Cloud data governance was previously an avoided function when cloud deployments were relatively small. With the rapid adoption in public cloud – both rogue and sanctioned, it’s not uncommon to find regulated data dumped into public cloud and unprotected. This is why enterprises and cloud providers alike need to embrace a cloud data governance function and map policies, processes and technology controls accordingly.
In her session at 15th Cloud Expo, Evelyn de Souza, Data Privacy and Compliance Strategy Leader at Cisco Systems, will focus on how to set up a cloud data governance program and spans setting up an executive board to ensuring the availability, integrity, security and privacy of cloud data through its lifecycle.

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There are many considerations when moving applications from on-premise to cloud. It is critical to understand the benefits and also challenges of this migration. A successful migration will result in lower Total Cost of Ownership, yet offer the same or higher level of robustness.
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Michael Meiner, an Engineering Director at Oracle, Corporation, will analyze a range of cloud offerings (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and discuss the benefits/challenges of migrating to each offering as well as enterprise deployment considerations, including High Availability and Security. He will demonstrate migrating to Amazon Elastic Cloud (EC2) and WebLogic Java Cloud Service using applications built using Tomcat and other J2EE vendors.

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We certainly live in interesting technological times. And no more interesting than the current competing IoT standards for connectivity. Various standards bodies, approaches, and ecosystems are vying for mindshare and positioning for a competitive edge. It is clear that when the dust settles, we will have new protocols, evolved protocols, that will change the way we interact with devices and infrastructure. We will also have evolved web protocols, like HTTP/2, that will be changing the very core of our infrastructures. At the same time, we have old approaches made new again like micro-services and reactive programming.
In his session at @ThingsExpo, Todd Montgomery, Chief Architect at KAAZING, discussed this changing landscape and explored the various tradeoffs designers face today.

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The term DevOps is not well defined, and you’d be hard pressed to get the same definition of “DevOps” from everyone you ask in your enterprise. Developers in your organization may equate DevOps with a specific approach to software builds and the use of popular tools such as Chef, Puppet, Jenkins, Git, and Docker. IT management might see DevOps as a continuation of existing processes with an emphasis on faster time to market and lightweight release procedures.

Without a common definition of the term you’ll have teams arguing over what is DevOps and what is not DevOps. If your software releases still involve the use of a change management tool such as BMC’s Remedy is it really DevOps? If the build takes an hour to deploy a QA build is it really DevOps? The reality of Enterprise DevOps is that every organization’s answers to these question will vary. Enterprise DevOps is compromise between self-service, rapid-fire agility and the ability to manage the risks that accompany mission-critical builds.

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DevOps is an approach that improves collaboration among Dev and Ops teams to enable fast delivery of applications and ensure impeccable end-user experience. BizDevOps takes the concept of DevOps to a new level – by bringing the business context and insights to day to day DevOps activities. BizDevOps ensures that Dev and Ops focus on what matters to the business and also introduces the Biz persona (line-of-business manager, product manager) as a key stakeholder in the process.

IDC recently published research on these two topics in its report, “DevOps and the Cost of Downtime: Fortune 1000 Best Practice Metrics Quantified,” by IDC Vice President Stephen Elliot. In addition to eye-opening cost of application downtime and increasing momentum for DevOps, it also highlighted that “I=improved customer experience” is the most expected business outcome from DevOps practices.

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One question that springs to mind is why invest in embedded physical SDN vSwitches which sit in-line between each and every appliance and their corresponding access ports? Why not simply apply the appropriate SDN configuration to the access switch on a per-port basis (assuming the access switch is SDN capable – of which there are a growing number)? Given that SDN (if present) is much more likely to be found in the data-centres and core networks than out to the access layer and remote branch offices, ONA would allow SDN policies to be pushed out further than existing SDN deployment would allow.

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SYS-CON Events announced today Arista Networks will exhibit at SYS-CON’s DevOps Summit 2015 New York, which will take place June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Arista Networks was founded to deliver software-driven cloud networking solutions for large data center and computing environments. Arista’s award-winning 10/40/100GbE switches redefine scalability, robustness, and price-performance, with over 3,000 customers and more than three million cloud networking ports deployed worldwide.

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I was talking to a friend the other day about Cloud Foundry and whether there was any buzz surrounding it. Cloud Foundry in particular and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in general have now been around for a few years, a considerable amount of time in the Web Era.

Recent buzz was generated with the formal establishment of the Cloud Foundry Foundation last year. Collateral buzz was generated by CoreOS with its late-year Rocket container announcement, which took aim at CFF member Docker and its expanding containers strategy.

That said, “buzz” may be too strong a word to associate with the unglamorous tasks of designing and deploying software applications and services into the cloud. Yet, companies who are integrating PaaS into the way they do things should not be afraid to commend themselves a little bit for being pioneers in what are still the early days of the PaaS phenomenon.

PaaS generated less than $4 billion in global revenue in 2012, according to IDC. The research firm predicts annual growth rates on the order of 50%, with revenues reaching $14 billion by 2017.

This number would still be less than 1% of the global total enterprise IT spend of more than $2 trillion. But it would be a very important 1%. PaaS provides that critical link between infrastructure (processing power, storage, and networking) and the software applications and services that run on it.

Time’s wastin’
In a world in which flexible, fluid technology stacks are emerging, competing, and mixing with one another, there is a sense that there is no time to develop and deploy new software. Long development cycles are replaced by the perpetual beta, a DevOps culture is emerging (difficult as it may be), and a mobile-equipped populace not only needs its information right now, it needs the latest, coolest experience right now.

So, we circle back to PaaS. Within a typical enterprise shop of a few dozen or few hundred developers, a PaaS such as Cloud Foundry will be of interest to about 70% of the staff, according to a conversation I had with an exec at a Cloud Foundry company. Not everyone will be using it directly, of course, but the majority of the team needs to know what is doing and why. In smaller shops, a PaaS will be of high interest to everyone.

There may not be a big buzz per se for the PaaS itself, but there should be for the projects it enables. I’ve already seen notable stories concerning the use of Cloud Foundry to Cloud Foundry in these cases was used to improve products and services in major industries such as healthcare, agriculture, and entertainment. It also transformed the entire business and delivery model for a major publishing company.

Companies buzzing with success include AT&T, Monsanto, the LDS Church, Philips, Axel Springer, and Warner Music. Each of these projects had a measurable outcome and success criteria.

So, I do believe there is some buzz about Cloud Foundry, or at least the projects it is help bringing to life.

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To some the above (read the full article here) may seem like common sense tips and things everybody should know otoh there are many people who are new to servers storage I/O networking hardware software cloud virtual along with various applications, not to mention different tools.

Thus the above is a refresher for some (e.g. Dejavu) while for others it might be new and revolutionary or simply helpful. Interested in HDD’s, SSD’s as well as other server storage I/O performance along with benchmarking tools, techniques and trends check out the collection of links here (Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking and Performance Resources).

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Last week I explored how small data, rather than big data, can be a critical component of the Internet of Things.

To drive the point home I went looking for more examples of companies using both small and big data to improve decision-making.

I stumbled across an innovative startup out of Boston named Ovuline who has built a mobile app for women trying to have children.

The app uses data to predict when they are most likely to conceive. You heard that right. Women provide a variety of personal and heal

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