International Facility Management Association (IFMA) Silicon Valley Chapter organized a meeting to discuss Cloud Computing Impacts on Facilities Management (FM). The meeting was held at NetApp, Sunnyvale, CA on March 28, 2012. The discussion was led by a panel of experts in Cloud Computing, Information Technology and Data Center facilities. The speakers Arun Kanchi, Exafort, Bruce Thorpe, NVIDIA and Steve Paszkiewicz, Risk Management Solutions gave an enlightening talk on Cloud Computing and its impact on FM. The meeting was focused on how the rapid adoption of Cloud Computing by organizatioSilicon Valleyns world-wide is changing the real estate landscape, the ever increasing closeness of IT and facilities groups and its positive impact on jobs.
“Cloud computing is not a job eliminator, it is a job creator,” said Arun Kanchi, CEO of Exafort. According to a recent study by analyst firm IDC, Cloud Computing will potentially generate at least 14 million new jobs across the globe within the next three years. Of these about 6.7 million new jobs will be created by the end of year 2012. Many of these new jobs created are likely to be outside of IT groups, but still a large number of these jobs are going to be with-in IT and facilities groups to build, deliver and support cloud based services to end customers.
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The conversations were dominated by the building blocks, core infrastructure and cost etc. The main topics included:
Awareness & Taxonomy: Why cloud? How is it applicable to enterprises? Public Cloud vs. Private Cloud vs. Semi Private Cloud.
Infrastructure capabilities: How to have elastic infrastructure; Compute, Storage and Network.
Cost & Scalability: How is cloud setup more cost-effective than traditional on-premise setups?
Jobs: How IT and Facility job descriptions are evolving due to increasing cloud adoption rates; what should one do to re-invent themselves?
Given that the idea of immediately leveraging cloud based technology and business practices look inviting, solid preparation for this move is crucial. Existing organizational roles will shift, business practices will change, and your customers as well as internal stakeholders could be impacted. Cloud adoption is a great opportunity, not only to change, but also to improve. Cloud technology experts like Exafort have been helping organizations prepare and execute this shift.
Cloud is clearly a positive force, promoting new innovations all around. As Arun Kanchi, put it, “By migrating to the cloud and utilizing cloud based services like Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce.com, NetSuite etc., organizations can reduce their IT costs by 30% to 40% and use the savings to fuel innovations and promote business growth.”
“At Risk Management Solutions, we have fully embraced Cloud Computing and converted our IT spending from Capex to Opex. With the cloud we are now able to scale up IT resources in a matter of minutes, in the past with traditional methods this used to take us several weeks to procure and setup the resources needed,” said Steve Paszkiewicz, Senior Director, Business Applications, Risk Management Solutions.
“Current GPU technology is at 5 Billion calculations per watt, the next generation of GPU’s will be 14 Billion calculations per watt. This represents a massive shift in compute power and energy efficiency; which will change the way cloud services are delivered,” said Bruce Thorpe, Global Lead, Energy & Critical Environments at NVIDIANVIDIA.
About Exafort, Inc.
Exafort provides professional services to help institutions harness the potential of new generation Cloud, Mobile, BI and Enterprise 2.0 technologies. Exafort helps clients attain effectiveness, enhance efficiency, get end-to-end visibility, accelerate innovation and rapidly adapt to constantly changing business landscape. The team has deep domain, cross-functional expertise to handle the most complex deployments with utmost ease, delivering high value and services to customers ranging from privately held mid-market companies to Fortune 500 firms. Headquartered in Santa Clara, US, Exafort has offices in U.S., and India. This mix of onshore and offshore expertise offers cost effective, comprehensive service, as well as follow-the-sun support for its clients.
About International Facility Management Association (IFMA) silicon Valley Chapter:
IFMA is the world’s largest and most widely recognized international association for professional facility managers with 125 chapters, supporting more than 19,000 members in 60 countries. The association’s members manage more than 37 billion square feet of property and annually purchase more than US$100 billion in products and services. Formed in 1980, IFMA certifies facility managers, conducts research, provides educational programs, and recognizes facility management certificate programs. The Silicon Valley Chapter of IFMA is one of the largest with over 500 members. The Chapter received the prestigious Award of Excellence for Large Chapter of the Year in 2011, for Professional Development in 2009, and in 2008, for both Membership Marketing and Large Chapter of the Year.
Chapter meetings with panel discussions of matters of interest to Facilities Managers are held each month. The meetings are followed by networking receptions. Several Facilities Management Round Table Luncheons occur throughout the year.
The Chapter runs many Community Outreach efforts, including “Serving Those Who Served” – a new initiative to help veterans get back into the workforce. Every year the Chapter partners with Rebuilding Together to rehabilitate a building. In 2012 the project is the 49-ers Academy in East Palo Alto, CA, an academy which aims to keep the children of East Palo Alto safe and in school.