The fact that ‘Time is Money’ applies today, just as it did the past. In contemporary computing environments, business agility to address customer needs directly translates to the success of your company. This is where the emerging software development paradigm, “DevOps”, which builds on several principles of agile development, lean manufacturing, Kaizen and other continuous improvement processes, can be invaluable.

Companies that operate in the cloud are already familiar with the need for speed in their business operations. When these operations take advantage of DevOps, the combination can be extremely powerful in efficiently and effectively using time to maximize profits.

The importance of taking a DevOps approach to deployment, specifically within the context of an Amazon Web Services (AWS), has specific claims on business agility. There are many other benefits of leveraging DevOps for AWS, such as high availability, improved scalability, reliability, security and compliance.

Amazon Cloud Services comes bundled with a few offerings as part of its solutions to deploy and manage applications and infrastructure as code, with an inherent DevOps bent. Primarily, these include CloudFormation and OpWorks:

• CloudFormation makes it possible to create AWS Resource templates that can be spun into working instances as needed.

• OpsWorks is a full-fledged DevOps Application Management Service that makes it possible to automate the deployment of applications from source code repositories to a production environment.

Using CloudFormation, an organization can customize the settings of its applications and infrastructure, and blueprint their business needs as an AWS resource template. This can then be automatically instantiated based on an organization’s particular operating requirements. This significantly reduces the time needed for application onboarding (aka standup time or load time). This also increases the portability of the applications to be deployed in different environments and/or geographic time zones.

Using OpsWorks, an organization can set up Amazon EC2 instances (also known as a Stack). It is best advised to set up stacks for both pre-production (staging) and production environments. The CloudFormation template and other related resources could then be configured, using pre-built Puppet  configs or custom JSON, as layers on top of the stack. All an organization then has to do is to specify the location of its source code repository and define any additional configuration requirements, which OpsWorks takes and from which it generates the application’s executable artifacts. These executables are then deployed automatically to the production environment without any human interaction. This approach shortens the release cycle and makes it possible to deploy changes to code dynamically and frequently, in some cases literally within hours.

Moreover, the likelihood of errors introduced by human interaction is practically non-existent in the deployment process itself, as long as the blueprints and configurations are tested and validated in staging stacks.

A DevOps approach to deployment brings with it several benefits, the most important of which is business agility. Companies today cannot afford not to be nimble in addressing industry trends and incorporating customer needs. Business agility is crucial for the continued success of companies and a DevOps approach to deploy code and infrastructure as code into production is pivotal. After all, time is Money.

The post The Importance of DevOps When Deploying with AWS appeared first on Cloud Computing News.

I just recently wrote a blog about BOTs causing unwanted traffic on our servers. Right after I wrote this blog I was notified about yet another “interesting” and unusual load behavior on our download page which is used by customers to download latest product versions and updates.
If you see such a load behavior you typically assume that you just released a new product version or maybe an update to our agents and many people are downloading it like crazy. Unfortunately that was not the case. The spike in traffic was caused by an implementation issue between our authentication service and our download role-check logic. It resulted in a browser of one of our customers to go into an endless redirect loop between these different authentications and download pages, which caused several thousand HTTP Requests per minute.

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At the recent US Open Tennis in New York City the infrastructure was hosted on IBM’s Cloud. Cloud is an ideal solution for such events since a scalable and on-demand architecture can be provisioned quickly, and then it can be taken down after the event as needed. During such events there is an overload on networks with people posting lots of messages on social media and tweets. Mobile technology is in full “swing” with people posting on phones, tablets and other devices. The IT infrastructure may need to scale to an estimated 40 times or more its regular size during such events. The United States Tennis Association connects people to the tournament through its web site and mobile apps, live streaming video, match information and videos that are on the Cloud. The US Open has mobile apps available for download for iPhone, iPad and Android devices that are very popular and provide great information about the tournament. For example, the iPad application provides access to data, statistics and content with specific interactive features.

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Picture credit: Nils Geylen/Flickr

Microsoft has announced a strategic partnership with Docker, an open platform for developers and administrators to build portable, run-anywhere apps, to bring support with the next version of Windows Server.

It’s no secret that Redmond is forcing through its cloud and mobile-oriented ethos, with the shift coming from the very top. This partnership bolsters Microsoft’s push in the open source and Linux space – a much needed change – as well as providing a variety of benefits to developers and cloud platform customers.

Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, will be integrated with Microsoft Azure, enabling Microsoft’s ISVs and cloud developers access to Docker’s community. Elsewhere Microsoft is contributing to Docker’s open orchestration APIs, meaning developers can work with a preconfigured Docker Engine in Azure for the first time.

“The power of Azure and Windows Server leveraging the Docker platform redefines what enterprises should expect and demand from their cloud,” said Ben Golub, Docker CEO. “Together, we will provide a framework for building multiplatform distributed applications that can be created with exceptional velocity and deployed and scaled globally.”

The overall consensus on the move from Microsoft was summed up by Cade Metz in Wired: “The next big thing in cloud computing doesn’t work with Microsoft’s Windows operating system. But Microsoft wants to change that.”

Other cloud vendors, such as Google, Amazon and Rackspace, are already using Docker on top of their public cloud services.

Picture credit: Robert Scoble/Flickr

It was a little bit of a surprise when Google’s third quarter results came back. Even though profits were at $2.8bn (£1.7bn), it was down 5% from this time last year. Operating income was $3.72bn, down on $3.76bn in 2013, yet it now comprises less than a quarter (23%) of overall revenues, compared to 27% last year.

Consolidated revenues therefore were at $16.52bn, an increase of 20% this time last year. Nevertheless the figures caused ripples on the stock market, with shares down 2% in after hours trading.

For the execs, there isn’t even a hint of a problem. “Google had another strong performance this quarter, with revenue up 20% year on year,” said CFO Patrick Pichette in a statement. “We continue to be excited about the growth in our advertising and emerging businesses.”

No problems here at all. But the part on ‘emerging businesses’ is an interesting one. It’s not a misnomer to say that Google’s ecosystem is sprawling. From search to YouTube to cloud, it’s an impressive portfolio. Yet there was a lot of talk about enterprise cloud in the earnings call accompanying the financial results – particularly with regard to questions from analysts.

“Cloud is an area that is kind of booming right?” said Pichette, according to Seeking Alpha. “We know that the long-term trends are very clear for us, which is the vast majority of businesses. Everybody is moving their infrastructures to the cloud.

“It is an area where we have fundamentally great assets to contribute to this industry, both in terms of the flexibility, the cost structure, the technology, and that’s why we’re investing heavily in there,” he added. “We’re seeing great progress from an adoption perspective, signing up new customers.”

Pichette couldn’t give specific numbers behind the levels of traction, number of customers, CapEx, or level of investment in Google’s cloud. But there’s been a lot of promise in recent news. Earlier this month the company announced latest price cuts on its Compute Engine series, as well as offering a $100k Cloud Platform credit to eligible startups.

Despite this, the analysts aren’t exactly overwhelmed by Google’s current offering. According to Synergy Research, which studies the cloud infrastructure services market extensively, Google is off the pace in the race for second place, behind Microsoft and IBM and, of course, behind the behemoth that is Amazon Web Services.

This time last year, Amazon’s estimated revenues were larger than Salesforce, Microsoft, IBM and Google combined. 2014 sees that number dwindling, yet also sees Google’s market position dwindling, according to chief analyst John Dinsdale. He argued that Google’s lack of enterprise presence at the time counted against it.

Elsewhere, the Google cloud team announced a series of infrastructure refreshes in its Europe region. Customers get a new shiny Google Compute Engine zone, europe-west1-c, but deprecating europe-west1-a at the same time. The new zone will be launched in two weeks, while the doomed europe-west1-a will disappear on March 29 next year, giving customers plenty of time to orchestrate their exit.

What do you make of these results, and Google’s position in the premium IaaS market?

Throughout the development cycle of new features and functions for any network platform (or probably most other products not targeted at the mass market consumer) this one question will always come up: should we protect the user of our product from doing this? And “this” is always something that would allow the user of the product to really mess things up if not done right. As a product management organization you almost have to take a philosophical stand when it comes to these questions.

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Data efficiency – the combination of technologies including data deduplication, compression, zero elimination and thin provisioning – transformed the backup storage appliance market in well under a decade. Why has it taken so long for the same changes to occur in the primary storage appliance market? The answer can be found by looking back at the early evolution of the backup appliance market, and understanding why EMC’s Data Domain continues to hold a commanding lead in that market today.
The term “data efficiency” encompasses a variety of different technologies that enable the most effective use of space on a storage device by both reducing wasted space and eliminating redundant information. These technologies include thin provisioning, which is now commonplace in primary storage, as well as less extensively deployed features such as compression and deduplication.

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SAP is delivering break-through innovation combined with fantastic user experience powered by the market-leading in-memory technology, SAP HANA.
In his General Session at 15th Cloud Expo, Thorsten Leiduck, VP ISVs & Digital Commerce, SAP, will discuss how SAP and partners provide cloud and hybrid cloud solutions as well as real-time Big Data offerings that help companies of all sizes and industries run better. SAP launched an application challenge to award the most innovative SAP HANA and SAP HANA Cloud platforms applications. Out of many contenders, the best applications have been selected by members of the SAP Community Network via crowd-voting. Join this exciting session as SAP recognizes the winners and finalists for their great accomplishment and see the winning applications live on stage.

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Cloud Musings, a GovCloud Network Property, is proud and honored to announce that we will now be serving over 3 Million Dell Community online daily viewers. Our content will focus on Cloud Computing for Business and will continue to provide independent and vendor neutral information on how business, government and non-profit organizations can better leverage the global and parallel nature of cloud computing.

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Thinking about venturing into the cloud? Where would you start? What you should absolutely not do is approach your transition to the cloud the same way you planned your traditional storage. You should start with understanding the value of your data; take a ‘data centric’ approach.
With the promise of improving business efficiencies and reducing overall storage costs, organizations are considering the many options available to transition from traditional storage environments into public, private and hybrid clouds. While bring your own device (BYOD) and mobility initiatives through cloud services continue to rise, modern organizations need to manage costs and provide secure data access to the right person at the right time to satisfy geographically dispersed workforces and improve business agility.

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