Monitoring of Docker environments is challenging. Why? Because each container typically runs a single process, has its own environment, utilizes virtual networks, or has various methods of managing storage. Traditional monitoring solutions take metrics from each server and applications they run. These servers and applications running on them are typically very static, with very long uptimes. Docker deployments are different: a set of containers may run many applications, all sharing the resources of one or more underlying hosts. It’s not uncommon for Docker servers to run thousands of short-term containers (e.g., for batch jobs) while a set of permanent services runs in parallel. Traditional monitoring tools not used to such dynamic environments are not suited for such deployments. On the other hand, some modern monitoring solutions (e.g. SPM from Sematext) were built with such dynamic systems in mind and even have out of the box reporting for docker monitoring. Moreover, container resource sharing calls for stricter enforcement of resource usage limits, an additional issue you must watch carefully. To make appropriate adjustments for resource quotas you need good visibility into any limits containers have reached or errors they have caused. We recommend using alerts according to defined limits; this way you can adjust limits or resource usage even before errors start happening.
In-Stream Processing Cures the Batch Processing Blues | @CloudExpo #BI #Cloud #BigData
Most of us have moved our web and e-commerce operations to the cloud, but we are still getting sales reports and other information we need to run our business long after the fact. We sell a hamburger on Tuesday, you might say, but don’t know if we made money selling it until Friday. That’s because we still rely on Batch processing, where we generate orders, reports, and other management-useful pieces of data when it’s most convenient for the IT department to process them, rather than in real time. That was fine when horse-drawn wagons made our deliveries, but it is far too slow for today’s world, where stock prices and other bits of information circle the world (literally) at the speed of light. It’s time to move to In-Stream Processing. You can’t – and shouldn’t – keep putting it off.
Cloud Deployment: Slow and Thoughtful Wins the Race | @CloudExpo #Cloud #APM #Monitoring
This recent research on cloud computing from the Register delves a little deeper than many of the “We’re all adopting cloud!” surveys we’ve seen. They found that meaningful cloud adoption and the idea of the cloud-first enterprise are still not reality for many businesses. The Register’s stats also show a more gradual cloud deployment trend over the past five years, not any sort of explosion. One important takeaway is that coherence across internal and external clouds is essential for IT right now. That translates into tasks like planning better cloud management and application and platform integrations.
[slides] Multi-Cloud #DevOps | @CloudExpo @Valb00 @NetApp @SolidFire #AI
All clouds are not equal. To succeed in a DevOps context, organizations should plan to develop/deploy apps across a choice of on-premise and public clouds simultaneously depending on the business needs. This is where the concept of the Lean Cloud comes in – resting on the idea that you often need to relocate your app modules over their life cycles for both innovation and operational efficiency in the cloud.
In his session at @DevOpsSummit at19th Cloud Expo, Valentin (Val) Bercovici, CTO of SolidFire, discussed how to leverage this concept to seize on the creativity and business agility to make it real.
The Disruptor That Needs Disrupting | @CloudExpo #IoT #M2M #Cloud #DigitalTransformation
Many people mistakenly believe that Al Gore invented the Internet, but in reality it was Tim Berners-Lee. He created URIs, HTTP, HTML, and the first web browser – all critical building blocks that paved the way for the Internet to operate as the ubiquitous, decentralized network for sharing information that we take for granted today. As a result of his contributions to society, it was recently announced that Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded the prestigious Turing Award.
IBM Named “Diamond Sponsor” in NY & CA | @CloudExpo #AI #ML #DevOps
SYS-CON Events announced today that SoftLayer, an IBM Company, has been named “Gold Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 18th Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York, New York. SoftLayer, an IBM Company, provides cloud infrastructure as a service from a growing number of data centers and network points of presence around the world. SoftLayer’s customers range from Web startups to global enterprises.
Cloud Computing: Is Your Cloud Getting Smarter? ‘Power Panel | @CloudExpo #Cloud #Analytics #CognitiveComputing
Automation is enabling enterprises to design, deploy, and manage more complex, hybrid cloud environments. Yet the people who manage these environments must be trained in and understanding these environments better than ever before. A new era of analytics and cognitive computing is adding intelligence, but also more complexity, to these cloud environments. How smart is your cloud? How smart should it be?
In this power panel at 20th Cloud Expo, moderated by Conference Chair Roger Strukhoff, panelists will look at the evolving nature of hybrid cloud, how it affects enterprise IT staffing requirements, and what skills are needed to be successful.
SoftBank leads $16.5m funding round for Dome9 Security
Dome9 Security, an Israeli cloud infrastructure provider, has announced the close of $16.5 million (£12.8m) in series C funding led by Japanese tech giant SoftBank.
Alongside the funding, SoftBank will also be the leading distributor of the Dome9 Arc cloud infrastructure security platform in the Japanese market.
Dome9, which was founded in 2010, aims to provide verifiable infrastructure security for every public cloud, including the primary suspects of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Dome9 Arc is a software as a service platform which enables organisations to visualise their security posture, identify and mitigate risks at all times across public cloud infrastructure environments. The platform also enables greater integration and security for DevOps teams.
The move indicates a further shift by SoftBank towards cloud technologies. In December last year, the company announced a venture alongside Chinese firm Alibaba, offering packaged Alibaba Cloud services for the Japanese market under the name of SB Cloud.
“As enterprise adoption of the cloud continues to accelerate, there is a growing need for cloud-native solutions that simplify security operations and compliance,” said Masayuki Motoshima, director of cyber security business development at SoftBank Corp in a statement. “Dome9’s strong traction in the enterprise market attests to the value the technology delivers, and led to our decision to invest.”
This publication first shone a spotlight on Dome9 in 2011, arguing the company was ‘one of several to crowd an increasingly busy market sector’. The company has won several awards since then, including being named as a 2016 emerging vendor by Computer Reseller News. The company’s total funding now stands at $29 million.
Microsoft Buys Deis
Microsoft wants to expand its cloud computing presence and it believes the best way is to bring in more cloud computing developers into its fold. To this end, it has acquired a cloud container specialist called Deis from a cloud orchestration company called Engine Yard. The financial details have not been disclosed.
Deis is a technology that works well with cloud containers. If you’ve never heard this term before, container means independently deployable code that accomplish a specific task. Each of these containers are discrete and require little to no interaction with other container components. The entire logic for a single functionality is contained within it.
This container is the fundamental building block of virtualization environments. In addition, a container knows how much of processing power it needs and the calls it has to make through the respective Application Programming Interface (API).
These containers are the most essential for an agile cloud-based development environment as they can be quickly deployed when compared to monolithic architecture. Also, microservices architecture that is based on these containers, is catching up in a big way because of the need to have short deployment circles on the cloud and also to overcome the many disadvantages that come with monolithic architecture.
Handling these container components is the cornerstone of Deis’ operations. It provides three open-source tools for managing all kinds of Kubernetes deployments. These three container services are:
- Workflow – this is the technology that allows developers and organizations to deploy and manage container components.
- Helm – this is a Kubernetes manager that handles different components
- Steward – this is a Kubernetes-native broker that enables communication between different containers, on a need basis.
Since Deis specializes in creating such components, it makes sense for Microsoft to bring it under its fold before other companies get to it. Also, such a container-based environment can work well for Azure too, and this is one of the main reasons for Microsoft to make this move. With this acquisition, Microsoft hopes to catch up with AWS in terms of cloud market share.
Also, Microsoft believes this acquisition can give it a lead over other players such as Google and IBM that are fast catching up. Through this move, Microsoft has also filled a gap in cloud skills development and this can give it an edge over other players in the long run, provided other companies continue in the same state of operations.
From Deis perspective, this is the best thing that can happen to it. In general, small companies expect to get acquired by one of the larger players, so being acquired by Microsoft is in many ways an honor for Deis and its parent company Engine Yard.
So what does this acquisition mean for the cloud market as a whole? Well, not much really.
AWS is so widespread and pervasive that it doesn’t see these developments as a threat to its competition and existence. For the others, it’s simply more food to the party.
The post Microsoft Buys Deis appeared first on Cloud News Daily.
Database Performance Analyzer | @CloudExpo @SolarWinds #VM #APM #SDN #Cloud
Quickly find the root cause of complex database problems slowing down your applications. Up to 88% of all application performance issues are related to the database. DPA’s unique response time analysis shows you exactly what needs fixing – in four clicks or less. Optimize performance anywhere. Database Performance Analyzer monitors on-premises, on VMware®, and in the Cloud, including Amazon® AWS and Azure™ virtual machines.