Category Cloud

That’s right! Cloud Camp is coming to Chicago!  What?! When?! Where? Who, whatomfg?!@? (And Yes, this is a FREE Event – Thanks to our sponsors who ponied up the cash! :))

Well, let’s lay out the details.. Yes, this is indeed the (un)conference Cloud Camp, which is ever so popular world wide!

CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, we need a place where we can meet to share our experiences, challenges and solutions. At CloudCamp, you are encouraged to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate.

Okay, now that you have a fairly decent idea of WHAT it is, let’s cover the good and raw details!   The schedule below is likely to change as it gets finalized, but what I can guarantee is that Friday evening there will be an Executive round table and panel, which will be moderated and also open to questions from the audience and Twitter (I’ll be monitoring it on a hash tag I’ve yet to define..)  I’ll also do what I can to ensure we have one or more uStream live feeds which have made Cloud Camp so popular and successful in the past!

CloudCamp Executive Panel Event

Friday March 5th starts at 4:30PM
Agenda
•    4:30PM – 5:30PM Registration, Happy Hour & Networking
•    5:30PM – 6:00PM Break
•    6:00PM – 7:00PM Panel of Experts consisting of local corporate executives, industry experts and professors addressing how Cloud Computing is impacting their organizations and the business climate at large
•    7:00PM onwards – Social Networking Continues at a local Establishment

CloudCamp Chicago
Saturday March 6th starts at 12PM
Agenda
•    12PM – 1PM – CloudCamp Networking and Registration
•    1:00PM – 5:30PM – CloudCamp Un-Conference
o    1:00 – 1:30 – Lightning Talks (5 minutes each)
o    1:30 – 2:00 – Un-Panel to Select Topics
o    2:00 – 3:00 – Topic Breakout Sessions
o    5:00 – 5:15 – Reconvene and Share Takeaways with all Attendees
o    5:15 – 5:30 – Wrap-Up and Calls to Action
•    5:30PM onwards – Social Networking Event

Being that this event will consist of two days, (Friday evening Round Table, and Saturday all day adventure) there are two separate registration links so you can choose which is more fitting for you.    So if you’re more business focused and want to strategize around Cloud Friday may be a better fit for you, but if you’re deeply technical and don’t care about the business, it’s all Saturday!

However, many of you are like me, and care about both sides of the coin and will register accordingly.  I’m not just saying that because I’m helping organize, coordinate and more the event.. It’s also because I am focused on both sides of the house, as it were :)  So good times if you want to meet me I’ll be there in either case!

Register: CloudCamp Executive Panel, Mar 5, 2010

Register: CloudCamp Chicago, Mar 6, 2010

And for all other general purpose information, feel free to visit the CloudCamp Chicago portal page.

This event will be hosted at the ITA – I’ve attended numerous events here in the past, it’s a nice facility and definitely worth a visit!

Illinois Technology Association (ITA)
200 S. Wacker Drive, 15th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606

So, I look forward to seeing you there, and if you’re attending entirely online (like I have a tendency to do for other CloudCamp events, be sure to follow me on Twitter @cxi and I’ll be live-tweeting from the event and sharing live video from multiple sources!)  Thanks, and get out there and register before all the slots fill up!

For those of you who know me (and even those who don’t) What is important to know is – I love innovation.  I especially love it when something is introduced which does the right thing while removing the need to think about things which frankly we DON’T need to be thinking about (Though ignorance aside, not making it so we cannot think nor take action on our own – thus action without the nanny effect – which is often seen by some announcements which think you can’t be trusted with your own investment!)

Looking at the particular challenge storage brings us – it’s always been a delicate balance of “What kind of storage do I put my APP on” “How do I meet SLA’s for the peak load” and of course “Whatever decision I make today is locked in stone for the next 3-5 years so I better design appropriately”.    If you disagree that these harp on the extremely delicate balance of App v Infrastructure please let me know you’re feelings :)

Now while I absolutely love to have those design conversations above – The time has finally come where we don’t need to have a doctorate in ‘application layout’ or get religion around IOPS Latency calculation workloads in order to accommodate a mixed application environment.   That has come through the creation of FAST by EMC.     FAST which is an acronym for “Fully Automated Storage Tiering” actually does what it says on the tin!   

Think about it for a moment.  What if I simply laid my applications out on disk and let the workload dictate what kind of storage my app should live on, and unless I have specific requirements, let my SLA’s really run the show.    This would take the complicated work of ‘figuring it out’ which frankly is an arduous task and leave that up to the deep analytics to figure it out – End result means you have more time to work on other projects and you start to give back and perform like never before.

But that is not to say this is infallible – Storage is almost as bad as the Database world, whereby people not only WANT control over what happens, when and why, but DEMAND it!  And this gives you that power.   I somewhat relate FAST to DRS from VMware – Let the system analyze what IS happening, and based upon past performance and utilization, predict what would be a good fit – And if you agree you can APPROVE the change the system has put forth.   Or if you have reached a point of being comfortable that it’s acting in your best interests – Allow it to automatically move data – People usually start off with DRS in a “Manual” approval mode, and then quickly roll into “automated” because if 99 suggestions the system made were good, there’s a good chance that 100th suggestion will be a good fit as well.

But just like DRS for VMware, there are exceptions: And it is in these exceptions that you have a POLICY defined to ensure that your will is enforced and things you don’t want to happen – DONT!

So lets get down to basics!  What does this mean for you and me?  

• For once in our sad lives, we’ll be able to implement both FLASH and SATA into a traditional FC system and have the right disks spinning for the right apps.
  • Imagine it! Predictable workloads are EASY to assign to the right tier (sort of) but imagine those unpredictable apps, or even Month-end Apps!
    • Whoa! Are you saying I can take my somewhat stable monthly app which hits its Peak for month-end and move it around based upon the applications performance requirements?!   Just think about it – High IOPS, High Throughput, FAST latency response times – all the benefits of FLASH when it’s needed, but the cost of SATA when it isn’t.  
    • Next thing you’re going to tell me, I could be a seasonal business like a retailer or similar and shift my workload over to FLASH disk non-disruptively for the extreme peak workload, and then shift it back off to SATA when it’s not being hit quite so hard. :)
    • Oh and this means so much more, but it’s late and I want to publish this without overflowing you with information ;)

But this is far more than just simply allowing you to manage your dynamic workloads and ensure that the right storage is being used at the right time.  Across the stack this can be an enabler when it comes to times of legal discovery, long term data retention and archival, and fast response in situations of disputes or otherwise.  

Alright, but what does all of this mean, and why should I care? (read: Why are you so excited about it Christopher? :))

Active ESX Cluster Without FAST	Same Cluster with Flash and FAST Policy
384 Fibre Channel Disks 100% FC Disk Disk resources are ~80% Busy	368 FC Disks, 16 Flash Disks 96% FC, 4% Flash 68% less disk I/O contention 2.5% faster disk response time

The little chart above is a basic breakdown of what you can very easily realize.  Those little images are called “HEAT Maps” If you can see the little legend on the left, the more RED something is, the more busy it is which means your disks are getting hit pretty hard (Notice how for the most part all of disks are either HOT or very HOT)  

What does this mean for me from an operational perspective? I didn’t have to get in loads of engineers and architects to sit around and say “How do you think we should lay out the data to best most efficient on these new 16 Flash Drives we added?” No.  The system analyzed the workload and over a couple of days came to a conclusion “This LUN will move from FC to Flash” and all of a sudden our performance started to shine, without having to take any outage, any downtime – Hell we didn’t even need to try to figure out what we should do – We could let it collect data and then advise us (since its algorithms know things about the operation of the system we can only guess about!)

What would have been even sweeter is if this example had SATA in the mix as well – Because then we’d have the question of what should get shifted from where to where! Take a look at this pretty straight forward workload chart showing which LUNs are more active than others

Is this chart a guarantee that all environments look like this? Absolutely not.   I know of one specific heavy SAP environment which has a majority of its disk look like good flash targets and none of them look like a good fit for SATA.  However, a majority of environments DO have some things which likely aren’t on the most ideal of storage – And when you consider consolidation, that story only gets even more compelling.   So, if you have a dedicated frame which is maxed out for a single app – You definitely want to consider FAST in the equation because it can help determine your best fit for FLASH, and if SATA is a player at all (in v1 of FAST) then excellent. v2 of FAST will change all the rules

Though what I’m sure you like just as much as I do – is a real live example, so check out this Video, which was delivered at VMworld 2009!

And here we are, in a new era, a new level of sophistication the likes if you has never been seen before (Oh, there have been ‘attempts’ at producing solutions which are effectively ‘features’ but the full picture and depth of what today brings about – There is not a candle in the industry which can hold to this maelstrom!

Also, for reference – Here is the official Press Announcement from Today!

(One more Video!!!)

Today was the big day! The launch of the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, also known as the VCE Initiative!

CNN Broke the news as far as the link to the Webinar would go, with announcements being made by:
John Chambers, chairman and CEO for Cisco
Joe Tucci, chairman and CEO for EMC Corp
Paul Maritz, president and CEO for VMware

There has been a lot of chatter about this, over the weekend and even moreso leading into this announcement, with some highlights:

The launch of Privatecloud.com is only the beginning in the mass of places to find out information and content on this amazing initative.

VCE Beats out IBM with Melbourne IT

Cisco and EMC, Together with VMware, Form Coalition to Accelerate Pervasive Virtualization and Private Cloud Infrastructures

In unveiling the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, Cisco and EMC also introduced Acadia, a joint venture focused on accelerating customer build-outs of private cloud infrastructures through an end-to-end enablement of service providers and large enterprise customers. Acadia’s unique “build, operate, transfer” model for delivering the Vblock architecture, addressing people, process and technology, will offer customers further choice, flexibility and cost advantages as they seek to virtualize their IT infrastructures and evolve to private cloud environments. In addition to Cisco and EMC as the lead investors, the build-out of Acadia’s expanded capabilities in 2010 has also been capitalized by investments from VMware and Intel. Because the Vblock architecture relies heavily on Intel Xeon® processors and other Intel data center technology, Intel will join the Acadia effort as a minority investor to facilitate and accelerate customer adoption of the latest Intel technology for servers, storage, and networking.

Cisco, EMC, and VMware join hands and plunge into cloud: Acadia, the power of three

In fact, many partners – both systems integrators, and service providers have all started lining up behind Vblocks.    Here are just a few examples:

Most of the vCloud Express launch partners are using the VCE coalition, and want to move forward with a formal Vblock model.   Examples are Terremark, Alphawest, Savvis, Orange and SunGard. (Thanks for this Chad!)

Virtual Compute Environment – an insider’s take.

Virtual Compute Environment – Vblock Partner Ecosystem

Virtual Compute Announcement – Integrated Sales/Service/Support

Virtual Compute Environment – Solutions Venture and Investment

Virtual Compute Environment – Technology Innovations

Also, looks like there is some Twitter presence too! So, represent! @privatecloudcom

Today, is quite an exciting day, and while all of this is high level, I’d be glad to go into much more depth about this – something I’m sure many of those linked and referenced here can say and do the same.   This is not intended to be a tutorial, but an advisory of what’s new, where to go, and I’ll have separate blog posts to go into the details :) It’s an exciting day! :)

TechNet Events Presents: Real World Azure with Microsoft IT (Thanks to Keith Combs for posting this, and my full on hijack of it! I’ll try to visit DG or Chicago if I can!;)

TechNet & MSDN Events Present: Real World Azure with Microsoft IT

Come spend a day with us to explore Windows Azure, Microsoft’s platform for building and deploying cloud based applications from a real world point of view!  During this event, we’ll review critical lessons Microsoft IT has learned migrating internal line-of-business applications to Windows Azure.

What is Windows Azure™? When should I use it? How does it apply to my job?  Whether you’re an IT Professional, Developer or Architect, we’ll address your top of mind questions about cloud computing.

TechNet Presents – for the IT Professional from 8:30am to Noon

• Azure architecture from the IT professional’s point of view
• Why an IT operations team would want to pursue Azure as an extension to the data center
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based application
• The Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premise applications
• How operations teams can manage and monitor Azure-based applications

Dates and Locations Registration Link

August 18, 2009 Columbus, OH
August 19, 2009 Mason, OH
August 19, 2009 Downers Grove, IL
August 20, 2009 Indianapolis, IN
August 20, 2009 Dallas, TX
September 16, 2009 Grand Rapids, MI
September 17, 2009 Southfield, MI
September 17, 2009 Overland Park, KS
September 17, 2009 Houston, TX
September 22, 2009 Bloomington, MN
September 22, 2009 Cleveland, OH
September 24, 2009 Waukesha, WI
September 24, 2009 Austin, TX
September 29, 2009 St. Louis, MO
September 29, 2009 Nashville, TN
September 30, 2009 Knoxville, TN
October 1, 2009 Chicago, IL

And don’t forget, the second half of the day at each location is developer focused.  Here’s the general description of the MSDN sessions in the afternoon.

MSDN Presents – for the Developer & Architect from 1:00pm to 5:00pm

In this session, we will discuss:

• Cloud computing architectures in general and the Azure architecture in particular
• Several aspects of Azure from the developer’s and architect’s perspective
• Azure roles (web, web service and worker)
• Azure storage options
• Azure security and identity options
• How Azure-based applications can be integrated with on-premise applications
• Configuration, deployment and scaling Azure-based applications
• How development teams can optimize their applications for better management and monitoring

That’s right! If I ran into you (Hey Developers!) at TechEd I likely harassed you about this contest running from new CloudApp() !

While I am in no way affiliated with newCloudApp() I for one like to see people use their talents to win cold hard cash! Oh, and have some fun in the process!    So what is the plan?

What Is It?

new CloudApp() is a US-based developer challenge for .NET & PHP developers creating cloud applications or services (hereafter “application”) on the Azure™ Services Platform. Have your application judged by industry leadersOm Malik and Michael Cote and share your cloud coding skills with other developers. Grand Prize Winners will be announced at Structure 09 and featured on azure.com.

Register and submit your application now!

When?

• April 30:  Contest Open
• June 18:Submission deadline
• June 19:Community voting starts
• June 25:.NET & PHP category winners announced @ Structure 09
• June 29:Community voting ends
• June 30:Community winner announced

What Could I Win?*

Winning submissions will:

• Be featured on www.azure.com as well as at major Microsoft events
• Be featured in a video interview on Channel 9
• Be announced at Structure 09
• Receive cash ($):
  • NET App Category winner: $5,000 VISA gift card
  • PHP App Category winner: $5,000 VISA gift card
  • Community winner: $2,500 VISA gift card

So, seriously, step up! If you’ve never written an app for the Cloud before, now is the time when there is money on the table! MONEY ON THE TABLE? WHERE, SIGNZ ME UPS! err… Damn lolcatz!    But seriously.. if this is your bag, as it were, no better time than the present for peer acceptance and pocketbook love!   Check it out, and doooo it! :)