Open Cloud Consortium Offers Clouds for Science
The Open Cloud Consortium (OCC) has been providing cloud infrastructure for researchers with big data needs since 2009. The OCC is pleased to announce that it is introducing a new resource: its OCC-Y Cluster. The OCC-Y Cluster is a 4 rack 928 core cluster running Apache Hadoop with 1 PB of storage available.
The OCC-Y Cluster was donated by Yahoo!
The OCC manages and operates the Open Science Data Cloud, which is a multi-petabyte distributed cloud-based infrastructure for managing, analyzing, integrating and sharing scientific data. The OCC also operates and manages Project Matsu, which is a cloud-based environment for analyzing data from NASA’s EO-1 satellite…
VMware aims for Hadoop on VMs with ‘Serengeti’ project
VMware is launching a new open-source project, called “Serengeti,” that aims to let the Hadoop data-processing platform run on the virtualization leader’s vSphere hypervisor. The company apparently smells a lucrative opportunity with growing enterprise interest in the Hadoop data-processing platform, and is not about to miss out on it. Serengeti is just one of several moves VMware has made lately to make big data and virtualization software play nice together.
The company explained the thinking behind Serengeti in a press release:
By decoupling Apache Hadoop nodes from the underlying physical infrastructure, VMware can bring the benefits of cloud infrastructure – rapid deployment, high-availability, optimal resource utilization, elasticity, and secure multi-tenancy – to Hadoop…
That sounds great — and all those features represent current shortcomings for most Hadoop distributions — but there are some significant limitations to running Hadoop on virtual resources (this tutorial from Apache’s Hadoop Wiki lays out the pros and cons as they currently stand)…
Cloud Computing vs. Hurricanes: Disaster Recovery Done Right
These days, more and more of your customers are switching from cumbersome, slow and expensive tape backup to a disk-to-disk solution. For the most part, disk backup is perfect for smaller businesses or remote outposts of larger businesses. It’s fast and affordable, and as technology improves, it’s become even safer than tape backup. And of course, disk backup happens onsite, which can be an incredible advantage when it comes to recovering data quickly. However, in the event of a natural disaster, onsite backup can be an incredible disadvantage. Here’s why.
If a company suffers damage in a storm, hurricane, fire, tornado, etc., the stored data is likely damaged as well. That said, June 1 marked the official beginning of hurricane season, and if you’re not offering your customers a disaster recovery (DR) plan with an offsite element, you’re doing them a disservice, and missing a great sales opportunity for yourself. While many customers are still leaning on physical recovery centers, you’ll be doing them a favor if you persuade them to move to the cloud. Selling Cloud DR services will increase your trusted advisor status, plus increase your monthly recurring revenue streams…
Cloud Computing vs. Real Cloud Computing
Many so-called cloud vendors have adopted the safe and sure approach of separate spindles and virtual servers to define something that by rights ought to be collective and multitenant. In Oracle’s case, it is even more amazing that the company that builds the database on which so much of true cloud computing rests, chooses to go a different way when it comes to its enterprise customers.
Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) re-introduced its new cloud/social constellation of stuff last week that it had announced back at OpenWorld. If I count the analyst briefing I got in Redwood Shores in April, it was a re-re-introduction. Oracle is not the only company to follow this strategy. For example, Salesforce follows a conventional triple-tell approach too — tell them what you’re going to say, say it, tell them what you said. But each time Salesforce repeats itself, the messaging gets clearer. When Oracle does it, the message only gets louder…
Cloud Computing: HP lights up $200m data centre
HEWLETT-PACKARD has launched its bid for the regional cloud computing market with the opening of a $200 million data centre in Western Sydney today.
Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy opened the HP facility named Aurora at Eastern Creek, 18 months after the company was granted construction approval at the site.
Senator Conroy wasted no time in linking the $200m investment to the federal government’s $36 billion National Broadband Network investment.
“The economy cannot gain the maximum benefits from cloud computing
without super-fast internet connections, fast download connections and critically upload speeds to revolutionise access to the cloud…
What can software application developers expect from Cloud Computing World Forum?
Grazed from ComputerWeekly. Author: Adrian Bridgwater.
There’s a cloud computing industry exhibition/conference/symposium/jamboree (pick any one you like) on this week in London!
You don’t say?
Hang on — these things get staged all the time now and they are just a hotchpotch of industry vendors with enough money to spend on stand space, booth babes, give away promotional packs of jellybeans right?…
Cloud management beyond the API
Most experienced cloud consumers have some familiarity with cloud management APIs. Cloud computing newbies or those with cloud applications that are limited to single-server pilot projects or test and development may think management APIs are the key to controlling the cloud. In fact, APIs are only a stepping stone to a growing list of cloud management features.
Companies using cloud services are looking to third-party hybrid and private cloud management tools to supplement what’s lacking in the public cloud. This combination of native tools, plus additional third-party management tools, is reshaping the vision of how cloud services are managed — from APIs and user interfaces to cloud management orchestration.
Public cloud providers are bolstering services with the addition of native management services; Amazon Web Services offers elastic, auto-scaling and elastic load-balancing features, which distribute traffic across multiple Amazon EC2 instances and allow provisioning of additional instances during peak times as usage increases. IT administrators could accomplish something similar using per-instance configuration and application tools or network appliances, but it’s much easier to use Amazon’s native tools…
RedCloud Selected as Exclusive Access Control Platform for Global Security Operations 2015 TechLab
RedCloud, the industry’s fastest growing provider of web-based, physical access control systems, today announced it has been selected as the exclusive access control platform for the Global Security Operations (GSO) 2015 event and technology lab to be held June 12-13 at Yahoo! Corporate Headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.
GSO 2015 is the industry’s premiere enterprise security event for global, Fortune 100 chief security officers, security directors and security managers. The two-day event consists of a highly-interactive workshop that covers management-level aspects of security operations, along with a “hands-on” technology lab that covers all aspects of technology deployment in a live, full-spectrum, working environment and showcases industry-leading security technologies.
Interoute launches Virtual Data Centre Disaster Recovery Service
Interoute, owner operator of Europe’s largest cloud services platform, has launched a self-service disaster recovery and backup service as part of its Virtual Data Centre (VDC) offering, built into its pan European network and Data Centre platform. The disaster recovery and local backup capabilities are available to organisations that provision their on-demand computing, needs via Interoute’s VDC and are looking to build a resilient architecture across multiple geographically separated locations.
Currently, disaster recovery is being critically overlooked, mainly due to its cost. The old way of thinking was that DR was too expensive, but this has changed with the cloud. The tiers offered within Interoute’s self-service disaster recovery and backup service allow IT professionals to quickly build affordable data and application recovery strategies without the need to invest in a separate physical data centre. Contrary to current solutions, enterprises won’t even need to pay for transporting data between Interoute’s VDC zones, saving on expensive data traffic costs when moving content from one VDC zone to another. Not only this, but its pricing model means that organisations only pay for the storage they use. This can be scaled to reflect demand, resulting in a service that is as cost effective as the public cloud and as secure as a private cloud.
SoftLayer Announces Turnkey Private Clouds
SoftLayer, a leading provider of global, Internet-scale cloud infrastructure, today unveiled its new SoftLayer Private Clouds solution that provisions and configures full private cloud deployments on demand. These scalable, secure and high-performance deployments leverage the company’s automated architecture, worldwide data center locations and private network, and customer-controlled infrastructure management system.
"For some time our customers have used our portfolio of dedicated servers, network resources, and virtualization options to build their own private clouds. Now, with SoftLayer Private Clouds, instead of starting at square one, you begin with a pre-configured cloud ready for whatever you want to do with it," said Duke Skarda, Chief Technology Officer for SoftLayer. "We’ve built our Private Clouds solution out of our experience creating and managing our own cloud, and our unique capabilities in automating sophisticated deployments. At the push of a button you have a dedicated cloud at your command, with full access and control over every aspect, and the ability to scale infinitely, on demand."
SoftLayer Private Clouds streamlines ordering, enabling customers to simply choose the number of physical servers that they need as client hosts and then customize the configuration and resources for those servers as desired. In as few as two hours, SoftLayer’s automated provisioning system will have automatically: