Remember the Maginot line and how powerful and defensive it was going to be… And then the Germans just bypassed it? Remember the West Wall, where the Allies were going to throw themselves against in the waning days of World War II… And then it was not just pierced but effectively eliminated as a protective barrier in five days of fighting?
That’s what happens when you know you need a defense, and you place all of your eggs in one basket. At least in the IT world a little caution can save you a lot. Here’s a cautionary tale. We trust SSL explicitly, but from a “download random app X” perspective, that’s a mistake.
It’s Official: Dell To Acquire Quest for $2.4BN
“With this transaction,” said Vinny Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of Quest Software, “Quest’s products and employees become the foundation for Dell’s critical software business.” Smith’s statement came as Dell and Quest today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for Dell to acquire Quest.
Google-Backed CliQr Moves Legacy Apps to Cloud
CliQr Technologies, a cloud management start-up modestly seeded by Google Ventures and Foundation Capital and now part of Google’s new IaaS Compute Engine initiative, says it can put complicated legacy business apps in the cloud fast and painlessly.
It was started by an ex-VMware guy Gaurav Manglik, its CEO.
It’s got widgetry called Cloud Center that’s supposed to let mission-critical x86 Windows- and Linux-based apps get to the cloud and hop from one cloud to another without modification, thumbing their nose at service provider lock-in and the chance of downtime and maybe figuring out where it runs best.
6 things you should know before your move to the Cloud
Strategies that suggest running company servers from data centres (Cloud Computing) are not a new concept to businesses. But as time has gone on, this strategy has now become a viable alternative to SMEs, providing a number of attractive benefits. As a result, many companies are actively turning to cloud-based strategies rather than merely refreshing server hardware.
But frustratingly – and perhaps inexcusably considering the huge volumes of ink dedicated to the serious considerations of pursuing a cloud strategy – too many companies are making costly mistakes, forcing Marcie Terman, Business Development Director at DataFort, to vent and highlight – once and for all – the six most important areas of risk to consider when making such a major step.
1) Risks around service continuity:
Commodity services – those ‘off the shelf’, cheap solutions – will often neglect to make any mention of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) concerning service continuity. But you must understand the risk …
Storms take Amazon cloud down – were you affected?
In the week that the International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency reported worldwide cloud outages cost at least £45m over five years, the all-encompassing Amazon EC2 Cloud was down on Friday night due to heavy storms in Virginia.
From approximately 2300 EST on Friday users were unable to access various sites utilising the Amazon infrastructure cloud, including Pinterest, Netflix and Instagram.
It’s certainly more proof that real clouds can have an effect on cloud computing. This particular storm was deadly, with the death toll as high as 17 across eastern America.
Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) status board is a healthy sea of green as of Monday morning, but July 30 and 31 was a different story in the North America region with the EC2, Relational Database Service (RDS) and Elastic Beanstalk clouds in Virginia affected across both days.
A statement from AWS at 2321 EST on Friday said …
Google Compute Engine – Should Amazon Be Worried?
I have been following the blogosphere and Twitterati ever since the Google IaaS announcement came out officially. Within 24 hours, there have been umpteen number of articles, posts and tweets about how Google is all set to take Amazon head on! Almost 90% of the articles mentioned that Google is ready to lock horns with […]
PerspecSys Breaks Down Security Concerns Inhibiting Cloud Adoption
PerspecSys is a privately held company based in Toronto, Canada that specializes in eliminating the security barriers that inhibit enterprise companies from embracing cloud computing. Many companies want to move to the cloud for operational business purposes but are concerned about how to protect their mission critical data along the way. The PerspecSys solution allows organizations to encrypt or tokenize information before it leaves their environment, so they can make the move to the cloud knowing that their sensitive business data remains protected and in their control.
Google Compute Engine – Not AWS Killer (Yet)
Google launched its new “Google Compute Engine” yesterday at I/O. Here’s more info about GCE on the Google Developer’s Blog, and a nice analysis by Ben Kepes on CloudAve. If “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” then it’s clear the guys at Google hold the Amazon Web Services EC2 in very high regard. In many ways, GCE is a really good copy of EC2 circa 2007/2008. There are some differences – like really great encryption for data at rest and in motion – but essentially GCE is a copy of EC2 4-5 years ago.
Open Clouds at Red Hat
Red Hat has been making steady progress toward what is shaping up as a fairly interesting cloud strategy. Building on their Deltacloud API abstraction layer and their CloudForms IaaS software, a hybrid cloud model is starting to emerge. Add to this their OpenShift PaaS system, and you can see that Red Hat is assembling a lot of key components. Let’s add the fact that Red Hat has gotten very involved with OpenStack, providing an interesting dynamic with CloudForms.
Explaining Cloud Services in Layman’s Terms
Everywhere you look, smart IT companies all over the world are touting Cloud Computing as the future of the IT industry. But here is the thing, for all the hotness of the term, what does Cloud even mean?