Posts tagged Infrastructure-as-a
A Guide to Cloud Computing on Linux
Jul 22nd
Here is an older but still interesting article written by Joe Brockmeierover at Linux
This may not be the year of the Linux desktop, but it’s definitely the year of Linux powering cloud computing. Even though cloud computing is gaining popularity; it’s still not well-understood. Want a bit more on the basics of cloud computing? Read on!
Behind the smokescreen of hype, there’s actually something to cloud computing. You’re already a consumer of cloud computing in the same way that we’re all Linux users. Using Amazon or Gmail? You’re using cloud computing. But that’s not the same as working directly with cloud solutions.
Just like virtualization, the right cloud solution — if any — depends entirely on the workloads you have and your requirements for data handling. Most businesses of any size are probably using at least some cloud computing in the form of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), if nothing else.
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing, at least as initially defined, comprises on-demand computing delivered over the Internet. This includes several types of computing. First, Platform-as-a-Service offerings (PaaS) that allow users to run applications on cloud infrastructure. This includes services like Google’s App Engine. The infrastructure is completely controlled by the service provider and the customer doesn’t need to worry about the management of the systems or infrastructure that the service is running on. In fact, the user may not know whether the underlying platform is running on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, some mixture of all the above, or something else entirely. All they need to know is the interface and how to run jobs on the system.
Next is Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), such as Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) that delivers on-demand and scalable services over the Internet where organizations can deploy workloads that can grow and shrink on demand to meet the need. This allows organizations to run operating systems or other infrastructure on top of a computing service. Again, customers don’t manage the underlying hardware or platforms that their infrastructure is running on top of — they simply define the level of services that they need and run their infrastructure on top of that.
Finally, SaaS, which has been around for a while now. Instead of installing and running software on your own infrastructure, it runs on someone else’s infrastructure in a pay per use model. Some SaaS, like Google Docs, might be entirely free to the end user. Other services charge per user, by service tier, or a combination of the two. Typically SaaS offerings are Web-based and run through the browser, like the 37 Signals suite.
You’ll find a lot of packages that are designed to be offered by third-parties as SaaS as well. For instance, the Parallels Automation and Plesk Control Panel offerings from Parallels, or Open-Xchange groupware that can be customized and deployed by hosting providers.
It should go without saying, though I’ll say it anyway, that Linux powers the bulk of cloud computing solutions. You’ll find some Windows-based offerings, but Amazon, Google, and other major players are running their cloud infrastructure on top of Linux.
Related posts
CentriLogic Offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service With Disaster Recovery Services Powered by 3PAR
Jul 12th
3PAR Brings Innovative Cloud-Agile Program to Canada
FREMONT, CA, Jul 12, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — 3PAR(R) /quotes/comstock/13*!par/quotes/nls/par (PAR 10.01, +0.01, +0.10%) , the leading global provider of utility storage, announced today that CentriLogic, a leading provider of Cloud Computing, Managed Hosting, and Data Center solutions, has become the first member of the 3PAR Cloud-Agile partner program in Canada. CentriLogic has chosen the 3PAR InServ(R) F-Class Storage Server to power its multi-facility Infrastructure-as-a-Service Cloud Computing and Cloud Storage platforms. In addition, as a 3PAR Cloud-Agile: ASSURED partner, CentriLogic has chosen 3PAR Remote Copy software to deliver Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service.
“We decided to go with 3PAR over the competition because of its superior technology and the business benefits offered by the Cloud-Agile program,” said Jim Latimer, VP of Client Solutions at CentriLogic. “We view 3PAR’s ease of use, availability, scalability, and cross-facility capabilities as crucial to helping us meet our customers’ demands, and we believe the 3PAR Cloud-Agile program to be an important vehicle in helping drive new business.”
The 3PAR Cloud-Agile partner program was created by 3PAR to formalize go-to-market programs with the company’s managed hosting provider customers. In addition, the program was designed to raise awareness and demand for the cost savings and agility benefits of cloud computing services and to encourage the development of a robust cloud computing ecosystem leveraging 3PAR technologies. Under the 3PAR Cloud-Agile program, 3PAR Cloud-Agile: ASSURED partners offer highly available, cloud-based disaster recovery solutions based on the 3PAR InServ Storage Server and 3PAR Remote Copy Software.
“The InServ F-Class offered us superior, load-balanced performance and reliability as compared with the other storage arrays we evaluated,” said Latimer. “Built-in tiered storage capabilities and the ability to cost-efficiently accommodate workloads with varying service level requirements give us the ability to effectively and efficiently tailor solutions to customer needs. In addition, by offering Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service via 3PAR Remote Copy and 3PAR Cloud-Agile: ASSURED, we were able to avoid professional services costs present with other platforms.”
“We are excited to welcome our first 3PAR Cloud-Agile partner in Canada, and to support CentriLogic’s Cloud offerings,” said David Scott, President and CEO for 3PAR. “Since its launch last year, the Cloud-Agile program has gained tremendous traction. With this new addition to the program, the Cloud-Agile partner ecosystem now encompasses leading hosting service providers in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, and South Africa.”
About CentriLogic, Inc. CentriLogic is a leading provider of Cloud Computing, Managed Hosting, and Data Center solutions for organizations that require secure and scalable infrastructures for their information systems. CentriLogic owns and operates multiple world-class Data Centers in both Canada and the United States. Combined with these facilities, CentriLogic’s industry certifications, industry best practices, experienced technical resources, and proactive customer support initiatives enable customers to achieve seamless IT outsourcing with confidence and peace of mind. CentriLogic is a Canadian based company with operations in Toronto and Mississauga, Ontario, as well as in Rochester and Buffalo, New York. For more information, visit www.centrilogic.com.
About 3PAR 3PAR(R) /quotes/comstock/13*!par/quotes/nls/par (PAR 10.01, +0.01, +0.10%) is the leading global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualized, dynamically tiered, multi-tenant storage arrays built for public and private cloud computing. Our virtualized storage platform was built from the ground up to be agile and efficient and to eliminate the limitations of traditional storage arrays for utility infrastructures. As a pioneer of thin provisioning and other storage virtualization technologies, we design our products to reduce power consumption to help companies meet their green computing initiatives and to cut storage total cost of ownership. 3PAR customers have used our self-managing, efficient, and adaptable utility storage systems to reduce administration time and provisioning complexity, to improve server and storage utilization, and to scale and adapt flexibly in response to continuous growth and changing business needs. For more information, visit the 3PAR Website at: www.3PAR.com
Related posts
OpSource Recognized as a Top Ten Cloud Computing “Leader to Watch”
Jun 29th
Company Chosen for Market Leadership, Customer Traction and Ability to Innovate
SANTA CLARA, CA–(Marketwire – June 29, 2010) – OpSource, Inc., the leader in enterprise cloud and managed hosting, today announced that Datamation.com recently recognized the company as one of the top ten cloud computing “leaders to watch“ in a list which also included IBM, AT&T, and Cisco. Leaders were chosen based on objective criteria, including customer traction, experience and market cap or financing, as well as subjective criteria, such as ability to innovate, ease of use, and how well cloud offerings integrate with the company’s broader portfolio.
With hundreds of customers such as Adobe, SAP, Taleo and Xactly, OpSource was recognized as a leader because of its unique position as the “go-to ‘cloud operations’ provider.” Offering more than traditional hosting services, OpSource provides Application Operations, which includes database management, compliance management, change management, performance management and application optimization. In 2009, the company introduced OpSource Cloud, a cloud service for companies requiring pay-as-you-go flexibility and 100% availability as well as high security and control.
OpSource was also chosen for its vision and solution-oriented strategy. The company predicts a near future where the cloud marketplace is built around an ecosystem of developers, integrators, telcos and VARs. OpSource believes in this ecosystem because enterprise customers buy solutions, and they increasingly see cloud hosting and managed hosting services as a component to an overall solution. To this end, OpSource has already inked a partnership with NTT America this May, under which NTT America will deliver enterprise cloud services built on OpSource Cloud.
“We believe that more than half of Infrastructure-as-a-Service will eventually be sold through channels and solution providers,” said Treb Ryan, CEO, OpSource. “We are gratified that a leading publication like Datamation.com has confidence in our vision for this future, and we thank them for this recognition.”
About OpSource
OpSource provides cloud and managed hosting solutions that enable businesses of all sizes to accelerate growth and scale operations while controlling costs and reducing IT infrastructure support risks. More than four hundred Software-as-a-Service ISVs, cloud platform providers, carriers and enterprises rely on OpSource’s expertise, experience and agility to operate high-availability, business-critical hosting environments. Our industry-leading Application Operations service goes beyond traditional hosting by providing application management, change management, performance management and application optimization. OpSource Cloud™ is the first cloud to bring together the flexibility, availability and community of the public cloud with the security, performance and control the enterprise demands. Founded in 2002, OpSource is SAS 70 Type II, PCI DSS Level 1 and European Safe Harbor certified and has operations in California, Virginia, UK, Ireland, and India. For more information, please visit www.opsource.net.
OpSource, OpSource Cloud, OpSource On-Demand, and the OpSource logo are trademarks of OpSource, Inc. All other trademarks and company names mentioned are protected by their respective owners.
Related posts
Ingram Micro Announces New Cloud Conduit Initiative to Accelerate Adoption of Cloud Computing
Jun 7th
Forges New Relationships with Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Cloud Hosting and salesforce.com
DALLAS, June 7 /PRNewswire/ — INGRAM MICRO CLOUD SUMMIT – As part of its inaugural Cloud Summit, Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM) today announced the Cloud Conduit − a new services initiative that connects Ingram Micro’s North America channel partners with leading and emerging cloud computing vendors including ISVs, cloud hosting companies and system integrators. The distributor is also pleased to announce three emerging relationships with cloud innovators Amazon Web Services (AWS) LLC, Rackspace Hosting and salesforce.com.
Launching today, the new Cloud Conduit program provides Ingram Micro’s channel partners with a comprehensive portfolio of cloud-specific enablement resources and service offerings including Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), educational tools and resources such as face-to-face engagements, business development resources, sales training and webinars. This new program, in combination with Ingram Micro’s Seismic managed services, cloud and software-as-a-service offerings, reinforces the distributor’s position as a thought leader and strategic partner in the cloud computing market place.
“The blending of the managed IT services model and cloud computing is an evolutionary step in the advancement of IT services,” says Jason Beal, director, service sales, Ingram Micro North America. “Cloud computing introduces a new playing field for solution providers and managed service providers. With the advent of cloud computing comes tremendous opportunity for our channel partners to add high value managed solutions and services from the cloud into their services portfolio and ultimately earn more business. Ingram Micro introduced the Cloud Conduit to help our channel partners take advantage of and maximize the business opportunities the cloud brings to the table.”
As part of the Cloud Conduit initiative, Ingram Micro is pursuing three distinct relationships with Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Hosting and salesforce.com. Amazon Web Services is working closely with Ingram Micro to bring the benefits of the AWS platform to Ingram Micro’s many channel partners.
“Amazon Web Services is pleased that Ingram Micro will be utilizing AWS’ on-demand, pay as you go, cloud computing services to help a new community of customers and solution providers,” says Terry Wise, director of partner relations for Amazon Web Services. ”Customers and solution providers will be able to innovate and accelerate the delivery of new applications all while cutting costs.”
Under the developing alliance with salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, Ingram Micro will provide channel development, marketing, and channel sales services to salesforce.com’s community of AppExchange ISVs and help bring these world-class applications to market through the Cloud Conduit program.
In addition, Ingram Micro will offer Rackspace’s managed and cloud hosting solutions as part of its Seismic managed services portfolio to the distributor’s more than 1,600 Seismic partners throughout North America, as well as its general solution provider base.
Ingram Micro Announces Cloud Conduit Advisory Council
To further accelerate industry adoption and build a greater understanding around cloud computing, Ingram Micro is spearheading a new industry leadership group called the Cloud Conduit Advisory Council. Founding participants include Amazon Web Services, CA, Citrix Systems, McAfee, Microsoft, Rackspace Hosting and salesforce.com.
“We created the Cloud Conduit Advisory Council to establish a common ground for the IT industry’s cloud innovators to share their vision, seek new alliances and drive greater visibility into the opportunity, challenges and benefits that cloud computing brings to the IT channel at large,” says Justin Crotty, vice president, services, Ingram Micro North America. “Together we will further enable our channel partners to clearly articulate and demonstrate the benefits of cloud computing to their customers.”
For more information on Ingram Micro Seismic and the new Cloud Conduit initiative, please visit ingrammicro.com/seismic.
Follow Ingram Micro Inc and Seismic on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/IngramMicroInc and www.twitter.com/IngramSeismic.
About Ingram Micro
As a vital link in the technology value chain, Ingram Micro creates sales and profitability opportunities for vendors and resellers through unique marketing programs, outsourced logistics services, technical support, financial services and product aggregation and distribution. The company serves approximately 150 countries and is the only global broad-based IT distributor with operations in Asia. Visit www.ingrammicro.com.
SOURCE Ingram Micro Inc.
Related posts
Why Small Businesses Are Using ‘Big Data’
Jun 4th
Cloud computing reduces the cost of big data analytics.
Big data analytics is no longer just the purview of big companies with big budgets. Increasingly, cloud computing gives small companies an affordable and easy-to-use way to find out how big data can help grow their existing business or uncover new opportunities. Because cloud computing removes the need to invest in expensive infrastructure to try out their new ideas, small companies no longer face barriers to big data innovation.
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers such as Amazon, Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ), Google ( GOOG – news – people ), GoGrid, Rackspace and Slicehost, along with the on-demand analytics solution vendors that support them, make big data analytics very affordable. A lot of parameters go into computing the exact price of running big data analytics in the cloud such as usage and configuration and, of course, each IaaS and analytics vendor has its own pricing model. However, it is safe to say, that there are solutions that can allow a small business to perform simple data analytics on a terabyte of data for as low as $100.
So, perhaps you are now convinced that big data analytics is becoming cheap but are wondering what demand from small companies will really be. After all, don’t small companies have small data? Do they really have the skill sets required for big data analytics? Are the solutions available to these small companies really as good as what the big players have access to? The answers to these questions may surprise you.
All companies have big data whether they realize it or not. Certainly, most online businesses, large or small, will collect large volumes of data from their Web logs and clickstream data. But internal data can be just a small part of the big data portfolio as the number of publicly available data sources grows. Consider that the World Bank makes its statistical data about the entire world available online or that all Twitter data since March 2006 will soon be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. Further, there are plenty of news and investment data services that offer low-cost access to their information and their prices keep dropping.
Big data analytics functionality is likely to accelerate in the world of cloud analytics instead of being just a subset of what is available in non-cloud products. Just as users in small companies turn to IaaS to gain affordable access to big data analytics, developers of analytics software and associated plug-ins will turn to the infrastructure as an affordable way to develop and test their applications. Affordability will increase ubiquity of solutions and extend their functionality.
Ease-of-use is a major focus of on-demand solutions in general, particularly big data analytics intended for business users. On top of ease-of-use as a major design focus of on-demand solutions, technical support is undergoing a dramatic transformation. The mindset of hiding exactly how products work and product bugs from competitors and prospective customers is past history. Instead, on-demand, big data analytics open up the kimono in public forums to expose users to this information as quickly as possible, to make users self-sufficient and to encourage member collaboration. These communities for customer service have become just as important to a cloud vendor’s website as its sales and marketing information.
