Peer 1, the hosting provider, joins the ranks of Rackspace, GoDaddy and other hosting companies that have decided to get into the cloud. On Monday, it launched its Zunicore service, which combines elements of an Infrastructure-as-a-Service with those of a platform. Read more »
With the public beta of Cloudability’s cloud cost-tracking service, new APIs are available to help customers access their billing and usage information from popular cloud providers including Salesforce.com, Azure, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace. Oh, and if you refer a paying customer, there’s free beer! Read more »
Managed-hosting provider turned cloud provider Internap now has an OpenStack-based cloud ready for public consumption, beating even OpenStack founder Rackspace to the punch. It’s a big day for OpenStack, the open-source cloud computing platform, but it’s likely only the first of many. Read more »
The Open Compute Foundation, with directors including Andy Bechtolsheim, aims to bring more vendors to the Open Compute mix, make sure contributed IP is well tended, and foster the idea that open-source development — so important in software — can benefit the stodgy world of data center servers. Read more »
“Other,” the revenue category in Amazon’s reports that encompasses Amazon Web Services, is growing like mad — 70 percent over last year, in fact. This matters because it likely means AWS is outpacing its projected growth and is rapidly approaching a $1 billion run rate. Read more »
There’s a long-running debate in the cloud computing world about whether standard IaaS resources have become true commodities, but it doesn’t look like they’re there yet. Even as prices drop closer to zero across the cloud-provider landscape, there are still plenty of points of differentiation. Read more »
Last quarter we highlighted the fast maturation of the Platform-as-a-Service and big data spaces. Those two trends only picked up speed during the third quarter of 2011. Joining them on the cusp of IT greatness, though, are the OpenStack project and flash storage. The former gathered serious validation from big-name companies, while the latter saw less funding than last quarter but a significant number of product launches. Of course, the third quarter wasn’t all lollipops and rose petals. We saw new computing technologies and delivery models such as tablets wreak havoc on both HP and Cisco, and there are concerns (aren’t there always?) about how the Internet will handle our increased use of streaming video and cloud computing. Unfortunately for HP and Cisco, the latter problem might be an easier fix than the strategic woes facing them. Additional companies mentioned in this report include CloudBees, Rackspace, Engine Yard and Joyent. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the OpenStack project moves into its second year and more companies evaluate the open-source cloud technology, prospective users have some requests. Documentation, for one. A longer-term roadmap, for another. A more formal process for submitting and receiving feedback, for yet another. Read more »
The OpenStack community is pleased that RackSpace will relinquish control of the open-source cloud infrastructure effort, but many OpenStack Conference attendees want to see the details before they fully endorse the effort. The foundation is expected to be operational next year. Read more »
Rackspace will be giving up control over its OpenStack cloud computing project to an indepedent foundation. OpenStack is the open-source cloud computing platform that Rackspace and co-founder NASA began pushing last year, but it has been somewhat plagued by concerns over Rackspace’s control of the community. Read more »
Developers at the Surge conference in Baltimore have a love-hate relationship with America’s largest online retailer and cloud provider. But repeated tales of Amazon’s failures were immediately followed by assurances that the service was cheaper and better than buying your own hardware. Read more »
In its new Diablo release, the OpenStack cloud OS gets perks including a dashboard to give IT a peak into what’s happening in the cloud, better authentication that ties into existing directories, and an API to ease integration into big, dynamic networks. Read more »
RightScale, which lets companies peer into the innards of their cloud computing workloads, just surpassed the three-millionth server mark. Its cloud agnosticism could help it maintain share even as Amazon, RackSpace et al. add their own management capabilities, says CEO Richard Crandell. Read more »
This is a moving weekend for me so I am going to keep the list of recommendations to read this weekend very short. So without much ado, here are some posts that are worth reading this weekend. Read more »
At the end of last month Verizon acquired CloudSwitch, adding value to Verizon’s January acquisition of cloud data center provider Terremark. Around the world, big telecommunications providers such as AT&T, BT, Telstra and Verizon have been hard at work, diversifying and seeking new business opportunities as ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
On Wednesday HP released its first two public cloud computing services for private beta, based in part on the open-source OpenStack code. The services, some details of which were leaked in the spring, are HP Cloud Compute and HP Cloud Object Storage. Read more »
OpenStack has attracted tremendous developer and partner support since launching a year ago. But according to Netflix’s chief cloud architect, Adrian Cockcroft, the open-source cloud project has its work cut out for it if it hopes to attract major clients like Netflix. Read more »
Embrane, which builds tools that will enable cloud providers to scale out networking services faster and with less complexity, has raised $18 million in second round funding. The networking sector is heating up as virtualization complicates communication between servers and data centers. Read more »
Cloud-computing insurance has long been posed as a solution to the problem of cloud users assuming too much risk of failure in the wake of things such as lengthy outages, data breaches and Lulzsec attacks. But it seems the idea of off-loading some of that risk ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Former NASA CTO Chris Kemp left his post in the spring to pursue a startup venture, and on Wednesday morning he introduced his new company, Nebula. It’s selling an OpenStack-based appliance for managing scale-out cloud deployments, and is backed by premier talent and investors. Read more »
On Tuesday Dell announced a reference architecture, open-source software and services offering designed to make deploying an OpenStack-based cloud as easy as following directions. Called the Dell OpenStack Cloud solution, the collection of tools shows that OpenStack will be a driving force in the private-cloud space. Read more »
Open-source cloud computing project OpenStack turned one this week, and cloud backup provider Backblaze freely shared detailed specifications for a storage device capable of holding 135 terabytes of data. Open-source options for everything from servers and data centers to clouds and application platforms are growing more robust. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon Web Services announced on Tuesday afternoon that its Simple Storage Service (S3) now houses more than 449 billion objects. The rapid pace of S3′s growth is a microcosm of both AWS’ overall business as well as cloud computing in general. Read more »
Big data and Platform-as-a-Service offerings highlighted the second quarter, suggesting that we can expect to see a shift in enterprise IT practices around application development and analytics very soon. On the PaaS front, we saw new projects like DotCloud and Cloud Foundry gain incredible momentum in just a few short months. The big-data activity ranged from major new Hadoop vendors to heavy investment in flash storage that will speed the serving of data to processing engines. In other areas, we saw an uptick in cloud-computing plans from large vendors, OpenStack continued to mature and pick up both contributors and users, and Facebook caught our eye by launching an open-source project around the designs for its specialized servers and data centers. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Salesforce.com, IBM, Heroku and Calxeda. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
OpenStack, the open-source cloud-computing software project founded by Rackspace and NASA, launched a year ago today. It has been a busy year for the project, which appears to have grown much faster than even its founders expected it would, and it’s only picking up steam. Read more »
Piston Cloud Computing has launched with $4.5 million from True Ventures, Hummer Winblad and others in what is both a big deal for the relatively young OpenStack platform as well as an expected move by the founders of what became the code for OpenStack. Read more »
After launching an open server and data center design in April, Facebook is prepping for version 2.0 of its hardware, and huge server buyers are playing along. From Rackspace to major financial services companies, big hardware buyers are getting into Open Compute. Read more »
Cloud services have a rosy future, but a long build-out industry cycle is expected as businesses are slow to adopt and accept virtual datacenters. Instead of determining to use a public or a private cloud, enterprises should consider a hybrid, best-of-both-worlds approach. Read more »
Cloud computing has grown from a pie-in-the-sky vision to a major IT movement over the past few years. As its promise has grown, though, so too has its scope. This report covers six key sectors in cloud computing: commodity Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), enterprise IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud storage and private clouds. We highlight the current state of each and provide informed insights into where they — and cloud computing in general — are headed. Much like any market in a still-evolving state, the infrastructure of the cloud-computing transition is still being built by startups, practitioners and even a big-name company or two. Companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Amazon, Nasuni, Terremark and Heroku. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
After years of hype, the IT industry finally had a rude awakening this spring that reminded us that cloud computing infrastructures are vulnerable to the same genetic IT flaw that plagues traditional data center operations: Everything fails sooner or later. Here’s how to build around that. Read more »
Citrix today announced the first commercial distribution of the open source OpenStack cloud-computing software, which Citrix ix calling Project Olympus. It’s a bold move to announce an OpenStack distribution so early into the project’s existence, but Citrix must to something to combat bitter rival VMware. Read more »
Rackspace has added virtual desktops to its collection of cloud services, a move that could prove very lucrative as the worlds of cloud computing and next-generation mobile devices converge. The new offering, called Hosted Virtual Desktop, pairs Citrix’s XenApp and XenDesktop products with Rackspace infrastructure. Read more »
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 »
The cloud is a wonderful thing, allowing us to backup files to remote servers for just pennies a month. But what happens when something goes awry and your backups start sucking up huge amounts of bandwidth? It’s not pretty, especially when you have a usage cap. Read more »
An HP executive “accidentally” spilled the beans of HP’s upcoming cloud computing plans on his LinkedIn page yesterday, but the mere presence of the plans isn’t as important as is the fact that they look pretty solid. Read more »
Managed service provider Internap has announced that it will be offering a public infrastructure-as-a-service cloud built atop the OpenStack platform. The service will be available in the third quarter of this year, and also features the option of running applications on VMware-based virtual infrastructure. Read more »
Rackspace has informed Slicehost customers that it will be shutting down the popular cloud-hosting service. Rackspace bought Slicehost in 2008 to serve as the foundation of its Rackspace Cloud business, but Rackspace now betting its cloud computing future on the OpenStack platform. Read more »
Updated: Today, Amazon’s Web Services have hit some bumps in the road, taking down a variety of popular sites such as Foursquare, Quora and Paper.li. Since clouds do fail perhaps the best thing to do is provide information and maybe a dollop of humor. Read more »
Two markets stand out above all else when looking at the first quarter of 2011: infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — the epitome of cloud computing — and big data. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the IaaS space in terms of customers and innovation, while Rackspace, buoyed by momentum around OpenStack, will be its primary competitor for mainstream customers. In the big data space, there are so many players and terms floating about it’s difficult for outsiders to get a handle on who’s who and what’s what, though such activity validates the technologies. Other developments this quarter included HP’s impending presence in the cloud computing and big data spaces and the realization that Intel won’t be left to die if low-power servers based on x86 processors catch on like the buzz late last year suggests they will. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Microsoft, Cloudera, SeaMicro and Facebook. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The latest OpenStack code release, dubbed Cactus, is now available and generally capable of running within enterprise data centers, but underlying the project’s progress are concerns over its true commitment to the open source ethos. Read more »
