tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35854971739378738902024-03-06T05:20:21.621+05:30UnCloud the CloudCloud Computing Tracked, Observed, Dissected, Analyzed and ReportedVijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-48821707701035872822011-10-10T18:44:00.002+05:302011-10-10T18:44:42.382+05:30Back to Silicon City of India<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My blogs have seen no updates for the last 1 month. Don't worry...I am not shutting them down yet. Not anywhere in the near future.<br />
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I have shifted my base from Chennai to Bangalore and hence the lack of updates in the midst of my transit and settling down.<br />
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A lot of interesting things have transpired on field that I will blog about in the days to come. Keep waiting for the updates to start flowing soon....Keep reading and commenting !!<br />
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<div float="right"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com1Bengaluru, Karnataka, India12.9715987 77.59456269999998312.7518902 77.342821199999989 13.191307199999999 77.846304199999977tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-20758222557045370132011-08-04T13:45:00.001+05:302011-08-04T13:45:04.173+05:30ABC Series - Assisting Business via Cloud–ToTango<p align="justify"> </p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.totango.com"><img style="display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto" src="http://media.marketwire.com/attachments/201107/29730_totango.gif" width="194" height="55"></a></p> <p align="justify">I am sure while trying the umpteen cloud services on offer – that offer you everything ranging from online photo editing to online project management to music streaming – you would not have failed to notice the “freemium” mode of service selling that accompanies these services. What that means is that there is always a basic version of the service available for free – you can register at the website and start using and continue using the basic feature set for as long as you like. In case you need more features, or have usgae stretching beyond the free bundled hours of usage, you will need to upgrade yourself to a higher or premium version.. This in industry lingo is called “freemium”</p> <p align="justify">The problem most cloud vendors face is to convert the maximum number of free service users into paid users. Each user comes with a certain expectation from the service. Identifying this need and working around it to bump up the user to a paid premium version is a tricky area for companies offering SaaS.</p> <p align="justify">This is where <a href="http://www.totango.com" target="_blank">ToTango</a>, an Israeli startup, has come up with a solution that integrates with the SaaS offering and keeps tabs on the usage patterns by customers. </p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.totango.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.totango.com/resources/images/assets/banner/image1.jpg"></a></p> <p align="justify">It gives a relative usage intensities across customers who have signed up, provides for a stream of user activity to be recorded and streamed real time to sales representatives. Providing for Filtering, segmentation of users, notifications on specific usage patterns, etc., are tools that the company offers to be used by sales representatives to track and go after the most promising users and talk them into moving to premium versions. This also doubles up as a valuable tool for product managers to evolve and prioritize their their roadmap.</p> <div align="justify" float="right"><span style="color: red"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span></div> Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud" rel="tag">Cloud</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/ToTango" rel="tag">ToTango</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/SaaS" rel="tag">SaaS</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Israel">Israel</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/solution" rel="tag">solution</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/online" rel="tag">online</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/freemium" rel="tag">freemium</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/uncloud">Uncloud</a> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-91854676127421959712011-07-19T16:30:00.001+05:302011-07-19T16:50:22.743+05:30ABC Series - Assisting Business via Cloud - EchoSign<p>In this new series, charmingly titled the ABC series, we will look at innovative ideas by cloud based companies that have Assisted Enterprises to do Business by leveraging the Cloud.</p> <p>The first in the series is EchoSign. A company making headlines due to its recent takeover by Adobe. EchoSign has been addressing the problem of the long and iterative cycles it usually takes for two business groups to sign and close a deal. </p> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.echosign.com/"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="image" border="0" alt="image" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC7Oe_Js6puFAr3N4NFQ2kw-kgnPFQ3yugkSIQVm-ZeZHX6OvgqB6HRKFwSffVG_M1475_R9Xv0vFrXMys1oq87F0JZseZFrAfA22t6Uyh3dhFuOy4NRqONFevOJYQK-FDCo3K50p8zgM/?imgmax=800" width="242" height="36"></a></p> <p>EchoSign has simplified the process by </p> <ol> <li>Introducing the concept of e-signatures <li>Allowing multiple parties to sign at once and let EchoSign consolidate the signatures into a master copy <li>Provide for a physical sign and fax option if required <li>Ancillary services like ‘store on cloud’ and let EchoSign remind you and other parties concerned if a renewal is due, tracking of contracts, etc <li>Pay on the go with no need for long term contracts <li>The associated parties only need an e-mail address and do not need to download or install any software</li></ol> <p>All of this while promoting eco-friendliness!</p> <p>Related Company: <a href="http://www.docusign.com/">DocuSign</a></p>Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud" rel="tag">Cloud</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/EchoSign" rel="tag">EchoSign</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Adobe" rel="tag">Adobe</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/signatures" rel="tag">signatures</a><br> <div float="right"><span style="color: red"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span></div> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-26505095961575300692011-06-27T15:34:00.001+05:302011-06-27T15:34:20.734+05:30Cloud Computing Security Standards<p align="justify">As Cloud Computing gains traction both among enterprises and consumers, security on the cloud still commands the greatest mind share when talking about reluctance in cloud adoption. While enterprises question security of their data and information, consumers are concerned about privacy related issues. Cloud Computing vendors are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate their commitment to address these hot buttons of their customers. In this context it pays for all stakeholders to be aware of some of the prevalent and widely accepted Security standards, the adoption of which helps alleviate some of the security concerns and push for greater cloud adoption. <p><b><u></u></b> <p><b><u>SAS 70 - Statement on Auditing Standards No 70</u></b><u></u> <p><b>What is it? </b> <p align="justify">A well recognized auditing standard put in place by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) <p><b>What does it do? </b> <p align="justify">Modern data centers and hosting providers have to deal with their customers' data being processed or residing on their servers and storage devices. SAS 70 audit checks if the necessary safeguards and controls are in place at the data centers to ensure safety of customers' data. <p><b>Who asks for it? </b> <p align="justify">Customers who want to enter into contracts with data centers, website hosting providers, cloud computing infrastructure providers typically enquire about SAS 70 compliance. <p><b>More Info @ </b><a href="http://www.sas70.com/"><b>http://www.sas70.com/</b></a><b> </b><b></b> <p><b><u>PCI-DSS - Payment Card Industry- Data Security Standard</u></b> <p><b>What is it?</b> <p align="justify">A defined standard by the PCI Security Standards Council that defines the needed protection to be put in place to ensure data safety while dealing with digital payments involving cards and information provided therein. <p><b>What does it do?</b> <p align="justify">The standard framework specifies requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other aspects while dealing with card related information leading to digital payments. It specifies 12 requirements to be put in place. To ensure compliance a continuous 3 step process has to be established <ul> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Assess</u></b>: Take stock of your IT assets and business processes for payment card processing and analyze them for vulnerabilities that could giveaway cardholder data</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Remediate</u></b>: Fix the revealed vulnerabilities </div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Report</u></b>: Generate records as specified by PCI DSS to validate remediation. Also submit compliance reports to the financial enterprises that you do business with.</div></li></ul> <p><b>Who asks for it?</b> <p align="justify">Customers who want to enter into contracts with data centers, website hosting providers, cloud computing infrastructure providers typically enquire about SAS 70 compliance. <p><b>More Info @ </b><a href="https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/"><b>https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/</b></a><b> </b> <p><b><u></u></b> <p><b><u>ISO 27001</u></b> <p><b>What is it?</b> <p align="justify">A Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard published in October 2005 by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization">International Organization for Standardization</a> (ISO) and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Electrotechnical_Commission">International Electrotechnical Commission</a> (IEC) <p><b>What does it do?</b> <p align="justify">The standard attempts to bring a structure around information management in enterprises. As information becomes a key asset for enterprises, the need to define standard processes around Information Management and continually keep refining these became the driving factors for the establishment of this standard. The standard defines a model that covers legal, physical and technical aspects of information management. It is a top down, risk-based approach and is technology-neutral. The model is defined in 6 steps <ul> <li>Define a security policy.</li> <li>Define the scope of the ISMS.</li> <li>Conduct a risk assessment.</li> <li>Manage identified risks.</li> <li>Select control objectives and controls to be implemented.</li> <li>Prepare a statement</li></ul> <p><b>Who asks for it?</b> <p align="justify">Customers while dealing with cross border transactions are more comfortable in ensuring that information passed on to other organizations are safe and do not fall into the false hands. <p><b>More Info @ </b><a href="http://www.27000.org/"><b>http://www.27000.org/</b></a><b> </b> <p><b><u></u></b> <p><b><u>Data Protection Directive (DPD)</u></b> <p><b>What is it?</b> <p>A set of European Union (EU) regulations that deal with personal data of individuals and their processing & movement. <p><b>What does it do?</b> <p align="justify">With privacy laws being some of the most stringent among the European nations, the EU has made the DPD a part of its privacy and human rights laws. This directive governs both automated and non automated processing of data. It assumes significance in the cloud computing scenario as more and more online services require individuals to divulge personal data while subscribing to services. <p align="justify">The EU directive incorporates the seven principles recommended by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) earlier. The seven principles state <ul> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Notice</u></b>: Give the individual notice when data is being collected</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Purpose</u></b>: State the purpose for which the data is being collected and data collected should be used only for this purpose</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Consent</u></b>: Get the individual's consent before disclosing data</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Security</u></b>: Ensure data collected is secure from potential misuse</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Disclosure</u></b>: Individuals need to be informed on who is collecting their data</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Access</u></b>: Individuals should be allowed access to their data and must be allowed to changer erroneous data.</div></li> <li> <div align="justify"><b><u>Accountability</u></b>: Individuals should have an ability to hold the data collectors accountable for the above principles</div></li></ul> <p><b>Who asks for it?</b> <p align="justify">EU directive is basically for the member nations who in turn have to enact laws to give the directive legal binding. <p><b>More Info @ </b><a href="http://www.dataprotectiondirective.com/"><b>http://www.dataprotectiondirective.com/</b></a><b> </b></p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:e6d0d033-0955-47a1-80f4-592ca84a38a4" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud+Security+Standards" rel="tag">Cloud Security Standards</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/SAS70" rel="tag">SAS70</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/DPD" rel="tag">DPD</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/PCI-DSS" rel="tag">PCI-DSS</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/ISO" rel="tag">ISO</a></div> <p><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post</b></p> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-1038313037800503102011-06-13T13:34:00.001+05:302011-06-27T15:49:40.137+05:30Understanding Cloud Computing – 5 – SaaS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div align="justify">In my previous posts on <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/04/understanding-cloud-computing-3-iaas.html" target="_blank">IaaS</a> and <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/06/understanding-cloud-computing-3-paas.html">PaaS</a>, we covered the building blocks of Cloud Computing. SaaS is the top most layer in our <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2010/12/understanding-cloud-computing-1.html" target="_blank">cloud computing stack</a> that rides on top of the power unleashed by the Infrastructure and Platform layers to really deliver value to consumers and enterprises. </div><div align="justify">SaaS or Software as a Service is quite a buzz word these days. Why so? Is it a new concept? </div><div align="justify">Not really. SaaS is about hosting a software application on a server and allowing users to use it via Internet connected computers from anywhere in the world. The user need not install the application to start using it on his computer. He/She can just access it as a service over the Internet. Web based email is a basic example of SaaS. </div><div align="justify">Other more recent examples include photo editing that certain website allow, word document to pdf conversion, Google word processing, spreadsheet applications, etc which you can access through a simple Internet browser and more. If SaaS had been around for so long, then why the buzz now? </div><div align="justify">Several reasons can be attributed to it </div><div align="justify">SaaS as a business centered concept </div><blockquote><div align="justify">SaaS as a concept has worked successfully for individual centered applications but not business centered applications. There are both technology related and business related reasons for this. While SaaS applications like e-mail, office suites, etc have taken off quite well, business related SaaS applications like CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, sales force automation software, payroll applications, procurement, logistics software have only started gaining traction now.</div></blockquote><blockquote><div align="justify">Why so?</div></blockquote><div align="justify">Technology has matured </div><blockquote><ul><li> <div align="justify">New software design and delivery models allow multiple instances of an application to run at once </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">Internet bandwidth costs have dropped significantly to allow companies to buy the connectivity necessary to allow the remotely hosted applications to run smoothly </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">Media rich AJAX based UIs that do not go for a full page refresh when you click on a button.</div></li>
</ul></blockquote><div align="justify">Business customers are realizing the benefits SaaS can offer </div><blockquote><ul><li> <div align="justify">Delayed deployments and high Total Cost of Ownership are forcing CIOs to look away from the traditional software delivery format. </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">Business customers are frustrated with endless cycles of buying software licenses, paying for maintenance contracts, unresponsive helplines, costly upgrades, etc. </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">Pay-as-you-go benefits </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">Easy add ons </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">Easy ability to switch vendors if current vendor is unresponsive to business problems </div></li>
<li> <div align="justify">No software maintenance headaches</div></li>
</ul></blockquote><div align="justify">And add to this the early successes that the world is seeing in early pioneers of SaaS like Salesforce.com, WebEx, Digital Insight, etc. The model has proven viable. We need to wait and see how the trends in SaaS unfold.</div><div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:a6a02349-98f5-4e4c-82a9-64377dbc510a" style="display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/SaaS" rel="tag">SaaS</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/SalesForce" rel="tag">SalesForce</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/WebEx" rel="tag">WebEx</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud+Computing" rel="tag">Cloud Computing</a></div><div align="justify"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" /> here </a>...And never miss a post</b> </div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-32455925622825238792011-06-12T21:13:00.003+05:302011-06-12T21:26:27.655+05:30Understanding Cloud Computing – 4 – PaaS<div style="text-align: left" dir="ltr" trbidi="on"> <div align="justify">Platform as a Service corresponds to the second layer in <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2010/12/understanding-cloud-computing-1.html" target="_blank">my analogy of cloud computing to your commonplace desktop at home</a>.</div> <div align="justify">PaaS – Platform as a Service is akin to an operating system that allows application developers, programmers and the like to install their language support systems, write and test code, package and distribute and finally deploy/install them to render the apps usable by end customers.</div> <div align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3WvTytCLX-q9wAJoIFtzeEOedSxZ1Nr7ht5F-F0ZhezPUttKTuU39xbVwT9VWIIytgOYPwZVGxjWIC317SFXA_1h6uHTbs0ed0lQdGFv9tMA-wW9qKhjSg2IK2gvRJQjO0G7hAs_9Rus/s1600-h/Cloud%252520-%252520PaaS%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px" title="Cloud - PaaS" border="0" alt="Cloud - PaaS" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUIvIcOfsJ3b8lIF8x0WcfYa_Hfgwq82p86jLQA5xPbduPNrbu8WXxuwfuWHjmWMP_gdFB29Q4gdMu8_lG3KP4klKmZLReHu6qqpgD5ZjOfI_TielKs4kHW17jZo-7TXt1h2nMiqWFTHaC/?imgmax=800" width="366" height="249"></a></div> <div align="justify">The difference lies purely in the ‘as a Service’ aspect. The platform in the case of cloud computing context is not tied down to a Operating System – rather it is something that is hosted on the cloud and available on demand to developers and programmers via any machine connected to the internet. The developed requests the environment and the same gets provisioned to him over the cloud. </div> <div align="justify">PaaS also follows the 4 tenets of Cloud Computing.</div> <div align="justify">Examples of PaaS platforms include Azure from Microsoft, SalesForce’s Force.com, Google’s AppEngine. </div> <div align="justify">We will explore SaaS in our next part in this series.</div> <div align="justify"> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:4c2c3c20-53c7-40f9-8320-d0e1479a05c1" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Google.+Microsoft" rel="tag">Google. Microsoft</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/SalesForce" rel="tag">SalesForce</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/PaaS" rel="tag">PaaS</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Platform+as+a+Service" rel="tag">Platform as a Service</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud+computing" rel="tag">Cloud computing</a></div></div> <div align="justify"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post</b></div></div> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-12966110088235072802011-06-08T14:53:00.001+05:302011-06-08T14:53:39.955+05:30Cloud Startups – Asankya<p align="justify">In the first of the series on Cloud Startups – a series of posts that will over time cover some of the unique cloud startup companies that are working to resolve challenges that cloud computing realization poses.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://asankya.com" target="_blank">Asankya</a>, an Atlanta based cloud startup is working on the transport layer of the Internet. Working to make it more efficient, fault tolerant and enable it to deliver Cloud applications more rapidly and reliably.</p> <p align="center"><img src="data:image/jpg;base64,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"></p> <p align="justify">The company has patented a Internet transport layer routing technology that hinges on dynamic network characterization and scheduling capabilities to optimize data flow. It calls it the RAPID protocol.</p> <p align="justify">The interesting part of this ‘hyper-mesh technology’ is the ability of the patented algorithms to break up a file into 10 parts each of which is transmitted along a pre-scanned path on the Internet to the destination. The pre-scan helps establish the reliability of the path’s performance.The end result is a transmission rate that is 40 times the current speeds offered by normal routers.</p> <p align="center"><img src="http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSq73VpTO_70RyYP99dlcfciDfjxYn-L_owYpbq0EZap-c8hS_lbQ"></p> <p align="justify">You might be wondering where the cloud and Asankya’s ideas cross paths. Think of a private cloud that an enterprise wants to have. Having it in house guarantees LAN speeds. However having a 3rd party data center to create a private cloud for your enterprise means that all data between the enterprise and the private cloud has to negotiate the bottle-neck in the middle – the Internet. Asankya’s technology leaps to the rescue. Having special routers deployed at the gateways of your enterprise and the remote private cloud ensure that the bottle-neck problem is solved/minimized.<br></p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:d452025b-e0c7-4d79-a9ee-380703ceca72" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Asankya" rel="tag">Asankya</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/HyperMesh" rel="tag">HyperMesh</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/RAPID+Protocol" rel="tag">RAPID Protocol</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/dynamic+network+characterization" rel="tag">dynamic network characterization</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/cloud+technology" rel="tag">cloud technology</a></div> <div float="right"><font color="red" size="2"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></font></div> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-38573220408089749312011-06-06T16:43:00.001+05:302011-06-06T16:47:16.230+05:30US Fed extracting the juice out of the cloud<p align="justify">If ever there was to be a generic case study sought by enterprises seeking to leverage cloud computing, there can’t be a better one than the US Federal Government whose <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/01/cloud-buzz-vol-1-edition-1.html" target="_blank">“Cloud First” policy</a>.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJrekoCe6VdYeTrCh2M6iyZliKfPZu-zwQxq61x6InGLenxTETe0eNpzjRngXGAZPdpnhWOr_pW5CpG2lpYIhpo9RgY1E4oMYkgHJwrEHW9H_lX-2lYsfL2a-oJFgjz7_QgVBPXOPfpI/s1600-h/US%252520Govt%252520cloud%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="US Govt cloud" border="0" alt="US Govt cloud" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5WkWkTZq1wrpv2A-WtmX8PkLmq5lj6kUJf-9DHkkdqoXBDreVCRMnh1DmoWFdFoKf022ZctKL-owQVc7Bc64JCqg6DC9U8Ib_9w1aV1vT0Kwlbn8MZrUxor6RIXILEOpkGn9fJuvmwn0/?imgmax=800" width="152" height="152"></a></p> <p align="justify"><strong>Two key lessons</strong> that come out crystal clear from US government’s experiments with cloud computing</p> <p align="justify"><strong>1. Move the essentials but non-core items to the cloud. Focus on the low hanging fruit first. </strong></p> <p align="justify"><strong><u>Case in Point 1</u></strong>: US government has saved $40 million a year by moving e-mail services for General Services Administration (GSA) and Dept. of Agriculture.</p> <p align="justify"><strong><u>Case in Point 2</u></strong>: The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board have saved $750,000 by moving to Amazon Web Services’ cloud-computing infrastructure; a move started in May 2010. About 100 data centers nationwide are closed this year The government has an ultimate goal of shuttering 800 data centers by 2015.</p> <p align="justify"><strong>2. Move those apps to the cloud that can take advantage of at least 2-3 basic tenets that cloud computing promises.</strong></p> <p align="justify"><strong><u>Case in Point 1</u></strong>: GSA moved its website to the cloud thus ensuring that website content could be updated in hours instead of days and weeks. This allows the staff to turn to other tasks rather than site maintenance. This move alone is supposed to save $1.7 billion to the US tax payer. The website application took advantage of the cloud’s on-demand ability to scale up/down and also lent itself to a pay-go model for GSA to pay for the support and maintenance of the website.</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:0dc5c5c3-fd31-41b4-ad4c-6ebd8f1a04a1" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/USA" rel="tag">USA</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Federal" rel="tag">Federal</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/US+Government" rel="tag">US Government</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud+Computing" rel="tag">Cloud Computing</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Case+Study" rel="tag">Case Study</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/GSA" rel="tag">GSA</a></div> <div float="right"><font color="red" size="2"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></font></div> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-67813737019714274102011-06-03T14:10:00.001+05:302011-06-03T14:13:50.549+05:30Virtualization and Cloud Computing – Is there a difference?<p align="justify">One common question I keep getting asked is the difference between Virtualization and Cloud Computing. I even have colleagues and friends who swear that Cloud Computing is glorified Virtualization.</p> <p>Lets explore this subject.</p> <p align="justify">Virtualization in its simplest form is all about enabling a virtual access to a physical computing resource. Why do you need this? A single physical resource can be accessed in multiple ways or by multiple users simultaneously. Each user uses their own OS or access mechanism to interact with the underlying physical resource. A technology known as the ‘hypervisor’ that abstracts the physical resource from the users/systems accessing it is core to the virtualization technology.</p> <p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFWFrgDv4Rk1wy7hmMRsmwW2H3AFm9DyIP-8aHDpU0LPpIitk5VD82jJYoYNfpV2gb11spBte1aOZVQZV2m0vNrKgmvqUDRWxdsuUxWfJ_MyP3CGxct5Gzrxj1DEdQfKFxdBKO_kJVLDw/s1600-h/Virtualization%25255B6%25255D.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Virtualization" border="0" alt="Virtualization" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtGwqfiurdFeXFy9waJ954QzDbVMOrPVsoeTvnbY0vMy2sPZYqwDZ88p75QcZrnBxOAq3eGRlAD4avtIiBUxbse5LJM_EF4bFcnCA3PaZKbCBLsRxOYHVbI8GXMaddIsAZv1AFTjqlgzc/?imgmax=800" width="331" height="312"></a></p> <p>Cloud computing is about allowing users to access computer resources on a need basis (basically as a service) and do away with the concept of ownership. This also would mean aspects of self service, pay for what you use and inherently unlimited computing power. Cloud Computing is not a technology, it is a business paradigm. Virtualization is an important technology that enables cloud computing by optimizing physical resource sharing.Cloud computing can also be enabled without virtualization but it would be an inefficient way of doing it.</p> <p>Simply put, as one website succinctly captures the differences in the following statement</p> <blockquote> <p align="justify">“Virtualization is basically one physical computer pretending to be many computing environments; cloud computing is many different computers pretending to be the one computing environment, hence allowing easier scaling”</p></blockquote> <p align="justify">Do share your thoughts on where else the differences lie.</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:4e5d5ac2-d9b2-490a-8a05-2f0395a92b7b" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud+Computing" rel="tag">Cloud Computing</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Virtualization" rel="tag">Virtualization</a></div> <p><font color="red" size="2"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></font></p> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-57646131467556316162011-06-02T17:09:00.001+05:302011-06-02T17:13:07.475+05:30Gang of Four on the Cloud<p>Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, has called his company belonging to a Gang of Four that is revolutionizing the Consumer activity on the Internet and Cloud today. </p> <ul> <li>Google with its Search <li>Facebook with its Social Site <li>Amazon with its E-Commerce site <li>Apple with its Devices</li></ul> <p>This sure has led to a comparison with the former Gang of Four as per TechCrunch viz., Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and Dell formerly.</p> <p>If I were to take a swipe to extend the Gang of Four to make it a Gang of Six, here’s my choices</p> <ul> <li>Microsoft with its Enterprise Offerings <li>VMware with its Infrastructure Offerings</li></ul> <p>Do you have anything to extend this list?</p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:ce33b770-2625-479a-835d-743edb63f2cf" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Microsoft" rel="tag">Microsoft</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Google" rel="tag">Google</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Facebook" rel="tag">Facebook</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Amazon" rel="tag">Amazon</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Apple" rel="tag">Apple</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Cloud+Computing" rel="tag">Cloud Computing</a></div> <div><br></div> <div float="right"><font color="red" size="2"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a title="Subscribe to my feed" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png"> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></font></div> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-49732577238389991502011-05-16T22:40:00.000+05:302011-05-16T22:40:16.300+05:30Getting a foothold in the Cloud<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;"></span><br />
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Quite an interesting point that Gary Orenstein of GigaOm makes in his post titled "<a href="http://gigaom.com/cloud/vmware-is-the-new-microsoft-just-without-an-os/">VMware Is The New Microsoft, Just Without an OS</a>". The crux of the discussion is that VMware has over the last 10 years has assembled together all the pieces necessary to cut right between the operating system and the ecosystem of apps. While the first half of the decade saw apps being developed on tools residing over the OS and being tied to the OS, the latter half has seen the rise of cloud. It is this cloud that VMware wants to exploit by doing two things primarily</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;">Get the developer community to develop over the cloud by providing tools. Ex: CloudFoundry by VMware, SpringSource acquisition</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Get the apps rolled out over the Platform and keep them OS agnostic. Ex: Zimbra, SlideRocket, etc</li>
</ol></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">This brings to the fore 3 approaches cloud vendors are taking</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;">Microsoft - Being the OS incumbent, it is slowly providing access to all desktop software via the Cloud through its Live.com platform</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Google - Being the SaaS native player, Google has created a thin OS in the form Chrome OS and we will be seeing netbooks with Chrome OS start of July 2011.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">VMWare - The infrastructure player whose focus will be the platform on the cloud and ruling the roost there.</li>
</ol></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Enterprises will be forced to choose between the offerings of a clutch of such players as vendors move faster than ever into making enterprise cloud computing a reality.</div><br />
<div float="right"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-1784622101941312592011-04-29T08:46:00.000+05:302011-04-29T08:46:37.520+05:30SETI - Shutting down for lack of funds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;">Remember SETI? The ambitious 'Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence' program which probably was also the first of its kind public program that used distributed computing power. </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22px;"><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">SETI program sought to use the power of millions of distributed home/office computers to process the tonnes of data that a set of radio telescopes named the Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, California, USA collected day in and day out. Users who had their systems connected the World Wide Web could install a small client software that would take bits of data by talking to a SETI remote server , analyse this data when the computer processor was idle and send the data back to the central server.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7y_r5g_tyd0j7qm84Llmu2qOBtklYoQCukm3GmvY0v1HUEbYhzfl7iNWR5MC8XeBgmp7jrASNCzHhnwpj_f6_zNqr2TBDvf_nlOAHdG0bpae9No4LdjDchKvUnpWx5C2AxM6X7-2AzK8/s1600/SETI+-+Allen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7y_r5g_tyd0j7qm84Llmu2qOBtklYoQCukm3GmvY0v1HUEbYhzfl7iNWR5MC8XeBgmp7jrASNCzHhnwpj_f6_zNqr2TBDvf_nlOAHdG0bpae9No4LdjDchKvUnpWx5C2AxM6X7-2AzK8/s1600/SETI+-+Allen.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">What's disheartening is that the program is being stalled due to lack of funds. Started way back in 2007, the array of 42 radio dishes scanned deep space for possible signals that are indicative of communication from intelligence life. The SETI institute itself was founded in 1984 with NASA funding.</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><br />
</div><div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="body" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">The $50 million array was built by SETI and UC Berkeley with a $30 million donation from Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, being the biggest chunk of money. Operating the dishes costs about $1.5 million a year, mostly to pay for the staff of eight to 10 researchers and technicians to operate the facility.An additional $1 million a year is needed to collect and sift the data from the dishes.</div></span></div></span><br />
<div float="right"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-53617985854409892162011-04-28T10:54:00.001+05:302011-04-28T10:54:00.135+05:30Energy Consumption by Cloud Service Providers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">An interesting piece of statistic that <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/26/visualized-ring-around-the-world-of-data-center-power-usage/">Engadget </a>has shared shows data center power consumption across the major cloud service providers.<br />
<div float="right"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCT8fQyapJrlQBEJS12xi6dzNUvYt_2ZPmTgaBhBJfWBttdgkTatbF6i48nqJUZpMObajYwulRTj6udaJTr5sLFZbrSvSj225H3tvIoyx6FullBpeHZlt67ShbHsaj73yZqlCZjPNttVU/s1600/Data+Center+-+Energy+Utilization.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCT8fQyapJrlQBEJS12xi6dzNUvYt_2ZPmTgaBhBJfWBttdgkTatbF6i48nqJUZpMObajYwulRTj6udaJTr5sLFZbrSvSj225H3tvIoyx6FullBpeHZlt67ShbHsaj73yZqlCZjPNttVU/s320/Data+Center+-+Energy+Utilization.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Facebook, Google and Microsoft (all services included) make up for 26.38 % of energy consumption. What's interesting is that BOA (Bank of America) too registers as a high energy consumer. This is surprising and would definitely try and find out what makes them a data center energy guzzler!!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-52447536194983828792011-04-27T09:16:00.012+05:302011-04-27T09:16:00.677+05:30Not all apps are meant for the cloud<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/saas/seven-lessons-to-learn-from-amazons-outage/1296">Phil Wainewright of ZDNet</a> today has a nice article that speaks of "7 things to learn from the <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/04/aws-disruption-cloud-concerns-re.html">Amazon outage</a>". One of the key points he makes is that this should be a clarion call for enterprises to revisit their strategy of what applications of theirs should be deployed on the cloud. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you had put something on the cloud, it is implicit that you are assuming that you do not retain full control. A failure is one of the many things that can go wrong with possibly nothing in your power to set things right on the cloud. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">A colleague of mine was narrating another incident wherein a medical application was on the EC2 cloud and it got affected due to the outage. The owner in question raised tickets with AWS folks - No response. They then out of sheer desperation posted their complaint on the AWS forum. Instead of help, what they got were dollops of advice from other people on the forum questioning their strategy of deploying a mission critical medical application on the cloud !!!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am narrating this here in the light of how mere cost savings and on-demand availability cannot be justifications to embrace cloud. Yet another article <a href="http://channeltechcenter.com/s/a/1003.clouds-of-channel-confusion/#">elsewhere</a> highlighting the fact that most cloud providers aim to provide discrete services with as little support as possible chiefly because they are operating under razor thin margins. Volumes count and not individual attention to customers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Remember cloud is not the panacea for all your infrastructure woes :-)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b>If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post</b></span></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-89886471467525567112011-04-26T06:31:00.004+05:302011-04-26T06:31:00.891+05:30Traditional Hosting versus Cloud Hosting - 3 Differences<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Much too often, the question on what is the difference between hosting a website on a remote server and on a cloud is - crops up during passionate discussions on cloud computing. Truly geeky friends of mine often forget the fundamental differences between cloud hosting and non-cloud hosting and start wondering if cloud computing is just a fad that was invented to pull the wool over unsuspecting enterprises. To all those friends of mine and to those of you who really are puzzled over the differences, here's a beautiful video that settles the matter for once. You can bookmark this URL for the subsequent times...;-)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/QJncFirhjPg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div float="right"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com14Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-87856777152773334552011-04-25T10:27:00.004+05:302011-04-25T10:27:00.088+05:30SaaS - Biggest Cloud Computing Growth Driver<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Forrester has predicted a nearly 6 fold growth in SaaS between 2011 and 2020. The entire cloud computing trend is slated to undergo a slightly higher growth of about 6.11. This clearly indicates the huge role that SaaS would have in the growth of the cloud computing in general.</div><div float="right"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCkPOkkMVzf6h4xkt63kkXRaE-GOytFSrABDVsjrFqunk_bUomqBmfiJ0_veW_fO1AAjEq-hByl7ytoO2u4uaR_onth361wqwLtbqdh6NQH-ukvkeBG5Qux9ntoUIXU5EU73JZMMazB1k/s1600/forrester-saas-prediction.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCkPOkkMVzf6h4xkt63kkXRaE-GOytFSrABDVsjrFqunk_bUomqBmfiJ0_veW_fO1AAjEq-hByl7ytoO2u4uaR_onth361wqwLtbqdh6NQH-ukvkeBG5Qux9ntoUIXU5EU73JZMMazB1k/s400/forrester-saas-prediction.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">If you refer back to the <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2010/12/understanding-cloud-computing-1.html">analogy of desktops, operating systems and applications</a> that I had provided, this starts making more sense. Once you have the hardware and bare operating system in place, these two items tend to get fairly standardized and hence commoditized. What does not stagnate is the continuous need for applications for different computational needs. Each need is further driven by niche needs. This is followed by need to optimize, need for cross integration, etc.The cloud computing model is no different. It will follow a similar pattern. First essential software will be available on demand. Next would come the need for specialized software and finally lead to mash-ups, market places, etc</div><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-1918039764228103252011-04-24T18:42:00.000+05:302011-04-24T18:42:57.697+05:30AWS Disruption - Cloud Concerns Re-debated<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div float="right"><div style="text-align: justify;">In August of 2006, Amazon launched EC2 - Elastic Compute Cloud - a service that allowed for the first realization of the 4 tenets of cloud computing at the Infrastructure layer. - On demand elastic compute power was available on a pay per usage model. Developers and Enterprises could host applications by themselves and also program them to take advantage of the underlying infrastructure that could scale up and down with a call to exposed APIs by Amazon. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Architected, designed and rolled out from CapeTown, South Africa, 5 years ago, <a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/amazon-cloud-failure-takes-down-web-sites/">AWS ran into its first major battle this week with a major disruption at a datacenter in Northern Virginia</a>. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx8sz7Eq6YGv4lvGbdw4vzR0wzrOp_LW-mSV0Yrdq7p4MNsfdQVZlgk3WEiGJrbdKZJrcCGydNX9HlqCR25Pq7dtc4n5vQqIkwIPuIpqxVHRttX8KR-titKyMRiop7kIOUxnvgVi2Nwo0/s1600/cloud-concern.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx8sz7Eq6YGv4lvGbdw4vzR0wzrOp_LW-mSV0Yrdq7p4MNsfdQVZlgk3WEiGJrbdKZJrcCGydNX9HlqCR25Pq7dtc4n5vQqIkwIPuIpqxVHRttX8KR-titKyMRiop7kIOUxnvgVi2Nwo0/s320/cloud-concern.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;">With major customers like NASDAQ, NetFlix, FourSquare, Pfizer, NewYorkTimes, this disruption brings to the forefront the debate on what should enterprises keep in house versus putting them on 3rd party provided infrastructure like AWS EC2. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">It also will result in enterprises revisiting their strategy on 3rd party infrastructure. Enterprises like NetFlix that hosted from multiple datacenter locations of AWS did not face disruptions while SMBs who opted for single data center hosting faced the brunt.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A definitive 3rd angle to be discussed would be on "Should we go with one provider or distribute our bets with multiple?</li>
</ol>Occurrences of this nature do help both consumers and providers a chance to tighten their belts. A bane in the short term but a boon in the long term.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-20068452254087690922011-04-23T11:10:00.001+05:302011-06-12T21:39:04.906+05:30Understanding Cloud Computing - 3 - IaaS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div float="right"><div style="text-align: justify;">The Infrastructure layer of cloud computing is the base foundation of cloud computing. This is the layer that triggered off the thoughts of true cloud computing.Additional hardware purchased by divisions of companies that remained unused must have prompted other divisions to request for this hardware on a temporary basis. That action is what sparked off the thought of subscribing to hardware on demand and not buying and owning it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hosting companies that provided space on remote servers took the first step in this direction. They were prompted more from the need for the servers to be exposed to public at all times unlike enterprise servers that are within the firewall. This also freed up enterprises from having to invest and maintain open-to-public servers. They just put up their websites and related public consumable data onto these hosted servers. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl32GkG_45etgV9rPtpUIb0tkgIMs3lUTBWws51TznEY3xc6iej6ZvsjNVZ49d4yesmqiUZQE2xKTQfiYDgMB2f4yWTdurEdxOQ8zUa7H-z5lp-yUsXi1b5SRpN1OepY3_9usZZIKMGT4/s1600/data-center.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl32GkG_45etgV9rPtpUIb0tkgIMs3lUTBWws51TznEY3xc6iej6ZvsjNVZ49d4yesmqiUZQE2xKTQfiYDgMB2f4yWTdurEdxOQ8zUa7H-z5lp-yUsXi1b5SRpN1OepY3_9usZZIKMGT4/s320/data-center.jpg" width="320" /></a>It was exactly 5 years ago that the next big step in IaaS was taken. It was by a company named Amazon (more famous for it online book store). AWS or Amazon Web Services (started in July 2002) announced the availability of its EC2 - Elastic Compute Cloud offering in August 2006. EC2 allowed users to rent out computing power and pay for it by the hours of usage. EC2 allowed for users to load their applications onto Amazon hosted infrastructure and EC2 related services allowed for scaling up or down the needed computing and storage power based on the consumption of these applications.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today you have a whole set of companies trying to match what AWS brought to the market. GoGrid, Rackspace, Akamai, etc are among the few top ones. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You could safely say that the current trends and gung-ho around cloud computing had its seeds sowed back in 2006. In our next post, lets dive into<a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/06/understanding-cloud-computing-3-paas.html"> Platform as a Service</a> facet of Cloud Computing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.2495830000000312.916343000000001 80.157828500000036 13.204501 80.341337500000023tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-48095510947061938672011-03-14T17:46:00.001+05:302011-03-14T17:46:34.522+05:303 trends in the SaaS Space<p align="justify">As i trawl through pages of predictions, trends and forecasts by analysts, tech reporters and industry watchers, trends in the SaaS space stand out distinctly and are observable by me on the ground. </p> <ol> <li> <div align="justify"><strong>Cloud Computing driving the viability and adoption of SaaS <strong><img style="display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px" align="right" src="http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRVGLNb7dNDLLrCoyUdSsPsm60JptF1aiA_Fw7MTUcOLsJH4n809Q"></strong></strong></div> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Low cost infrastructure availability is letting entrepreneurs, startups and even big enterprises experiment in the SaaS space without having to shell out thousands of dollars for infrastructure. </div> <li> <div align="justify">Plug and play services that dole out platforms (Force.com, VmForce, Azure), security wrappers (Navajo Systems), handle identity and federation management aspects (Okta, PingIdentity, Symplified Technologies, etc) </div></li></ul> <li> <div align="justify"><strong>Convergence of the TV, Computer and the Mobile is creating opportunities for SaaS </strong></div> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">The 3 screens we know of are converging. This means a greater leverage for software play. Write once and Run Everywhere will become the norm of the day. What better way to do this than the SaaS way. Central software that detects hybrid screens, screen/gadget <img style="display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQv-c6r8Tg4k3KNBPQqLuhb_3Lca3sTgKXZ5D_4DWZccbfIjX42PQ">types and renders itself to optimally function in the form factor of the gadget will be the natural next thing. Roll out upgrades to your software at once across multiple gadgets. (Kony Solutions)</div></li></ul> <li> <div align="justify"><strong>Cloud Service Ecosystems are the next big thing in the SaaS space</strong></div> <ul> <li> <div align="justify">Service aggregators in the form of cloud service providers, telecom service providers are driving the next wave of SaaS adoption. Be it DreamSimplicity, JamCracker or Etelos or even TSPs like AT&T, NTT DoCoMo: all of them are creating services based marketplaces – an ecosystem that will help you pick, choose, try and buy service, provide feed back, rate services, switch service suppliers, etc. To experience how such a marketplace would look like, go to to Google Chrome WebStore.</div></li></ul></li></ol> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-4186907399307028132011-03-08T15:23:00.001+05:302011-03-08T15:45:36.156+05:303 places I can see SaaS in action<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">People often ask me about experiencing SaaS. Being a concept still taking off and the absolute resemblance to installed software, people most times are totally unaware that services they consume on the web are in fact SaaS. Hence this post to help recognize SaaS.<br />
<strong><u>1. Google Docs</u></strong>: Go to <a href="http://docs.google.com/">http://docs.google.com</a> and signup/login. You can immediately start working on a Word document, a power point presentation and are presented with an interface uncannily similar to Microsoft word. You can create word document, edit it,email it and even collaborate in real time. What’s more…You do not have to install any software.<br />
<strong><u>2. Dream Simplicity Marketplace</u></strong>: Go to <a href="http://www.dreamsimplicity.com/">http://www.dreamsimplicity.com</a> and sign up/login. You can subscribe to a whole set of online software from a variety of vendors/providers and create a complete dashboard of tools you find useful.<br />
<strong><u>3. Google Chrome Web Store</u></strong>: Download Google Chrome browser and install. Search of Google Chrome Web Store on the internet.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGoiiW5PTvobTCp3pMqF3ZfBVPPZ1-ok8Lu77xBDLaGFhsqwsRCBj9TH-VRMQrOgsJYzQWJrzf5dBH3jZtCBI3wYbNpwQec5YRm7yhqkW5G3XEFz11e8wU4KeiODgvn1bc2pGEFWZFSro/s1600/Google+Chrome+Web+Store.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGoiiW5PTvobTCp3pMqF3ZfBVPPZ1-ok8Lu77xBDLaGFhsqwsRCBj9TH-VRMQrOgsJYzQWJrzf5dBH3jZtCBI3wYbNpwQec5YRm7yhqkW5G3XEFz11e8wU4KeiODgvn1bc2pGEFWZFSro/s320/Google+Chrome+Web+Store.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
You will be surprised to see the number of applications most of which are free that can be installed on top of the Chrome browser and you can bring them up when needed. The tools are categorized into a number of buckets like Productivity, Games, Kids, etc. Most tools are rich and pack a lot of power in terms of features they offer. Just as good as any tool you might have installed on your PC. <br />
Do you feel you have experienced SaaS now?</div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-55988893920786275252011-02-21T10:10:00.001+05:302011-02-21T10:10:15.511+05:30Gartner’s 3 predictions for the cloud…<p>Gartner has released its 2011 predications for cloud computing</p> <ol> <li>More than half of an enterprise’s transactions will be done via cloud based infrastructure over the next 4 years - based on a survey of Chief information officers (CIOs).</li> <li>In the Asia-Pacific, around 40 percent of enterprises with more than 1,000 employees will invest in cloud this year. </li> <li>Software as a Service (SaaS) is also projected to grow from 9% of total enterprise applications software spending in 2009 to 14% in 2014. SaaS enterprise application revenues will also more than double during this timeframe, or 15.3% of compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2009 and 2014.</li></ol> Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-83376227777286861992011-01-12T15:12:00.001+05:302011-01-12T16:05:44.955+05:30Cloud Buzz - Vol 1 - Edition 1<div class="WordSection1"><div class="MsoNormal">Cloud Buzz is a quick roundup of interesting happenings in the Cloud space<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>Microsoft Azure extends beyond PaaS to IaaS through its VMRole offering. This puts its offering on par with IaaS offerings from Amazon like AWS EC2 – <a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/james_staten/10-10-28-windows_azure_crosses_over_to_iaas?cm_mmc=RSS-_-IT-_-943-_-blog_1710"> James Staten blogs about it here</a><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="apple-style-span">2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>SalesForce.com now offers Database as a Service. <span class="apple-style-span"> <span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Database.com provides access to data for an application written in any language, on any platform and to any end-point device – <a href="http://www.networkcomputing.com/data-networking-management/salesforce-adds-database-as-a-service-offering-and-free-chatter.php"> Network Computing talks of it.</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="apple-style-span">3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Vivek Kundra, CIO of US Federal Government has unveiled 25 point plan to improve efficiency of the US government IT infrastructure. The plan hinges chiefly around the “Cloud First” policy unveiled earlier that insists that the public cloud to realize these efficiencies – <a href="http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com/2010/12/vivek-kundra-unveils-25-point-it.html"> Kevin Jackson blogs about it in his Cloud Musings Blog</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">4.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Estimates by Gartner show that the software as a service (SaaS) market is expected to grow to 18% by 2013 – <a href="http://www.cloudcomputingzone.com/2010/11/19/guest-post-security-in-the-cloud-%e2%80%93-the-way-to-go/"> Cloud Computing Zone</a></span></span></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.24958312.8932015 80.0161235 13.227642500000002 80.4830425tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-36440098217604210762011-01-11T07:50:00.000+05:302011-01-11T23:01:10.615+05:30IT Needs Then and Cloud Needs Now....<div style="text-align: justify;">When the digital computer age was ushered in way back in the 1960s, IBM ruled the roost with System/360, a large mainframe offering. Over a decade and half we saw the emergence of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) with PDP and VAX systems, Hewlett Packard with HP-2115, Data General with its Novas. Each company had its own proprietary hardware stack and languages they supported. While DEC supported UNIX which was in its infancy then, HP supported Fortran and Algol and IBM had its own proprietary mainframe language. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Enterprise and consumer needs drove adoption of these different stack each of which were best suited for a particular segment. Over the next 2-3 decades, enterprises suddenly realized that the computer industry had left them with a spaghetti of systems none of which were inter operable or supported cross talk. And this after millions of dollars had been poured to procure these systems. The anguish was so pronounced that it drove some of the legacy providers to extinction while others had to learn to dance to survive. Louis Gerstner, the erstwhile CEO of IBM, in his book, "<em><a href="http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/2071.html" target="_blank">Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?</a></em>" gives an account of IBM's historic turnaround between April 1993 and March 2002. Lou Gerstner led IBM from the brink of bankruptcy and mainframe obscurity back into the forefront of the technology business. He did so by reorienting the company's business to the demands of the time. One of the main cornerstones he lay was the establishment of IBM Global Services - a System Integration division whose main objective was to help enterprises stitch together the multitude of computer systems they had invested in and get them to co-work. Thus was born the huge SI industry that has seen the likes of IBM, Accenture, EDS, CapGemini and the Indian majors like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL, Cognizant drive business.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The reason I cited a snippet from history is to demonstrate two things</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li>To draw a comparison between the digital computing era and the cloud computing world as it is evolving</li>
<li>To give the reader an indication of how transformations in the industry happen over years and decades.</li>
</ol></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cloud computing industry was a buzz word for most part of the first decade in the new millennium. The fag end of the decade saw the emergence of Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, Microsoft Azure, Go Grid, SalesForce's Force.com as some prime cloud players. We also see a lot of smaller players who serve niche needs like Service Mesh, Zuora, JamCracker, Ping Identity, etc who complement the bigger players. However, the biggest lacuna is the interoperability of clouds. Users choosing a cloud provider do not have a seamless path to migrate to another cloud.provider. What you see is a picture similar to the erstwhile era. A rising need felt by enterprise customers to ensure a fair degree of standards and interoperability between clouds. What that also means is the need for companies that would help enterprises achieve it. Whether this set of players would come from the the big league or from the small niche of players remains to be seen...What's your take on this matter?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div float="right"><span style="color: red; font-size: x-small;"><b> If you enjoyed reading this post, Subscribe to the feed <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncloudTheCloud" rel="alternate" title="Subscribe to my feed" type="application/rss+xml"><img alt="" src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon32x32.png" style="border: 0;" /> here </a>...And never miss a post </b></span> </div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com1Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.24958312.8932015 80.0161235 13.227642500000002 80.4830425tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-41486450937806064062010-12-27T20:20:00.001+05:302010-12-27T20:20:20.842+05:30Understanding Cloud Computing - 2<p style="text-align: justify;">Remember the analogy I presented to you in my last post in the series? About the <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2010/12/understanding-cloud-computing-1.html" target="_blank">cloud being akin to a giant computer</a>. We also talked about the 3 layers of this computer. What was interesting was the fact that each of them had the "as a Service" suffix. What does this mean and what are its implications. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Extending out giant computer analogy a little further, it is certain that such a giant computer is not for any individual or institution's use alone. Rather it is a computer that can be used by everybody who has a need for the same. Theoretically, the computer is so huge that every body could make use of it at different points of time or at the same time. While somebody might be needing just a few GB of hard disk space on this computer and some processing power, another team might be thinking of requesting several TB of space and lots of RAM and some specific applications. As each and every individual/team requests these units from the computer, these are allocated almost in real time to these individuals. Once they are done using the computer for their use, they relinquish the requested resource units that get added to the main pool for somebody else to take advantage of them. Hence the giant computer's resources are available on demand as a service. Just like how a taxi is available as a service for you when you need to get from one point to another or your when your own car has broken down. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">All three layers of the cloud, the infrastructure layer, the platform layer and the software layer are available as a service for its consumers. Hence the suffix "as a service".</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In our next post in this series, lets look at the Infrastructure layer in detail and understand its intricacies</p><div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3585497173937873890.post-72954951355694671232010-12-09T06:22:00.001+05:302011-06-12T21:58:39.207+05:30Understanding Cloud Computing - 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">A lot of my readers ask me fundamental questions on cloud. This series of posts are dedicated to all my fans and readers who would like cloud computing to be simplified for them.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0qQ4r2Bhi7etrfwFI5472xMU-riMft8rNIH4cp5BnzXQoHm-HF9ckhnY23tx362z1hUSTLY-WEcBmyPFwC_afB2o6cnwEOXo5R19DAbnirhMMgCq_ezk3Y8Qx2GauqE7E4x4yx6Kzdw/s1600/cloud+computing+analogy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH0qQ4r2Bhi7etrfwFI5472xMU-riMft8rNIH4cp5BnzXQoHm-HF9ckhnY23tx362z1hUSTLY-WEcBmyPFwC_afB2o6cnwEOXo5R19DAbnirhMMgCq_ezk3Y8Qx2GauqE7E4x4yx6Kzdw/s400/cloud+computing+analogy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Let's start with a pictorial analogy of cloud computing to something that we are more familiar with. Consider a server or even your desktop computer or a laptop. A scratch at the surface to see what makes these computing devices tick reveals 3 distinct layers.<br />
<br />
<ol><li>The hardware consisting of the motherboard, the memory (RAM, hard disks), the processor, etc</li>
<li>The operating system that loads when you first switch on your computer - Windows, Linux, Unix, etc</li>
<li>The software applications that you use when using your computer - Notepad, Word, Paint Brush, Winamp, Internet Explorer, etc</li>
</ol><div>A cloud in simple terms is your computer multiplied sever hundred thousand times and can go beyond theoretically to infinity. More on this characteristic in my next post.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Coming back to the analogy, imagine the cloud to be one giant computer. Obviously you would need the equivalent of the 3 layers here too, right?</div><div><ol><li><b>Infrastructure</b> - <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/04/understanding-cloud-computing-3-iaas.html">IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)</a> - The hardware layer equivalent</li>
<li><b>Platform</b> - <a href="http://uncloud9.blogspot.com/2011/06/understanding-cloud-computing-3-paas.html">PaaS (Platform as a Service)</a> - The Operating system equivalent with more bells and whistles. Lets understand that in a separate post</li>
<li><b>Software</b> - SaaS (Software as a Service) -The software applications you would use to draw on the power of the giant cloud computer.</li>
</ol><div>You might have noticed that all three had the terms "as a Service" attached to them. Let's explore that in our next post in this series.</div></div></div>Vijayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02038202563239489053noreply@blogger.com0Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India13.060422 80.24958312.8932015 80.0161235 13.227642500000002 80.4830425