Tough, Mean, Chaos Monkey Logo

Mike Manos presented on the Chaos Monkey and Donkey idea at Uptime.

Chaos Monkeys, Donkeys and the Innovation of Action

May 19, 2011 by mmanos

Last week I once again had the pleasure of speaking at the Uptime Institute’s Symposium.  As one of the premiere events in the Data Center industry it is definitely one of those conferences that is a must attend to get a view into what’s new, what’s changing, and where we are going as an industry.  Having attended the event numerous times in the past, this year I set out on my adventure with a slightly different agenda.

When I caught up with Mike he told me a lot of people said they were guilty of being data center donkeys.

Interestingly after my talk I literally have dozens of people come up and admit they had been donkeys and offered to reconnect next year to demonstrate what they had done to evolve their operations.

Werner Vogel at GigaOm Structure discussed the Chaos Monkey idea used at Netflix and had a slide.  Check out this logo.

The funny thing is the data center executive I was sitting with in Mike's presentation said He is a Chaos Monkey.  I am guilty of being a Chaos Monkey.

Now that you see a graphic.  Are you a donkey or a Chaos Monkey?

Future of Cloud Computing presentation at #structureconf

There is panel discussion at GigaOm Structure.

THE FUTURE OF THE CLOUD PANEL

Recently, GigaOM Pro, The 451 Group, and Northbridge Venture Partners conducted an industry survey to map the future of enterprise cloud computing. The results of the survey will be revealed for the first time in this panel, and we will hold a lively discussion among the stakeholders in key industry sectors about the implications of these results.

Moderated by:Michael Skok - General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners
Speakers:Dries Buytaert - Co-Founder and CTO, Acquia

John Dillon - CEO, Engine Yard

Marten Mickos - CEO, Eucalyptus Systems

Lew Moorman - Chief Strategy Officer and President of the Rackspace Cloud, Rackspace

What is cool is you can see the slides here.  Here are a few from the presentation.

Biomass for power generation, show me the good shit for a Grass-Fed Data Center

My Missouri Data Center friends were in town and they showed me their latest biomass samples.  Here is some of the early biomass, low btu density.

Here is some higher density grass with a higher btu content that is compressed.

Here is a better btu sample.

And, then they showed me the really good shit.  Which has a composition of waste products added that contributes to a btu density as good as coal.

I've had a great time chatting with the Missouri folks and they are doing some innovative low carbon footprint energy generation projects.  We've identified the next stage of the project and who they will be contacting.

Some of the next contacts are the readers of this blog, and you are going to recognize when you see the really good shit (biomass) for a Grass-fed data center.

Cloud Start-up Bromium kicks off at #StructureConf, Secure Cloud Applications

The first talk at Structure was given by Simon Crosby who announced his new company, Bromium.

Bromium Raises $9.2M Series A

Led by well-known industry experts, innovative virtualization and security company secures funding from leading venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners

SAN FRANCISCO (Structure 2011) - June 22, 2011 - Bromium, emerging from stealth mode to develop technology in the areas of virtualization and security, today announced it has closed a $9.2 million series A round of funding with Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Founded by Gaurav Banga, Simon Crosby and Ian Pratt, Bromium is focused on the delivery of infrastructure solutions that permit enterprises to safely embrace two major trends in IT: consumerization and cloud computing. The rapid growth of new device types and consumer-driven device, application and network choices, combined with increasing mobility and the need for “anywhere, any time access” to enterprise data and applications, poses a significant risk to the enterprise. Similarly, the rapid adoption of cloud computing leaves enterprise data and applications vulnerable to attack. Bromium’s technology will permit the development of a powerful set of solutions to these problems and will help provide a more trustworthy computing infrastructure.

The Bromium Board of Directors is drawn from business leaders and technologists with extensive experience in infrastructure software, virtualization and security: Peter Levine, venture partner at Andreessen Horowitz; Frank Artale, managing director at Ignition Ventures; and George Kurtz, worldwide CTO and executive vice president at McAfee. Bromium has already attracted top engineering talent from Microsoft, VMware, Oracle, McAfee and NVIDIA.

Small world moment.  Frank Artale who represents Ignition Ventures investment in Bromium was one my bosses at Microsoft, and was one row in front of me on the flight from SEA to SJC.  Frank also wakeboards on the same lake I live on in Redmond (Lake Sammamish).  Frank is ex-Citrix exec so he knows the virtualization and enterprise space well.

Bromium is addressing the security of cloud applications.

Simon had a good slide on where things are.

And a cost of private clouds.

Simon had some great slides like this one with Apples and Oranges analogy.

Cisco Lab Manager Chris Noland loses battle with cancer, passes away on June 20, 2011

I just heard from KC Mares that Chris Noland, Cisco Lab Manager passed away last night losing a battle with cancer.

Chris Noland Lab Manager

San Francisco Bay Area

Information Technology and Services

Current

• Lab Manager at Cisco Systems

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris 1 1/2 years ago at Cisco to discuss his efforts to educate the Cisco development teams on the energy efficiency of their product designs.

The last time I saw Chris in person was at the Technology Convergence Conference.

Panel Discussion Topic: Data Center Challenges and Solutions in the R&D Lab

Moderator: Mark Thiele, VP of Data Center Strategy at ServiceMesh
Panelist: Chris Noland, Lab Manager at Cisco Systems Inc.
Panelist: Mark Honer, Senior Manager, Customer Service Labs Juniper Networks
Panelist: Val Sokolov, Senior Manager for Engineering lab services at Brocade

Unlike enterprise and production data centers, today's R&D electronics lab is a dynamic and constantly changing work environment with variable demands for power, space and cooling.  IT engineers expect as much autonomy and flexibility as possible in the way that they access their IT resources and then develop and test their IT solutions.  So, how realistic is it to believe that our new data center standards and "best practices" can be implemented in the IT lab as well?  Hear leading laboratory operators describe their challenges and barriers to success and explain how they have modified well established data center solutions to fit the needs of their unique R&D environments.

Chris was one of the guys who had a passion to green the data center by improving the energy efficiency of the network gear.

It is sad to hear I won't see Chris at another data center event.