Recently in Events Category

Las Vegas, Nevada - The Mezeo team is at the Tier 1 Research Hosting & Cloud Transformation Summit this week.  The Summit has been very well attended this year, and we are seeing an increased focus on the cloud (evident by the name change of the summit itself) and much discussion on the enterprise adoption of the cloud.  This is our third time to sponsor the summit, and we're seeing new faces like CA and Nimsoft this year.

In the opening keynote, Antonio Piraino, VP of research for Tier1 Research, talked about "phase two" of the cloud computing market. In this phase, Piraino says we'll see enterprises begin to seek hybrid solutions and telcos enter the cloud market.  He noted that the entry of the telco cloud is a significant development in that it reflects that enterprises are driving this demand for cloud-based solutions.  This change is already evident in the marketplace with many of the recent telco acquisitions of cloud based providers.

On Tuesday, I participated in a panel discussion with CA, Microsoft and Verizon Business on Enterprise Cloud Adoption.  The consensus from these big players is, like Tier 1, is that they are seeing enterprises begin to move to the private cloud, and that the public cloud adoption was coming next.

For more insights, see our cloud storage business maturity model >> 

Austin, Texas - The Mezeo team has been at HostingCon this week.  This is our third time at this show, and each year we have seen the show grow and mature - reflecting the maturation of the hosting industry itself.

What we are observing at the show this year - and in the industry itself when we talk to customers - is a coming of age for the hosting industry and cloud storage.   Vendors and service providers truly "get it" now, and realize that they have to go to market with more than just a platform.  They need a solution that solves a customer problem. 

At the same time, we are seeing technologies maturing, more vendors coming to market with cloud storage offerings and more of what we refer to as "cloud enabling" solutions (i.e., solutions like TwinStrata's CloudArray and CTERA that target storage clouds).  The result is more solutions that help solve real business problems and help service providers push more data to the cloud.  
So, yes, the hosting industry continues to mature.  It's an exciting time to be in the industry and we only see great things to come.

The Parallels Summit has been very successful for Mezeo, with excellent booth traffic, a number of leads and we still have this afternoon to go. Our business development and partner discussions have also been productive.

Why blog about this? Because this is representative of two secular trends in the hosting industry. First, the industry is maturing, the business issues are more compelling and the opportunities and the vendors are more serious and engaged. Second, the interest in the cloud and cloud storage is at an all time high. It’s really that simple and that visible.

Here’s my presentation from Cloud Slam ‘09.

While much of the collective discussion has focused on cloud computing and trying to define it, Cloud Storage has not so quietly gone from concept to tangible business with real revenue and margin opportunities.

Those actively in the business believe that the per cent of every $1 spent on cloud computing associated with storage is growing, rapidly.  It can range as high as $0.90 on backups and goes down from there, based on application type. Since storage is persistent and growing rapidly, Cloud Storage will continue to grow as a percentage of total spend on Cloud Computing.  

Giants like Amazon, EMC, Google, Microsoft and now Sun have thrown their hats into the cloud storage ring, but they are not the only players. The economics for already trusted service providers like IT Hosting providers make it attractive for their continued entry into this space.

Here’s a short discussion I had with WHIR TV:

See also: Mezeo Helps Web Hosts Craft Cloud Storage

I've also been invited to present at Dealmaker Media's Under the Radar (UTR) conference on April 24 in Mountain View, CA.

In this case I'll be talking about what makes Mezeo unique: the deployable Mezeo Cloud Storage Platform that is purpose built for the IT service provider market.

Register here >>

I'll be doing a presentation at Cloud Slam '09 titled:
"The Most Interesting Sub-plot in Cloud Computing is Cloud Storage"

Here's what I'll be talking about:

While much of the collective discussion has focused on cloud computing and trying to define it, cloud storage has not so quietly gone from concept to tangible business with real revenue opportunities. Those actively in the business speculate that .40 to .90 cents from every $1 spent on cloud computing is storage, and with the continued increase of data creation from applications and people, it's only going to go up. Giants like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and now Sun have thrown their hats into the cloud storage ring, but they are not the only players. The economics for trusted service providers like IT Hosting providers make it attractive for their entry into this space.

Cloud Slam '09 is the world's largest virtual cloud computing conference, so you can attend the conference no matter where you are.

See you in the cloud:
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:00 pm
Eastern Daylight Time (GMT -04:00, New York)