We have just published a post at the OpenNebula blog with our view about the different measures that should be considered to evaluate the openness of the main open-source Cloud Management Platforms (CMPs). Which is the most important measure of openness in cloud computing? Do the cloud users really care about this? Users mainly want a solution that meets their functional needs, and are interested in open-source as a way to enhance flexibility, lower costs and avoid lock-in. However, as discussed in the post, most of these benefits are only available when an open-source software can be used in production environments without the addition of proprietary components.
Energetic debates of what SDN is and the expanding scope of what it can do for our customers continue to race along in a chaotic frenzy. In addition, the overall SDN market is somewhat fragmented in terms of both vendor positioning and marketing. Collectively, the conversation really comes down to improving business agility and the efficiencies gained in bringing new services to market. Essentially, the goal is to enable operators to make their networks and services go much faster.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Nicos Vekiarides, CEO & Co-Founder of TwinStrata, will examine in-depth the problems created, common workarounds and why they fail, and how cloud storage can be a simpler, far more effective alternative. Attendees will learn about the common and often devastating issues surrounding the storage and management of data. Among the issues discussed will be offsite backup, offsite active archiving, business continuity, disaster recovery, disaster tolerance and scaling capacities in the data center and in the public cloud.
We described in a previous post our experience about the different types of cloud models, and our view about how the main open-source Cloud Management Platforms (CMPs) are targeting their needs. Our aim was to demonstrate that we will see an open-source cloud space with several offerings focused on different environments and/or industries, due to the fact that no single CMP can be all things to all people. The four open-source CMPs will coexist and, in some cases, work together in a broad open cloud ecosystem.
This article tries to answer another quite common question in open-source cloud computing discussions and presentations… which CMP is the most open? Of course such analysis should go beyond just considering the openness of the code (which as far as we know is fully open-source in the four projects) and the development process to additionally address the perspectives of the consumers and the builders of the cloud infrastructure.
VMware has started a new Hybrid Cloud Services Business Unit and hired Bill Fathers, the former president of Savvis, the cloud computing and managed hosting outfit, to run it.
VMware, whose stock is at its lowest ebb in three years, made the announcement at a Strategic Forum for Institutional Investors Wednesday.
VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said the new unit was meant to extend the software-defined data center. VMware is supposed to launch a vCloud Hybrid Service later this year and push it through existing channels. It’s supposed to let customers “reap the benefits of the public cloud without changing their existing applications while using a common management, orchestration, networking and security model.”
Oracle announced today that it has agreed to acquire Nimbula, a provider of private cloud infrastructure management software. Nimbula’s technology helps companies manage infrastructure resources to deliver service, quality and availability, as well as workloads in private and hybrid cloud environments. Nimbula’s product is complementary to Oracle, and is expected to be integrated with Oracle’s cloud offerings. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2013.
The hybrid cloud opportunity (also called cloud virtualization) could turn the tables on server virtualization market leader VMware or help it to establish even higher growth rates.
I have heard of TAM (total addressable market) estimates for VMware of about $80B. I’m not sure if that includes the much touted hybrid cloud (or cloud virtualization) opportunity.
VMware has stirred up plenty of news lately for sending mixed messages about the public cloud, and its willingness to allow its customers to leverage true hybrid cloud operating models (which would involve seamlessly connecting public clouds like AWS and Azure with their private clouds, or The End of Server Virtualization Lock-In).
Gartner forecasts the shipment of about 10M servers per year over the next three years, with about 50% of them being x86. What if enterprises wanted the strategic scalability, agility and protection of the hybrid cloud model, instead of the tactical agility, efficiency and protection of server virtualization?
Hybrid cloud would give enterprises more complete control of their apps and services.
NIST conducts proof of concept on trusted geolocation in the cloud – A group of NIST scientists working with Intel, VMWare and RSA Archer have created of proof of concept for trusted geolocation in the cloud. This allows managers to locate the exact hardware that is running their cloud services. This is possible using the Intel Trusted Execution Technology.
Open source cloud offers another route to better security – “IBM’s move to OpenStack is another indication that open cloud offers many advantages when it comes to security.” There are currently over 5,000 IBM private consumers who will be switching to OpenStack in the near future. This will create a huge surge in the open-source cloud market at that time.
Collaboration, or the act of working together, is universal across business types and industries – education, healthcare, real estate, government or any other. However, each industry has its own specific language for referring to things, and puts different emphasis on different collaborative processes.
Really? Already?!? For whatever reason, the term ‘Jump the Shark’ has been jumping out at me recently. From the Jump the Shark Hat Tutorial to watching past episodes of Supernatural on Netflix to Cloud Computing to the many #jumptheshark tags added to tweeps tweets. Originally linked to the Happy Days episode where the water-skiing Fonz […]
