Why Zynga moved from AWS to its own private cloud - zCloud

Zynga has an engineering post where they introduce their private cloud.  This post is a bit old, but it provides good details on why Zynga chose to move out of AWS for its own private cloud.

Now, Zynga still does use AWS, but they are thinking from a business/financial perspective.  Zynga has a hybrid cloud infrastructure, both public and private.

While our private cloud infrastructure has been growing quickly, Zynga also uses the AWS public cloud to fuel our rapid growth. Our use of AWS, while very important to our business, comes with an operating expense. Essentially, we have been trading monthly operating expenses against longer-term amortized capital expense. Yet, sometimes the pace of our growth forces us to make that tradeoff.

For example, when CityVille rapidly grew to millions of users in just six weeks, we had to grow our server infrastructure at a pace that kept up with and sometimes even outpaced this demand. In a strict capital expense model, we would have exceeded the supply chain of our equipment suppliers – the process of physically getting the number of servers ordered, shipped, delivered and implemented just takes too long. So, we traded the cost of operating expense in AWS for capital expense.

Zynga's cloud is compatible with AWS.

The zCloud is our private cloud that looks, feels, and operates in a similar fashion to the way that we use Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), our public cloud provider. As infrastructure that is private to Zynga, the ZCloud physically resides in our current datacenters and will expand as we grow our infrastructure over time.

Zynga has learned from its AWS operations and builds its own cloud with its own hardware.

While similar in functionality to AWS, our private zCloud is designed specifically for social games in terms of availability, network connectivity, server processing power and storage throughput. We have achieved these improvements by providing redundant power to each rack, state-of-the-art servers with high memory capacity, a fully non-blocking network infrastructure, the use of inline hardware-based load balancers and local disk storage.

 

Gartner says Private Clouds are a last resort, how about learn from public clouds then build your own

One of the guys I always enjoy a chat with is Jones Lang LaSalle's Michael Siteman.  I just got off the the phone to discuss public vs. private cloud ideas.  Then I read this post on Gartner's recommendation that Private Clouds are a last resort.

Gartner: Private clouds are a last resort

Thorough analysis required to identify cloud computing benefits

By Neal Weinberg, Network World 
October 19, 2011 10:00 AM ET

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Enterprises should consider public cloud services first and turn to private clouds only if the public cloud fails to meet their needs.

That was the advice delivered by analyst Daryl Plummer during Gartner's IT Symposium Tuesday. Plummer says that there are many potential benefits to deploying cloud services, including agility, reduced cost, reduced complexity, increased focus, increased innovation and being able to leverage the knowledge and skills of people outside the company.

Rob Enderle writes in disagreement with this recommendation.


At the same time, this week, Gartner took a position that was the polar opposite of the CIOs at these two events and argued that the private cloud was the last resort. This is just wrong. I’m guessing the company missed a meeting because this sentiment is shared by neither the CIOs nor vendors presenting at these events. The attendees are arguing that the private cloud may be their most important tool. What is also interesting is that were Gartner right, it would be a going-out-of-business scenario for them because public cloud services are being presented much like outsourcing and they do represent a very real threat to IT and it is IT that generally funds Gartner’s services.

The observation that Michael and I discussed is enterprises are studying the public clouds to learn how to build and operate cloud environments.  Companies can then make a knowledgeable decision on whether they should buy cloud services or make their own, private cloud.

Just because you see enterprises playing in the public could doesn't mean they are going to deploy there.

And, part of the learning is what are top causes of cloud outages.  Check out these top 10.

 

 

Coal use is Rising, IEA issues warning

WSJ reports on the IEA's observation that coal use is rising.

Rising Use of Coal Prompts Warning

MORE IN MARKETS »

By JAMES HERRON

PARIS—The world is headed for a "dire future" where high energy prices drag on economic growth and global temperatures rise dangerously, unless significant innovations are made to lower the cost of clean energy and carbon-capture technology, the International Energy Agency said.

Senior officials from the agency painted the gloomy picture of the world's current trajectory at a two-day meeting with international energy ministers and business leaders in Paris.

Participants concluded that growth in energy demand will be met largely by coal—and that the only hope of keeping global temperatures at safe levels would be in the creation of cheaper technologies to capture carbon dioxide.

"Unless much stronger action is taken," the IEA said in a statement Wednesday, "energy related CO2 emissions would rise to a level consistent with a long-term global temperature increase of more than 3.5 [degrees] Celsius, with dangerous consequences for the global environment and human welfare." Such an increase would be equivalent to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit.

...

Current clean-energy technologies can't meet carbon-reduction targets, so in the nearer term improving energy efficiency is the most important action to take, the IEA said in the statement.

In addition, growing dependence on fossil fuels will damage economies, the IEA said. "Persistently high levels of spending on energy imports would impose a drag on economic growth in many countries," the agency warned. "The risk of serious energy-supply disruptions would continue to mount."


If Silver Lake brokers Yahoo deal, don't you think there will be a data center deal for Silver Lake?

WSJ writes on Silver Lake brokering a purchase of Yahoo.

Private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners is working with one of its investors, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Microsoft Corp. to put together a proposal to buy Yahoo Inc., people familiar with the matter said.Under the proposal being discussed, Microsoft would put up several billion dollars of funding, with additional financing being arranged by banks, the people said. Silver Lake and the CPP Investment Board would kick in the rest of the amount, which would be less than what Microsoft contributes, the people said.

Now, if Silver Lake is smart which they are. Don't you think there is a good chance that there is a data center deal in there somewhere?

Another deal scenario being discussed by interested parties is a complex, multipart bid for Yahoo led by Alibaba, where the Chinese company gets back Yahoo's 40% stake and sells Yahoo's U.S. assets to private equity, according to people familiar with the matter. A transaction can be structured in a way that avoids heavy tax bills on a sale of assets, they added.

60 Minutes Steve Jobs Video, Biographer discusses 9 month delay for cancer operation

Early cancer detection is key to cure the disease.  My dad died of colon cancer caught too late that metastasized and spread to his liver.  My brother, sister and I all get colonoscopies every 5 years.

In this video Steve Jobs biographer discusses how pancreatic cancer was found in Steve Jobs and he refused for 9 month to be operated on.

Steve was a bit of health nut, but some health issues cannot be cured with diet, exercise, and meditation.  Steve wished the cancer would go away.

How many data center issues are too painful to deal with and people wish the problem would go away.  It seems foolish in hindsight that Steve Jobs didn't get the operation, but it is human nature to hope things get better without painful surgery.