Archive for the ‘azure’ Category

All Clouds are not Equal

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

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Some time ago, we’d written about David Chappell’s talk on Windows Azure, and why it was different. I’d also mentioned that I’d share the slide deck once I got it from David. Here it is.

(the ppt is cued to slide 27 which is where the fun stuff begins – the comparisons with other platforms. As we said earlier, the ‘neutrality’ with which this was presented was refreshing)

Read on…

The Windows Azure Platform a Perspective Chappell

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

Lyrics of da rap intro to da Cloud

Friday, October 30th, 2009

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We had a couple (two, to be honest) of requests for the lyrics of our Cloud Cloud Maybe video. If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

8,670 people can’t be wrong. That’s how many views its got on YouTube alone.

The lyrics? Here goes…

CLOUD CLOUD MAYBE

Yo ISP! Let’s vaporize it
Cloud cloud maybe (x2)

All right stop. Virtualize and listen
This cloud is hot – infrastructure invention

This trend is grabbin’ hold of us tightly
We’re blogging and debating daily and nightly

Is it really hot? Yo, I don’t know
but scalin’ on demand, it does show

To the extreme – McKinsey caused a scandal
when they donned their IT guru mantle

HYPE! The Gartner peak looms
SMBs are fine. Enterprise? No room!

Baloney! IBM said quickly
The suits are off their rocker. I think they’re just being prickly. Obviously!

Use it or Hate it, it’s here to stay
You’d better learn the rules of how you wanna play

If there’s a load of them, the cloud will scale it
Check out EC2 while S3 stores it

CHORUS: Yeah! Cloud Cloud maybe.
Go for it, baby! Cloud cloud maybe.
Cloud cloud maybe.

Now that I got you thinkin’
I see you’re looking for ideas ripe for a pickin’

Ready to virtualize to the point of abstraction
So you can reap when the cloud gets inflexion

Be smart; drink the kool-aid from a thimble
Don’t get all crazy when you see a symbol

Or a ppt… with some souped up lingo
Convincing that the cloud isn’t the way-to-go

LAUNCHIN. 3.0
“Cloud compatability on”, so you can grow

Scale on the fly, wave your headaches bye
Should you believe it? “But you’ve got to give it a try”

SUN -CLOUD. An oxymoron if I saw one.
But this & Atmos add to the fun.

The box is dead YO
Let’s move now to – S.O.A.P. – Cloud Computing

You can also run a cloud in its minis
Private clouds are hotter than grilled paninis

My Cloud! Coz I want no one pryin’
Cluster ‘em together & be just fine

Just SOA, nothing new some say
“old wine in new bottles” summarizes their take

GTrends! Shoots up as the vendors yell
This stuff is hot, by the noise you can tell

GOOGLE! No idea what they’re up to
App-Engine…G-Drive…there’s more in their zoo

Vapor to Vapor, the cloudosphere’s packed
If you’re trying too long for the attention of a hack

Cloud enable your scene you know what I mean
That’ll sex you up, put you on the radar screens

So what if its working? Yo, lets cloud it
Cloud’s here to stay. Microsoft will Azure it

CHORUS:
Cloud cloud maybe its too hot too hot
Cloud cloud maybe its too hot too hot

Yo man. That’s a server there!

Send it to the museum!

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.

A bold initiative from Microsoft Azure

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

azure conference

Last week, I attended a Microsoft Azure event in Bangalore.

When I received the invitation to the event, I was surprised to see that Microsoft had arranged for a non Microsoft person, David Chappell, to speak at the event. I’d have thought that they would have arranged for someone from the Azure product team.

Now, David’s a well known speaker, and he’s really good at keeping things simple. And, he certainly helped make the event interesting.

But there was a larger reason behind getting someone from outside of Microsoft…

Neutrality!

More often than not, vendors ‘pretend’ to be neutral and clothe product propaganda in apparent neutrality (B is a great product BUT, guess what, our A is much better because…)

Not this time!

David was refreshingly honest in his assessment & comparisons. He even went so far as to say that competing cloud solutions would fit the bill very well for some of the use case scenarios described by the audience. And he was effusive in his praise for Amazon pioneering the whole ‘cloud thing’. Of course, in the process, he also gave us the whole nine yards on Azure.

I had a chat with David & Rajinish Menon (part of the Azure/DPE team at Microsoft India) and complimented them on what I saw was a pretty brave move. They said it was an extremely conscious decision to be absolutely honest with potential customers – and to ‘present’ Azure (and its competition) in a fair and unbiased manner.

Full marks to Microsoft on this one. The attendees also seemed to like this ‘no BS’ honesty, and were much more receptive to Azure than they’d have been otherwise! From an attendee perspective, they felt were served ‘information’ and not vendor kool-aid.

David & Rajnish have promised me some slides from the presentation; I’ll post them when I get them. You’ll then see what I mean by the fair comparisons.

UPDATE: On a (kinda) related note, check out our next post.

The above post was written by Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan of Vembu Technologies. Vembu Technologies is a backup software vendor whose product, StoreGrid, powers the online backup services of a large number of service providers across the globe. Besides remote backup, StoreGrid is also used for on premise backups of workstations and servers at various companies & universities.

Vembu Home is the only FREE consumer backup solution for free local backups and optional Amazon Cloud backups. Get your FREE COPY now.