Microsoft has revealed more information on the datacentre efficiency tricks it employs to power its Bing search and web mail services.

As firms such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon drive the adoption of cloud services, the datacentre has become a key battleground – not least because the IT industry comes under scrutiny from environmental campaigners concerned over rampant energy consumption.

“Increasing datacentre efficiency will make the cloud cost-effective for more scenarios and extend the benefits of online computing to many more aspects of human life,” says Aman Kansal, a researcher at Microsoft. 

Kansal told an audience at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University that the firm was able to make dramatic efficiency gains by moving from a traditional hot-aisle, cold-aisle set-up to containerised modules.

According to Kansal, Microsoft cut the PUE rating for its Bing and Hotmail datacentres from 2.0 to just 1.05 in 2011. PUE – or power usage effectiveness – is a measure of datacentre efficiency that is calculated by dividing the total datacentre power usage by the power used by IT equipment.

By locking hardware in to containers, Microsoft has been able to reduce the amount of power it needs to cool its infrastructure, allowing some servers to run hotter, while targeting the cooling to where it is needed most.

But when it comes to energy use, PUE only tells half the story – of course it is better for cloud services to put more of the energy it consumes in to running the IT infrastructure, but it’s even better if the IT infrastructure is energy efficient.

By studying the energy consumption needed by applications such as search or webmail hosting, Microsoft has been able to tune its servers to fit the power requirements of its applications, Kansal reported. It has been drilling down into power consumption of individual hardware components as well as software containers such as virtual machines and software processes.

There’s still a long way to go before cloud firms eco-boasts will be completely believable, but Kansal’s work gives a glimpse of where the industry leaders are going.

06 Feb 2013

Cloud Services for small and medium businesses (SMB) is a $45bn industry, according to a new study by cloud hosting firm Parallels.

It was found that 22 per cent of SMBs are currently managing websites through cloud services with another 30 per cent of SMBs planning to adopt cloud-based website management tools by 2015.

“Cloud computing has given SMBs access to computing power, applications, and services that were formerly available only to large enterprises,” Parallels wrote in its study.

“Looking at the global IT landscape in 2012, we see SMBs’ participation in the cloud market spanning the full gamut – from having a mature cloud services market to needing education about what cloud services are.”

According to Parallels, the SMB market for cloud services will be worth $68bn by 2014, double its total estimated worth in 2011.

Parallels expects to see major growth in the hosted infrastructure and business applications segment of SMB cloud computing.

The study projects that the hosted infrastructure space will be worth $27bn in 2014. Parallels reported that the space garnered $14bn in 2011.

Cloud-based business applications for SMBs are also expected to double in 2014. Parallels says the industry segment will be worth $20bn next year. Cloud business applications only garnered $9bn in the SMB market in 2011.

The growth of the industry stems from two reasons. SMBs are now seeing an advantage to moving their in-house solutions to the cloud, while firms are now “leapfrogging” traditional in-house IT for cloud-based systems.

“[Some] SMBs that currently have no in-house IT solution and are moving, or planning to move, straight to the cloud. [They’re] ‘leapfrogging’ the typical intermediate step of purchasing in-house IT,” continued the firm in its study.

“These companies might have rudimentary IT components, such as external hard drives for storage or Excel workbooks for accounting, but they don’t have the kind of in-house infrastructure that the cloud converters do.”

HP is launching a two cloud services designed to help companies improve the development and maintenance of enterprise applications.

The HP Agile Manager and Performance Anywhere services will be offered to firms via a monthly software-as-a-service plan and are targeting developers, administrators and project leaders.

Designed for team developer projects, the Agile Manager will aim to help groups plan and track application development schedules. The management tool will allow team leaders to delegate tasks and monitor the progress of application development projects and timelines.

Subbu Iyer, vice president of products and strategy for HP software applications, told V3 the aim of the service was to give enterprises a system to help cope with the accelerated development schedules many modern applications require.

“Agile is being used as a development method across the board,” he explained.

“We see a lot of organisations that are starting off any process the do with agility as the driver.”

Additionally, HP said that demand on flexibility and agility is stretching over into the application management space. To help firms better manage agile applications after their deployment, the company is rolling out the Performance Anywhere service.

Designed for administrators and developer teams alike, the service will allow users to remotely monitor and manage the performance of applications in both the public and private cloud environments.

“Once you build your application and deploy it on the cloud or private datacentre you can use Performance Anywhere to monitor its performance and manage the health of the application,” Iyer explained.

Iyer said that the tool could prove particularly useful for enterprises and services who operate in multiple regions around the globe.

A central administrator could monitor and analyse a device, then deliver instructions and advisories to a regional or branch office to maintain application performance and reliability.

HP said that the Agile Manager will be available immediately as a three-month subscription service, while Performance Anywhere is slated to go live in March.

Ravello, a startup with ties to the Red Hat KVM platform, has released a platform for firms looking to simplify the way they build and test applications.

Executives from Ravello claimed that their service will allow firms to test applications in the cloud in an environment which mirrors their on-premise deployments.

In doing so the company hopes to remove the processing limitations of on-premise testing without the development hurdles of a cloud migration.

Ravello senior vice president of products Navin Thadani told V3 firms previously had to choose between limiting the workload of application tests or migrating to a cloud infrastructure which requires an application to be adjusted.

“If you want to use the public cloud you have to recode and rebuild your application,” Thadani explained.

“At that point it does not make sense, it is something completely different.”

To overcome those hurdles, Ravello created a layer which sits between the traditional virtual machine and the cloud environment. The Ravello service offers users a cloud front-end in which an administrator can create a virtual “blueprint” of the on-premise testing structure and systems.

The blueprint is then combined with a software-defined network architecture and the company’s HVX virtual server hypervisor platform to create a fully functional test environment which can be then run on a cloud service as a single compute instance.

The result, said Thadani, is a test environment which mirrors the customer’s own on-premise structure but allows the compute and storage flexibility of a cloud instance.

Currently, the service supports the Amazon, Rackspace and HP cloud environments, though further partnerships are planned.

Based out of offices in Israel and Silicon Valley, Ravello has its roots in the virtualisation space. Prior to striking out on their own, the company’s founders worked on the Qumranet KVM virtualisation project which was later acquired by Red Hat.

Under their new banner, the company hopes to bridge gaps which previously existed between on-premise deployments and cloud environments.

Ravello is now offering its service as a free public beta. The company hopes to take the paid service live with general availability later this year.

IBM has announced an update to its Power Systems offerings which is says will bring big data analytics capabilities to smaller firms and emerging markets and tackle rivals HP and Oracle.

The new Power Express entry-level and midrange offerings are based on Power7+ processors that have been optimised for use with the firm’s own analytics technologies such as Cognos and SPSS, IBM said.

The new products are listed as the Power Express 710, 720, 730 and 740, will start from $5,947 and begin shipping from 20 February. IBM said this will enable it compete with similar technology from rivals Oracle and HP.

Rod Adkins, senior vice president for IBM Systems and Technology Group, said the new offerings would help firms with smaller balance sheets utilise the benefits of big data.

“Big data and cloud systems that were once only affordable to large enterprises are now available to the masses,” he said.

“With these new systems, IBM is forging an aggressive expansion of its Power and Storage Systems business into SMB and growth markets.”

As well as the new entry-level offerings, IBM also unveiled new Power Systems for midsized and large enterprises, the 750 and 760, that it said are ideal for these firms looking to consolidate their big data analytics and cloud workload platforms.

Meanwhile, on the software side, IBM has unveiled new Pure System offerings designed to make it easier for firms to interrogate and understand the data they want to use.

The launch includes PureData System for Analytics powered by Netezza technology, that can offer 40 percent great data capacity and three-times faster data-analysing than previous offerings, to both boost efficiencies and reduce datacentre costs.

In conjunction with its push to bring big data to the masses, IBM has also moved to boost its cloud computing storage offerings to help make the storage of data simpler and more cost-effective.

Chief among the updates include SmartCloud Storage Access. This is designed to allow companies to create their own internal cloud portals for the storing and accessing of data and this can be managed through a web-based portal with the need for IT admin support.

Another notable update sees the firm’s XIV Storage System upgraded with a new system of design for big data that supports 12 10GB Ethernet Ports and up to 6TB of solid state cache, which IBM said can improve workload performance five-fold.

The announcements underline IBM’s rich heritage of innovations, with the firm confirmed as securing the most patents in 2012, an achievement it has secured for 20 years in a row.

The lure of a takeaway pizza is well-known and thanks to technology it’s becoming ever easier to order whenever the mood takes you.

Smartphones and tablets let us place orders from any location via dedicated apps and one firm that’s seen the rise perhaps better than any other is Domino’s Pizza.

It now sees over 50 percent of its orders placed online, and 20 percent are coming from mobile applications on Android and iOS devices, according to the firm’s chief information officer Colin Rees.

Rees was speaking at Cloud Expo in London last week and explained how the firm has embraced the benefits of cloud computing to ensure it can cope with the growing demand placed on its ordering systems.

Domino’s, understandably, has fairly predictable demand windows, that revolve around a peak between 5pm and 9pm and particularly on Fridays, Saturday and Tuesdays – when it runs its two for £10 deal.

As a result, the firm has increased its capacity during these periods to ensure it meets demands, but it can also ask for even more from its provider whenever necessary.

This means during the quiet periods it’s not paying for unnecessary extra capacity. However, this doesn’t mean it can’t react to events and boost capacity as necessary.

“Before Christmas when the weather was bad we knew sales would increase and we would need more capacity,” Rees explained.

“So we doubled the processors we were utilising in the servers overnight and could prove that the increase was necessary given the sales we processed, which would have proven too great if we’d left the capacity levels as they were the day before.”

The firm’s experiences are likely to mirror many similar-sized firms considering whether or not their business could operate in a similar manner.

HP has become the latest PC maker to unveil a Chromebook – the low-cost, cloud-reliant laptops that run on Google’s Chrome operating system.

HP’s Pavilion 14 features a 14in screen, is powered by an Intel Celeron processor and includes a 16GB solid-state drive, and will weigh roughly 1.8kg.

The Pavilion 14 includes HDMI, USB 2.0 and Ethernet ports, along with a removable battery.

The release is significant for HP, marking its first laptop to be built using Google’s cloud-based OS. 

“Google’s Chrome OS is showing great appeal to a growing customer base,” said Kevin Frost, general manager of consumer PCs, printing and personal systems.

The Pavilion 14 is available now in the US starting at $330, via HP’s online store. There is no word yet on a UK release.

Buyers will also be given 100GB free storage for two years on Google Drive, the cloud-based storage offering.

HP’s moves comes amid turbulent times for PC makers, which have seen revenues shrink in the face of competition from tablets, such as Apple’s iPad. Meanwhile, the introduction of Windows 8, the Microsoft operating system that was supposed to revitalise the PC market, has done little to win over users.

The first batch of Chromebooks were met with general indifference on launch, with users unswayed by the underpowered machines. But lately, the newer model of Chromebooks suggest there may be a bright future for Google’s Chrome OS.

Last week, Jim Wong president at rival PC maker Acer predicted more hardware vendors would embrace Chromebooks, amid disappointing sales of Windows 8 systems.

According to analyst firm Gartner, sales of PCs slumped in the fourth quarter of 2012, despite the introduction of Windows 8. Gartner said buying behaviour had undergone a sea change, with many users now favouring tablets over PCs.

Red Hat has closed its acquisition of hybrid cloud computing provider ManageIQ as part of an effort to boost its cloud portfolio.

The company said that the $104m deal, which was first announced in December of last year, would allow it to better manage hybrid cloud deployments which mix public and private cloud platforms. Based out of offices in the US, UK and Germany, MangeIQ develops automation products which allow administrators to automate day-to-day activities on private clouds.

Red Hat said that the acquisition will allow it to better orchestrate management and integration across both its on-premise cloud computing and public enterprise cloud computing brands.

The company said that it will be offering the ManageIQ products alongside the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation and CloudForms infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) brands.

“We’ve worked with ManageIQ as a partner to our Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation platform and saw an opportunity to expand our hybrid cloud management capabilities with an even closer relationship with ManageIQ’s compelling portfolio,” said Red hat cloud business unit general manager Bryan Che.

“With the closing of the acquisition, we now begin work to integrate ManageIQ’s enterprise cloud management and automation technologies with our complementary Red Hat CloudForms hybrid IaaS solution and our open Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation management solution.”

Making cloud platforms more interoperable and compatible has emerged as a top priority for Red Hat in recent months.

In December, Red Hat unveiled a series of updates to Enterprise Virtualisation and CloudForms designed to help both platforms better integrate with hybrid cloud models.

One of the best things about the technology industry is the breakneck pace at which it moves, offering up new innovations, ideas and products with regularity.

However, this can also mean that no sooner have you got your head around one trend or new skills to take on board than three more have come along that need attention and understanding too. Blink and you’ll miss it.

For those in charge of numerous aspects of their organisation’s IT operations 2013 looks set to be no different. So, we at V3 have come up with what we see as 10 of the top skills worth honing for the year ahead, and which just may land you that dream job. If you have your own ideas, please leave a comment at the bottom of the article.

Honourable mention: IT support and management skills

Even though IT support roles are likely to decrease in the future as business users become more tech savvy and use their own devices in the workplace, IT support professionals are still currently very much in demand. As enterprises embrace bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategies, and allow employees to adopt their own chosen cloud applications, there is often actually increasing work for IT support professionals.

General IT management skills also continue to have a place in businesses. IT managers will be especially valuable to a business if they have demonstrable knowledge of which applications best suit the cloud and experience in deploying a BYOD strategy. Digital asset management is also useful knowledge to have as business users adopt more and more profiles on line.

Predictions made that the corporate IT department will soon die off are a long time coming.

10. Windows 8

Following the release of Windows 8 last year, organisations are having to face up to the likelihood that they will see systems with the new platform hitting their network sooner or later, even if it is much, much later, if IT chiefs have any say in the matter.

Microsoft maintains that Windows 8 client devices will fit easily into an existing Active Directory domain alongside earlier versions of Windows, but it is the stark difference in the user experience that marks out Windows 8, and users will be looking for guidance to help them make the transition.

However, Windows 8 will also call for other skills in the area of app development and support, if organisations wish to take full advantage of the new “Modern” user interface and its associated app model.

Not only do the new apps use a different development process from existing Windows apps, but large organisations will need to get to grips with the process of “sideloading” in-house apps to Windows 8 clients on their network, a process that is not as simple as it may first sound.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) has introduced a 1.2TB 10K RPM Ultrastar drive, claimed as the highest capacity enterprise-class hard disk available and enabling datacentres to cram 33 percent more capacity into the same rack space.

Shipping now, the Ultrastar C10K1200 is a development of the firm’s existing Ultrastar C10K900 line, but adds a fourth platter within the same 2.5in drive format to boost total storage capacity up to 1.2TB.

This enables datacentres to fit over 28TB of storage into a 2U rack-mount server chassis, according to Hitachi, which is now part of Western Digital after being acquired in 2011.

Like Hitachi’s existing drives, the new Ultrastar uses a SAS 6Gbit/s serial attached SCSI (SAS) host interface and spins at 10,000RPM. It is aimed at enterprise customers and cloud computing service providers, who seek ever greater densities to meet ballooning data storage requirements.

“This is a key product for large storage arrays as you can fit a higher capacity within the same space restrictions. No one else in the industry has a higher capacity than 900GB in this segment at the moment,” Hitachi senior sales director for EMEA, Nigel Edwards told V3.

The new drive also meets customer requirements around quality and reliability, Edwards said, with an estimated mean time between failures (MTBF) of two million hours.

While the adoption of solid state drives (SSDs) has been growing in the enterprise market, conventional hard drives will continue to make up the majority of datacentre storage because of their larger capacities, Edwards said.

“We see the two technologies complementing each other for the foreseeable future, because of the huge demand for space,” he said, with SSD serving the role of a cache for hard disks or as a small “Tier zero” in the storage hierarchy.

Hitachi is currently “squeezing the maximum it can” from the current perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, before introducing drives with a newer Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) in the 2015 timeframe, a technology that uses partially overlapping tracks to achieve a greater recording density.

“Today we’re sitting at 4TB as the maximum for desktop drives, but it won’t be long before we will be up at 8TB or 9TB in the 3.5in space,” Edwards predicted.

Later this year, Hitachi also plans to introduce helium-filled drives, which it claims will cut power consumption by 23 percent because helium is less dense than air and thus less power is needed to spin the platters.

Disks with this technology have the potential to significantly reduce the total cost of ownership for enterprise and cloud customers simply by reducing energy bills, according to Hitachi.