Cloud providers Google, AWS and Microsoft are doing some spring-cleaning - out with the old, in with the new - when it comes to pricing services. With the latest cuts, here's a news flash: There's a new business model driving cloud that is every bit as exponential in growth -- with order of magnitude improvements to pricing -- as Moore's Law has been to computing. Let's call it "Bezos' Law," and go straight to the math Bezos' law is the observation that, over the history of cloud, a unit of computing power price is reduced by 50% approximately every 3 years If Bezos' law reflects reality, most enterprises should dump their datacenters and move to the public cloud. Let's factor in recent events. Google was first to announce "deep" cuts in on-demand instance pricing across the board.  GigaOm's Barb Darrow was quick to capture the excitement: And bam: Google cuts on-dema... (more)

IaaS & PaaS | @CloudEXPO @YungChou #AI #Serverless #IaaS #PaaS #DevOps

What, Why, and How of IaaS and PaaS The essence of cloud computing is that all consumable IT resources are delivered as services. In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Yung Chou, Technology Evangelist at Microsoft, demonstrated the concepts and implementations of two important cloud computing deliveries: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS). He discussed from business and technical viewpoints what exactly they are, why we care, how they are different and in what ways, and the strategies for IT to transition into and take advantages of these emerging service models. Download Slide Deck: ▸ Here Speaker Bio Yung Chou is a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft. Within the company, he has had opportunities serving customers in the areas of support account management, technical support, technical sales, and evangelism. Prior to Microsoft, he h... (more)

Ballmer Allegedly Throws Chair Over Google Hiring

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer threw a chair across the room when Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mark Lucovsky told Ballmer that he was leaving to join Google. This is according to an article by Verne Kopytoff of the San Francisco Chronicle, reporting on court documents containing statements by  Lucovsky in the Microsoft-Google contretemps over the hiring by Google of former Microsoft researcher Kai-Fu Lee. Ballmer has stated that Lucovsky's version of what transpired is a "gross exaggeration." Kopytoff reported that "Lucovsky recounts that Ballmer erupted violently after Lucovsy told him he was resigning to join Google. He threw the chair across the office and then launched into profanity...(and) said of Google's chief executive that he would 'bury that guy--I have done it before and I will do it again,' according to the (court) filing." Kopytoff also reported that Ba... (more)

Microsoft Rejigs Whole Organization; Boosts Ray Ozzie, Developers, MSN to Forefront

Calling it "an alignment for future innovation and growth," Microsoft has announced a long-anticipated reorganization – including strengthening the role of CTO Ray Ozzie (pictured) – intended to enable the company to compete more effectively with Google and Yahoo!, which have taken the lead in the world of Internet search and usage and which thereby threaten Redmond's long dominance on the desktop and within certain parts of enterprise IT. Microsoft's previous seven divisions have been simplified into a three-divisions structure: The Microsoft Platform Products & Services Division will be led by Kevin Johnson and Jim Allchin as co-presidents; Jeff Raikes has been named president of the Microsoft Business Division; and Robbie Bach has been named as president of Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division. In addition, the company said Ray Ozzie will expand... (more)

Silverlight v1.0 Beta vs. Silverlight 1.1 Alpha - Huh??

Kevin Hoffman's Blog The short of the story is that Silverlight 1.0 applications don't support code-behind, they don't support making plain XML calls back to a web service (despite some other people's claims to the contrary, 1.0 will not let you do this!), and there is no real two-way binding (though you can set values of controls in response to events, which is what I call "old school" binding). Silverlight 1.1, however.. now this whole project is actually starting to show some promise. For starters, Silverlight 1.1: Supports communication via XML over HTTP, which makes it ideal for "RESTy POX". Note that the 1.1 alpha version doesn't allow cross-domain access, so you'll still have to drop in server-side service proxies for accessing remote services (which is actually more secure anyway....) You can write "code behind" your Silverlight apps in C# or VB.NET You can wr... (more)

Software AG Named "Gold Sponsor" of SOA World Conference & Expo

Software AG is an independent provider of Business Infrastructure Software. Their 4,000 global customers achieve measurable business results by modernizing and automating their IT systems and rapidly building new systems and processes to meet growing business demands. Software AG’s product portfolio includes best-in-class solutions for managing data, enabling service oriented architecture, and improving business processes. By combining proven technology with industry expertise and best practices, our customers improve and differentiate their businesses - faster. SOAWorld Conference & Expo 2008 East June 23-24, 2008 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City SOA World Conference & Expo 2008 East brings together the best minds in the business for a two-day conference that offers comprehensive coverage of SOA and what it means to enterprise IT today. Service-oriented a... (more)

Building a Composite Application Using Multiple Web Services

Brandon Watson's "Many Niches" Blog What happens when your cloud provider has multiple datacenters and has the ability to move your code around based on their need (read: not your need)? One thing that any enterprise IT buyer knows how to say is “who’s throat do I choke?” When you have a composited application, who exactly are you going to be calling? The cloud providers have yet to address the myriad of problems which can, and will, arise. Just when you thought it was safe to start thinking about putting together all of those services into a composite app, the dreaded siren call of “whose neck do I choke”beckons. If you ever plan to have an IT manager look at your application, get used to hearing that one. I’ve been off for a few weeks launching a little thing called Azure Services Platform. Did you miss it? There are plenty of videos over at the PDC 2008 site. H... (more)

Can the Cloud survive regulation?

One of the greatest strengths of the Cloud is that, like the Internet, it knows no boundaries. It crosses industry and international boundaries as if they do not exist. But as is often the case, your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness. Take Google, for example, and it’s myriad Cloud-based application offerings. A new complaint made by Epic (Electronic Privacy Information Center) to the US Federal Trade Commission urges the regulatory agency to “consider shutting down Google’s services until it establishes safeguards for protecting confidential information.”  From a recent FT.com article: In a 15-page complaint to the FTC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (Epic) said recent reports suggested Google did not adequately protect the data it obtained. It cited vulnerabilities that revealed users' data in its Gmail webmail service, Google Docs ... (more)

Is Microsoft Starting a Cloud Computing Price War?

Earlier today Microsoft unveiled it's pricing model for its forthcoming Windows Azure cloud services platform. What's interesting about the pricing model is that they seem to be taking direct aim at Amazon Web Services. To recap, Amazon charges 12.5 cents per hour for a basic Windows Server instance in contrast Microsoft's stated that their price will be 12 cents.They noted that the service will remain free until November. I should also point out that it still isn't clear if comparing Windows Azure to Amazon's Windows EC2 is a fair comparison given the rather drastic differences in functionality. Microsoft calls Windows Azure a "cloud services operating system" that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Azure Platform. They've also said they will offer a private data center version of Azure that will be capable of being ... (more)

SECUDE’s Secure SignOn Version 7.2 Supports Windows 7 Platform

Darmstadt, December 11, 2009 - Multiple login procedures with different user name/password combinations are often productivity-sapping inconvenience for employees. Corporate regulations on password complexity do not provide sufficient security. Users just write down complex passwords instead of memorizing them. Such practices are a great security risk making vital data easily accessible to unauthorized personal. Secure SignOn for Enterprise Single Sign-On (E-SSO) ensures high user acceptance, high user productivity, and efficiency by significantly reducing helpdesk calls and by reducing the time required to login to various business applications. These factors result in a rapid and large Return-on-Investment (ROI) after only a short period of time. About Secure SignOn Secure SignOn provides a comprehensive Enterprise Single Sign-On (E-SSO) solution based on an Activ... (more)

Was InVista the New Betamax?

The best method of Storage virtualization has been one of the most debated and argued issues within the industry. Nobody argues that while it is nothing more than an abstraction between the storage device and its application, the benefits that come with it such as consolidation, ease of management, online migrations etc. make it a fundamental aspect of the constantly non-heterogeneous emerging world of storage. Of course virtualization is on everyone's lips with the advent of VMotion and Vstorage offered by the Server-based storage virtualization solution of VMware. Veritas Volume Manager and SUN's ZFS are others which come to mind which have made virtualization an inbred of the Storage management arena. But it was not so long ago back in the pre- VMAX days that most of the debate revolved around whether virtualization should be via the SAN or via the Array. HDS pu... (more)