Grazed from Intel. Author: Jonathon Donaldson.

A powerful trend sweeping through today’s data centers can be summed up in a single word: Containers. Container-based virtualization allows you to package applications and the required software libraries to create units of computing that are scalable and portable. Today, Nick Weaver shared Intel’s vision for containers and the mainstream democratization of sophisticated cloud computing at CoreOS Fest in San Francisco. If the level of the engagement at the conference is any indication, I expect the industry to join us on the path toward broad scale deployments of advanced, easy to consume, hyperscale technologies.

The container concept is a central feature of hyperscale cloud technology. Hyperscale technologies promise to make software developers more productive, data center infrastructure more efficient, and IT resources easier to deploy and consume. It is not hyperbole to say that broad proliferation of hyperscale cloud technology could have an impact on data centers that is similar to the impact that virtualization delivered years ago…

Grazed from StorageReview. Author: Adam Armstrong.

Super Micro Computer Inc. released a new extreme-density sever platform, MicroBlade. These new solutions are aimed at hyper-scale data center, cloud, web hosting environments and video streaming, VDI, high performance video/graphics applications. SuperMicro’s MicroBlade also enables VLP DDR4 16/32GB RDIMM, at the cost of regular DIMM, to increase energy efficiency and cooling. SuperMicro claims that the MicroBlade is a converged computing platform that combines the density, ease of use, manageability, high availability, serviceability, efficiency of blade servers with the cost advantage of rack-mount servers.

Super Micro Computer Inc. released a new extreme-density sever platform, MicroBlade. These new solutions are aimed at hyper-scale data center, cloud, web hosting environments and video streaming, VDI, high performance video/graphics applications. SuperMicro’s MicroBlade also enables VLP DDR4 16/32GB RDIMM, at the cost of regular DIMM, to increase energy efficiency and cooling…

Grazed from TechTarget. Author: Brien Posey.

You’ve done your homework and determined you need to extend your data center to the public cloud. You’ve researched the technology and determined the criteria you will use to make your purchasing decision. Now, it’s time to choose the public cloud provider to host your virtual machines.

But which provider offers the services and support that best matches your environment and needs? This is the final article in a series about cloud computing buying decisions. The first article described the benefits of hosting virtual servers in the cloud, while the second detailed public cloud costs and risks…

Grazed from ITNews. Author: Justin Warren.

When you see the word ‘internet’, odds are you think of the public internet, the battleground of net neutrality and data retention. But there is another side to the internet that runs quietly in the background, in parallel to this public or consumer internet: business internet. At the recent launch of data centre provider Equinix’s Melbourne site, ME1, the company’s APAC boss Samuel Lee [unsurprisingly] made much of the pitfalls of consumer internet. But he rightfully pointed out that individual consumers are not as concerned about security and uptime as are enterprise technology groups…

“If it goes down for 30 minutes, it’s no big deal as an individual, but when you’re running an enterprise application, if you are the CIO, you cannot let it go down," he said. The modern marvel of cloud computing arose because of the ability to house computing resources in a remote data centre somewhere out there on a functionally ubiquitous internet, and to provide software functionality as a remotely accessed service. Netflix and Salesforce would simply not have a business without it…

Read more from the source @ http://www.itnews.com.au/BlogEntry/403454,clever-design-can-save-you-money-on-cloud-interconnect.aspx#ixzz3ZCzh3lwy

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Sharon Gaudin.

Microsoft is working to help its enterprise customers move their data, apps and operations to the cloud – specifically the hybrid cloud. At its first Ignite conference in Chicago today, the company unveiled Microsoft Azure Stack, a collection of the company’s hyper-scale public cloud technologies that it uses for its own data centers.

The new Azure Stack software makes both the Azure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) software available so enterprises can use it in their own on-premises clouds. Microsoft also took the wraps off what it’s calling the Microsoft Operations Management Suite, a group of hybrid tools and software focused on managing enterprises’ workloads, regardless of where they are – on the Azure platform, Amazon Web Services, Linux, VMWAre, Windows Server or OpenStack…

Grazed from FederalTimes. Author: Robert Ferrell.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter unveiled the new Department of Defense Cyber Strategy in an address at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, California, April 23, 2015. An update to the original strategy released in 2011, it identifies specific cyber missions for DoD and sets strategic goals to achieve over the next five years and beyond.

These missions and goals will guide the development of DoD’s cyber forces and strengthen our cyber defense and cyber deterrence posture. I encourage all to familiarize themselves with the new DoD strategy to gain a better understanding of how it will inform the Army’s mission, priorities and way-ahead…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Chris Preimesberger.

VCE, a highly successful company conceived by EMC, Cisco Systems, Intel and VMware five and half years ago, made news May 4 at EMC World 2015 here by announcing a new line of hyper-converged data center systems called VxRacks. The company said these new server-storage packages will enable enterprises and service providers to more easily manage the deployment of next-generation scale-out cloud, distributed and mobile Tier 2 applications.

VCE VxRack systems enable users to start with dozens of servers and scale to thousands with up to 38 petabytes of storage capacity while delivering high performance/value per IOP. Most importantly, VCE offers its proven methodology of pre-engineered, preconfigured factory-built infrastructure with single-call lifecycle support to VxRack Systems, providing owners with the same VCE customer experience…

Read more from the source @ http://www.eweek.com/storage/vce-launches-new-vxracks-for-cloud-mobile-apps.html

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Judy Ko.

“Cloud makes everything so easy.” “Cloud computing is the great democratizer.” “Simplicity is the essence of cloud.” These are among the tried and true benefits that are trotted out in praise of cloud computing, and in many senses they have proven true. Hence, the now very mainstream adoption of cloud applications and computing platforms that we see all around us.

But the laws of physics cannot be ignored, no matter how amazing the technology is. Recalling your high school physics class: things that begin in a state of simplicity and order devolve toward complexity and disorder, unless you apply work. (Witness Saturday mornings in my house as neatly organized toys and LEGOs inevitably evolve into a disaster zone—apologies for the not entirely accurate yet highly representative analogy.)…

Grazed from eWeek. Author: Don Reisinger.

Today, enterprises can offload a wide range of computing services and applications from internal servers and data centers to the cloud. In fact, it is entirely feasible and possibly even cost-effective for a large enterprise to run all of its computing resources in the cloud. So it is no surprise that companies are taking a close look at what internal computing services it can offload to a cloud platform.

These services range from Web storage to full business productivity suites that include email, word processing, presentations, online meetings and sales management applications. Companies can buy as much data processing capacity as they could possibly need, whether it is for a single big project that requires a lot of data processing muscle or to run all the applications for an entire enterprise…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Sean McGrath.

It may surprise you to learn that the roots of cloud computing were planted well before the term made it into everyday speech. J.C.R. Licklider, one of the key developers of ARPANET, envisioned a global network capable of computation, while Professor John McCarthy said at MIT’s centennial celebration in 1961:

"Computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility. Each subscriber needs to pay only for the capacity he actually uses, but he has access to all programming languages characteristic of a very large system … Certain subscribers might offer service to other subscribers …