“Our customers are very varied – we have customers in over 150 countries – and for the software companies we provide the Infrastructure as a Service. I like to work with the customers one-on-one to tailor solutions for them,” stated Mike Carpenter, VP of Business Development at CARI.net, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 10th International Cloud Expo, held June 11-14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley, November 5–8, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Cloud Is a Social Phenomenon, Not a Technical Transformation
As every technology literate reader will know, there is little to learn about the cloud computing service-based model of IT delivery from 14th century Sardinian legal codes and laws.
At least, that’s what I thought until I spent a break on the island this weekend and read about the “Carta de Logu” citizens charter of rights, which was laid down somewhere around 1392 by everyone’s favorite late medieval Italian legislator and warrior Marianus IV of Arborea.
The Carta de Logu provided the rights for Sardinian women to refuse marriage and to own property.
… stay with me, we’re almost there.
This decree meant that many Sardinians had an option to buy land, but the men were still fairly bullish and machismo about the way the law was implemented, so many of the women’s purchases had to be confined to coastal areas rather than the interior land, which was rich in farmland and livestock grazing.
Agility in the Cloud
“A lot of people are using cloud computing now, and appzero has this new product out that extracts applications that are already installed, sucks them out of the data center and moves them into the cloud,” explained Greg O’Connor, CEO of appzero, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 10th International Cloud Expo, held June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley, November 5–8, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Red Hat, Open Source and Enterprise Cloud Adoption
Cloud computing, powered by open source technology, is driving enterprise adoption. This leads to better business case viability to transform IT through innovative initiatives.
At the recent Red Hat summit in Boston the company took the unusual step of combining financial analysts and industry analysts in the same meeting. It was interesting to see CFO Charles E. Peters Jr. on stage dressed in Wall Street attire talking financials, and CEO Jim Whitehurst in jeans and red shoes talking strategy. Very few large enterprises have similar diversity among top executives, showing a unique corporate culture at Red Hat.
Whitehurst presented Red Hat’s three top priorities: increasing revenues, community development and decreasing costs. It was a refreshing change from other technology vendors who seem primarily focused on cost cutting. Focusing on the community provides Red Hat a unique opportunity to “crowd source” innovation with active participation of customers & partners in the product development process. This approach also benefits customers, assuring them that they have an influence when product features are prioritized.
Cloud Computing: ARM-Based OpenStack Cloud Rigged for Testing
An OpenStack contingent has set up an ARM-based cloud as a zone in TryStack.org, the free five-month-old sandbox, for trying and testing the OpenStack IaaS platform that’s been limited to just an x86 zone running industry-standard hardware up until now.
It’s believed to be the first ARM-based cloud or at least the first OpenStack cloud on ARM. It’s not meant for production use.
The widgetry consists of HP Redstone servers fitted with Calxeda’s ECX-1000 ARM chips running Essex, the latest version of OpenStack, and Canonical’s Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS hosted by Texas service provider Core NAP.
Cloud Computing for Enterprise Applications
“We just announced version 2 of AppStack this week and we added another capability – application marketplace,” noted John Yung, CEO of Appcara, in this SYS-CON.TV interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 10th International Cloud Expo, held June 11–14, 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley, November 5–8, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere available for download From 6fusion.
Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere allows users to meter resource consumption in any VMware vSphere 4.1 or 5.0 environment providing insight into resource consumption – for free right from the VMware console. In addition, new functionality was added to the latest version of Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere based on feedback from beta customers, including:
- Enhanced reporting capabilities such as viewing individual and summary
VM profile reports - Usability and navigation enhancements such as sorting and managing
profiles by Name, Free and Pro - The ability to upgrade from the Free to the Pro version of Cloud
Resource Meter directly within the tool
Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere joins the existing family of 6fusion Cloud Resource Meter products, including Cloud Resource Meter for Linux and Cloud Resource Meter for Windows. You can see a demo of Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere at 1PM ET on Wednesday, August 1st – register here.
“Cloud Resource Meter provides us a powerful and simple way to centralize and aggregate our customers usage information for billing and reporting of our Cloud Continuity services,” said Omar Torres, Director of Virtualization & Cloud Solutions at Veristor. “Through the secure, web-based console we are able to accurately track our customers usage without having to invest in and run our own metering infrastructure. This brings us a number of valuable efficiencies to how we operate and service our cloud customers.”
“6fusion believes metering IT consumption across heterogeneous environments is fundamental to optimizing any IT infrastructure,” said John Cowan, Co-Founder and CEO of 6fusion. “Cloud Resource Meter for VMware vSphere gives organizations unprecedented insights into how their IT resources are actually being used, who is using those resources, and they can improve the business value they are delivering.”
Cloud Resource Meter is available in two models – Free and Pro. Cloud Resource Meter Free provides the ability to meter and view the last 28 days of data directly in the vSphere interface or in the 6fusion UC6 Console. The Pro version provides the full capabilities of the tool, including unlimited metering, expanded reporting capabilities, technical support as well as the ability to access 6fusion’s enhanced analytics tools.
How do you calculate the ROI on cloud security costs?
What is it they say…you get what you pay for, right? In most cases, that is a spot on assessment but in terms of the cloud-based security, the numbers tend to add up towards the benefit of the user. But let’s get the whole idea of numbers down straight. It’s all relative.
What is pricy for one organization is downright affordable to another, so in terms of costs let’s look squarely at the moving target of return on investment. What makes cloud security compelling is how the costs break down in terms of hard and soft cost savings.
First let’s compare apples to apples. I am not talking about just applying a single sign on solution or identity management, or even SIEM, but rather analyzing cloud security holistically. Each of these components are a growing necessity for any company who deals with proprietary data, responsibly …
Compliant Cloud includes all products, services required to keep cloud infrastructures compliant with PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001/2
Image via CrunchBase
Compliant Cloud includes all the necessary products and services required to keep cloud infrastructures secure and compliant with PCI DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001/2 and other regulations and standards.
US companies remain concerned over lingering data security risks with new cloud-based applications – and as a result, they lag behind Asia-Pacific and Latin American companies in the adoption of cloud computing by nearly two to one, according to a recent report in Forbes magazine. ControlCase has developed a solution to alleviate these security issues and allow US companies to confidently leverage the latest cloud-based systems.
ControlCase has partnered with leading cloud-based technology providers to make this elegant package of solutions complete and comprehensive; Skydera provides an easy-to-use management interface, while Amazon hosts the service securely and reliably.
The Compliant Cloud service is incorporated into ControlCase’s unique Compliance as a Service (CaaS) platform, the industry-changing solution that provides one convenient source for a complete and continuous suite of compliance and security services, including internal and external security testing, 24/7/365 data log monitoring and alerting, policy management, training and certification.
ControlCase’s development of the Compliant Cloud service represents the strength of the company’s broader vision to help organizations achieve compliance more quickly, more consistently. “With the proliferation of cloud usage, it is only natural that our clients worry about the security and compliance of their current or intended use of cloud-based applications,” explained CEO Kishor Vaswani. “ControlCase has made it easier for our clients to adopt these new technologies by solving the security and compliance needs of their cloud infrastructures.”
For more information about ControlCase and the Compliant Cloud service, visit www.controlcase.com or call 703.483.6383.
Fun with Neologism in the Cloud Era
Having spent the last several blog posts on more serious considerations about cloud computing and the new IT era, I decided to lighten things up a bit. The term “cloud” has bothered me from the first time I heard it uttered, as the concept and definition are as nebulous as, well a cloud. In the intervening years, when thoroughly boring my wife and friends with shop talk about the “cloud,” I came to realize that in order for cloud computing to become mainstream, “it” needs to have some way to translate to the masses.
Neologism is the process of creating new words using existing or combinations of existing words to form a more descriptive term. In our industry neologisms have been used extensively, although many of us do not realize how these terms got coined. For example, the word “blog” is a combination of web and log. “Blog” was formed over time as the lexicon was adopted. It began with a new form of communicating across the Internet, known as a web log. “Web log” become “we blog” simply by moving the space between words one to the left. Now, regardless of who you talk to, the term “blog” is pretty much a fully formed concept. Similarly, the term “Internet” is a combination of “inter” (between) and “network”, hence meaning between networks.
Today, the term “cloud” has become so overused that confusion reigns (get it?) over everyone.
Cloudable – meaning something that is conducive to leveraging cloud. As in: “My CRM application is cloudable “ or “We want to leverage data protection that includes cloudable capabilities”
Cloudiac – someone who is a huge proponent of cloud services. A combination of “Cloud” and “Maniac”, as in: “There were cloudiacs everywhere at Interop. “ In the not too distant future, we very well may see parallels to the “Trekkie” phenomena. Imagine a bunch of middle-aged IT professionals running around in costumes made of giant cotton-balls and cardboard lightning bolts.
Cloudologist – an expert in cloud solutions. Different from a Cloudiac, the Cloudologist actually has experience in developing and utilizing cloud based services. This will lead to master’s degree programs in Cloudology.
Cloutonomous – maintaining your autonomy over your systems and data in the cloud. “I may be in the Cloud but I make sure I’m cloutonomous.” Could refer to the consumer of the cloud services not being tied into long term services commitments that may inhibit their ability to move services in the event of a vendor failing to hit SLAs.
Cloud crawl – actions related to monitoring or reviewing your various cloud services. “I went cloud crawling today and everything was sweet.” Off-take of the common “pub crawl,” just not as fun and with no lingering after-effects.
Counter-cloud – a reference to the concept of “counter culture,” which dates back to hippie days of the 60s and 70s. In this application, it would describe a person or business that is against utilizing cloud services mainly because it is the new trend, or because they feel that it’s the latest government conspiracy to control the world.
Global Clouding – IT’s version of Global Warming, except in this case the world isn’t becoming uninhabitable, IT is just becoming a bit fuzzy around the edges. What will IT be like with the advent of Global Clouding?
Clackers – Cloud and Hacker. Clackers are those nefarious, shadowy figures that focus on disruption of cloud services. This “new” form of hacker will concentrate on capturing data in transit, traffic disruption/re-direction (i.e. DNS Changer anyone?), and platform incursion.
Because IT is so lexicon heavy, building up a stable of Cloud-based terminology is inevitable, and potentially beneficial in focusing the terminology further. Besides, as Cloudiacs will be fond of saying… “resistance is futile.”
Do you have any Neologisms of your own? I’d love to hear some!