access spread and service providers expanded their coverage.
That switch would be a major disruption to the likes of Microsoft, as the world of massive shrink-wrapped and pre-installed software for ever larger hard drives has been very good to the Redmond Empire. It has allowed Microsoft to bundle its way into waves of innovations while crushing rivals. Its ability to assimilate and crush reminds me of Ancient Rome.
As I mentioned a couple days ago in Microsoft Unleashes the Cannibals, cloud computing gives new entrants the ability to deliver software as a service and change the economics of the software industry. And I think that both Microsoft and Google are well aware of the enablers, the potentials and the new stakes.
I think Microsoft is bracing for the first formidable cannibal assault on its core suite of applications. Yes, Google may do to Microsoft what Hyper-V is attempting to do to VMware and what Microsoft has done to others for decades. The outcome of this assault promises to change the critical requirements of enterprise computing, spur new innovation and make computing more affordable and accessible for even more users.
Clearly Microsoft is a well-funded empire populated with a lineage of brilliant strategists/generals. It won’t go away. But I think it will have to adapt to the switch as Carr calls it; and the way it fights off cannibalization will impact Microsoft, the software industry and the world of computing.
With software from the clouds will come new demands, new players and new opportunities. Appliances that enhance security in the clouds, make compliance more manageable and enhance flexibility and control will become even more strategic. Specialized hardware and ASIC races between various “one trick pony” category players will become increasingly uncommon. Service providers will ultimately out-innovate many enterprise data center teams.
I think this process is already underway, as some enterprises have already started commoditizing their shops, outsourcing certain roles, and establishing ever more bureaucratic technology evaluation committees. Security pundit Chris Hoff may blame analysts for quashing innovation, but I think enterprise IT is under even more scrutiny for justifying innovation.
Google’s cannibals will also likely impact more than Microsoft. They may transform the increasingly reactive and incrementalist IT industry already juggling legacy purchases with emerging new demands under increasing resource constraints. They may force change at a critical time for the IT industry.
The shift to cloud computing could unleash an explosion of innovations in applications, application delivery, core network services, traffic management and security. It promises a new generation of technology leaders, opportunities and market dynamics and perhaps even new types of service providers. No doubt Microsoft will survive and ultimately thrive; the real question is what its business will look like after the aftermath of its coming battle.
You can read my disclaimer at About Archimedius.
One of the most powerful weapons used by dominant technology companies is the power of commoditization. Established players with product offering breadth can crush single product line competitors by offering loss leader bundles with much lower prices for similar products. The net effect of the loss leader bundle is to make a competitor’s single line into a commodity, which slows revenue growth and creates new demands for innovation and spending.
In How Hyper-V could beat VMware I talk about this dynamic and the additional pressures placed on VMware when Microsoft launched Hyper-V, its new virtualization platform. Of course, VMware can fight back and win, as I mentioned in How VMware could beat Microsoft’s Hyper-V. The outcome may come down to the interplay between marketing and technology strategy, as differentiation is the best weapon against the cannibals of commoditization.
VMware cannot beat Microsoft, but its technology can set up Microsoft for plenty of commoditization pressures from Google, Apple and others. As I mentioned to Richard Stiennon at his Network World blog on Microsoft last week, virtualization is at best a double-edged sword for the Redmond Empire.
Virtualization decouples the powerful link between hardware and software that has played to Microsoft’s OS/applications core strengths for decades. That can enhance the addressable market by allowing any hardware to run Windows, yet it also gives users more options to say no or pick and choose what they use and when.
The fact that Microsoft already has considerable market share means that user choice could have more downside than upside. And Apple’s reputation for developing sticky applications and interfaces and endpoints, combined with Google’s recent entry into enterprise applications in the cloud are clear threats despite Google’s walled garden approach. As virtualization spreads it increases the economics of cloud computing with unprecedented levels of efficiency and flexibility. Service providers become more strategic, even to core enterprise application delivery, because they can dramatically reduce IT costs.
Applications could become free to those willing to accept advertising, and delivered from the cloud with minimal hard drive requirements.
I’ve posted a collection of posts about cloud computing at Archimedius.
The emergence of enterprise software as a service means layers of disruption to Microsoft’s seemingly omnipotent channel of pre-installed hard drives and shrink wrapped add-ons. It means a level playing field for innovators and disruptors; perhaps to an extent that Microsoft hasn’t seen for decades. Ironically, Google has the potential to turn the cannibals loose on core Microsoft applications and even threaten Windows and transform the software industry.
In the clouds are herds of cannibals ready to be unleashed on the dominant hard drive and shrink wrapped software players. Microsoft risks becoming a victim to a strategy that it has used ever so effectively against some once-mighty innovators.
VMware is a critical enabler of this new revolution in computing. While it doesn’t threaten Microsoft directly, it is a critical component in a more powerful cloud computing marketplace. I think that is why Hyper-V came out as a loss leader bundle. Microsoft would like to slow innovation by commoditizing the hypervisor, dethroning VMware and exercising more control over virtualization innovation.
While pundits argue about the success of Microsoft with Hyper-V over VMware, the real battle with Google looms on the horizon. And it may be simply too late to slow the march of progress that VMware started. The hypervisor genie is now out of the bottle and cloud computing innovations will be delivered with or without VMware.
Even if VMware loses it could become the accelerant that gives software as a service new potentials: VMware’s worst case scenario may be being immortalized with Leonidas and his critical stall of the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. If it wins, Microsoft will have even bigger issues to contend with, including the cannibalization of its own core business.
That kind of ironic twist is what keeps technologists free from summer boredom.
Yet the proliferation of virtualization and cloud computing in the short term isn’t a done deal, although it is inevitable in the long term. There are significant barriers to true VMotion, virtualization security concerns and change management and compliance requirements only recently being addressed by private companies like Tripwire, 3 Leaf Systems, Xsigo Systems, Blue Lane (my alma mater) and others, who I’ll be talking about in future posts.
As VMware reaches beyond virtualization-lite in production data centers and these private players grow, Microsoft will be under increasing pressure by a new crop of application service providers based around the world with new cost structures, new ideas and new access to a growing market enables by cheaper hardware and shrinking endpoint/access requirements. Applications become as available as electricity and network access.
You can read my disclaimer at About Archimedius.
The last few weeks have been incredible for virtualization buzz, from the Cloud Computing Meme upsurge, to the launch of Hyper-V and then the shocking Greene departure at VMware. It is only a matter of time before we hear speculation about ESX price cuts in response to Microsoft’s aggressive Hyper-V pricing; much of the virtualization world will therefore be listening carefully to VMware in coming months or perhaps weeks.
Let’s face it, if Microsoft catches up with VMware in terms of product features and functionality VMware will have a very difficult time maintaining their ESX price points. Their history of innovation may serve them even more now that they face a formidable competitor.
VMware has two high potential strategies at this juncture: they can continue to innovate in ways that make data center deployments even more compelling (getting beyond Virtualization-Lite) and/or they can find new ways to monetize and differentiate existing partner ecosystem technologies.
If the hypervisor becomes a commodity then VMware will have a strong economic incentive to monetize premium functionality and capabilities as efficiently as possible. Addressing virtsec, I/O constraints that weaken VMotion as well as change management and compliance considerations more aggressively could help accelerate data center adoption; yet monetizing those capabilities could also help the company become less dependent on hypervisor revenues.
Across the long term I think VMware should consider a two-step attack against Microsoft: 1) move inward from the Virtualization-Lite beach head as quickly as possible (to broaden production deployments) in order to shrink Microsoft’s addressable market in the data center; and 2) quickly and efficiently monetize the unique ESX features and capabilities as soon as Microsoft attacks the data center, perhaps sooner.
The VMware partner eco-system (including the brilliant VMsafe initiative) was a sizable differentiator against Xen/Citrix; now with Microsoft entering the market it may become a double-edged sword. VMware needs unique, production-ready innovation in virtualization security now more than ever. They cannot wait for virtsec partner Godot or freeze the market with partner slide ware.
If they can increase the rate of data center virtualization, innovate and monetize unique features they can beat Microsoft in the data center, even if the Redmond team continues with the loss leader gorilla extension strategy.
Marketing should now play an even more strategic role at VMware.
Related reading: How Hyper-V could beat VMware - July 8 2008
My disclosure is available at: About Archimedius
The last few weeks have been incredible for virtualization buzz, from the Cloud Computing Meme upsurge, to the launch of Hyper-V and then the shocking Greene departure at VMware. It is only a matter of time before we hear speculation about ESX price cuts in response to Microsoft’s aggressive Hyper-V pricing; much of the virtualization world will therefore be listening carefully to VMware in coming months or perhaps weeks.
Let’s face it, if Microsoft catches up with VMware in terms of product features and functionality VMware will have a very difficult time maintaining their ESX price points. Their history of innovation may serve them even more now that they face a formidable competitor.
VMware has two high potential strategies at this juncture: they can continue to innovate in ways that make data center deployments even more compelling (getting beyond Virtualization-Lite) and/or they can find new ways to monetize and differentiate existing partner ecosystem technologies.
If the hypervisor becomes a commodity then VMware will have a strong economic incentive to monetize premium functionality and capabilities as efficiently as possible. Addressing virtsec, I/O constraints that weaken VMotion as well as change management and compliance considerations more aggressively could help accelerate data center adoption; yet monetizing those capabilities could also help the company become less dependent on hypervisor revenues.
Across the long term I think VMware should consider a two-step attack against Microsoft: 1) move inward from the Virtualization-Lite beach head as quickly as possible (to broaden production deployments) in order to shrink Microsoft’s addressable market in the data center; and 2) quickly and efficiently monetize the unique ESX features and capabilities as soon as Microsoft attacks the data center, perhaps sooner.
The VMware partner eco-system (including the brilliant VMsafe initiative) was a sizable differentiator against Xen/Citrix; now with Microsoft entering the market it may become a double-edged sword. VMware needs unique, production-ready innovation in virtualization security now more than ever. They cannot wait for virtsec partner Godot or freeze the market with partner slide ware.
If they can increase the rate of data center virtualization, innovate and monetize unique features they can beat Microsoft in the data center, even if the Redmond team continues with the loss leader gorilla extension strategy.
Marketing should now play an even more strategic role at VMware.
Related reading: How Hyper-V could beat VMware - July 8 2008
My disclosure is available at: About Archimedius
Former VMWare CEO Diane Greene was unceremoniously ousted today and immediately replaced with former Microsoft exec Paul Maritz. VMWare shares dropped nearly 25% today in response. Valley jaws dropped even further.
This is a desperate response the Microsoft Hyper-V attack. Greene was one of the original founders of VMWare in 1998 and has been a visible silicon valley leader since in the omnipresent battle of valley v. Microsoft. Gartner’s Tom Bittman speculates that EMC who owns 86% of VMWare stock was ultimately behind the move and that longstanding tension with Greene may have made this movie inevitable. If not Greene then Maritz is the perfect general in the fight against Microsoft for virtualization supremacy. Maritz understands MSFT inside and out and is well-equipped to help VMWare maintain their market leader position, or at least prolong the fight if Microsoft does indeed win. He also has some history with EMC after selling his Pi Corporation project to them earlier this year.
Can Maritz be the knight in shining armor to save VMWare from the dragon? Only time will tell.
Paul Maritz (VMware’s new CEO) has a cloud computing background, which makes this recent move ever more interesting for VMware watchers. While the trade and financial press has been understandably big on his product and marketing contribution to Microsoft across 14 years, I think his role at the EMC Cloud division really gave VMware a “two-fer” at a critical time in its history.
It seems very likely that the combination of Hyper-V’s entrance and VMware’s recently reduced guidance set the stage for a CEO change; yet EMC made an abrupt move that probably caught most of the virtualization industry -including VMware insiders- by surprise. The speed of their replacement suggests that they don’t want to give Microsoft any wiggle-room when it comes to the adoption of Hyper-V inside the data center.
Diane Greene made an incredible contribution to VMware. She will always have a high profile following in the virtualization community. Diane was a highly respected executive at VMware, from the rank and file on up through executives. Yet the shipment of Hyper-V represented a threat on multiple fronts, and VMware’s legacy of technology excellence in devtest may simply have not been enough to fight Microsoft in the data center.
VMware was genius in devtest on multiple fronts. It even translated that genius into outstanding go-to-market momentum post IPO. Yet Microsoft is no Xen/Citrix and the market is moving from devtest to the more demanding (and even more lucrative) data center. VMware needs to move aggressively into the data center from its virtualization-lite beach head.
Microsoft has a well-earned reputation for destroying even the most brilliant competitors, and the Hyper-V launch ahead of schedule no doubt has already placed additional pressures on VMware. As I mentioned before, virtualization is strategic to Microsoft’s coming battle in the clouds with Google. If it can encroach on VMware’s young foothold in the data center it will make their position in cloud computing even more lucrative, and give them multiple fronts to pressure Google.
Thus far it appears that Microsoft sees virtualization as an extension of their server line, and has priced Hyper-V aggressively for fast adoption in the small-medium business (SMB) space. That is a classic flank maneuver.
Many technology companies have become successful by launching into the traditionally accessible and underserved SMB market, only to build a formidable presence (and product and market momentum) eventually capable of landing larger enterprise deals up against even the most established competitors.
Microsoft could be very successful without having to match VMware’s features and formidable partner ecosystem by racing into the SMB market with an established brand and perhaps unmatched prospect intelligence thanks to their role in the existing software industry. If that went well they would have an even more potent position from which to attack.
VMware today thusly faces unprecedented marketing challenges. Its technology leadership and savvy may not be enough to beat Microsoft. And the spoils of victory in virtualization are simply too strategic to Microsoft and others to assume that the coming high stakes battle will be easy. Chances are that it will be grueling for VMware when the time comes for Hyper-V to move up market.
That’s why I think Maritz was an especially strong candidate to replace Green. He knows Microsoft well and he knows where the market is ultimately going (into the clouds). He may be able to help groom a technology leader into a marketing powerhouse at a critical time in its history.
His biggest initial challenges may indeed be internal, where he will be filling some big shoes that no doubt enjoyed tremendous internal and external respect. Thusly, he has his work cut out for him internally and externally.
VMware has also built a formidable channel and partner ecosystem that has served it well in its move from devtest to data center. Another key test for Maritz will be how well he handles the balance between critical data center deployment requirements, the channel and partners with potentially mixed agendas or loyalties. The faster that VMware can virtualize the data center (while Microsoft focuses on SMB) the better.
You can read more about virtualization, security and cloud computing at a few recent ARCHIMEDIUS posts:
Who Will Ride the Clouds - June 20 2008
Cloud Computing: VirtSec on Steroids - July 8 2008
How Hyper-V could beat VMware - July 8 2008
Virtualization-Lite: A Small Step and Giant Leap - June 18 2008
===================================
Disclosure: I’m the VP Marketing for Blue Lane Technologies, a winner of the 2007 InfoWorld Technology of the Year for security, Best of Interop 2007 in security and the AO 100 Top Private Company award for 2006 and 2007. Blue Lane is also a 2007 Best of VMworld Finalist in data protection. I’ve been a marketing executive at Juniper Networks, Redline Networks, IntruVert Networks and ShoreTel. I’ve been an Always On blogger/columnist since 2004. My recently launched personal blog is: www.archimedius.net . I recently added my blog to a growing lineup of editors at BroadDev.com. These are all my opinions, and do not represent the opinions of employers, spouses, kids, etc.
A few hours ago I finished reading Nicholas Carr’s The Big Switch and was floored by his take on the impending mass adoption of cloud/utility computing and its impacts on information technology and the world. A few minutes ago I read another great piece from InfoWorld, this time on cloud computing and security: The Dangers of Cloud Computing.
I’ve been ranting at The Archimedius Report about virtualization and security and the inherent challenges of securing mobile, state-changing servers. That’s why these paragraphs from Ephraim’s article published Monday set off yet another “implication” for data center and network security, thanks to some insightful comments by Gartner’s chief security analyst John Pescatore:
The area that worries Pescatore most is how quickly cloud-based services are updated and changed. He cites Microsoft’s painstaking development of the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) initiative that assumes mission-critical software will have a three- to five-year period in which it will not substantially change.
“In the cloud, every two weeks we add a new feature, changing the app all the time. But the secure SDLC is not built to do that. We are going back to the old Netscape days of pushing out new features real quick, and nobody has a security cycle that moves that fast,” Pescatore says.
What makes matters even worse is that the business user can’t say he wants to stay on the old version. “In the cloud you have to accept the next version, possibly nullifying any security that was built into the old application or assumed through integration at the customer site.
- Ephraim Schwartz, InfoWorld, July 7 2008
As I mentioned in Virtualization-Lite the network security solution leaders have poor visibility into the hypervisor layer and even poorer hypervisor layer enforcement capabilities. Neither Cisco, nor Juniper nor McAfee are well-prepared for the tasks of defending fluid virtual server environments, unless each environment is confined within an individual hypervisor. That’s not really virtualization, but rather virtualization-lite. Virtualization-lite is the acceptance of a reduced business case for virtualization in exchange for a more stable network security posture.
The nature and scale of cloud computing would put even more pressure on this world of static security already put on notice by virtualization in the data center. Imagine millions of blade servers deployed around the world each hosting dozens of VMs capable of following the moon, as Kevin Kelly says.
That level of mobility (servers chasing cheap electricity around the globe thanks to ubiquitous cloud computing) would wreak havoc on the security status quo architected for years to defend fixed servers. Leading network security appliances have assumed inflexibility inside the perimeter, and that has been a key impediment to virtsec and to the rapid proliferation of virtualization of the data center.
Of course, Kelly’s “follow the moon” vision is further off than the vision of virtualization and smaller independent clouds/utilities. Yet there is still trouble on the horizon. If you accept Carr (that utility computing is inevitable) the picture for IT as we know it today is bleak. The security industry wouldn’t be in much better shape either:
In the long run, the IT department is unlikely to survive, at least not in the familiar form. It will have little left to do once the bulk of business computing shifts out of private data centers and into “the cloud.”
- Nicholas Carr, The Big Switch, page 118
A few weeks ago I talked about the tactical nature of network security and its occasional quicksand mentality, where every new move means a risk of sinking even deeper into the perceived risk abyss. At this point it appears that tactical network security teams are not taking the lead when it comes to unleashing virtualization, for obvious reasons. They’re deploying the hypervisor VLANs we just discussed, which limit flexibility and movement to within the confines of a single hypervisor.
IN A NUTSHELL
Security solutions are behind when it comes to virtualization. Security pros are taking a tactical posture. Yet change is coming according to Carr.
With sunrise over the data center comes an array of clouds stretched out as far as the eye can see. Will those clouds tease us into accepting a potentially weaker security posture in exchange for lower IT costs and greater convenience? I think the answer is yes.
Storm Clouds then Much-Needed Rain
As network security pros and pundits struggle to create ROI models for security or new rationales for more proactive postures within increasingly reactive bureaucracies I think it is obvious that we’ll accept more breaches in exchange for more convenience. That is, until the defining moment of an attack so audacious that it forces innovation as a means of service provider survival.
A cloud breach could be monumental and shocking. It may be what netsec needs to get back on top of the game.
A cloud attack could drive a new renaissance in security, with new outlooks and probably even panic overspending. Maybe we would even see application service providers market security in the same way that Swiss banks once marketed privacy. That could make security strategic to brand. And many enterprises already know how to calculate brand ROI.
===================================
Disclosure: I’m the VP Marketing for Blue Lane Technologies, a winner of the 2007 InfoWorld Technology of the Year for security, Best of Interop 2007 in security and the AO 100 Top Private Company award for 2006 and 2007. Blue Lane is also a 2007 Best of VMworld Finalist in data protection. I’ve been a marketing executive at Juniper Networks, Redline Networks, IntruVert Networks and ShoreTel. I’ve been an Always On blogger/columnist since 2004. My recently launched personal blog is: www.archimedius.net . I recently added my blog to a growing lineup of editors at BroadDev.com. These are all my opinions, and do not represent the opinions of employers, spouses, kids, etc.
Powered by WordPress