The Virtual Enterprise

Small steps to the cloud

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:53:18 GMT

There's long been a paradox about cloud computing. The companies have taken the first steps into the cloud are the large enterprises but these are the organisations with the largest IT departments, staffed by skilled professionals. On the other hand,...

Microsoft and the whip holder

Maxwell Cooter — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 12:59:45 GMT

Microsoft's zeal for cloud computing reminds me a bit of the way that ex-smokers are often the keenest to deride the pernicious tobacco habit. I've become used to seeing people who used to puff through 30 cigarettes a day get...

Cloud wars - how one user turned on Rackspace

Maxwell Cooter — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:05:16 GMT

There's a ding-dong of a battle going on at the Hacker News part of YCombinator site following a blog by cloud analytics company's Mixpane's plans to move from Rackspace to Amazon. It's rare for a decision by a small company...

The vTardis is out of this world

Maxwell Cooter — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:03:47 GMT

It's not unusual for someone to take his or her work home but can it be taken too far?Hats off to VMware consultant Simon Gallagher who has been working on a computing lab in his back garden. Fair enough,...

Are small businesses getting the virtualisation message?

Maxwell Cooter — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:59:25 GMT

Is it really the case that small businesses are looking at desktop virtualisation? According to a survey from Citrix Systems, it could be. It states that 90 percent of British businesses see desktop virtualisation as a strategic solution Amazingly, 82...

Sky-blue thinking from Microsoft

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 05:05:53 GMT

Microsoft's announcements at its developers' conference this week have completed a journey for its Azure technology. Previously seen - and marketed as a platform as a service technology - the introduction of Server Application Virtualisation, which allows users to run...

Networking with Cloudswitch

Maxwell Cooter — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:26:22 GMT

One of the long-standing debates that cloud proponents are having to deal with concerns the portability of cloud providers.>VMware is happy to talk about cloud portability - the company points out that users can easily move from their own data...

Dropping the pilot

Maxwell Cooter — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:02:26 GMT

Microsoft’s future is tied up with cloud computing. Steve Ballmer has said so - several times - but the man who has done most to get Microsoft won’t be there to guide them. Ray Ozzie’s departure leaves a hole within...

How green is my cloud?

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:16:09 GMT

The received wisdom has been that cloud computing is the greener option. Companies have generally reckoned that by making better use of servers, by using virtualisation and by paying for what's needed, energy consumption will be reduced.It's true that there...

VMware: master of the virtualised world ... for now

Maxwell Cooter — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:51:04 GMT

What a difference a week makes, Six days ago, I was in Berlin at the Citrix Synergy event, today it's Copenhagen for VMware's VMworld and watching Paul Maritz's keynote was a stark contrast to that of his counterpart, Mark Templeman...

The future of collaboration software

Maxwell Cooter — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:39:50 GMT

It's easy to be cynical about IT demos. Part of the problem is that more often than not, seem to break down. I've lost count of the demos that have resolutely obeyed Murphy's Law - it seems to have been...

Citrix finds its voice in virtualisation buzz

Maxwell Cooter — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 15:24:17 GMT

Citrix is not a company that believes in doing things by halves. The company spent the first day of its Synergy Europe event in reeling off announcement after announcement - a strange strategy in many ways as some new products...

Five principles for cloud - mark and learn

Maxwell Cooter — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 14:47:55 GMT

Sometimes you see a piece that's just so well-written and so succinct that it says everything you want to say.David Linthicum's article Five facts very cloud computing pro should know in Techworld's sister publication Infoworld is a damn near perfect set...

Citrix and Cisco gain at the desktop

Maxwell Cooter — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:52:52 GMT

The tie-up between Citrix and Cisco is an intriguing one. Cisco after all is the company that tied up with VMware and EMC last year and all its expertise and interest has been on server side - well, so far...

Calculated risk

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:55:51 GMT

How does one work out when it's appropriate to move to the cloud. At what point do you decide that it's cost effective move?That's going to be one of the key questions faced by any organisation looking to do this....

The bare facts

Maxwell Cooter — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:48:39 GMT

We probably all experienced it as kids - the moment when you realise that someone has got a better toy or a hotter computer game. Or when you realise that one of your friends has been on a better family...

FAST and loose on cloud

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:14:48 GMT

I was all set to write a blog criticising The Cloud Industry Forum's research document on cloud standards when I came across my old colleague, Dennis Howlett's blog attacking the research. There's no way that I could top Dennis's hatchet job,...

There's gold in that cloud

Maxwell Cooter — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 08:35:01 GMT

How much is the cloud market worth? According to UBS, as printed by GigaOM, rather a lot - and it's going to be worth a whole lot more,.>In fact, that question should be rephrased - how much is Amazon Web...

The thorny issue of liability

Maxwell Cooter — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:08:06 GMT

While the story about Eli Lilly ceasing to be an Amazon Web Services customer turned out to be untrue, the episode does provide a salutary lesson for cloud vendors and potential users.At the end of last week, technology site TechTarget...

Train of thought

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:48:05 GMT

What sort of virtualisation certification should the techie be working towards? And how transferable are the different qualifications - for example, can someone studying for Citrix certification be able to work on VMware products. The question occurred to me when...

The silver lining of cloud

Maxwell Cooter — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:18:32 GMT

What will cloud computing mean for IT jobs?The common assumption has always been that it will mean the end of many IT jobs but a survey by CWJobs has found that there is a fair degree of optimism about the...

Microsoft Azure - no blue sky thinking

Maxwell Cooter — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:11:25 GMT

We've been waiting for some time to hear what Microsoft is going to do with Azure. Since the company announced the service, it's not exactly been hitting us with regular updates. There have been plenty of tantalising hints however and...

Here today, gone tomorrow

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:48:49 GMT

A week, said Harold Wilson, is a long time in politics. And judging by recent announcements, two months is a long time in technology.Yesterday, EMC announced that it was ceasing to support its iAtmos cloud storage product, rather remarkably, just...

Opening up

Maxwell Cooter — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:15:48 GMT

I had an interesting chat with Jamie Turner from Postcode Anywhere. He was talking about My Services, the new cloud product the company had launched.What was interesting about it was the way that it had emerged - not from the...

Stormy cloud

Maxwell Cooter — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:40:25 GMT

Why does an open cloud standards proponent get the boot from an open cloud organisation for wanting more open standards?It sounds like a bad riddle or some strange joke on the old Orwellian concept of "some things being more equal...