Rackspace Has Nipped Vendor Lock-in by Hiring Executive from ‘Land Down Under’

The global technology giant in cloud hosting and computing, Rackspace, has had its brimful of technological firsts, but it now has an even more clear-sighted breakthrough after hiring the former Chief Information Officer at Altium, Alan Perkins.

Alan Perkins will now major as the Director of Technology & Product, in the Australian wing of Rackspace. This will be just over four years after the experienced new talent, who has majored in systems analysis, made it to the shortlist of a prestigious award in Australia.

Analysts are tracing Perkins’ connections with his new employer, at least for having used the service, during his more than ten-year tenure at Altium, as the boon that has had Rackspace spot him and bring him back to the fold. As CIO in his immediate firm, he had helped transition from the computing systems of Amazon to the open source Rackspace.

As he would explain later, IaaS, which most providers specialize on, does not meet the fiscal and performance dictates as PaaS, which Rackspace provides, does. Other than the Customer Relationship Management software of PaaS, one can also factor in quality assessment, and also do some licensing work, all because this is a platform that evolves, and always needs new patents.

The Australian cloud talent also explained that he preferred Rackspace during his previous tenure in other firms because of the fact that cloud ought not to be all about the ‘incremental’ hypothesis that most online providers of the service perpetuate. In lieu, it is all about collaboration on the hi-tech side of Platform as a Service. This is only available on an open cloud dispensation like the one of his current firm.

Vendor-Lock-in

The hiring of the Aussie will be a great boost in meeting up the challenge of vendor lock-in that happen even in open systems. Statistics for example show that the Land Down Under is attracting a lot of developers, which has the disadvantage of creating conflicting systems, which lead to a cloud that is hard to crack. It is against this that Perkins will be flexing his tech muscle by adjusting the tendons of Rackspace into greater flexibility.

Australia is one of the select countries in the globe where IT, cloud computing and hosting, are becoming bread and butter necessities, with the word ‘CIO’ almost on every department person’s lips.

Indeed, the country head of Rackspace in the Oceania region has reiterated that cloud and related framework are becoming indispensable to the performance of companies, and for this reason, tech firms like his need a brain at the helm that has multi-faceted experience besides authority to rally the staff behind.

Alan Perkins’ office will be in the capital Sydney, the city which is hosting the initial data facility for Rackspace in Australia, which came up not long ago. This makes the exponential expansion of the company that recently announced intentions to train and employ a thousand Texans in the US, in the coming 24 months, a feasible reality.

By John Omwamba

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 Top 25 European Rising Stars 2012 – LunaCloud

……Store Remotely on the Visible Side of the Moon for 2 Cents?

How would it feel to work from the visible side of the moon where everything, as visible by the human eye, has stayed the same since time immemorial? At least with LunaCloud, a Portuguese cloud startup, the reality is at hand, for one can deploy remotely and still be sure that the data is visible, not mentioning cheap. If cloud means hardware, infrastructure or servers, then one can understand what LunaCloud is all about. It thrives on managing data machines, deploying solutions fast, and extending them at the classy pay-as-you-go model.

LunaCloud provides server space for various sites using various gigabytes of data including 512 to 96 Megabytes RAM capacity while on hard disk, this goes from 10 gigabytes to 2 terabytes.

Here is a look at the site’s cost calculator: 

With a machine with a RAM capacity of half a Gigabyte, the price goes to 0.0130 Sterling Pounds each sixty minutes and for the month some 9.36 Pounds. Looking closer however, one sees that Luna’s offers are more attractive to those of AWS or RackSpace, two classic providers, leaving a few cents to the consumer per compute (storage) and even network (transferring) costs. As an attestation, a 2-Giagbyte memory sever attracts .0466, .0501, .0800 Sterling Pounds in LunaCloud, AWS and Rackspace respectively.

The above comparative figures brings back the ghost of the visible side of the moon (being an allusion to the remote heavenly body Luna), because it appears that this cloud startup has no hidden charges. Perhaps the reason for these cheap rates is the fully-fledged attention by the firm to concentrate on server infrastructure unlike the others who also double in SaaS, ITaaS, PaaS, and more upcoming platform buzzwords.

One of the other numerical attributes of LunaCloud is its 2-cent policy for each server one provisions on the cloud, from the site’s account. Of course one has then to follow the pay-as-you-use protocols, after selecting the bandwidths and broadband capacities. Generally, the pact comes as a free-for-all service with no contractual details, with scalability, upon choice, where one can migrate data to a 96 GB memory server.
Commentators label LunaCloud as a “pure-play” startup in the business, edifying the Infrastructure as a Service model to its service delivery. Its work is indeed visible because it provides the quintessential flexible and scalable data networking that the traditional cloud model has come to define.In terms of operating system vendors, LunaCloud imposes no boundaries for it is fully at home with the plethora of Linux offerings, as well as, Windows 2008. After selecting any of these platforms, one can then decide to time or iterate the server using custom Application Programming Interface that will either make the stats in the system compatible though they are from different developers. The startup says that the subscription process with its site, for the service, is five minutes while the data machine will start running on the cloud in 120 seconds thereafter.

By using Cloudian, a business cloud solution, LunaCloud has been able to give a piece of pie to its clientele synonymous with the aforementioned cloud provider: budget. It is the commitment of Cloudian to make storage and data networking something financially optimal to a virtual entity, and for this, it focuses mostly on the infrastructure side of things including handling servers, offshore, for clients. The startup has embraced API solutions for synchronizing into other multilayered cloud habitats like S3. Since the latter has millions of users, it may yet help the new Portuguese entity to make it big in the sector.

In terms of technology, Luna Cloud continues to exude its visibility interface by providing a hypervisor that virtualizes the main core of the cloud, the infrastructure, to the application instances like the OS. Furthermore, the transparency of this layer helps to note how the remote server is working just like one would check in a standalone machine. The infrastructure layer for the startup comes from Dell, which provides project-savvy equipment while the cloud layer itself consists of extra machines, which are highly fit for the virtualization ecosystem, only that end-users do not pay for them in capital terms rather than for usage.

LunaCloud qualifies as one of the top 25 European Rising Stars because of committing to the quintessential cloud convention of virtual hardware while, at the same time, maintaining transparency for the user. It also demarcates technology very well into the hypervisor, server and cloud parts, each with its own integral strengths. Need one mention the cheapness of the service to induce tipping of the hat to it?

By John Omwamba

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Is Cloud Computing A Threat To Older Tech Companies? Part 1

Almost exactly a year ago, The Informational Data Corporation (IDC) made some pretty bold predictions regarding the development of a new high-tech industry in the convergence of social networking, and cloud-based computing and data storage.

IDC suggested that many industry giants may scramble to maintain relevance in 2012, while some startups would gain leadership positions – part of the technology industry’s fastest transition ever.

Today’s major big players may be in trouble if they don’t prepare for change.

Spending on the new technologies will reach nearly $700 billion, or about 20 percent of the $3.5 trillion in hardware, software, and services spent on information technology worldwide, IDC said. As a great deal of spending in the sector goes toward maintaining older systems, such a share for relatively new technologies is a surprising speculation. Spending on these new technologies is growing six times that of traditional computer servers and personal computers, IDC said, and by 2020 will be 80 percent industry growth.

Much of the new development will also take place in emerging markets such as China, IDC said. It predicted that 28 percent of overall spending, and 53 percent of the industry’s growth, would come from outside the United States, Japan and Western Europe. By mid- 2012, China is expected to be the world’s second largest consumer of information technology, eclipsing Japan.

Frank Gens, chief analyst at IDC and head of the study, said: “Hewlett-Packard will be challenged. Microsoft, Intel, SAP, RIM, Oracle, Cisco, Dell – they are all facing the next transition, competing to be around in 2020. At least a third will fade away.”

Among the notable claims in the forecast, IDC said that spending on hardware, software and services in cloud computing systems alone will be $60 billion in 2012. The growth rate in this sector is about four and a half times that of the industry overall. About $36 billion of that was projected spending for companies providing cloud services to businesses, and the balance will be from so-called “arms dealers,” supplying things like servers and networking gear.

Mobile devices, which in 2011 outshipped personal computers worldwide, will in 2012 generate more revenue than PCs for the first time, IDC said. Shipments of mobile devices will outstrip PCs by two to one and 85 million mobile applications, or apps, will be downloaded. More money will be spent on mobile data networks than on networks tethered by lines.

The rapid transition to mobile, driven by an explosion of tablet computers, will challenge both traditional computer software companies like Microsoft and beneficiaries like Apple, which is seeing the dominance of its iOS operating system challenged by the open source Android operating system developed by Google.

“By 2013 we’ll know who the leaders are,” Mr. Gens said.

So, how accurate were IDC’s predictions?  Find our by reading Part 2 tomorrow…

By Sharon Florentine

This post is written by Rackspace blogger Sharon Florentine. Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud operating system. The San Antonio-based company provides Fanatical Support to its customers and partners, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing.

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The Top 20 Most Secure Cloud Hosting Companies: Part 1

(List is in no particular order of preference)

1 – SalesForce

SalesForce is a very strong market leader, having developed 105,000 cloud computing applications that run in real time. The aim of the company is to develop applications that allow running the social media communication in real time.

Why?  The Ruby platform developed by SalesForce is deemed impenetrable by most of the corporate giants. Apart from that, the company has successfully integrated enterprise CRM solutions over the cloud platform.

2 – Verizon Terremark

Verizon is of the most famous cloud computing platforms and is attracting corporate attention with the release of the new cloud computing platform. It is anticipated that it will be on the top within the next two years.

Why?  People at Verizon seem to understand the importance of security, portability, and integration; they have built their platform around these principles. They also offer single enterprise solutions for small businesses.

3 – Amazon

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been dominating the cloud market for the last three years and not just because of a strongly established reputation. They have introduced many security protocols in the online market and are expanding fast.

Why? Amazon has introduced advanced security measures in the IT sector, leading to the reduction of identity and data theft due to the implementation of advanced security algorithms. They have also increased their processing power three times this year compared to that of 2011. This has allowed them to acquire clients such as corporate giant Coca-Cola for their internet database management needs.

4 – CenturyLink

CenturyLink is one of the three telecommunication companies that entered the cloud computing market and made a standing name. It is a large company currently managing 48 internationally acclaimed data centers and a floor space of 2-million square feet.

Why? CenturyLink proved its worth when it acquired Savvi, a market leader in the cloud computing industry, and Qwest Communications International Inc., making it a very strong stakeholder when it comes to cloud computing data security.

5 – Rackspace Inc.

Rackspace may be one of the dark knights of the cloud computing sector. Currently, 170,000 customers and 80,000 servers across the globe are using its services. Although they have not been able to “rack up” billion-dollar customers, statistics show that they are one of the fastest-growing clouding companies across the globe.

Why? Rackspace gets its name from providing the services to individual customers rather than just corporate giants. Apparently, there was no cloud computing service that was offering individual hosting services with such features delivered at an acceptable price. Along with the individual hosting services, it also provides the customer with database management tools and a hybrid security program.

Continued…

By Walter Bailey

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Cloud Infographic: Drivers Of Open Source Adoption

Stability, Scalability and Reliability of Open-Source Software

Open-source software is becoming popular on an enterprise level because of its stability, scalability and reliability. Companies love to use open-source technologies because they are highly customizable, secure, reliable and accountable. With proprietary software, we are highly dependent on the software company for its development and support. But for open-source, we can find huge support from developers across the world, and we can tweak it according to our needs. Just hire a team of developers, and there you go… Continue Reading

Here is an infographic produced by Rackspace which illustrates the main drivers of open source adoption ranked on importance.

Infographic Source: Rackspace

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Cloud Infographic: 2012 Cloud Adoption Survey

Here is a straightforward infographic outlining a recent survey conducted by Rackspace with over 500 IT Decision makers.

Source: Rackspace Blog

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Cloud Infographic: Cloud Reality Check

Source: Rackspace

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Top Cloud Storage Providers In The Enterprise Market

Cloud backup is an essential part of a disaster recovery/business continuity (DR/BC) plan. It is important that enterprise data is securely backed up and easily accessible. In a previous article, I reviewed the top players in the consumer market for cloud storage. In this post, I will review the top five players in the enterprise market for cloud storage.

1. Box

When it comes to enterprise storage, Box are king. They are reported to have 120,000 enterprise customers, including 410 Fortune 500 companies.  They have a very simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy to share and access files. The pricing is a little expensive, starting at $15/month/user, but the service comes with a range of tools, such as Salesforce integration and an admin console for effective management of users.

2. Amazon S3

Amazon S3 provides a way for enterprises to store large volumes of data at an affordable price, from as low as $0.125/GB/month. While S3 doesn’t provide many of the front-end functionalities of Box and cannot be directly used for file sharing the way you do with Box or Dropbox, it forms the backbone of many data-centric applications on the Internet, such as the cloud applications from 37 Signals.

3. Jungle disk

Jungle disk provides a simple interface that uses Rackspace Cloud and Amazon S3 as backend storage. By focusing on the interface and using trusted storage providers underneath, Jungle disk provides users with a greater level of control over their backup. The pricing starts at $4/user/month, with a $0.15 GB cost for storage. They even let you use your own S3 storage account if you want.

4. Mozy from EMC

This is another popular storage service that is used by more than 80,000 enterprises and is offered by one of the leaders in the enterprise storage and virtualization market—EMC. Their plans start from $10/user for a 10 GB storage limit. Unlike Box or Jungle Disk, Mozy primarily focuses on the backup part rather than the file-sharing component. It supports both Windows and Mac machines.

5. Symantec Backup Exec Cloud

This is a backup system from the makers of Norton antivirus software; it allows you to backup Windows Servers and PCs, and the offering is primarily targeted at small business customers who use the Windows stack. The storage is brought in increments of 10 GB, and the pricing starts at $70/year for 10 GB of storage.

By Balaji Viswanathan

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Microsoft’s Biggest Client, or Just a PR Stunt? – Part II

This is the concluding part of a two-part article. For the first part, please see Microsoft’s Biggest Client, or Just a PR Stunt? – Part I .

There is another possibility at play here. If Microsoft manages to sell the viability of its cloud offerings to the Indian government, this freebie can actually result in paying contracts in other areas. And as we all know, governments are big spenders, even on information technology (See: How Much Can the US Government Save By Going to the Cloud?).

Getting buy-in is important for cloud companies, and this has seen them offering services for free before (See: Ninefold and Rackspace Battle for Australian Startup Mind Space) and Why is Rackspace targeting Startups?). Winning the hearts and minds of customers, even with freebies, can be a strategy for sustained business.

Let’s look at another possibility. Endorsement by the government is of tremendous value for any new technology. In an earlier article (See: Can The US Government “Lead by Example” in Cloud Computing Adoption?), I had written with regard to the US government and cloud computing – “Since cloud computing is a new technology that still has a lot of doubters, acceptance by the government which has the reputation of being staid, conservative, old-fashioned and resistant to change will definitely make the technology more acceptable to businesses and the public alike.”

Now, if the US government is described as “staid, conservative, old-fashioned and resistant,” you can be sure that the Indian government is even more so. Bureaucratic delays and red tape in Indian governments are legendary, and not in the positive sense of the term. Despite all this, the fact that the Ministry of Human Resource Development found value in Microsoft Live@edu and acted on it is a tremendous vote of confidence for Microsoft. At a time when the Indian cloud computing market is set to explode (See: Cloud Computing and India, Emerging Superstars of the 21st Century), one can see the obvious implications of this deal.

And finally, Microsoft’s move can get students accustomed to Microsoft technology. After all, the students of today are the developers and customers of tomorrow. In other words, engineering students who grow up with Microsoft technology will not only be amenable to use it in their workplaces, but also participate in the development of future technologies. Microsoft has always had big expectations from India (See: How India Stands to Gain from Cloud Computing), and this may be a strategic move to realize those expectations.

Whatever be the reason (or perhaps a combination of them), this truly is a major win for Microsoft that I believe will yield rich dividends in the foreseeable future.

By Sourya Biswas

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Cloud Infographic: What Type Of Cloud Hosting Do You Require?

Source: VandelayDesign

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