Recently in Cloud Computing Category

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft's Bob Muglia mentions that even facing VMware's huge headstart Hyper-V is gaining marketshare. Of course, specifics are lacking, but he did let slip that it's making substantial gains in the SMB market, which is unsurprising considering that the market's traditionally been one of the company's strong suits. Looks like a significant number of SMBs haven't been taking the advice of Dell's Erik Dithmer's to skip virtualization tech, to Microsoft's delight.

He also let slip this very interesting nugget captured by Eric Savitz of Barron's:

Finding that many companies to do side-by-side adoption of MSFT's Hyper V and VMware. In side-by-side, we have a 90% win rate, he says. What we are seeing, he says, is doing side-by-side as customers add incremental servers to existing VMware installations.

Muglia also shares an interesting statistic, revealing that roughly 20 percent of all servers shipped are virtualized. And while enterprise adoption skews higher, it still means that the vast majority of servers are likely running underutilized. But Microsoft doesn't seem to be sweating it. Why? Azure, the software giant's cloud computing platform.

While betting on the cloud might pay off, it's not without its risks. In his report on Azure at GigaOM Pro (sub. req'd), Derrick Harris zeroes in on a potential speedbump to widespread adoption: trust. Can Microsoft win over customers in an arena where openness rules? That's just one of the issues it has to wrestle with.

The notion that computing giants are pursuing ways of reducing the power it takes to cool their datacenters doesn't come as a surprise. However, this Computerworld story on Google's chiller-less facility in Belgium makes mention of an intriguing concept that dovetails with the promise of cloud computing.

The datacenter will use outside air for cooling and will even work weather forecasting into its power management strategy. When it gets too warm outside--only expected to happen a handful of days a year--Google plans to transfer the load to other sites and effectively shut down until the cool weather returns.

Interesting stuff, but it's the follow the moon concept the article mentions that got my attention. Experts think that one day organizations might take advantage of nighttime temperatures and lower electricity rates and have their computing resources chase day/night boundary. After all, it's always night somewhere in the world.

The problem with such a plan is that it requires resources that only the Googles of the world can afford. It would also require expansive datacenter build-outs to get the global footprint required for such an effort. Fewer and more efficient datacenters are likely to have a better impact. And as electricity from renewable sources becomes commonplace and cheaper, the point becomes moot.

Nonetheless, an interesting concept.

This just in from the Twitterverse.

Dell has decided to semi-officially throw its two cents into the chatter storm surrounding Google's Chrome OS. I say semi-officially because is comes in the form of a blog post. And we all know how iron clad those are...

In short, if you're hoping for earth-shattering news from Dell, you're out of luck. The computer manufacturer is straddling the fence on this one, which isn't surprising considering they're conspicuously absent from the Google's list of current Chrome OS partners. If you see yourself wanting a Dell-branded, Chrome OS-powered netbook next year, there's reason to hope. The company claims that it "enjoys a great relationship with Google."

Dell also appears to be suffering some ambivalence toward Google's software ambitions in general, thanks to their pursuit of both Chrome OS and Android, the latter of which has been long-rumored to be making the jump to netbooks:

While there's still lots of questions about the OS, the idea has potential. I think it will be interesting to see what the interaction between Chrome OS and Android will ultimately be within the cloud.

For now, take comfort in knowing that they plan to "evaluate" the OS. The rest of the post goes on about alternate operating systems, which is all well and good, but there's little else to take away from it unless you consider Dell's support for Ubuntu on some of its systems as an indicator of what they have planned for Chrome OS.

John Gruber at Daring Fireball wrote a juicy post titled "Putting What Little We Actually Know About Chrome OS Into Context." It's a refreshingly sober take on the recent Google Chrome OS announcement, which spawned hyperbolic editorials. (Nuclear bomb, anyone?)

For starters, Gruber points out that there's still a lot we don't know besides that it's free; will run on the Linux kernel; will be out next year, maybe around this time; and a couple other facts in the lean Chrome OS FAQ.

He also makes this observation:

The Chrome OS model isn't about thin clients connecting to a server. It's about thin clients connecting to many and any servers. One of the few sure things about Chrome OS is that it's going to work well with Google's own web apps, but the web is open, and Google is a strong proponent of open web standards. Everyone will have the opportunity to write web apps that run just as well in Chrome OS as Google's own.

At an abstract level, there is much appeal to this concept. With all of your data and all of the software you use online, you have nothing to back up. Nothing to migrate when you buy a new computer -- just log in from a different Chrome OS machine and there's all your stuff...

He argues that for users, a primary Chrome OS machine is an unlikely prospect and the market for secondary systems is just that, secondary. Mix in capable enough smartphones--bet on a new and/or improved iPhone next summer, like clockwork--and netbooks that already tap into the cloud, the value proposition is unclear unless you're an aficionado of Google's online services. And don't forget other cloud-friendly devices (and their software) like the upcoming CrunchPad.

What's clear is that Google is tempering expectations. See for yourself at the carefully worded official announcement. You can't fault them, really. When you throw around a term like operating system, expectations are high. More to the point, people are expecting a Windows or OS X killer.

Clearly, that's not something Google is aiming for, unless they have some surprises in store. And that's cause for concern. If it offers little more than a quick-booting way to interface and sync your local data stores with web apps, there's little incentive to make the switch, particularly if, as Google points out:

The software architecture is simple -- Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

What, if any, "meat" are they giving users as a reason to buy a Chrome OS netbook next summer?

One interesting, if pragmatic, aspect of Chrome OS is that it could make things like lost or stolen netbook a relatively painless matter - after the initial shock, of course. Also encouraging is all this talk about security being one of the tenets of the project.

Otherwise, there's precious little else we know about Chrome OS and how it will help or hinder the cloud computing movement. But admit it; the mystery surrounding it is what makes it so exciting. And both mystery and excitement have been lacking in the OS wars of late.

[via @dannysullivan]

The greenest datacenter is the one you don't have to build, according to thin computing provider Wyse Technology. The firm today unveiled Wyse Virtual Desktop Accelerator (VDA) software that brings performance gains generally associated with WAN acceleration offerings to virtual desktops and thin clients.

Wyse VDA works transparently in the background with Citrix ICA, Microsoft RDP, and VMware View to bring the remote desktop or cloud computing experience closer to LAN-like levels by minimizing the impact of network latency and reducing packet loss. And the perky performance should be noticeable, says the product page. "Wyse VDA accelerates Microsoft RDP and Citrix ICA protocols by up to 3 times on networks with up to 300ms latency and at least 768 kbps downstream bandwidth."

Wyse estimates that VDA can double or triple a datacenter's geographic reach in terms of acceptable performance for remote end-users, thus eliminating the need to dot the landscape with computing centers every couple hundred miles to service them. Naturally, the fewer (or smaller) the datacenters you use, the less it costs to power your IT operations.

Wyse Virtual Desktop Accelerator is available now for Microsoft Windows XP Pro and as an component of some Wyse thin clients and ThinOS 6.4 systems.

Source

IBM's survey of midsized businesses, "Inside the Midmarket: A 2009 Perspective" (PDF), reveals that a large majority of organizations in the 100 - 1000 employee bracket have Green IT squarely in their radar:

This year's survey also illustrates the growing role of emerging technologies, such as cloud computing, green IT, and social media -- areas that were not even included in a similar IBM study conducted in 2007. While lower on the scale of critical priorities, midmarket companies are actively pursuing several emerging technology areas to improve performance. The survey shows that 79 percent intend to implement, have established goals, or have started/completed implementation of Green IT solutions, followed closely by social media/Web 2.0 (71 percent) and Cloud Computing (69 percent).

It's also interesting to see cloud computing rank highly. However, the top priorities among the 1,879 surveyed include improving efficiency and reducing cost; increasing productivity; and better customer service, which is not surprising considering the current economic climate.

Wondering what CA has in store for virtual servers and private clouds running vSphere 4 and Cisco Nexus 1000V hardware?

CA today announced that it is streamlining the management of VMware vSphere 4 platform on Cisco Nexus 1000V infrastructures by adding support for both in the company's Spectrum Infrastructure Manager, eHealth Performance Manager and Spectrum Automation Manager offerings. Under the management platform, administrators get a unified view of affected hardware and virtual servers; a system that prioritizes and traces events to their root cause resulting in fewer alarms; and real-time monitoring and automation capabilities.

CA's object model will include a consolidated hierarchical view of VMware vCenter(TM) Server hosts, VMware vSphere 4 hosts, data centers, clusters, resource pools, virtual switches and virtual machines, all integrated with the existing physical infrastructure. This model-based management, resource monitoring approach will help reduce costs and increase staff efficiency by correlating physical and virtual data across the infrastructure to speed time to problem identification and resolution.

The consolidation of physical and virtual management is inevitable. Expect the lines to blur even further.

Source

Cloud computing services may just be providing the nudge SMBs need to migrate to open source platforms and trim costs. At least that's the thinking of Alex Vuchnich at AccountingWEB.com.

He makes a good case. After all, web services hide the plumbing from the users and the only true compatibility worry boils down to a browser's capabilities. Mind you, there is still an operating system at work, but the link between the productivity the app provides and the platform it runs on begins to dissolve perceptually.

As users grow comfortable with this way of thinking, he argues, it can provide an opportunity for open source.

...If this proves to be the case, many small businesses can truly benefit from this shift. Linux typically has a lower occurrence and vulnerability to virus attacks and worms. It also is an extremely stable platform which translates into more uptime and productivity. Lastly, it spares the small business owner of the hassle of managing access licenses and the potential liability of having improperly licensed software.

What do you think? Is cloud computing a boon for open source software?

One of the trickiest issues that's dogging cloud computing is security. For businesses, this is a huge deal because they are being asked to entrust another entity with the confidentiality of their data, like customer records replete with private information. Encryption solves this, obviously, but it adds another barrier to modern business processes that require data analysis. Cloud providers, too, need some visibility for management and analysis on behalf of their clients.

Tricky, right?

This is where breakthrough, called "privacy homomorphism" or "fully homomorphic encryption" comes in. While earning his PhD at at Stanford and pulling double duty as a summer student at IBM Research, Craig Gentry cooked up the "ideal lattice," a mathematical object that loosens the bonds of encrypted data for the above purposes but doesn't expose the underlying encrypted data.

IBM explains:

With the breakthrough, computer vendors storing the confidential, electronic data of others will be able to fully analyze data on their clients' behalf without expensive interaction with the client, and without seeing any of the private data. With Gentry's technique, the analysis of encrypted information can yield the same detailed results as if the original data was fully visible to all.

Using the solution could help strengthen the business model of "cloud computing," where a computer vendor is entrusted to host the confidential data of others in a ubiquitous Internet presence. It might better enable a cloud computing vendor to perform computations on clients' data at their request, such as analyzing sales patterns, without exposing the original data.

Soon (hopefully) corporations and individuals will enjoy secure, encrypted cloud computing without compromising on functionality. The roadblocks to widespread cloud computing seem to be falling away, don't they?

[Source via @IBMResearch]

This interesting post on Games for Learning - Sun Blogs came across my Twitter client (Seesmic - nice but needs some work). Brandon Carso suggests that we don't get too hung up on the technological aspects of cloud computing and instead take a step back and ponder what the cloud has to offer organizations and entrepreneurs...

Cloud computing turns "pay as you go" into a reality for businesses and individual entrepreneurs that want to get an idea to the marketplace quickly. Without the need for an expensive physical data center or requiring a large debt-load, businesses can try more "adventurous" ideas. If they fail, all that is required is to pay for services requested at the scale they were at when the plug is pulled, then "clear the deck" and go back to the drawing board. In this model, failure is OK. Failure doesn't mean investors lose life savings, and banks aren't stuck with bad loans.

OK to fail... When is the last time that crossed the mind of your CIO? I'll still remain obsessed about the technology to make it possible, though...