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Conference Highlights of 2012
2012 was a conference-filled year for me. I presented or exhibited in 10 conferences and attended 3 more. I have never spoken publicly so extensively before: here’s a recap. Open Networking Summit...
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Stackmate : execute CloudFormation templates on CloudStack
AWS CloudFormation provides a simple-yet-powerful way to create ‘stacks’ of Cloud resources with a single call. The stack is described in a parameterized template file; creation of the stack is a...
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The SDN behemoth hiding in plain sight
Hint: it is Amazon Web Services (AWS). Let’s see it in action: Create a VPC with 2 tiers: one public (10.0.0.0/24) and one private (10.0.1.0/24). These are connected via a router. Spin up 2 instances,...
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Is AWS S3 the CDO of the Cloud?
The answer: not really, but the question needs examination. One of the causes of the financial crisis of 2008 was the flawed ratings of complex financial instruments by supposed experts (ratings bodies...
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Do-it-yourself CloudWatch-style alarms using Riemann
AWS CloudWatch is a web service that enables the cloud user to collect, view, and analyze metrics about your AWS resources and applications. CloudWatch alarms send notifications or trigger autoscale...
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How did they build that — EC2 Enhanced Networking
Among the flurry of new features introduced by AWS in 2013, is a performance enhancement known as ‘Enhanced Networking‘. According to the blurb: ” enhanced networking on your instance results in higher...
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How dual-speed IT impacts private cloud architecture
An intriguing insight / hypothesis from Gartner is that IT can be more successful when it clearly demarcates ‘agile’ IT and ‘traditional IT”. According to Lydia Leong: Traditional IT is focused on...
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99 problems in my private cloud and networking is most of them
The state of private cloud is dire according to a number of pundits. Twitter’s de-facto cloud prognosticator warns: Do not build private clouds. Matt Asay declares private cloud to be a failure for a...
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Back to Basics: CloudStack Basic Networking
The first choice to make when creating a zone in Apache CloudStack is the network type: basic or advanced. The blurb for “Advanced” promises “sophisticated network topologies”, while Basic promises...
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CloudStack Basic Networking : deeper dive
In my last post I sang the praise of the simplicity of Basic Networking. There’s a few more details which even seasoned users of CloudStack may not be aware of: Security group rules are stateful. This...
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CloudStack Basic Networking : frictionless infrastructure
Continuing on my series exploring CloudStack’s Basic Zone: Back to Basics Basic Networking deep dive The origin of the term ‘Basic’ lies in the elimination of switch and router configuration (primarily...
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How to manage a million firewalls – part 1
In my last post I argued that security groups eliminate the need for network security devices in certain parts of the datacenter. The trick that enables this is the network firewall in the hypervisor....
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How to manage a million firewalls – part 2
Continuing from my last post where I hinted about the big distributed systems problem involved in managing a CloudStack Basic Zone. It helps to understand how CloudStack is architected at a high level....
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How HP Labs nearly invented the cloud
On the heels of HP’s news of not-quite abandoning the Cloud, there is coverage of how AWS stole a march on Sun’s plans to provide compute-on-demand. The timeline for AWS starts late 2003 when an...
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Farming your CloudStack cloud
A couple of years ago, I blogged about my prototype of StackMate, a tool and a service that interprets AWS CloudFormation-style templates and creates CloudStack resources. The idea was to provide an...
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How dual-speed IT impacts private cloud architecture
An intriguing insight / hypothesis from Gartner is that IT can be more successful when it clearly demarcates ‘agile’ IT and ‘traditional IT”. According to Lydia Leong: Traditional IT is focused on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
99 problems in my private cloud and networking is most of them
The state of private cloud is dire according to a number of pundits. Twitter’s de-facto cloud prognosticator warns: Do not build private clouds. Matt Asay declares private cloud to be a failure for a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Back to Basics: CloudStack Basic Networking
The first choice to make when creating a zone in Apache CloudStack is the network type: basic or advanced. The blurb for “Advanced” promises “sophisticated network topologies”, while Basic promises...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CloudStack Basic Networking : deeper dive
In my last post I sang the praise of the simplicity of Basic Networking. There’s a few more details which even seasoned users of CloudStack may not be aware of: Security group rules are stateful. This...
View ArticleClik here to view.
CloudStack Basic Networking : frictionless infrastructure
Continuing on my series exploring CloudStack’s Basic Zone: Back to Basics Basic Networking deep dive The origin of the term ‘Basic’ lies in the elimination of switch and router configuration (primarily...
View Article