IETF explores new working group on identity management in the cloud.
A specification already exists for Simple Cloud Identity Management (SCIM) that is supported by security software vendors including Cisco, Courion, Ping Identity, UnboundID and SailPoint. SCIM also has support from key cloud vendors, including Salesforce, Google and VMware.
ScaleXtreme is a powerful product that allows you to build, deploy, and manage servers across a variety of different public and private cloud providers.
via Overview | ScaleXtreme: Cloud-Based Server Automation.
From: Accel-Backed ScaleXtreme Takes Data Center Management To The Cloud
ScaleXtreme wants to do the same thing to data automation that Salesforce did to CRM. Replace million-dollar deployments that take months with a five minute download that can have a machine being managed from the cloud in five minutes. And instead of an upfront $1,500 licensing fee per machine, plus maintenance and upgrade fees, ScaleXtreme is shooting for something closer to $150 a year per machine. “This is a radically different model,” says Mulchandani, who started out as an enterprise IT sales guy. “You download the agent and you are done—no sales people, no Italian suits flying across the country.”
There are well known problems of course. The most obvious relates to guaranteeing the security of data when it is stored on computers that that a user does not own and that many others can also access. But various solutions have emerged such as encrypting data before it is sent to the cloud. For that reason, the migration to the cloud is proceeding at full speed in many places.
That may be folly. Today, Bryan Ford at Yale University in New Haven says that the full risks of this migration have yet to be properly explored. He points out that complex systems can fail in many unexpected ways and outlines various simple scenarios in which a cloud could come unstuck.
via The Hidden Risk of a Meltdown in the Cloud – Technology Review.
Now Ford imagines the scenario in which both load balancing programs operate with the same refresh period, say once a minute. When these periods coincide, the control loops start sending the load back and forth between the virtual servers in a positive feedback loop.
“We’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air,” wrote “MrSpock” on the Pirate Bay blog. “This way our machines will have to be shot down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. We’re just starting, so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore.”
via Low-Orbit Servers? Or A Pirate Prank? » Data Center Knowledge.
This is the only true implementation of cloud computing — the servers are literally in the clouds. Exchanging torrents or magnet links is a relatively low bandwidth operation. There really could be something to this scheme but I would think doing it with satellites would be better. Transmitters and servers can use a lot of power.
The Pirate Bay said it was experimenting with using GPS to control servers using Raspberry Pi, a credit-card sized Linux computer.
Raspberry Pi servers aren’t going to be able to handle any kind of web load. They should consider some kind of broadcast system.
How many servers does it take to power Amazon’s huge cloud computing operation? Like many large Internet companies, Amazon doesn’t disclose details of its infrastructure, including how many servers it uses. But a researcher estimates that Amazon Web Services is using at least 454,400 servers in seven data center hubs around the globe.
Huan Liu, a research manager at Accenture Technology Labs, analyzed Amazon’s EC2 compute service using internal and external IP addresses, which he extrapolated to come up with estimates for the number of racks in each data center location. Liu then applied an assumption of 64 blade servers per rack – four 10U chassis, each holding eight blades – to arrive at the estimate.
via Estimate: Amazon Cloud Backed by 450,000 Servers » Data Center Knowledge.
Sweet Mother of God.
Apple first introduced iWork.com as part of an iWork software refresh in January of 2009. The goal was to allow iWork users to share their documents online for collaboration with others—sort of like a Google Docs, but by Apple. Since then, however, Apple launched iCloud—among other things, the service allows apps like iWork on the iPad to sync documents to other devices, and the launch of Mountain Lion for the Mac will bring that same functionality to the desktop.
via Apple: iWork.com to get the axe on July 31 so back up your documents.
As IT continues in a zigzag path of figuring out what to do with this “cloud” stuff, it seems that some companies are getting ahead of themselves. In particular, the concept of outsourcing storage to a cloud provider puzzles me. I can see some benefits in other cloud services (though I still find the trust aspect difficult to reconcile), but full-on cloud storage offerings don’t make sense outside of some rare circumstances.
via Why corporate cloud storage doesn’t add up | Data Center – InfoWorld.
there’s already storage in the data center running the servers. That means there’s already a backup solution in place, and adding local file storage is trivial.
And one more interesting tidbit from the author of the linked to article.
Don’t forget that fast, reliable storage is very cheap these days. You can pick up 24TB of raw storage for less than $7,000, and even though they’re SATA drives, they’ll be more than sufficient for most general business purposes.
I kind of agree. My worry is the reliability of the cloud provider.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”
It is however the viewpoint of this article that the Megaupload indictment will likely be seen in the long run as having a more significant impact on Internet business models and innovation than the withdrawal of PIPA and SOPA — and this would be the case even if those bills had been enacted in some combined form.
That is because those bills, problematic as they were, created new forms of civil copyright enforcement — blocking of infringing foreign websites by both search engines and ISPs, and termination of third party payment and ad services for both foreign and domestic infringing websites. Such remedies might of course curtail a website’s income and even lead to its demise, as well as to executive and worker unemployment and investor monetary losses. But they would not threaten executives and investors with involuntary, decades-long incarceration in Club Fed.
via MegaBust’s MegaQuestions Cloud the Net’s Future.
This opinion piece makes some important points but it’s clearly biased in favour of megaupload.
There have always been two major concerns about cloud services in general, and cloud storage (Dropbox, Megaupload, SkyDrive, iCloud, and so on). The first is privacy: When you upload data to a third party, there’s always the risk that they can look at the contents of your files. Some cloud providers securely encrypt data, but many don’t. The second issue is data security and integrity: Does the third party keep a tight ship against hackers? What happens if a hard drive fails? What protections have the cloud provider put in place to mitigate against natural disasters, bankruptcy, or being shut down by the Feds?
via Megaupload’s demise: What happens to your files when a cloud service dies? | ExtremeTech.
AT&T became the first U.S. telecom service provider to join OpenStack, the organization that has developed an open-source cloud software stack.