Adding public cloud resources to an existing application can be a daunting process. The tools that you currently use to manage the software and hardware outside the cloud aren’t always the best tools to efficiently grow into the cloud. All of the major configuration management tools have cloud orchestration plugins that can be leveraged, but there are also cloud-native tools that can dramatically improve the efficiency of managing your application lifecycle.
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Alex Lovell-Troy, Director of Solutions Engineering at Pythian, will present a roadmap that can be leveraged by any organization to plan, analyze, evaluate, and execute on moving from configuration management tools to cloud orchestration tools. He will address the three major cloud vendors as well as some tools that will work with any cloud.
Experience the Value of @CloudExpo and @ThingsExpo | #IoT #Cloud
Join us at Cloud Expo | @ThingsExpo 2016 – June 7-9 at the Javits Center in New York City and November 1-3 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA – and deliver your unique message in a way that is striking and unforgettable by taking advantage of SYS-CON’s unmatched high-impact, result-driven event / media packages.
The DevOps Toolchain | @DevOpsSummit #DevOps #APM #Microsevices
This week’s top news covers all the necessary tools and practices to successfully adopt DevOps and Continuous Delivery in your organization. As we have been told time and again, changing your team’s culture and organizational structure is key to kick starting a smooth and successful shift towards DevOps. Equally important is having the right tools to implement these practices. Continue reading to learn what tools DevOps and Continuous Delivery experts suggest you use.
Rackspace launches Red Hat driven Private Cloud
Hosting company Rackspace has launched Private Cloud which (as the name suggests) is a private cloud ‘as a service’ built on the foundation of OpenStack technology.
The new offering is an addition to its portfolio of Rackspace OpenStack-as-a-Service offerings, as part of the hosting company’s strategy to simplify and popularise OpenStack private and hybrid clouds.
The service is to be fully managed by OpenStack and Red Hat experts at Rackspace and backed by the company’s ‘Fanatical Support’ team. The offering is backed by a guarantee of 99.99% OpenStack API uptime. Rackspace contributes to Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform by testing and certifying hardware and software compatibility and benchmarking its performance and availability. Rackspace manages and maintains the Red Hat environment including the underlying Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform.
It’s all about making the customer’s infrastructure problems go away, according to Darrin Hanson, vice president and general manager of OpenStack Private Cloud at Rackspace. “We help make OpenStack simple by eliminating the complexity and delivering it as a service to customers in their data centre, a Rackspace data centre or in a colocation facility,” said Hanson.
[session] Cloud HA Options for Database Platforms By @DBAChris | @CloudExpo #Cloud
The cloud competition for database hosts is fierce. How do you evaluate a cloud provider for your database platform?
In his session at 18th Cloud Expo, Chris Presley, a Solutions Architect at Pythian, will give users a checklist of considerations when choosing a provider.
Chris Presley is a Solutions Architect at Pythian. He loves order – making him a premier Microsoft SQL Server expert. Not only has he programmed and administered SQL Server, but he has also shared his expertise and passion with budding DBAs as a SQL Server instructor at Conestoga College in Kitchener, Ontario. Drawing on his strong disaster-recovery skills, he monitors production environments to swiftly detect and resolve problems before they arise. A self-described adrenaline junkie, Chris likes tackling the biggest database problems and putting out the toughest fires – and hitting the road on his motorcycle.
Exponential Docker usage shows container popularity
Adoption of Docker’s containerisation technology has entered a period of explosive growth with its usage numbers nearly doubling in the last three months, according to its latest figures.
A declaration on the company blog reports that Docker has now issued 2 billion ‘pulls’ of images. In November 2015 the usage figure stood at 1.2 bullion pulls and the Docker Hub from which these images are pulled was only launched in March 2013.
Docker’s invention of software defined autonomous complete file system that encapsulates all the elements of a server in microcosm – such as code, runtime, system tools and system libraries – has whetted the appetite of developers in the age of the cloud.
In January 2016, Docker users pulled images nearly 7,000 times per minute, which was four times the run rate a year ago. In that one month Docker enjoyed the equivalent of 15% of its total transaction from the past three years.
The number of ‘pulls’ is significant because each of these transactions indicates that a Docker engine is downloading an image to create containers from it. Development teams use Docker Hub to publish and use containerised software, and automate their delivery. The fact that two billion pulls have now taken place indicates the popularity of the technology and the exponential growth rate in the last three months is an indicator of the growing popularity of this variation of virtualisation.
There are currently over 400,000 registered users on Docker Hub. “Our users span from the largest corporations, to newly-launched startups, to the individual Docker enthusiast and their number is increasing every day,” wrote Docker spokesman and blog author Mario Ponticello.
Around a fifth of Docker’s two billion pulls come from its 93 ‘Official Repos’ – a curated set of images from Docker’s partners, including NGINX, Oracle, Node.js and Cloudbees. Docker’s security-monitoring service Nautilus maintains integrity of the Official Repos over time.
“As our ecosystem grows, we’ll be adding single-click deployment and security scanning to the Docker platform,” said Monticello.
A Rightscale study in January 2016 found that 17% of enterprises now have more than 1,000 virtual machines in the public cloud (up 4% in a year) while private clouds are showing even stronger appetite for virtualisation techniques with 31% of enterprises running more than 1,000 VMs, up from 22% in 2015.
Cloud merits acknowledged but adoption concerns linger – Oracle report
Cloud technology is almost universally acknowledged for its catalysing effect on invention and customer retention, according to new research from Oracle. However, there are still major barriers to adoption.
In Oracle’s study 92% of its sample group of industry leaders testified that the cloud enables them to innovate faster. It also helps companies keep afloat better, with nearly three quarters (73%) reporting that using cloud technology has helped them to retain existing customers more effectively. The cloud also comes out well as a strategic weapon, with 76% of enterprises saying that the newer, more flexible model for handling information helps them to win new customers.
However, the study conducted for Oracle by IDG Connect indicates there is much room for improvement in the adoption of cloud computing. Only half (51%) of the survey sample say their businesses will have reached cloud maturity within two years. According to an Oracle statement, this is a consequence of current uncertainty about moving to the cloud.
Though a compromise between privately owned IT systems and publicly available services is seen as the obvious choice, there are grave concerns about hybrid cloud adoption. Instead of getting the best of both worlds with a hybrid system, many users (60%) reported that the thought of managing multiple IT architectures was off putting. There are fears about the reliability and availability of network bandwidth, which was cited by 57% of the survey as a barrier to adoption. The lack of trust in the relationship with IT suppliers was also a major concern with 52% of the survey sample. Meanwhile those building private cloud infrastructures continue to see security as the prime concern, according to Oracle.
Attitudes could change, but that involves converting the considerable opposition of cloud-sceptics. There are still significantly large numbers of IT experts who say that winning over key business decision makers is their biggest challenge. This was identified as an issue for 29% of those surveyed.
Johan Doruiter, Oracle’s Senior VP of Systems in EMEA, remained optimistic. “As cloud rapidly reaches maturity, we are seeing a shift in how enterprises perceive the chief benefits and barriers to adoption,” he said. “Traditional concerns have been replaced by the operational worries.”
Announcing @ISC2 to Exhibit at @CloudExpo New York | #Cloud
SYS-CON Events announced today that (ISC)²® (“ISC-squared”) will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 18th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 7-9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Two leading non-profits focused on cloud and information security, (ISC)² and Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), developed the Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP) certification to address the increased demand for cloud security expertise due to rapid growth in cloud. Recently named “The Next Big Thing”, the CCSP is the #1 certification survey respondents plan to earn in 2016, according to the 2015 Annual Salary Survey conducted by Certification Magazine.
VMware Licensing and Product Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
VMware dropped some news this week regarding their product and licensing lineup. VMware announced the End-of-Life (EOL) of some familiar friends, slight additions to other products, and increasing and decreasing pricing. There are a lot of moving parts so sit tight and let me walk you through what’s going on.
First some VMware licensing goodbyes
Like rolling your pants and B.U.M. Equipment t-shirts, some things just go out of style, and the same holds true for vSphere Enterprise, vSphere Standard with Operations (vSOM) and vSphere Enterprise with Operations (vSOM.) VMware will no longer offer these three products starting June 30, 2016. So what are your options?
- Continue to purchase vSphere Enterprise, vSphere Standard with Operations (vSOM) and vSphere Enterprise with Operations (vSOM until June 30th. You can continue to renew your subscription and support until March 2020.
- Buy vSphere Enterprise Plus and vSOM Enterprise Plus instead. For existing vSphere Enterprise and vSOM Enterprise licenses, VMware is offering a 50% off upgrade promotion until June 25, 2016
- If you are standardized of vSOM Standard, you will now just purchase vSphere Standard and vRealize Operations Standard 25-Instance Pack
Cue the memorandum music. It was nice knowing you.
Price Increase to note: vSphere Enterprise Plus with Operations increasing by $150 per CPU
Well hello.
vRealize Suite is introducing a new flavor; vRealize Suite Standard Edition. Like vRealize Suite Advanced and Enterprise, vRealize Standard edition will include Operations Advanced, Log Insight Analyst, and vRealize Business for Cloud. vRealize Advanced adds Automation Advanced and vRealize Enterprise adds Automation Enterprise and Apps Monitoring.
vRealize is moving from a 25-Instance model to a per CPU license and will include a Portable License Unit (PLU.) PLU includes 15 OSI’s (Operating System Instances) to be used in the cloud (i.e vCloud Air, Amazon etc. allowing you to switch from on-prem hosts and public and non-public clouds).
vCloud Suite is releasing version 7 and the new suite will simply be two products. The new vCloud Suite 7 will include vSphere Enterprise Plus (like it always has) and one of the corresponding vRealize Suites:
- vCloud Suite Standard: vSphere Enterprise Plus & vRealize Suite Standard
- vCloud Suite Advanced: vSphere Enterprise Plus & vRealize Suite Advanced
- vCloud Suite Enterprise: vSphere Enterprise Plus & vRealize Suite Enterprise
vCloud will continue to be licensed by the CPU and it will also come with 15 PLU instances.
vCloud Enterprise will no longer include Site Recovery Manager (SRM) Enterprise, as this can be purchased a la carte via a 25-VM pack.
Sidecar.
vCenter Standard Server and Log Insight are teaming up to form one product. Moving forward, vCenter Standard Server will include 25 instances of Log Insight for vCenter Server. There are no changes to vCenter Foundation Server, however, there will be a price increase of $1K for vCenter Standard. The new MSRP for vCenter Standard w/ Log Insight will be $5,995. Log Insight retailed for $5K, so the addition of it is actually a cost savings. Like Cognac, Cointreau and a touch of lemon, I hope the new vCenter Server leaves a good taste in your month.
Run Down on Price Changes
All price changes effective March 1st.
- vCenter Standard will be $5,995 up $1000 (however it includes Log Insight which was a $5K value)
- vSOM Enterprise Plus increasing +$150
- vRealize Advanced down -$500
- vRealize Enterprise down -$2,200
- vCloud Suite STD increasing +$500
- vCloud Suite ADV increasing +$500
- vCloud Suite ENT down -$2,000
Try a free vSphere Optimization Assessment
If you have any questions or are looking for more details, please reach out.
By Rob O’Shaughnessy, Director of Software Sales and Renewals
Photo Credit: blog.iheartradio.com
Cohesity claims data silo fragmentation solution
Santa Clara based start-up Cohesity claims it will be able to drastically reduce the escalating costs of secondary storage.
The new Cohesity Data Platform achieves this, it reckons, by consolidating all the diverse backup, archive, testing, development and replication systems onto a single, scalable entity.
In response to feedback from early adopters, it has now added site-to-site replication, cloud archive, and hardware-accelerated, 256-bit encryption to version 2.0 of the Data Platform (DP).
The system tackles one of the by-products of the proliferation of cloud systems, the creation of fragmented data silos. These are the after effects of the rapid unstructured growth of IT which led to the adoption of endless varieties of individual systems for handling backup, file services, analytics and other secondary storage use cases. By unifying them, Cohesity claims it can cut the storage footprint of a data centre by 80%. It promises an immediate tangible return on investment by obviating the need for backup.
Among the time saving features that have been added to the system are automated virtual machine cloning for testing and development and a newly added public cloud archival tier. The latter gives enterprise users the option of spilling over their least-used data to Google Cloud Storage Nearline, Microsoft Azure and Amazon S3 and Glacier in order to cut costs. The Cohesity Data Platform 2.0 also provides ‘adaptive throttling of backup streams’, which minimises the burden that storage places on the production infrastructure.
“We manage data sprawl with a hyperconverged solution that uses flash, compute and policy-based quality of service,” said Cohesity CEO Mohit Aron.