eBay (first Windows Azure platform appliance customer) uses Microsoft Azure Cloud to host Apple iPad sales

eBay and Microsoft both posted press releases on the first customer for Windows Azure private cloud.

eBay and Microsoft Announce Cloud Computing Agreement

Microsoft unveils new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing; eBay signs up as early customer.

WASHINGTON — July 12, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. and eBay [NASDAQ: EBAY] today announced that eBay will be one of the first customers of Microsoft’s new Windows Azure platform appliance for cloud computing. The partnership is a significant joint engineering effort that will couple the innovation and power of the Windows Azure platform appliance with the technical excellence of eBay’s platform — to deliver an automated, scalable, cost-effective capacity management solution.

Microsoft also announced the limited production release of the Windows Azure platform appliance, the first turnkey cloud platform for large service providers and enterprises to deploy in their own datacenters. eBay will incorporate the Windows Azure platform appliance into two of its datacenters to further optimize its platform and achieve greater strategic agility and datacenter efficiency.

Someone made an interesting decision to test Windows Azure to sell Apple iPad's

This partnership follows a successful pilot deployment by eBay of Microsoft’s public Windows Azure platform, which offers eBay the flexibility to deploy certain applications on a public cloud while maintaining the reliability and availability of eBay.com. eBay’s page for iPad listings —http://ipad.ebay.com— is hosted on the public Windows Azure platform.

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Here is the cross company executive quote trade.

“Microsoft’s focus on and investment in the Windows Azure platform appliance shows it is committed to world-class cloud computing solutions. eBay has the right blueprint for next-generation software-as-a-service-based applications with our platform’s architecture, scale and reliability, ” said James Barrese, eBay vice president of technology. “Joint engineering on the Windows Azure platform appliance with eBay’s massive, high-volume systems allows Microsoft to demonstrate its leadership in this space and helps eBay improve our user experience through a flexible, scalable and cost-effective solution.”

The Windows Azure platform appliance consists of Windows Azure, Microsoft SQL Azure and a Microsoft-specified configuration of network, storage and server hardware. The appliance is optimized for scale out applications and datacenter efficiency across hundreds to tens of thousands of servers.

“eBay has one of the world’s largest ecommerce platforms, and we believe the Windows Azure platform appliance provides the scalability, automation, datacenter efficiency and low cost of operations that eBay requires to meet the needs of its customers worldwide, ” said Bob Muglia, president of Server and Tools Business, Microsoft.

HP and Microsoft announced their Windows Azure partnership for deploying private clouds.  HP includes POD containers and HP networking to provide a complete HP owned solution.

HP and Microsoft to Partner on Windows Azure Built on HP Converged Infrastructure

Collaboration to help transition customers to cloud computing

PALO ALTO, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash. — July 12, 2010 — HP and Microsoft today announced their intention to work together on a Microsoft Windows Azure platform appliance that will enable large enterprise customers to confidently and rapidly adopt cloud-based applications as businesses needs change and grow.

The companies will work together to deliver a complete hardware, software, services and sourcing solution that will accelerate customers’ transition to the Windows Azure platform. Customers will be able to manage the appliance with HP Converged Infrastructure on-premises or choose HP data center hosting services.

Enterprise customers adopting cloud services need a comprehensive approach, including application modernization support, an optimized infrastructure platform and flexible sourcing options. With the new Windows Azure platform appliance, HP and Microsoft will help customers rapidly scale applications, deliver new online services, and migrate Windows and .NET-based applications to the cloud. This latest collaboration extends the $250 million Infrastructure-to-Application initiatives HP and Microsoftannounced in January and will result in HP delivering these offerings:

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Data center hosting services. HP Enterprise Services will combine deep systems management expertise, standardized processes and world-class secure data centers to manage the Windows Azure platform appliances for HP customers. HP and Microsoft plan to release a limited production Windows Azure platform appliance for deployment in HP data centers by the end of the year.

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Converged infrastructure for Windows Azure. HP’s current position as a primary infrastructure provider for the Windows Azure platform, coupled with HP and Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to optimize Microsoft applications for HP’s Converged Infrastructure through extensive joint engineering and development, will allow HP to deliver an industry-leading cloud deployment experience for its customers. The Converged Infrastructure for the Windows Azure platform appliance will include the following:

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HP Networking, which delivers to customers a flexible network fabric that is simpler, higher-performing and more secure, at up to 65 percent lower cost of ownership than competitive solutions.*

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HP ProLiant servers, which are highly dense, highly scalable computing platforms that help customers speed application delivery, better utilize IT resources and achieve strong returns on investments.

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The appliance can be deployed in HP Performance-Optimized Datacenters (PODs), which deliver improved power and data center capacity as well as rapid data center expansion. HP PODs allow customers to increase capacity without the capital expense of brick-and-mortar construction. They will be used in addition to traditional data center deployments.

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Application modernization, migration and integration services for Windows applications.HP’s expertise in complex environments, specific industries, frameworks, processes and resources will help customers modernize, migrate and integrate their applications while balancing costs and speed when adopting the Windows Azure platform.

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Consumer Reports can't recommend iPhone 4, demonstrates duct tape solution, "don't touch me here"

When I look at the above video, I think an answer could be a "don't touch me here"

Above is a video from Consumer Reports published today that they cannot recommend the iPhone 4.

Lab tests: Why Consumer Reports can't recommend the iPhone 4

Lab test: Apple iPhone 4 design defect confirmed

It's official. Consumer Reports' engineers have just completed testing the iPhone 4, and have confirmed that there is a problem with its reception. When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side—an easy thing, especially for lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal. Due to this problem, we can't recommend the iPhone 4.

We reached this conclusion after testing all three of our iPhone 4s (purchased at three separate retailers in the New York area) in the controlled environment of CU's radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. In this room, which is impervious to outside radio signals, our test engineers connected the phones to our base-station emulator, a device that simulates carrier cell towers (see video: IPhone 4 Design Defect Confirmed). We also tested several other AT&T phones the same way, including the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre. None of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4.

Consumer Reports does suggest a fix.

If you want an iPhone that works well without a masking-tape fix, we continue to recommend an older model, the 3G S.

ZDnet makes an interesting point now that Consumer Reports has joined the iPhone 4 antenna debate.

It’s one thing for a blogger like me to go on these rants about the shortcomings of the iPhone 4. But when Consumer Reports, which has the power to drive or halt buying decisions with its recommendations, announces that it cannot recommend the iPhone 4 because of the device’s antenna issues, it carries a lot of weight with mainstream consumers.

Hardcore iPhone fans can try as much as they’d like to discredit the Consumer Reports findings - and some are already doing just that - but they’ll have a hard time convincing mainstream consumers that CR is turning this into something more than it is. After all, this isn’t just some thumbs-down from a tech blogger who had a bad experience with the iPhone. This is Consumer Reports - and that matters.

If someone could come up with an iPhone 4 app that triggers "don't touch me" maybe that would help.

Even though all the noise is about dropped calls.  I wonder how the data transmission rate is affected even if you don't drop a call.  Lower signal strength would slow data transfer and put the iPhone 4 in a higher power consuming state for a longer period, resulting in lower battery life.

I don't have any plans to upgrade my iPhone 3GS.

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Attending DataCenterDynamics SF, July 16

I'll be at my favorite data center event, Data Center Dynamics in SF on July 16.

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Some interesting topics are:

Industry Executive Roundtable - Are We Reaching an Inflection Point in Our industry?
Challenging Pre-Conceptions of How Data Centers and IT Infrastructure Are Designed, Built and Operated.

 

Executive Roundtable: Game Changers – The Impact of the Cloud, Unified Computing and Applications

 

The Model Data Center:
Operational Management of Data Centers through Simulation
Sherman Ikemoto, General Manager, North America - Future Facilities Inc

 

If you haven't gone to a DCD conference you're missing out on a chance to connect with your peers in the area.

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Analyst predicts how music Droid will eat Apple's lunch

Barron's reports on an interview with Charter Equity Research Managing Director Ed Snyder.  Who is Ed Synder?

Snyder is a former telecom engineer, who has been covering the telecom industry since Alexander Graham Bell called for Watson. And I have found him mostly right about things telephony, with wires or without. One of his basic tenets throughout the evolution of wireless phones has been that music is the killer application. The key to Apple's (ticker: AAPL) strategy of linking the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad with one operating system, the iOS family, has been iTunes' central role in managing music, applications and software updates. The easy, seamless ability to transfer music from the iPod via iTunes to the first iPhones was a huge factor in the Apple smartphone's acceptance and continued success. That, in turn, is driving iPad sales.

Ed brings up Music as the killer app for Google.

Now, Snyder suggests that music is the application that could provide Google's (GOOG) open-source Android OS the chance to leap over Apple. The analyst predicts that the next-generation music platform, which is likely to be cloud-based, will be the major battlefield in the smartphone war over the next year or so.

And mentions data centers as a key to Google's strategy.

Snyder says that Google must offer a content-delivery system similar in function to iTunes, but based in a cloud—meaning music is stored in one of Google's famous data-center clusters somewhere and delivered via the Internet and over airwaves to various devices. (ITune libraries sit on the local hard drive of personal computers). He thinks that Google should strike deals with (or, I suppose, buy) one of the many cloud-based streaming-music services already used on wireless devices.

Smartphones, Music, and Data Centers are Google's opportunity to eat Apples' lunch.

How a Droid Could Eat Apple's Lunch

By MARK VEVERKA | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR(S)

Apple's iPhone reigns supreme, but a veteran telecom analyst argues that the momentum belongs to Google's Android system.

APPLE 'S IPHONE IS THE undisputed king of the smartphones, but there is swelling sentiment that Google's Android platform may steal the crown in the end.

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I built my datacenter in 5 minutes - AWS sticker

AWS has a trade offer for AWS fans. 

Amazon will send you the following stickers in exchange for.

  • Some stickers from your company or group.
  • A picture of your team, perhaps enhanced with your company or product logo.
  • An interesting piece of SWAG.
  • A blog post detailing the ways in which your company puts AWS to use, complete with an architecture diagram.

    • If you'd like some stickers, send us your offering and include a self-addressed envelope (we'll take care of the postage) to the following address:

    Amazon Web Services
    Attn: AWS Stickers
    P.O. Box 81226
    Seattle, WA
    98108-1300

    Hopefully, by writing this blog entry one of my AWS friends can get me some stickers. :-)  I want the datacenter one.

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