As the cloud industry matures, AWS (among other major companies) is quickly becoming part of what many pundits are pointing to when they reference infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). With its scale and wide spread use, one could argue that AWS is the definitional IaaS platform.

While not rare by any measure, pure IaaS consumption is not the sole method for infrastructure delivery. Managed hosting, colocation, and internal data centers are all part of a fully considered approach to IaaS.

With so much variation among how companies utilize the platform, one can’t help but wonder what comes next. Is IaaS always going to be consumed the way it is right now?

As we noted in our recent coverage of AWS re:Invent conference, AWS’ move towards virtual desktops is a particularly interesting sign.

IaaS typically requires a certain level of automation, especially for services like AWS that does not  provide any support …

Enterprises are building an API First strategy to keep up with their customer needs, and provide resources and services that go beyond the confines of enterprise. With this shift to using APIs as an extension of their enterprise IT, the key challenge still remains choosing the right deployment model.
Even with bullet-proof technology from a leading provider, your results could be disastrous if you start off with a wrong deployment model. Consider developer scale, innovation, incurring costs, complexity of API platform management, etc. On the other hand, forcing internal developers to hop out to the cloud to get API metadata when your internal API program is just starting is an exercise leading to inefficiency and inconsistencies.

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Avago Technologies Limited and LSI Corporation on Monday announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Avago will acquire LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 billion. The acquisition creates a highly diversified semiconductor market leader with approximately $5 billion in annual revenues by adding enterprise storage to Avago’s existing wired infrastructure, wireless and industrial businesses. The combined company will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities created by the rapid increases in data center IP and mobile data traffic.

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Avago Technologies Limited and LSI Corporation on Monday announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Avago will acquire LSI for $11.15 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $6.6 billion. The acquisition creates a highly diversified semiconductor market leader with approximately $5 billion in annual revenues by adding enterprise storage to Avago’s existing wired infrastructure, wireless and industrial businesses. The combined company will be strongly positioned to capitalize on the growing opportunities created by the rapid increases in data center IP and mobile data traffic.

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Either you’ve outgrown your server space or you’re a brand new company that needs to find a data center. What do you do? Shopping for a data center seems like a daunting process and it really can be, but if you know what to look for, you’ll find the right place in no time.
First, you need to find a reputable broker and figure out your list of data center requirements, so the broker knows what kind of data centers to look for.
The specific requirements are where it gets a bit tricky. Let’s break it down:
You need to ask yourself how much power your current hardware uses. The average cabinet in a SingleHop data center ranges from 5-7 kw a cabinet. To put that into perspective, the average household alone uses 5 kw.

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Either you’ve outgrown your server space or you’re a brand new company that needs to find a data center. What do you do? Shopping for a data center seems like a daunting process and it really can be, but if you know what to look for, you’ll find the right place in no time.
First, you need to find a reputable broker and figure out your list of data center requirements, so the broker knows what kind of data centers to look for.
The specific requirements are where it gets a bit tricky. Let’s break it down:
You need to ask yourself how much power your current hardware uses. The average cabinet in a SingleHop data center ranges from 5-7 kw a cabinet. To put that into perspective, the average household alone uses 5 kw.

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Reserved Instances offer AWS users an opportunity to dramatically reduce costs. However, properly calculating purchases, allocating costs, and calculating ROI is not easy. Here are five key ideas to help users perform those tasks and optimize their RI usage.
When evaluating RI purchases, it is probably best to start with the basics of using RI within a single account. RI function like coupons. For an upfront fee, the purchaser obtains compute access at discount for the term of the RI. This ‘coupon’ is not assigned to a specific resource. Instead, it is applicable to specific type of resource (defined by class, size, AZ, and platform). The constraint is one of time – a coupon can only be used once during any given hour.

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Reserved Instances offer AWS users an opportunity to dramatically reduce costs. However, properly calculating purchases, allocating costs, and calculating ROI is not easy. Here are five key ideas to help users perform those tasks and optimize their RI usage.
When evaluating RI purchases, it is probably best to start with the basics of using RI within a single account. RI function like coupons. For an upfront fee, the purchaser obtains compute access at discount for the term of the RI. This ‘coupon’ is not assigned to a specific resource. Instead, it is applicable to specific type of resource (defined by class, size, AZ, and platform). The constraint is one of time – a coupon can only be used once during any given hour.

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It is difficult to anticipate cloud failures from the service provider. However, one way to protect your business from the availability and reliability related issues of cloud service providers is to invest in what is called a “cloud of clouds”. This is a network scenario where cloud based service providers integrate their platform with one another to build a topography that is seamless and works as a single entity for all purposes relating to data and infrastructure. Such a network protects the end user from any outage or service closure of the provider.

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It is difficult to anticipate cloud failures from the service provider. However, one way to protect your business from the availability and reliability related issues of cloud service providers is to invest in what is called a “cloud of clouds”. This is a network scenario where cloud based service providers integrate their platform with one another to build a topography that is seamless and works as a single entity for all purposes relating to data and infrastructure. Such a network protects the end user from any outage or service closure of the provider.

read more