Posts tagged Private Cloud
Red Hat launches rival to Windows Azure
Jun 29th
Red Hat’s Cloud Foundations, a complete package for running hybrid clouds, includes software and services
Red Hat has launched a comprehensive package, called Red Hat Cloud Foundations, that will allow organizations to run applications in both public clouds and their own private clouds.
With this release, Red Hat is one of only two companies that offer a complete package for running a hybrid cloud, said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager of Red Hat’s cloud business unit. The other company is Microsoft, with its Azure platform.
The announcement was one of a number of cloud-related announcements that the company made during its Red Hat Summit last week in Boston. The company also has added new partners to its Red Hat Certified Cloud Provider Program. It has released version 2.2 of its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) package, and has integrated Cisco’s Virtual Network Link (VN-Link) technology within the RHEV package.
The first edition of the Red Hat Cloud Foundations package includes a set of Red Hat programs, a reference architecture, and a number of consulting services and training classes. The Red Hat programs include Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Red Hat Network Satellite, RHEV, JBoss and the company’s messaging software.
Continue… Full Source: InfoWorld
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EC2 Creators Strike Out on Their Own
Jun 25th
Apparently the Silicon Valley-based Nimbula has been in stealth mode for over a year
A couple of Amazon’s boys, credited with leading the development of EC2, have struck out on their own and launched Nimbula, whose purpose is to “blend EC2-like scale, agility and efficiency with private infrastructure customization and control.”
Apparently the Silicon Valley-based Nimbula has been in stealth mode for over a year and brought in $5.75 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital and VMware.
And apparently it will be going after large organizations with a yen to have an EC2 of their very own.
Nimbula is starting with Nimbula Director, a so-called cloud operating system that manages on- and off-premise IT resources on customer-controlled infrastructure. It’s supposed to be capable of linear scaling to thousands of nodes and automated hands-off installation and data center management. It promises metered bursting into public clouds like Amazon along with fine-grain policy-based authorization and network security.
The widgetry is reportedly in beta with a half-dozen international customers in financial services, tech and healthcare. Formal launch is set for the second half.
CEO Chris Pinkham, who used to be VP of engineering at Amazon, said Nimbula wants “to help customers see beyond the false dichotomy of public versus private clouds” and let them feel all warm and secure about cloud computing.
Nimbula’s other co-founder now its VP of products Willem van Biljon wrote EC2′s business plan and led its product development.
VMware co-founder and former CEO Diane Greene has just joined Nimbula’s board.
The start-up’s also got AWS’ ex-biz dev and sales chief Martin Buhr as its VP of sales and ex-VMware exec Reza Malekzadeh as VP of marketing.
Article Credit to: Maureen O’Gara at Sys-Con
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How virtualization helps companies transform their approach to IT
Jun 22nd
Virtualization made its way into the mainstream data center with a strong cost-reduction value proposition centered around a straightforward tactic: server consolidation.
Now, on the back of the success these projects achieved, virtualization is gaining a more strategic role in the IT landscape. As virtualization initiatives delivered tangible bottom line benefits–in some instances up to 60% reduction in capital costs–companies looked to virtualize more. With expanded use, virtualization becomes more than an operational tactic; it becomes the foundation for a new approach to IT. An approach where IT services are freed from the complexity of the hardware infrastructure that delivers them. Through virtualization, companies are finally achieving “IT-as-a-service,” or cloud computing.
“Cloud” is a term that means many things to many people, but when viewed as an approach to computing that leverages the pooling of on-demand compute power delivered as a service, cloud computing really describes a new model for IT. And, an evolution to this computing approach is underway in thousands of data centers around the world. Our customers are on a journey that for many began with a single virtualized server.
I’ve already alluded to the first step of the journey, the “IT Production” phase. The IT organization is virtualizing what it owns–servers used for file and print or test and development–and the benefits are cost reduction through server consolidation, space and power savings.
Customers enter into the second phase of the journey–the “Business Production” phase–when they virtualize their first business application, such as a database, ERP system or enterprise e-mail. At this phase, the value proposition shifts and companies are virtualizing to achieve better quality of service (performance, reliability) or business continuity. Often, this shift is sudden and dramatic. At this point, the organization takes cost savings from consolidation for granted, and the focus has moved to faster provisioning, better capacity management, reliability and management automation for business applications. At this phase in the journey, IT is no longer the only stakeholder interested in virtualization. Because business-critical applications are involved, leadership from across lines of business are taking seats at the virtualization table.
While progressing through the first two stages of the journey, companies have used virtualization to reduce costs, improve efficiencies and increase service levels. The final stage of the journey is about business agility. We call this phase “IT-as-a-Service.” Typically, customers in this phase have more than 50% of their data center virtualized. Virtualization has become the norm–it’s just part of what IT does. And the result is that these companies have automated more processes, can deploy new services faster than ever before and are getting extremely high levels of utilization.
In this phase, resources can be allocated on demand where and when needed. IT is nimble. This model for the data center–made possible by virtualization and automation–could be described as a Private Cloud.
Throughout the journey, IT has delivered value, improved its credibility and evolved its relationship with the business. When our customers ask us, “How do I get to this new model of computing?” we tell them to keep doing what they are doing. Virtualize more, progress along the journey. Virtualization is the way forward.
In future articles I will dive deeper into some of the concepts that I’ve introduced here, covering best-practices that our successful customers have used to progress through the virtualization journey.
Full Source Credit to: Forbes.com
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3PAR Grows in EMEA as Cloud Computing Wave Swells
Jun 15th
FREMONT, CA–(Marketwire – June 15, 2010) – 3PAR® (NYSE: PAR), the leading global provider of utility storage, announced today that, in order to take advantage of the steady growth of the cloud and utility computing markets, it has signed up a new partner and increased its headcount in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) by more than 40%, with a focus on expanding its sales and customer services teams. Offering a new approach to storage architecture and a storage platform purpose-built to power the delivery of enterprise-class services via the cloud, 3PAR has taken advantage of the increased adoption of cloud computing in EMEA to grow operations over the past 12 months.
3PAR sells directly or through partners in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, and the UK. During the past year, 3PAR hired its first system engineers in France and the Netherlands and signed up channel partner Purity in Norway. 3PAR also partners with AntemetA in France and Luxembourg, Databasement in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain, POLCOM in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, and SYSDBA in South Africa.
3PAR promoted Tim Pitcher, who is based at 3PAR’s European central office in Staines, UK, to Vice President, International Region, making him the first senior 3PAR executive based outside of North America. Additionally, the company promoted João Silva, also based in Staines, to EMEA Sales Director, and appointed Wai Man Yau as Regional Director, UK and Ireland.
“I am proud of what the team has achieved in the past year,” said Pitcher. “The market grows more competitive every day, and yet customers have repeatedly chosen 3PAR over other vendors to help make the most of their storage infrastructures, particularly utility and cloud storage. We believe our success in EMEA to date is a testament to the strength of our value proposition, which is based on delivering resilient infrastructure with the agility to meet rapidly changing business demands, and for up to 50% less than traditional storage.”
According to Tier 1 Research, 3PAR’s storage platform is in use at seven of the world’s top ten managed hosting providers, including Attenda, Savvis, and Verizon Business, which all have cloud computing deployments in Europe built on 3PAR. Other European cloud computing service providers deploying 3PAR include Carrenza and Intercept. 3PAR’s European customers also include private cloud installations at financial services firms such as Thames River Capital and Credit Suisse, as well as others outside financial services including Bateman Engineering, Carphone Warehouse, and Comic Relief.
“3PAR Utility Storage combines effective virtualization, green credentials, and a range of software features that allow end users to lower their total cost of ownership while making the storage infrastructure much more flexible and energy-efficient,” said Chris Bamber, Managing Director at SYSDBA, 3PAR’s partner in South Africa. “With 3PAR, we approach customers with a superior value proposition than other resellers, and this is a significant advantage for us.”
“We see 3PAR as the future of storage,” said Rob Christ, Director and Founder of Databasement. “3PAR is one of the leading and most innovative storage companies at this moment, and is well known for delivering unrivalled performance and efficiency. With 3PAR Utility Storage, Databasement is able to offer our customers unique benefits that enhance their cloud computing deployments, such as agility and cost efficiency. Furthermore, 3PAR’s innovative technologies enhance server virtualization with VMware™, enabling our service provider, hosting, and integrator customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain to build virtual datacenters with unmatched advantages.”
About 3PAR
3PAR® (NYSE: PAR) 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.
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Cloud computing momentum: What it means for CIOs and IT departments
May 31st
Cloud computing has gone from being scoffed at by CIOs to being one of the top two CIO concerns of 2010. TechRepublic and ZDNet recently did a Webcast in which ZDNet Editor in Chief Larry Dignan and I discussed the full range of issues that IT leaders face when considering if and how to implement cloud computing.
Some of specific topics included:
- The different flavors of cloud computing
- Security concerns
- Compliance with the cloud
- Cloud-washing
- Private cloud vs. public cloud
- Bringing legacy code to the cloud
- How the cloud will affect IT jobs
The live Webcast was on May 25 and it was called CIO Essentials for Cloud Computing 3.0. It is now available on-demand (registration required).
I would describe this as a very frank and lively discussion, including some interaction with the live audience. If you’re grappling with cloud deployment, you’ll definitely want to listen to this one.
Find Out More at: ZDnet
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The top 10 most promising cloud computing companies – Structure 2010 LaunchPad
May 24th
The top 10 most promising cloud computing companies, chosen from hundreds of applicants, to be honored at industry’s leading cloud conference, Structure 2010
(PRWEB) May 24, 2010 — GigaOM today announced the winners of Structure 2010 LaunchPad, a high-profile competition that recognizes the 11 most promising cloud companies. From the large number of entries just 11 were chosen as winners based on their forward-thinking vision, and sustainable business models.
The winners will present their companies on stage at Structure 2010, the largest and most influential cloud computing conference in the industry, set to take place June 23-24, 2010 in San Francisco. The winners of the LaunchPad competition are:
• Benguela – A stealth mode startup company founded by Amazon EC2 veterans
• Cloudant – MapReduce based data management with analytics and search
• Cloudswitch – Makes enterprise cloud adoption easy by solving key problems
• Datameer – The Big Data power of Hadoop made accessible through a spreadsheet interface
• Greenqloud – Provider of completely carbon neutral cloud provider
• GridCentric – Turns your compute farm into a high-performance, private cloud in seconds
• nephosity – Allows non programmers to allocate tasks and workflows on the cloud
• Northscale – Provide a simple, fast, schema-free mechanism for storing data objects
• Riptano – Apache Cassandra (Facebook’s data layer) management software and services
• SolidFire – Next-generation block-based storage platform for cloud computing providers and big enterprises
• Zettar Inc – Create secure private storage cloud using commodity storage assets
“Cloud computing has become much more than a buzzword – hardware, software, and communications companies are now successfully leveraging the on-demand, Web-based model to deliver sophisticated enterprise-class products and services in the cloud,” says Stacey Higginbotham, Editor of GigaOM. “It was tough to choose just 11 top cloud companies from all the innovative companies that applied, but we’re confident the 11 winners our editors selected are truly the best of the best.”
Structure 2010 is the largest and most influential cloud computing conference, expected to draw over 1,000 attendees at this year’s expanded two-day event. Dozens of leading cloud industry executives and influencers will take the stage at Structure 2010 to share best practices and real-world strategies for embracing cloud technologies to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and boost performance. Whether you’re an IT professional, or a cloud entrepreneur looking for funding, Structure 2010 is a must-attend event that will connect you with the industry’s most innovative thinkers.
50 + Cloud Vendors
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Cloud Computing and SaaS – Paying for Private Cloud Computing
May 11th
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing senior IT directors is how to pay for the reinvention of their enterprise IT operations as a private cloud computing service. After all, when 75 percent of the IT budget goes towards maintenance fees and existing operations, finding the money to fund new projects ranges from difficult to impossible.
In fact, Jim Ganthier, vice president of marketing for industry standard servers for Hewlett-Packard, refers to this challenge as nothing short of “IT innovation gridlock.” Unless IT organizations can find the funds to adopt the new types of systems needed to deploy a private cloud computing environment, IT will never really be managed as a true service.
Hewlett-Packard wants to help customers take on this challenge with new services that help IT organizations self-fund the transition to private cloud computing at a time when IT leaders are under pressure to innovate without increasing costs.
A research survey of more than 400 business and senior IT executives conducted by Coleman Parkes Research on behalf of HP found that one out two senior IT executives feel their company is being held back in terms of business process innovation because the majority of the IT budget was being consumed to support existing operations. The study also concludes that 95 percent of the executives survyeed said this inability to innovate had resulted in lost opportunities for the company; while 93 percent said it resulted in lost effort for the company; and 99 percent said it resulted in lost time.
Sine time and effort equals money and cost, HP thinks now is the time to roll out new cloud computing migration services while also enhancing the management functionality embedded in its Proliant G7 servers. HP is upgrading the Integrated Lights-Out (ILO) processor that the company embedds in its servers in order to add additional monitoring along with power and cooling management capabilities. The overall idea, said Ganthier, is for G7 servers to be able to pay for themselves within two months by reducing ongoing operational costs, which in turn can be used to help fund the adoption of newer technologies needed to create private cloud computing platforms.
The new services that HP wants customers to buy to help facilitate this transition include a Cloud Service Automation (CSA) offering that automates many IT processes, assessment tools for managing virtual server environments, and a variety of financial management tools designed specifically for IT organizations.
Whether IT organizations opt to lean on HP or some other vendor to make the transition to private cloud computing is up to each individual organization. But what is clear is that IT organizations are being required to modernize the way they manage IT resources in this era of the cloud. So the real question seems to be whether they are going to do it themselves; or leave the task to their eventual successor.
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Cloud Computing Review – Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud review
May 10th
If you’re building an internal or private cloud, Canonical wants you to use Ubuntu Linux 10.04 as your operating system of choice. To that end, the newest version of Ubuntu includes a feature set called Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.
In keeping with its open source pedigree, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is integrated with the open source Eucalyptus private cloud platform, making it possible to create a private cloud with much less configuration than installing Linux first, then Eucalyptus.
And for those thinking about eventually moving resources to the public cloud, or simply bursting to the public cloud when workloads spike, the Ubuntu/Eucalyptus internal cloud offering is designed to be compatible with Amazon’s EC2 public cloud service.
On the flip side, you’ll need to familiarise yourself with both Ubuntu and Eucalyptus, as Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud’s dependence on Eucalyptus will force you to reach beyond Ubuntu documentation when problems occur. For example, we found Ubuntu had weak documentation for customising images, an important step in deploying Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.
Basically, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud can be deployed on internal hardware to run job/batch applications. The idea is to initially allocate storage, then rapidly build multiple virtual machines to process data, collect the data, then tear down the infrastructure for re-use by a subsequent purpose.
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud provides internal cloud control methods that closely mime what can be done on Amazon’s public cloud infrastructure. Its tools can be used to process recurring jobs or one-shot distributed applications, like DNA analysis, video rendering, or database table reformatting/reindexing.
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud uses the open source kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) platform to host virtual machines that run on the backend nodes. This is important because there are extra Eucalyptus-provided images that include both the KVM and Xen kernels, but you must use the KVM ones if you’re importing them into Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.
Getting started
In order to successfully run Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, we had to have at least two dedicated systems. One is used for the front-end applications, which include a Cloud Controller, a Cluster Controller, Walrus Controller and the Storage Controller. The other system became a node machine that ran the hosted virtual machines.
The controller services were easy to understand since they’re similar to Amazon EC2 Cloud components. The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Cloud Controller is the front-end service application — the one to connect to for managing cloud services. It understands EC2 API calls, and offered us its web user interface.
The Cluster Controller, in turn, manages each cluster of node (VM) resources, and talks to the node/VM host via the open source libvrt library. We could use as many nodes as we had hardware resources to cram them into, Canonical recommends baseline hardware and recommends faster components, even down to disk speed.
The Walrus Controller acts as a storage mechanism like Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) for data storage or storing VM images. The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Storage Controller, like Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS), makes persistent virtual disks to attach to running instances — active resource storage virtualisation control. Each cluster can have a Storage Controller for the convenience of management, snapshots, object aggregation, and so on.
Continue the review at: TechWorld
