Kategorie: Analysis

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Analysis

Eucalyptus Cloud 3.3 approaches more and more to Amazon AWS and integrates open source tools from Netflix

I already had written about it, after Netflix announced they will provide some of their tools as open source. Now it happened. In its new 3.3 release Eucalyptus has integrated exactly these Netflix tools and offers more functionality for the first time in terms of availability and management for applications within a private cloud infrastructure. Furthermore, new Amazon Web Services (AWS) related functions are provided.

New features in Eucalyptus 3.3

Eucalyptus 3.3 was extended in addition to the Netflix tools with AWS-compatible features such as auto scaling, load balancing, and CloudWatch. With Auto Scaling rules can be created to support workloads with additional virtual machines automatically when a certain load limit is reached. Here, the mechanism is supposed to be exactly the same as on the public cloud infrastructure of the Amazon Web Services. Furthermore, it is now possible to scale workloads automatically to AWS.

Chaos Monkey, Asgard and Edda

The Chaos Monkey is a service running on the Amazon Web Services searching for Auto Scaling Groups (ASG) and randomly kills instances (virtual machines) per group. The software has been developed flexible enough that it also works on platforms other cloud providers. The service is fully configurable, but by default runs on ordinary weekdays from 09.00 clock until 15.00 clock. In most cases, Netflix has written its applications so that they continue to function when an instance suddenly having problems. In special cases this does not happen consciously, so that their own people have to fix the problem in order to learn from it. The Chaos Monkey only runs a few hours a day so that the developers can not 100% rely on it.

Asgard is a web interface that allows to control the deployment of applications and a manage a cloud. Netflix itself uses Asgard to control its virtual infrastructure on Amazon Web Services.

Edda is a service that Netflix uses to continuously retrieve its needed AWS resources via the AWS APIs. Edda can search through the active resources and find out the status. The background of Edda is that virtual instances in the cloud are constantly in motion. This means that they can fail and new ones need to be started. It’s the same with IP addresses that can be re-used by different applications. Here it is important to keep track of where Edda supported.

Netflix originally wrote these tools for the AWS cloud infrastructure. Through the open source release, and Eucalyptus adaptation, they can now also be used in a private cloud.

Cooperation: Eucalyptus and Amazon Web Services

In March 2012, the Amazon Web Services and Eucalyptus had announced a collaboration to better support the migration of data between the Amazon cloud and private clouds. The collaboration is structured differently. First, developers from both companies should focus on creating solutions to help enterprise customers to migrate existing data between data centers and the AWS cloud. Furthermore, and more importantly, however, is that customers should be able to use the same management tools and their knowledge of both platforms. In addition, Amazon Web Services will provide Eucalyptus with further information in order to improve compatibility with the AWS APIs.

The first fruits of this cooperation with the Eucalyptus Release 3.3 can now be carried. Eucalyptus approaches ever closer to the functions of Amazon Web Services. My theory, that the Amazon Web Services may use Eucalyptus to build CIAs private cloud, is not entirely unjustified.

Acquisition not unlikely

CEO Marten Mickos seems to come a little closer to his goal. During a conversation in June 2012, he told me that his first act as the new CEO of Eucalyptus was to pick up the phone, call Amazon and to express an interest in working together.

As I already wrote it in the article „Netflix releases more Monkeys as open source – Eucalyptus Cloud will be pleased“ Netflix has played strong in the arms of Eucalyptus with the publication of its Monkeys. This will not least to strengthen the cooperation of Amazon Web Services and Eucalyptus, but make Eucalyptus for Amazon more attractive as takeover target.

Why I am of this opinion, I have described in detail in „Amazon acquires Eucalyptus cloud – It’s merely a matter of time„.

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Analysis

Microsoft probably builds a cloud computing data center in Germany

First, I have this information not from a Microsoft employee, so it is not a confirmed report. However, three people have told me, independently from each other, the fact that Microsoft plans to build at least one data center for its cloud services, including Windows Azure and Microsoft Office 365, in Germany. Therefore, one should assume that a little truth is behind this information. If Microsoft would confirm this, you should just say chapeau Microsoft! This is exactly the right way.

It fits into their strategy

Microsoft’s current strategy is „CLOUD First“. This is no secret and was confirmed to me several times by Microsoft’s side. Among others from the business division Dynamics CRM that is constantly growing through the cloud. At Microsoft since the launch of Dynamics CRM Online in 2011 the approach is „cloud first!“ and this seems to prove themselves. The cloud solution has reached a high level of customer acceptance, which was able to win 30% more customers for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. While 60% of all new customers rely on the cloud solution.

The situation is similar in many other areas of the company. Be mentioned only Windows Azure, which is constantly being expanded, or Office 365. For this reason, the construction of at least one data center in Germany is and and would be the next logical step to meet us Germans with regard to confidence.

Data center in Germany: An enormous competitive advantage

Microsoft supplies the European market currently over its data centers in Ireland (Dublin) and the Netherlands (Amsterdam). This comes with many Germans, especially privacy officers and medium-sized enterprises, to discomfort. Storing data outside of Germany and a contract after a maximum of European law is not welcome. However, Germany should not be neglected as a business location. For U.S. companies Germany may indeed be a small country, but to underestimate the economic power would be fatal.

If the fact is true, that Microsoft is building a cloud data center in Germany, it would be an enormous competitive advantage over other providers such as Amazon Web Services or Google. Especially in the highly competitive market for corporate customers, where Amazon AWS and Google struggle and where Microsoft already has the best starting position, due to an existing broad customer base, Microsoft would make a big step forward.

Beyond – If the data center will be built, as I believe strategically, Amazon and Google will each no longer come around to build their own data center in Germany. Indeed both and in particular Amazon is the technologically leader in the cloud computing market, but the location advantage is not negligible with a data center in Germany to actively begin to take the concerns of the German companies.

After all, cloud computing is the future! Only the legal and data privacy issues need to be adapted to the level of countries plus the customer needs which must be considered. Technologies and services are allowed to and even have to be standardized! But contracts and organizational issues have to be lead at eye level.

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Analysis

Windows Azure Infrastructure Services – Microsoft is not yet on par with Amazon AWS

That Microsoft, as one of the world’s leading IT companies eventually have to fight with an „online store“ and a „search engine“ for market share, probably, no one ever dared to dream in Redmond. But that is the reality. Amazon and its Amazon Web Services (AWS) are the engine of innovation in the cloud computing market. And even Google is catching up steadily. Google has specifically in the platform-as-a-service (PaaS) market with the App Engine and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market with Google Apps already well positioned products. Amazon, however, is in the area of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) the absolute market leader. Here also Microsoft attacks now. After Windows Azure was positioned as a pure PaaS on market at the beginning, more and more IaaS components were added successively. With the new release, Microsoft has now officially rolled out the Windows Azure infrastructure services. For many this step comes too late, as a large market share in this area already have been spent to AWS. However, where it initially looks disadvantageous also some benefits, that are overlooked by most, are hidden.

Windows Azure Infrastructure Services at a glance

Basically, the Azure infrastructure services are nothing new. In a public release preview this have already been presented in June 2012. According to Microsoft, „… more than 1.4 million virtual machines have been created and used by hundreds of millions of processor hours.“ In addition, today already more than 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies use Windows Azure and thereby manage a total of more than four trillion data and information on Windows Azure. The capacity for compute and storage solutions double in about every six to nine months. According to Microsoft, every day nearly 1,000 new customers register on Windows Azure.

With the release of Windows Azure infrastructure services, Microsoft’s cloud computing stack has now officially completed. In addition to the operation of virtual machines, the update includes the associated network components. Furthermore, Microsoft now offers support for virtual machines and also the most common Microsoft server workloads such as Microsoft BizTalk or SQL Server 2012. In addition to Windows the Linux operating system is fully valid supported on the virtual machines. The Windows Azure Virtual Networks should also allow hybrid operations.

New instances and updated SLAs

In addition to new virtual instances, for example with more storage capacity of 28GB and 56GB, virtual images are also prepared, such as for BizTalk Server and SQL Server. Prepared Linux images, inter alia CentOS, Ubuntu and Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), are provided by commercial vendors. Furthermore, there are numerous open source applications prepared in the VM Images depot on self-service basis. Microsoft server products including Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, BizTalk Server 2013 have already been tested from Microsoft to run on the virtual machines.

Furthermore, the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) have been revised. Microsoft guarantees 99.95 percent availability including financial security, if there is a failure on Microsoft’s side. In addition to an SLA for cloud services Microsoft offers seven SLAs specifically for memory, SQL database, SQL Reporting, Service Bus, Caching, CDN and media services.

7/24/365 Support

A Microsoft support team is available every day around the clock. The support plans are divided into four levels from developer support through Premier Support.

Price reduction for virtual machines and cloud services

Such as Amazon AWS also Microsoft passes his savings through economies of scale to its customers. This immediately following new prices and extensions are available:

  • Virtual machines (Windows, default instances), are up to 31 May in reduced prices. The new general availability rates apply from 1 June 2013. For a small instance the new price is € 0.0671 per hour.

  • The prices for virtual machines (Linux) for default instances have been reduced by 25 percent. From 16 April 2013, prices for small, medium, large and extra large instances be reduced by 25 percent. The price for a small Linux instance will be reduced from € 0.0596 per hour to € 0.0447 per hour in all regions.

  • The prices for virtual networks start at € 0.0373 per hour, effective from 1 June 2013. Up to 1 June, customers can use the virtual network for free.

  • The prices of cloud services for Web and Worker roles were reduced by 33 percent for default instances. From 16 April 2013 the price drops for small, medium, large and extra large instances by 33 percent. The price for a small worker role will be reduced from € 0.0894 per hour to € 0.0596 per hour in all regions.

Not too late for the big part of the pie

Even though Microsoft is very late in the highly competitive market for infrastructure-as-a-service does not mean that they missed the boat. In many countries the adaptation of cloud computing just started. In addition, the big money is made at the established corporate clients and only then with the startups. Even Amazon has understood that and has taken the appropriate measures.

Furthermore, the importance of the private cloud, and thus the hybrid cloud increases worldwide. And here the hand already looks quite different. Microsoft has with its Windows Server 2012 a well-placed product for the private cloud, which can be seamlessly integrated with Windows Azure. Here Amazon AWS can just quickly be active with a possible acquisition of Eucalyptus. A first intensive cooperation between the two companies already exists.

However, the Windows Azure infrastructure services are primarily public cloud services. And here it must be said that the diversity of the service portfolio of the Amazon Web Services is still significantly greater than of Windows Azure. For example, services such as Elastic IP or CloudFormation are missing. Nevertheless, Microsoft with its portfolio is currently the only public cloud provider on the market, who can be seriously dangerous for Amazon AWS. Because „infrastructure means more than just infrastructure“ and therefore it is about „making the infrastructure usable„.

See also: Amazon Web Services vs. Microsoft Windows Azure – A direct comparison (to be updated)

And what about Google?

Google should not be underestimated in any case. On the contrary, in a first performance comparison between the Google Cloud Platform and Amazon AWS, Google emerged as the winner. However, the current service portfolio of the Google Cloud Platform is confined in the core of computing power, storage and databases. Other value added services that rely on the platform, are still missing. In addition, Google can currently only be seen as a pure public cloud provider. In the private/ hybrid cloud environment are no products to be found yet. This needs to be improved with collaborations and acquisitions to meet the needs of conservative corporate customers in the future. Especially since Google still has a not to be underestimated reputation problem in data protection and data acquisitiveness. Here more transparency must be shown.

Microsoft is not yet on par with Amazon AWS

With the official release of the Windows Azure infrastructure services, Microsoft has begun to catch up with the Amazon Web Services in infrastructure-as-a-service market. But a game at eye level can not be mentioned here. Because something new, or even innovations can not be found in the new Azure release. Instead, Microsoft only tries to catch up the technology advantage of Amazon AWS with the extension of infrastructure resources, … but that’s it. The degree of innovation by Amazon should not be underestimate, who expand its cloud platform with other disruptive services and functions at regular intervals.

Nevertheless, in the attractive environment for enterprise customers Microsoft is in a good position and has expanded its portfolio with the Azure infrastructure services with another important component towards Amazon. In addition, Microsoft already has a very large on-premise customer base that needs to be transferred to the cloud now. Among them renowned and financially well-positioned companies. And this is precisely the area in which Amazon has still to build trust. Moreover, one should not neglect the ever-growing private cloud market. Here, the hands on both sides are equally quite different.

That Microsoft is not yet on par with Amazon in the IaaS area does not mean that they will not be successful. It is not necessarily decisive, to be the first on the market and have the best product, but to persuade its existing and potential customers expect to provide an added value. And it would not be the first time that Microsoft would do this.

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Analysis

Social Enterprise Technologies to leverage corporate hierarchies

How often do we hear that a supervisor did not come up an employee in the hierarchy to protect himself. Social enterprise technologies such as modern intranets raise this because every employee can communicate publicly about his knowledge at the higher levels. Moreover, the communication between the leadership with the employees on the remaining levels is improved.

On a par with the executive board

Some time ago I was sitting with Paul Avenant (BMC president of Enterprise Service Management) in a panel discussion on „How mobility, SaaS and social media are changing IT„. Meanwhile he said that he uses social enterprise technologies very intense to see what his staff have to say. He has learned things that he otherwise would never have noticed, because he was too far away from them. On a virtual level he could conduct a more intensive contact with employees and colleagues, to whom he otherwise has absolutely no direct relationship.

With social enterprise technologies the executive board receives the ability – if only virtually – to be on par with its employees and therefore keep an eye on innovations and other news, allowing it to respond or act directly and made decisions faster.

Effort and ideas are transparent

I have fortunately never experienced this, but sadly heard from some friends and acquaintances: The supervisor as a career blocker. Ideas were sold by the direct supervisor as his own or further trainings suddenly canceled at the last minute because some managers just saw himself exposed to a risk when an employee climb the career ladder beside him. A with appropriate technologies equipped social enterprise tears down these barriers and makes efforts and ideas more transparent. It’s making career blockers life harder on the one hand. On the other hand, the real talent to be recognized.

Technologies are only a means to an end

Mind you, technologies are only a means to an end. A social enterprise must be established and practiced by all employees, which is the biggest challenge as with any change. Keyword: change management. Only then the relevant tools and services make sense, who have positioned themselves in the last few years on the market.

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Analysis

The cloud represents the maximum flexible interconnection of the world and our society

Talking about cloud, we mean scalability, availability and flexibility. But with a look at the recent and future developments, we can also notice a different context I have already presented during my talk at the Webmontag Frankfurt. Viewed from another angle the cloud represents the maximum flexible interconnection of many different areas that nowadays otherwise would not be imaginable.

The cloud represents the maximum flexible interconnection of the world and our society

The cloud encases the Internet

Actually, the cloud symbolizes the Internet. The word cloud is derived from the illustration of the network technology, in which the Internet is always shown as a cloud. This is related to the fact that the Internet is a global, decentralized network consisting of many local and national networks which are interconnected. How data is exchanged across the Internet is not directly visible from the outside. As all the data and applications within the meaning of cloud computing will be accessed over the Internet, now everything is in the cloud.

However, considering the development of many IT trends from the recent past and what lies ahead for us yet, the cloud is much more than just the Internet. The cloud is basically the value from which the Internet, as we know it and use it today, lives. Let us take smartphones as an example. Without the cloud we had nowhere near as much fun with it as we have it today. We would not be able to chat with each other location-independent, to tell us, or to share things. Similarly most apps that we use on our smartphones store their data in the cloud. An other sub-example for the smartphone is augmented reality. The real-time presentation of value-added information of an object that we see through the camera of our smartphone. Augmented reality apps store the value-added information not on the local device – the devices have too little space – instead they load the data on demand from the cloud. These examples show that only the cloud enables this development.

The cloud is not the Internet

The cloud is not the Internet. The cloud is a layer that encases the Internet and provides on the basis of its services a maximum flexible interconnection. There are the services of the cloud and other providers of this vast ecosystem, leading to more and more services and ensure a more and more networking.

And it goes on and on

Looking at a short distance into the future, we see the next mega-trend already rolling towards us, which already developed for several years and would not be possible without the cloud. The Internet of Things, in which everything is networked and communicates with each other. At first instance, the Internet of Things means the communication from machine to machine. For example the car noted that one is at home in 5 minutes and directly turns on the coffee machine.
But, of course we speak in this context about service to service communication because eventually services run on the machines that exchange information.
Another very important trend or market are the smart grids. The term smart grid refers to the communication network and control of power generators, storage, electrical devices and power equipment in power transmission and distribution networks of electricity supply. In order to optimize and monitor all connected components should be possible. The goal is to ensure energy supplies in an efficient and reliable system operation.

In the end it’s also about us humans who communicate with the machines and services to perform a certain action. The Smart Home is not more an idea of ​​the future since a long time. However, it has still not widely prevalent due to the cost. But, due to the cloud, here also develops a new market that produces effective and above all intelligent offers.

Bottom line, it must be said, that the cloud is likely to be a comprehensive IT concept that has the greatest impact on our society like no other trend before.

Video: Webmontag Frankfurt

Cloud – Big Data – … oder wie finde ich einen Use Case from wmfra on Vimeo.

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Analysis

Cloud-Desktop: The browser becomes the operating system

The variety of software-as-a-service applications and other cloud services is growing steadily. Next to a difficult overview this leads to a higher complexity. One trend are cloud marketplaces that categorize a catalog of different services and thus giving an overall portfolio. What these marketplaces currently still missing is the integration of existing services and applications. This means that working on a common database is not possible, which is known from many on-premise infrastructures, and results in data and application silos.

State of play

The problem of cloud data silos is not just in cloud marketplaces. There are also advertisements for ways of integrating e.g. a CRM SaaS solution applied with an Office suite. In practice, the implementation is achieved modest. Somehow, the systems are indeed connected. In the end one works on different systems, with separate data and must also register separately for both.

Today, the cloud lacks with the integration of disparate services to work on a common data base.

Integration is imperative

Speaking about integration we mean interfaces and data. Some time ago I had suggested that cloud computing for business can give a chance to clean up their historically grown silos. Using the cloud, for companies with isolated solutions it is now easier to replace a single system from that island solution against a cloud service to successively obtain a fully integrated (total) system of multiple cloud services. The practice at this point is not yet so far, but there are initial efforts to change this. And this is essential in order to exploit the variety of different cloud services. A crucial point is the access of the respective cloud services on a common database. This means that every application saves their data continuously in a quasi central store and also call it from there again.

The integration layer inevitably need not a central and persistent data base. One another possibility is to load the data in real time from the integrated systems. These are then processed and displayed on a single interface. Thus, for example, an arbitrary cloud storage is involved, on which the data (pictures, videos, etc.) is stored. However, this means that all cloud services that want to be part of this ecosystem need to open their APIs to the outside in order to save the data and load it back.

The browser becomes the operating system

Irrespective of how the integration is achieved in detail. The browser becomes the „one face to the customer„, the central interface, when the user accesses the Internet. I recently described Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS). But they are only an intermediate step to the actual final state. Indeed DaaS provide full-fledged working environments including classic applications in the cloud. However, the DaaS normally runs in the browser. That means, one first starts his computer, then the browser to start another operating system again. Would an enterprise thus rely on software-as-a-service solutions and DaaS, it again incurs the data and application silos.

The aim is therefore to develop a sort of „uber-cloud“, which is accessed via single sign-on to all services in the cloud into a single interface, who want to be the part of the whole. This is not a new concept and has already been applied. But only on a very proprietary basis with services from a single company. By integrating external services, this approach has failed so far.

These „uber-cloud“ can be either a public cloud service or stand by as a private solution. The private solution would have the advantage that IT departments use them as a service broker or as a service portal including application firewall for the employees and get a little control over business applications.

That scenario would mean that an employee logs in at the „uber-cloud“ and sees the for him relevant business applications. Based on the application at the „uber-cloud“ he is directly signed in to other applications.

The „uber-cloud“ should be built like a plugin system, with that each company can put a personal productivity cloud together for their purposes. With the plug-in system different apps/ services can be integrated if the API allows it. Either the data is presented in a single interface. So the data is loaded at runtime and restored after changes or the respective services are organized into „tabs“. It is only important that the data are in a kind of centralized access. Thus, for example, everyone could use any cloud storage as this will only be docked. Where the data is determined the company decide itself.

The browser becomes the operating system. However, it still needs the proper and independent platforms to be implemented.

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Analysis

Top Trend: Web-based GUIs for Cloud IaaS

Many administrators are not developers and do not necessarily know how to use the APIs of current infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers to programmatically build a complex cloud infrastructure. The next generation of cloud services, especially in the area of IaaS, must and will be much easier to use. In the future we will see more and more cloud offerings that provide in addition to an API a graphical web interface, to „click“ cloud infrastructures together, without having knowledge of the underlying API.

Web-based GUIs for cloud infrastructures

Pioneer is the German company openQRM Enterprise. Since 2009, they provide in addition to their open source cloud infrastructure solution openQRM, for setting up own public and private clouds, also a web-based GUI called „Visual Designer Infrastructure“.

openQRM Visual Infrastructure Designer

openQRM Visual Infrastructure Designer


openQRM Visual Infrastructure Designer

Since May 2012, ProfitBricks, also from Germany, provides its infrastructure-as-a-service solution. Also ProfitBricks has, as the first public cloud provider on the market, a web-based GUI for creating an own cloud infrastructure, the „Data Center Designer“.

ProfitBricks Data Center Designer

ProfitBricks Data Center Designer

Both web GUIs, the „Visual Designer Infrastructure“ and the „Data Center Designer“ help cloud administrators establishing and managing common up to complex cloud infrastructures.

Open source cloud solutions like Eucalyptus, OpenStack or CloudStack and also public IaaS providers such as Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure and Rackspace do not offer such surfaces, so that administrators are completely dependent on the APIs.

Top trend with more potential

The „Visual Infrastructure Designer“ of openQRM and the „Data Center Designer“ of ProfitBricks do not exhaust ​​their full potential yet, but they show very well in what direction the design and management of cloud infrastructures will develop. In addition to an extensive and well-documented API, web-based graphical management interfaces and infrastructure designer tools are the top trends in infrastructure-as-a-service and belong to the portfolio of each IaaS cloud provider in the future.

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Analysis

ProfitBricks under the hood: IaaS from Germany – be curious

Last week I had a briefing with ProfitBricks to get a better understanding of the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offering from Germany and to ask specific questions. I examined ProfitBricks critically with two articles in the past, number one here and number two here. First, because I don’t like marketing phrases that just promise much more than really is behind it and secondly because even the technical promises must be kept.

ProfitBricks details

ProfitBricks presents itself as a typical infrastructure-as-a-service providers. A graphical web interface is used to form customized servers to an entire data center. A complex network structure shall ensure a real isolation of the customer’s network in the virtual datacenter. A meshed network with a redundant Infiniband connection and a highly redundant storage (including automatic backup) provides the performance and availability of data.

In addition, ProfitBricks has its own security team and highly experienced system administrators that provide a round the clock support.

Locations

ProfitBricks has data centers or co-locations in Germany (Karlsruhe) and the USA (Las Vegas). However, both data centers are not connected with each other – physical nor virtual. So no data exchange between Germany and the United States can take place in this way.

The infrastructure components

At ProfitBricks servers can be equip from 1 to 48 cores, and between 1 GB and 196 GB of RAM. The maximum is currently at 60 cores and 250 GB of RAM per server, which can be enabled through a support contact. Storage is available between 1 GB and 5000 GB. However, this can only be assigned to one server directly. So there is no central storage. To realize this, one has to build its own central storage appliance and distribute the storage over it.

Within a self-designed data center (see below), two zones (similar to Amazon Availability Zones) are available. This allows to configure two servers, whereby one of them will not notice about problems in the area of the second server.

There is no centralized firewall. Instead, each of all NICs in a server can be configured with their own rules. A central firewall can achieved by creating a dedicated firewall appliance (Linux + IPTables or a prepared commercial firewall as an ISO image).

Although a load balancer is available, ProfitBricks recommends to build an own one based on an appliance because among others the ProfitBricks one has no monitoring included.

ProfitBricks do not offer additional own value-added services. And on their own admission, this will never happen. Instead, the provider relies on a network of partners that will provide appropriate services for the infrastructure platform.

Currently unique: The Data Center Designer

What really convinced me at ProfitBricks is the „Data Center Design (DCD)“. Such a one no IaaS provider worldwide has it in this format.

Based on these graphical web interface one is able to create a complete virtual data center individually and activate the configuration or modify it with a mouse click – whether it’s about servers, storage, load balancers, firewalls, or the corresponding network.

Is a data center design ready, it can be saved and deployed. Previously the user obtained more information about a check through the system. Here is determined whether everything is configured correctly – e.g. that all servers have a boot drive with the corresponding image. Then the total cost per month for this virtual data center is itemized.

However, the DCD has still a weak point. Is a data center deployed, no single server can be removed from the design or stopped via the web interface. Therefore the entire data center must be un-deployed. Then the server is removed and the data center must be re-deployed. Using the proprietary SOAP API that supports, among other things Java and C #, a single server should be removed. This web feature is to follow, as well as a REST API, in the future.

The customer is mostly left on its own

ProfitBricks offers a German support, which has either worked for years as an administrator, or was involved in the development of the system. Support is included for free. Even if one evaluates the platform only with a test account.

Otherwise ProfitBricks is a common self-service like all the other IaaS providers. This means that a customer is self-responsible for the design of its virtual infrastructure and how an application on the infrastructure can scale and provided highly available.

With additional questions and approaches, for example for configuring a separate firewall appliance or a dedicated load balancer, external partners should help.

Prices

The billing follows exact to the minute per hour. The cost break down on this as follows:

  • 1 Core = 0,04 EUR per hour
  • (Windows Server plus 0,01 EUR per hour)
  • 1 GB RAM = 0,09 EUR per hour
  • 1 GB storage = 0,09 EUR per 30 days
  • 1 GB traffic = 0,06 EUR per GB traffic

For the US market:

  • 1 Core = 0,05 USD per hour
  • (Windows Server plus 0,02 USD per hour)
  • 1 GB RAM = 0,015 USD per hour
  • 1 GB storage = 0,09 USD per 30 days
  • 1 GB traffic = 0,08 USD per GB traffic

Live Vertical Scaling

ProfitBricks supports the so-called Live Vertical Scaling. This means that further resources such as CPU and RAM can be add to a virtual server during operation. This feature must be enabled separately for each server, and the server must then be restarted once.

However, what I have noted here and what has be confirmed by ProfitBricks during the briefing, the operating system, database, software and the own application must support it. The systems need to realize that suddenly more cores and RAM are available and use it. And in the opposite case also deal with, when the resources scale down again.

ProfitBricks is interesting

ProfitBricks is an interesting infrastructure-as-a-service offering. Especially in the very cloud-sparse (IaaS) Germany with a data center in Germany. Particularly noteworthy is the Data Center Designer (the only USP), which is currently unique in the world and provides convenience features, that the other IaaS providers are neglecting. Admittedly the designer rakes at one point or another (Example: removing server), but that will certainly change in a next version.

At the end of the day ProfitBricks is a pure infrastructure-as-a-service provider that has its strengths in infrastructure operations. This also showed the briefing. Therefore an interview with CEO Achim Weiss confuses me, which I had read a few weeks ago. Besides enterprises he called Internet startups as ProfitBricks target customers. Today, I consider this as an utopia. Without a services portfolio like the offering of the Amazon Web Services, this target group can not be achieved. The service gap can and should be closed by service partners. Another but quite legitimate approach if the strengths are in a different area.

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Analysis

Software-as-a-Service: Why your application belongs to the cloud as well

Software-as-a-service is the most growing part in the cloud computing market. More and more providers of classical software solutions make the change and offer their applications over the cloud. Learn why your application belongs to the cloud as well and why your customers but even you as a provider benefit from this step.

Software-as-a-Service: Warum auch Ihre Anwendung in die Cloud gehört

What means Software-as-a-service?

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is the top layer of the cloud computing service model. It provides the user with complete applications. It can be understood as a kind of distribution model in which the use of software (licenses) is offered over the Internet by a third party provider. The third party provider does inter alia the maintenance, updating and hosting of the software. For the supplier, the advantage is that only one instance of the software must be provided on the servers which utilize a numerous of users simultaneously. If the software is brought to a current status, an update operation is sufficient in a central place and the updated software is available for all users at the same time. The advantage for the user is that only one device with a web browser and an Internet connection is sufficient to use services such as e-mail, office applications or ERP systems. The purchase and maintenance of large server environments and software packages is as well as eliminated like updating local applications. The third party provider always takes care of a current state of the software and provides the complete infrastructure for hosting the software. This also includes the storage of files and documents on the provider’s servers. Therefore the provider is responsible for all the necessary parts of the operations, such as availability, backup, redundancy, and also the power supply. Settlement takes place with the pay per use model. Here, the costs will be charged per user.

What means SaaS for your customers?

In short, software-as-a-service will make your customers‘ lives easier and help them to invest selectively and only when necessary.

Manageable capital costs

An IT infrastructure includes inter alia local computer systems with which the staff do their work. On this numerous applications are installed that are settled firmly per user or computer system, no matter whether the current user of the system requires the application or not. Furthermore, for the central storage of data, communication and collaboration solutions such as e-mail or systems for time and attendance and corporate planning, server hardware and software are required in the backend. Also not forget the servers and software for the directory service, against the employees need to authorize. All the listed areas, and that’s only a part, lead to high investment costs. It should also be noted that this must be maintained and updated regularly all well.

Software-as-a-service reduces the major part of the above disadvantages of a local IT infrastructure. Not pinpoint high investment costs in licenses are eliminated, such as unused software licenses. Today companies have to do with a growing staff turnover. In addition, many rely on part-time or casual workers to compensate for a particular boom, which is above the average in the year. This requires appropriate licenses, so that each employee can work productively. The result is that over the year to many software licenses are available in the company and installed on the systems. By the unpredictable number of required employees either there is an over-investment or there is a shortage, which is usually solved by workarounds.

A software-as-a-service solution allows to add more users as needed within a short time and remove them again. This means the company actually pays only for the employee who requires a certain software.

The situation is similar with local computer systems and servers in the backend. The needed servers for e-mail and ERP systems are located within the infrastructure of the provider who is responsible for the maintenance, upgrade and administration. An investment in these back-end systems is eliminated. Moreover, no local performance computer systems are longer needed. Since the application is deployed and used via a web browser, inexpensive terminals or thin clients last out.

Always up to date

Software must constantly meet new requirements. Because due to new legal requirements or bugs and security vulnerabilities have slipped during the development process, which must be corrected. And of course on a regular basis to see new versions of software that bring new features, etc. with it. In a traditional IT infrastructure usually all this is performed manually by a user or better an administrator installation process or by automated systems. Either way, the IT staff is busy to first install updates on test systems to validate the behavior of the overall system.

A software-as-a-service application is always up to date. The provider works in the background to ensure that security issues, bug fixes, updates and new features are recorded, without the user or administrator is actively involved and in most cases, none of this notice.

Working location and platform independent

Traditional software applications are bound to a local computer system, that makes location and platform independent work difficult. With mobile devices such as notebooks, applications are indeed a bit portable, but still bound to this one device. In addition, the respective native application must also be available for the local operating system, which is not always the case.

Software-as-a-Service applications are used via a standard browser. Thus they are 100% location and platform independent. Even if an employee can’t use his usual system he still can access through the web browser to the application. Another advantage is that the access to critical data is always possible, since they are stored centrally in the backend of the SaaS application and it is therefore accessed from any employee who is entitled to.

What means SaaS for you?

Software-as-a-service will save you time, money and nerves.

Software costs

If a classic application is fully developed, the real work begins. How should the software be distributed, how to provide updates and how to respond if a bug is discovered when the correction is extremely important? These are just a few questions a provider needs to face up. Traditionally software is delivered as a volume in the form of a CD. On the one hand this means costs for media, packaging, logistics, etc. On the other side also a static version of the software that needs to be expanded with updates (on CD) after each new installation. But what about when the update also contains an error or is not compatible with certain other applications? The logistical process starts again. Over time it has become to provide software and updates as downloads. This has succeeded in cost savings, but the update problem largely remains. It’s similar with the release of a completely new software version with new features and design.

Software-as-a-service fully raises these issues. The application is ​​available online through a web browser, eliminating the need for any external logistic processes. It is the same with the delivering of updates. This is completely eliminated, because you as a provider of software have all the threads in your hand and maintain the changes, bug fixes, improvements and completely new versions at a central location.

Platform independence

Some software is only available for the well-known operating systems. The development and sale for the supposed small not worth it. This not only deters the occasional user, but can be carried away by statements that the provider is not open.

Software-as-a-service provides the platform independence of the application and thus a greater range and customer satisfaction. The application is exclusively available via a browser and works without the installation of additional software components. As a result, you just have to develop for the current default browser and the local operating system and all applications installed on it are not affect by your application.

Your application belongs to the cloud as well

If we compare the traditional software market and how software is developed, provided and consumed here, with cloud computing, one thing becomes very clear. The way software is delivered to the user has changed. Sending out volumes or providing updates are eliminated. Likewise, to install software or updates. Software is provided as a service from the cloud, accordingly software-as-a-service (SaaS). The provider has all filaments in his hand and the users do not notice an update, unless changes ​​to the surface were made. The user is not involved in the update process itself because he must not install or download anything. He consumes the software only through a web browser.

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Analysis

Amazon Web Services vs. Microsoft Windows Azure – A direct comparison

Many companies are currently in the evaluation of public cloud services such as IaaS. The first thoughts brush the two large and supposedly known providers in the scene – Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Windows Azure. Both have an extensive and growing range of cloud services today. But, if you want to compare both portfolios the challenges increase with the number of services.

Amazon Cloud vs. Windows Azure

The following table shows the cloud service portfolio towards 1:1 and provides clarity. Who provides what in which area, what is the name of the respective service and under what URL to find more information about it.

Feature

Amazon Web Services

Microsoft Windows Azure

Computing power
Virtual machines Elastic Compute Cloud Role Instances
High Performance Computing Cluster Compute Instances HPC Scheduler
MapReduce Elastic Map Reduce Hadoop on Azure
Dynamic scaling Auto Scaling Auto Scaling Application Block

Storage
Unstructured storage Simple Storage Service Azure Blob
Flexible entities SimpleDB Azure Tables
Block Level Storage Elastic Block Store Azure Drive
Archiving Amazon Glacier
Storage Gateway AWS Storage Gateway

Databases
RDBMS Relational Database Service SQL Azure
NoSQL DynamoDB Azure Tables

Caching
CDN CloudFront CDN
In-Memory ElastiCache Cache

Network
Load Balancer Elastic Load Balancer Fabric Controller / Traffic Manager
Hybrid Cloud Virtual Private Cloud Azure Connect
Peering Direct Connect
–
DNS Route 53
–

Messaging & Applications
Async Messaging Simple Queue Service Azure Queues
Push Notifications Simple Notification Service Service Bus
Bulk Email Simple Email Service
Workflows Amazon Simple Workflow Service
Search Amazon CloudSearch

Monitoring
Resource monitoring CloudWatch System Center

Securiry
Identity Management Identity Access Management Azure Active Directory

Deployment
Resource creation CloudFormation
–
Web Application Container Elastic Beanstalk Web Role