Dustin Amrhein

"What are the use cases you want to pursue with your enterprise cloud project?" The question seems innocuous enough, but I can tell you from first-hand experience that it is anything but. If you asked five people from different teams within the same company to each give you three use cases, you would end up with 15 different scenarios. Such is the case in the current enterprise landscape where points of view on cloud vary about as much as you can imagine. Each organizational fiefdom has its own set of pain points, challenges, and initiatives to tackle, and each one of those teams have an idea on how the cloud can help. Being on the service provider side, listening to users roll off a burgeoning list of usage scenarios is equal parts exciting and disconcerting. I find myself caught somewhere between, ‘Wow, that sounds cool and fun!', and ‘How am I going to show that... (more)

It's What's on the Inside that Counts

"It is what is on the inside that counts." How many times have we all been told that? Personally, I can't even remember. However, just because it is perhaps overused and undoubtedly cliché, does not make it any less true. In fact, I rank it right up there with the golden rule as mantras that one should try to live by. But this is ostensibly a cloud computing blog, so what am I rambling on about? Well, it turns out that it's what is on the inside that counts in cloud computing as well! To explain this, let's take a look at the process for deploying applications on the cloud today... (more)

PaaS and the Application Server

For the last 5+ years, I have been deeply focused in the area of middleware application servers and the container services that they provide. If you go a bit further back and look at the arc of progression in this space, you will see multiple pivots of innovation for these servers. In the beginning, it was all about transactions, and then JEE was added, followed closely (and probably most recently) by a push around SOA. While none of these topics have gotten less important over time, they become an assumed part of application server runtimes and architectures.  That is, customers... (more)

The Pitfalls of Cloud Computing

There is no shortage of information concerning the ‘right' way to do cloud. Don't believe me? Just google ‘adopting cloud computing' or ‘implementing cloud computing' and prepare to be bombarded with advice. Don't get me wrong. I am not attempting to impugn this kind of material or otherwise demean it. I am simply saying that if you want to read about how to successfully adopt, implement, or otherwise begin to use cloud computing, you have a wealth of information at your disposal. On the other hand, I doubt you will find as much information on the opposite of cloud success, whic... (more)

Unwrapping the Self-Service Cloud

If you get a chance to talk with directors or C-level executives about the benefits they expect to derive from adopting cloud computing techniques, expect to hear the terms ‘flexibility', ‘agility', and ‘cost reduction' come up quite frequently. While those are valid expectations, those of us a little closer to the trenches know that it takes a number of different technical capabilities to actually deliver those benefits. Oft-talked about capabilities such as elasticity, rapid provisioning, and configuration automation all come to mind. However, there's one more capability that w... (more)