Rackspace® on Tuesday announced new features to its DevOps Automation Service including Windows Support and expanded environment stack support. Rackspace also launched a new DevOps Advisory Service for broader DevOps transformation engagements. Available in the U.S. and UK, enhancements to the Rackspace DevOps Automation Service offering provide customers with additional services and Fanatical Support® through the new managed operations service level. These enhancements will help customers design, manage and scale their cloud operations and enable a continuous application delivery model.
@AppZero_Inc Adds Wragby Business Solutions as Gold Partner [#Cloud]
AppZero has announced that Wragby Business Solutions & Technologies Limited, a Microsoft cloud partner in Nigeria, has joined the AppZero Partner Program as a Gold Partner for Nigeria and the rest of West Africa. Through the partner program, AppZero collaborates with system integrators, service providers and resellers to support enterprise application migrations to and across datacenters and clouds.
The Partner Program is the foundation of AppZero’s worldwide channel strategy to ensure comprehensive global coverage of its award-winning application migration software in the run-up to Windows Server 2003 (WS2003) end of support. Microsoft recommends AppZero Enterprise for application migration for various applications from Windows Server 2003 to either Windows Server 2012 or Azure.
OpenNebula 4.8 Lemon Slice Is Out!
The OpenNebula team has just announced the immediate availability of the final version of OpenNebula 4.8, codename Lemon Slice. This release brings significant improvements in different aspects. Sticking with its vision of bringing simplicity to cloud management, there are improvements in the recently added Cloud View portal, designed for end users. One significant advantage of the new portal is the ability to control flows, groups of interconnected Virtual Machines that conform a service. Based on this Cloud View, a Virtual Datacenter administrators view has been included (VDCAdmin View), which enables VDC admins to easily manage the VDC users and resources.
An important highlight in this release is the vast improvement made to the hybrid model. Support for two new public cloud providers has been added, widening the range of possibilities to offload VMs in case the local infrastructure is saturated. The hybrid model in OpenNebula enables a centralized management of both local and remote resources for the cloud administrator, and a transparent consumption of these resources for the end user. With these two new additions, namely support for Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer, OpenNebula is increasing the possibilities to build powerful, robust, cost and performance efficient cloud infrastructures across administrative domains and public cloud providers.
PMP Meets ITIL and Says, “YES!”
By Brian Shaw, PMP, ITIL Foundations, LogicsOne
Successful IT project management professionals are making continuing education the norm. Neither IT ecosystems nor the tools for managing projects are static, and as a result, we must actively build skills to evolve with business needs. Furthermore, by achieving certifications we demonstrate competency within the marketplace.
The first certification you need as a project manager is your PMP, Project Management Professional certification (For more information visit www.pmi.org). The body of knowledge for a PMP certification, often referred to by PMBOK ®, provides a framework for: initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing projects. This framework provides a common language, set of expectations and guidance for project success. GreenPages-LogicsOne has made PMP certified project managers the standard to ensure consistency and excellence in project management.
Recently a peer recommended I attain the ITIL Foundations certification. ITIL stands for IT Infrastructure Library and provides an approach to IT service management. ITIL offers structure and processes for: Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation and Continual Service Improvement.
A certification, such as ITIL, for ongoing services may seem like an odd choice for a PMP accustomed to managing projects with a fixed scope and duration, however upon closer review you will discover an ITIL certification fits perfectly with project management. While ongoing services are different from projects the implementation of new or changed services are typically achieved by projects.
New services are brought to life in service transition. Projects in service transition interface with the other stages of the ITIL lifecycle to ensure the vision from service strategy, as outlined in service design, comes to life in service operation. Additionally, opportunities to improve services as identified in the continual service improvement ITIL stage may also become projects.
The ITIL Foundations certification has many benefits to project management professionals practicing within a service organization. Those benefits include:
- Shared Terminology: Engineers and operations staff may not always know project management terminology, however they are familiar with terms such as incident management, SLA, etc. The knowledge required to gain an ITIL Foundations certification will ensure you are familiar with the same terms as people in the service organization. This shared dictionary goes a long way towards avoiding confusion.
- Outcome Based Action: Projects should deliver a specific result, as should the transition stage within ITIL.
- Clarifying Roles & Responsibilities: This is a huge benefit for project managers. Have you ever been on a call, trying to assign a task and either nobody volunteers or you don’t know who the owner should be? If yes, then ITIL is a great fit for you. ITIL delineates responsibilities by roles which fit nicely into project plans.
- Project Success: The ITIL strategy for building new services has proven successful since originally conceived in the 1980s by the British government. What project manager doesn’t love successful strategies?
- Professional Development Units (PDUs): Already a PMP? If yes, then you are required to attain 60 PDUs for each certification renewal cycle. ITIL courses and the certification can be used for PDUs. For the exact number of PDUs allowed with your course, check with your ITIL program provider and PMI.
Each project manager has a responsibility for continuing education. The ITIL Foundations certification demonstrates familiarity with knowledge certain to contribute to your overall project success.
Interested in speaking with one of our project management experts? Click here!
@ThingsExpo | @VMware CTO @Simon Brunozzi to Present @vCloud
Enterprises require the performance, agility and on-demand access of the public cloud, and the management, security and compatibility of the private cloud. The solution? In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Simone Brunozzi, VP and Chief Technologist(global role) for VMware, will explore how to unlock the power of the hybrid cloud and the steps to get there. He’ll discuss the challenges that conventional approaches to both public and private cloud computing, and outline the tough decisions that must be made to accelerate the journey to the hybrid cloud. As part of the transition, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service model will enable enterprise IT to build services beyond their data center while owning what gets moved, when to move it, and for how long. IT can then move forward on what matters most to the organization that it supports – availability, agility and efficiency.
Opinion: The inverted pyramid of IT infrastructure
By Nick Razey, CEO, Next Generation Data
If we ever lose a bid for a data centre contract, it is for one of two reasons.
Either the customer insists on being close to London and is happy to pay the premium for doing so, or the customer is obsessed by paying the lowest possible price and will accept any quality of data centre service to achieve this. While I struggle to understand both points of view it is the latter approach which is totally incomprehensible in the modern world.
I see the IT infrastructure as an inverted pyramid. At the bottom is the cheapest element, the data centre service.
It is staggering to think that the cost of this per rack (at NGD at least) is only £20 per day or less. That £20 rack supports perhaps £50k to £100k of hardware and software (the next layer of the pyramid), which support multiple business applications that provide the business systems and processes which are fundamental to the efficient running of a business worth millions (the top level of the pyramid).
It’s staggering to think a £20 rack supports perhaps £50k to £100k of software
That’s an awful lot of trust to place in a service costing £20 per day. But responsible operators like NGD (and to be fair, most of the London DCs) offer a service that IS trustworthy. A well designed and built Tier 3 infrastructure, properly maintained with ISO approved processes and highly trained staff will ensure that outages are vanishingly rare.
However, some customers are so focused on price that they will seek out the cheap and nasty data centre – the N+0 infrastructure with zero security and technical support 9 to 5 rather than 24/7.
With a service of this quality it is a question of when it fails not if it fails. And when the data centre fails, the whole IT pyramid will come crashing down with the attendant loss of revenue and reputation.
All to save a few pounds per day.
Picture credit: YoNoSoyTu
IBM looks to Canada for latest expansion, installs SoftLayer data centre
Another day, another snippet of news from IBM in its latest push for cloudy world domination: Big Blue has announced expansion plans for Canada, including a SoftLayer data centre in Toronto.
SoftLayer chose Toronto not just for its size – it’s the fourth largest city in North America – but its proximity to the tech community in Canada, as well as a litany of companies who are using the IaaS provider.
A glut of Canadian startups, including Mnubo, Epilogger and Maegan, have signed up for the SoftLayer Catalyst program, which offers discounts and offers for SoftLayer’s infrastructure, as well as consultancy and other resources. “We are very excited to see SoftLayer open a data centre in Toronto,” said Maegan co-founder Brenda Crainic in a statement.
Canadian expansion for SoftLayer follows its previous travels, launching data centres in the UK, Hong Kong and Central Europe. Customers can store and use the data centre immediately.
Last month IBM and SoftLayer celebrated their first anniversary together with yet more announcements, including an intriguing partnership between SoftLayer and Watson which gives the Jeopardy-winning supercomputer the keys to analyse SoftLayer’s big data.
Frequent chats with SoftLayer and IBM over the course of that first 12 months have revealed nothing but praise and excitement for the way the partnership is working out. SoftLayer EMEA managing director Jonathan Wisler described the marriage as “phenomenal” to CloudTech back in June.
Naturally this isn’t the only news to come out of IBM towers in recent days: the IT giant has also announced the acquisition of Lighthouse as part of its identity and access management offering, not to mention the government contract with California that Big Blue had won last month.
Find out more about the Canadian SoftLayer data centre here.
@ThingsExpo | Microsoft Encourages Blinking LEDs for Internet of Things
The earliest challenge to the original homebrew microcomputer geeks was to get little indicator lights to flash. Then, by toggling several switches to turn the lights on and off, the computer would start doing other things, processing instructions within the confines of several hundred or a few thousand bytes of memory.
Fast forward to today, and we’re revisiting that age within the IoT, albeit with much more power and sophistication.
I was struck by this thought when reading the line, “We’ll help you get your Windows application
running on a Galileo—and blinking LEDs in no time.”
This clear nod to history is part of Microsoft’s Windows Developer Program for IoT. The goal is to get Intel Galileo boards into developers’ hands, and get people “to create their own cool device,” in Microsoft’s words. The effort is part of the emerging Maker’s Movement, a sort-of 21st century effort to create a guild culture of practicing craftsmiths, using hardware and software tools rather than gold, silver, tin, or leather.
But it also appears to be more than that. Microsoft, along with every other major technology provider, is committing serious resources to the IoT, and what promises to be a mad battle for market share, if not supremacy, throughout the spectrum of what the IoT will do.
The “blinking LEDs” will be found in the tens of billions of sensors expected to be deployed worldwide within just a few years.
There are significant challenges in security, of course, but many others as well:
Getting a a compact OS to function in the micro-micro-environment of sensors
Deliver applicatino and enable real-time communications in what will be hives of IoT data generators
Deliver updates and and figure out how to forestall or eliminate device obsolescence
Get a handle on all the incoming data—how to process it, analyze it, act upon it, and archive it if necessary.
For Microsoft’s part, the company says, “if you’re a hardware developer who dabbles in software, you can bring your Arduino sketches and shields directly into your project, while leveraging Windows code for cloud connectivity and other computing-intensive tasks. If you’re already a software dev, you can write a regular Windows application that also has easy, direct access to hardware through the Arduino Wiring API set, extending your solution into the physical world.”
Perhaps most important, the company also notes that “this first program is just the beginning.”
Here’s to a future of blinking LEDs!
@CloudExpo | @Citrix To Present “Crash Course” in Open Source Cloud
In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Mark Hinkle, Senior Director, Open Source Solutions at Citrix Systems Inc., will provide overview of the open source software that can be used to deploy and manage a cloud computing environment. He will include information on storage, networking(e.g., OpenDaylight) and compute virtualization (Xen, KVM, LXC) and the orchestration(Apache CloudStack, OpenStack) of the three to build their own cloud services.
Speaker Bio:
Mark Hinkle is the Senior Director, Open Source Solutions, at Citrix Systems Inc. He joined Citrix as a result of their July 2011 acquisition of Cloud.com where he was their Vice President of Community. He is currently responsible for Citrix open source efforts around the open source cloud computing platform, Apache CloudStack and the Xen Hypervisor. Previously he was the VP of Community at Zenoss Inc., a producer of the open source application, server, and network management software, where he grew the Zenoss Core project to over 100,000 users and 20,000 organizations on all seven continents. He also is a longtime open source expert and author having served as Editor-in-Chief for both LinuxWorld Magazine and Enterprise Open Source Magazine. His blog on open source, technology, and new media can be found at http://www.socializedsoftware.com.
IBM Acquires #Cloud Security Services Provider Lighthouse Security Group
IBM on Monday announced it has acquired the business operations of Lighthouse Security Group, LLC, a premier cloud computing security services provider. Lighthouse Security Group’s Gateway platform protects identity and data in an increasingly complex IT environment where more company information is being stored in the cloud and accessed from mobile devices. Lighthouse Security Group is a subsidiary of long-time IBM Business Partner Lighthouse Computer Services, Inc. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Today’s news follows IBM’s acquisition of CrossIdeas, a privately held provider of security software that governs user access to applications and data across on-premise and cloud environments. CrossIdeas combines business-driven governance and analytics capabilities to give customers greater control for securing enterprises. By integrating the businesses of Lighthouse Security Group and CrossIdeas with IBM’s identity and access management offering, IBM will offer a full suite of security software and services that protect and manage a user’s identity.