Archivo de la categoría: Infrastructure as a Service

Amazon Web Services, AWS, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Platform as a service, Rackspace, Software as a service

Rackspace ups AWS functionality and support, becomes authorised reseller

AWSManaged hosting provider Rackspace has announced a ramped up suite of products featuring enhanced support and functionality with Amazon Web Services.

The agreement with AWS, announced at re:Invent in Las Vegas this week, will see Rackspace launch managed service offerings including tools, expertise, application management and operational support for AWS Cloud. “Fanatical Support for AWS” is the core service offering featured as part of the agreement, with three beta offerings supplementing the managed service – Managed Security for AWS, Compliance Assistance for AWS and Managed Cloud for Adobe Experience Manager.

Through Fanatical Support, Rackspace tells its customers to “leave the heavy lifting to us” as it claims to take care of migration, architecture, security and operations for companies looking to adopt AWS for application hosting.

Rackspace has also become an authorised reseller at AWS, as well as a managed services partner, and has joined the AWS Partner Network. CEO Taylor Rhodes spoke about the announcement on the company’s blog page.

“Over the past year, more and more of them [customers] have told us that they love Rackspace expertise and Fanatical Support, and would like to get it for the workloads that they prefer to run on AWS,” he said. “We have spent the past several months working with those customers and with AWS, to create the best managed-service offering on that platform.”

Rhodes went on to say that AWS adds to Rackspace’s existing commitment to support a number of other platforms.

“We help businesses tap the power of the cloud without the pain and expense of managing it all themselves,” he said. “We have gone deep on support for platforms such as OpenStack, Microsoft and VMware. Our success in leading the managed cloud market for those technologies has been validated by industry experts such as Gartner, and most importantly, by our 300,000-plus business customers.”

Finally, Rhodes then highlighted how Fanatical Support has evolved with today’s announcements, and how it will benefit various customer segments.  He claims it will appeal to businesses that have desired AWS integration with existing Fanatical Support functionality; for rapidly growing businesses needing to outsource some IT functionality in order to reallocate technical resource to other areas; and for customers new to both AWS and Rackspace.

Meanwhile, AWS’s VP of worldwide partner ecosystem Terry Wise, welcomed Rackspace’s increased integration and functionality of AWS.

“We’re pleased to see Rackspace support AWS customers and achieve membership in the AWS Managed Service Program,” he said. “A growing number of businesses who want the benefit of the AWS Cloud will find value in working with AWS Managed Service Partners like Rackspace. We have been impressed with Rackspace’s commitment to include beta customers in their AWS managed services offerings, along with certifying a large number of their technical staff.”

Carrenza, gov.uk, Government, IaaS, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, Public Sector

Carrenza claims it’s now top cloud host for UK government digital service

gov.ukUK cloud service provider Carrenza has announced it is now providing the majority of hosting for the government digital service (GDS) as it made the production and staging environments for the Gov.UK site live on its cloud infrastructure.

Gov.uk has now rationalised hundreds of individual web sites for government departments and public bodies and concentrated the traffic for 24 ministerial departments and 28 other organisations according to Carrenza.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider Carrenza was initially asked to provide the infrastructure for Gov.UK’s preview operation in 2013 but, it claims, once it opened a second UK data centre its role was expanded. Carrenza rents capacity in Slough and London from data centre operators Equinix and Level 3.

Carrenza runs its IaaS and platform as a service (PaaS) offerings on a VMware-based cloud built on HP servers and HP 3PAR SAN storage which, it says, supports a range of operating systems, application and database technologies that includes “pretty much anything that runs on X86 architecture”. After Carrenza achieved official security accreditation the GDS moved the majority of Gov.Uk’s staging and production systems to the Carrenza Cloud, which has now received 2 billion visits, it says.

GDS originally found Carrenza through the G-Cloud III framework and a competitive tendering process. A major consideration for any cloud service provider, when pitching for contracts with the GDS, is a commitment to open source technology, according to Carrenza CEO Dan Sutherland.

Carrenza was chosen for Gov.UK because its custom software was developed in-house at GDS which needed to source cloud hosting and support for its flagship website.

“The launch of Gov.uk was a significant milestone,” said Sutherland. Open source has underpinned open dialogue and is helping to change and improve the way government communicates with its citizens, according to Sutherland.

Any cloud service provider wanting to win government contracts needs to concentrate on communicating with them, according to Andrew Mellish, Carrenza’s Head of Public Sector Services. “Our team understands what GDS is trying to achieve and how best to deliver the technologies they are using,” said Mellish, “when someone from GDS calls one of our engineers, they know they are speaking to someone who gets it and will work with them as efficiently as possible.”

Apache, Apple, Infrastructure as a Service, Mesos, News & Analysis

Apple allegedly planning to unify web services on Mesos open source infrastructure

Mesos logoNews of significant numbers of Apple device crashes have fuelled industry speculation that Apple is planning to unify its variety of online services into one open source system built on Mesos infrastructure software.

According to web site The Information Apple is recruiting open source engineers. The recruitment could support a strategy to pull all its web services, including iCloud and iTunes, out of their separate technical silos and looking to merge them into one cohesive whole. Apple is said to be concerned about the lack of interoperability between Apple’s online services.

The plan to run internet applications across an ‘orchestrated infrastructure’ could be disruptive in more ways than one, according to Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom.

“It’s a good idea that would enable Apple to more closely integrate various capabilities and offer new services around search, buy and store function,” said Longbottom. “The two main problems are around migrating all existing services over, and in ensuring high availability for all services when they are all in the same basket.”

According to Reuters, significant numbers of Apple customers are reporting their mobile devices have crashed as they tried to upload the new iOS 9 operating system. This is the latest in a number of technical challenges Apple is facing as its cloud software portfolio becomes more ambitious and difficult to manage, according to Sergio Galindo, General Manager at developer GFI Software, “The rollout of iOS 9 is an ambitious project, particularly as Apple has maintained support for devices that are elderly, in smartphone terms. Devices such as the iPhone 4s are significantly different and underpowered compared to more recent iterations,” said Galindo.

According to GFI’s own research, Apple’s OS X and iOS were the software systems platforms with the most exploitable vulnerabilities, closely followed by the Linux kernel. iOS was found to have significantly more flaws than conventional desktop and server Windows installations.

“Software glitches, vulnerabilities and compatibility issues in an embedded device such as a phone create a challenging user experience,” said Galindo. “This is why testing of new updates before allowing users to update their phones and tablets is essential. Applied to a business context, it is important for IT departments to ensure users do not put their devices or the corporate network at risk.”

Blue Box, Cloudsoft, Duncan Johnston-Watt, IBM, Infrastructure as a Service, Jesse Proudman, News & Analysis

IBM boosts OpenStack cloud presence with Blue Box integration

IBM has integrated Blue Box, which offers managed private OpenStack clouds on-premise, into its own datacentres

IBM has integrated Blue Box, which offers managed private OpenStack clouds on-premise, into its own datacentres

Less than a few months after buying the managed OpenStack-based private cloud provider Blue Box IBM announced it has integrated the company’s technology into its SoftLayer infrastructure.

IBM customers now have access to Blue Box’s dedicated cloud offering through its cloud datacentres, which the company is pitching as a way to complement and ease provisioning of resources in the public cloud.

The company also announced that Cloudsoft, an open source application management company, will operate its Application Management Platform (AMP) via Blue Box Cloud.

“I’ve been impressed by the way the IBM and Blue Box engineering teams have collaborated to quickly bring Blue Box Cloud to a worldwide infrastructure platform,” said Jesse Proudman, chief technology officer at Blue Box. “Today, we’ve taken a big step toward our goal of delivering private clouds to customers anywhere in the world—and we’re offering deployment timelines that are unheard of within traditional private cloud.”

Duncan Johnston-Watt, chief executive of Cloudsoft said: “Implementing Cloudsoft AMP on Blue Box Cloud across IBM Cloud datacentres will allow us to meet the increased demand from customers for hybrid cloud solutions built on OpenStack. The combination of Blue Box’s best-in-class OpenStack service and IBM Cloud’s global footprint and legendary private network will enable us to model, deploy and manage our customers’ business critical applications and services worldwide.”

Alibaba, AWS, Azure, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, NTT Com

NTT Com to provide private links to AWS, Azure

NTT Com is getting into the cloud interconnection service game

NTT Com is getting into the cloud interconnection service game

NTT Com has launched a multi-cloud connect service that will provide direct private links to leading public cloud providers’ infrastructure including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

The Multi-Cloud Connect service, which is being pitched as an optional feature for NTT Com’s Arcstar Universal One, lets users access various public cloud services through its MPLS network.

The company, which already offers a range of cloud services under its own brand and through a range of subsidiaries, said that while a growing number of its customers are shifting workloads onto public cloud platforms variable network performance and cybersecurity are still inhibiting widespread adoption.

The Multi-Cloud Connect service will initially offer direct access to Microsoft Azure and AWS cloud platforms in Tokyo this week, followed by London later this year.

NTT Com is among a growing number of datacentre providers leveraging their network and real-estate for cloud interconnection services.

Earlier this Summer Equinix, an NTT Com competitor, added Alibaba to its cloud interconnection service, Cloud Exchange, which already boasts close to 100 cloud providers. In July BT redoubled its Cloud of Clouds initiative, which is already being deployed from about 20 facilities globally and a further 30 third-party datacentres operated by other cloud providers. And last year, Digital Realty announced a deal with Zayo enabling the datacentre operator offer low-latency connections to over 20 cloud platforms.

Amazon, AWS, Chef, Infrastructure as a Service, Intel, News & Analysis, Werner Vogels

AWS goes hipster, plans pop-up shop in London

AWS is opening a pop-up shop in London following other openings in San Fran and NYC

AWS is opening a pop-up shop in London following other openings in San Fran and NYC

Amazon Web Services has announced plans to take its AWS Pop-up Loft programme to London in early September in a bid to reach out to local UK startups.

The temporary shops will be a place where developers, engineers and entrepreneurs can come to learn about AWS services, get trained up on the company’ services, meet clients, and receive guidance on cloud migration.

The company has opened similar pop-up shops in in San Francisco and New York City, but the most recently announced shop, which is due to open September 10, is the company’s first crack at it outside the US.

The UK is a hotbed of innovation and London is one of the main places where we see talented, ambitious entrepreneurs coming together to test ideas and start new businesses that leverage cloud computing,” said Werner Vogels, chief technical officer and vice president, Amazon.com.

“With the AWS Pop-up Loft in London we will be bringing together a host of AWS resources, and some of the brightest and most creative minds in the industry, to help startups across the UK. We look forward to working alongside the next generation of UK businesses and helping them to reach their full potential,” Vogels said.

Intel and Chef will also be supporting the pop-up shop.

Patrick Bliemer, managing director, Intel Northern Europe said: “The startup community is a fundamental driver of technology innovations fuelling the rapid growth of the digital services economy. Intel is excited to be working closely with AWS on the AWS Pop-up Loft program to help enable environments around the world where users have access to the tools and expert guidance they need to bring new ideas and innovations to market.”

Alibaba, Aliyun, Asia Pacific, Datacentre, Equinix, Infrastructure as a Service, Intel, Meeras, News & Analysis, PCCW, Singapore, Singtel

Alibaba to set up cloud datacentre, HQ in Singapore

Alibaba is adding a datacentre in Singapore, where it will also place its international HQ

Alibaba is adding a datacentre in Singapore, where it will also place its international HQ

Alibaba’s cloud computing division Aliyun revealed plans to set up a datacentre in Singapore, where it also plans to base its overseas business headquarters.

The Singapore datacentre, its seventh globally, will host the company’s growing suite of cloud services and link up with its existing datacentres in Beijing, Hangzhou, Qingdao, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Silicon Valley.

“The cloud datacentre in Singapore is a key milestone in our strategy to help businesses of all sizes innovate and scale, wherever they are based, and however they choose to grow,” said Sicheng Yu, vice president of Aliyun. “Aliyun offers a unique combination of services for success in the cloud, including high-volume cloud-based transaction support and quality assurance for cloud computing services.”

Singapore will also be home to the company’s international headquarters, where its global business outside of China will be managed.

Aliyun claims demand for its cloud services is growing at a whopping 82 per cent, with revenues from its cloud services more than doubling year on year. The company said it has over 1.8 million cloud customers as of June this year.

Last month Aliyun’s parent Alibaba announced plans to plough $1bn into its cloud computing division, which cloud give it the scale it needs to compete more effectively with the likes of Amazon and Google. In addition to the Singapore datacentre, which is scheduled to go live in September this year, the company also plans to add cloud datacentres in the Middle East, Japan, and in various countries in Europe as part of that investment.

At the time the company said it also plans to use the funds to expand its partnerships through its recently announced Marketplace Alliance Program, a move that sees it partnering with large tech and datacentre operators, initially including Intel, Singtel, Meeras, Equinix and PCCW among others to help localise its cloud computing services and grow its ecosystem.

Fujitsu, Hardware, Infrastructure as a Service, News & Analysis, OpenStack, Primeflex, Radhesh Balakrishnan, Red Hat, server, Vendor

Fujitsu, Red Hat partner on OpenStack-based private clouds

Red Hat and Fujitsu are partnering to develop OpenStack converged infrastructure solutions

Red Hat and Fujitsu are partnering to develop OpenStack converged infrastructure solutions

Fujitsu and Red Hat have jointly developed a dedicated solution to simplify the creation of OpenStack private clouds.

The Primeflex is a converged compute and storage combines Fujitsu’s server technology with Red Hat OpenStack and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform software, and backed by Fujitsu’s professional services outfit.

The companies said the OpenStack-based converged offering will speed up cloud deployment.

Harald Bernreuther, director global infrastructure solutions at Fujitsu said: “Primeflex for Red Hat OpenStack can underpin any organisation’s plan to transform their business model by leveraging cloud computing. By opting for an OpenStack-based solution, organisations can run new cloud-scale workloads while also optimising costs.

“Primeflex for Red Hat OpenStack extends the philosophy of cost optimisation, through simplifying system maintenance and consolidating technology updates across the entire system stack, all the way from the underlying hardware through to the operating system,” Bernreuther said.

Red Hat said there is value in driving strong integration between software and hardware in the cloud space.

“OpenStack is a rapidly-growing, open source cloud infrastructure platform that is cost-effective, open, flexible and highly scalable,” said Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, OpenStack, Red Hat.

“We are excited about Fujitsu’s offering based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform to deliver private cloud infrastructure solutions and we look forward to continuing the collaboration to provide customers with an innovative cloud platform for digital business initiatives,” he said.

Red Hat isn’t the only OpenStack vendor boosting its converged infrastructure strategy as of late. In July Mirantis unveiled plans to work with a range of vendors, initially Dell and Juniper, to deliver OpenStack-based converged infrastructure solutions for enterprises.

IBM, Infrastructure as a Service, Jim Zemlin, Linux, mainframes, News & Analysis, server, Tom Rosamilia

IBM announces Linux mainframe app development cloud

IBM is trying to keep mainframes relevant in the cloud era

IBM is trying to keep mainframes relevant in the cloud era

IBM is open sourcing a large set of Linux mainframe code and launching the LinuxONE Developer Cloud, a cloud-based platform for developers to create applications for a Linux server based on the mainframe.

The LinuxONE Developer Cloud, which will be deployed in select IBM datacentres globally, will provide developers access to a cloud-based development, piloting and testing environment for Linux-based mainframe workloads.

The move coincides with the company’s launch of a portfolio of Linux mainframe services, called LinuxONE, that IBM says are optimised to run cloud-native workloads like Dockerized apps and NoSQL databases.

“Fifteen years ago IBM surprised the industry by putting Linux on the mainframe, and today more than a third of IBM mainframe clients are running Linux,” said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president, IBM Systems.

“We are deepening our commitment to the open source community by combining the best of the open world with the most advanced system in the world in order to help clients embrace new mobile and hybrid cloud workloads. Building on the success of Linux on the mainframe, we continue to push the limits beyond the capabilities of commodity servers that are not designed for security and performance at extreme scale,” Rosamilia said.

As part of the move the company is contributing tens of thousands of lines of code to the recently created Open Mainframe Project, formed by the Linux Foundation to optimise Linux deployments on mainframes.

“Linux on the mainframe has reached a critical mass such that vendors, users and academia need a neutral forum where they can work together to advance Linux tools and technologies and increase enterprise innovation,” said Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation executive director.

“The Open Mainframe Project is a direct response to the demands of Linux users and the supporting open source ecosystem to address unique features and requirements built into mainframes for security, availability and performance,” Zemlin said.

Infrastructure as a Service, Managed cloud services, News & Analysis, Rackspace, Taylor Rhodes

Rackspace to add AWS to Fanatical Support services

Rhodes: "We are positioned to become the dominant service provider for these cloud platforms"

Rhodes: “We are positioned to become the dominant service provider for these cloud platforms”

Rackspace is currently developing a Fanatical Support offering for AWS customers, the company’s latest move aimed at shifting its business towards managed cloud services.

Speaking about the company’s second quarter financial results earlier this week Rackspace president and chief exec Taylor Rhodes said the company plans to extend its Fanatical Support and managed cloud services to the AWS platform “later this year.”

“As I’ve advised you in earlier calls, we don’t expect significant revenue for managed services on other cloud providers in 2015, but we’re excited about the prospects for this business. We estimate that the addressable market is in the multiple billions of dollars annually and is growing in the high-double digits,” Rhodes explained in a call with analysts and journalists.

“Because of our scale and reputation for Fanatical Support, we are positioned to become the dominant service provider for these cloud platforms,” he said.

The new comes about a month after Rackspace announced it would extend its Fanatical Support services to Microsoft Azure’s public and private cloud infrastructure. The company said customers will be able to buy either bundled Azure infrastructure with support, or just support services. The offerings will be available first in the US, with plans for an international rollout “through early 2016.”