It is no secret that one of the main challenges for applications in the cloud is storage performance. The storage performance problem in the cloud has multiple facets. It is not just low vs. high performance, but also the fact that performance varies over time and one customer can impact the performance of others. There is also the issue of storage performance monitoring. How does one know if an application is running slow because of storage performance or because of other factors like networking, IO concurrency, latencies, etc.?
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Nelson Nahum, CEO & CTO of Zadara Storage, will discuss how a new cloud storage architecture is needed – one that is not based on “scale out,” but it is more similar to the compute cloud.

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In her hands-on workshop session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Diane Mueller, the Cloud Evangelist for ActiveState, will introduce conceptual cloud architectural principles and show how private Platform as a Service enables cloud app development, deployment, and management.
She will provide an overview of cloud architectures, present web frameworks and sample applications, then show how to package, create a manifest, and deploy apps to any cloud. By the end of the session, Cloud Expo delegates will be able to push an application from a source repository (e.g., Github) to the cloud and make it available for others to deploy, manage, or monitor.

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While many new technologies claim to revolutionize the practice of disaster recovery (DR) for IT environments, few have significantly altered the economics and logistics of building and maintaining a secondary IT site. For most organizations, a secondary site housing server and storage infrastructure has remained the only recovery path for their business from a primary site disaster, failure or outage.
While it might seem preferable to avoid the expenditure of a secondary IT site altogether, what drives investment in DR infrastructures is a set of recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) that respectively determine the maximum allowable downtime and data loss an organization is willing to sustain. While certain organizations may require both of these objectives to be near zero (i.e. instant recovery, no data loss), other organizations may be able to withstand minutes or even hours of downtime. Understanding these objectives is one of the fundamental tenets for DR planning and investment.

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Why active-active is not best practice in the data center, and shouldn’t be in the cloud either.

Last time we dove into a «Load Balancing 101» discussion we looked at the difference between architected for scale and architected for fail. The question that usually pops up after such a discussion is «why can’t I just provision an extra server and use it. If one fails, the other picks up the load»?

We call such a model N+1 – where N is the number of servers necessary to handle load plus one extra, just in case. The assumption is that all N+1 servers are active, so no resources are just hanging out idle and wasting money. This is also sometimes referred to as «active-active» when such architectures include a redundant pair of X (firewalls, load balancers, servers, etc… ) because both the primary and backup are active at the same time.
So it sounds good, this utilization of all resources and when everything is running rosy it can benefit in terms of improving performance, because utilization remains lower across all N+1 devices.

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Recently, I’ve been working closely with a number of large enterprise clients who have already gone or will soon go live with Layer 7 solutions at the core of mission-critical infrastructure. I’ve observed that, in the API Management space, proof of concept and initial projects often focus on functional needs but the emphasis shifts to non-functional requirements as environments mature and sharing increases. There’s a clear, three-phase progression for large enterprises.
API Operations AutomationIn Phase 3, it’s all about performance, scalability, operability, security, availability and consumability. The problems are very complex but the goal is to make the resulting solution as usable and simple as possible, given the wide range of users, developers, testers and operators that will be involved in its execution. As technology vendors, we are often guilty of focusing inwardly on bells and whistles, rather than outwardly on interoperability. This works well for phases 1 and 2 but brings a reckoning in the third phase. Fortunately, at Layer 7, we’ve spent the past decade working with enterprise clients and have evolved our products to meet their adaptability, reliability and automation needs.

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Typically, automated sign-on is regarded to be something troublesome and costly, which slows down rollouts, adds complexity and requires involvement from customer IT organizations, something that SaaS vendors often want to avoid at any cost. However, automated sign-on can be one of the most important tools in meeting some of the most important business objectives for a SaaS business:
Engaging customers and keeping them
Minimizing unit costs

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As your datacenter needs more capacity, you’re thinking about going to the cloud. What are the key considerations to help plan for the needed capacity over time? And how can the cloud best work with your existing applications?
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Brian Jawalka, Principal Solutions Architect, Cloud Strategy at Rackspace Advisory Services, will show how a hybrid approach can add agility, flexibility and speed-to-market for your organization.

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Cloud computing has changed the way we work. People and businesses can now access services, applications and infrastructure over the Internet, with lower costs, higher productivity and an enhanced user experience.
While cloud computing has revolutionized many aspects of business, its effects have been quite dramatic across supply and demand management. Cloud-based Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) is particularly powerful, connecting disparate demand, supply and financial data from a wide swath of packaged and home-grown enterprise information systems as well as a forest of spreadsheets, harmonizing everything into a single, meaningful plan. Delivering this supply chain “Big Data,” analytics and reporting in the cloud means that it can be deployed, scaled, and interconnected quickly, enabling truly collaborative supply and demand planning.

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No one disputes cloud computing as a viable resource delivery model. Now the challenge? Deliver the best solution in a world where processor power follows Moore’s Law, storage is bound by the physics of spinning media, and cloud providers need to deliver optimized system level performance at a reasonable cost. Solid State Storage combined with dynamic, intelligent caching software to “learn” data “hot spots” and move them transparently onto flash memory fills the gap.
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Scott Cleland, Worldwide Product Channel Marketing Manager at LSI, will describe three flash-based application acceleration alternatives for providers looking to move ahead of the crowd.

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The “consumerization of IT” is a topic we’ve heard a lot about recently – especially when it comes to “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).” One area that is less talked about, yet a growing trend under the “consumerization” umbrella, is the use of free, consumer-type file transfer services in the workplace.
A tough economy has forced IT departments to do more with less – especially within small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Working with limited resources and budget, SMB IT professionals are still expected to manage everything from network infrastructure to cloud services to security and compliance issues, all while keeping the business running smoothly. Sometimes this results in long “wait” times for employees.

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