Infrastructure's archive
Bringing Moore’s Law to the Data Storage Market
Are spinning disks on their way out?
As Mike Speiser discussed recently, flash solid-state drives (SSD) will enable a once-in-a-decade improvement in storage price-performance. Crucially, flash SSDs enable storage to keep up with the rapid advances in CPU speeds driven by Moore’s Law. This may enable customers to dramatically scale back purchases of expensive Fibre Channel […]
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Cisco Shows Off Its Hit List
Cisco today outlined its plans for delivering IT services over the web (aka cloud services), and as part of a conference call, showed off a great slide that illustrates exactly how many companies this former networking gear maker wants to take on. If I were to boil it all down, I’d say the company’s cloud […]
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Structure 09: Marc Benioff on the Key to Salesforce’s Success and the Move to Real-Time
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff sat down with Om during this afternoon’s keynote to talk about his company’s success and how cloud computing technology is socially impacting the world. To start, Benioff joked about how Oracle CEO Larry Ellison shifted his perspective on cloud computing. Ellison “said something very zen” during Oracle’s earnings call earlier […]
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Structure 09: Facebook’s Jonathan Heiliger Talks Infrastructure and Usernames
Om sat down this afternoon with Facebook Technical Operations VP Jonathan Heiliger to talk about the social network’s infrastructure and started out by asking how the company managed to withstand the heavy user traffic during its username product launch.
Heiliger said that Facebook had originally planned for people to claim their usernames in an auction-style […]
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Should We Move to Specialty Clouds or Stick With One-Size-Fits-All?
Is there a need for business specialty-focused clouds or should we stick with the current one-size-fits-all cloud model? GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham posited this question to a panel today, who unanimously supported the move towards specialized clouds, but agreed that some uniformity is needed among future models.
Microsoft’s Yousef Khalidi argued that if we specialize […]
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Peaking Through the Clouds
Cloud infrastructure services are particularly good at supporting variable demand and peaks with unpredictable timing or amplitude. Peaks are a challenge for CIOs, because forecasting too low may lead to poor performance or service unavailability, and guessing too high means paying for unneeded capacity. Peaking through clouds, instead of handling peaks with your own resources, […]
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Oracle’s Ellison Rethinks Clouds as Economy Tumbles
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is rethinking his earlier disdain for software as a service and all things cloud, according to a report today in The Wall Street Journal. Maybe a dismal economy and a drop in Oracle sales are forcing him to change his position. The Journal quotes comments made on Oracle’s earnings call yesterday, […]
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Private Clouds: IT Operations Finally Meet Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law has enabled new applications by powering computing on an exponential price/performance curve. But increasingly, the proliferation of a new generation of large-scale applications is being constrained by another price/performance curve that hasn’t shown much improvement: IT operations and the cost of delivery. To create ever more sophisticated applications that can be delivered […]
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Platform Brings Big-Business Grid Rep to the Cloud
Enterprise-grade private cloud computing could take a big step forward with the introduction of Platform Computing’s new cloud management software, Platform ISF. The casual IT follower might never have heard of Platform, but for the better part of 20 years, the company has been proving the worth of its grid and cluster management solutions inside […]
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Defogging the Cloud in IT
Another word for a low-hanging cloud is fog. I think that pretty accurately describes where the IT industry is when it comes to the cloud. Everyone has a different definition. Some further confuse the situation by using cloud as a new label on old technologies.
Let me offer a little clarity. Most of what today is […]
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Avoiding Latency in the Cloud
The cloud promises to change the way businesses, governments and consumers access, use and move data. For many organizations, a big selling point in cloud infrastructure services is migrating massive data sets to relieve internal storage requirements, leverage vast computing power, reduce or contain their data center footprint, and free up IT resources for strategic […]
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How Clouds Can Complement Consolidation
As businesses try to grow and remain viable, they need to know that money isn’t everything. CIOs need to take advantage of cloud services to balance flexibility, availability, cost, experience, timeliness and security.
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IBM Tries to Sell Enterprises on Workload-Specific Clouds
IBM’s first true cloud computing products, announced today, consists of workload-specific clouds that can be run by an enterprise on special-purpose IBM gear, Big Blue building that same cloud on its special-purpose gear running inside a firewall, or running the workload on IBM’s hosted cloud. The offering seems like a crippled compromise between the scalability […]
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Google: The Data Center Is the Computer
As folks increasingly store and access information online, the data centers powering cloud services need to be managed more like a single computing entity rather than a bunch of servers, according to a Google white paper (Google calls it a mini-book) released today.
The paper lays out the concept of warehouse-scale computers (which we have previously […]
Like Google, Salesforce Is Pushing Its Platform for the Enterprise
Salesforce.com is trying to entice developers working inside the enterprise to its platform-as-a-service product by offering them a free first taste of Force.com. The platform is built on Salesforce.com’s own infrastructure that it cobbled together to deliver its CRM software as a service. It looks like Salesforce.com’s goal with Force.com is to create an enterprise […]
What Intel Can Teach Google About the Cloud
Today’s telecoms, networking vendors, and cloud providers can learn a few things from the past by studying how Intel and AMD responded when their processors evolved so quickly that they couldn’t get data off of them fast enough. Cloud vendors facing a similar problem on a larger scale are discovering that WAN optimization, a form […]
The Secret to Dealing With Infrastructure Headaches
In our ideal webworld, developing and deploying consumer-facing web-based applications should be as easy as 1-2-3.
Step 1: Develop
Step 2: Deploy
Step 3: Scale
And as every single successful application on the web teaches us instead, the magical step 2 of deploying and scaling the application is the most treacherous part of it all. With clouds of all […]
5 Companies That Should Be on Dell’s Shopping List
Since Dell keeps telling folks it wants to buy some companies, we’ve written out a list that Michael Dell should consult as he expands his eponymous empire. Second-hand sources quoted in the Wall Street Journal today said that the company was seeking deals in data storage and tech services. The article also noted that Dell […]
HP Finally Boards the Mega Data Center Bandwagon
Hewlett Packard today announced a new line of servers, a data center mapping program and some consulting and financing services aimed at companies that build out mega data centers. Potential purchasers of the new HP machines include those building cloud computing offerings and enterprise customers trying to build their own clouds or high-performance computing clusters.
Problem […]
Battle for Data Domain Getting Hostile, Nasty
Joe Tucci, president and CEO of storage giant EMC, today issued an open letter wooing the employees of Data Domain, a company that has agreed to be purchased by EMC’s bitter rival NetApp.
On May 20, NetApp offered $25 per share to acquire Data Domain in a cash and stock deal. Ten days later on June […]
You Say You Want a Cloud Revolution
Take yourself back for a moment to 1990, to the era of dueling operating systems: OS/2 and Windows. At the time, many people still used MS-DOS, and Windows was new (and klunky). Microsoft had cooperated with IBM to create OS/2 to overcome the limitations of DOS by adding multitasking, protected mode, and enhanced video APIs. OS/2, […]
Xsigo Raises Money for Virtual I/O
Xsigo today said it’s raised an undisclosed amount of venture capital from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners to support sales of its I/O virtualization appliance. Several filings submitted to the California Department of Securities show that back in April, the San Jose, Calif.-based startup had raised […]
NetApp to EMC: That Deal Is Mine
Like Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson fighting over a girl, storage giant EMC and rival NetApp are vying to own Data Domain. Today NetApp upped its original bid for the de-duplication company to $30 per share, matching a counteroffer EMC made Monday. The revised NetApp bid increases the price it’s willing to pay from $25 […]
Cloudera, a Hadoop-focused Startup, Gets $6M In New Funding
Cloudera, a Burlingame, Calif.-based startup that is building commercial services around open-source software framework Hadoop, has closed $6 million in Series B funding, bringing the total raised by the company to $11 million. The latest round of funding was led by Greylock Partners. Current investor Accel Partners also participated in this round. Cloudera’s other investors […]
The Solid-State Future
Every so often a new technology emerges that changes everything. In the world of storage, the last major media shift was the move to hard disk drives (HDDs) from tape. While tape is still around today as a target for backups and archiving (it’s cheap, durable, and portable for offsite storage), disk owns the vast […]
Cloud Computing: A System of Control
I’ve come to think of cloud computing as a system of control. The reference to the line in “The Matrix” aside, there is a reason to discuss the role of systems and the notion of control in emerging IT infrastructure and services. That reason is to motivate the development of IT equipment capable of supporting […]
Let the Dell/Palm Rumors Begin
Dell is looking to make acquisitions, according to one of its executives, who made the comment a day after the computer maker reported dismal earnings for its latest fiscal quarter, IDG News said today. Steve Felice, president of Dell’s small and medium business unit, said during a conference call with reporters that the computer […]
Cloud Computing Poised for Post-Recession Boom
As 2009 kicked off, pundits were adamant that the dismal state of the economy would drive suddenly cost-conscious enterprise IT departments to the cloud. Anecdotal evidence from vendors pointed to more customer engagements, and general interest in cloud computing (which continues to increase) had never been greater. I questioned this conventional wisdom, wondering instead […]
N.C. Votes on Incentives for Apple’s $1B Data Center
Apple yesterday came a step closer to building a $1 billion data center in North Carolina. The state’s legislature on Tuesday approved a $46 million incentive package tailored to attract a data center project from an unknown company that several news outlets have identified as Apple. The state’s House will cast a final vote on the […]
WiMAX Gear Maker Alvarion Moving Into Smart Grid
WiMAX might be losing broadband mindshare in the U.S., but when it comes to adding digital intelligence to the power grid, it’s suddenly emerging as an early contender. WiMAX gear maker Alvarion, which is one of the top three manufacturers in the industry, along with Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola, told Earth2Tech that it has been […]
On the Web, Growth Costs Real Money
Twitter, the San Francisco-based micro-messaging startup, has been growing like a weed, thanks to generous plugs on mainstream media. Data collected by comScore shows that the number of unique visitors to Twitter.com grew from 1.6 million in April 2008 to 32.1 million in April 2009. All that growth is sucking up Twitter management’s attention, along […]
SOA Governance Determines Success in the Cloud
The high-profile success of services such as Salesforce.com and Amazon Web Services has led many businesses to undertake cloud computing initiatives. Moving to “the cloud,” however, entails a variety of security, management and compliance risks that corporate executives may be unwilling to assume without having the proper governance mechanisms in place.
When applications and data […]
With DataDomain, NetApp Gets Back in the Game
Bravo to NetApp for acquiring Data Domain. For too long, NetApp has been downright timid in the M&A department, all the while being run around in circles by rival EMC. But with this deal, the battle for storage leadership is heating up once again. Not only does it give NetApp access to a winning product line […]
Why It’s the Megabits, Not the MIPs, That Matter
Two items caught my eye today: SanDisk CEO Eli Harari explaining how we are counting down to the end of Moore’s Law in terms of electrons per cell, and news that Apple will increase the speed of its processor by 1.5 times to 600 MHz, making it easier for the iPhone to render web pages and enhance application usage. The two stories elicited a similar response from me: Why are we measuring Moore’s Law using a yardstick from the PC era? In today’s world, don’t megabits per second (Mbps) matter more than the MIPS?
Processing power and cramming more storage onto chips is something that was part of the PC boom. In today’s world, don’t megabits per second (Mbps) matter more than the MIPS?
NetApp to Buy Data Domain for $1.5B
Storage vendor NetApp said today it will buy Data Domain, a de-duplication firm, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $25 a share, or $1.5 billion net of Data Domain’s cash. The deal will give NetApp more tools to offer customers in their attempts to stay ahead of the ever increasing amount of data created and […]
Microsoft and HP Team Up to Take on Cisco
Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard said today they’ve teamed up to push Microsoft’s unified communication software and HP gear to enterprise users. The two companies are jointly spending $180 million over the next four years on what they call their Frontline Partnership to develop and market ways to use Microsoft’s communications software in HP’s machines. The partnership can […]
Is Memcached a Good or Bad Sign for MySQL?
Several weeks ago, we saw a burst of news around memcached, an increasingly popular open-source caching software framework gaining attention from web companies and investors. Gear6 announced details of a new memcached-based product, and Schooner Information Technologies launched a set of memory-dense appliances, one targeted to MySQL, one to memcached. These announcements coincided with the […]
Dell Builds a VIA-Powered Server to Cut Power Costs
Next week Dell plans to announce a server based on the Nano chip from VIA Technologies, the Taiwanese x86 vendor known for its low-power chips for netbooks and other portable computers, according to the New York Times. Putting VIA chips in servers reduces both the cost and power consumption of servers — something important for […]
80legs Cares About Your Bandwidth Cap
Bandwidth caps are forcing at least one startup to adjust its business. Last month when I was in Houston, I met Shion Deysarkar, chief marketing officer of Plura Processing, a company that harnesses the CPU cycles and bandwidth of participating gamers (it pays them up to $2.60 a month for use of 100 percent of […]
Google Slow, Twitterati Hysterical
UPDATED: Google appears to be having problems across its Gmail, search and even its Blogger platforms, judging by complaints on various social networks. A Google spokesman said, “We’re aware some users are having trouble accessing some Google services. We’re looking into it, and we’ll update everyone soon.” Update: “The issue affecting some Google services has […]
Forget the Mile-High Club — Who’s in the 50,000 Servers Club?
Rich Miller over at Data Center Knowledge just blew my mind with his list of the number of servers various companies run. Spurred by the news that Rackspace has 50,000 of them, he pored over public filings and at least one analyst report to come up with both actual and guesstimated figures, including 48,000 (that’s […]
The Forgotten Piece of the Smart Grid: Energy Storage
The power grid will be receiving a lot of investment and technology upgrades over the coming months, but a next-generation smart grid without energy storage is like a computer without a hard drive: severely limited. In the same way that computers and the infrastructure of the Internet have been built up around storage […]
Cisco Helps Carriers Build a Cloud
Cisco today announced its Unified Service Delivery (USD) strategy, which connects the data center with IP Next-Generations Networks (NGNs) to help service providers meet the increasing demand for high-bandwidth and time-dependent services ranging from consumer video to enterprise applications. Essentially a unification of existing components with a couple new products thrown into the mix, the […]
Cisco’s Chambers Sees the End of Business Machines
When it comes to the way people interact with technology, the lines between business and personal have been erased, according to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers. Speaking on his third-quarter earnings conference call yesterday, Chambers said:
I carry the same two devices in my business life and my personal life. A PDA and my Flip. […]
Cisco: Revenue Is Down, But Cash Stash Is Up
Cisco today reported sales of $8.2 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2009, down 17 percent from the same period a year ago. Net income fell to $1.3 billion, down 24 percent from $1.8 billion a year ago. But the company also managed to boost its cash war chest by $2 billion to $33.5 […]
Demand for Bandwidth Leads to Fiber Boom
Carriers are building out long-haul network capacity like it was 2001, but they’re not going to break the bank this time around, according to a report out today from TeleGeography Research. The firm’s Global Bandwidth Research Service says the growth in submarine cable and long-haul transport capacity is in response to a 64 percent surge […]
SpringSource Buys Hyperic for Enterprise Push
SpringSource, an open-source development platform provider, said today it’s purchased Hyperic, a move that will allow it to offer its corporate customers the ability to build, run and manage their applications together. The companies share the same investors — Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital — but Javier Soltero, CEO of Hyperic, says the deal, the […]
What Startups in Amazon’s Ecosystem Should Learn From VMware
Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is orders of magnitude bigger than its next largest Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) competitor. At first glance, this would seem to imply that Amazon’s massive scale should give AWS a significant cost advantage over fledgling IaaS cloud offerings. But the advantage Amazon gains from its scale is not necessarily […]
Inside Facebook’s Photo Factory
Ever since I got BlackBerry 8900 with a 3.2 Megapixel camera, I’ve been busy taking photos -– randomly at times -– and uploading them to my Facebook account to share with 2,000 or so of my closest friends. Apparently I’m just one of millions of people who upload nearly 220 million images to Facebook every […]
Eucalyptus Goes Commercial with $5.5M Funding Round
It’s beginning to look like you just can’t keep a good cloud down. The makers of the open-source cloud computing platform Eucalyptus today said they have raised $5.5 million in Series A funding, and they announced the launch of Eucalyptus Systems Inc. The new company will keep its basic cloud-building software entirely open source, but […]
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