Zenny's Cloud Links #45 - Nicira, CloudScaling, Orchestration, Storage

Every Friday we like to highlight some of our favorite posts on IT Operations, Cloud Computing, DevOps, Big Data and anything else that grabbed our attention over the week. Here are some great articles from the week of February 6th that are worth taking a look at. Enjoy and have a fantastic weekend!

The Ups and Downs of the "America-Proof" Cloud: CloudSigma by Scott M. Fulton, III

If it's a feature your customers are asking for, it's difficult not to want to provide it. Although one of the benefits of public cloud computing is the ability to provision computing and storage resources from anywhere in the world on-demand, enterprises in Europe are wary that if their cloud-based assets are migrated to servers residing in the U.S., then they could (even if they never have yet) be subject to inspection by U.S. law enforcement authorities, even though the assets themselves are not American.

Five ways data storage is too sexy for your business in 2012 by Steve Wojtowecz

Business owners, chief information officers, and even chief executives are looking at storage with new eyes. They see that storage is a critical component of managing data, “internet-of-things,” Big Data, cloud services, and analytics.  Smarter storage is necessary for businesses to stay ahead as data continues to explode. For example, research firm IDC estimates that online content will total 2.7 zettabytes in 2012, up 48 percent from 2011.

Why Are Accenture Executives All Leaving For Big Data & Cloud Startups? by John Furrier

Last week, Revolution Analytics hired Dave Rich as its CEO.  Dave has something in common with CEOs from Basho, Opscode and Zenoss. All come from Accenture where they worked as senior executives...

Cloudscaling wants to make OpenStack webscale by Derrick Harris

Cloud computing consultancy Cloudscaling is realigning its business around the open-source OpenStack framework, and it has a message for the world: If you want to use open-source software but operate like Amazon Web Services, we’re your man. The company, which has helped build public clouds for the likes of Korea Telecom and Internap, is putting its consulting muscle behind a new OpenStack-based software platform that is built with webscale in mind.

02062012, The Day Nicira Changed Cloud Forever by Floyd Strimling

You may not have paid attention to it, or you may have ignored it, or you may be working for a competitor, or you may think Cloud computing is a joke, or you may think networking is irrelevant…

A New Net by Tom Simonite

A startup called Nicira is reinventing computer networking with an audacious goal: to make all kinds of Internet services smarter, faster, and cheaper.

Workload Automation, Job Scheduling, Applications and the Move to Cloud by Wayne Greene

In an earlier part of my career I learned the extreme importance of Workload Automation, aka Job Scheduling...Walk into the operations center of any data driven company and you will see multiple screens where operations are monitoring the state of these jobs.  Why are they so critical?  Over 50% of all transactions that occur on this planet are batch in nature.  They are scheduled based upon specific times or based upon dependencies being met.  These workloads can be a complex  and interrelated set of activities.  Effectively these job streams are the business processes that drive modern enterprises.

Google, Cisco top the list of the greenest IT companies by Katie Fehrenbacher

How do the heavy weights of the Internet and telecom stack up in terms of how green their technology, energy consumption and political advocacy are? On Tuesday night Greenpeace released its latest Cool IT leaderboard report, which ranks the world’s largest IT giants, and shows who’s making progress and who’s falling behind.

Investing in Disruptive Technology to Compete for the Future by Brian Solis

The truth is that innovation works for and against us and investing in it with purpose and design is our responsibility. Whether you’re an entrepreneur leading the latest or the next hot startup, a business executive seeking solutions or a competitive edge, a decision maker or a champion for change in any industry, this is the time to see through the chaos of features, trends, IPOs, investments, ballooning valuations, et al. to clear a path for meaningful progress.

Leading Cloud Computing Enterprises by Irmee Layo

Hardware companies are on a downhill slope while server enterprises are on a steady uphill trek and startups continue to thrive in the IT industry. The question is, who among these cloud companies are on its way to the top. Obviously, and based on the current enterprise trend those with the best scalable platform and easily integrated framework gets the best leverage.

Cloud Orchestration is the term to describe the new process by howtobuildacloud.com

Cloud Orchestration starts to play its tune! I had previously predicted that cloud enablement was going to be the new buzz word in the cloud computing world, even the best of us can get it wrong sometimes.

The Cloud IT Service Management Transition: From Painful to Pervasive by Dave Saunders

The stampede to deploy cloud-based services by organizations threatens to overload IT and create far more problems than benefits, if not managed efficiently and efficiently. CIOs and IT service planners would do well ensuring that any moves to the cloud are preceded by a plan that involves what’s really going to be provided, along with the strategy for how to roll it out and support it.

Cloudscaling to Offer OpenStack Private Cloud Platform by Nancy Gohring

Cloudscaling plans to introduce on Monday an OpenStack-based platform that enterprises can use to build private clouds. This will be the first product offering from Cloudscaling, which built its business as a services company that helped others design and build their cloud infrastructures.

And a few more noteworthy posts...

• Putting the Cloud to Work by Inc.
• All Your Bandwidth Are Belong To Us: Half Of World’s Bandwidth Consumed By Only 1% of Users by David Hill
• Mapping the Tools in the Mobile Development Ecosystem [Infographic] by Dan Rowinski