I was touring what reminded me of the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker – one of the safest places on earth. Except in this case, this was one of the safest places for your enterprise data on earth. “The entrance will open, you will drive in, and an armed guard will be out to escort you.”
That was the beginning of my tour of a Tier 4 datacenter, furthest from any natural disaster. 100% guaranteed up time.
I was staking out where we would launch our newest version of the Infochimps Big Data cloud service – our enterprise cloud service would soon be launched in the most trusted datacenter in the world, along side the largest enterprise data installations in the world.
SYS-CON.tv Interview: Big Data Storage and the Cloud
“Big Data is everywhere these days and what we’ve been explaining to people at Cloud Expo is that Big Data is not a marketing hype. Big Data feeds the cloud,” stated Tom Leyden, CMO of Amplidata, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 11th International Cloud Expo, held November 5-8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
A Rock Star Faculty, Top Keynotes, Sessions, and Top Delegates!
Cloud Expo 2013 New York, June 10–13, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
The Cloud Cost Question and What Doesn’t Fit into the Usual Debates
The cloud community and anyone with an opinion if not immediately, periodically and frequently gravitate to the question of cost. Is it more? Is it less? Are we being wasteful? Are we being too frugal? Will Google and AWS drive the price of storage to zero? Can we scrunch the market forces of Cloud into a theoretical framework we already understand?
And yet just as cost of computing has been accounted for poorly when assessed in the corporate datacenter, when similar measures are applied to Cloud, Cloud becomes subject to the same Procrustean Bed as the corporate datacenter.
Contractors would do well to use the cloud
Building contractors were told this week that cloud computing could make a huge difference to the construction industry, especially when it comes to project management.
Autodesk, which develops some of the most influential design software such as AutoCAD and 3DS Max, claimed this week that the construction industry could use cloud hosting to power remote servers, given the nature of working on a building-site, an essentially rugged environment.
This would enable an industry which has otherwise been slow in taking up cloud technology (mainly due to security / reliability concerns) to flourish, changing the nature in which projects are run.
Autodesk senior VP Amar Hanspal thinks that the technology is now ripe for the construction industry to jump on board, just as they did for Building Information Modelling (BIM).
Hanspal said that by using technology such as mobile phones, the work force could be reached and drawings, building models and instructions …
Where does Forrester see cloud computing in 2013?
With 2013 just around the corner, it’s not surprising to see many companies rolling out their 2013 tech predictions – and it’s even less of a surprise that cloud computing features heavily.
Analyst house Forrester has revealed its top 10 cloud computing predictions for next year, with all the contributors to the Forrester cloud playbook giving their view before narrowing down their insight to the best 10 enterprise cloud forecast.
These predictions include a waning of AWS’ cloud prowess, companies no longer fussing over service level agreements (SLAs), and a further convergence of cloud and mobile.
“We can stop speculating, hopefully stop cloudwashing, and get down to the real business of incorporating cloud services and platforms into our formal IT portfolios”, wrote Forrester analyst James Staten in a blog post.
The 10 predictions from Forrester are:
- We’ll finally stop saying that everything is going cloud: Specifically, people will …
Deploying Cloud Security for Shifting and Evolving Defenses
Most attacks, like the recent DDoS attacks on banks, show most hackers do not use brute force to gain entry to sensitive data. And as organizations expand the perimeter of their networks,, there are so many more opportunities for data leakage and theft. To control it, a more nimble, flexible and agile strategy of defense is necessary…and that can come from the cloud.
A few weeks back I was watching my beloved San Diego Chargers lose in a most embarrassing way on Monday night. And in the waning seconds of blaming the quarterback for such ineffectual 2nd half play, it occurred to me, it wasn’t his fault. It was the coach. It was the lack of planning for the type of attack the Denver Broncos would bring. It was the lack of leadership that should have easily closed the deal. In short, it was sticking to the status quo while everything around was changing.
Cloud Computing: Cloudera Gets Another $65 Million to Grow On
Cloudera, the four-year-old Hadoop and Big Data pioneer, has closed a massive $65 million E round led by Accel Partners, which participated in all four of the start-up’s previous rounds raising an initial $76 million.
Existing backers Greylock Partners, Ignition Partners, In-Q-Tel and Meritech Capital Partners also kicked in. They valued Cloudera at $700 million according to All Things Digital, which figures it’s warming up for an IPO given the huge market it’s addressing.
The money will be used to fund global sales growth and continued development of the company’s platform. It expects to open a European headquarters in the UK in the first quarter.
Accel says Cloudera is “well positioned to expand its revenue and global customer footprint.”
Euro Data Centre Viewpoint: 2013 to be a Year of Growth, Uncertainty
Guest Post by Roger Keenan, Managing Director of City Lifeline
The data centre industry forms part of the global economy and, as such; it is subject to the same macro-economic trends as every other industry. For 2013, those continue to be dominated by uncertainty and fear. The gorilla of course, is the on-going problem in the Eurozone. This time last year, many commentators predicted that this would come to a head in 2012, with either the central monetary authorities accepting fiscal union and central control across the Eurozone, or the Eurozone starting to break up. In the event, neither happened and the situation remains unresolved and will continue to drive uncertainty in 2013.
One major uncertainty has been resolved with a convincing win for Barack Obama in the US presidential elections and the removal of the possibility of a lurch to the right. However, the “fiscal cliff” remains and will cause a massive contraction in the US economy, and hence the world economy, if it goes ahead at the end of 2012. For the UK, predictions are that interest rates will stay low for the next two to three years as the banks continue to rebuild their strengths at the expense of everyone else.
So the macro-economic environment within which the data centre industry operates is likely to stay uncertain and fearful in 2013. Companies have massive cash reserves, but they choose to continue to build them rather than invest. Decision making cycles in 2013 are likely to be as they are now – slow. Companies will not invest in new project unless they have the confidence that their customers will buy, and their customers think the same and so the cycle goes round.
At a more specific industry level, the on-going trend towards commoditisation of infrastructure is likely to continue. Whereas data centres five years ago were specific and unique, new entrants to the market have made data centre capacity more available than it was and driven up technical standards. Older facilities have upgraded to match new builds, which ultimately benefits the industry and its customers. The new builds and rebuilds are of varying quality and veracity, with some being excellent, however, others are claiming tier levels and other standards which are simply not true or claiming to be in central London whilst actually being somewhere else – perhaps following the example of London Southend Airport? Even in a more commoditised market, quality, connectivity, accessibility and service still stand out and well-run established data centres will always be first choice for informed customers.
The next part of the consolidation process is probably networks; new entrants are coming into a market where prices continue to fall at a dizzying rate. There is no end of small new entrants to the marketplace, some of which will succeed and some of which will fall by the wayside. At the larger end, consolidation continues. In City Lifeline’s central London data centre alone, Abovenet has become Zayo (and consequently moved from the very top of everyone’s list to the very bottom, possibly not causing joy in Abovenet’s marketing department), Cable and Wireless/Thus has become part of Vodafone, PacketExchange has become part of GT-T and Global Crossing has become part of Level 3.
Data Centre Infrastucture Management (DCIM) systems may establish themselves more in 2013. DCIM was predicted to have a massive impact, with Gartner stating publicly in 2010 that penetration would be 60% by 2014. In the event, penetration at the end of 2012 is only 1%. DCIM is hard and laborious to implement but it offers serious benefits to larger organisations in terms of the management of their physical assets, power, space and cooling and can quickly repay its investment in answering the basic question “how many servers can I have for the capacity I am paying for”. DCIM deserves more success than it has had to date, and perhaps 2013 will be the year it takes off.
Power densities will continue to increase in 2013. Five years ago, many racks drew 2KW (8 amps). Now 8 amp racks are becoming unusual and 16 amps racks are the norm. Five years ago 7KW racks (about 30 amps) were unusual, now they are common, and 20KW racks are starting to appear. The trend to higher and higher performance and power densities will continue.
The data centre industry continues to grow, driven by the move to Cloud. By the end of 2013, an estimated 23% of all data centre space will be in commercial colocation operations. The leading market segments are likely to be Telecoms and Media, with 24%, Healthcare and Education, with 21% and Public Sector, also with 21%. In-house data centre capacity is likely to continue to decrease and the commercial colocation market to grow, even in spite of the uncertain macro-economic environment.
Roger Keenan joined City Lifeline, a leading carrier neutral colocation data centre in Central London, as managing director in 2005. His main responsibilities are to oversee the management of all business and marketing strategies and profitability. Prior to City Lifeline, Roger was general manager at Trafficmaster plc, where he fully established Trafficmaster’s German operations and successfully managed the $30 million acquisition of Teletrac Inc in California, becoming its first post-acquisition Chief Executive.
Cloud Computing: Greenplum Buys Israeli Outfit
EMC’s Greenplum Division, which is about to move into EMC and VMware’s new Pivotal Initiative operation, just bought six-year-old More IT Resources Ltd, a privately held Israeli developer whose MoreVRP database control and monitoring platform will be “immediately” integrated with its Big Data analytics widgetry.
Terms were not disclosed but Globes thinks it was between $10 million and $20 million.
Greenplum says More’s tools are monitoring billions of finance, telco, Internet and pharmaceutical transactions.
Red Hat Delivers Now Supported by HP Virtualization VS2
Red Hat, Inc. today announced that Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is supported by HP VirtualSystem VS2. HP VirtualSystem VS2 is a new converged system reference architecture designed to speed virtualization software deployment while maximizing performance and scale as organizations move to cloud computing.
HP has offered Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization subscriptions and support services on HP ProLiant servers since the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 in January 2012. Consulting, education and implementation services for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization are also available through HP.
The HP VirtualSystem VS2 Reference Architecture for Red Hat is an enterprise-business, single-rack solution that is optimized for compute density. It is based on the HP BladeSystem C7000 Enclosure, HP ProLiant BL460c servers, HP 5800 Switch Series and HP LeftHand P4800 Storage for BladeSystem and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. The combined solution is designed to support hundreds of virtual machines, and provides a base set of extended configurations and sizing for typical workloads for deployment optimization.
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, including the new 3.1 update, is available worldwide today from HP.
