Cognitive on Cloud

VMware lays out roadmap to the clouds.

By G C Network | June 10, 2008

Earlier this year, Diane Greene, VMware President and Co-Founder, described cloud computing as the final evolutionary step for virtualization. Reza Malekzadeh, Senior Director of Products and Marketing reinforced that view…

Mario Dal Canto at Virtualization Conference & Expo 2008 East

By G C Network | June 9, 2008

According to Mario Dal Canto, “Virtual Cloud Computing represents the next wave of virtualization and offers significant market opportunities by providing a new, simpler, and much more pervasive platform for…

Microsoft cloud fits and starts.

By G C Network | June 9, 2008

Microsoft’s dance with cloud comuting is very puzzling. Point 1: The June 5th Wall Street Journal article discusses the friction between Steve Ballmer and Bill Gagtes over NetDocs, described by…

Salesforce.com & Google

By G C Network | June 6, 2008

A short promotional video on Salesforce and the Google cloud. Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

Gamers now have their own cloud.

By G C Network | June 5, 2008

Valve, a Bellevue, Washington based entertainment software and technology company, recently announced that they will use the cloud computing paradigm as their next major update. Called “Steam Cloud” the service…

Is IBM serious about cloud computing?

By G C Network | June 5, 2008

Last week in Eye on the Enterprise, Joe McKendrick, highlighted IBM VP Steve Mills’ apparently less than enthusiastic statement regarding cloud computing. In an April 30th interview with CNET’s Dan…

VMware and Cloud Computing

By G C Network | June 3, 2008

VMware President and Chief Executive Officer Diane Greene,in her keynote address at the JP Morgan Technology Conference in Boston, described cloud computing as the final evolutionary step for virtualization. In…

DISA Cloud Computing Plans

By G C Network | June 3, 2008

During last month’s Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Partnership Conference, cloud computing debuted as a “top priority” for senior leadership. Speakers described a future state when users would access computing…

The Cloud Computing Portal

By G C Network | May 30, 2008

The Cloud Computing Portal is a community edited database that makes the cloud vendor selection process easier, by helping you find a cloud provider who supports the environment you need.…

HP in the Cloud

By G C Network | May 29, 2008

In “HP weds cloud…” , Hewlett-Packard has apparently outlined their approach to cloud computing. They are merging their high-performance computing unit with the Web 2.0 and cloud computing infrastructure businesses.…

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According to the IBM Institute for Business Value the market will see a rapid adoption of initial cognitive systems. The most likely candidates have moved beyond descriptive and diagnostic, predictive and routine industry-specific capabilities. 70 percent of survey respondents are currently using advanced programmatic analytics in three or more departments. In fact, the widespread adoption of cognitive systems and artificial intelligence (AI) across various industries is expected to drive worldwide revenues from nearly US$8.0 billion in 2016 to more than US$47 billion in 2020.

The analyst firm IDC predictsthat the banking, retail, healthcare and discrete manufacturing industries will generate more than 50% of all worldwide cognitive/ AI revenues in 2016. Banking and retail will each deliver nearly US$1.5 billion, while healthcare and discrete manufacturing will deliver the greatest revenue growth over the 2016-2020 forecast period, with CAGRs of 69.3% and 61.4%, respectively. Education and process manufacturing will also experience significant growth over the forecast period.



Figure 1– Credit Cognitive Scale Inc.

So what can cognitive computing really do? Three amazing examples of this burgeoning computing model include:

·         DeepMind from Google that can mirror some of the brain’s short-term memory properties. This computer is built with a neural network capable of interacting with external memory. DeepMind can “remember” using this external memory and use it to understand new information and perform tasks beyond what it was programmed to do. The brain-like abilities of DeepMind mean that analysts can rely on commands and information, which the program can compare with past data queries and respond to without constant oversight.
·         IBM Watson which has a built-in natural language processor and hypothesis generator that it uses to perform evaluations and accomplish dynamic learning. This system is a lot more advanced than the digital assistants on our smartphones and allows users to ask questions in plain language, which Watson then translates into data language for querying.
·         The Qualcomm Zeroth Cognitive Computing Platform that relies on visual and auditory cognitive computing in to reflect human-like thinking and actions. A device running the platform can recognize objects, read handwriting, identify people and understand the overall context of a setting. Zero
th’s ability to replicate intuitive experiences provides a number of opportunities within sentiment analysis. With its ability to understand scenes and context, it can decipher how people are feeling based off facial expressions or voice stress levels.
This shift to cognitive computing will occur within the next 12 to 14 months for many organizations and cognitive era success requires data centric management culture, a common requisite for secure cloud computing. This similarity should not be surprising because both computing models:
  • Need robust and simplified data classification processes in order to more easily deliver industry and business model specific value;
  • Require the implementation of information technology security controls that are driven by data value and role based access control paradigms; and
  • Leverage software applications that should be developed using ISO 27034 which is a multi-part standard on specifying, designing/selecting and implementing information security controls through a set of processes integrated throughout an organization’s Systems Development Life Cycle/s (SDLC).
Companies that are leveraging cloud today must also prepare for the cognitive computing era. This blend of cloud and cognitive has, in fact, created a brand new application development model.

Referred to as Cognitive on cloud”, this model delivers cognitive services running in the cloud that are consumable via representational state transfer (REST) APIs. These services are available as part of platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings such as Bluemix and can be easily bound to an application while coding.

Using this approach, cognitive analytics such as voice (tone analyzer, speech-to-text) and video (face detection, visual recognition) capabilities enables quick analysis of petabytes of unstructured data. Developing cognitive applications to run on mobile devices has provided new insights which help organizations create totally new revenue streams. When selecting a cloud service provider however cognitive on cloud ROI requires more than just a total cost of ownership comparison. In addition to this basic analysis, an organization must consider which cloud is cognitive enabled at the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) layer. The convergence of cognitive computing and cloud is driving this cognitive-oriented digital economy and the potential return is seemingly unlimited.

This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit IT Biz Advisor.

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