As 2013 ended and 2014 began, the cloud prognosticators came out in true form, including AppZero CEO Greg O’Connor. Here are some of the more interesting predictions and surprising areas of agreement.
Hybrid Cloud is the way to go according to Business Today : “This year’s catchwords will be “hybrid cloud,” or the combination of both private and public cloud services. Analyst house Gartner released a report revealing that half of major enterprises will deploy hybrid cloud solutions by 2017.
Monthly Archives: January 2014
CiRBA’s Automated Capacity Control Now Supports Microsoft Hyper-V
CiRBA has announced the availability of CiRBA Version 8. With this release, CiRBA adds support for Microsoft® Hyper-V® to its award-winning Control Console, which enables organizations to maximize efficiency and minimize risk in virtual and cloud infrastructure. This new capability is a key addition to CiRBA’s already strong platform support, which includes VMware® ESX®, IBM® PowerVM®, and Red Hat® Enterprise Virtualization.
Also now shipping in Version 8 is CiRBA’s new Reservation Console, announced last fall, which automates the entire process of selecting the optimal hosting environment for new workloads and reserving compute and storage capacity. The Reservation Console combines with CiRBA’s cross-platform support to enable CiRBA customers to automate “fit for purpose” placements for new workloads across multi-hypervisor, multi-SLA, multi-site virtual and cloud environments.
AppZero Adds Tether Console & Modernization for Ease of One-Step Migration
AppZero, the fastest, most flexible way to move server applications, announced today AppZero v5.5 that introduces the Tether Console and IIS modernization. The software is now available and further eases one-step migrations for complex Windows server applications from older operating systems such as Window Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012, and from the data center to the cloud.
AppZero Tether Console is a simple interface that guides users through the AppZero process of migrating applications from source server to destination. AppZero migration automates the extraction and movement of server-side applications to any cloud or machine in a fraction of the time required by other approaches, and with no change to the application. AppZero is the only cloud-independent application extraction and cloud delivery automation tool on the market.
Convirture Announces Easy-to-Use Management Platform for Hyper-V
ConVirt support for Hyper-V provides much more robust management than Hyper-V manager, and at a fraction of the cost of System Center for someone that wants better, less expensive management of Hyper-V. For those looking to deliver self-service infrastructure, ConVirt provides a single point of control to manage Hyper-V, along with VMware, KVM, Xen, plus Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus and OpenStack.
Convirture Announces Easy-to-Use Management Platform for Hyper-V
ConVirt support for Hyper-V provides much more robust management than Hyper-V manager, and at a fraction of the cost of System Center for someone that wants better, less expensive management of Hyper-V. For those looking to deliver self-service infrastructure, ConVirt provides a single point of control to manage Hyper-V, along with VMware, KVM, Xen, plus Amazon EC2, Eucalyptus and OpenStack.
The DevOps Database | Part 1
Database change management is a unique challenge when adopting an agile development practice or implementing DevOps patterns. It really straddles two groups: the developers and the DBAs. Developers design and author the application schema changes based on the needs of the business. DBAs are on the hook for providing a secure and high performing data platform and protecting the integrity of the organization’s priceless data. In companies where these two groups are isolated, the goals of each can soon become opposed and forward progress can grind to a halt. Because of this unique division and its impact on the application lifecycle, implementing DevOps patterns to nurture understanding and collaboration between these two groups is crucial to the success of companies that are trying to adapt to a market that expects better value of services provided, through more frequent releases at a high level of quality.
In framing the discussion, I relied heavily on “The Three Ways” of DevOps. The Three Ways are the principles that underpin the DevOps patterns that Gene Kim discusses in detail in his novel “The Phoenix Project” and in the“The DevOps Cookbook”, written by John Allspaw, Patrick Debois, Damon Ewards, Jez Humble, Kim, Mike Orzen, & John Willis. Here’s a quick summary of The Three Ways:
• The First Way: Systems Thinking – This Way stresses the performance of the entire system of value delivery. Instead of becoming laser focused on the part of the process for which an individual or team is responsible, the individual or team works to understand the entire process from requirements generation to customer delivery. The goal is to eliminate the delivery impediments that arise when a project transitions from one isolated silo to another. Understanding the entire system allows business, development, and operations to work towards a common goal in a consistent manner.
• The Second Way: Amplify Feedback Loops – This Way deals primarily with facilitating easier and faster communication between all individuals in a DevOps organization. The goals of this step are to foster better understanding of all internal and external customers in the process and to develop an accessible body of knowledge to replace the dependence on “tribal knowledge.”
• The Third Way: Culture of Continual Experimentation & Learning – This way emphasizes the benefits that can be realized through embracing experimentation, risk taking, and learning from failure. By adopting this kind of attitude, experimentation and risk taking lead to innovation and improvement while embracing failure allows the organization to produce more resilient products and sharpen skills that allow teams to recover more quickly from unexpected failure when it does occur.
Database change management is a unique challenge when adopting an agile development practice or implementing DevOps patterns. It really straddles two groups: the developers and the DBAs. Developers design and author the application schema changes based on the needs of the business. DBAs are on the hook for providing a secure and high performing data platform and protecting the integrity of the organization’s priceless data. In companies where these two groups are isolated, the goals of each can soon become opposed and forward progress can grind to a halt. Because of this unique division and its impact on the application lifecycle, implementing DevOps patterns to nurture understanding and collaboration between these two groups is crucial to the success of companies that are trying to adapt to a market that expects better value of services provided, through more frequent releases at a high level of quality.
I will dive more deeply into each of the Ways as they pertain to the database change management in subsequent blog posts. Until then, checkout Gene Kim’s blog post on “The Three Ways.”
Unlimited vs. Storage-Based Cloud Storage
When deciding on your preferred method of cloud storage, you will inevitably be faced with storage-based and unlimited storage options. While storage-based “pay as you go” pricing might seem like a way to save some dollars now, it’s important to evaluate what it will end up costing in the long run.
Storage-based plans require you to pay for a limited amount of storage space. If you choose this type, you usually determine an appropriate amount of storage for your organization’s current circumstances, knowing that you can buy an additional chunk of storage as your company expands. Organizations will select this route as a short-term cost-saving measure, claiming that it reduces capital expenses since you pay for only the storage amount you immediately need.
Hybrid Cloud Security Challenges
The growing rate of hybrid cloud adoption requires particular models of cloud security. Many enterprises are moving some of their workload to a public cloud environment while retaining other workloads in the private cloud. Transitional cloud security strategies are needed that continue to make use of existing data centers and security strategies. Because each enterprise splits up their data between public and private clouds in a unique way, data security methods must solve multiple challenges.
Hybrid Cloud Security Challenges
The growing rate of hybrid cloud adoption requires particular models of cloud security. Many enterprises are moving some of their workload to a public cloud environment while retaining other workloads in the private cloud. Transitional cloud security strategies are needed that continue to make use of existing data centers and security strategies. Because each enterprise splits up their data between public and private clouds in a unique way, data security methods must solve multiple challenges.
Cloud Backup & Disaster Recovery Predictions for 2014
2013 was a banner year for cloud backup adoption. It was also a year of wake-up calls: simple cloud backup doesn’t constitute DR, transfer speeds are vital, and beware cloud as a commodity. Let’s look to 2014 for more trends in cloud backup and DR in the cloud.
This trend showed up in the news as well-known cloud backup vendors ceased production. Symantec Backup Exec Cloud was the biggest casualty of slow performance, and more cloud hosting products struggled or went down because they were not optimized for speed of backup or recovery.
Just offering a backup to cloud option isn’t enough anymore. Users appreciate the scalability and cost-effectiveness of the cloud but they also want the same level of performance in backup and restore that they had on-premise. Native cloud optimization for the Internet and high data transfer speeds are the only way to achieve this performance level.