July 2, 2012
Volume XL, Issue 1
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 Final Call for Speakers
The DCIA and CCA will issue their final call for speakers this week to participate in the CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 (CCW:2012) summit taking place November 8th-9th in Santa Monica, CA.
CCW:2012 will bring together three co-located conferences that represent the most rapidly expanding and strategically important areas in the cloud computing industry today: ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, and INVESTING IN THE CLOUD.
Major topics will range from latest trends in cloud solutions for high-value content production and distribution to pitfalls to avoid in adopting cloud solutions for content development/delivery; from how cloud migration is positively impacting broadband network operations and businesses to the drawbacks of cloud deployments from broadband network operators' perspectives; and from new updates on venture capital and M&A activity in the cloud computing space to liabilities that need to concern investors regarding cloud-based businesses.
There will also be analyses of newest cloud offerings for entertainment and industry's direction, and problem areas affecting cloud adoption in the entertainment sector; network resource usage by data centers and new ISP cloud services, and challenges for ISPs created by proliferation of cloud computing; and capital structuring and strategic alliances for cloud computing firms, and problem areas affecting investments/mergers of cloud services.
In addition, special sessions will explore in-depth file-based production workflow leveraging cloud computing for collaboration, dailies, editing, metadata, and pilots; the implications on network infrastructure of third-party SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS deployments, effects of various data centers, interconnection issues, and types of architectures; and the differing investment implications public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds, virtual private clouds, and community clouds.
And finally, panels will examine the entertainment distribution side: cloud transcoding, storage, delivery, data, and analytics; cloud mobility, virtualization, interoperability, and scalability; as well as green computing, big data, and open source as these topical considerations impact financing, VC criteria, and exit strategies.
Registration enables delegates to also participate in any session at the three conferences being presented at CCW:2012 on ENTERTAINMENT CONTENT DELIVERY, NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE, and INVESTING IN THE CLOUD.
CCW:2012 features one common exhibit hall and all networking functions (e.g., luncheon, refreshment breaks, evening cocktail reception, etc.) are open to all attendees at no additional cost.
Cloud Computing: 9-in-10 Are Positive on It
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Andrew Nusca
Another day, another cloud computing survey that shows how keen business technology executives are on cloud computing.
A new national poll from San Antonio, TX-based enterprise hosting company Rackspace shows that 91 percent of "IT decision-makers" see cloud computing as a positive thing.
But the devil's in the details. Quick stats:
Seventy-five percent of the group said they valued strong customer service and technical support over higher hosting prices. Twenty-five percent said the opposite. Interestingly, that ratio didn't change relative to the size of the organization.
Top concerns: The ability to add computing power; the ability to move data easily between cloud providers; the pitfalls of vendor lock-in.
Forty-three percent said they are aware of people in their organization using cloud computing services not provided by the IT department for work.
Thirty-eight percent said saving time was the main driver for this behavior.
Just one in three acknowledged that it was because the IT department didn't offer comparable services or employees simply didn't want to deal with the IT department.
Finally, 48 percent of the polled IT pros said yes, they would take a job with a new company that does not use cloud computing. (Twenty-eight percent said no way; 24 percent were undecided.) It's unclear whether this shows IT pros who seek a challenge, or who simply fail to see value in the cloud.
Nothing groundbreaking in these statistics for seasoned IT professionals, but it's interesting to see how on-the-fence everyone is about the technology.
"The world is in the midst of a tectonic shift toward cloud computing that is revolutionizing the way companies do business," Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said in a statement. That may be true, but it's pretty clear that the shift is neither linear nor particularly brimming with confidence — the reasons are many and not necessarily aligned with the greater business strategy. In other words, it's no silver bullet.
McLaughlin & Associates conducted the survey, which involved 500 IT pros who work for businesses or organizations that use cloud computing.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA commends Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and the US House Energy and Commerce Committee Communications Subcommittee for holding a Hearing Wednesday June 27th focused on the Future of Video.
Most of the regulations under which current television programming distributors operate were put in place before the advent of the Internet, video downloading, over-the-top (OTT) streaming, and now IPTV and cloud-based storage and delivery.
"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates based on a bygone era," Chairman Walden noted, referencing the 1992 Cable Act. "It was meant to spur competition and it worked. But the act does not apply to YouTube, iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Roku and Sky Angel."
In addition to conflicts among broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) over carriage deals, new issues for online video providers, which depend on Internet service providers (ISPs) to reach their viewers, are emerging.
ISPs are often also MVPDs themselves, and therefore subject to scrutiny for the even-handedness in their treatment of independent video services versus those that they own-and-operate.
Indeed, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has recently initiated an antitrust investigation into whether cable companies are using broadband data caps to steer consumers to their own Internet video services and discourage, by pricing, the usage of video services not controlled by them.
Witnesses in the two-hour hearing included David Barrett, President, Hearst Television; Charlie Ergen, Chairman, Dish Network; Jim Funk, Vice President, Roku; David Hyman, General Counsel, Netflix; Robert Johnson, CEO, Sky Angel; Michael O'Leary, EVP, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA); Michael Powell, President, National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA); and Gigi Sohn, President, Public Knowledge.
If anything, the panel focused more on today's disputes among competing distribution technologies and business models than on views of the divergent interests represented in terms of what the future may hold.
Predictably, Hearst Television's Barrett defended existing retransmission consent rules, saying the rules should also be applied to new entrants in the video marketplace including IPTV providers, while Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen characterized these as outdated regulations that have led to an increasing number of station blackouts.
"Local broadcasters are a government-sponsored monopoly," Ergen said at one point, and also complained of station group owners unfairly leveraging their market power to demand higher fees.
Barrett maintained that retransmission dollars are critical for a "21st century media company" to fund local programming, including multicast channels and newscasts.
Ergen, whose DVR offering introduced an ad-skipping AutoHop feature in May, which is being met with legal challenges from CBS, FOX, and NBC, defended that capability as doing nothing more than improving on "existing, legally accepted and widely available technologies" in response to consumer desires.
Congressman John Dingell (D-MI) referred to Ergen as "Mr. Hopper" asking if he understood why Subcommittee Members would object to a service that would skip-over political ads. "I understand the consumer very well, but I am not a politician, so I cannot say I understand your concerns as well," Ergen responded.
The hearing also addressed data caps — Internet service providers' (ISPs) limits on the amount of bandwidth consumers can access in a single month. Netflix's David Hyman argued that platforms and networks should not use their leverage to "stifle video providers" from independent sources.
"When you couple limited broadband competition with a strong desire to protect a legacy video distribution business, you have both the means and motivation to engage in anti-competitive behavior," he said. "Add to this mix a regulatory and legislative framework largely crafted before the modern Internet era, and you have the makings for confusion and gamesmanship."
"Netflix is the largest provider of subscription video in the country," The NCTA's Powell (formerly an FCC Commissioner) responded. "We sell broadband. Their services help stimulate the services we sell."
In March, Comcast announced it wouldn't count toward the monthly data limit videos viewed on its Xfinity application via the Microsoft Xbox game console, while continuing to apply broadband used for Netflix and other on-demand streaming services.
Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn further warned of the abuse of data caps as a way for cable operators to favor their own video services and stressed that there has to be robust development of Internet video competitors for the industry to advance in the public's interest.
Sohn said the traditional media industry is "trying to limit the online distribution of independent programming."
"I know it's too late to do a bill in this Congress," said Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX). "In general, I think we need less regulation than more. I look forward to big things happening in the next Congress, but it has to be done in a bipartisan basis." Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA) meanwhile has co-authored a bill to wipe away many communications regulations.
There's no doubt this issue will continue to be a subject for US lawmaker consideration, with more than an introductory hearing to guide a process to determine what rules should be eliminated, which ones revised, and whether new ones are needed. Share wisely, and take care.
Prevailing Cloud Fears Mostly Unfounded
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Ken Hess
You'd think at this late date, we'd stop listening to people who say that Y2K is going to all but destroy the world as we know it, who say that the world will end in 2012 because of the Mayan calendar and who say that cloud-based services are inherently insecure or failure prone. I just took part in a Cloud storage Twitter chat where we discussed hybrid clouds, cloud storage, and the viability of cloud computing for SMBs. There were some people in the chat session who were advising businesses to stay away from cloud storage. I'm shocked but not surprised.
I'm shocked because technical people shouldn't spread misinformation about a technology. Sure, you should be cautious but to bunk a technology just because you don't understand it, don't trust it or don't want it to compete with your solution borders on the absurd.
Here's a classic, historical example:
"How do you know that the sky is falling, Chicken Little?" asked Henny Penny.
"I saw it with my eyes, I heard it with my ears and a bit of it fell on my head," said Chicken Little.
Chicken Little clearly didn't understand what had happened to him but instead of investigating and doing some fact-gathering, he immediately went in search of the King to inform him of his discovery. Chicken Little also didn't think of another very important thing. If the sky were actually falling, wouldn't it be falling for everyone or was he such a narcissist that he assumed that he is the only one who could bring that message to the King and then to all the world?
Now, let's examine this scenario as it relates to the cloud.
Do you really think that IBM, HP, Rackspace, Dropbox, Carbonite, Box, Amazon, and others would try to sell you on something that is unsafe or unusable? If you still believe that they would, consider that these companies deal with hundreds of companies of all sizes and millions of individual users. That's an extreme liability to take on, don't you think? If I offered a service that I knew was unsafe for you, I'd be really stupid. It just doesn't make sense.
For those who assume that there's a monster out there coiled and waiting to strike at your data, consider the advice I gave during that chat session: Take a transitional approach to migrating to cloud storage. The following list is in order of the steps to migrate from 100 percent local storage to 100 percent cloud-based storage: Archives, Backups, Disaster Recovery, Hybrid, and Production.
Begin with your archived data. This is data that you need but it isn't accessed very often. Build your confidence by storing this data in the cloud. Sure, keep a backup of it for your own peace of mind. Next, try moving your backups to the cloud. You'll find that cloud-based backups, like all data in the cloud, is available where ever you are. That's a huge advantage. And, it's agile.
Soon, you'll want to transition your DR solution to the cloud. Great idea. By doing so, you'll find that your mean time to restore (MTTR) goes from days to hours. Remember, the data is everywhere you are.
Hybrid cloud solutions are taking off for SMBs because it takes the 'sting' out of a full non-local cloud solution. Hybrid clouds, for most businesses, will be a transitional solution from full local to full cloud. It's a great solution for those who can't shake the fear.
Finally, production data and computing in the cloud. That's the most feared of all. However, if you're a startup business, the cloud allows you to start without a huge amount of capital expenditures up front. You can acquire the computing resources you need at a small fraction of the cost.
The cloud is elastic by nature. You pay for what you use. You can expand or contract storage and computing power. Try that with your own infrastructure. Sure, you can expand but what about when you need to contract? You're stuck with idle systems, rack space, investments in power and other infrastructure that you don't have with cloud computing.
You don't purchase the Post Office when you want to mail a letter. You don't buy a railroad when you want to move product from one place to another. You don't buy a power company when you want to turn on a light switch. And, you don't need to buy or build a data center for your computing needs. Think of cloud computing as a utility. Think of it as something else you need to use. It's a service. It's storage. It's computing power. It's the cloud.
Buy your vegetables locally. But, you don't have to buy or build your own farm to do so.
The sky isn't falling. The world isn't going to end in 2012. And, cloud computing isn't something to be feared.
One note of caution however. Be sure that your cloud-stored assets have geographically diverse failover capacity in case of power outages or other localized mishaps. Nothing puts a damper on a sunny day like a dark cloud of disaster hanging over your head.
Who knew that the fate of the entire world was in the hands of a primitive people in South America? Incidentally, their calendar far outlasted them. I'm just saying.
Internet Television's Arrival: The Dawn of Quality, Original Content Online
Excerpted from Adotas Report by Peter Koeppel
Ever since streaming video became a possibility online, industry leaders in both the Internet and entertainment fields have had their collective eye on merging TV and online audiences.
YouTube broke ground with user-created videos, and were soon followed by Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Digital Services, respectively. And now, almost simultaneously, all four streaming video services are stretching the frontiers of online video by producing exclusive content.
The popularity of YouTube sparked the launch of competing online sites like Hulu (owned by a conglomeration of traditional television networks), Netflix Streaming (an offshoot service of the DVD-by-mail provider) and Amazon Digital Services (a segment of the popular online store).
Online video has always been a secondary source of entertainment. Although YouTube gave a platform for independent content producers to experiment with the form and get their programming out there, nothing had yet compared to the traditional mainstream show model that the television industry has developed for over 70 years.
Now that the online streaming video platform has been tested and proven to be popular, these companies are all taking a step forward into producing their own original content.
YouTube invested $100 million on a gradual roll-out of 100 niche-oriented channels. The goal is to create more content than there are hours in the day to watch. Announced shows range from serialized dramas and comedies to niche interest programming, like cooking, geek culture and sports. For example, the TeamUSA channel focuses on the Summer Olympics, while Wigs will feature scripted dramas.
Netflix premiered its first original series, "LilyHammer," in February and has plans for four additional programs for 2013, including David Fincher's "House of Cards" and the return of the cult comedy "Arrested Development."
Hulu announced 10 series for the summer of 2012, including "Spoilers," a movie-themed show hosted by Kevin Smith, "Up to Speed," a travelogue with film director Richard Linklater, and "We Got Next," a scripted comedy.
Amazon Studios is the baby of the group and just announced its original programming division in early May. Unlike competitors who are sourcing production from established entertainment companies and talent, Amazon is crowd-sourcing the process and is soliciting scripts and ideas from the public.
The decisions these companies are making now will determine the shape of Internet TV in years to come. There are so many different components in play, and no one really knows exactly what the recipe for success is. Each online publisher is taking a slightly different approach to the quantity and quality of shows, pricing and advertising models, and age-appropriateness.
For example, since Hulu's revenues are primarily based on advertising, their shows will be PG-13. Netflix, on the other hand, will stretch to include more adult-friendly moments in their shows, because they are subscription-based.
Similarly, the producers are experimenting with release dates and quantities of programming. YouTube channels are updated on a daily or weekly basis — but Netflix is releasing an entire season of its new programming at a time, so viewers can watch at their leisure. Having new releases at specific times and days is familiar for television watchers, but Netflix's approach feeds into the "on demand" expectations of streaming video-watchers.
These choices and more may make the difference in the overall success of each original programming outlet, and the viability of Internet TV as a whole. The Internet television revolution is coming, and we're witnessing the very first wave. It remains to be seen which of these companies will be able to manage the balance between the quality original programming that will attract viewers and the production costs.
Original content hasn't quite yet reached the levels of what you'll see during primetime on major networks. But pulling in Hollywood talent, stretching to meet niche interests and increasing investment is a step in the right direction. With a growing generation of television viewers used to having its shows on demand, and platforms that are dedicated to streaming video, we may not be very far off from regularly tuning into our tablets instead of our big screens.
TDS Plans New Cloud Services, IPTV Expansion
Excerpted from Telecompetitor Report by Joan Engebretson
TDS Hosted & Managed Services, an LLC owned by TDS Telecommunications, aims to use the data center infrastructure it has assembled through several recent acquisitions to support an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering to be launched this summer, said Bill Megan, President of TDS Hosted & Managed Services Tuesday at a press and industry event in Fitchburg, WI. Megan made his comments in an informal address after participants toured the company's Tier 3 data center in Fitchburg.
"The service inside our footprint is highly available and low-risk," said Megan. "We provide a 100% service level agreement (SLA). We took highly available architecture and equipment and put it in a Tier 3 facility with no single point of failure. In the future we will offer cloud services within an environment like this. We think that's a very compelling argument."
TDS will steer clear of software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, instead focusing on IaaS that will let businesses and enterprises purchase virtualized computing infrastructure housed in TDS facilities on a monthly basis. The company sees IaaS as a logical complement to its hosting services. While hosting customers typically must commit to using an entire cabinet that can hold an average of about 30 servers, IaaS will be available to people who need less capacity or who simply want to outsource the responsibility for computing infrastructure.
Over time, Megan believes hosting customers increasingly will migrate toward an IaaS approach. "They will think of us as a good way to transition into the cloud," said Megan. "Many clients are still premises-based but over time they will want to consider a transition and we'll be able to help them make that seamlessly."
TDS's Des Moines, IA data center will be the first to support cloud services, but other Tier 2 and Tier 3 data centers will be added, with a target completion date of late August, Megan said. The data centers will be interconnected via 10-gigabit rings, and customers will have the option of having data backed up in another data center.
TDS is investing "millions of dollars" in cloud services, Megan said. Key suppliers include EMC Symmetrix, he said.
For now TDS Hosted & Managed Services operates under several different names, reflecting several key acquisitions the company has made over the last couple of years — including Vital Support Systems, VISI, OneNeck IT Services and TEAM Technologies. Megan said TDS opted to continue to use names like TEAM and VISI because they had brand equity and were better recognized than the TDS name in some markets.
He added, though that, "Over time we will evaluate the market message and rationalize what brands [we use]." That rationalization process could come in as soon as 12 months, he said.
Most TDS data center customers are based within a drive of about two hours, Megan said. "A lot of decisions are made locally," he said, "and people want to meet us."
Over time, though, Megan said he believes the geography served by TDS data centers will expand — "especially with cloud adoption."
If indeed enterprise customers become more willing to look farther afield for data center services, it could be good news for TDS, which has several data centers located in the Midwest, which experiences very few hurricanes, earthquakes or forest fires.
TDS's Fitchburg data center, which carries the TEAM name, has attracted customers in part through its location and also because it is a Tier 3 facility, offering extra security capabilities that are required in certain industries such as health care. For example, as the photo accompanying this post illustrates, authorized personnel must submit to an iris scan before gaining entry to secured areas.
As TEAM Data Center Facilities Manager Eric Patterson explained, designers spent two years planning the building before construction was started. The facility has a high level of redundancy and is divided into individual rooms so that if, for example, a fire were to start in one room, it could be easily isolated. The company also monitors each rack in multiple locations, measuring characteristics such as temperature, humidity, and air quality, with data feeding into a building automation system.
Tier 3 data centers offer the second highest level of security available in a data center. Tier 4 data centers, which offer the highest level of security, are very costly and are typically used only by organizations such as NASA, said Bill Koch, director of sales for TDS Hosted & Managed Services.
Koch said some customers are moving into TDS data centers because they have run out of power at their current facility. "Most of those data centers were upgraded in 1998 and 1999 because Y2K was coming," observed Koch. But power requirements have increased dramatically since then.
The Fitchburg data center recently expanded and among its recent additions are servers supporting an IPTV offering that TDS Telecommunications plans to launch soon in multiple states. About one third of customers will be served over fiber, with the remainder served over high-speed DSL, Megan said. All customers will receive the same video service lineup, but those served over fiber will be able to get higher data rates.
TDS also is working on using bonding and vectoring to boost DSL bandwidth, Megan said. Depending on a customer's distance from the central office, it may be possible to get data rates as high as 300 Mbps, said Megan.
Telcos, MSOs, Hosters to Get Half of US SMB Cloud Spend
Excerpted from Channel Partners Report
In the fast-growing US cloud services market, hosting companies — pure-plays, telcos and MSOs — are expected to be the top source for small and medium businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees, according to AMI Partners.
The research firm said hosting companies will take nearly half (46 percent) of US SMB investments in cloud services, which are expected to reach $34 billion in 2012.
"A key reason that hosters are becoming a leading cloud channel for SMBs is because they have proven they can effectively handle critical infrastructure, while providing the necessary level of support," said Monik Sheth, Research Analyst at AMI Partners. "Poor service can be an immediate deal breaker for any company, and SMBs are no different."
In fact, according to the AMI study, nearly a third of SMBs said they would quickly switch their cloud service provider if desired service levels are not met.
Hosting companies' legacy of providing Web and mail solutions to SMBs has prepared them well for expanding their portfolios into other cloud-based services, AMI said.
AMI Partners is including telecommunications providers (telcos and cable companies) in the "hosters" category is because many of the solutions offerings are beginning to overlap, especially around IaaS and related cloud offerings, Sheth told Channel Partners. "Telecom firms are making strategic plays in the hosting space, as you can see for example by M&A activity among major telecoms in the US (e.g.. Verizon acquiring Terremark and Time Warner Cable acquiring NaviSite)," he said.
AMI also noted that for more advanced cloud deployment and migration needs, hosting companies actively are courting downstream channel partners like MSPs and ISVs, who can provide additional value-added services to SMBs. By developing these relationships, and offering integrated solutions coupled with remote managed IT services, hosting companies are expected to play a leading role in enabling the growth of the SMB cloud market.
SMB cloud services spend includes investments in IaaS, SaaS, web hosting, UC and remotely managed IT services. Two areas where AMI Partners found SMBs see clear benefits, and are aggressively moving to the cloud, are hosted infrastructure, such as servers and storage, and remote management of IT systems and related applications. That's because SMBs have very limited, if any, internal staff dedicated to managing technology, so deploying these solutions in the cloud, with the support of a trusted provider, is quickly becoming the norm, the research firm explained.
Tiny Andorra Offers Fastest Internet
Excerpted from CED Magazine Report by Brian Santo
Andorra Telecom is providing its 52,000 subscribers with the fastest upload and download speeds in the world, according to the latest figures from Speedtest.net, on a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) access network based on Aurora Networks' Trident7 platform.
At the moment, Andorra and Hong Kong are the only two companies with a rolling mean throughput in excess of 35 Mbps, with the former at 37.18 Mbps and the latter at 37.07 Mbps. (By this measure, the US ranks 33rd, at 13.06 Mbps, behind many countries in Northern Europe and along the Pacific Rim).
Andorra Telecom is using its Trident7 PON system to help deliver emerging services such as IP video, over-the-top (OTT) video and commercial services. Aurora Networks said the service provider has been able to exploit its new FTTH network to reduce capital and operational expenditures. "Providing our customers with access to high-value services is our priority.
Being top of this list just reinforces that we are going in the right direction," said Jaume Salvat, Director General of Andorra Telecom. "With its flexibility and scalability, Aurora Networks' Trident7 platform has provided us with the opportunity to deliver today's advanced services with the quality of service and experience our subscribers have come to demand."
What Google Compute Engine Means for Cloud Computing
Excerpted from GigaOM Report by Derrick Harris
Google's new infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering Compute Engine is a big, big deal in the world of cloud computing. My colleague Om Malik covered the details in a post earlier today and we've both offered our pre-emptive views in posts breaking the news that Compute Engine was coming and then confirming it would be announced at IO. Now that it's a reality, here are five things I think Google Compute Engine means for the cloud industry.
1. Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is still too ambitious. Microsoft couldn't make a cloud business out of Windows Azure as it was originally built, and apparently Google couldn't with App Engine, either. That message was made clear in my discussion with Microsoft cloud boss Satya Nadella at Structure last week, and during a chat with Google's cloud leaders last night.
Trying to get ahead of Amazon Web Services, they also got too far ahead of the market in terms of PaaS readiness. While both companies still sing the praises of PaaS as the future of application hosting, they understand that IaaS is still the name of the game if they want real applications.
2. OpenStack is more important than ever. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard that OpenStack is too immature and how the development process isn't fast enough to keep up with AWS. But I can also tell you how scared many larger enterprises, especially, are of getting locked into a particular cloud computing platform. This is especially true as they move toward hybrid cloud environments that span public and on-premise clouds.
Rackspace ends up looking better than ever, but it will have to get moving to build out its OpenStack-based cloud into something more comparable to AWS, Windows Azure and Compute Engine (Google's whole cloud suite, really) than it currently is in terms of higher-level services and support for specialized workloads such as Hadoop.
3. The scale business is closed. Between AWS, Microsoft and Google, there's little use trying to compete in the IaaS world on price or scalability. They have the economies of scale to drive prices down ever lower (Google claims Compute Engine is half as expensive as other clouds, but I doubt that will be the case for long given AWS's penchant for cutting prices) and sheer computational power to handle high-performance applications.
Lots of researchers are already running HPC apps on AWS. At IO, Urs Holzle, Google's senior vice president of technical infrastructure, demonstrated a genome-analysis application running at 600,000 cores. There's plenty of room for other cloud providers — especially those targeting traditional enterprise applications — but they'd better have some real differentiating value to justify paying what's certain to be a higher price point than the big boys will charge.
4. Facebook has to counter with its own IaaS offering. Although, granted, it will probably function a lot differently considering the different set of developers Facebook would be targeting. I don't suspect anyone is looking to Facebook for hosting mission-critical enterprise applications, but there's certainly a business in letting companies build some serious apps that run on the Facebook platform, and IaaS is one way to do that.
And Facebook definitely has the scale and infrastructure smarts to pull this off. Better yet, it could do this relatively inexpensively on its end by building atop low-power ARM processor-based servers, with which it has been experimenting.
5. Google is the force to be reckoned with in the cloud? While still immature, Compute Engine complements what's already an expansive suite of cloud offerings around Chrome, Apps, and development tools ranging from Drive to big data services. Of course, Google also has App Engine, which Holzle said is currently hosting a million apps.
That's still less than Heroku hosts, but not bad at all for a service still out of the reach of many developers and that angered many existing developers after pricing changes late last year. One could argue that Google currently has the most-expansive suite of cloud products available, with only Microsoft even close.
AWS is presently taking a different tack, focusing on expansive IaaS capabilities and an app marketplace, so we'll see if it feels compelled to move up the stack with a truer PaaS offering and more managed services a la DynamoDB. VMware has many of the pieces in place, but it's a long way off from being considered a true cloud provider.
Telefonica Launches Joyent-Powered Cloud Service in Spain
Joyent investor and customer Telefonica, the giant Spanish telecom provider in Europe, Latin America and the US. and the world's fifth largest mobile carrier, announced the launch of a new public cloud service, Instant Server, in Spain based on Joyent technology.
Instant Server is an on-demand infrastructure service that allows companies to consume virtual servers — CPU, RAM and storage — on the Internet to host both traditional applications and business processes as well as to develop new mobile and web applications.
The service will be provided by acens, a Telefonica Group business and pioneer in providing cloud hosting solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The service will also be available for all large enterprises that Telefonica serves.
Telefonica has global ambitions for the service, and the launch in Spain is just the first of many to come around the world. The company plans to launch a second cloud service in London, and the rollout of other cloud services around the world will be announced in coming months.
Customers can provision the new service instantly (in only three clicks) and pay only for resources consumed. Instant Server allows companies to consume their infrastructure services as an operating expense rather than capital expense, providing great financial and computing flexibility.
Instant Server combines Joyent's technology, known for high levels of performance and reliability, with Telefonica's experience in providing high quality services to its clients. In this way, Instant Server distinguishes itself from other services in the market in that it provides servers capable of processing workloads in 20% less time, telephone customer support in Castilian Spanish, up to 99.9% printed quarterly availability agreements for guaranteed services and the option to choose different physical locations for data, including Spain.
"We've had a very good experience with Instant Server as far as performance goes because we've found that the solution deploys machines with a very small footprint which makes the performance very suitable for our needs. Additionally, we've noticed that latency in the machines within the data center is very low, which has also given us excellent response time when deploying our applications in the cloud," explained Alberto GarcÃa Arrieta, Senior Executive responsible for Accenture Cloud Platforms, in an interview for acens.tv.
In January 2012, Telefonica announced a strategic business partnership with Silicon Valley company Joyent through its new business division, Telefonica Digital. Joyent is a provider of cloud services in the US market. Thanks to this alliance, Telefonica made a strategic investment in Joyent who, in turn, offered the global operator access to its latest technological and software for the deployment of efficient, cost-effective and high performance cloudservices. Instant Server is the first fruit of this alliance.
Huawei Launches Public Cloud Solution for Telecom Operators
Excerpted from Telecom Lead Report
Huawei has launched its Telco Public Cloud solution and Public Cloud Services Innovation Center at the Huawei Cloud Innovation Forum at CommunicAsia 2012 in Singapore.
Huawei's Telco Public Cloud solution enables operators to provide SLA guaranteed services such as Infrastructure as a service (Iaas) and Software as a service (Saas) to end-users through Huawei managed services.
Integrating servers, storage, and other IT infrastructure, as well as pre-integrated corporate office and business application software, Huawei Telco Public Cloud Services unify and effectively manage resources from cooperative Independent Software Vendors (ISV). Cloud Service Brokerage (CSB), a core component of the technology, has been recognized by a number of local enterprises currently using the Public Cloud services provided by Huawei.
To support its Public Cloud solution, Huawei also launched a Cloud Services Innovation Center during the forum. Through the center, Huawei is able to provide IT resources such as computing and storage, as well as integrate industry-leading corporate office application software from Microsoft, ORACLE, and Kingdee.
Operators around the world can logon to the center's website for access to small-scale commercial operation of public cloud, enabling them to accumulate operating experience, and further understand customer demands and business models. In addition, carrier operator's customers can also register through the self- service function to benefit from real-life experiences and case studies from the facilities utilizing public cloud services.
National Center for Supercomputing Applications Deploys DDN Storage
DataDirect Networks (DDN), the leader in massively scalable storage, announced that the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has deployed 700 terabytes of high-performance DDN SFA storage as the backbone of iForge, an NCSA supercomputer which is dedicated to and purpose-built for industrial applications. Commercial partners leveraging the system include Boeing, Caterpillar, GE, John Deere, Procter and Gamble, and Rolls Royce.
"In a short time, iForge has enabled leading manufacturing enterprises to harness the power of Big Data and innovate across their product portfolios," said Jeff Denworth, DDN Vice President of Marketing. "The innovation fostered by iForge will not only benefit society, it also is a springboard for economic advancement for leading manufacturing organizations within the US and abroad. We are pleased to be part of this important project."
Deployed in 2011, iForge is a cornerstone of NCSA's Private Sector Program, which has engaged with more than 1/3 of the Fortune 50 over the past 25 years. Program participants receive advanced technical consulting from leading HPC applications specialists and research faculty at the University of Illinois, who have helped to make NCSA one of the world's best-known supercomputing centers.
"Private organizations everywhere have realized that supercomputing can fuel incredible innovation, but it is not economical for companies to build and maintain such expert resources at even modest scale in-house when they work on a project basis," said Merle Giles, Director of the NCSA Private Sector Program. "iForge combines expert human and machine resources to accelerate our commercial partners' research, development, and deployment efforts."
DDN has supplied NCSA with leading-edge storage technologies since 2002. The company recently announced its DDN SFA 12K storage array was selected to build a system delivering 100GB/s of storage performance for archiving data on NCSA's upcoming Blue Waters supercomputer, which when completed is expected to be one of the world's most powerful and productive computing systems.
TVI Portugal Selects Octoshape for Video Streaming
Octoshape announced it has been chosen by TVI Portugal as the exclusive provider of video streaming services for the 2012 UEFA Championship.
TVI is the main FTA TV channel in Portugal and has led the market in audience size since 2005. This year, TVI is providing streaming video coverage of Portuguese football matches in high quality to over-the-top (OTT) audiences. Viewers will be able to enjoy advanced features from the TVI video experience, such as Digital Video Recording features (DVR), preventing them from missing a moment of this highly anticipated sporting event.
The linear video delivery for the UEFA Championship is delivered to consumers via the Octoshape Infinite HD-M Federated Multicast Broadband TV platform. This technology enables the quality, scale and economics of traditional broadcast technologies over the public Internet. Telco and cable operators that are part of the Infinite HD-M Federated network receive the signals via native IP Multicast in a way that allows them to easily manage large volumes of traffic without needing to upgrade their Internet capacity.
"We required a solution that could handle the unpredictable scale of these highly viewed matches," said Fernando Soares, Technical Director, Media Capital Digital - TVI. "However, we also needed to provide a very high quality to our audience, and keep costs under control. Octoshape exceeded our expectations on all marks."
"We are excited to work with TVI on the UEFA Championships," said Michael Koehn Milland, CEO of Octoshape. "Our Infinite HD-M platform enabled us to directly target the needs of this event, delivering the quality and scale of traditional broadcast TV over the Internet."
Microsoft Gives Businesses Cloud Computing
Excerpted from Business Day Report
Microsoft has launched Microsoft Office 365 in. The product is a next generation cloud productivity service for businesses of all sizes.
Businesses can try it for free for 30 days by signing up at www.office365.com or from Microsoft's 31 leading local Nigerian service providers, which will integrate Office 365 with other offerings and market the service to the hundreds of thousands of small and midsize business customers in Nigeria.
The product brings Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Lync Online in an always-up-to-date service. "Today, we are evolving from the information age to the collaboration age, where the ability to take action on information will set successful businesses apart from the rest,Today's launch of Office 365 in Nigeria will accelerate that evolution by delivering enterprise-grade collaboration for all businesses - large and small." said Emmanuel Onyeje, General Manager, Microsoft Nigeria.
"Office 365 is the right choice to help our company support the way people work today and encourage a more mobile work environment. With the service, we have the added benefit of working together with familiar tools on almost any device and can make quicker decisions when needed."
Abiodun Atobatele, Managing Director and Chief Technology Officer, ATB TechSoft SolutionsOffice 365 Partners said.
Microsoft is building a strong partner ecosystem around Office 365 in Nigeria, which includes new ways of partnering with service providers such as telecommunications and hosting firms. Combined, the partners will integrate Office 365 with their existing services — from Web hosting and Internet connections to finance solutions and mobile phone services. These partners will then be able to deliver integrated packages to their customers, creating a one-stop-shop for small and midsize businesses seeking business services.
Office 365 for small businesses, professionals and small businesses can be up and running with Office Web Apps, Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online and an external website in just 15 minutes, for $6.
Recursion Software Is a Global Leader in Distributed Computing
Recursion Software is a global leader in distributed computing, mobile applications, middleware tools, and pervasive network platforms. Founded in 2001, the Texas company has a technical tradition that accelerates the development of mission critical mobile applications. To date, the company holds more than 80 patents and patent applications.
Recursion Software specializes in collaborative mobile applications, including machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. Many of their projects are service-oriented architecture or SOA product collaborations. Recursion has developed application software for almost every mobile device in the market. Their clients include multinational companies in the aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, finance, health care, information technology (IT) and telecommunications industries.
The C++ and Java Toolkits for software developers are some of Recursion's most sought-after products. Voyager is the company's flagship middleware platform for enterprise mobile applications. A mobile application called SCADA-Aware Mobile, built on Voyager, improves the alarm notification system used in manufacturing, transportation, fire detection, health care, power stations, treatment plants, and the oil and gas industry.
Five Reasons Cloud Computing Is Key to Business Success
Excerpted from Data Center Knowledge Report by Olafur Ingthorsson
Of course, we're hearing more and more about cloud computing these days — but what is cloud storage, and how can it benefit your business?
The fact is that you're probably already using the cloud without even realizing it. If you use a web-based email provider such as Gmail or Hotmail, you are using the cloud. If you've ever used Skype video calling or video interfaces like Vimeo or YouTube, you've used the cloud. If you've ever backed up data on the Internet rather than an external device, you've used the cloud.
Although the cloud in its current form is a relatively recent development, interest in cloud computing continues to grow. Cloud computing has a great number of benefits — here are the top five:
1. Cost Savings. One of the most appealing reasons to switch to the cloud is the cost savings. With cloud computing, the need to pay for large amounts of disk and storage space is instantly removed as well as the need for buying, installing and upgrading pricey software. With the cloud, you'll pay for applications only when needed and many applications are included free of charge. Usage can easily be scaled to fit your needs and adjusted for peaks or troughs in demand.
This "a la carte," incremental way of paying can save your business a lot of money. Pay-per-use reduces (or in some cases eliminates) the cost of maintaining in-house servers. The savings applies to your desktop, too — with SaaS (software as a service), desktop software need not be installed, which saves your business both time and money.
2. Ease of Use. Quite simply, cloud computing is easy to get up and running. Instead of having to download and/or install software yourself, in the cloud it is all done for you. The cloud also offers virtually unlimited storage capacity relative to typical hard drive and server limits. The cloud is also adaptable. If you need more storage, it's instantly available for a slightly larger fee per month. Since your business data is stored in the cloud, your employees will be able to access software and data anywhere from nearly any device that has Internet connection.
3. Increased Storage Capacity and Automation. The cloud offers virtually unlimited storage capacity when compared to typical hard drive and server limits, and is flexible — if your business needs more storage, you can upgrade at any time. Also, the cloud keeps software up-to-date with the latest versions, so you'll never have to worry about doing software updates yourself. File sync with all of your devices as well as file back-ups are also fully automated. Your data will continually be kept consistent and current among all of your devices in use.
4. Agility, Flexibility and Scalability. Cloud computing also offers far more flexibility and agility compared to past computing methods. Your employees will no longer be tethered to their desks and will be able to access files and data from wherever they are, 24 hours a day. You'll also be able scale your cloud usage up or down on an as-needed basis and only pay for what you are actually using. In the past, making changes to your service could take months. Now, with the cloud, this can be done in minutes.
With the cloud, your staff will be able to access information from home, from clients' offices, on the road, or even from their smart-phone . Your staff members can also work collaboratively on documents and files, even when they are not physically in the same room. Also, documents can be viewed as well as edited simultaneously from multiple user locations.
5. Freeing up Your IT Staff. Since the cloud does most everything for you, there is no need to use valuable IT staff resources on things like maintaining servers, fixing bugs or taking care of software updates. Your IT department will spend less time on maintenance and be free to spend more time focusing on strategic initiatives to increase your company's bottom line.
What is cloud storage? It could very well be exactly what your company needs.
Coming Events of Interest
CLOUD COMPUTING WEST 2012 - November 8th-9th in Santa Monica. CA. CCW:2012 will zero in on the latest advances in applying cloud-based solutions to all aspects of high-value entertainment content production, storage, and delivery; the impact of cloud services on broadband network management and economics; and evaluating and investing in cloud computing services providers.
Third International Workshop on Knowledge Discovery Using Cloud and Distributed Computing Platforms - December 10th in Brussels, Belgium. Researchers, developers, and practitioners from academia, government, and industry will discuss emerging trends in cloud computing technologies, programming models, data mining, knowledge discovery, and software services.
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