WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

Interactive map showing all the underwater cables that carry phone and Internat data trafic. I live in Montreal and I am surprised how "well" the northern Canada region is cabled, given its small population. For comparison, Russia appears empty of cables.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

Data networks are an essential part of our ability to conduct business globally (fiber optic cables introduce much less delay than satellite connections for example). If you rely on skype to speak with suppliers in China or friends in Australia, you realize how amazing this infrastructure is.

See here for an animated video of the network: http://uk.businessinsider.com/animated-map-global-fiber-optic-internet-cables-2015-9

The concept of utility computing is one step closer.

This is important because it means a reversal of 20 years of outsourcing by GM. It also means computing and data are seens as essential components of future growth and innovation at GM.

Outsourcing has allowed GM to shed its "old school" IT resources and replace them with a new breed  that is more cloud friendly, big data savvy. GM needs 100 times less resources to run the new DCs than it did the old ones. And new workers are not unionized.

Going the private cloud way is also an interesting sign, stating that technology is reaching the point where it becomes affordable for large corporations to build their own - even though there is a lot of technology missing that needs to be developed. GM has gone from 23 DCs to 2. Looks like privacy was a big contributing factor as well.

Also worth reading is the gigaOM review of this new datacenter along with an analysis of what this means for other Fortune100 corporations. Paper also states that economics for private cloud mega datacenters is good once you reach a certain scale.