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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/20115 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."
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/20112 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/20114 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/27/20116 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/13/20119 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/13/20119 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/13/20110 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/06/20116 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/06/20113 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 09/06/20115 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/20112 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.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 08/30/20116 comments