Posts Tagged ‘cloud computing’

Ballmer Talks of Rumored ‘Windows Cloud’

Steve Ballmer talked yesterday in London about a new ‘Windows Cloud’ OS that will be announced later this month. The OS has been alluded to in the past as being code named ‘Red Dog’. The OS will be based upon the Windows Server offering replication across multiple sites, ‘management modelling’, and an ‘SOA model’. If we’re lucky it’ll be a spin-off of zones in Solaris offering multi-tenant Windows environments. If we’re not lucky, we’ll get Windows with built-in HA clustering on top of Hyper-V.

Ballmer took the opportunity to take a shot at Google. He became yet another calling Google Chrome a web operating system. He too said that Chrome was aimed at competing with Windows. I won’t divulge into my opinion on people who think that.. What’s odd is that Linux has been around for well over 10 years and finally just a few years ago Microsoft actually acknowledged it as a competitor. Google Chrome isn’t even a similar product, let alone as mature and Ballmer claims it’s going to compete.

Ballmer also confirmed the rumors of another OS in the works from Microsoft codenamed Midori. Midori is rumored to not be based upon the Windows kernel at all, though Ballmer stated, “It’s merely a research project”.

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Filed under News : Comments (1) : Oct 2nd, 2008

Stallman Rips Cloud Computing

GNU and Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman last week was quoted in an interview saying that cloud computing was “beyond stupidity”. Stallman has cited potential price increases, loss of control, loss of privacy, and vendor lock-in as concerns. Stallman is a free software purist and a huge privacy advocate so naturally he has problem with giving up control. ‘Cloud computing’ in whatever form it takes removes control of data from the user and places it in the hands of the vendor. However, does it really restrict our freedom?

I think Stallman was partly right, but he’s missing a key component that I think could turn his idealism around. Given the lack of a definition for ‘cloud computing’, let’s start with a little context to get a feel for what Stallman meant:

The concept of using web-based programs like Google’s Gmail is “worse than stupidity”, according to a leading advocate of free software … Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the computer operating system GNU, said that cloud computing was simply a trap aimed at forcing more people to buy into locked, proprietary systems that would cost them more and more over time.

“It’s stupidity. It’s worse than stupidity: it’s a marketing hype campaign … whenever you hear somebody saying … this is inevitable … it’s very likely to be a set of businesses campaigning to make it true.”

Using his example of Gmail, we can see that Stallman is really talking about SaaS, not the utility computing service type of products such as the Amazon EC2 service. Also, given his example of Gmail and the nature of the discussion, it’s important to point out what Stallman sees as “free”. Yes, Gmail is free for a personal account, but they also offer a pay-for service for a business, but that’s not even what he’s talking about. His view (at least the foundation that he started surrounding free software) is that software should be free.. as in it’s your software and your data so you should be free to do with it what you want. This is not to say that the software is free in price, though this is often the case. At the end of the day, Stallman and everyone else knows that software companies have to make money to survive so they can’t offer everything with no fees involved.

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Since Stallman is a huge privacy advocate, he also takes a shot at privacy and recommends that we keep our data only on our systems. This is true to a point, but most everyone puts money in a bank, so where’s the line? I’m going to ignore this part, but wanted to bring up this other concern that Stallman talks about as well.

Stallman’s comments bring out a very important matter in choosing a cloud provider, but if you make a wise choice, a cloud (SaaS) provider can save you time and also provide a way for you to live more freely. There are those vendors who lock-in your data and have no API’s, thus no way of export except through the vendor themselves. However, following standards (in his example, in email) we can use our data much more effectively for a lower cost.

We have all read about and know the benefits of using a SaaS provider — no up-front investment, no staff training (to manage systems), and of course having the privilege of being able to just call your provider when something break. I’m over-simplifying, but we could go on for days about the benefits and drawbacks. Gmail (or whoever you want your provider to be) is going to manage all the headaches that come along with managing those servers for you. This emables SMB’s especially to launch themselves into their market with high tech systems whether or not they have the time, resources, or money (is there a difference?) to provide those services on their own. These services can allow businesses to have their email on their phones and laptops. They can have their contacts from their CRM system on their phones and accessible 24/7 without worrying about losing a contact because the phone breaks or their laptop loses its hard drive. Except for having control over the source code, that’s what the Free Software Foundation is all about.

The second piece of the puzzle is over freely distributed code. Since SaaS and open source software have been leaning on each other, finding an open source hosting company is easy. (In fact, I’ll recommend one.) To borrow the line from Captain Planet, by their power combined, we now have ‘free’ software.

Since big-name nerds like to make dramatic statements about things they don’t like, it’s no surprise to hear something like this from Stallman. However, given a little practicality and by avoiding a little bit of extremism, we can find the best of both worlds. Using an open source hosting provider, we have software that we can modify and data that’s portable and still be able to leverage those shared resources that come from a ‘cloud’ provider.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Oct 1st, 2008

Fog Computing

Cloud computing and virtualization has been all the hype over the last few years in the technology industry. The idea of being able to start up hundreds of servers (or even one or two, for that matter) nearly instantly and having them ready to start handling loads is life-changing for systems administrators around the world. Having to trust a cloud computing provider with critical data and systems is also life-changing for systems administrators. I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Just like any new technology, there’s those who are ready to jump aboard and never look back and there are those who are more cautious and not wanting to jump only to have nothing to catch them. Both have valid points. On one hand, you don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to leverage new technology to gain an advantage over your competitors. On the other hand, there’s a reason we call it the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

Moving infrastructure out into a cloud environment offers tremendous flexibility, but it also comes at a cost since machines have to run all the time. Amazon’s EC2 instances (which are among the cheaper ones I’ve seen) cost about $.10 an hour.. for a small instance. Let’s say, though that I have a fairly resource-intensive application. I’m going to need an extra large instance to make my application work which costs $.80 an hour, still not bad. That means I need to run my instance 24×7. To provide software redundancy for high availability, now I need to have two of those instances. Suddenly, my $.80 an hour turns into $1152 per month. This cost comes before bandwidth going into and out from your instance. Now, I know that there’s other considerations such as networking equipment, rack space, etc. but I’m pretty sure a good lease on some hardware will come under that cost.

Naturally, a good compromise has become common in IT circles. Given the cost of running the instances 24×7 and trust concerns, a lot of shops have been utilizing cloud services as a hybrid alongside their existing infrastructure. Creating new instances during peak traffic times to handle loads or using it for running batch jobs is where the real cost savings comes into play. If you can use 25 servers for 5 hours a day rather than spending money on 25 physical (or space for 25 virtual servers) in your environment and spend (25 machines x 5 hours x $.8) $100 a day, you’ve just saved yourself a ton of money and now you don’t have to deal with the headaches of managing the extra under-utilized hardware.

Employees at Amazon have called this hybrid implementation of cloud computing ‘Cloudbursting’, but I’d like to throw out my own term: ‘fog computing’. There, I said it. I’ve been watching others play on the term cloud computing in their blogs for months and wanted to join in on the action. I couldn’t resist. We can have a cloud but keep it close to the ground, thus the fog. This trend makes perfect sense, and you can see real cost savings right up front rather than having to buy additional servers to accommodate additional temporary or cyclical loads. There’s definite value in the cloud, but a nice balance can be struck by using a hybrid approach and keeping your cloud ‘close to the ground’.

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (2) : Sep 12th, 2008

Dell Releases Netbook, With a Twist

Dell today released a new product into their lines, a netbook known as the Inspiron Mini 9. As the name suggests, the laptop has a 9 inch (well, 8.9) screen and a similar form factor to all other notebooks on the market. Just like the other netbooks, the laptop can be purchased either with Windows XP Home Edition or Ubuntu Linux. It also comes with options such as upgrading the memory, hard drive capacity, adding a bluetooth card and a webcam, nothing special. Dell typically has been a major player in the lower-end consumer PC market so it’s somewhat surprising that this is their first. The laptop seems like it’s just like the rest of the netbooks currently on the market, but there’s a twist with this new PC which is probably the most interesting part of the product. According to a CNET podcast, Dell has also been talking with a wireless partner to offer the netbook as part of a cell phone-type plan so the device comes as part of a wireless contract. The report said the laptop would most likely connect to a 3G wireless network to get to the web. This will definitely be a boost to the netbook market and could leave a few competitors in the dust.

This could be the kick in the pants that cloud computing and SaaS vendors needed. Now we have devices that we can interface with as though they are full-scale desktops and laptops, but can be paid for month-to-month and don’t need to store anything locally since they are always connected to the web. It also gives desktop virtualization new life. If we can just connect to a virtual desktop from a “dummy terminal” like these netbooks, we don’t have to worry about databases walking off when laptops are stolen (which is ridiculous, but that’s another topic for another day). It also allows the PC market to be even more commoditized. Just like a cell phone, if I drop mine or lose it, I can walk down to a store, pick up a new laptop, install a thin client, and away I go.

The laptop also comes with 2GB of online storage from box.net. You can sign up for 1GB of storage for free, so they’re not exactly giving away the farm, but it lets users get a little more comfortable with the idea of cloud computing and storage without spending any money and it’s backed by a name like Dell. With tools like Google Docs and Zoho, we really don’t need word processing and spreadsheet applications on our desktops anymore. With SugarCRM and Salesforce.com we don’t need customer information stored on our desktops and workgroup servers anymore. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

If this news of wireless service with a Dell netbook included becomes a reality (every one who knows me personally hold on to your chair), I just might have to get myself a Dell. I’m a huge Apple fan and I love the interface, but to have a small laptop without having to be tied to an access point would be great. What’s even better would be if I weren’t necessarily tied to a single device. A good majority of the apps I use are web-based, but a few still run on the desktop. All who know me, you can rest easy.. I’ll get the Ubuntu version. I haven’t completely lost it.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (1) : Sep 4th, 2008

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