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Tags > cloudcomputing
Turning Predictions into Opportunities
By Nat TorkingtonNovember 15, 2009
The view from the eye of a recession isn't great. When companies are going bust, unemployment growing, and everyone's scouring their budgets for costs to cut, it can be hard to see opportunities. However, when Tim pointed to Stephen O'Grady's fine set of 2010 predictions I found myself popping with "oh, so naturally this will happen next ..." thoughts. Think...
Laughing at Ourselves
By Tim MatherOctober 20, 2009
Like most industries, the tech industry, usually takes itself very seriously. And, sometimes that's too seriously. Sometimes, we all just need to sat back and have a good laugh - at ourselves. (That certainly includes me.) So, I really like...
Your Cloud Needs a Sys Admin
By George ReeseOctober 15, 2009
I've attended a number of CloudCamps around the world, and the question as to whether systems administrators are relevant in the post-cloud world always seems to come up. Let's put this silly question to bed: your cloud needs a sys admin.
Wind Shear Hits Cloud Computing
By Tim MatherOctober 13, 2009
Virtual wind shear hit consumer cloud computing this last weekend. Caught in the microburst was Microsoft's subsidiary, Danger. Reports have confirmed that Danger has crashed and burned - badly. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Danger's servers...
First 'Regulated' Cloud Available
By Tim MatherOctober 6, 2009
There are of course public clouds, private clouds, and hybrid clouds. There has also been talk of possible 'regulated' clouds for regulated information. The anticipated promise of regulated clouds is that customers would get the benefits of a public cloud...
Four Tips for Avoiding VM Sprawl in the Public Cloud
By George ReeseOctober 3, 2009
You moved into the cloud to save some money. Now it's the first of the month and you're looking at your latest cloud provider bill. It's not at all what you planned. Welcome to the world of VM sprawl, the dark side of cloud computing.
Another Big Step Forward for Cloud Computing
By Tim MatherSeptember 17, 2009
Cloud computing took another big step forward this week with an announcement from Vivek Kundra, the federal Chief Information Officer, that the Federal Government would begin using cloud computing. The symbolism of his announcement being made in Silicon Valley should...
Cloud API Wars - Where is the security arsenal?
By Subra KumaraswamySeptember 11, 2009
Last week was an exciting week for the Virtualization and Cloud customers and potential adopters. During VMWorld 2009, a handful of announcements by the cloud computing "picks" and "shovel" providers marked the beginning of the "Cloud API War" -...
Four short links: 3 September 2009
By Nat TorkingtonSeptember 2, 2009
Many Eyes Make All Bugs Shallow, Especially When The Eyes Get Smarter (David Eaves) -- Mozilla released bug submission data, and David realizes with some minor investment (particularly some simpler vetting screens prior to reaching bugzilla) bug submitters could learn faster. For example, a landing screen that asks you if you've ever submitted a bug before might take newbies...
Five Things to Consider When Buying a Netbook - Tips from J.D. Biersdorfer, Author of Netbooks: The Missing Manual
By Sara PeytonSeptember 2, 2009
People buy new gadgets for every imaginable reason. In J.D. Biersdorfer's case, an apartment renovation prompted her to purchase one. "I wanted to have an extremely portable PC with me when I was living out of a duffel bag and sleeping on people's couches while my own place was unlivable," explains the author of O'Reilly's Netbooks: The Missing Manual. "It turned out to be a great solution because many of my friends have wireless networks (or neighbors that have unsecured wireless networks), so I could stay linked to the Internet even while couch surfing all over the city." Based on her personal experiences and research for the book, J.D. offers five important things to consider when buying a netbook.
An Interesting Time-Sliced Cloud
August 23, 2009
n this month's IEEE Computer, there's an interesting article about using a Cloud in a non-business critical environment, mixed academic and high-performance computing. In their cloud, a professor can book a set of machines for a particular time each week for a lab, or a student can book a particular configuration of machine to do their homework. Time not booked goes into the general HPC pool, and is used for non-instructional computing
The Dasein Cloud API
By George ReeseAugust 15, 2009
The Dasein Cloud API is the next step in the drive towards Open cloud programming standards. This Open Source API enables programmers to write cloud management applications in Java against a single API that supports multiple clouds.
Four short links: 4 August 2009
By Nat TorkingtonAugust 3, 2009
NASA Nebula Services/Platform Stack -- The NEBULA platform offers a turnkey Software-as-a-Service experience that can rapidly address the requirements of a large number of projects. However, each component of the NEBULA platform is also available individually; thus, NEBULA can also serve in Platform-as-a-Service or Infrastructure-as-a-Service capacities. Bundles RabbitMQ, Eucalyptus, LUSTRE storage, Fabric deployment, Varnish front-end, MySQL and more. (via...
Cloud computing perspectives and questions at the World Economic Forum
By Andy OramJuly 9, 2009
The World Economic Forum started a research project at Davos 2009 concerning cloud computing. I've put up a discussion forum as a wiki.
Pre-OSCON, Free Webcast Lineup (and a special offer)
By Kathryn BarrettJuly 2, 2009
The theme of this year's OSCON is Open for Business. Times are tough, making open source technology a smart choice for staying competitive. It gives you the means to drive down costs while increasing system and staff efficiencies. And OSCON 2009 is where you'll find the latest information on open source and new ways to connect to its community. In anticipation of the conference, we've lined up the following free webcasts featuring OSCON speakers. Drop in on their free, online sessions next week as a preview of this year's event. And take advantage of our special Independence Day discount. Learn more.
The First Step into the Cloud: Which Kinds of Applications Make the Most Sense?
By George ReeseJune 24, 2009
A key to successfully integrating the public cloud into your IT infrastructure is identifying a first application that will provide you with measurable results and learnings that can apply to future deployments without putting your business at risk. IT annoyances make the ideal first cloud projects.
Four short links: 8 June 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJune 8, 2009
How to Project on 3D Geometry -- the fine art (and math) of distorting an image so that it looks undistorted when projected onto a non-flat 3D surface. Confused? See the images below. (via straup on Delicious) ZinePal -- Create your own printable magazine from any online content. (via warrenellis on Delicious) What The Government Doesn't Understand About The...
3D Glasses: Virtual Reality, Meet the iPhone
By Mark SigalJune 5, 2009
A light flickers from two distinct points in time. As a child in the early-1970s, one of my toys was a View-Master, a binoculars-like device for viewing 3D images (called stereograms), essentially a mini-program excerpted from popular destinations, TV shows, cartoons, events and the like. The View-Master completely predated the advent of electronic toys (it was light powered and...
A Quick Look at Amazon CloudWatch, Load Balancing, and Auto-Scaling
By George ReeseJune 1, 2009
Amazon recently made available to the public three new services that will have a huge impact on the way people architect systems to be deployed in the Amazon cloud. I have put together my first look thoughts on these new offerings.
Google's Unique Position and Imperative Need for Browser Interactivity
By Timothy M. O'BrienMay 28, 2009
Google's clarion call for HTML 5 and rich interactive browser applications marks an interesting fork in the road for technologists. Will we invest our time in learning more proprietary, native APIs to create better iPhone and Adobe AIR applications, or will everything start to move toward a standards-based browser as the underlying platform for interactivity. Despite Google's influence in the market, this isn't a foregone conclusion. Just how long will it take for the content generators to adopt HTML 5? And, what's in it for Google?
Google's Failings Say Little about Cloud Computing
By George ReeseMay 16, 2009
Every time an individual cloud vendor suffers a failure like last week's networking issues with Google, mindless bloggers rush out to suggest the failures of one company represent failures of cloud computing in general. It's time to hold this logical fallacy up to the light and learn what we really can learn from any given incident.
MySQL 2009 conference wrap-up: news flash about Flash and other notes from the experts
By Andy OramApril 24, 2009
MySQL conference wrap-up: Flash, cloud computing, managing large installations, the value of community, and how to fumble your way to winning the presidency.
Transparency: The Key to Cloud Security
By George ReeseApril 19, 2009
If your cloud provider refuses to answer any specific question about their security architecture related to your security requirements, run--don't walk--away from that vendor
Four short links: 15 Apr 2009
By Nat TorkingtonApril 15, 2009
Computer archaeology, Unix, mad science, and data mining: NASA Images Saved By Volunteers -- Pictures from the mid-1960s Lunar Orbiter program lay forgotten for decades. But one woman was determined to see them restored. One woman and some keen hardware hackers who built Frankenstein's tape reader to recover the images. Not just a reminder of how ephemeral our media, but...
[AWS:EC2] EC2 Reserved Instances Launched In EU Data Center
By M. David PetersonApril 15, 2009
As per a recent post to the EC2 forums, there's now support for reserved instances inside the EC2 EU Data Center.
Using the Cloud for Disaster Recovery
By George ReeseApril 12, 2009
Few companies have a solid disaster recovery plan and fewer companies actually verify their DR plans are working. One of the often missed benefits of cloud computing is that it makes rapid disaster recovery with minimal data loss extremely cost effective and enables the automation of those processes that can be tested often using automated tools.
Google Introduces Comprehensive, Standards-based Java Support in AppEngine
By Timothy M. O'BrienApril 8, 2009
Google's announcement of Java support in AppEngine is more than just the announcement of support for a second language. Java on AppEngine changes the dynamics of the Java ecosystem and redefines the concept of Write Once Run Anywhere.
O'Reilly Week in Review for March 29th, 2009
By James TurnerApril 1, 2009
This week, we talk to Eric Gunderson about opening up access to government data, and the mashups you can create once you do. Editor Andy Oram discusses what open Cloud Computing might look like. And, of course, we have last...
Open Cloud Manifesto: about openness, standards, and the vitality of SMTP
By Andy OramMarch 28, 2009
Thanks to George Reese, I learned about the bruhaha over an Open Cloud Manifesto. Let's put the debate in the context of some basic and perennial issues about openness and standards.
The Varieties of Openness Worth Wanting in the Cloud
By George ReeseMarch 27, 2009
All of the vendors in the cloud space have paid lip service to the idea of Openness in the cloud; and most everyone believes that being "Open" is a "good thing". In an environment in which few people agree on the specifics of defining the term "cloud computing", what exactly does it mean to have an Open Cloud?
Blue Sun? What an IBM acquisition of Sun means for software
By Kurt CagleMarch 24, 2009
However, Sun's software side of the acquisition ledger, especially by IBM, has been rather oddly overlooked, given that it will likely have major implications for software development and cloud computing for years. Sun's software holdings cover five primary areas - Java, Solaris, mySQL, Open Office, and Sun's recently acquired QLayer cloud infrastructure. Understanding how IBM could potentially ramp up (or destroy) each of these gives some interesting insight into the real value of IBM's potential software acquisitions.
The Weakness of Commodity Server to Cloud Server Cost Comparisons
By George ReeseMarch 19, 2009
Though the conventional wisdom on the Internet is that the economic benefits of cloud computing fail for applications with steady usage needs, the reality is that the commodity-server to cloud-server comparisons on which this wisdom is based are flawed. The reality is that the cloud often provides compelling economic benefits even when you have an application with consistent resource demands.
AWS:EC2 Introduces Reserved Instances; Massive Potential Cost Reduction
By M. David PetersonMarch 12, 2009
What's the best way to jump start a stalling economy? Provide reasons for people to spend money by reducing costs for goods they're already paying for, freeing up capital to be invested into places they otherwise would not be invested into. Enter Amazon Web Services and the introduction of EC2 Reserved Instances.
Blame the Credit Card Franchise: Criminals on Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute) Cloud
By Nitesh DhanjaniMarch 11, 2009
Amazon EC2 is an extraordinarily powerful infrastructure available to anyone with a stolen credit card. Even if someone is able to use the EC2 platform for a few hours with a stolen credit card, he or she will be able to initiate a vicious cycle that may become impossible to halt.
Quick Video Survey of Vivek Kundra's Policy and Experience as DC CTO
By Timothy M. O'BrienMarch 5, 2009
Who is Vivek Kundra? This article assembles a few representative videos from YouTube that give you a sense of the policies and experience that Vivek Kundra brings to the newly created office of the Federal Chief Information Officer. From Google Apps to radically transparent interactions with vendors, Kundra has set a new standard for a City's IT infrastructure.
[AWS:EC2] Windows Gains EC2:EU Support; Additional US Availability Zone
By M. David PetersonMarch 3, 2009
As per the recent announcement in the AWS:EC2 forums, Amazon Web Services has beefed up their support of Windows 2k3, adding an additional availability zone in the U.S. as well as extending support via two availability zones to EC2:EU.
PCI in the Cloud
By George ReeseFebruary 26, 2009
Compliance is the most significant issue confronting organizations looking at a move into the cloud. Here are a number of recommended architectures that should provide PCI compliance for pure-cloud infrastructures.
Karmic Koalas Love Eucalyptus
By Simon WardleyFebruary 26, 2009
An introduction into Canonical's strategy for open source cloud computing with Ubuntu.
Cloud Computing defined by Berkeley RAD Labs
By Artur BergmanFebruary 12, 2009
I am pleased to finally have found a paper that manages to bring together the different aspects of cloud computing in a coherent fashion, and suggests the requirements for it to develop further. Written by the Berkeley RAD Lab (UC Berkeley Reliable Adaptive Distributed Systems Laboratory) the paper succinctly brings together Software as a Service with Utility Computing to come...
Concept Management
By Eric LarsonJanuary 30, 2009
Distributed version control systems have brought up some pretty important questions. A DVCS adds a good deal of complexity to an already complicated system. Source control is rather sticky business as it not only deals with complex content, but the...
A National Computing Cloud For Higher Education? whurley Says "Yes We Should!" (And I Can't Help But Agree)
By M. David PetersonJanuary 27, 2009
whurley has a /brilliant/ idea: Bring the power and capabilities of cloud computing to the higher education masses by creating a national computing cloud. But will leveling the high tech education playing field with a national computing cloud bring about a high tech revolution? Or is it just one more bill we tax payers would get stuck with without any real chance of it adding more to both our economy and our society than what it will cost to create and maintain?
Four short links: 23 Jan 2009
By Nat TorkingtonJanuary 23, 2009
Potty mouth, piracy, pointers to the future of the web, and Presidential technology woes, all in today's link roundup. F*ck the Cloud - Jason Scott's brilliant (and profanity-strewn) rant about cloud computing and the things people throw away without thinking about. Jason, an Internet historian, has a unique perspective and I think what he says makes a lot of sense....
Email letter from 2019
By Kurt CagleJanuary 21, 2009
I miss a few things - we don't get oranges this far North as often as we used to, and coffee and cocoa have become considerably more dear. Shipping has gone way up on them and because a lot of the cacoa growing areas were overfarmed in the last decades, but overall I'm not hauling around an extra fifty kilos of fat due to lack of exercise and processed fast food - can't argue the beneft of that.
Cloud Tips: Sending Email from an EC2 Instance
By George ReeseJanuary 16, 2009
Many email systems mark email coming from an SMTP server in the Amazon cloud as spam. As a result, you can't use traditional mail delivery techniques for sending out form submissions or program alerts from the cloud. In this cloud tip, I describe how you can successfully send legitimate email from an Amazon EC2 instance.
Palm's webOS Represents Major Shift for Syncing and Data
By Peter BrantleyJanuary 12, 2009
In an article covering the Palm Pre mobile device, Ars Technica makes a very important point about how devices utilize network connectivity, and what the assumptions are underlying their...
Why the AWS Console is Good for Cloud Tool Vendors
By George ReeseJanuary 9, 2009
The release of the Amazon Web Services console has had a number of people predicting doom for cloud tools providers. On the contrary, by removing a barrier to experimentation that has kept people out of the cloud, the Amazon Web Services console should bring more people in the cloud and benefit tools providers whose value propositions are beyond Amazon's core value proposition.
SOA Still Alive and Well--Sell it to the Business
By David A. ChappellJanuary 8, 2009
In case you need to catch up, Anne Thomas Manes of Burton Group declared that "SOA met its demise on January 1, 2009, when it was wiped out by the catastrophic impact of the economic recession!".
Analysis 2009: IT Departments Disappear into the Cloud
By Kurt CagleJanuary 6, 2009
While other IT sectors may be struggling, one area that will likely be quite hot will be in the cloud computing/hosted services market. This particular market has been the subject of a great deal of hype over the last...
Microsoft's Cloud Tax
By George ReeseDecember 24, 2008
The importance of the differences among web application platforms like .NET, JSP, PHP, etc. drops dramatically under the cloud computing paradigm. Which architecture you choose really comes down to one question: what kind of programming and support resources do you have? If the answer is "Microsoft technologies", however, you should be aware of the Microsoft cloud tax.
Java in the Cloud
By Hari K. GottipatiDecember 20, 2008
Every one is talking about building apps in cloud or moving the apps to cloud. There are plenty of jobs on job boards looking for the people with the skills: "familiarity with cloud" or "expertise in cloud". The latest buzzword is "Cloud Computing". What is Cloud? Why all of sudden Cloud is a buzz? What are my options to move Java app to the Cloud? What are the features and limitations of the Cloud? How IaaS and PaaS will fit in the Cloud? Read 'Java in the Cloud' for details ......
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