After years of talking to people inside and outside of my company about the benefits of cloud computing, I’m truly convinced that the most important benefit is not cost reduction or the ability to have new servers up and running in a few minutes. Of course those are great capabilities that a real cloud computing environment can offer. But the most important benefit of cloud technology is the ability to move your business to where it has never been before – and do amazing things you couldn’t even consider doing a few years ago.
One use case I’m happy to see the market (including large enterprises) explore more often is the enhanced customer engagement and experience achieved through a combination of social networks and the cloud. Although almost everybody understands how powerful this combo can be, very few are succeeding in unleashing the power of this synergy. Most companies are just scratching the surface in this area. In this article, I want to explore some ideas and useful guidance for those who want to dive into these waters.
Cloud-As-It-Is Versus Cloud-As-We’d-Like-It-To-Be | Part 1
It is hard to believe that there was a time when “the cloud” didn’t exist. Then, maybe 50 years ago, a lot of cloud-like things started to happen, such as remote computing, networked computing, resource sharing, virtual networks, and then, eventually, the Internet. But it still wasn’t the cloud. Large-scale virtualization of computing and increasingly powerful ways of managing and sharing that computing power resulted in the term “the cloud.” Everything was up in the air for a while as various vendors tried to align their own ideas of what the cloud might be with other ideas, and to align their ideas with what was actually happening out there.
Now in 2013, the evolution of the cloud has really only just started. We don’t know in precise detail how it will evolve. The community is debating and working to address concerns of security and regulation, while trying to remain compliant with all the administrations in the world, and experimenting to develop business models that make sense both for the potential users and those who provide the cloud services. It is now obvious that the cloud, however it all turns out, is going to offer plentiful opportunities for new services and new ways of doing business.
Rackspace announces cloud hosting support programme for 300 startups
Open cloud hosting provider Rackspace has announced it has given cloud support to the tune of almost £250,000 in order to aid UK-based startups get a foothold in the cloud.
The scheme falls under the Rackspace Startups Programme, which has been operating in the UK for six months and has already signed up more than 300 members.
The money comes from Rackspace alongside 50 partners and investors, with the CSP adding that startups who sign up with the scheme get “mentoring, expert technical advice and access to networking events”, alongside the money.
According to Jeff Cotten, managing director of Rackspace International, the UK is simply the first stop for the startup roadshow as the company expands its scheme into 2014.
“It’s been incredibly satisfying to watch the UK Startup Programme ramp up as more and more entrepreneurs take advantage of the cloud computing resources and other benefits on …
Cloud Computing the Most Valuable IT Job Skill: Survey
Having cloud skills will help pay the bills, according to a recent study.
Research from recruitment specialists Robert Half Technology revealed cloud computing is the most lucrative skill to have in the IT job market today.
Cloud topped the bill in the survey of 100 IT directors and CIOs across the UK, with 39 percent of respondents citing it as the most important. Security (37 percent) and project management skills (33 percent) were the next popular, with virtualization (29 percent) and network administration (27 percent) rounding out the top five, according to an article on Cloudcomputingnews.net.
Coding and development skills were mentioned. Although not as popular; knowledge of C# was cited by 15 percent of those polled, compared to 13 percent who said Java.
OpenNebula Celebrates Its 6 Year Anniversary!
When the OpenNebula project started in 2008, we intended to create an open solution to make Enterprise Cloud simple. From the beginning, we understood enterprise cloud computing as en evolution of data center virtualization to host both cloud-aware and traditional applications. So we aimed to combine existing virtualization technologies with multi-tenancy, automatic provision and elasticity, following a bottom-up approach driven by the real-life needs of sysadmins and devops, and the following main principles.
Big Data Analytics Without Complications and Expenses
Cloud computing is changing the IT ecosystem and is now increasingly focused on data analytics.
Cloud computing attention is often paid to moving compute requirements from the enterprise data center to public clouds. While the technology enables a number of innovative solutions around mobile and social environments, analytics is often seen as an in-house solution that requires highly specialized skills.
Cloud providers have upped their game in data analytics. No longer are they just providing you with an environment, managing the underlying machines, they are now managing underlying systems – systems specific to your needs like big data. This fits well with mid-sized companies that are hungry for analytic solutions to enable them to compete with large enterprise competitors.
How Startups Can Benefit from Cloud Technology
With a wealth of technology and online resources, many people are ditching the traditional 9-to-5 lifestyle and opting to become entrepreneurs. Unlike businesses of the past, where a large financial investment was required to get off the ground, today’s startups can get the ball rolling with limited funding.
They can also operate with a high level of efficiency and often compete with much large larger companies. One of the top resources that is fueling startups is cloud technology. Below are some ways that entrepreneurs can benefit and why this technology is so advantageous.
Can We Finally Find the Database Holy Grail? | Part 2
In the first post of this three part series I talked about distributed transactional databases being the Holy Grail of database systems. Among other things the promise of such systems is to provide on-demand capacity, continuous availability and geographically distributed operation. But the historical approaches to building distributed transactional databases have involved unacceptable trade-offs, and as a result general purpose databases systems predicated on a single-server architecture have dominated the industry for decades.
In our quest for the Holy Grail of databases we acknowledge that there are folks who have given up on the highly desirable characteristic of transactional consistency in favor of a distributed operation. That is a trade-off that may be attractive if you can’t find a way to scale-out transactions, but it is a drastic choice that moves a lot of complexity and cost up the application stack. If there is a way to scale out transactional databases then that is clearly a much better outcome. Our Holy Grail discussion is specifically about distributed transactional databases because if such a thing can be built without a substantial downside then no one would want any other distributed data store.
AWS re:Invent 2013 – That’s a Wrap
Peter, with the help of of the AWS Cloud Ninja, wraps it up from AWS re:Invent. Special thanks to guests Nathan Pearce, Geoff Huang, Nojan Moshiri along with Natasha, Courtney and Jeanette for capturing the content. Reporting from Vegas, that’s a wrap! Stay tuned for the outtakes and thanks for watching.
AWS re:Invent 2013 – That’s a Wrap
Peter, with the help of of the AWS Cloud Ninja, wraps it up from AWS re:Invent. Special thanks to guests Nathan Pearce, Geoff Huang, Nojan Moshiri along with Natasha, Courtney and Jeanette for capturing the content. Reporting from Vegas, that’s a wrap! Stay tuned for the outtakes and thanks for watching.