The BlackBerry still exists largely because it is enterprise-ready out of the box. Specifically, it integrates with Microsoft apps such as Exchange. That's why I have and will keep using mine 'til April 16, when my Verizon contract expires.
The iPhone caught up pretty fast, and IT has no problem hooking the Apple phone to Exchange. To keep its edge, BlackBerry owner RIM is now tying its phones into Office 365. It sounds pretty cool. Just like the integration with on-premise Exchange, BlackBerrys can sync with Exchange mail, calendar and contacts.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 02/07/20126 comments
Private clouds are not always clearly defined. To me, they are internal to your datacenter and highly virtualized. But just because your servers are highly virtualized, they aren't necessarily a cloud. It is the level of virtualization. When the infrastructure is truly elastic and self-healing, then I reckon it's a cloud. So it starts with good, old servers and our trusty hypervisors. The rest is software magic, such as management and orchestration.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/31/20122 comments
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wants our public clouds to be more private and secure. NIST just released a set of guidelines that can be used to build better clouds or question cloud providers. Here are some highlights:
- Research precisely what cloud providers offer and make sure it matches your security needs before signing any contract.
- Figure out who is accountable for security and privacy and how they will actually be held accountable.
- Before building a cloud, think through issues of privacy and security and build those protections into your plan.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/31/20125 comments
Virtualization Review Editor in Chief Bruce Hoard meets with a lot of vendors. And because the virt and cloud markets overlap so much, Bruce meets a lot of cloud types. With that, Bruce chose five cloud security vendors worth a look.
Dome9 offers a security tool it claims is easily managed because it is so highly centralized. The tool, meant to be as automated as possible, is closed off to administrators unless they explicitly ask for permission. Once the admin is done, access is shut off, resecuring the system.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/24/20123 comments
Most folks who use cloud storage take a simple approach -- choose a service and use it. Power users never do things the easy way. For their homes and businesses, quite often power users and IT pros (commonly the precisely same thing) use several services, especially when they are free (at least for a limited amount of storage). And sometimes, different services are for different uses.
This can all be confusing. Did I leave that file in Dropbox or SkyDrive? SMEStorage, a service from a company called SMEStorage (if you want to learn the meaning of eponymous, there it is), aggregates these disparate services, providing greater storage without running up the bill, a simpler view and easier file retrieval.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/24/20125 comments
I was at a security hardware vendor Crossbeam the other day and we got to talking about private clouds, which the Crossbeam devices can help secure. As we got to talking, the definition of a private cloud came up. Many use the term without explaining what it means.
After some discussion it seems to me that a private cloud is a datacenter or area within it that is virtualized. What makes that virtual infrastructure cloud-like is the level of virtualization -- it has to be elastic and feel like a utility. This all has to do with live failover, orchestration, elasticity and management.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/20125 comments
I recently reported that employment in the telco space dropped significantly. This struck me as odd since the cloud and mobile apps are all the rage. Shouldn't telcos be hiring faster than a newly formed government agency?
I think I found the answer in a piece by Boris Renski in Virtualization Review. Renski argues that telcos will flop badly and fare poorly in providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/20122 comments
You might think that RentTheCloud.com sounds like any other cloud vendor where you rent time on their machines to run your applications or their applications (you know, IaaS vs. SaaS).
But you would be wrong. This Web site, from A-Frame Technology Services, doesn't rent the cloud at all. Instead, it helps you find a proper cloud landlord. The company's service is based on the real estate broker model. They'll find you a cloud provider and if you're happy, you pay them a commission, typically one to two months of the rental fee.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/17/20124 comments
Jon Toigo has the freedom many of us would kill for. Originally a political scientist, Toigo turned to IT, made a bundle during the dot.com bubble (he apparently cashed in before this puppy burst) and now can pretty much do as he pleased. For Jon, that means speaking out in favor of consumers and often against huge industries. I've talked to Toigo about virtualization, which he cautions can be dangerous if not done with precision, and storage, where major vendors have mightily resisted customer demands for interoperability. And you wonder what took SANs so long to catch on.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/10/20123 comments
Virtualization Review magazine is not just a magazine, Web site and newsletter. We also have TechMentor, a training event. This summer, from Aug. 20 to 24, we'll be hosting the event at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Wash. That's right, TechMentor has moved to "the mothership" in Redmond for the first time in its 14 years of providing unbiased and immediately usable training to IT professionals. And we need speakers who are articulate and are experts.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/10/20125 comments
I spent six years as news editor for Network World and ran Network Computing magazine as editor in chief. In a field as complex as networking, that means I almost understand it. I applied this semi-knowledge to the intersection of the cloud and the corporate network, exploring how the WAN either enables or disables remote apps.
I ran across sophisticated technical arguments on either side, with some saying that only the least latency-sensitive apps should run on the cloud, and others claiming today's high-speed connections are more than up for nearly any cloud task.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/10/20122 comments
Virtualization vendor Parallels now wants into the cloud, a natural progression as clouds are largely built on virtualized infrastructure. In fact, the company is already in the cloud and is helping Microsoft Office 365 partners set up and charge for cloud services.
Parallels is strengthening its Redmond ties with a new hire for CTO, Michael Toutonghi. Toutonghi has some serious Microsoft chops, having helped start the .NET effort and heading up the group that built the Windows 95 kernel.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/13/20110 comments