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This Week in Cloud, May 19, 2011: Ubuntu moves to OpenStack, VMware acquires Shavlik, Lessons from Farmville, The average cost of data center outages. And more…
Feature article
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Cloud: The Evolutionary and Revolutionary Paths
By Andi Mann
At Cloud Slam '11, I hosted a session with ‘clouderati' luminary @JayFry3 on "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Cloud: Tips for Navigating the Evolutionary and Revolutionary Paths to Cloud."Between bad puns and stretched analogies drawn from the classic Douglas Adams ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' (aka ‘HG2G') 6-book ‘trilogy', Jay and I presented two alternative (albeit complementary) routes to deploying private cloud.
I presented an evolutionary path to cloud computing -- building step-by-step on your existing infrastructure and investments; Jay presented a revolutionary path - delivering cloud fast without transforming your existing environment. You can review Jay's blog for his side of this fun session; I will run through the evolutionary path here.
Cloud News
- Canonical announced that the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud will move away from Eucalyptus and onto the OpenStack cloud platform. According to this Desktop Linux article, Eucalyptus had been part of Ubuntu since 2009. In this CloudAve article, Marten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus describes the momentum his company has been gaining, despite the fact that the buzz in the tech media around OpenStack has often eclipsed Eucalyptus.
- VMware is acquiring Shavlik, a provider of traditional and cloud-based management products for SMBs, according to this ReadWriteWeb article, which also mentions the acquisitions of Nimsoft, Cloudkick, and VMLogix last year. VMware and Shavlik already had a partnership in place; they had worked together to develop VMware GO, a SaaS offering that helps SMBs install and manage VMware’s vSphere.
- EMC and Box.net have formed an alliance to give customers a way to seamlessly link together local and cloud data storage, according to this PC World article. EMC Documentum customers can connect their on-premise data to Box.net using Box's EMC Cloud Connect. Once connected, data can be easily transferred between the two platforms, archived, or seamlessly synchronized.
- As Microsoft kicked off its TechEd conference this week, company executives provided details about how organizations can use cloud computing day-to-day, according to this PC World article. Microsoft’s Business Online Professional Services (BPOS) experienced a series of outages, over several days last week, described in this eWeek article.
- NIST has published an 84-page draft of its cloud computing guidelines and is seeking comment from federal agencies and the public on its recommendations. NIST is accepting comments via e-mail until June 13 at 8800-146comments@nist.gov. Read more in this Information Week article.
Cloud Views
- Lessons from FarmVille: in this InformationWeek article, Charles Babcock writes about Zynga’s hybrid cloud strategy. Their combination of public and private cloud uses Amazon EC2, to be ready for spikes in case new games go viral, and an internal private cloud infrastructure once a game’s traffic patterns have become more predictable.
- Downtime in a data center can cost an average of $505,000 per incident, according to this InformationWeek article which cites data from a recent Ponemon Institute study.
- A new research report by Accenture and the London School of Economics describes the gap between IT and the business in terms of attitudes toward the cloud. This InfoWorld article summarizes key data-points and findings. “Those who drive the business see cloud computing as a way to get around many of the reasons that IT says no. IT's response is to say no to the cloud.”
- This Delimiter article provides some details around Telstra’s cloud and implementation trends among its customers.
MSP Corner
- CA Technologies and Microsoft are partnering to offer hybrid cloud backup services. The agreement will allow CA ARCserve to backup data to Microsoft’s Azure subscription-based online storage service. Gartner analyst Dave Russell is quoted in this SearchDataBackup article as stating that CA’s approach is targeting MSPs, giving them “the ability to both configure the policy and to potentially review and administrate the backup.”
- This MSPMentor article describes recent changes in the WAN optimization market-space and the factors driving these changes (cloud computing, data center consolidation, expansion of rich-content applications and growing needs/tighter budgets).
- Read this MSPMentor article to find out what MSPs should know about Google Chromebook for Business.
Upcoming Cloud Events
- All About the Cloud: May 23 – May 26, San Francisco
- TMForum Management World: May 23 – 26, Dublin, Ireland
- Forrester’s IT Forum, May 25 – 27, Las Vegas, Nevada
- Cloud Expo East, June 6-9, New York City
- The Business of Cloud Computing: June 13 – 15, San Diego, California
- Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Management Summit: June 13 – 15, Orlando, Florida
- Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit: June 28 – 29, London
