As a passionate Cloud Evangelist, I always believe that Cloud is the best companion of the startups. While the Silicon Valley startups are the biggest adopters of the Cloud, it may not be the case in India and other parts of Asia. I am prompted to write this article after a long debate I had […]
HP’s Cloud Object SLA: 99.95% uptime or your money back
The cloud uptime debate rumbles on with Hewlett Packard promising their Cloud Object storage service will have at least 99.95% availability, with customers receiving service credits if it’s down.
The credits, as one would expect, increase the longer the cloud is down.
Customers who experience between 99.95% and 99.9% uptime get 5% of their bill credited; anything above 99.5% gets one tenth credited; while 99.0% gets one fifth of their bill back and if the Object Cloud is down more than 1% of the time, users get 30% of their bill credited.
Hewlett Packard discussed the variation to their service level agreement (SLA) as part of an overall announcement that their Cloud Object Storage and Cloud Content Delivery Network (CDN) was moving to general availability.
Gavin Pratt, senior cloud product manager, said that HP “continuously monitor[s] for downtime”.
“We are deeply committed to …
Cloud Economics, US DoD’s Cloud Plans, Microsoft Office Cloud, and More…
The US Department of Defense has released a four-step plan to expand its use of cloud computing, according to this Federal Times article. The DoD will incentivize the use of cloud computing and train new professionals on how to procure cloud services, in addition to incorporating cloud software and hardware into their data centers. The plan allows for the purchase of both government and commercial cloud solutions.
The next version of Microsoft Office will include social and cloud computing features, according to this PCMag article. Microsoft Office 2013, which will work with touch-screen devices run on Windows 8, will save documents to Microsoft’s SkyDrive and enable access to files from mobile devices.
RightScale acquired the Scottish cloud computing cost forecasting website ShopForCloud, according to this SYS-CON article. The site allows users to access the current pricing of many of the most popular cloud services and shows what a business’s cloud will cost with various architecture models and usage patterns.
Cloud Computing: Encrypting Data in an Infrastructure Cloud
“We do network encryption for data in motion. We have figured out a way to do network encryption without creating point-to-point tunnels and that has profound implications for the performance of the network,” noted Jim Doherty, CMO and SVP of Marketing at Certes Networks, 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 Cruiser to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that Cloud Cruiser, the leading provider of cloud cost intelligence solutions, will exhibit at 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.
Cloud Cruiser delivers a comprehensive suite of applications to map and measure resource usage independent of computing environment, allocating costs based on IT-defined criteria, and providing flexible and in-depth reporting of that usage. Cloud Cruiser enables business intelligence from many different levels and perspectives to give you the optimization and chargeback information that you require for your cloud. No matter where your data resides – on a legacy system, co-location, private cloud, public cloud, or hybrid – or who you are – a cloud provider, cloud manager, financial analyst or end user – Cloud Cruiser is the single solution for your cloud.
Cloud Automation, Real Infrastructure
“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.