There’s been a cacophony of hyperbole and at times marketing fluff from vendors and analysts with regards to Reference Architectures and Converged Infrastructures. As IBM launched PureSystems, NetApp & Cisco decided it was also a good time to reiterate their strong partnership with FlexPod. In the midst of this, EMC decided to release their new and rather salaciously titled VSPEX. From the remnants and ashes of all these new product names and fancy launch conferences, the resultant war blogs and Twitterati battles ensued. As I poignantly watched on from the trenches in an almost Siegfried Sassoon moment, it was quickly becoming evident that there was now an even more ambiguous understanding of what distinguishes a Converged Infrastructure from a Reference Architecture, what it’s relation was with the Private Cloud and more importantly whether you, the end user should even care.
Using an In-Memory Data Grid to Scale Cloud-Based Apps at Cloud Expo NY
The elastic resources offered by cloud computing have created an exciting opportunity for applications to handle very large workloads. However, writing applications that span an elastic pool of virtual servers creates huge challenges for developers. How can these virtual servers easily and efficiently share application data while avoiding scaliability bottlenecks? The answer lies in using in-memory data grids (IMDGs) to provide a powerful, easy-to-use, and highly scalable storage layer.
IMDGs unlock the potential for application scaling while eliminating the cost and performance impact of using blob stores and database servers. IMDGs also provide a powerful platform for fast data analysis and enable transparent data migration between on-premise sites and the cloud.
Xerox’s Cloud Computing Capabilities to Aid Airline Safety
“Airlines can now leapfrog to the cloud to expedite their communications and do so at costs much lower than maintaining existing mainframe systems,” said Ken Stephens, senior vice president of cloud services, Xerox, as Xerox and AvFinity announced and agreement to provide seamless transmission of flight-critical communication.
“There is no room for error in ensuring safety in the skies,” Stephens added.
Multi Community Cloud Services – Moving Beyond the Community Cloud
Community cloud services are services that are shared by multiple members of a community. They centralize the functions and can provide specific mission requirements. The mission requirements can be related to specific policies and compliance. Community clouds leverage the benefits of a public cloud but can satisfy specific requirements. These are perfect for communities with specific focus areas such as performance, auditing or policies that need to be applied across the community.
A major benefit of community clouds is that many organizations can come together and pitch in for the cost of the cloud. This sharing results in significant savings compared to each organization setting up and supporting their own services. Community cloud is a term that is discussed a lot, but I have a new term for the cloud that combines multiple communities together, «Multi community cloud». Multi Community cloud services span across communities with similar functions and interests. For example, payment cloud services can be used by multiple communities (such as banking, finance, insurance etc) to make payments to individuals and companies, this would fall under multi community cloud services. These services have to be broad enough to encompass the functions of the multiple communities. With the rapid growth of the community cloud, multi community clouds will evolve to a higher level as communities identify and realize the benefits of leveraging many similar capabilities, even though some policies may be different.
Canada Cloud Network – A Triple Helix Design
The idea behind the Canada Cloud Network has been to identify, review and then utilize a number of Innovation Best Practices to design how (and why) this forum works.
In particular one key goal is to implement a ‘Next Generation Cluster‘, a thought leadership piece from Cisco on how the original cluster model from Michael Porter can be upgraded through new Cloud 2.0 technologies.
Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Mårten Mickos – Eucalyptus Systems
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now five weeks away, what better time to introduce you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference…
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else have they written and/or said about the Cloud that is transforming the world of Enterprise IT, side by side with the exploding use of enterprise Big Data – processed in the Cloud – to drive value for businesses…?
Fall is a Season Not the Future of SaaS
I recently read a TechCrunch article titled: The Rise of Big Data Apps and the Fall of SaaS written by Raj De Datta.
I do agree with the prefix. As far as the suffix is concerned, I can only explain why Raj De Datta’s opinion is wrong.
I usually tend not to agree with statements about premature End of Life of technologies or architectures or trends.
In most cases, it easier to kill a concept in writing, than to persuade a large number of users to change their habits.
Cloud Management – Various Solutions and Standards
The growing use of Infrastructure as a Service to run custom applications, SaaS, and PaaS offerings is increasing the demand of management solutions to leverage the automation offered by IaaS. One of the biggest advantages of IaaS is the ability to automate tasks which were not possible before. E.g. a crashed server can be restored with an API call by launching a new instance.
Sun Co-Founder Backs Start-Up That Wants to Be the Visicalc of Big Data
Metamarkets, the analytics start-up that wants to be the “Visicalc of Big Data,” has gotten a $15 million B round led by new investor Khosla Ventures – Vinod was one of Sun’s founders.
Existing backers IA Ventures, True Ventures, Village Ventures and AOL Ventures kicked in. AOL is a customer. Advertising don’t you know
The new money brings total capital raised so far to $23 million. It’s earmarked for product development and sales and marketing. It’s pushing into social media and payment start-ups where the data is massive.
Extending SANs to the Cloud at Cloud Expo New York
While storage area networks (SANs) have become the ubiquitous deployment model for interconnecting data storage systems via high-speed networks such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI, IT administrators are now rethinking the traditional SAN in light of new technologies and economic models enabled by the cloud.
Cloud storage and enterprise-class cloud storage gateways have recently begun to overcome these limitations using a pay-as-you-go cost model, unlimited capacity, multi-site scalability and even cloud-based disaster recovery without dedicated infrastructure and resources.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Nicos Vekiarides, CEO & Co-Founder of TwinStrata, will discuss how Cloud SANs are rapidly becoming a new approach to building and enhancing storage area networks.