Posts tagged server
The economics of cloud computing
Feb 25th
The new big thing of the IT world is “cloud computing”, a general purpose technology that could provide a fundamental contribution to promote efficiency in the private and public sectors and promote growth, competition, and business creation.
Cloud computing is an Internet-based technology (hence “cloud”) which stores information in servers and provides it as an on-demand service. The economic impact of cloud computing will be substantial on both households and companies.
- On one side, consumers will be able to access all of their documents and data from any device (the home or work PC, the mobile phone, an internet point), as they already do for email services or social networks.
- On the other side, firms will be able to rent computing power (both hardware and software in their latest versions) and storage from a service provider, while paying on demand, as they already do for other inputs such as energy and electricity.
The former application will affect our lifestyles, but the latter will have a profound impact on the cost structure of all the industries. For instance, it can provide huge cost savings and greater efficiency in large areas of the public sector including hospitals and healthcare (especially to provide information and technologies in remote or poorer locations), education (especially for e-learning) and the activity of government agencies with periodic spikes in usage. Moreover, substantial positive externalities are expected because of energy savings: the improvement of energy efficiency may contribute to the reduction of total carbon emissions in a substantial way.
If we look at the private sector, again the introduction of cloud computing can provide cost savings. It can create multilateral network effects between businesses, and it can promote entry and innovation in all the sectors where IT costs are restrictive and are drastically reduced by the adoption of cloud computing. This last effect can have a large effect on the wider economy. Continue Reading…Full Source
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Cloud Computing In Plain English – CloudTweaks.com
Nov 12th
Cloud Computing In Plain English
Almost three years ago, Lee and Sachi LeFever created their first video to explain RSS.
They called the video RSS in Plain English. They used paper cut outs to explain the XML format. It became an instant hit. Tens of thousands of people watched it. Today their company, Common Craft, make all sorts of custom videos. They’ve built a business around explaining concepts.
Their latest video explains cloud computing.
“Cloud Computing in Plain English,”ells the story of a florist whose business grows. She learns about cloud computing and realizes that perhaps maybe she should not have to worry about fixing broken servers.
video
Cloud computing is one of those topics that confuses and confounds people. Larry Ellison loves to poke at it. It’s the hot topic so it is refreshing to see Lee once again explain the topic in simple terms that pretty much anyone can understand. It makes everyone’s job a bit simpler.
Which takes us to the last point of the day. We get so many pitches from companies. The services are explained in terms that often need deciphering. What if more companies in the enterprise space spent more time explaining what they do? What if companies did something like what Common Craft did for Twitter or with Google to help explain Google Docs?
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Report – Yahoo! offers open source cloud server Next Monday
Nov 3rd
Yahoo! is set to launch an open source version of its Traffic Server next Monday, providing users with a high-performance application server for cloud computing services.
Techworld reports that Yahoo!’s new technology will be unveiled at next week’s Cloud Computing Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, California. Yahoo! is already offering the code for its Traffic Server through the Apache Software Foundation, and has made the software open source with the aim of building a strong developer and user community. The company has stated that even competitors such as Google and Microsoft are permitted to make use of the technology if they choose.
Yahoo! claims that its Traffic Server will provide services for cloud computing including authentication, load balancing, routing and session and configuration management, with plug-in architecture allowing web traffic to be delivered at high speeds.
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GoGrid Announces Version 2.0 – Cloud Computing Service
Aug 11th
GoGrid Announces Version 2.0
Today GoGrid, the Cloud Computing service from ServePath, released version 2.0 of its award-winning Cloud Computing Infrastructure solution. With this release, GoGrid users now have the ability to create personal server images, known as MyGSIs. MyGSI stands for “personal GoGrid Server Image,” a “Golden Master” server image that can be customized, saved and stored for future deployments. Users are now able to create new servers from stored MyGSIs via the GoGrid web portal or API quickly and easily.
We are extremely excited about this innovative new GoGrid release
This is an important development in the Cloud Computing marketplace, and further demonstrates our visionary approach to providing Cloud Computing functionality and features that our customers desire.
“We are extremely excited about this innovative new GoGrid release,” said John Keagy, CEO and Co-Founder of GoGrid and ServePath. “This is an important development in the Cloud Computing marketplace, and further demonstrates our visionary approach to providing Cloud Computing functionality and features that our customers desire.”
The creation of a MyGSI is an extremely simple 3-step process. First add an Image Sandbox, second, configure and prepare the Image Sandbox and third, save the Image Sandbox as a MyGSI. When a user needs to create a new Windows or Linux server based on the pre-configured MyGSI, they simply choose the saved image, fill in a few details, and instantiate the server in minutes within the GoGrid cloud.
There are several benefits and advantages of using a MyGSI to deploy servers within the GoGrid cloud:
Cloud Computing List of 85 Cloud Vendor Players
Sep 3rd
Posted by cloudtweaks in Cloud Computing
6 comments
Cloud Computing Vendors
1) Amazon Web Services
Leading cloud pioneer Amazon offers several different in-the-cloud services. The best known is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, or Amazon EC2, which allows customers to set up and access virtual servers via a simple Web interface. Fees are assessed hourly based on the number and size of virtual machines you have ($.10 -$.80 per hour), with an additional fee for data transfer.
EC2 is designed to work in conjunction with Amazon’s other cloud services, which include Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Simple DB, Cloudfront, Simple Queue Service (SQS), and Elastic MapReduce.
Notable: The Amazon Web Services list of partners is high profile, including the likes of Citrix, Facebook, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, and others.
2) Google
Yes, they own search – and are working on owning the cloud. With Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Picasa in its lineup, Google offers some of the best known cloud computing services available. They also offer some lesser known cloud services targeted primarily at enterprises, such as Google Sites, Google Gadgets, Google Video, and most notably, the Google Apps Engine. The Apps Engine allows developers to write applications to run on Google’s servers while accessing data that resides in the Google cloud as well as data that resides behind the corporate firewall. While it has been criticized for limited programming language support, the Apps Engine debuted Java and Ajax support in April, which may make it more appealing to developers.
Notable: Google recently revealed its philosophy of cloud computing in this Enterprise Blog post written by senior project manager Rajen Sheth: “As companies weigh private data centers vs. scalable clouds, they should ask a simple question: can I find the same economics, ease of maintenance, and pace of innovation that is inherent in the cloud?”
3) IBM
Although it was somewhat late to the cloud computing party, IBM launched its “Smart Business” lineup of cloud-based products and services in June. For now, the company is focusing on two key areas: software development and testing, and virtual desktops. But the company makes it clear that the cloud model has much wider-reaching implications, noting that “cloud computing represents a true paradigm shift in the way IT and IT-enabled services are delivered and consumed by businesses.” The company has also made noises about partnering with Google – the two companies would be a potent duo in the cloud sector.
Notable: A big part of IBM’s advantage in the cloud is the remarkable reach of its international presence. Early customers of IBM’s cloud computing offerings include South Africa’s Nedbank and China’s Sinochem.
4) Microsoft
It’s a critical question facing the tech industry: Can Microsoft, the king of the traditional world of packaged software, leverage its hulking muscle to grab a similar position in the cloud world? The answer is unclear but Microsoft is certainly trying. The software giant’s ambitious Azure initiative has a solution for every Microsoft constituency, from ISVs to Web developers to enterprise clients to consumers. Formally unveiled in 2008, Azure is still very much a work in progress. If it succeeds as Microsoft hopes, in future years we’ll be talking about “Windows Azure,” a cloud-based OS that offers remote computing power, storage and management services. To make the dream come true, Microsoft is investing a king’s fortune in a network of $500 million, 500,000-square-feet datacenters around the country. The facilities will presumably form the physical backbone of the cloud network. If all goes according to plan, Microsoft will not only control the software but also the physical infrastructure that delivers that software. In other words, the company is attempting to be even bigger than it is now. (No one ever accused Redmond of being modest.) Perhaps the company’s ace in the hole: it understands enterprise management – a critical building block – more than its top competitors.
Notable: In a March 2009 interview with the New York Times, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer jumped up and drew a diagram on a white board of the company’s cloud computing plans. It’s a squiggly, complicated drawing, leading the reporter to ask if the plan wasn’t overly complex. Not at all, Ballmer explained, detailing how current flagship Windows Server will be replaced by Windows Azure. In a quote that suggests that Microsoft is very attuned to the cloud trend, he told the Times: ““Anything that has been a server needs to be a service.”
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