Blogs
Is Cloud an Adopted Brother of Virtualization or Not?
Sep 2nd
Is Cloud an Adopted Brother of Virtualization or Not?
By Nimantha (CloudTweaks)
Cloud computing came into the lime light very recently and became an instant hit among lot of people, especially CTO’s of different enterprises. Virtualization, the close friend of cloud computing was there for a longer period of time, but with the emergence of cloud, it was given the step mothers treatment. Still it didn’t die from our minds because Cloud and Virtualization did stick together most of the time rather than not. So then the argument began, Does Cloud and Virtualization does carry the same concept or is it different? Let’s figure it out.
What is Virtualization ?
The word virtualization defines of allowing multiplicity of access points from a single outlet. As an example, we can simply take interrelated personal computers that can each be accessed from whatever remote location. What it actually implies is that it will be using the internet to carry out activities that were previously done offline. In other words, the management or the CTO has decided that his organization would like to take control of the activities of that activity by going online rather than offline. Virtualization therefore always associates with technological development.
The best part of Virtualization is that the central command unit will be able to supervise the activities of outpost computers. This element is one which delights managers but it also causes some concern from civil liberties groups regarding their privacy.
What is Cloud Computing?
Well, here is the point where everyone gets confused. It is true that cloud computing utilizes the same basic principles as virtualization, but it involves the provision of externally managed IT services via hosted software, which allows IT systems to be managed from very remote locations where data is accessed and manipulated via a server.
As an example, lets say that there is a company in USA which wishes to reduce the budget they allocate for in-house developments, so what they decide to do is to totally outsource their IT developments to a company in India.
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The Business Cloud Summit promises to be the UK’s premier Cloud event of 2010
Sep 1st
The Business Cloud Summit 2010 – 30 November, London, England
Visit our Event Partner for more information on this great Event.
The Business Cloud Summit 2010 will be Europe’s Cloud Computing event of the year. Unfolding over one day, it will comprise two highly focused streams, exploring current and future Cloud Computing issues in both the public and private sectors. The agenda will build on the success of the 2009 
Summit, delivering a unique mix of focus and leading industry insight, and ensuring that the 2010 Summit will be marked in the diaries of CIOs, CEOs and COOs from across the UK and Europe.
With dedicated content streams covering the key issues in both the public and private sectors, this one-day event will include top-level insight, relevant to all forward-thinking technology professionals, across all industries and all sectors; drilling down into the Cloud issues that affect central and local government, the NHS, education and the third sector.
The Business Cloud Summit is the only UK event of its type to offer specific content aimed at line of business managers in HR, finance, CRM and IT. It’s the only place where professionals from all areas of the Cloud industry will be brought together under one roof; infrastructure providers, buyers, end-users, influencers and decision makers.
The Cloud for 2010
According to IDC, 2009 was the year that Cloud Computing was ‘seeded’. In 2010 Cloud computing is now part of the mainstream. End users are embracing the cost and productivity benefits of the model with enthusiasm. At a time when the world is still emerging carefully from the worst economic downturn in living memory, lower start-up costs and total cost of ownership of Cloud Computing, delivering ROI of over 1000% in some cases, are welcomed with enthusiasm by CIOs, CEOs and CFOs in organisations across every business sector.
2010 is the year of Cloud adoption:
- By 2012, a fifth of all businesses will own no IT assets – Gartner
- The Cloud services market will surge to around $150bn in 2013 – Gartner
- The market for cloud services will account for 10% of all IT spending by 2013 – IDC
For more information see: http://www.businesscloud9.com/summit/2010
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Confessions of a Cloudaholic
Aug 31st
Confessions of a Cloudaholic – Life in the Cloud
By Nimantha De Silva of CloudTweaks – Aug 31st, 2010
The script is written, actors are ready, it’s time to say ACTION, but hold on, this time it is not about a film, it is just about unveiling the script of Challenges faced in Cloud Computing. This article purely focuses on challenges faced on cloud computing along with how it’s architecture is made of and its key characteristics to make it so special. A real confession is about to make and lets follow it.
Introduction
Cloud computing, from its evolve itself has become a major talking point. There were wide spread consensus among many industrial observers to check whether it is ready for noticeable deployment in the year 2010. So before digging deep into cloud, lets figure out what cloud computing is defined for. Even though it was introduced sometime back, it can still be identified as in the emerging stage, so there are many definitions based on several releases, but the most appropriate according to my view is the definition given by Wikipedia saying “Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption and a delivery model for IT services based on Internet, and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the internet”. With the introduction itself, this topic was subjected towards many discussions, arguments, reviews, etc… Many expressed their ideas over this new born kid, but it was not to stop it but to make it much better. From that time onwards, cloud did grow and overcame many obstacles, but it is not finished yet. There are a certain set of challenges which needs to be addressed. The challenges which came into limelight along with the boom of the cloud are as follows:
- Who has given rights to access the information that organizations are putting on these external cloud application and systems servers?
- What and how does an organization’s compliance posture for applicable laws, regulations, standards, contracts and policies change when business, and sometimes even customer and employee, information is stored in the clouds?
- How long does information put into the clouds stay in those clouds?
- Do the clouds have retention policies?
- Can information be permanently and completed removed from the clouds once it is put there?
- Are there any logs generated to show how that cloudy information is accessed, copied, modified and otherwise used by anyone else?
- Can all necessary information in clouds be easily retrieved during e-discovery activities? If so, what are the related costs involved in it?
Even though cloud has not reached its peak yet, there are certain level of growth in cloud usage from the year 2008 to 2010, mainly due to its change of architecture. Lets figure out how the architecture is built to make cloud look more clearer than earlier.
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Cloud Computing Job Trends Worldwide
Aug 27th
Cloud Computing Job Trends Worldwide
Cloud Computing Employment Growth in the US
Many people fear that because of cloud computing, people will lose jobs in particular those involved in IT. Yes, there will be jobs lost but people need to realize that cloud computing will open up an influx of new ones. These same IT people better learn to adapt as sitting on the sidelines waiting for the world to go back to traditional IT models will do them no good. Companies will adopt cloud computing and so shall IT professionals.
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3rd Cloud Computing World Forum Asia
Aug 19th
Cloudtweaks is now the official knowledge partner of The Cloud Computing World Forum. Visit their site for upcoming event information.
Title: 3rd Cloud Computing World Forum Asia
Date: November 17 & 18, 2010
Location: The Mira Hotel, Hong Kong
The Cloud Computing World Forum Asia will take place on the 17th – 18th November 2010 at The Mira Hotel, Hong Kong, and promises to be Asia’s leading Cloud and SaaS based event.
Building on the huge success of the European show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry in Asia.
Show Highlights include:
- 2 day conference and exhibition on Cloud Computing and SaaS
- Co-located with CloudCamp
- Free to attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
- Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated Cloud Computing and SaaS
- Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS products and services
- Benefit from our pre-show online meeting planner
- Network in our combined exhibition and catering area
- Evening networking party for all attendees.
For more information please visit www.cloudcomputinglive.com/Asia or contact the Keynote team on +44 (0) 845 519 1230 or email info@keynoteworld.com.
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Virtualization isn’t cloud computing
Aug 18th
Here is an article we came across the morning by Dan Kusnetzky of ZDnet that points out the difference between Cloud Computing and Virtualization.
I came across an interesting post, Is Virtualization the Same as Cloud Computing?, published by Rajan Chandras. He, in turn, was commenting on an article that equated cloud computing and virtualization. He’s arguing that it is incorrect to equate virtualization to cloud computing.
I believe that both Rojan and I would agree that virtualization is abstracting computing functions into a logical environment that appears ideal for that function that may be very different than the actual physical environment. This trades computing and other resources for flexibility, scalability, performance, reliability or some other requirement. In my view, this breaks down to seven layers of technology, each of which contains several different segments. (see Sorting out the different layers of virtualization for more information on my model.)
Cloud computing, on the other hand, is a delivery and consumption model allowing organizations to purchase access to applications, development and deployment platforms and either virtual or physical servers as a service and on a by-the-use model. (Click here to visit the 451 Group’s website to download the Cloud Codex which describes our definition of cloud computing.)
While virtualization technology is likely to be in use where the computing services originate, but it is not absolutely required.
Saying cloud computing equals virtualization is a bit like saying all cars equal fuel injection systems because some vehicles use fuel injection as a way to deliver fuel to the engine.
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The HP Software Cloud Computing Tech Day – September 9th and 10th, 2010
Aug 10th
CloudTweaks is pleased to announce that we’ve been invited to attend The “HP Software Cloud Computing Tech Day” on September 9th and 10th, 2010.
This event will take place at the HP campus in Cupertino, California and has been organized by the folks at Ivyworldwide.com.
We are one of a select few cloud related sites offered this opportunity so we are very appreciative of this fact. We plan on keeping our readers updated via the CloudTweaks website as well as through Twitter during these 2 days.
Some of the areas that will be covered will be listed here in the next couple weeks.
To stay updated follow us at: http://www.twitter.com/cloudtweaks
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Amazon CloudFront Updates New Feature
Aug 6th
We are excited to inform you about a new feature we’ve recently added to Amazon CloudFront, AWS’s easy to use content delivery network. You now have the ability to assign a default root object to your HTTP or HTTPS distribution. This default object will be served when Amazon CloudFront receives a request for the root of your distribution i.e., your distributions domain name by itself. To utilize this new functionality, you will need to enable it for your existing distribution. For instance, you might assign index.html to be the file that CloudFront would serve whenever it receives a request for your distribution without an object name specified.
This new feature will make it easier for you to serve all of your static content from edge locations close to your end users and provide them with a better experience. There are no extra charges for using this new feature beyond Amazon CloudFront’s normal rates for data transfer and requests. You can read more about the default root object feature in the Amazon CloudFront Developer Guide.
About Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments.
Amazon CloudFront delivers your static and streaming content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your objects are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. Amazon CloudFront works seamlessly with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) which durably stores the original, definitive versions of your files. Like other Amazon Web Services, there are no contracts or monthly commitments for using Amazon CloudFront – you pay only for as much or as little content as you actually deliver through the service.
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Cloud computing provider RightScale – How the Cloud Industry is Scaling
Aug 5th
Cloud computing management provider RightScale updated its blog this morning with some impressive figures that point to company’s growth: its customers’ cloud computing usage has increased by 1000% in one year. While the post accompanies a press release, it would be a mistake to dismiss the numbers as just PR.
The increased usage reflects three trends:
- Customers are using more cloud servers
- Cloud servers are running for longer periods of time
- Customers are using larger servers
“We are amazed to see how much has changed in the past year, both in terms of the overall amount of cloud computing as well as the applications being deployed,” says Thorsten von Eicken, RightScale CTO. “For example, our customers’ average server runtime has increased 146 percent, and the number of servers running full time has increased 310 percent, which are indications of not only more production applications, but also increasing cloud stability. Our customers are also launching more powerful servers in support of more users, increasing amounts of data, and additional services offered.”
These numbers point to an increasing adoption of cloud technologies in enterprise organizations. But as RightScale note in its blog, it’s not simply the growth itself that’s interesting – it’s how and where the growth occurred. The move to larger instances, for example, seems to indicate that cloud adoption isn’t simply about horizontal scalability. And while new apps should be built with horizontal scalability in mind, many customers are opting instead to simply purchase a larger server instance so that scaling can happen vertically instead.
That servers are running for longer also indicates that it’s not simply development and testing that’s being done on the cloud. RightScale says that of the servers launched in June 2009, 3.3% still ran 30 days later. In June 2010, 6.3% were still running after a month. It’s a small percentage increase, perhaps, but it does indicate that more and more organizations are adopting the cloud for production, not just development.
The RightScale figures only reflect one company’s growth, but it’s an interesting glimpse nonetheless in how the industry itself is scaling.
Read the article at: ReadWriteWeb
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25 Resourceful Cloud Computing Blogs
Jul 29th
