Category Archives: Cloud Servers
Data Center Servers Suck — But Nobody Knows How Much
If the computer industrys dirty little secret is that data centers are woefully inefficient, the secret behind the secret is that nobody knows how bad things really are.
On its surface, the issue is simple. Inside the massive data centers that drive todays businesses, technical staffers have a tendency to just throw extra servers at a computing problem. They hope that by piling on the processors, they can keep things from grinding to a halt and not get fired. But they dont think much about how efficient those servers are.
The industry talks a lot about the power efficiency of data centers as a whole i.e. how much of the data centers total power is used for computing but it doesnt look as closely at the efficiency of the servers inside these computing facilities how much of the time theyre actually doing work. And it turns out that getting a fix on this is pretty hard.
The folks who run the most efficient data centers in the world the Amazons and Googles and Microsofts view this information as a competitive secret, so they wont share it. And in the less-efficient enterprise data centers, staffers may not welcome any type of rigorous measurement of their server efficiency. Think about it who would want their boss to know how poorly utilized that incredibly expensive asset was? said David Cappuccio, a Gartner analyst speaking in an email interview.
But that keeps the industry from getting a proper fix on things, says Amy Spellmann, a global practice principal with the Uptime Institute. I think there are good reasons for getting the benchmarks and the analysis out there, she says. We should be tracking these things and how we are doing as an industry.
When The New York Times ran its recent investigative expose on data center waste, they had to peg the story on a 4-year-old data center report by McKinsey & Co. and a whole lot of anecdotal evidence.
That seems to be the current state of research on data center utilization rates: one report based on data from 20,000 servers that was compiled in 2008. Back then, Amazons EC2 cloud service was in beta; nowadays, EC2 and its sister Amazon Web Services run as much as one percent of the internet. The industry has changed, but the research has not.
McKinsey spokesman Charles Barthold says that the only systematic study McKinsey has ever done was this 2008 analysis. Back in 2008, it pegged server utilization at 6 percent meaning servers in the data center only get used 6 percent of the time. The firm guesses that the rate is now between 6 to 12 percent, based on anecdotal information from customers, Barthold says. McKinsey declined to talk in depth about the report.
And thats too bad. Its not ever clear whether this is the best way to measure the efficiency of our data centers.
Over at Mozilla, Datacenter Operations Manager Derek Moore says he probably averages around 6 to 10 percent CPU utilization from his server processors, but he doesnt see that as a problem because he cares about memory and networking. The majority of our applications are RAM or storage constrained, not CPU. It doesnt really bother us if the CPU is idle, as long as the RAM, storage, or network IO [input-output] is being well-utilized, he says. CPU isnt the only resource when it comes to determining the effectiveness of a server.
EU Eyes Cloud Computing to Kick Start Economy
With a four-year debt crisis and recession affecting many of its member countries, the European Union (EU) is turning to cloud computing to create 2.5 million new jobs and boost the region's economy.
Cloud computing is where files are stored in massive data centers rather than on office servers and computer programs and functions run via the internet. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison describes it being like an electricity network.
"Consumers don't have to get bogged down with the complexity of computing and they don't have to make a huge capital investment, they just plug in and run their applications," the founder of the world's largest database software company told CNBC Tuesday.
It may not be a new concept but it certainly caught the eye of the European Commission which says the industry could increase the region's gross domestic product (GDP) by 583 billion euros between 2015 and 2020 and create millions of new jobs.
EMC is one of the world's largest data providers and Howard Elias, president and COO of the company's cloud computing branch told CNBC, new strategy and regulations can only be positive for the industry.
"Anything that governments and the EU can do to clarify and simplify is always a good thing," he told CNBC "Any time you have a framework, that can only foster more investment."
The EU wants to focus on four key aims to help cloud computing realize its full potential. They want users to be able to easily move providers, a certification for trustworthy companies, contracts that would simplify regulations and clear communication between providers and the public sector, so work doesn't drift overseas to the U.S.
But Katherine Thompson, analyst at Edison Investment Research is not entirely convinced.
"I'm not sure I strictly agree that it will give such a boost to the economy, as the move to the cloud is often a shift from one form of expenditure to another, as opposed to incremental spend, and in many cases will be deflationary," she told CNBC.
"The EU's thinking behind this is that it would help create new types of companies and new business models start...I do agree with this myself, but this is already happening without EU involvement."
Larry Ellison Rewrites History, Claims Invention of the Cloud
This may feel like a Dj vu. Oracle's founder and CEO Larry Ellison joins the league of Al Gore and says that he invented the cloud.
In a conversation with financial analysts, Larry Ellison reportedly claimed that he unintentionally invented the idea of "cloud" computing. We certainly know that the most genius inventions often come unexpectedly. It was similar case with Ellison's cloud: The self-pronounced cloud visionary said that he founded the first cloud computing company in 1998: It was called NetSuite and was, according to Ellison's recollection, the first cloud computing company. All that NetSuite lacked was the cloud moniker in its sales pitch.
That is, for example in stark contrast to companies such as Rackspace, which calls itself the "Open Cloud Company".
Ellison's modesty is only trumped by Al Gore claiming stakes in "creating" the Internet. While the former U.S. vice president never claimed that he invented the Internet, he made a clumsy and bold statement that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" during an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in 1999.
Admittedly, Ellison was one of the pioneers of commercial cloud computing and pitched, for example the idea of its $200 NC (network PC), a thin client computer, back in 1996 at Comdex Spring in Atlanta. Essentially, the NC was designed to work in a cloud computing environment. But it that early enough to claim the "invention" of cloud computing? Nope.
Famed computer scientist Jon McCarthy said in 1961 that computers may one day operate in a network similar to a public utility. Of course, he did not know the buzzword we would come up with to describe this technology (HP and IBM, by the way, used the term "enterprise utility computing" in an effort to sell what we call cloud computing today in 2006 to 2008).
Ellison's claim of founding the first cloud computing company in 1998 is also false. NetCentric attempted to trademark "cloud computing" in 1997. It has taken some time for the idea to propagate and we remember Google's Eric Schmidt to be the first who described "cloud computing" as we understand it in a mass market model today.
The executive was quoted saying at the 2006 Search Engine Strategies:
"What's interesting [now] is that there is an emergent new model, and you all are here because you are part of that new model. I don't think people have really understood how big this opportunity really is. It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing they should be in a "cloud" somewhere. And that if you have the right kind of browser or the right kind of access, it doesn't matter whether you have a PC or a Mac or a mobile phone or a BlackBerry or what have you or new devices still to be developed you can get access to the cloud. There are a number of companies that have benefited from that. Obviously, Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon come to mind. The computation and the data and so forth are in the servers."
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Larry Ellison Rewrites History, Claims Invention of the Cloud
Resin 4 Pro Clustering and “Deploy Once” Runs in the Amazon EC2 Cloud – Resin Java EE Server Just Works in Amazon EC2
Caucho, in its pursuit of craftsmanship, created a Java EE clustering solution that just works in the Amazon EC2 cloud from end to end.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) October 05, 2012
Caucho, in its pursuit of craftsmanship, wanted a Java EE clustering solution that just works in the cloud from end to end. As part of this effort, Resin clustering was modified to easily work in the confines of EC2. The true battle was getting the operational predictability of Resin clustering in an Amazon EC2 environment. Resin clustering relies on configured ahead of time topology for its triad hub to work in a dynamic cloud environment like EC2. A solution was found that combines the operation predictability of Resin with the advanced virtualization of Amazon EC2.
Cauchos engineers use Amazon EC2 Dynamic IP to securely exchange clustering topology. This allows for the combination of Amazons dynamic IAAS environment with the operational predictable, Java EE clustering of Resin Pro. Dynamic spokes and solid, fault tolerant triad hub are key to Resin Pros operational predictability, and cloud elasticity.
Cauchos clustering support also offers remote deployment of configuration as well as Java EE applications. This allows deployment to the entire cluster running in Amazon EC2 with one simple command.
With Amazon EC2 you can spin up more instances running Resin application server (link goes to demo video). The new dynamic Resin nodes get the same running applications that were deployed to the cluster automatically. This is the concept of deploy once. Cloud deployment is not a complicated after thought, but baked right into Resin Pro clustering, and works in Amazon EC2 as well as other virtualization 2.0 environments.
Scott Ferguson, Chief Architect of Caucho Technology said the following: Our philosophy has always been it should all 'just work'. With Resin you get a complete web solution. Resin pieces are designed to work together, and designed to support production deployments. To support cloud, you need clustering that works with Java EE and you need deploy once deployment that works with the cloud. Using Resin means you value craftsmanship. Discerning, informed organizations realize an application server needs to support production cloud deployments.
Resin runs over 4.7 million global sites, bested NginX and Apache httpd in performance, and was named a cool vendor and a visionary by a leading industry analyst in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Resins web server, included as part of a Java EE certified package, features: Static file handling, Reverse proxy, HTTP proxy cache, SSL with OpenSSL, Load balancing, URL rewrite, CGI and FastCGI. Resin 4 was the first Java EE Web Profile certified Java application server. Resin 4 was built from the ground up around Java Dependency Injection (CDI). Resin is over 13 years old, yet it has kept up with the times. Resin 4 has been optimized to work in cloud computing environments like Amazon EC2.
The addition of our Resin admin tools, Java application monitoring, and our EC2 cloud/clustering support really helps organizations to migrate to the cloud. It makes managing and deploying to dozens of application servers almost as easy as managing just one. Ferguson added.
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Resin 4 Pro Clustering and “Deploy Once” Runs in the Amazon EC2 Cloud - Resin Java EE Server Just Works in Amazon EC2
IT TechPros Officially Launched Complete Hosted Exchange & Cloud Services with 99.999% Uptime.
ESCONDIDO, Calif., Oct. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- IT TechPros, Inc., a respected managed service provider in Southern California, has officially launched a complete cloud based offering that includes: Hosted Exchange, Hosted SharePoint, Message Mirroring, and E-mail Compliance services starting at only $8.55 per user per month!
IT TechPros cloud based services include a higher level of engagement including our Super-premium infrastructure. Our data centers feature Dell, EMC, and Cisco hardware and multiple connections to Tier-1 Internet Providers assuring high availability and the fastest round trip for your email.
"While most cloud service providers offer a 99.9% uptime, we offer a 99.999% uptime service level agreement," says President & CEO of IT TechPros, Kathy David. "99.999% uptime translates to less than six minutes of downtime per year compared to 99.9% uptime, which translates to over 9 hours of downtime per year. We couldn't offer anything less to our clients for hosted services..."
IT TechPros' multi-million dollar highly redundant industry leading architecture is replicated real time from one set of premium hardware to another. This protects the critical information your business keeps within Exchange, even in the event of hardware failure or database corruption.
IT TechPros data centers are continually updated, have the best-in-class servers, storage and network hardware. Built for availability and throughput, this flagship technology virtually eliminates disconnects due to server availability or network issues.
"While hosted cloud services have been available for the last few years, we were very reluctant and careful to pick the right infrastructure and solutions provider to choose for our very own hosted cloud solutions. After careful research and scrutiny, we finally launched our very own cloud service offering to offer to our clients..." said Kathy David. This new service offering gives IT TechPros a nationwide reach and can help businesses migrate to the cloud from anywhere in the United States.
To find out more about IT TechPros' cloud services go to http://www.it-techpros.com.You can also call us at 888.484.7767 x 100.
About IT TechPros, Inc.
IT TechPros is a provider of I.T. managed services and solutions for commercial clients throughout Southern California. Since its founding on January 2006, IT TechPros has delivered complete I.T. consulting services around a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, educational, legal, commercial construction, financial institutions, along with a variety of other commercial industries. IT TechPros specializes in help desk support, network administration, outsourced I.T. services, hardware installations, lifecycle management, and I.T. consulting. Follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/ittechprosinc or visit us on the web at http://www.it-techpros.com.
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IT TechPros Officially Launched Complete Hosted Exchange & Cloud Services with 99.999% Uptime.
Oracle finally releases pricing for cloud software offerings
Oracle has finally answered a big question hovering over its emerging family of cloud services: What do they cost?
While not giving a public price for every one of its cloud products, Oracle's website now has pricing for its on-demand database and Java development service, as well as for some applications.
Pricing for the database service, which uses version 11g R2, starts at US$175 per month for one schema, 5GB of disk storage and 30GB of data transfer. A midtier option costs $900 per month with one schema, 20GB of storage and 120GB of data transfer.
For $2,000 per month, developers get 50GB of storage and 300GB of data transfer, but still only one schema.
The Java service is also priced in tiers, starting at $249 per month for a single WebLogic server and rising up to $1,499 for four servers, with storage and data transfer amounts also rising accordingly.
Still unknown is how much Oracle's upcoming IaaS (infrastructure as a service), which was announced Sunday, is going to cost. This is of particular interest since Oracle is positioning the IaaS as a competitor to Amazon Web Services, which is known for its low-cost IaaS.
Oracle plans to price its IaaS competitively but would rather land deals that incorporate its full cloud stack, rather than just sell commodity compute cycles in bulk, said Abhay Parasnis, senior vice president of Oracle Cloud, during a question-and-answer session with journalists.
There's no release date set for the IaaS, Parasnis said in a brief interview after the session.
The public pricing for the database and Java service come as Oracle is now ready to offer them broadly to customers after working extensively with some large companies to work out all the kinks, Parasnis said. "One of the key tenets for us is to match the enterprise-grade SLAs customers expect."
Meanwhile, for the cloud applications, human resources starts at $9.50 per employee per month and talent management begins at $1.50 per user per month.
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Oracle finally releases pricing for cloud software offerings
Citrix Advances Cloud Strategy with New Version of XenServer
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Citrix today announced the latest version of Citrix XenServer, an industry-leading virtualization platform for companies to create and manage virtual infrastructures for servers, desktops and clouds. XenServer 6.1 strengthens its server virtualization feature set for datacenter consolidation and simplifies the path to cloud computing with advanced virtual machine migration, enhanced networking and security, increased vendor compatibility and automated virtual machine conversion tools.
XenServer is a complete server virtualization platform built on the powerful open-source Xen hypervisor. Xen technology is widely acknowledged as the fastest and most secure virtualization software in the industry and is designed for efficient management of Windows and Linux virtual servers, delivering cost-effective server consolidation and business continuity. XenServer adds a rich set of management and automation capabilities, cloud management integrations and security enhancements to optimize the platform for the cloud-enabled datacenter of the future.
New features in the latest version of XenServer include:
XenServer is the virtualization platform for many of the worlds largest production virtual desktop and cloud computing environments and was recently positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the leaders quadrant of the 2012 Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure," and was listed as a Champion and Value Leader in Info-Tech Research Groups Vendor Landscape report on server virtualization. The free edition of XenServer has been downloaded nearly one million times. XenServer powers over 100,000 Citrix customers, four of the top five largest hosting provider public clouds and runs workloads in over half of the businesses in the Fortune 500.
Quotes
Peder Ulander, vice president of product marketing, Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix
Citrix has gained a significant foothold in the cloud computing space with XenServer and more recently Citrix CloudPlatform (powered by Apache CloudStack). XenServer is already the most widely deployed virtualization platform in large public clouds today. The tight integration between XenServer and CloudPlatform demonstrated in XenServer 6.1 will provide a new level of manageability and security that will provide a strategic advantage for our cloud customers.
Availability
XenServer 6.1 is available today for download and is delivered in four product versions - free, Advanced, Enterprise and Platinum. All versions of XenServer include XenCenter management and are available on a simple per server licensing structure with premium editions starting at $1000 per server.
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Citrix Advances Cloud Strategy with New Version of XenServer
IBM Boosts Security, Cloud and Analytics Capabilities With New Power Systems, Storage and Mainframe Technologies
ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 3,2012 /PRNewswire/ --
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled new technologies designed to help organizations with today's greatest challenges, including the need for improved security, the ability to take advantage of cloud computing, and the requirement to manage and analyze vast amounts of data. The new offerings include the most powerful enterprise Power Systems to date, a new high-end disk storage system and key software updates for IBM's newest mainframe computer.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20121003/NY85927 ) (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO )
The announcement is part of IBM's continued focus on Smarter Computing systems aimed at solving the varied and intensifying challenges organizations are facing, from security vulnerabilities to managing ballooning data volumes that are expanding through social and mobile technologies.
IBM customer Toyota Australia is one example of a company with complex data management needs. Running a sophisticated just-in-time manufacturing, logistics and parts operation at its Altona plant in Melbourne, Toyota Australia uses a series of IBM Power servers running SAP software on AIX to manage and analyze data about vehicle parts availability, shipping estimates, inventory levels and sales planning. The manufacturing process is entirely reliant on this infrastructure in order for production operations to run as efficiently as possible so that not only can its dealerships receive car deliveries on time to meet consumer demand but it can meet export market demand.
According to Toyota Australia CIO James Scott, "One of our company's top concerns is data management delays. This has the potential to negatively impact our production line, costing us tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity, and the profits of our 250 dealerships across the country. Having a fast, reliable technology infrastructure is critical to the success of our business and IBM gives us the tools we need to support the organization most effectively."
New Power Systems Tout POWER7+, Elastic Capacity on Demand and Fast Business Analytics As a result of more than $1.4 billion in R&D investment, IBM today is announcing its enterprise Power Systems with new hardware and software innovations designed to help customers gain business insights fast and securely.
IBM Power 770 and Power 780 servers now feature the new POWER7+ microprocessor, a technology that offers a performance boosts of 30 to 40 percent on application workloads compared with previous versions.(1) Among its many features, the POWER7+ offers an expanded 2.5x L3 cache memory, greater security with faster file encryption for the IBM AIX operating system, and memory compression that results in no increased energy usage over previous generation POWER7 chips.
At the top of the Power line, the Power 795 server has been enhanced to enable customers to run very demanding applications, such as business analytics, fast by utilizing up to 16 terabytes of memory with new 64GB Dual In Line Memory Modules (DIMM).
In addition, IBM has added several new capabilities to its family of Power Systems servers to help customers build virtualized private cloud or managed service cloud infrastructures, and respond dynamically to changes in application and workload requirements. Elastic Capacity on Demand for Power Systems Pools, for example, enables the sharing of resources across multiple servers, which can improve the availability and enhance the access to resources during planned and unplanned maintenance activities.
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IBM Boosts Security, Cloud and Analytics Capabilities With New Power Systems, Storage and Mainframe Technologies
HP unveils cloud capable servers for businesses
Published on 03 October 2012 Hits: 159 Written by ROSALIE C. PERIABRAS
Hewlett-Packard (HP) unveiled on Tuesday two new HP ProLiant Generation 8 (Gen8) four-socket servers that will facilitate customers move to cloud, while delivering increased computer power in less space and a return on investment within three months.
Theres a lot of innovation [new Gen8 servers], that is what matter most to our customers, said Veronica Escalante, category manager, Industry Standard Servers and Software of HP Philippines Corp.
According to HP, it is the industrys first four-socket servers to incorporate HP ProActive Insight Architecture, the HP ProLiant BL660c and DL560 Gen8 servers significantly reduce the time spent on maintenance tasks through high levels automation and continued monitoring of system health, saving Information Technology staff more than 30 days of administration time a year.
The company said that HP ProLiant BL660c and HP ProLiant DL560 Gen8 servers were designed to drive better performance for complex, virtualized environments so clients can access their data faster, optimize their system to achieve higher-performing workloads and add more virtual machines per server.
As building blocks for HP Converged Infrastructure, these multiprossesor servers satisfy the need for high-end computing power that enables clients to extend end-to-end virtualization, and provide a foundation for creating private and hybrid clouds.
With a three-to-one server-consolidation rate and reduced server footprint in the data center, the HP ProLian BL660c Gen8 server offers four-socket density in half the size of the previous generation, reducing total cost of ownership by up to 30 percent.
Furthermore, the HP DL560 Gen8 server provides a space-minimizing four-socket server in a 2U form factor without compromising performance, scalability or expansion requirements.
The company said that the advanced technologies of the HP ProLiant BL660c Gen8 portfolio, tested in real-world data centers and built with 150 client-inspired design innovations, eliminate common server problems that cause failures, downtime and data loss.
HPs premier in Europe, Middle East and Africa client event, HP Discover, take place on December 4 to 6 in Frankfurt Germany.
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HP unveils cloud capable servers for businesses
Ellison sets sights on an all-Oracle cloud
Summary: CEO Larry Ellison has unveiled an ambitious cloud strategy built around an all-Oracle IT stack, but has failed to give evidence at Oracle Open World of performance or cost advantages over rivals.
Oracle wants to build a cathedral of cloud services, while all around it its competitors are building slums.
The company's chief executive, Larry Ellison, outlined the database giant's cloud strategyon Sunday at Oracle OpenWorld. His vision was that Oracle customers will use both a public and private cloud entirely based around the company's software and hardware.
"We're adding a new line of business, cloud computing, to our traditional business of selling software and selling hardware... and we're going to sell it on the fastest computers in the world," Ellison said on Sunday. "It makes a lot of sense for Oracle to be in all three tiers of cloud services."
Those three tiers are software-as-a-service (SaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). In other words, Oracle wants to be the Salesforce, Heroku, and Google, Microsoft, Amazon and HP of the cloud.
"The infrastructure that we're offering isn't conventional infrastructure," Ellison said. "What we're offering is our OS, our VM, compute services and storage services on the fastest, most reliable machines in the world on our engineered systems all networked together with a modern Infiniband network."
In other words, Oracle's cloud is one that is built with its overarching 'software and hardware, engineered together' philosophy.
Different approach
The approach differs markedly from that of Oracle's competitors: Amazon Web Services (AWS) is known to use vast amounts of low-cost commodity servers to run its cloud, while Google has gone as far as to design and build its own stripped-down servers. Neither of these companies sell on-premise hardware.
HP, which via its significant hardware business is perhaps the closest company to Oracle in terms of form, has opted for a more open cloud strategy. Though the IT giant sells cloud-specific hardware, it uses the open-source OpenStack cloud software for its own cloud effort.
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Ellison sets sights on an all-Oracle cloud