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This Week in Cloud, March 24, 2011: Microsoft hybrid cloud strategy, New release of CloudStack, Gartner report provides guidance for cloud RFPs, 7 deadly sins of cloud computing. And more…
Feature Article
Real math and rapid-fire ideas: Overheard at Cloud Connect 2011
By Jay Fry, CA Technologies
I spent several days at Cloud Connect in Santa Clara and I am very glad that I did. It was great connecting with a group of the cloud computing whiz kids (and some only slightly older than that). Plus, Alistair Croll and the team proved that they can continue to put on a conference each year that feels the pulse of the market and provides the content that needs to get airtime. Last year's event was solid; this was even better.
Here were some of highlights and things I overheard while I was at Cloud Connect, including details about the economics and legal issues surrounding cloud computing and some quotable quotes from a few of the event’s high-profile speakers. Read the full article.
Cloud News
- As part of Microsoft’s announcement of System Center 2012 (which is now in beta and will be available by the end of 2011), Microsoft plans to support hybrid Azure clouds. In this GigaOm blog, Derrick Harris writes that “VMware is further along with its vCloud tools and hybrid cloud strategy than is Microsoft, but Microsoft can’t catch up if it doesn’t start competing first.”
- In related news, Dell confirmed that it will offer at least two ‘public cloud’ service offerings – one based on Azure and the other on a platform to be named. Cade Metz speculates in this The Register article that Dell’s other public cloud offering will be based on the open source OpenStack platform.
- Cloud.com released a new version of its open-source CloudStack platform, which it claims can help transform existing data centers into an Amazon EC2-like infrastructure cloud. The new version enables users to manage machines based on VMware vSphere, Xen and KVM hypervisors from a single interface. It does not, however, support running the same workloads on disparate hypervisors, according to this article in The Register.
- Amazon Web Services extended its virtual private cloud capabilities this week. Customers no longer need connect via a VPN to the service offering. They can now set up a virtual network within the cloud, according to this Information Week article.
Cloud Views
- Seven deadly sins of cloud computing: The Information Security Forum has published a report on what it considers the seven deadly sins and how to combat them. The sins are Ignorance, Ambiguity, Doubt, Trespass, Disorder, Conceit and Complacency.
- In this SearchCloudComputing article, Steve Cimino reviews VMware’s cloud acquisitions, product announcements and major partnerships over the last year in order to piece together VMware’s cloud strategy.
- Gregor Petri with CA Technologies published two thought-provoking articles which provide an overview and commentary on “fabric computing” and its impact: Is fabric computing the future of cloud? and More on fabric computing in the cloud.
- Recent outages at user-generated news-site Reddit have caused users to question the reliability of Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Block Service (EBS) and cloud computing in general. Read more in this ReadWriteWeb article.
- New perspectives available on Cloud Commons include: Cloudy technobabble hinders enterprise adoption by Predrag Mitrovic and Leveraging the Cloud to Accelerate IT Renewal (part 2) by Vaughan Merlyn.
Upcoming Cloud Events
- CloudSlam: April 18 – April 22, global virtual conference
- Closer 2011: 1st International Conference on Cloud Computing & Services: May 7 – 9, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands
- TMForum Management World: May 23 – 26, Dublin, Ireland
- Forrester’s IT Forum, May 25 – 27, Las Vegas, Nevada
- The Business of Cloud Computing: June 13 – 15, San Diego, California
