Netflix open sourced the code to Janitor Monkey, a tool it uses to automate the deletion of unused Amazon Web Services resources. It’s easy to spin up cloud compute instances, but not so easy to shut them down as they fall into disuse. Read more »
Startups and enterprises alike face barriers when it comes to cloud adoption. This includes security, speed of access to cloud resources, and runaway network costs. However, multiple solutions for direct access are being provided to address this issue for companies big and small. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cloud computing’s increased performance cannot be sustained if the corresponding cost to the service provider (SP) for delivering this performance also increases. What service providers need is a way of delivering low latency, fast response, and increasing performance while minimizing the cost of the network. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Besides the skyrocketing growth of data itself, there are several key technology trends we will be watching in 2013. That list includes a renaissance in the database market, next-generation SaaS-based BI and visualization tools, and data warehousing as a service. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Big problems with Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Load Balancing service in its US-East data center nailed Netflix and Heroku on Christmas Eve and carried over into Christmas. Netflix competitor Amazon Prime Instant Video appeared to be unaffected. Read more »
T-Mobile saved the biggest cities for the end of the year. T-Mobile revealed that it has completed its HSPA+ network upgrade in 14 more cities including metropolises like New York, Boston, and Dallas-Fort Worth. In those cities iPhones can now tap into T-Mo’s 3G network. Read more »
The “mobile first” philosophy is under way today. That means a new generation of mobile-centric data centers will arise over the next three years, with chips, servers, and power architectures customized for mobile workloads. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The way the industry will use cloud-computing technology in 2013 will require following the existing adoption patterns and trends into the New Year. Those trends include the rise of standards, big data’s role in the cloud, industry-specific clouds, security, and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
A website that claims to be from Amazon about launching a clean-powered pilot project for its AWS services, alas, isn’t true. It’s a stunt by the environmentalist at Greenpeace to get Amazon to add more clean power to its cloud. Read more »
Zorawar Biri Singh, who leads HP’s cloud effort, says the company’s vision aligns nicely with what enterprises want. HP will fill in check marks to its OpenStack-based game plan next month but the big question is whether HP’s brand still carries weight. Read more »
Verizon has begun selling off its extra 700 MHz licenses per its agreement with the FCC to give up spare 4G spectrum in exchange for the cableco airwaves. So far there’s been no blockbuster sale, though and AT&T has yet to make a move. Read more »
Amazon is adding a new region based in Sydney to offer lower-latency services to customers in Australia and New Zealand. The addition brings total regions worldwide to nine at a time when cloud competitors with global reach are coming online. Read more »
Joyent has named a new CEO and announced the altest generation of its infrastructure as a service software. The moves are in preparation for a big play in the coming months as the company looks to build the right computing platform for data and cloud applications. Read more »
AT&T aims in three years to have a new LTE network up in the airwaves the FCC just approved for 4G use. In the rather plodding world of telecom, three years is a quick timeline. But AT&T has political and strategic reasons for moving soon. Read more »
The usual suspects Amazon and VMware made significant announcements in cloud in the third quarter, while Hadoop remained the talk of the town in big data. Emerging trends in software-defined networking and flash storage stirred up lots of M&A and venture investment in the quarter. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
MetroPCS is the most aggressive operator in the country when it comes to VoLTE, but its proposed merger with T-Mobile might put its rollout of mobile VoIP on hold. If the merger passes, the combined T-Metro would no longer face the same capacity constraints. Read more »
T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS aren’t jinxing themselves by blurting it out loud, but when of the benefits to their merger is much compatibility with the iPhone 5. The combination of Metro’s LTE network and T-Mo’s new HSPA+ network is a match made in Apple heaven. Read more »
Agility is increasingly recognized as one of the main advantages of cloud computing, but an important aspect of agility is choice: the choice to run computing jobs in house, in a private cloud, or on public cloud services from the likes of Amazon, Rackspace, and a growing number of other providers. To exercise choice, customers require information and the ability to compare the costs and benefits of competing solutions. This report explores opportunities for accurately measuring computing resources and their use, simplifying the comparison of competing cloud offerings and opening the door to charging models based more closely on actual consumption. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
There’s nothing like the holiday shopping season to test an e-commerce site’s ability to ramp up and down as needed. RightScale says it can help sites proactively respond to changing loads so they don’t run out of juice and don’t pay for more resources than needed. Read more »
FCC documentation reveals there are two more LTE bands hidden within AT&T’s version of the new iPhone 5: PCS and cellular. The thing is there are no networks at either frequency today that could connect to the device. Could AT&T be planning a massive network overhaul? Read more »
The Federal Communications Commission green-lights Verizon’s $3.9 billion acquisition of the cable operators’ 4G spectrum. Verizon is baby steps away from being able to build the country’s most high-capacity LTE network as well as enter into a wireline-wireless pact with its new cable partners. Read more »
Amazon has added a new cloud offering dubbed Glacier, where for less than a penny per gigabyte per month users can store files that aren’t accessed very often. The new product could put the hurt on backup and recovery offerings from other vendors. Read more »
Comparing the cost of on-demand computing to buying your own infrastructure is one way to look at IT costs in a cloud era, but it’s a shortsighted way to measure how cloud computing can affect your business. Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels outlines another way. Read more »
The Justice Department is giving Verizon clearance to close its $3.9 billion acquisition of the cable companies’ 4G airwaves. While it is imposing conditions on their joint-marketing agreements — basically non-compete pacts — to resell each others wireline and wireless services, the concessions are relatively minor. Read more »
Verizon may well gets it 4G spectrum and its co-marketing agreements from the cable operators, though it will be forced to make some minor compromises to get the deal approved. WSJ reports that regulators wants to put a five-year timeline on Verizon’s pact with cable. Read more »
By buying NextWave, AT&T removes the biggest obstacle to its plan to convert the Wireless Communications Services band from a worthless patch of airwaves to highly valuable 4G spectrum. The deal will cost AT&T $600 million but would pay dividends in new LTE capacity. Read more »
Regulators should view Verizon planned pact with cable as a merger, not as a joint venture, argues the Consumer Federation of America. Seen in that light, the CFA said, the government will have little choice but to reject Verizon’s acquisition of the cable operators’ 4G spectrum. Read more »
Like it or not, sweeping software bugs are just part and parcel with operating the largest computing systems the world has ever seen. Although Amazon is already fixing the problems that caused its latest outage, this won’t be the last we see. Read more »
Massive thunderstorms knocked out Amazon’s web services on Friday night and the cloud giant was still struggling to get service back up on Saturday. To me the news raises the question: is it time for data center operators to more seriously investigate off grid options? Read more »
All’s fair in love and war. Only yesterday T-Mobile was lobbying hard to halt Verizon’s acquisition of the cable operators’ 4G spectrum. Today it’s unopposed to the deal. What changed? T-Mobile and Verizon now plan to swap the same spectrum they’ve been fighting over. Read more »
Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS) technology brings together business applications, the Internet and the world’s public-switched telephone network (PSTN) to provide businesses with new ways of enabling communication. Here’s how to leverage this new technology. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon has been the king of cloud services for nearly six years but now the company has new deep pocketed competitors – Microsoft and Google. And while Microsoft announced its plans earlier this month, Google is likely to launch its new, improved platform at Google I/O. Read more »
It’s been five years since Amazon CTO Werner Vogels first sat on the GigaOM Structure stage with Om. Instead of looking back, in their short chat they looked ahead at where the cloud industry and the major players would find themselves in the next five years. Read more »
Discussions about the cloud now involve more than just the IT department. New developments in hardware architectures, more-energy-efficient data centers, regulatory concerns and simplifying analytics are all discussions currently circling through the industry. Here’s what to consider when thinking about your business in the cloud. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon web services are having trouble this evening and in the process are taking down some major sites. Among sites being impacted are Quora and HipChat. In addition, the Amazon outage has had an impact on Heroku, a division of Salesforce. Read more »
T-Mobile iPhone users can start rejoicing this summer – at least a few of them. T-Mobile will complete its planned conversion from GSM to HSPA+ on 2,500 of its cell sites this July. The upgrade will make the carrier iPhone compatible on 7 percent of its network. Read more »
In its attempts to kill Verizon’s mega-spectrum deal with the cable operators, T-Mobile has begun challenging Verizon’s claims that it is the most efficient user of mobile spectrum in the country. But T-Mo is countering Verizon’s fuzzy math with equally fuzzy math of its own. Read more »
Changes in the power market are rippling through the Internet industry, altering both the location of data centers and their sources of power. There are many factors in picking a data center location beyond the geographic location, such as how to procure energy and green-energy models. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The FCC is curious why Verizon bought a bunch of 4G spectrum back in 2008 but now plans to sell it. The FCC is asking Verizon some poignant questions, and though the word “warehousing” is never mentioned it’s certainly the direction the FCC is heading. Read more »
With more and more business leaders now turning to this topic, the questions — and confusion — are multiplying. With so much to consider, we’ve broken down the cloud discussion to help companies decide which strategy is right for their business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
