Derrick Harris
Filling in the Outsourcing Blanks
Post Date: September 26, 2008 @ 12:21 AM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

I know what you're thinking: Is there any more information about financial firms and outsourcing that wasn't included in Derrick's epic-length article from earlier this week? The answer: Yes (but just a little).

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Derrick Harris
Oracle Stakes Cloud, XTP Ground; IT Didn't Fail Wall Street
Post Date: September 24, 2008 @ 12:34 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

I must say, I am impressed with some of the news coming out of Oracle OpenWorld. Specfically, two of Oracle's myriad announcements yesterday caught my eye: Oracle's foray into cloud computing and the availability of WebLogic Application Grid. Additonally, I've spoken with several individuals over the past week who say IT had precious little to do with last week's Wall Street debacle, and will do little to avoid similar situations in the future.

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Derrick Harris
An Easier Cloud is a Better Cloud
Post Date: September 19, 2008 @ 2:49 AM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

I'll keep it brief: RightScale's announcement from Wednesday is some very cool news. In case you missed it, the company will soon support GoGrid, FlexiScale, and, apparently, Mosso and CloudFS with its cloud management infrastructure. It turns out VMworld wasn't the only place churning out cloud innovations.

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Derrick Harris
Have You Heard? There's a Lot of Cloud at VMworld
Post Date: September 16, 2008 @ 11:55 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

My day included more VMware than anticipated and less hosting than I hoped for, but that's alright. What I found out at the first day of VMworld is that VMware and its partners, like Cisco, are serious about the cloud, but that there are issues that must be addressed before VMware can offer the global, completely reliable cloud about which we've heard so much.

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Derrick Harris
This Just In: Crosby Not Impressed with VMware Datacenter OS
Post Date: September 15, 2008 @ 2:49 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

So VMworld technically kicked off this morning, and I sat down with Citrix's virtualization and management CTO to talk about (what else?) the cloud. In particular, we discussed VMware's foray into cloud computing. If you're familiar with Crosby, it should come as no surprise that he isn't impressed.

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Derrick Harris
Automation: The Forgotten Option?
Post Date: September 12, 2008 @ 7:04 AM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

We talk a lot about efficiency and reducing operational costs, but the discussion generally is focused on technologies like virtualization or, taking it several steps further, cloud and utility computing. But what about automation? Isn't automation a smaller-scale way to achieve the grand goals of concentrating valuable brainpower on the datacenter tasks that really need it and spending money on the business objectives that bring real benefit to the company?

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Derrick Harris
What Will VMworld Tell Us About the Cloud?
Post Date: September 10, 2008 @ 12:18 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

Next week should tell us quite a bit about how the cloud computing ecosystem might look in the years to come -- at the hypervisor layer, at least. The reason for this, of course, is that VMworld is taking place in Las Vegas next week. Additionally, two analyst events with virtualization and cloud foci will be going on across the street.

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Derrick Harris
Cloud Data Management Advances; Google Amends Copyright Clause
Post Date: September 08, 2008 @ 11:58 AM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

How has cloud data management evolved recently? Well, Xeround thinks its Intelligent Data Grid is a good fit, and 3Tera is offering the ability to migrate your data to specific datacenters across the globe -- on demand. And on an unrelated note, Google has backed off its copyright claim over content on Chrome.

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Derrick Harris
Signing Away Your Rights with Google Chrome
Post Date: September 03, 2008 @ 2:09 PM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

People have referred to the Google Chrome browser as a cloud operating system, and that characterization seems accurate. However, it's not all roses: Google's quest to store your personal data -- and even to own content transmitted via Chrome -- is a little troubling to me. In fact, these concerns mirror those skeptics are asking about cloud computing, in general.

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Derrick Harris
Dell's Failed Trademark: A Blessing in Disguise?
Post Date: August 29, 2008 @ 12:10 AM, Pacific Daylight Time
Blog: The Essence of 'On-Demand'

The whole ado around its failed trademark attempt aside (or perhaps because of it), you have to hand it to Dell. The company is making sure the world knows it's a player in the cloud market. I spoke with Dell about its "arms dealer" strategy some time ago, but now it appears Dell is showing even more of its hand.

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