This calls for a very special edition of Whiteboard Wednesday.
VMware Users' Group (VMUG) had their Demo Days in Indianapolis yesterday and set up Jake Robinson and me to do some cloud computing white boarding. We took questions from cloud experts, employees, and enthusiasts; then hit the white board.
In this session, Jake and I take a look at connecting internal and external clouds -- the cloud with virtualized environments. Take a look:
Last week marked a very special edition of This Week in Cloud Computing, a web TV show that recaps the week's biggest news in the cloud industry.
In this 19th edition of This Week In Cloud Computing, BlueLock's very own, Pat O'Day and Eric Thompson from mSpot discuss industry trends and best practices, including:
With great power comes great responsibility. At least, that's what I learned from Spiderman comic books.
And what better way to illustrate this point than to look at it through the lens of an IT consultant? Cloud computing is a powerful weapon in the toolbox available to any organization. But some of the features that make cloud technology a value-building business tool are the same features that enable hackers, spammers, and other villains of the web to exploit innocent people (newbies and experienced users alike).
Welcome to the dark side of The Cloud – where virtualization is used to power hacking, malicious malware attacks, and sinister spamming campaigns. Lern more about this underworld of the web in this Whiteboard Wednesday video:
What do you think? How can we work together to make the web a more secure place?
If you're a developer, an IT admin, or a cloud computing enthusiast, you've probably heard of Amazon's EC2 and you've probably heard of VMware's vCloud. These two platforms power a large portion of both public and private clouds. But, what's the difference?
In this Whiteboard Wednesday video, Jake Robinson and I outline some of the similarities and differences between Xen-based EC2 and Vmware-based vCloud. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to include them below.
Cloud Computing makes it easier than ever to bring your ideas to life. Dreamers are empowered with new tools that leverage virtualization to not only launch, but grow and develop their vision.
I'm incredibly energized by the positive change and new opportunities created by paradigm-shifting cloud technology. I developed the following slide deck for a presentation I gave on this subject. Let me know what you think:
Cloud technology is rapidly evolving with new products, services, and organizations each with their own unique perspectives and value propositions. But with so much going on, how can one stay current with cloud computing?
In this special edition of Whiteboard Wednesday, Bob Roudebush talks us through how he stays on top of cloud news – from security and services to companies and user groups. We cover different SaaS aggregation and curation tools to help manage your information flow. And for those who like a more interactive way of digesting their news, we also talk about how to find great info with Twitter, Facebook, and other social media.
Cloud computing has shifted the way we think about information technology. Gone are the days of the traditional IT career path. In this Whiteboard Wednesday, Jake Robinson and I dive into how cloud technology has changed the game for IT professionals.
Does the mass adoption of cloud computing mean that jobs will be eliminated? How are IT pros optimizing their time and talent to stay relevant in the new, cloud-dominated world?
Jake and I are at it again this week with another edition of Whiteboard Wednesday. Cloud computing enables a level of infrastructure uptime that simply can't be matched by traditional traditional physical servers or colocation services.
In this short video, the Kings of Cloud outline the engineering behind high availability (HA), disaster recovery, and the fully redundant cloud. We cover a wide range of topics — including cooling, power, storage, and other resources.
vCloud Express allows you to quickly, easily, and inexpensively deploy your application to a VMware-based public cloud. In fact, right now it's free and you can get started on vCloud Express at the BlueLock website in a matter of minutes.
In this episode of Whiteboard Wednesday, Jake Robinson and I discuss the architecture of the vCloud Express platform and how you can spin up your own virtual servers -- in an instant! If you're a developer, researcher, software tester, or just a technology and cloud computing fanatic; this video is for you.
Be sure to comment below and ask any questions you might have, so we can try to answer them for you in next week's Whiteboard video.
There are many obvious advantages to cloud computing, but is managed cloud computing right for you? Self-service may be all you need to get started.
In this episode Whiteboard Wednesday, Jake and I discuss a number of cloud computing companies and the differences between self-service and the fully-managed cloud.
What do you think? What type of cloud are you using?
Yesterday, VMware and Salesforce held a joint unveiling of a new platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering, dubbed "VMforce."
The term "cloud computing" is often overused and overhyped, but this offering appears to be a true cloud play. The VMforce platform is powered by Spring Cloud and enables Java developers to rapidly deploy their applications to the cloud.
To help you understand what VMforce is all about, and what its implications are on the cloud technology landscape, BlueLocker Jake Robinson and I put a quick video together (see below). We outline some of the key benefits as well as the potential downfalls of VMforce. Let us know what you think.
OK, so you've made the choice to leverage the awesome power of cloud computing. Now what?
In this Whiteboard Wednesday video, Jake Robinson and I cover the fundamental steps for migrating to the cloud. We discuss everything from data migration and server migration to resource allocation and cloud security considerations.
Here's our take on getting started with cloud technology. What do you think?
Do you remember how businesses handled their hosting needs five years ago -- the era before managed cloud hosting? Well, in this video, Jake and I do a little bit of a throwback to the dark ages to take a look at some of the advantages of virtualization and how far we've come.
More specifically, we look at the:
Hardware
Operating System
Platform
and Network
Here's how cloud technology has changed the game...
So last time, Jake and I talked about cloud computing and its implications on infrastructure securty. As promised, we've followed that up with a fresh whiteboarding session on compliance in virtualized environments. In this session, we cover the basics of attaining compliance with:
3rd party applications
Platforms as a Service
Ifrastructure as a Service
Your datacenter
This session takes a look at managing the business risk and compliance requirements when utilizing cloud computing.
BlueLock expert, Jake Robinson, and I are back this week to explore the topic of security in the cloud. This week, we take a look at the fundamental building blocks of cloud security.
We discuss virtual firewalls, like those from Checkpoint, and how they can be integrated into a cloud computing environment to protect your data. Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and intrusion detection systems (IDS) can also help inspect data that is transefered and prevent your system from getting hacked -- a proactive defense for your infrastructure. These basic tools not only protect your data, but can help you comply with regulations and standards like PCI, SarbOx, and HIPAA.
Last week, Jake Robinson and I talked about how companies can scale their resources, like RAM and CPU, with virtualization and cloud computing. If you saw last week's video, you remember that this type of scaling is called vertical scaling.
This week, we're at it again -- talking about the ability to scale a cloud computing environment. But this time, were talking about horizontal scaling and load balancing with virtualization.
Horizontal scaling can mean great things for your business, like cost savings and risk mitigation. I don't want to give too much away, so here's it is. Watch this:
One of the major benefits of virtualization is that it allows you more flexibility to scale your virtualized environment on demand. Cloud computing not only allows you to scale your storage, as discussed last week, but it also allows you to scale your processing power and RAM.
If you've ever wondered about the differences between commoditized cloud computing and the enterprise cloud, Jake and I outline some of variables of cloud computing performance and dissect what is commonly referred to as "the resource pool."
So, watch the video, and let us know what you think!
UPDATE: Jake put together this handy visual aid, which he references in this vid:
Jake and I are back with another Whiteboard Wednesday lesson in virtualization. After our last video on virtualizing with VMware Player and the VMware appliance marketplace, we had some inquiries about how storage is architected into a cloud computing solution.
So, in this video, you'll learn about storage area network and how it can be implemented to create a more redundant, virtualized environment.
I been having some good discussions with a few people on twitter about getting started with cloud computing and virtualizing servers with VMware. There seems to be a lot of curiousity about how to implement your own virtual server and get in the cloud, so I got with Jake Robinson (one of BlueLock's implementation specialists) and we did a short whiteboarding session with the flipcam.
In this short clip, Jake and I discuss the basics of virtualization as well as some of the first steps for those who want to virtualize their own server. We talk about some of the industry's most popular tools, like VMware Player and the VMware Appliance Marketplace. Enjoy!
Let us know what you think. Is the video helpful? What other things would you be interested in learning in a whiteboarding session?
If you've been following the most recent BlueLock blog posts, you know that a good number of the BlueLock team members returned to Indianapolis this week after spending last week in Las Vegas for the VMware Partner Exchange. With milestone achievements like winning the VMware Cloud Service Provider of the Year and the launch of the BlueLock CloudSuite, there was a ton of excitement.
Luckily for you, the BlueLock marketing team was well-equipped with their Flip video cameras and documented the adventure. For your viewing pleasure, I created a quick video montage, complete with Fat Boy Slim conference-esque soundtrack.
My favorite quote is near the end of the video when, after the VMware Partner of the Year award is announced, John Qualls (our CEO) is asked, "What are you going to do next?" John's Resopnse:
