Google’s infrastructure spending spree continues; $1.2B in Q1
photo: Google
Google spent $1.2 billion on property and equipment in the first quarter of 2013, nearly doubling last year’s first quarter. Read more »
By the numbers: How Google Compute Engine stacks up to Amazon EC2
When Google launched its EC2 rival, Google Compute Engine, last June, it set some high expectations. Sebastian Standil’s team at Scalr put the cloud infrastructure service through its paces — and were pleasantly surprised at what they found. Read more »
Who are the next hot mobile networking startups? Bessemer aims to find them at MWC
photo: Bessemer Venture Partners
Fresh off portfolio company Intucell’s $475 million exit, Bessemer Venture Partners’ Bob Goodman is on the hunt for new mobile infrastructure startups. At the wireless industry’s biggest event, Mobile World Congress, he’ll find plenty to choose from. Read more »
OpenNebula offers to speed up community feature development for cash
photo: JULIADEBOER PHOTOGRAPHY
The ‘Fund a Feature’ program aims to let corporate users accelerate the development of specific features while still feeding the result back to the open-source project’s community. Read more »
Cisco buying Intucell for $475M to build self-aware networks
In just two years, Israeli infrastructure startup Intucell has gone from a $6 million Series A to a nearly half-billion-dollar acquisition. Read more »
Google spent a billion on infrastructure last quarter
photo: Google
Google spent more than a billion dollars on infrastructure in the fourth quarter, representing the company’s second-biggest quarterly expenditure ever. As it competes against Facebook, Apple, Yelp and Amazon, the company can’t afford to stop building data centers now. Read more »
All computing isn’t equal: Here are the four types
photo: Flickr user Keith Ellwood
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 »
Ericsson takes its fight against Samsung to the ITC
photo: Shutterstock / zimmytws
Ericsson is exercising all its options in its ongoing patent dispute with Samsung. Last week it sued the Korean handset and infrastructure vendor after the two failed to reach a technology cross-licensing agreement. Now Ericsson is seeking to ban Samsung’s products from the U.S. Read more »
Report: Mobile hardware will be a $500-billion industry by 2015
Global mobile device and infrastructure revenues are growing at an annual rate of 11 percent per year, which will make wireless communications equipment a half-trillion-dollar industry in 2015, according to IHS iSuppli. The driving factor? LTE. Read more »
Now it gets interesting: How to build a social contract for broadband
History demonstrates that in order to build world-class infrastructure, be it railroads or electricity, a mutually beneficial commitment between communities and the providers of that infrastructure is, and has always been, essential. It is no different for communications. Read more »
To scale web services, devops devotees should consider economics
For most people scaling out a web service is a matter of thinking about hardware and software. But the recent Surge conference taught me that most devops folk need to look down to the physical infrastructure as well as the economic tradeoffs of building a service. Read more »
Chart: Apple, Facebook spending a lot on infrastructure
Companies doing business on the web and in the cloud must spend a lot on infrastructure to stay running and to support new services. Here’s what Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Zynga spent in the recent quarter, and what it might mean. Read more »
Why Twitter should open up about its infrastructure
If Twitter wants to remain opaque about its practices, that’s fine — but it shouldn’t expect any slack from upset users or investors. Blaming a two-hour outage on an “infrastructural double-whammy” after remaining mum on even where its data centers are located doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Read more »
Battered by the global LTE war, Alcatel-Lucent will cut 5000 jobs
Faced with increasing pressure from its telecom vendor rivals as well as the poor economy, Alcatel-Lucent is cutting its workforce by 7 percent. In order to generate revenue, the vendor is looking toward its vast patent pool, setting up a new intellectual property management division. Read more »
Huawei knocks off Ericsson as world’s biggest telecom vendor
Huawei reported 2012 half-year revenues today that make it the largest telecom infrastructure maker in the world — a title formerly belonging to Ericsson. The two, however, are neck and neck and a new contract or fluctuation in currency could see the two changing places once again. Read more »
Is the Internet going down the Tubes?
In this brief video, Andrew Blum, the author of Tubes: The Journey to the center of the Internet, addresses some of the things he discovered in his global tour of the physical components that are part of the vast, unseen infrastructure that underlie the Internet. Read more »
Cores in the cloud: Does brawny or wimpy win?
photo: Pinar Ozger
The number of servers in the cloud continues to grow, but should those servers use brawny cores filled with raw power or lightweight wimpy cores? Infrastructure planning requires both, says Jason Waxman from Intel: As the cloud to evolves, a wide range of chips are needed. Read more »
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Key technologies for the smart city
Five key technology sectors are enabling the smart city: smart grids, smart transport, smart water and waste management, smart building systems, and the enabling ICT platforms for the smart city. Key players like IT companies, telcos and utilities must learn how to harness those technologies, and quickly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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The capex connection: Why we pay for privacy on the Web
For ad-supported web platforms such as Facebook, every dollar spent on infrastructure means even more money brought in by advertising — the culprit of many privacy issues. That has big implications for a company’s bottom line. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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What converged infrastructure means for the future of the data center staff
Large data centers are increasingly moving to converged infrastructure, and most of the chatter has been about this slick, new hardware. But it also has deep implications for enterprise employees and the CIOS and managers that must retrain them — or do away with them altogether. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
This report outlines the myriad issues at play in Facebook’s move, from examining how CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to rewire the world to understanding the company’s infrastructure dependency. But from every angle, it’s clear the effects will ripple throughout the startup and tech communities. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
For Facebook infrastructure concerns loom large
Beneath all the Zynga games, likes, personal timelines and pokes, Facebook’s business relies on fast, reliable infrastructure. And concerns about that underlying figure heavily in the risks it faces as it goes public, according to its S-1 filing. Read more »
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Amazon’s DynamoDB: rattling the cloud market
DynamoDB, AWS’ latest effort to rock the technology establishment, has many implications for other players in the big data and cloud computing markets. A new GigaOM Pro research note examines just who is affected, and how. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Migrating media applications to the private cloud: best practices for businesses
If your company has a cloud application with a predictable audience size or one that is costing you more than $25,000 a month to host, you may want to consider maintaining a private cloud. This paper provides an overview of the factors that decision makers who are developing a public-to-private cloud-migration strategy should consider, recognizing that public versus private cloud strategy is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It also details pitfalls that must be avoided along the way and provides a case study of Zynga, a company that has found a way to use both the private and public clouds to create a hybrid solution. Companies mentioned in this report include Akamai, Foursquare, Nimbula and ARM. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Nirvanix grabs data center talent from Google
Paul Froutan, formerly head of global data center infrastructure at Google, is joining cloud-storage pioneer Nirvanix as CTO. The addition will almost certainly improve Nirvanix’s ability to deliver its services, but the larger-scale news is yet another public defection from Google. Read more »
The new web will need a new network
Allied Fiber may be able to do something the FCC can’t: help make American broadband just a bit more competitive. In a few weeks it will begin construction on its new type of optical network. It’s six months late, but better late than never. Read more »
It’s not about shared vs. dedicated. It’s about the application
Enterprise users have different reasons and preferences for deciding between shared and dedicated resources in the cloud. But most shouldn’t be making those decisions based on the infrastructure, but based on the application that they’re trying to run, execs at GigaOM’s Structure conference said. Read more »
Ubiquiti Networks IPO shows infrastructure market heating up
Ubiquiti, the wireless technology provider, filed IPO paperwork with the SEC recently, following hot on the heels of the Boingo and Fusion-io IPOs. Though VCs, including Sequoia’s Michael Goguen, are bullish on the activity in infrastructure, it’s too soon to say how it will pan out. Read more »
Structure 2011 live coverage
After years of debating what cloud computing really is, we’re finally starting to get a clearer picture. Today and tomorrow at Structure 2011, we’ll look at how the cloud landscape is shaping up. Click here to watch the live stream. Read more »
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The Structure 50: The Top 50 Cloud Innovators
In five short years, cloud computing has gone from being a quaint technology to a major catchphrase. Amazon and others are now moving at Internet speed, trying to offer better security, faster networking, more compliance and a host of other products that are attempting to meet the demands of startups, consumers and enterprises alike. On GigaOM’s Structure channel, we cover the gear and software that comprises the cloud, the services and the people who are changing the industry. Now for the first time, we’ve decided to condense that knowledge into the Structure 50, a list of the 50 companies that are influencing how the cloud and infrastructure evolves. All of these players, big or small, have people, technology or strategies that will help shape the way the cloud market is developing and where it will eventually end up. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Rackspace, Cloudera, China Telecom and SeaMicro. For a full list of companies, and to see the Structure 50 as one full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Kansas City Gets Gigabit Speeds. What About the Rest of Us?
Kansas City may not be alone in getting gigabit broadband. In Google’s blog today, it said: “We’ll also be looking closely at ways to bring ultra high-speed Internet to other cities across the country.” Sounds like Google isn’t finished yet. And that’s a good thing. Read more »
The Hurdles for Moving Big Data ‘Round the World
Underlying all the useful applications, like Hadoop, that have emerged out of the big data ecosystem, there’s a fundamental assumption: The data that companies want will be able to be accessed when companies want and need it, explained Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder of Aspera. Read more »
Big Data, ARM and Legal Concerns on the Rise in Q4
Some might call this past quarter in infrastructure transformative. The rise of ARM-based processing suggests the days of x86 dominance are numbered, while the Amazon Web Services-WikiLeaks controversy cast light on cloud computing’s legal aspects, and big data got bigger as the Hadoop ecosystem expanded. Read more »
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Will Facebook (or Apple) Be the Next Great Hadoop Champion?
The question of who’s using Hadoop outside of web companies is fair, but somewhat misguided. Hadoop was born from the web and it was web companies, with their extreme needs, that showed what Hadoop can do. Now, it looks like Facebook’s turn to carry the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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The Data Center Is the New Box. Are You Ready?
The analogy goes that with more organizations hosting applications in the cloud and data volumes skyrocketing, the cloud data center takes the place of the on-premise server. And if the data center is the server, the cloud computing management software, atop which applications run, must ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple’s New North Carolina Data Center Ready to Roll
Apple’s $1 billion data center in North Carolina made headlines when the project was revealed in May 2009. New reports indicate that the facility is set to open “any day now,” according to local officials, and could possibly double its current 500,000 square foot size. Read more »
Vid Biz: YouTube Multilingual, Triton Media Lawsuit, Hulu Plus Desktop
Today on the Net: Disney and Warner Bros. sue ad provider Triton Media for its alleged ties to pirate movie websites, Hulu Plus expands to the desktop, YouTube learns Tagalog, and more. Read more »
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Lessons From Google: How Facebook Can Reach One Billion Users
In a highly anticipated milestone, Facebook crossed the 500-million-user mark this week, but from an operational standpoint, expanding that quickly is likely to become more and more difficult over time. The key for Facebook, and a lesson it could learn from Google, is how to employ ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Quick Tip: Speed-listen to Podcasts on Your iPhone/iPod
So it turns out there’s a sneaky way to “speed-listen” to podcasts on iPhones/iPods. It’s useful because while here are some great podcasts available they take time to get though, and if you subscribe to a few of them that time commitment can get pretty large. Read more »
