It used to be so easy. The company needed more IT infrastructure, so you bought more components, built more technology, and scrambled to keep it all well oiled. Then along came the cloud and the world shifted under your feet – or perhaps more accurately, over your head. Suddenly they wanted you out of the server room and (instead) in the boardroom, assessing the services of cloud vendors and discussing the cost benefits of the new technology. And then it’s all “strategy this, planning that.” But you keep thinking to yourself: What was wrong with the old stuff? And do things really have to change?
If “Internal Trembling” is all that comes to mind at the mention of “IT” nowadays, you’re not alone. For the past few years, CIOs have developed an inferiority complex, questioning the very skills that got them where they are now and assessing how they can be useful moving forward. In the worst cases, cloud computing has made flying blind at work a reality, and that can shatter CIOs’ confidence. Server rooms, with their friendly racks of IT infrastructure were once so warm, cozy, and inviting. Now everything’s cloudy. Adding cloud computing – with its associated outsourcing management responsibility – to the mix when your roster already includes responsibility for managing legacy systems, maintaining uptime, delivering customer service, securing data, ensuring compliance, making mission-critical decisions, and sometimes even getting coffee for the CEO, can be overwhelming.
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Redis/Memcached: Even Modest Datasets Can Enjoy the Speediest Performance
A pretty technical blog post over at Garantia Data’s blog relates the results of a recent benchmark test of the effects of cloud intrastructure on Memcached and Redis datasets:
Redis and Memcached were designed from the ground-up to achieve the highest throughput and the lowest latency for applications, and they are in fact the fastest data store systems available today. They serve data from RAM, and execute all the simple operations (such as SET and GET) with O(1) complexity.
However, when run over cloud infrastructure such as AWS, Redis or Memcached may experience significant performance variations across different instances and platforms, which can dramatically affect the performance of your application.
Read the full post.
Private Cloud 2.0 – BPaaS
Not yet included in the NIST taxonomy of Cloud Computing models is ‘BPaaS’ – Business Process as a Service.
Hopefully it soon will be, as although it is the lesser known and discussed of the Cloud categories, it’s the most powerful in it’s ability to directly impact short-term business transformation and perceivable business value to end-users.
Where IaaS provides virtual servers, PaaS the databases and other middleware and then SaaS for a category of software like CRM, as the name suggests BPaaS is the next layer up again, where the software is then tailored for a specific workflow and this is delivered as-a-Service.
Software Developers Must Target the Social Enterprise
Many firms still dismiss the importance of social networking and some of them even ban employees from using these services while in the workplace. They think that “social” starts and ends with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other networks that might be best described as informal, consumer level and perhaps even fun.
It would be unfair to blame these old traditionalists who have dug their heels in and insisted that their traditional trading systems don’t need fixing, let alone reinventing. It has been a so-called ‘paradigm shift’ and a change in mindset toward social is sometimes a lot to ask for.
OpenStack Folsom Adds Network Automation, Block Storage and Hyper-V Support
OpenStack Folsom, the sixth release of the open source cloud computing platform, saw a 65 percent increase in contributors, as well as the addition of Networking and Block Storage services, architected in line with the OpenStack philosophy of pluggability and extensibility. While work was underway to establish the new OpenStack Foundation, the thriving community once again delivered the release on-time and with all planned essential features.
OpenStack Folsom automates pools of compute, storage and networking resources, now including emerging Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions via OpenStack Networking plug-ins, to build private and public cloud infrastructures without vendor lock-in. OpenStack Networking currently includes plug-in support for Open vSwitch, the Ryu open source network operating system, standard Linux bridge networking and commercial solutions from Cisco, Nicira, and NEC, with others in development. Written by more than 330 contributors, the Folsom release features a continued focus on stability and extensibility, while adding considerable new features like Networking, Block Storage and Hyper-V support. The community also made significant progress with localization efforts, introducing a new translation framework for the software, user-facing guides and documentation.
IBM Launches Global Initiatives
IBM has announced a broad set of global initiatives to better position clients to take advantage of cloud opportunities. This effort is aimed at further expanding IBM’s cloud ecosystem, enabling organizations to develop solutions and services on IBM SmartCloud and PureSystems, built on open standards. As more clients embrace cloud computing, they are looking to local technology providers known as Managed Service Providers (MSP) to help them quickly develop cloud based services in a more simplistic, secure and economical way.
Managed service providers deliver a defined set of technology solutions or services to clients with a pay-as-you-go model. MSPs are largely leveraged by customers which want to take advantage of cloud technologies but lack the internal IT skills, resources and time. For example, smaller hospitals are still challenged with adopting electronic medical records. Many healthcare providers are turning to the MSP model, where an MSP can quickly help the small healthcare provider to build and manage a cloud service to process patient data and make that information available securely in the cloud, freeing up the healthcare provider to focus more on the patient.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: A Checklist for Cloud Service Providers
In this jointly presented session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, James Tyler, Director of MarCom, TelecityGroup, and a TelecityGroup customer will deal with how Cloud service providers can expand into Europe and exploit new revenue opportunities. They will cover best practice considerations when selecting a data center partner that leads to success.
James Tyler is Director of Marketing & Communications at TelecityGroup. He is responsible for marketing and communication strategy, Group business development and CSR. He has over 15 years’ experience in senior communications and marketing roles, 12 of which have been in the technology and communications sectors. Prior to TelecityGroup he worked in senior marketing and communications roles in London and Italy for, among others, Level 3 Communications and Baltimore Technologies. Tyler started his career in Porter Novelli, a leading global communications agency.
Managing Data in Unified Storage
Consolidating data in an organized and highly accessible yet secure fashion is one concept many organizations are finding is helping increase productivity throughout the company. Unified storage, which is also referred to network unified storage (NUS), is a concept that the principles of cloud architecture are built upon – the idea of a single area to pool resources for data storage and application virtualization. The effects this will have on organizations will vary depending on several factors from hardware utilized, knowledge of staff and adherence to the IT service management practices.
Sometimes the need to consolidate a business’s information systems is because of an organic internal growth that has occurred over time. Other times, business mergers have patched together dissonant systems into one messy but functional infrastructure. Either practice often yields the same result – a system that mostly conforms to meet business needs but is not completely optimized because of hardware and software relationship nuances. Often, a good IT staff can fit these pieces together with solid scripting and tightening of access protocols but such practice will require consistent maintenance as time goes on.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Empowering Your Software Ecosystem
Cloud providers are increasingly looking at application marketplaces as the best way of enabling customers to onboard software to their cloud. However, providers often lack the deep pockets or extensive manpower required to populate the marketplace; they must engage and empower an ISV ecosystem to populate it on their behalf. As such, providers must offer ISVs an easy way to publish and maintain their software in the store, as well as make money from it.
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, James Weir, CTO and co-founder of UShareSoft, will outline why an application marketplace can drive cloud services revenue for providers, their ISV and channel partners; and how providers can quickly implement a marketplace with today’s turnkey solutions.
Avira Launches 2013 Antivirus Security Software Line; Extends Protection from Computers to Consumers
Avira today announced the Avira 2013 product line, which includes Avira Free Antivirus, Avira Antivirus Premium 2013, Avira Internet Security 2013, and Avira Internet Security Plus.
The 2013 version of Avira’s Free Antivirus software adds 6 new security features making it the most comprehensive free antivirus products on the market. Avira’s premium products have 8 new features. These new features give consumers a more secure browsing experience by protecting them from Internet scams and threats, in addition to keeping their computers free of viruses and malware.
“With over 100 million users worldwide, our goal with Avira 2013 was to offer protection to people no matter what device they use, and we did that by adding many user oriented features to this release, making it the most feature-rich solution we’ve ever made,” said Sorin Mustaca, product manager and data security expert at Avira. “We’ve also kept the resources footprint small, so users will not notice any slowdown in computer performance.”
The following new features added to the Avira 2013 family of products are all designed to protect not just computer devices, but also computer users — wherever they are and whatever device they’re using:
- Avira Protection Cloud – Avira’s leading cloud technology
identifies malware faster by uploading suspicious files for instant
analysis. (Available for paid users) - Browser Tracking Blocker – Gives users control over their
privacy while browsing the internet by blocking trackers that gather
data about your browsing activity. - Website Safety Advisor – Protects users from scams, phishing
and suspicious sites by displaying safe, low-risk or high-risk icons
on the search results and any webpage they visit. - Social Network Protection – Notifies parents and children of
suspicious or worrisome activity on social networks (such as predators
or your child being bullied online) so they can take appropriate
action. - Android Security – Safeguards users’ Android phones and the
valuable data it holds. Users can locate it when lost, lock it and
even wipe the data remotely. - More Frequent Updates for Free Users – Avira Free Antivirus now
updates every 6 hours instead of every 24 hours, giving users more
current protection. - Network Folder Scanning – Shared folders like Dropbox and
network folders are becoming more common, and with it comes the
increased risk of spreading malware. Avira now scans network folders
in addition local folders to keep computers free of infection.
(Available for paid users) - No Advertising Pop-ups for Avira Free Antivirus Users – Users
who install Avira’s SearchFree toolbar will no longer have pop-up ads
displayed to them. The SearchFree toolbar includes Browser Tracking
Blocker and Website Safety. As always Avira’s paid products are
without advertising, independent of toolbar installation.
