Last night, cloud database company Xeround announced that they’re shutting down the version of their service hosted in public clouds such as Amazon, Rackspace, GreenQloud, and others. Users of the free service have until 8 May to move elsewhere, whilst paying customers have until 15 May. The company describes this as an attempt to “re-focus,” with the implication that other parts of the business remain viable. It’s never easy to admit mistakes and kill products, but the ability to do so is an essential part of running a business that’s viable for the long haul. Xeround’s announcement needn’t be interpreted as the end of the company, or the end of databases running in the public cloud. The challenge now is one of persuading staff, investors and customers to move past the short-term pain and uncertainty, and to get behind the new direction with conviction. Xeround was founded back in 2005, initially delivering scalable data management solutions into the data centres of telcos such as T-Mobile. The company’s work on scaling MySQL and offering it in the cloud brought it to wider attention, and they seemed to maintain momentum by adding additional cloud partners. Last year, the company rolled out a […]
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Clearing away all the cloud hype in 2013
It’s been decades-long in coming, but the bulk of hype around cloud computing could be gone by the end of 2013, thanks to a steady maturation of the underlying technology and more sophisticated IT use.
This is good news for companies hoping to a make the leap from local servers to managed stacks.
Terms of endearment
“Enterprise cloud” carries the lion’s share amount of hype, and has for the past few years, says CIO. This term is a catch-all for cloud services, and has been overused as a way to describe alternatives to public clouds, most of which take the form of public clouds in disguise.
IT pros are now fully aware that bolt-on virtualisation solutions, for example, aren’t precursors to the cloud, and with cloud security now robust enough to handle even mission critical data, the days of taking potshots at public providers because they’re …
Companies spending less on office space thanks to cloud
The overlap between cloud computing and enterprise mobility is becoming ever more pronounced. And according to a new survey from Rackspace Hosting, the proliferation of cloud computing, and mobilising workforces means that companies are likely to spend far less on office space.
It’s not strictly correct to call this a ‘new’ survey. It’s the third in a series on the state of cloud computing from the global hosting provider, called ‘Cloud Computing: State of Play’. A previous iteration had revealed that moving to the cloud had cost savings for nearly nine in 10 companies.
Yet this report examined the benefits, or otherwise, of the post-PC era, BYOD (bring your own device), and how cloud integrates with those elements.
“There is no doubt that cloud computing is enabling a more flexible workplace using a range of devices,” said Dr. Brian Nicholson of Manchester Business School in a canned quote …
Advanced analytics and data storage: You can’t use what you can’t see
There is currently quite a buzz around the concept of advanced analytics, as organisations look to predict future outcomes more effectively, based on a detailed understanding of what has actually happened in the past rather than testing theoretical hypotheses based on statistical analysis.
Put simply, the better the analysis, the better-informed decisions will be around anticipating – and responding effectively to – future demand.
Like many emerging management tools, it is easy to overstate the importance or complexity of the concept. At one level, advanced analytics is simply today’s way of mining information when presented with a lot of customer information.
And this applies whether in a CRM system, a traditional structured set of sales reports or looking to analyse product perceptions from the blogosphere.
Yet the value of the resulting intelligence – whether derived from a front-end CRM system or at the back-end in improving data management – is undeniably powerful in …
Cloud Expo NY: How Documentation Can Make or Break Your Cloud Platform
Developers are the new kingmakers and it’s a busy job. We want to use your solution but we’re short on time and patience. Reduce the friction of onboarding developers by clearly and succinctly documenting your API, regardless of whether you’re delivering SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Everett Toews, Developer Advocate at Rackspace, will show how developers discover and explore your API. What will make them a permanent user and promoter of your service? What will make them run away screaming, never to return?
Ixia ControlTower Promises Comprehensive Visibility Via Single Interface to Cloud Facilities, Distributed Enterprises
Ixia has introduced its ControlTower architecture to help cloud hosting facilities and large enterprise campuses scale and rapidly deploy multiple segments for centralized, intelligent monitoring. The scalable ControlTower architecture provides a single user interface for comprehensive monitoring of network performance and security tools housed in dispersed racks or geographic locations.
The ControlTower architecture builds on the capabilities of the Ixia Anue Net Tool Optimizer (NTO) network monitoring switches, which aggregate, filter, load balance and de-duplicate network traffic to intelligently connect data center and cloud provider networks with monitoring tools. This enables network operators to meet increasing bandwidth demands while retaining critical, packet-level visibility into application performance and security at line rate, all managed via a simple yet powerful central interface.
The ControlTower architecture extends the boundaries of the visible network beyond a single data center with a highly scalable approach that improves monitoring of distributed environments by providing:
- Maximum efficiency: Powered by the Anue NTO’s custom dynamic data traffic filtering capabilities, network monitoring switches filter traffic upon ingress to reduce traffic on the interconnect links and the potential for dropped packets.
- Simple usability and control: Ixia’s user interface presents the entire distributed visibility environment as a single switch, allowing administrators to add new monitored network segments with no added management complexity or overhead — making management of a large number of network segments just as easy as managing one.
- Flexible deployment options: Using Ixia’s ControlTower architecture, network monitoring switches may be easily deployed in a single high-density stack, distributed across the top of multiple racks in a data center or distributed to multiple buildings in a campus environment.
“As businesses continue to expand both their use of and reliance on secure, high-performing IT infrastructures, they are moving toward modular approaches that can include both internal and external cloud resources,” said Jim Frey, Vice President of Research for Network Management at Enterprise Management Associates. “Servers, storage and networking components are more often virtualized and can be activated as needed, and so monitoring strategies need to be flexible and scalable to keep pace. Distributed packet monitoring architectures such as Ixia’s ControlTower are critical for maintaining visibility in the face of dynamic resource provisioning and agile, hybrid environments.”
Ixia will demonstrate the ControlTower products at Booth No.1951 at Interop Las Vegas, May 7-9.
502 Errors, Latency Accessing Gmail
Google reported a problem with Gmail today and not long after said it was resolved:
3:02 AM: We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Mail. We will provide more information shortly.
3:43 AM: The problem with Google Mail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.
Users were experiencing 502 errors and latency when accessing email.
Sailing the Seven Cs of Security Monitoring
One of the established best practices in InfoSec is monitoring. People, products and companies get paid a great deal of money and expend a great deal of resources to watch pots. Monitoring simply is the central component to any security initiative. But with all best practices, there are variables. How much to monitor? What priorities matter? Where are my greatest vulnerabilities? To this end, I have boiled down monitoring to 7 best practices…The 7 C’s of security monitoring:
Cloud Expo New York: Predicting the Future of Cloud-Based Data Protection
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Henrik Rosendahl, Senior Vice President, Cloud Solutions, at Quantum Corporation, will explore trends in cloud-based backup and DR, and how current approaches to cloud data protection fall short. He’ll look at in-house vs. subscription cloud backup as a service models, and how on-premise backup for local recovery has advantages. He will also discuss the need for application-specific SLAs for failover and continued operation of applications in the cloud using VMs. He’ll explore how long-term archive and Big Data are converging with cloud providing the potential for seamless backup, repository and archive for all data types and compare cost examples to show the implications of cloud BaaS on CAPEX vs. OPEX.
Dell’s George Newstrom Charts Govt, Enterprise IT Evolution
George Newstrom, head of Dell’s federal government defense and national security business, outlines the evolution of information technology from mainframes and servers to “disruptive” technologies such as cloud computing and mobile devices.
Platform one saw mainframes and terminals hit the market and Newstrom writes this development helped government and other industry end users access thousands of applications, reaching millions of end users.
Many places are in the second platform of client and server offerings, which started nearly 25 years ago according to Newstrom.