Cloud Computing Digest

Here we are back for my second update in a row. Not being “on the road” has its perks. Still to early to call this a trend yet, but hopefully I can start getting back into my old habits. But enough about me, on to this week’s digest.

I often post articles here on things moving to the cloud. But I ran across an interesting article on why Zynga, the massively successful casual game company, moved from Amazon’s EC2 back to hosting their own resources. This isn’t a failure of cloud. Instead it’s a great story of leveraging the cloud to help you meet unexpected demands. Public cloud doesn’t have to be a life-long commitment.

Even if it’s not a permanent commitment, the choice of a public cloud provider can be difficult. Connected System Microsoft MVP Richard Seroter wrote a great blog post recently on why he usually leans towards AWS (Amazon Web Services) over Microsoft’s Windows Azure. To sum it up, I’ll take a line my father taught me back when I spent my summer’s helping me on construction sites. Use the right tool, for the right job. There is no single tool for everything.

I know I spend most of these digests on platforms and providers, but it’s also important to look at individual products/solutions and ponder what problems they are trying to solve.  A recent editorial over at cloudcomments.com highlights this by looking at what DynamoDB can teach us about the future of cloud.

Questions about cloud will continue, but it’s nice to see the cloud used for solutions that simply couldn’t be easily addressed on-premises. A great example of this is two companies that partnered up and used 50,000 cores in Amazon to run a HPC (High Performance Computing) job to screen potential cancer drugs. This type of temporary, massive scale up of compute is a great example of using cloud to extend your traditional infrastructure.

I mentioned in the last digest that cloud computing jobs are really starting to take off. But the number of experts available to fill those positions continues to lag. Well the providers themselves are starting to step into the game and deliver consulting services. I have been asked where to find cloud talent and I always tell folks the same thing, grown it. Find those talented folks in your own organization and support them. BTW, did I mention that Sogeti is hiring.

And lastly, I need to give props to my colleague Leigh Sperberg down in Texas who gave me a heads up on Cisco’s 2012 Global Cloud Networking Survey results. Aside from some nifty sound bites and an info graphic, this survey does help highlight the chasm between development and infrastructure when it comes to how they view cloud computing. You can access the PDF version of these occasionally hilarious results here.

Until next time!

I’m making a resolution that this blob will be updated at least once a week for the next two months. Even if I have to enlist some assistance in making that happen. Ok, I was planning to do that anyways. J So without further delay, here’s another edition…

Those of us that do cloud computing know how difficult it is to acquire talent. So it may come as no surprise that the demand for cloud jobs is now stratospheric as InfoWorld points out.

Back in January VMware, a company I don’t mention here nearly as often as I should, blogged on using their vCloud Services to create secure hybrid cloud solutions (solutions which leverage both on-premises and externally hosted resources). It’s admittedly more of a fluff/marketing piece. But still helpful if you’re trying to get an idea of what’s available.

Something I can’t wait to get my own hands on, Netflix has announced they will be open sourcing a “simian army”. You may be familiar with their use of a Chaos Monkey utility to aid in ensuring the resiliency of their cloud architecture. Well this announcement means they plan to make portions of these “monkey” tools available to the public.

And things continue to go back and forth in the hosted office suite battles. Google filed a lawsuit over how the Department of the Interior handled an opportunity for its hosted solutions and how they were awarded to Microsoft’s Office 365. As a result, The Department of the Interior has reversed the decision and awarded the contract to Google.

I don’t often enough mention success stories or “how to’s” here, so I wanted to call out this story from Oxygen Cloud. The article discusses how Oxygen Cloud built a private 55tb storage cloud as they put it, on a budget.

I keep doing these digests to document my own learning’s and hopefully help others learn as well. So I think it’s prudent to mention my latest discovery, a cloud I wasn’t even aware of, Softlayer. I’d seen the name mentioned but never really looked at it until now. Silly me! As you can see from this article by Gigaom, Softlayer is running some of the internet’s hottest properties.

And unless you were hiding under a rock, you likely heard about Instagram being purchased by Facebook, Perhaps even more notable is the infrastructure that Facebook is acquiring as a result. Those of us in the traditional enterprise or small/medium business spaces tend to forget how heterogeneous the environments of startups can be. And when it comes to building these massively scalable solutions, you really have to be willing to leverage multiple tools to get the job done.

And to close out this edition, the big news is that Citrix is moving away from OpenStack and has given the CloudStack solution over to the Apache Software Foundation. Only time will tell if this is the right or wrong move.

Until next time!

Welcome to another edition of the “supposedly weekly but lately more like monthly” Cloud Computing Digest. I’m lining up a few folks to help me get this back to a weekly feature so here’s hoping that it pays off going forward. In the meantime, here’s the news.

I’m going to start off the biggest news of the last 30 days, the service disruption that affected Windows Azure. While this was significant, there wasn’t nearly as much press given to this as the spring 2011 disruption suffered by Amazon. This was likely due in no small part to the fact that there are reportedly not as many high-profile, public facing applications running on Windows Azure.

Also from Microsoft’s camp, we have an explanation of Microsoft’s $130 million expansion of its Dublin cloud data center and a push by Tim O’Brien, general manager of Platform Strategy at Microsoft to help win over the hearts of more developers. And there is Wordament, a start-up founded by several folks from Microsoft and running on Windows Azure. Their blog discusses their decision to host their application in Windows Azure. We also have a success story from a U.K. based armored transportation company that is not handling truck tracking via an application at least partially hosted in Windows Azure.

But enough Microsoft news….

The EU is making steps towards having a less restrictive, but more appetizing, union wide version of its existing data protection laws. This could, if accepted across the union, make it much easier to operate across all 27 member states.

NIST has also reared its head again, issuing its official guidelines on public cloud security and privacy. I’ve only read the cliff notes version, but what I’ve read so far falls solidly the “common sense” category.

I did run across a new term, “cloud jitter”. This refers to inconsistency in performance you may see running cloud, or more generally virtualized applications. While I don’t discount the observations David Lithicum’s observations in the article, I would also caution that the size & scope of these jitters will depend on the platform and the workload. So it’s important to test your solution to see what’s happening under a sustained load.

From the world of Amazon, we have news that Amazon is increasing their cloud privacy settings with some enhancements to their Direct Connect product offering. Amazon also announced some pricing drops, both for S3 and EC2, RDS, EMR, and ElastiCache. The cloud vendor price wars should only continue to drive prices down.

And to close things out, I have a blog post from Richard Seroter on multi-cloud deployment of an ASP.NET application. This stresses the need to keep your options open. And hopefully will drive the vendors to eventually start supporting open standards that make it easier to have applications that can be easily hosted on multiple platforms.

Until next time!

Wow! Has it really been over a month since my last update? I’ve been so busy it seemed like there was always something else I needed to do. And I still don’t feel like I’ve accomplished half of what I needed to over the last month. But enough excuses…

To start things off, I have a 6 part blog series on cloud computing by Paul Culmsee. While a bit lengthy, it’s definitely worth a read. Even seasoned cloud computing folks should find a new thought or two here.

I found a good article on how twitter handles the load it does from a web site I recommend to anyone looking to build large scale web sites, Highscalability.com. There’s some great lessons learned here.

In the same vein, we have Adrian Cockcroft, cloud architect for Netflix. In this version of his defrag 2011 presentation. What makes this post good is that it is about changing the conversation. It is about how to change the way you do things to allow your organization to be innovative.

SLAs, they are supposed to make us feel safe. But I always caution folks to fully understand what the SLAs cover. Wired.com’s CloudLine put up a post that really helps drive this home.

Randy Bias, one of the industries thought leaders in cloud computing put up a great blog post on what 2011 did for cloud. There’s some excellent retrospective here. So take a few minutes and give this a read.

In what I think is the most interesting post I have for this edition, I have a post on taking the complexity out of cloud computing, or at least hiding it. Its quick and gives you some good concepts to ponder.

And for my final item, I have a bit of humor that came to me from a colleague, a 1956 commercial of a “cloud computer”. Enjoy!

Until next time!

Happy 2012 folks! I took some time off over the holidays to recharge my batteries and it appears to be paying off. It’s been slow getting back into things but today I’m feeling good and ready to focus on knocking out some of my todo’s. First off my list today, a new Cloud Computing Digest.

Fellow Azure MVP Roger Jennings got to take a peek at HP’s new hosted cloud services. In this post, he walks through the sign-up and provisioning process. A nice starting point with plenty of screen shots if you’re curious but don’t have time to explore it yourself.

I think this is a first in that I have an update that’s a YouTube link. It’s an interview with an executive at Lionsgate Entertainment (the movie company) for their innovative cloud usage. I always tell people that any industry could use cloud, and it’s nice to see yet another example supporting it.

James Urquhart, whom I’ve linked to several times, has started posting at GIGAOM. Recently, this included an editorial on why it’s hard to talk about cloud. Some of this is about terminology; some of it is about the way we look at managing things. Regardless, it’s some good food for thought.

Office 365 has been criticized, especially in the EU for its data privacy challenges. However, it was recently announced that Office 365 complies with Data Protection and Security standards in both the EU and US.  They also updated the web site for this information, trust.office365.com to make this information more accessible.

I’ve beaten this dead horse a few times, SLA from vendors. They’re sometimes confusing, and most times not very worthwhile. But maybe we need an industry standard for this? At least that’s what Michelle Boisvert asks in her editorial.

From across the pond, comes news that Microsoft is leveraging open source solutions to help compete with the Linux based public cloud providers. As pricing continues to be driven down by competition, it’s going to be features that differentiate vendors. Microsoft is trying to partner with open source solutions to help bring them into the Windows Azure fold.

The Google App implementation for the City of Los Angeles is back in the news. After months of delays, the Los Angeles Police Department has pulled the plug. This doesn’t appear to mean that Google Apps is out of the city entirely, just that it wasn’t able to meet the needs several departments and subsequently they have been removed from the contract. Regardless, it is still a blow to cloud adoption.

To close out this first digest of 2012, I’ll share a 2012 outlook from Network World. They see a growth in migration services and mobile device management and monitoring. We’ll also see more services being released to help speed adoption of the cloud solutions by leveraging value added services. As education on cloud capabilities, limitations, and opportunities continues to grow, there should also be a removal of some barriers to adoption, thus helping cloud computing to continue to grow even faster in 2012 than it did in 2011.

I’m on the road next week attending/presenting at the CodeMash conference in Sandusky, OH. So I’m not sure I’ll get another update out. If you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by and say hi.

Until next time!

Sorry for the delay in another update. Between the post-holiday coma and fighting off some type of head cold that had me barely operating, it’s been difficult to gather news and get things posted. But that’s all behind me and I’m rested and back with some good updates!

Last month, SalesForce took the covers off their newest offering Do.Com. It’s a collaboration platform, leveraging g-mail contact information that appears to be focused on taking market share away from Microsoft’s SharePoint product. And according to the article, it’s a rewrite of the collaboration software-as-a-service solution ManyMoon that Salesforce bought in February of 2011.

SalesForce didn’t sit idle with this announcement as just a week later they announced their acquisition of Model Metrics, a firm specializing in assisting in the adoption of various cloud technologies. They’ve done over 1,000 SalesForce implementations.

The cost benefits of cloud are one of the most contested, debated, and IMHO most over-hyped topics. While cost can be a factor in moving solutions to the cloud, it should never be the key factor. And a recent survey discussed in the article “Companies Adopt the Cloud to Use Tablets, End up Saving Less”, helps illustrate this point nicely.

Gartner has put out a new article on cloud trends for 2012 (although some of these go out a few more years). In a nutshell, more mobile apps, more focus on security, and a shift to external providers.

I also found an article from a former DEC veteran talking about repeated patterns and how the cloud “disruption” seems similar to patterns seen in the adoption of PC’s back in the mid-90’s. More importantly, it discusses the changes that will be necessary to help break down barriers to cloud adoption imposed by our own out of date regulations.

And for my final link today, a great blog post on the myths of cloud portability. I love first-hand insight articles like this one. If there’s only one link you read from this this week’s digest, make it this one.

Until next time!

Trying to hurry up and knock this one out today before I pack up my hotel room and head over to the client. Couple more weeks left on this and then I get to spend some time at home.  But you’re here for cloud news and I have some good snippets to share with you this week.

Frist up is an interesting piece that equates the growth in cloud storage (specifically Amason’z S3 – Simple Storage Service) to the availability of mobile device Apps. Demonstrating something Google has long known, the easier you make it to consume, the more folks will use it. Now if MSFT would only realize this they might see more users on Skydrive (lets go back to the old implementation of Live Mesh pls?)

According to the Open Data Center Alliance’s 300 members it’s time for the “wild west” of proprietary virtualization standards to end. They are calling on vendors to adopt standardized practices and increased transparency. To go with this, the alliance will create metrics to allow for comparison of products.

Ofir Nachmani, author of the IAmOnDemand blog was recently allowed an up close look at the future of HP’s cloud offerings. This visit included their EcoPOD (a container based datacenter technology) and HP’s IaaS software for provisioning and maintenance.

VM has released the Public Cloud Diaries, a nearly 70 page PDF book highlighting 16 stories of solution moving to the cloud. The stories are nicely broken out by industry vertical and make for a pretty quick read. More vendors need start doing vertical specific message.  

Lastly, there is my favorite news item of the last few weeks. Lori MacVittie brings us a thoughtful discussion on why we’re seeing a war between the public and private clouds titled “Two Different Stocks”. Taking 5-10 minutes to read this will be the best time you’ll invest this week

That’s all I have for this edition and we have a holiday next week so no new edition then. So hopefully this will tide you over.

Until next time!

I started a new client this week. I HATE first weeks. You’re either overwhelmed, or underutilized. Add travel on top of it, and you have a less then fully productive week. Fortunately, I do still have cloud news!

Opscode, a Seattle based firm has brought its automated, open source, resource management system, Chef, to Microsoft Windows. This announcement brings DevOps to the forefront of those looking to take the next step towards building their own private clouds.

Oracle has stepped a bit further into the world of SaaS with the acquisition of RightNow Technologies. This brings them an entire catalog of internet licensed properties.

Google has stepped up the amount of information it is making available regarding requests it receives from various government agencies for data. This level of transparency is refreshing, even as the number and type of requests can be alarming.

But not all cloud stories end well. This week I have an excellent editorial from Mixpanel engineering on why they left Rackspace and returned to a more traditional datacenter. I like reading these stories because they contain learning experiences I can use to help better guide other clients.

Following onto this thought, David Linthicum of Info world points out that while we continue to define cloud best practices, we are also discovering the worst practices. So he highlights “3 surefire ways to screw up cloud computing”.

The African continent is finally setting a local cloud provider. Safaricom is looking to building datacenters in Kenya to provide hosting services throughout Africa.

And lastly, The Wisdom of Clouds, a blog by James Urquhart has come to an end. James is moving on to a new opportunity and is ending the column. Thank you James for sharing your thoughts over the last three years!

Until next time!

I skipped last week, I know. But we’re back with plenty of news this this time around.

Security remains a key issue with cloud adoption and the last couple weeks have been no exception. I found a nice little editorial at siliconrepublic.com that references an Irish survey were 68% of the participating companies said it was their #1 concern.  In recent discussions I had with one client, this concern extends to the network level and the ability to access forensic data in the case of a breach or audit.

As if this weren’t enough, the press has been hyping up “massive flaws in cloud architectures”. Now before you get all concerned, these flaws were around SOAP exploits that allowed for what is called a cross-site scripting attack. These exploits allowed researchers to access administrative API’s like those Amazon’s Web Services and access other clients’ accounts. Amazon and other vendors have long since addressed this issue, but given the press, I’m sure we’ll all be seeing questions around it.

As if this weren’t enough, Google Apps is running into delays with its implementation for the city of Los Angeles. After the deal was signed, additional security needs were identified for the LAPD and Google has been struggling to meet them.  According to this article from ZDNet, the project is already 15 months over-due.

Another question about public cloud is privacy.  What I liked about this article on mashable.com is that it focuses on the legislation both here in the states and the European Union. It calls out a few simple questions you need to be asking yourself before you sign up for that new file sharing account.

The notion of Dev Ops keeps coming up. This isn’t something new, but it’s not a term that I really became familiar with until several months ago. I found a great write-up based on a presentation by George Reese of Enstratus (who just happens to be right here in my back yard) on Dev Ops in the cloud. This is a must read IMHO.

Lastly I have a sad note for the world of IT and especially the cloud. John McCarthy, coiner of the term “Artificial Intelligence”, developer of the Lisp language, and the father of cloud computing passed away this month at the age of 84. Mr. McCarthy first referred to the concept of computing power “organized as a public utility” while speaking at MIT in 1961. This concept of computing as a public utility is at the heart of most cloud computing definitions.

Until next time!

It’s that time again. Some good news this week!

I often get asked “what’s being put in the cloud”. Well, a recent article on cio.com looks at what’s running in Amazon’s cloud. There are several truths in there: developers are leading the charge into cloud computing, enterprises are adopting the cloud, albeit slowly, and that organizations will be taking organizational responsibility for cloud solutions they may not realize already exist in their ecosystems.

Homeland Security is adopting cloud security. A recent press release discusses how they plan 12 new cloud services with things like SharePoint (via a private cloud), IaaS, and Relationship Management solutions.

Meanwhile, on the message/collaboration front, Google and Microsoft are exchanging verbal fire in their ongoing cloud conflict. Both are winning battles, but no word yet on who’s winning the war.

Speaking of “big blue”, I found a nice intro to cloud computing security from the IT Pro perspective. And from the SQL PASS conference this week out in Seattle, my colleague Sven sent me a link to an article that highlights how Microsoft is cuddling up to Hadoop! Even the folks over at Hortonworks, the core developers of Hadoop, are excited about this. As if this weren’t enough, they announced increased capacity limits coming for SQL Azure, and updated CTP’s for two key features. Unofficial reports also point to the fact that SQL Azure appears to already be running the SQL Server 2012 code base.

I also found an interested article about a team of researchers at Cornell University that are aiming to take the errors out of cloud computing. While we may be ok with just clicking again when you-tube servers up the wrong video; this type of inconsistency can be deadly if we’re accessing medical information.

To wrap things up I went to Randy Bias’ blog. Randy, founder of Cloud Scaling is celebrating a birthday this week so it only seemed fitting. Randy’s latest update discusses the secrets of Amazon’s runaway success with EC2.  I don’t claim to be as smart a Randy, but his thoughts definitely parallel my own.

Until next time!