Avastu Blog: Sustainable Global Clouds

Although this is a lot prototypisch, soon I can see that we can do a lot with a lot less humans. Scary! Royal Opera House: Audience. from rAndom International on Vimeo . "Found" first at Nick 's site.

John spoke to some folks and despite concerns there see to be growing interest in Cloud Computing. Obviously it is very clear that we were focusing on the wrong layer a bit too long (Virtualization, I mean) and its rapid commoditization with the increasingly (aspirational) consumerization of IT. Following is a recap of some of what was discussed during those two sessions: • One big question people had was how to go about integrating cloud-based applications and data with on-premises applications and data. This will be an issue for virtually any company moving into the cloud. As just one example of how that might be done, SnapLogic offers integration packs designed to work with some software as a service applications. InformationWeek will take a deeper dive into this subject in the next few weeks. • A related issue is data quality. As companies move e-mail and other applications into the cloud, the integration points (Active Directory, for example) will become weak links and IT problem...

IBM today opened four new cloud computing centers in emerging markets. They are in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Bangalore, India; Seoul, Korea; and Hanoi, Vietnam, where there is an increasing demand for Internet-based computing models and skills to help companies compete in highly competitive environments. With previously opened centers in both emerging and mature markets, IBM now has 13 cloud computing centers, the world's largest network of expertise on cloud computing. At a time when organizations of all sizes are facing extreme data overload, skyrocketing energy costs, increasingly complex regulatory requirements and competition from more nimble economies, cloud computing is emerging as a significant shift across all industries. This computing model allows businesses and consumers alike to remotely access a vast computing resource that can be tapped on-demand to deliver next-generation services that consumers demand, like online medical records or mobile stock portfolio management. It a...

All the fat cash cows that have bee fetching billions of dollars annually such as Oracle RDBMS, Office apps etc will have to make way to the light-weight apps and dbs. Small footprint VMs, all containarized and secured. Transactional VMs , maybe that's what we'll call them someday inthe clouds. One thing you won't find underlying a cloud computing initiative is a relational database. And this is no accident: Relational databases are ill-suited for use within cloud computing environments, argued Geir Magnusson, vice president of engineering at 10Gen, an on-demand platform servicer provider. Magnusson, who also helped write the Apache Geronimo application server software, spoke at the O'Reilly Web 2.0 conference, being held this week in New York. "Cloud computing is different kind of technology,” he said. “It is different enough it will change how we do things as developers. We will have to re-examine how we build things.” During his talk, Magnusson listed a number o...

This has been on my list for so long. I want to talk about it and describe how smart employers and communities can benefit from the "emerging part of their workers and cope with the dyning part of them" Expect a : Sketch Real-Time Analysis soon.

AppStructure is designed to eliminate the boundaries between infrastructure, applications and services so that businesses can rapidly scale to meet time-sensitive demands, deliver software to end-users, create real-time integration with customers and partners, to provide meaningful alignment between cost and performance. AppStructure is useful for enterprises of all sizes, but especially to those organizations that view IT as a strategic function, but lack the resources to harness the combined power of this platform on their own. “The emergence of utility computing platform, developments in virtualization technologies, acceptance of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model, proliferation of Enterprise Community portal applications and the pressure to integrate various disparate applications within and outside enterprises are some of the key technology trends we’ve been tracking for some time,” said Denis Martin, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, NaviSite. “With ...

Today's "virtual office" solutions generally require customer-premises equipment (CPE), but the rise of cloud computing-based services will allow people to be "at the office" from any location with an Internet connection, according to Cisco. This week the networking giant announced the availability of its Cisco Virtual Office service for Australia and New Zealand, which requires an 881w ISR (Integrated Services Router) as the CPE and a Cisco 7200 series router at the headquarters site, but this requirement will soon change. Cisco Australia and New Zealand unified communications manager Peter Hughes said in future the virtual office experience will be provided in a "cloud computing" fashion where all a remote needs is an Internet connection. Internally, Cisco has some 12,000 people working in virtual office environments, and the company is aiming to have that number up to 30,000 by 2010. "A VPN can be provisioned over a standard DSL Internet conne...

Q: Most of the talk at the virtualization launch was about data centers, but Microsoft has talked a lot in the recent past about cloud computing and mixed software-as-a-service models. Where do you see Microsoft's business model progressing with those things in mind? Turner: We see sort of a hybrid model developing. If you take what you call cloud computing and we call software plus services, you have three different models: For certain big companies, we believe they're going to want to manage most of their own IT, for governance reasons, for security reasons, for competitive reasons. So that's our traditional business model and we're going to continue to offer that. Then there are other functions where, quite honestly, we have partners in the enterprise, Accenture or EDS or others, that have more expertise with certain line-of-business applications or certain operational elements. And we're going to enable our technologies so they can be partner-hosted by those...

If you're in D.C, then you should not be missing it. Computer applications and data storage increasingly are moving from the desktop to the remote servers that make up "the cloud." But despite the popularity and convenience of these new services, cloud computing is still not widely understood. What do users really know about working in the cloud? Are data and applications secure in cyberspace? As part of the ongoing "Google D.C. Talks" series, the Pew Internet & American Life Project will release a new research report on "Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services," assessing consumer attitudes about cloud computing. Experts on cloud computing and privacy, as well as a representative of a leading cloud computing company, Salesforce.com, will respond to the new report and share their own views on this new computing model. Presenter: John Horrigan, Associate Director for Research, Pew Internet Project Respondents: * Dan Burton, Senior Vice ...

Well, I think I can apply being a navy man for 9 odd years. I can do it all. run the generators, run the ship, shoot the stars and the sun (with sextants etc) and also manage the data center :-) About 70 per cent of the Earth is covered by water. So Google's thinking it had better build some data centers that can float. With a recently-released patent application , the search giant cum world power seeks exclusive rights to what it calls a "water-based data center". This modular collection of processing, storage, and network resources would sit on a ship anchored somewhere offshore, using the crashing waves for both power and cooling. El Reg reporting

I am not traveling this time to U.S. I did get my free pass but just cannot go there as a lot is happening here in EMEA. I am helping setup the EMEA version of CloudCamp with Reuven and others here. Obviously that is taking all of my attention. I love to meet up with all my friends and investors across the world in VMworld. Most of them stay in touch with me and I too call them up once in a while. This is a good thing. And I really hate it that I am not going to be there. But also since my session (I had some really cool one on Virtualization 4.0 and Cloud Computing) was rejected by some folks at the VMworld committee, I decided to not attend it either. It makes no sense for me to hang around there as an attendee. I am kind of disappointed but I also understand that all those partners who have paid out of their increasingly emptying pockets must also get a session block for themselves. It is a totally different thing that not many folks will be watching them speak. Many VMware folks to...

Google thinks so. I obviously want more on that device but as you see, Phone is on a good start. Pretty soon we can all say good bye to all the desktop and other devices. ODPH: One Device Per Human . This product, whenever produced in its totality will fulfill the needs while replacing all the devices that today bind (while loosely bound to one another) and prohibit us to work effectively and efficiently. Here's what Google (or some of its staff) thinks about iPhone itself: Google, however, has its upcoming Android mobile platform, which could become a formidable challenger to iPhone. Asked after his presentation whether he would switch to an Android unit, Glotzbach took a wait-and-see approach. "We'll have to see when it comes out. I use the best device that there is for getting what I need done," he said. Glotzbach is not the first Google executive to tip his hat to iPhone recently. Rich Miner, Google group manager for mobile platforms, did so at the eComm conferenc...

3Tera Inc.: Appliance-driven virtual servers 3Tera's AppLogic is a grid engine that has evolved over time into a full-fledged cloud computing environment. The company said its offering is designed to enable data centers to replace expensive and hard-to-integrate IT infrastructure -- such as firewalls, load balancers, servers and storage-area networks -- with virtual appliances. Each appliance runs in its own virtual environment. AppLogic combines servers into a scalable grid that's managed as a single system via a browser or secure shell. According to 3Tera, data centers can add or remove servers on the fly, monitor hardware, manage user credentials, reboot servers, install software, build virtual appliances, back up the system, repair damaged storage volumes, inspect logs and perform every other management task from a single point of control, all while the system is running. Amazon.com: As-you-need-them basic IT resources Amazon was an early cloud computing proponent, and ...

XaaS = Everything as a Service and this is when the Virtualization 4.0 eventually hands over the reigns to the new age of UMCC or Unified Modular Cloud Computing . Having done that we will be doing things in variety of ways. (Reading my blog and searching for "ideation", "globalization", "strategy" etc will lead you to more articles I've written about the coming of the Ideation Age ) According to HP (Shane, the CSO's blog), the five trends to watch are: As we move from the desktop model to the cloud and a world where everything will be delivered as a service, there are five trends that we at HP believe are worth paying close attention to: The digital world will converge with the physical world: Back in 1995, the mantra was, “Everything is virtual. Geography is irrelevant.” But from now on, factors such as your physical location mean a lot. Cloud services will be increasingly aware of the context you’re in, right down to details such as the ti...

If anything, the trend will shower more revenue on the industry as this new method of accessing computing power enlarges the overall market. And if ICT analyst IDC is right, no breeze is about to get up and blow the cloud away - this will be the prevailing form of ICT service delivery for a couple of decades. "This is about the IT industry's new model for the next 20 years," says IDC's Vernon Turner, the firm's Boston-based head of enterprise infrastructure, consumer and telecoms research. Many of the industry's hardware, software and services heavyweights are readying cloud computing offerings and, last month, one of them, Google, announced a deal with the University of Auckland to provide access to applications via the internet to 50,000 students, staff and alumni. Google is the youngest of the companies Turner names as cloud computing front-runners, but is generally said to be making the running. Whether that's actually so isn't yet known. IDC is...

So what the heck is a Ceiling Gap? As an executive on my day job and a part-time consultant for JP Morgan, I have a lot of questions thrown at me from time to time. I see challenges rise and I see people fall. I see technologies rise and I see trends evaporate. I see subtle transitions and I see loads of promiscuity. Anyways I get enough "data" in my head and I have this sense of urgency, the insatiable urge to find a way to solve the loss of the untold. That could ... save the planet. Help the world reshape the global economy and watch the innovation which is deeply embedded within the layers of the the inclined ceiling from where all the ideas drop into baskets and creative destruction ( Joseph Schumpeter was nutty enough to have seen it happen 70 years ago when the world was in a much more turmoil than today) takes place. So anyways I have been toying with the idea of the middle , the place that needs a solid filling and it is that space that is the gap. We all talk abo...

Because they are not there yet despite the fact that they may be in most of those data centers. Just look at the Wikipedia definition of cloud: Cloud computing means Internet ('Cloud') based development and use of computer technology ('Computing'). It is a style of computing where IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”[1], allowing users to access technology-enabled services "in the cloud"[2] without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them[3]. It is a general concept that incorporates software as a service, Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, where the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. For example, Google Apps provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data is stored on the servers. And then go ahead and do a search for EMC, Cisco or VMware. They aren't...

A Sea Change in Computing Some analysts say cloud computing represents a sea change in the way computing is done in corporations. Merrill Lynch (MER) estimates that within the next five years, the annual global market for cloud computing will surge to $95 billion. In a May 2008 report, Merrill Lynch estimated that 12% of the worldwide software market would go to the cloud in that period. Those vendors that can adjust their product lines to meet the needs of large cloud computing providers stand to profit. Companies like IBM, Dell (DELL), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), for instance, are moving aggressively in this direction. On Aug. 1, IBM said it would spend $360 million to build a cloud computing data center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., bringing to nine its total of cloud computing centers worldwide. Dell is also targeting this market. The computer marker supplies products to some of the largest cloud computing providers and Web 2.0 companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, an...

So Gartner, the largest technology adviser to corporations, is saying the corporate shift to cloud computing is underway and destined to be a highly disruptive force in the industry. That struck me as intriguing, since a rapid advance of cloud computing into the corporate world is not a given, despite the consumer success of cloud-based services like Google, Facebook and others. On Tuesday, I caught up with Mr. Tully, who is based in London, and asked him to elaborate on his cloud computing comments. “On one level,” he said, “this whole cloud thing is about shifting assets away from enterprises and to service providers.” That, Mr. Tully added, should mean strong growth for corporate service providers. So far, there have been a few cloud-model corporate service suppliers, like Salesforce.com, and announced plans and investments by big corporate technology vendors like I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and EMC. Internet giants like Google and Amazon.com are are offering some corp...

Nice overview and a bit of the history on Cloud Computing: Increasingly, big firms are launching into "the cloud" to sell services, while small firms plug in, waving goodbye to the server hidden in the closet. "The future is about having a platform in the cloud," Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer said of the trend in a July e-mail to employees. The company has invested heavily in new products that will be announced in upcoming months. About four years ago, Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. began hatching a way to sell access to its complex computer systems. The company had already built up a robust infrastructure to support the world's largest online retail operation -- so why not let other businesses tap in? Amazon launched its Web Services in 2006, and more than 400,000 developers have signed on to pay for services such as storage space, database access and computing power. "Over the next decade you are going to see an incredible transformation, in my opinion...