Good news for cloud customers and regular, old Web surfers: New Net neutrality rules have been approved and kick into gear in less than two months. Under the rules, network providers have to disclose how their networks operate, and can't discriminate against users or block legal traffic.
This is great news. If service providers were given free reign to slow down or block traffic, or change prices based on network use, the whole cloud industry is put in jeopardy.
What is your take on Net neutrality? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/2011 at 12:47 PM5 comments
Microsoft has said it's "all in" with the cloud, and that means being all in with Azure. At the recent Build show, Microsoft spoke in a lot of generalities, but also laid out a fair share of specifics. On the general side, Server & Tools Business President Satya Nadella talked about the need for "a rich portfolio of storage across blobs, tables and full relational capabilities to handle the complexity of data [with] Windows Azure."
I've been reading the views of many cloud gurus and it seems that storage is perhaps the biggest impediment to cloud success. Let's hope the software and hardware together can build inexpensive, fast and reliable storage solutions for the cloud.
Microsoft also has a model for selling applications or places to store your data. The Windows Azure Marketplace already has hundreds of apps and services and will soon be available in 25 more countries.
Microsoft may want to dominate the cloud, but it also recognizes it must play nice if it is to have any chance at all. That means interfacing with services such as Yahoo, Facebook and (gasp!) even Google. Windows 8 will play a role because it's designed to access these services all with a single sign-on.
And Windows 8 developers can get started right away with the new Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows 8. Yup, that's that actual name, with Windows repeated twice! There's also a more generalized kit: the Windows Azure SDK 1.5 with an enhanced certificate upload process.
Have you played with Azure? Share your thoughts and experiences at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/2011 at 12:47 PM2 comments
OpenStack, an open source cloud operating system, has one major commercial backer: Rackspace. Rackspace, through its Rackspace Cloud Builders initiative, wants you to embrace the open side of the cloud.
Bruce Hoard, the top editor at Virtualization Review, talked to Rackspace's Jim Curry about the company's support of OpenStack and where the project stands.
OpenStack was started by NASA and Rackspace and is now being adopted by an array of people and organizations that build new functions on top of the OpenStack core. OpenStack is now on its fourth major iteration, dubbed "Diablo."
Curry is understandably bullish on OpenStack. Of course, he's paid to be. Curry believes that Rackspace, as well as Amazon, has the scale to support large cloud projects today. That's where Cloud Builders comes in. This is a RackSpace group specifically aimed at helping enterprises build or buy and support OpenStack-based apps. One of the key initiatives is Storage as a Service, which has been working for about a year and a half.
Right now, most Cloud Builders customers are in beta, and the company is still working out pricing details for its services, primarily support.
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/2011 at 12:47 PM4 comments
It is still probably a year or two away, but that didn't stop Microsoft from promoting Windows Server 8 at the recent Build show.
While details were not as forthcoming as they were with the Windows 8 client, Microsoft did whet our server whistle just a bit. It seems every Microsoft presentation has to be peppered liberally with the word "cloud" these days, and Windows Server 8 was no exception. The company claims the new server OS is thoroughly "cloud-optimized" and, through the support of large clusters, can support large and scalable cloud services. And to improve uptime, Microsoft is enhancing Live Migration so there is no interruption when a virtual hard drive is moved from one machine to another.
Microsoft is also looking to lower the cost of storage by turning Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) into a unified cloudy storage pool.
Are you jonesin' for Windows Server 8? If so, what would like to see in it? Advice welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/2011 at 12:47 PM6 comments
It seems that every other day, there is another major Web services outage. The latest victim is Microsoft, which recently saw a bunch of e-mail services go down, including Hotmail, Office365, SkyDrive and more. Most of the problems were in Europe or Asia, but they spilled over to North America, as well.
It only took hours to get most services back up, but it took a number of days for Microsoft to explain itself. It turns out a DNS error was the culprit. Most of the downed services were not enterprise-class and clearly not mission-critical.
Nonetheless, outages like this put the scare in IT. While most users were down for a few hours, I heard from one customer who claims he was down for five days. That could be out-of-business time. One IT pro, a Live@EDU customer, had two outages just days apart. Still, it is nice to see that Microsoft explained what happened, just as Amazon did with its two more recent outages.
Do you trust the cloud? What steps can you take to make sure you don't suffer when it goes down? Best advice welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/13/2011 at 12:47 PM9 comments
Many high-profile execs have called for the death of the PC, most notably Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy. More recently, Google has been pushing Web-based devices as PC replacements. Meanwhile, the vast majority of computer users still pound away on PCs or Macs.
Now, though, VMware CEO Paul Maritz, once a Microsoft bigwig, says the days of the PC are numbered. Maritz also made a bold prediction: that in five years, less than a fifth of users will be on Windows.
VMware hopes to help fulfill that prophecy by supplying software that moves data and apps to the cloud, allowing for a range on non-Windows devices to handle the client duties. In a speech at the recent VMworld show, Maritz argued that much of the groundwork has already been laid. Virtualization drives half of today's computing infrastructure, which makes it that much easier to take the next step to the cloud.
Is Maritz blowing smoke, or is he really onto something? Your answers welcome at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/13/2011 at 12:47 PM9 comments
Do you consider Microsoft to be a cloud thought leader? If so, you may want to hear what it has to say about where its cloud technologies are going.
The Microsoft cloud portfolio is designed to support hybrid clouds, which combine private and public clouds into one working unified system. The relatively new head of the Microsoft Server and Tools division, Satya Nadella, laid out the strategy in a recent investor speech. As when Microsoft went "all in" with the Internet well over a decade ago, it is now "all in" with the cloud.
The cloud is a work in progress for Microsoft, but the long-run plan is a complete portfolio that lets you build any kind of cloud. But the notion of easily building a mixed private and public cloud is, at least for now, the Holy Grail of cloud computing. "Our job number one from a Server and Tools Business is to make sure that we have the core operating system and data tiers available across public and private cloud," Nadella said.
At its simplest level, Microsoft Azure underpins the public cloud, while Windows System Center and Windows Server drive the private side. Nadella thinks Microsoft has a huge advantage since a lot this software is already in nearly every shop. Does Microsoft's installed base give it a leg up in the cloud space? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/13/2011 at 12:47 PM0 comments
If one patent defines the future of Windows, then after Windows 8 we'll see Windows become a true cloud-ready OS.
The recently unearthed Microsoft patent describes how an OS can boot from the cloud to a remote computing device, whatever it may be, and the storage streams back and forth from the 'Net. The theory is you can have a laptop, tablet or what have you that is purely dumb until it connects. Then it boots remotely and starts to work. Not entirely original and perhaps not patent-worthy, but it may indicate Redmond's direction moving forward.
I believe that for decades to come, Microsoft will sell operating systems that come with your phone, PC or whatever.
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/06/2011 at 12:47 PM6 comments
Redmond magazine columnist Don Jones has a knack for cutting to the chase. He recently turned his attention to the cloud, where he sees some important lessons from a few of Google's recent moves. It seems that Google launches, beta tests and hypes cloud services that it ultimately kills.
One service I'm glad died is Google Health, where Google stores our medical records. I wouldn't trust Google with my dental records. Google claimed it was all safe, but this is the same company that drives down private roads, photographs our homes and sniffs our Wi-Fi.
And many of Google's products are forever in beta. The issue is, should you trust a product that may be killed or never it make out of beta? How does one make long-term business decisions about cloud services? As Jones asks, "Whom can you trust?"
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/06/2011 at 12:47 PM3 comments
It's no secret that the cloud and virtualization are intertwined more closely than an unsupervised teenage couple.
Having launched Virtualization Review, the group of journalists I work with has a cloud head start. And we've been fortunate enough to have met the real pioneers of both virt and the cloud. Virtualization Review Editor in Chief Bruce Hoard has been making the rounds with the "who's who" of cloud and virt and put together his list of true pioneers. Even cooler, these rabble-rousers actually blog for Bruce. Here's a rundown on a few of Bruce's favorites.
Simon Rust is the VP of technology for AppSense, and recently explained how desktop virtualization actually works in a blog titled "The Many Faces of Desktop Virtualization." It's complicated, but Rust shows us how if we just understand the five key categories -- "OS provisioning, remote desktop services, client hypervisors, client-side hosted virtual desktops and application virtualization" -- you'll get the whole picture. While this is not cloud per se, these technologies underpin a lot of what cloud vendors do.
Alex Miroshnichenko is the CTO of Virsto, which does storage virtualization. Alex knows the true pricing of storage, and sees lots of differences between what vendors want to charge and what you can actually get the hardware for. Check out his analysis at "Lies, Damned Lies and Benchmarks: Part 2."
Last, Karl Triebes of F5 dove into what is really going on with cloud security, how hard the vendors are working on it and where the failures are. Learn more at his blog post, "Assessing and Alleviating Security Risks in the Cloud: Are We There Yet?"
Posted by Doug Barney on 09/06/2011 at 12:47 PM5 comments
Microsoft always wants customers to upgrade -- that's how it pays for all those executive bonuses, free Starbucks orders and new campus complexes. For Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) users, the transition to Office 365 ain't all that simple. And as much as I'm sure Microsoft would want all of those folks to move right away, it's cautioning that doing it right may take some time. Fact is, it could take a year or more to make the move. Microsoft is offering up some specific guidance, and based on how you use it, your migration will differ.
A lot of the issues concern the client software that talks to the new Office 365 cloud services. That means upgrading to the new cloud and equipping your workstations and laptops with new client software. Excuse me if I'm a dope, but isn't the whole point of the cloud that the client doesn't matter? Tell me if I'm right or a dunce at [email protected].
You'll have to move to Office 2007 or 2010 (which means biting the bullet on the ribbon). IE 6 can also be problematic, but that is an easy fix unless you have custom apps written to the old browser.
Microsoft won't be quiet on this matter. It will keep in close touch with its BPOS users to advise them as to how to move forward, and when Microsoft will be ready to help.
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/2011 at 12:47 PM2 comments
I don't know of a single cloud service that is perfect. Amazon has gone down more than ducks during hunting season. Exchange Online has also had its share of goofs. And now the new Office 365 is showing some of its flakier sides. A week or so back, Office 365 went dark for three hours, and Microsoft quickly offered to refund 25 percent of its monthly fee.
I took out my trusty napkin, broke out my middle-school math and reckoned that rebate equates to $1.50 per user. It is actually less, assuming that most workers aren't in the office on Saturdays and Sundays. That seems a mite low compared to all the lost productivity. Then again, on-premise software also crashes, and unless you have an SLA, you are plain out of luck there.
Am I too rough on the boys from Redmond or did they really cheap out? You tell me at [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/2011 at 12:47 PM6 comments