Posts tagged computing service
HP Launches Cloud Computing Design Service
Feb 16th
By now everyone knows that at some point they will be using a cloud computing service. But using one and building your own are two different stories. For those IT organizations that intend to build their own cloud computing platforms, Hewlett-Packard wants to lend a hand.
HP today is launching a portfolio of cloud consulting services that builds on the company’s expertise in not only building its own cloud computing service, but also work the company did on the Rapid Access Computing Environment (RACE) cloud computing platform for the Department of Defense.
According to Alan Wilson, vice president of infrastructure consulting for HP’s Technology Services division, many IT organizations that are planning on building their own cloud computing platforms are not doing the level of analytical rigor necessary to insure success. For example, there are a whole range of tradeoffs in terms of types of servers used and the levels of latency that need to be achieved depending upon the applications being deployed.
HP, he said, has developed a series of reference methodologies for building out cloud computing platforms. Ultimately, Wilson said that IT organizations should be designing cloud computing platforms with the next generation of virtualization in mind. Advances in virtual machine technology will make it easier to dynamically deploy application workloads across public and private cloud computing services as long as IT organizations start building their internal clouds today with an eye toward hybrid cloud computing scenarios that will be the norm tomorrow.
The ultimate issue, said Wilson, is that IT organizations need to think about cloud computing integration by design today rather than by committee tomorrow. Of course, every IT professional will say they alrady know how to build a cloud computing platform if they have access to all the right resources. But in truth, it’s harder than it looks on paper. Otherwise, everybody would have one by now. That doesn’t mean there are not a lot of options in terms of getting advice. But like the saying goes, don’t try this at home alone. Full Source
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Intel and Microsoft Tap FedScoop for Online Cloud Computing Campaign
Feb 9th
Today, FedScoop announced that Intel and Microsoft will be sponsoring an educational campaign focused on the present and future possibilities of cloud computing called, “Minds in the Cloud.” Each week, for 25 weeks, new High Definition (HD) interviews of influential technologists from the government, non-profit, and private sectors discussing their views on the importance of the cloud will be posted to mindsinthecloud.org.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — FedScoop announced today the launch of a campaign that seeks to educate and inspire those interested in cloud computing technologies. Minds in the Cloud is a special content edition of FedScoop — a full-service government media and marketing company — which seeks to capture insights from technologists, innovators, and government IT leaders around the topic of cloud computing, and is sponsored by Intel and Microsoft.
Initial interviews include those of Aneesh Chopra (Federal CTO), Linda Cureton (CIO, NASA), Tim O’Reilly (O’Reilly Media Group), Nigel Ballard (Federal Marketing Director, Intel), and Teresa Carlson (VP, Microsoft Federal).
IT spending on cloud computing is increasing, with 16 billion USD spent in 2008 and 42 billion USD forecasted by 2012. With Minds in the Cloud, viewers will be able to understand more fully why cloud computing services are becoming increasingly important, and what the future may hold for citizens, businesses, and the government as this shift occurs. Candid discussion of issues related to privacy, data portability, standards development, and the social implications of cloud computing will be discussed.
Viewers are encouraged to visit http://mindsinthecloud.org to watch the latest interview, as well as to follow http://www.twitter.com/mindsinthecloud for notifications about new episodes as they become available. Minds in the Cloud will be capturing interviews across the United States in Q1 and Q2; if you’re a subject matter expert in this area, please feel free to reach out to setup an interview.
About FedScoop:
FedScoop is a full-service government media and marketing company, specializing in government IT news, new media advertising and custom turn-key strategic networking events. FedScoop.com is the Government IT community’s most comprehensive, one-stop news source reaching notable influencers and voices in the community. FedScoop.com is the only independent aggregator of the most trusted and popular web sites that Government IT executives visit daily, to stay abreast of trends, best practices, business opportunities and news.
Press Release
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Microsoft to Offer U.S. Scientists Free Cloud Computing
Feb 5th
U.S. Scientists Given Access to Cloud Computing
The National Science Foundation and the Microsoft Corporation have agreed to offer American scientific researchers free access to the company’s new cloud computing service.
A goal of the three-year project is to give scientists the computing power to cope with exploding amounts of research data. It uses Microsoft’s Windows Azure computing system, which the company recently introduced to compete with cloud computing services from companies like Amazon, Google, I.B.M. and Yahoo. These cloud computing systems allow organizations and individuals to run computing tasks and Internet services remotely in relatively low-cost data centers.
The new program was announced on Thursday at a news conference in Washington.
Neither Microsoft nor the foundation was willing to place a dollar amount on the agreement, but Dan Reed, the corporate vice president for technology strategy and policy at Microsoft, said that the company was prepared to invest millions of dollars in the service and that it could support thousands of scientific research programs.
Access to the service will come in grants from the foundation to new and continuing scientific research. Microsoft executives said they planned eventually to make the new service global.
The government has traditionally supported a group of scientific computing centers at universities and laboratories around the country. These centers have typically housed supercomputers capable of solving scientific and engineering problems quickly. In recent years, however, increasing emphasis has been placed on computing systems capable of storing and analyzing vast amounts of data.
“It’s all about data,” said Jeannette M. Wing, assistant director of computer and information science and engineering directorate at the science foundation. “We are generating streams and rivers of data.”
Genetic sequencing systems are capable of generating as much as a terabyte, 1,000 gigabytes, of information a minute, Dr. Wing said.
Microsoft made its commitment to scientific computing two years after a similar service was introduced by Google and I.B.M. Several scientists familiar with the Microsoft project said the software company was hoping to differentiate the new service by offering scientists a set of custom applications that simplified access to Azure and the use of older software applications like Microsoft Excel.
“We’re trying to figure out how to engage the majority of scientists,” said Dr. Reed, who directed several of the nation’s scientific computing centers before joining Microsoft.
Simplicity of use is one Microsoft goal. Programming modern cloud systems for full efficiency has been difficult. The company is trying to overcome this difficulty in creating a variety of software tools for scientists, said Ed Lazowska, a University of Washington computer scientist who works with the Microsoft researchers.
Dr. Lazowska said the explosion of data being collected by scientists had transformed the staffing needs of the typical scientific research program on campus from a half-time graduate student one day a week to a full-time employee dedicated to managing the data. He said such exponential growth in cost was increasingly hampering scientific research.
Full Source The New York Times
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Should You Move Your Small Business to the Cloud?
Feb 1st
Cloud computing. For some, the term is wildly nebulous. Not long ago, even Oracle’s Larry Ellison publicly asked what the heck people meant by “the cloud.”
For others, cloud computing instantly raises concerns about security and reliability. After all, Gmail, a popular cloud-based e-mail service that has endured some high-profile outages, didn’t earn the nickname “Gfail” for nothing.
Before you dismiss the cloud as a lot of vapor, though, listen to what three small-business people told us about their experiences with it:
• “We saved over $4000 in up-front costs by moving to an entirely cloud-based solution [for e-mail, Web hosting, virus protection, and more]. We were also able to substantially reduce our power bill and the costs needed to maintain and upgrade hardware.” –Bob Everett, president, Bottom-Line Consulting, a three-person firm offering various small-business services.
• “As a non-IT person, I find cloud-based applications easier to set up and use than many [computer] applications, and I don’t need to rely on internal IT support as much for assistance.” –Cristina Martin Greysman, executive vice president, business development, Vuzit, a six-employee software company.
• “A power surge nearly destroyed our in-house e-mail server. Had we not recovered it, a great deal of historical knowledge and valuable information would have been lost forever, not to mention the lost productivity for days or weeks. Now we have a secure, redundant, cloud e-mail system we can access anywhere, anytime, with a consistent interface, and it’s made our business stronger.” –Kevin Hart, partner and founder, Hart-Boillot, a ten-employee marketing and communications agency.
To be sure, cloud computing has its shortcomings (more on that later); but small businesses looking to cut computing costs and improve efficiency during this long recession are finding the many benefits of Internet-based software and services increasingly attractive. In fact, companies with 100 or fewer employees are expected to spend $2.4 billion on cloud computing services in 2010, up from $1.7 billion in 2009, according to Ray Boggs, vice president of SMB research for IDC.
Here’s what you need to know about cloud computing: what it is, pros and cons, suggested services, and tips for applying it to your business.
Continue Reading… Full Source
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Cloud Networking and Application Delivery 2.0
Feb 1st
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In a recent newsletter we introduced the concept of Application Delivery 2.0, a major component of which is cloud computing. As noted in one of Jim’s recent reports on cloud computing, the goal of cloud computing is a significant improvement in the cost effective, elastic provisioning of IT services. We will use this newsletter to discuss the impact that achieving that goal will have on the WAN.
Welcome to Application Delivery 2.0
When the phrase cloud computing is used, many people think about using a WAN to access IT resources from a third party, such as Amazon, Google or Salesforce.com. In this newsletter we will refer to that approach to cloud computing as public cloud computing and the third parties that provide these services as cloud computing service providers. We will also refer to movement on the part of IT organizations to implement inside of their company the same techniques that cloud computing service providers implement, as being private cloud computing.
Two of the primary characteristics of private cloud computing are the consolidation of servers into centralized data centers and the virtualization of those servers. In recent newsletters we have discussed the current and expected deployment of virtualized servers. In particular, our research indicates that the vast majority of IT organizations have already consolidated at least some servers out of branch offices. That research also indicates that only around 40% of IT organizations have consolidated the majority of servers into centralized data centers and that percentage will increase slightly over the next year.
Because of the consolidation and virtualization of servers, the deployment of private cloud computing results in additional application traffic transiting the WAN. In an analogous fashion, a key component of public cloud computing is that IT organizations will access IT resources such as applications and storage from one or more third parties. Hence, as IT organizations increase their adoption of both private and public cloud computing solutions, this means that the wide area network will be involved in an increasing percentage of instances when users access applications and storage. This increased use of the WAN creates additional security vulnerabilities that adds to the value of having a WAN optimization controller that tightly integrates with security functionality. Accessing storage resources over the WAN will increase the need for IT organizations to implement functionality that optimizes the transfer of large blocks of storage.
In our next newsletter we will discuss the challenges of supporting cloud computing over a WAN and how IT organizations intend to respond to those challenges. More insight into the changes we expect to see in 2010 can be found in Jim’s recent report on cloud computing.
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Private Cloud Computing Companies to Watch: MIT
Jan 26th
Yet another cloud computing list. This time by MIT
Name: 10gen, www.10gen.com
Year Founded: 2008
Number of Employees: 8
Major Investors: Union Square Ventures
Total Invested: $1.5 million
Key Product: MongoDB
Technology: Sponsors an open-source database that makes cloud applications easier to build.
Year Founded: 2004
Number of Employees: 30
Major Investors: Undisclosed
Total Invested: Undisclosed
Key Product: AppLogic
Technology: Allows customers to move data and applications easily between its cloud platform and private data centers.
Year Founded: 2001
Number of Employees: 35
Major Investors: Stuart Mill Venture Partners
Total Invested: $23 million
Key Product: Appistry CloudIQ
Technology: Makes it possible to move business functions to a cloud while keeping existing
systems.
Year Founded: 2007
Number of Employees: 35
Major Investors: Amazon, Bay Partners, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Total Invested: $14.6 million
Key Product: Elastra Enterprise Cloud Server
Technology: Helps businesses use public clouds in concert with their internal IT setups.
Year Founded: 2004
Number of Employees: 20
Major Investors: Intel
Total Invested: Undisclosed
Key Product: Elastic Computing Platform
Technology:Creates tools that give customers the freedom to change cloud providers.
Year Founded: 1997
Number of Employees: 26
Major Investors: Funded by revenue
Total Invested: N/A
Key Product: FlexiScale
Technology: Helps European startups comply with data protection and export regulations.
Year Founded: 2007
Number of Employees: 11
Major Investors: Redpoint Ventures, Y Combinator
Total Invested: $3 million
Key Product: Heroku
Technology: Allows rapid deployment of systems based on Ruby on Rails, a popular way of building Web applications.
Year Founded: 2006
Number of Employees: 100
Major Investors: Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures
Total Invested: $22.2 million
Key Product: RightScale Cloud Management Platform
Technology: Provides essential hand-holding for companies wanting to run applications on a variety of public and private clouds.
Year Founded: 2004
Number of Employees: 25
Major Investors: Seed investment from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel
Total Invested: Undisclosed
Key Product: Accelerator, Connector
Technology: Provides on-demand storage and computing services for Web-application developers.
Name: ServePath, www.gogrid.com
Year Founded: 1994
Number of Employees: 100+
Major Investors: Funded by revenue
Total Invested: N/A
Key Product: GoGrid
Technology: Hopes to beat Amazon by wooing IT administrators with management software that behaves more like the tools they are already familiar with.
