Amazon continues to add more features to make AWS more appealing to enterprises and developers. Also, Rackspace has announced the launch of Rackspace Cloud Backup and introduced new features on Rackspace Open Cloud Servers.
Here’s a quick summary of cloud happenings over the last week.
IaaS leader Amazon has added some advanced features to Amazon VPC coupled with the simplicity of Amazon EC2. Users are now allowed to use features like assigning multiple IP addresses to an instance, changing security group membership on the fly and adding egress filters to your security groups. New features to VPC include DNS Hostnames, DNS Name Resolution, ElastiCache and RDS IP Addresses. Next, they have announced that AWS Elastic Beanstalk will now support Node.js applications. Users can now build event-driven Node.js applications and can also use Elastic Beanstalk to deploy and manage them on AWS.
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Patterns to Bring Enterprise and Social Identity to the Cloud
One of the most compelling promises of the cloud is that you can pull out a credit card and be working in minutes. No purchase orders tofill out, no equipment to wait for on the loading dock. Just instant access to the resources you need, when you need them. But accessibility comes at a price, and an unintentional consequence may be that you create yet another orphaned identity silo. Enterprise IT has spent years consolidating its mishmash of directories, only to discover that cloud now threatens to turn back their hard-won victories.
HP Cloud Object Storage: A Brief Overview
HP’s cloud solutions continue to expand, and more and more organizations are taking advantage of these opportunities. In the cloud storage arena, HP Cloud Object Storage provides highly durable, readily available access to your data. It’s secure, too; each object is stored in three zones of availability, all separate from one another. HP Cloud Object Storage runs on world-class HP servers, of course, giving you scalability and access on demand.
Here are some things you need to know about HP Cloud Object Storage:
- High performance. This service runs entirely on high-end HP servers. This gives you the highest possible levels of availability and performance.
- Scalability. Creating containers and adding objects in order to adjust to growing storage needs is instantaneous, and you only pay for what you use.
- Security. The three availability zones for HP Cloud Object Storage are physically separate, and have redundant power and redundant Internet connections, all of which are monitored 24/7.
- Public containers. HP Cloud Object Storage allows for the option of creating a public container that can be access externally by any user. By default, the containers are of course private.
- Object size. Natively, HP Cloud Object Storage can hold objects anywhere from a singly byte all the way up to 5 GB. Larger objects can be segmented into pieces of 5 GB or smaller at the time of upload, and they will automatically reassemble into the larger file when you access or download it.
- Security. HP Cloud Object Storage relies on REST-based authentication for clients. You can choose between a private key or a token that’s time based in order to secure your data in HP’s public cloud.
- Management. HP has long been known for its capable and intuitive management consoles, and HP Cloud Object is no different. From the console you have increased visibility into how your storage is being used. You can manage containers easily and remove or add objects as the need arises.
In the world of cloud solutions, there are few who can compete with the robust and agile HP Cloud Object Storage.
Best CIO Practices Shared from SHI’s Customers
Richard Taggart, CTO of SHI, will share in his upcoming breakout session at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York a collection of best Information Technology Practices and Innovation Programs that have been proven to work in real life situations. These practices are some of the best ideas taken from SHI’s database of customer submissions. These programs include those designed to solve business to technology alignment issues, technology effectiveness, and new ways to stimulate true innovation in IT. Taggart is the former SVP and Corporate CIO of the Walt Disney Company.
Building the Case for a Cloud-Based Government
The US Government, as well as governments around the world, is looking to invest heavily in Cloud Computing. The cloud promises a lot of efficiencies and cost savings but it also presents a new revolutionary way to approach citizen services. This session offers insight into how Cloud Computing coupled with other technical advancements in mobility and security are changing government IT organizations. It also provides general guidance and best practices for developing practical and pragmatic cloud strategies.
Zen and the Art of Hybrid Cloud
The term hybrid cloud is replacing cloud computing as one of the most-hyped terms of 2013 because it articulates a cloud operating model (think cloud virtualization) that most if not all enterprises will find appealing. Hybrid cloud promises to allow enterprises to operate seamlessly across multiple premise and cloud environments.
Cloud is Changing the Economics of Business
The economics of business are radically changing due to the way in which software and services are being delivered thanks to cloud computing. This session will cover six reasons for the disruption.
The Big Challenge of Big Data and Hadoop Integration
Enterprises can’t close their doors just because integration tools won’t cope with the volume of information that their systems produce. As each day goes by, their information will become larger and more complicated, and enterprises must constantly struggle to manage the integration of dozens (or hundreds) of systems.
Apache Hadoop has quickly become the technology of choice for enterprises that need to perform complex analysis of petabytes of data, but few are aware of its potential to handle large-scale integration work. By using effective tools, integrators can process the complex transformation, synchronization, and orchestration tasks required in a high-performance, low cost, infinitely scalable way.
Why VDI? And Why Now?
For most CIOs and IT managers, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) isn’t a new concept. In fact, many of them have dismissed it more than once amid concerns such as ROI, security and user experience.
But it’s time to take a fresh look at VDI because a slew of new technologies have eliminated its biggest drawbacks – real and perceived. As a result, VDI – also known as end-user computing and desktop as a service – is now capable of addressing three of enterprise IT’s biggest costs and headaches.
Management scalability: Today, as the number of desktops in an organization grows, so does the amount of staff and other resources required to manage them. VDI breaks that link and makes managing 1,000 desktops as easy as managing 10. This directly benefits the enterprise’s bottom line and competitive position because, for example, IT staff is now freed to focus on revenue-generating tasks.
"@GoogleCloud Hasn’t Tweeted Yet" – But It Surely Will Very Soon!
On 19 November 2010, according to www.whendidyoujointwitter.com, the account @GoogleCloud was registered with Twitter. 848 days later it has yet to tweet. But that may be about to change…