VMware CTO Steve Herrod is leaving his post to join venture capital firm General Catalyst, where he’ll be managing director. I think this is a big loss for VMware, which has already been hemorrhaging technical talent to younger, nimbler companies. Read more »
The audacity of a database startup: NewSQL vendor NuoDB dares to propose an update to E.F. Codd’s 12 rules of relational databases, the blueprint for SQL databases for decades. Read more »
The issue of resiliency in the cloud has gained new life after Amazon experienced an outage that took out Netflix on Christmas Eve. Hybrid clouds are the answer to the problem, but how do you know what applications deserve such treatment? Read more »
Want to hear about the latest and greatest in Netflix’s home-grown technology? The company will host an open-source open house for developers on February 6. The goal is to recruit top-flight developers and to encourage construction of alternatives to Amazon Web Services. Read more »
James Urquhart kicks off a discussion about system resiliency by outlining the key concepts — devops, complex adaptive systems and anti-fragility — that affect it in the cloud computing era. Read more »
The use of Open Compute hardware by government agencies got a boost this week when Hyve Solutions, which specializes in Open Compute design, was added to the GSA schedule of approved IT vendors. And, Microsoft Hotmail and Dropbox suffered major outages. Read more »
Amazon Web Services is, depending on who’s talking, the bedrock and revenue-generating engine for Amazon, or it’s a thin-margin sideline for the giant retailer. Either way, does it make sense for Amazon to spin it off a la EMC and VMware? Read more »
Netflix is at it again, this time showing off its homemade architecture for running Hadoop workloads in the Amazon Web Services cloud. It’s all about the flexibility of being able to run, manage and access multiple clusters while eliminating as many barriers as possible. Read more »
Mirantis CEO Adrian Ionel says the fact that it’s getting financing from Dell and Intel, along with WestSummit Capital, does not negate it’s ability to deliver vendor-agnostic OpenStack clouds. Read more »
Demand for programmers with Scala expertise continues to grow, according to job postings on Indeed.com. But things aren’t that simple. If you cut the data other ways, you can pretty much see what you want to see. Read more »
In a new research note, Macquarie Capital contends that Amazon Web Services is not only profitable, it would be a $19 billion business if it were counted as a standalone entity. That’s not peanuts. Amazon, of course, isn’t saying boo. Read more »
Amazon brings its AWS management console to Android, but not iOS, devices; Hewlett-Packard SEC filing opens up an old can of worms; and Dell will wait for OpenStack to mature before bringing out its public cloud implementation Read more »
Any cloud vendor that does not try to take advantage of Amazon Web Services’ US-East woes is probably guilty of malpractice. But most tread carefully — it’s fine to talk up your uptime and service, but vendors in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Read more »
Despite the idea that a server is a server, the needs of different computing customers differ widely. For those thinking about selling infrastructure, software or even services understanding the difference in computing and IT styles will help you hone your pitch and find your buyer. Read more »
I recently spent 11 days in Beijing meeting lots of companies trying to make it in cloud computing and big data. Here are seven with which I had a chance to sit down and learn about their businesses and how to sell cloud computing in China. Read more »
Our friends at GigaOM Research break down the big winners and losers in the cloud space and the trends you need to know about for the coming year: consumer-oriented cloud, big data and government adoption and more. With Adam Lesser, David Linthicum and Paul Miller. Read more »
Both Amazon Web Services and Netflix — its most-prominent customer — have released details on AWS outage that took down Netflix’s streaming service on Christmas Eve. AWS attributes the issue primarily to human error. Netflix just wants to avoid this situation again, whatever the cause. 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 »
Last year, AWS saw big success and big snafus; Superstorm Sandy prompted worry about data center location; legacy IT giants bought their way into SaaS; VMware regroups; the OpenStack crowd got their clouds off the ground; and Europe starts to buy into cloud. Read more »
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 »
This shift in WAN requirements is placing increased cost and performance pressure on traditional WAN solutions, which either pose the exorbitant costs of private WAN services or are burdened by the unreliability of the public internet. WAN optimization and virtualization can address and improve this in enterprises. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon 16 years ago, is the second-best CEO on the planet, according to Harvard Business Review’s latest rankings. Last month Fortune named him its Business Person of the Year. Read more »
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 »
Most financial services companies officially forbid the use of public cloud (aka Amazon Web Services) completely. But the forward thinkers among them — like State Street — keep their options — and minds — open about such deployment in the future. Read more »
Red Hat’s $104M buyout of ManageIQ gives it a stronger cross-cloud management story; Developers love their Amazon EC2 instances and will likely use more of them next year, according to new Forrester research. Read more »
Amazon’s Data Pipeline, which promises easy, automated consolidation of data from many sources, is now available — or at least you can sign up for it. Amazon also unveiled a new instance type for data-intensive applications. Read more »
Confused by the glut of new NoSQL, NewSQL, post-SQL, structured, unstructured database options that came out over the past year? 451 Research’s Matthew Aslett maps it all out for you. Read more »
The Atlanta-based integrator will use its new funding to keep up with what it calls accelerating demand for cloud applications and to keep serving existing Salesforce.com and Google Apps customers. Read more »
Examining Amazon Web Services usage is a cottage industry for a dozen or so startups. One of them, Newvem, has offered its service free to select customers. Now that the service is broadly available, it’s time to monetize. Read more »
Everyone’s talking about the greatness of big data, but we’re nowhere near the promised land of what’s possible when we turn data loose on our lives. Here are three things to watch that could affect how companies and everday people consume all that info. Read more »
The new ability of AWS users to move EBS storage volumes between Amazon’s regions could drastically improve disaster recovery scenarios. Amazon announced this EBS Snapshot Copy feature early on Tuesday. Read more »
Developers say Firebase makes it really easy for them to quickly write and debug web applications without having to mess with server infrastructure. But they want better security for those apps. On Tuesday, Firebase will roll out a new security API. Read more »
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 »
In the latest case of researchers using the cloud for good, Google is highlighting the six projects to which it awarded grants via its Exacycle for Visiting Faculty program. Ranging from genomic research to astronomy, the researchers received 100 million computing hours apiece. Read more »
The hypergrowth that the SaaS category saw last year has leveled off, but these companies are still outperforming traditional software rivals and legacy IT providers who are mired in a hardware-oriented world, according to new research from martinwolf Global M&A Advisors. Read more »
Akamai’s 8-month search for a new CEO didn’t take it too far: It tapped co-founder and chief scientist Tom Leighton to succeed Paul Sagan, who announced his intention to leave last April. Now Sagan will cede the CEO slot on January 1. Read more »
Cloudant aims for cloud ubiquity with Rackspace partnership; OpenNebula offers private testing cloud inside Amazon Web Services; and Dell vows (late) OpenStack-based public cloud, partners with Inktank on Ceph storage. Read more »
Next year, “the cloud” will finally be ready for enterprise workloads and big companies will finally start moving them there. Data centers will stop being enclosed by walls and those are just two of GigaOM’s 5 big cloud predictions. Read on for more. Read more »
New AWS billing lets customers see their cloud services charges broken out into more detail — a key issue for many customers who want a better look at what’s going on in their AWS cloud. Read more »