Monthly Archives: November 2012

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Cloud hosting streamlines the hotel sector

It’s been revealed that cloud computing has managed to revolutionise the hotel sector.

This comes thanks to Claudia Harris, event manager of new trade show Hospitality Technology EXPO. It is also expected that cloud hosting will remain an integral part of the industry’s future success.

Ms Harris has previously stated that cloud technology has enabled operations to be much smoother and easier. It has also been financially beneficial as operations are now more profitable for the hoteliers that have adopted it thus far.

Ms Harris has been quoted saying the following: “Cloud technology has revolutionised every aspect within the hotel industry, from hosting the property management system to all sorts of other software solutions, its biggest benefit is it takes all the hardware out of a hotel, which makes such a big difference.”

The main financial benefits have been that there has been a reduction in the maintenance …

Amazon AWS, Amazon Web Services, AWS, Load Balancing

F5 Adds BIG-IP Solutions for Amazon Web Services

F5 Networks, Inc. today introduced a BIG-IP® virtual edition for AWS, which leverages F5’s complete portfolio of BIG-IP products for the AWS cloud. This announcement addresses organizations’ escalating demand to extend their data center and applications to AWS, maintaining enterprise-class reliability, scale, security, and performance. F5’s new AWS offering is also the featured attraction at the company’s booth (#506) at the AWS re: Invent conference at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, November 27–29.

“Enterprise customers have come to rely on BIG-IP’s strategic awareness that provides important information on how applications, resources, and users interact in order to successfully deliver applications,” said Siva Mandalam, Director of Product Management and Product Marketing, Cloud and Virtualization Solutions at F5. “Since BIG-IP for AWS will have equivalent features to physical BIG-IP devices, customers can apply the same level of control for their applications in AWS. With BIG-IP running in enterprise data centers and on AWS, customers can establish secure tunnels, burst to the cloud, and control the application from end to end.”

The BIG-IP solution for AWS includes options for traffic management, global server load balancing, application firewall, web application acceleration, and other advanced application delivery functions. With the new F5 offering:

  • F5 ADN services operate seamlessly in the cloud – BIG-IP
    virtual editions are being made available to a growing number of
    customers seeking to leverage cloud offerings. Availability for AWS
    expands on F5’s broad support for virtualized and cloud environments
    based on vSphere, Hyper-V, Xen, and KVM.
  • Enterprises can confidently take advantage of cloud resources –
    AWS customers can easily add F5’s market-leading availability,
    optimization, and security services to support cloud and hybrid
    deployment models.
  • IT teams are able to easily scale application environments –
    Production and lab versions of BIG-IP virtual editions for AWS enable
    IT teams to move smoothly from testing and development into production
    to support essential business applications. Customers can leverage
    their existing BIG-IP configuration and policies and apply them to
    BIG-IP running on AWS.

Supporting Facts and Quotes

  • F5 has the greatest market share for the advanced application delivery
    controller (ADC) market, deployed within the enterprise and service
    providers markets. According to Gartner, Inc., F5 has 59.1% market
    share based on Q2 2012 worldwide revenue.1
  • F5’s initial product offering will use the AWS “bring your own
    license” (BYOL) model, which allows customers to buy perpetual
    licenses from F5 and then apply these licenses to instances running in
    AWS. To evaluate or purchase BIG-IP software modules, customers should
    contact their local
    F5 sales office.

“As enterprises consider which applications to move to the cloud, many customers have asked for the same advanced application control they have in their local data centers,” said Terry Wise, Head of Worldwide Partner Ecosystem at Amazon Web Services. “The BIG-IP solution for AWS enables enterprises to quickly move complex applications to AWS while maintaining high levels of service at a lower overall cost.”

“Enterprises want the flexibility and scale of cloud services, yet they can struggle with application complexity and sufficient control,” said Rohit Mehra, VP of Network Infrastructure at IDC. “The challenge lies in easily expanding IT’s service portfolio with cloud and hybrid capabilities while keeping the applications fast, secure, and available. BIG-IP’s native availability inside Amazon Web Services allows enterprises to deeply embed a strategic awareness of how applications behave in cloud adoption scenarios.”

To learn more about how F5 enables organizations to realize the full potential of cloud computing, visit F5 (booth #506) at the AWS re: Invent conference. During the event, Siva Mandalam from F5 will deliver a presentation focused on “Optimizing Enterprise Applications and User Access in the Cloud” at 1 p.m. PT on Wednesday, November 28.

 

 


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Ceph Day Amsterdam 2012 (Object and Cloud Storage)

Recently while I was in Europe presenting some sessions at conferences and doing some seminars, I was invited by Ed Saipetch (@edsai) of Inktank.com to attend the first Ceph Day in Amsterdam.
As luck or fate would turn out, I was in Nijkerk which is about an hour train ride from Amsterdam central station plus a free day in my schedule. After a morning train ride and nice walk from Amsterdam Central I arrived at the Tobacco Theatre (a former tobacco trading venue) where Ceph Day was underway, and in time for lunch of Krokettens sandwich.
Lets take a quick step back and address for those not familiar what is Ceph (Cephalanthera) and why it was worth spending a day to attend this event. Ceph is an open source distributed object scale out (e.g. cluster or grid) software platform running on industry standard hardware.

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The Case for Cloud Brokers

The Cloud market is diverse and highly fragmented – typical of any market in its early stages. The broad range of cloud activities and the frantic pace of new products / services getting launched is driving the need to consolidate and unify cloud services for the end user and for the market as a whole.
This article tries to understand the business model of cloud brokers and its importance to the cloud market. Typically, almost all business models involve different levels in what are known as value chains or supply chains.

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Backup, Cequel, Cequel Data Centers, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity, Partnerships

EVault, Cequel Data Centers Partner for Cloud Backup

EVault, Inc., a Seagate Company, and Cequel Data Centers, LLC, today announced that Cequel Data Centers has joined the EVault® Partner Program and will promote and sell EVault’s cloud-connected™ backup and recovery services at its locations across the United States.

Cequel Data Centers owns Dallas, Texas-based Colo4, Perimeter Technology in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and TierPoint in Spokane, Washington. The three managed services providers currently offer primary and secondary backup and colocation services, and are now extending their cloud services to offer the EVault integrated suite of award-winning, cloud-connected backup solutions.

“As a colocation and managed services company with multiple data centers across the country serving a wide range of customers and industries, it is important for us to offer the best data storage options and continually work to expand our offerings,” said Andy Stewart, vice president of corporate development for Cequel. “Partnering with EVault enables us to deliver a unified solution across all of our markets, allowing us to provide our customers with a range of features and services that go above and beyond what single-site operators can offer.”

EVault provides onsite, cloud, and cloud-connected — or hybrid — data protection solutions to help organizations protect and access their business data. EVault has led the industry in the move to hybrid storage models, with a uniquely integrated ecosystem of EVault storage software, SaaS, managed services, and appliances that help ensure customers maintain business continuity in multi-platform, multi-site environments. EVault data protection, disaster recovery and other storage services are optimized to perform in a distributed environment; supported by a secure, reliable cloud storage infrastructure; and backed by the highest quality customer service.

“Building a strong partnership with a respected national colocation and managed services provider like Cequel is instrumental to EVault’s growth and success,” said Dave Hallmen, vice president of sales and marketing, EVault, Inc. “By joining forces with a national provider of carrier-neutral, data center colocation services to distribute our cloud-connected services, EVault is able to complement our award-winning backup and recovery solutions with Cequel’s leading offerings.”

EVault cloud-connected backup and recovery products and services are available immediately through Colo4, Perimeter Technology, and TierPoint.


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Cbeyond Offers Top Five Disaster Prevention Tips for SMBs

In the wake of superstorm Sandy, and with the potential for disruptive winter storms in the coming months, Cbeyond Inc. on Tuesday released its top five disaster prevention strategies IT teams can implement now to ensure business continuity.
With the threat of natural disasters such as storms and floods as well as man-made hazards such as fires, power outages and theft constantly looming, businesses need to prepare for incidents that could potentially inhibit their ability to operate. In the worst case scenarios, these events can force businesses to close permanently. The end of the year is the ideal time for small and mid-sized businesses to evaluate and refine their current disaster recovery plans or, if such plans do not already exist, build a first-time strategy.

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Garbage Data in, Garbage Information Out, Big Data or Big Garbage?

Do you know the computer technology saying, garbage data in results in garbage information out?
In other words even with the best algorithms and hardware, bad, junk or garbage data put in results in garbage information delivered. Of course, you might have data analysis and cleaning software to look for, find and remove bad or garbage data, however that’s for a different post on another day.
If garbage data in results in garbage information out, does garbage big data in result in big garbage out?

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Cloudera Impala – Closing the Near Real Time Gap Working with Big Data

On October 24, 2012 Cloudera announced the release of Cloudera Impala and the commercial support subscription service of Cloudera Enterprise Real Time Query (RTQ). Impala is a SQL based Real Time Query/Ad Hoc query engine built on top of HDFS or Hbase. As I watched the demonstration unfold, I wondered if one of the remaining technology gaps in the NOSQL arsenal had been closed. What gap you ask? Near Real Time Analytics on a NOSQL stack. Working with customers across the Cyber Security customer space, not only do they face the familiar BIGDATA horsemen of the apocalypse: Volume, Velocity and Variety but one more large challenge crept in: Time (V3T). The Near Real Time Analysis/Near Real Time Analytic capability that Cloudera Impala provides is essential in many high value use cases associated with Cyber Security: comparing current activity with observed historical norms, correlation of many disparate data sources/enrichment and automated threat detection algorithms.

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Cloud service providers need to think small

The African enterprise space may be in the nascent stages of development, but it’s time has certainly come. A new stream, Enterprise ICT Africa, made its appearance at AfricaCom this year, putting a strong focus on the opportunities for cloud services in the region.

As many of the industry’s thought leaders have advised, Africa is in a good position to generate opportunities where other more developed regions have failed. On the opening day Camille Mendler, principal analyst and head of enterprise verticals at Informa Telecoms & Media, called for new segmentation methods for the market in order to capitalise on contextual opportunities. In this case, Mendler believes there is a significant opportunity for cloud services in the ‘long tail’, the blue collar market and micro-businesses.