Thinking cloud is thinking application-centric. Organizations utilize public cloud offerings because they want to focus on their revenue-generating applications rather than managing infrastructure. And from there we already can draw the significance of Application Performance Management (APM) in public cloud environments.
If we focus on our application, a focus on its performance is essential. Even more important than that is how our application’s performance is perceived by our users. To gain this insight, it is crucial to monitor our application’s performance from our users’ perspective; that’s where User Experience Management (UEM) comes into play.
Coraid Named “Silver Sponsor” of Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that Coraid Inc., a leading developer of Ethernet-based storage solutions, has been named “Silver Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 11th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 5–8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Coraid redefines storage with its breakthrough line of EtherDrive and EtherCloud solutions. Coraid delivers scale-out performance, Ethernet simplicity, and an elastic storage architecture to handle massive data growth. Designed from the ground up for virtualization and cloud architectures, Coraid’s platform has been deployed by more than 1,500 customers worldwide.
Data at the Speed of Life
The data explosion is not new. It started hundreds of years ago with the invention of the printing press, followed by real-time communication via radio, television and mobile phones and culminating with the World Wide Web. The challenge now is to provide information fast. There are billions of people with billions of devices generating exabytes of data around the world. No one wants to wait for the data they need, particularly businesses. Storage technology now focuses on performance more than it does on capacity. Virtualization, Cloud Computing and Big Data have combined to make speed all-important. The ability to access exploding data faster is crucial to businesses. Reports and analysis must be available to decision makers instantly. In his General Session at Cloud Expo New York, Mike Schmitt, Director of Product Management and Marketing for WHIPTAIL, discusses how WHIPTAIL moves data at the speed of life.
Cloud Industry Evolves, Customers Lag
I started last week confused, and ended the week more confused than ever. The cloud computing industry is simply changing too quickly for me. As one industry CEO remarked to me in agreement, “the vendors are moving quickly, but the customers are moving slowly.”
The VMworld show held last week in San Francisco had an exhibition that took over the Moscone Convention Center’s full south hall. Keynotes were attended by what appeared to be about 5,000 people. It was frenetic.
But upon close inspection, the show seemed to be about vendors talking to vendors, conspiring, consolidating, and fearing what might be going on a few aisles over. There was this surface layer of customers wandering around, a secondary aspect of what seemed to be a very large industry talking to itself.
The biggest announcement came on the show’s first day when VMware said it would join the OpenStack alliance. It can’t be said at this point how this will work out. OpenStack has been criticized by some as too loosely structured, and the VMware announcement reinforces this point. On the other hand, loosey goosey means widely adopted, so maybe this announcement forbodes a future of embracing and extending open source within the enterprise a la Microsoft’s strategy to dominate the desktop a generation ago.
Later, I traveled to San Diego for the LinuxCon/CloudOpen conference. I saw Linus Torvalds himself roaming the halls, but did not hear him speak. This was an old-fashioned geekfest, with modest table-booths, lots of folks in t-shirts, and seriously technical presentations. Open-source proponents with whom I spoke uniformly described VMware as “the enemy.”
All of this is in the context of VMware selling perhaps $2 billion in software to a global IT industry of more than $4 trillion (including telco). We’ve only just begun, customers are still talking about whether to adopt cloud and thinking along now-ancient public/private/hybrid lines, while the industry is evolving like mad.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Cyber Security in the Cloud
Information Security and Risk has become a top concern of IT organizations and consumers alike. Concern about inadequate Info Security remains the #1 obstacle to greater adoption of Cloud Computing, according to Intel’s research. The rapid growth of Mobile and IP-connected Embedded devices, Cloud Computing, Social Networks, and “Consumerization of IT” is being met with, and in some cases contributing to, an escalating number and complexity of Cyber-threats. Tenants of the cloud need the ability to assess security standards, trust security implementations, and prove infrastructure compliance to auditors.
In his session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Steve Orrin, Sr. Security Architect & Principal Engineer at Intel, will describe technologies and capabilities that provide reporting on the configuration of the virtual infrastructure used by the customer VMs and tie this to a verifiable measurement of trust in the hardware and hypervisor. This allows customers to be sure the provider is following security best practices, can pass a regulatory audit, and be assured that the provider’s platforms are booting from a secure root of trust, protected from root-kits and other malware. He will also describe the hardware and software methods by which these measurements, configuration of the virtual infrastructure, and events reported by the infrastructure are used to generate dynamic and detailed compliance reports and enforce security policies.
Fuel Your Cloud with Metered, Virtualized Middleware
Traditional middleware is not suitable for the Cloud: it’s simply too complex and it does not provide a pay-per-use charge model.
In their General Session at Cloud Expo New York, Ash Massoudi, CEO & Co-Founder of NextAxiom Technology, and Sandy Zylka, co-founder of NextAxiom, discuss a new middleware paradigm for developing and integrating applications: metered, virtualized middleware. The virtualized attribute allows you to easily build and run new applications in the cloud reusing existing on-premise application functionality. The metered attribute has two aspects: it provides a usage-based charge model for the middleware itself and it provides a built-in, metered charge model, much like electricity, for your new applications.
Proact supplies virtualised infrastructure, cloud backup to Grafia
Proact has implemented a new, virtualised infrastructure and a new storage environment for Grafia. The contract also includes backup to Proact’s secure cloud and consecutive support. The implementation project commenced and was completed in the summer of 2012.
Grafia is one of Sweden’s most sought-after companies in the field of model and product photography, supplying photos to companies such as clothing giants Kappahl, Brothers, Lindex and MQ. To enhance the performance and flexibility of the business, Proact has implemented a new, virtualised infrastructure and a new storage environment.
“Of course, our success is based on the fact that we supply high-quality images, but the fact that we supply technical solutions that allow our end-clients to receive and manage our images with ease is also a factor. These technical solutions, which make us highly competitive, are entirely dependent on a flexible, high-performance IT infrastructure and storage environment,” says Martin Gårdmark, CIO of Grafia.
To meet Grafia’s demands for outstanding flexibility and performance, Proact presented a solution comprising a new, virtualised infrastructure and a storage and backup environment. The Proact solution also includes the backup of vital applications to Proact’s own cloud, thereby giving Grafia greater access and reliability if anything were to affect the local infrastructure.
“Grafia has a clear vision regarding what its IT environment has to supply to the business and what it should facilitate. The solution which we have devised and implemented gives Grafia outstanding performance, reliability and, above all, the flexibility the company needs for its business,” says Martin Ödman, Regional Manager at Proact.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Intel IT’s Approach to the Open Private Cloud
Cloud technologies are moving at a rapid pace. The compelling drivers are the need for on-demand business solutions, lower cost for IT and the ability to deliver the rich experience that users need and expect. Enterprises are wrestling with private vs. public vs. hybrid cloud solutions. The need for high levels of customizability, flexibility, and agility will drive many enterprises to the public cloud. The foundation for this vision will be defined by an open approach that delivers best of breed technologies + flexibility + choice from data center to client.
Intel is bringing together a broad network of leading hardware and solution providers to build and enhance cloud solutions that are interoperable, multi-vendor and embrace standards. This addresses the initial limiters such as security, standards, governance and legacy apps which are increasingly less of an issue.
Veteran CIO Frank Fanzilli Joins 1010data Board of Directors
1010data, Inc., a market leader in sharing, analyzing, and monetizing Big Data, today announced that Frank Fanzilli has joined the company’s Board of Directors. As the first global CIO for Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), Fanzilli has extensive, first-hand experience evaluating, purchasing and implementing ground breaking technology at global organizations. This expertise will be vital as 1010data looks to continue its rapid growth in new global vertical markets such as retail, consumer packaged goods, telecom and financial services with its unique, cloud-based analytics solution.
The World According to Cloud
Are you aware of the new reality that cloud computing is bringing? Cloud is not as global as you might think. Even heaven needs a place on earth and for the cloud to touch base it needs to find the right data center.
In his General Session, Jelle Frank van der Zwet, Manager Cloud Segment at Interxion, introduces some of their customers, case studies and shares insights on key trends in cloud usage and adoption in the US and Europe.
Jelle Frank van der Zwet is Manager Cloud Segment at Interxion. He manages the go-to-market of Interxion’s Cloud Hubs – the pan-European marketing and product development program for Interxion’s sizeable and fast-growing cloud community.