After 8 years one of the first AWS evangelist Retires

It is 8 years since I left Microsoft and another friend left as well.  He made the move in 2006 to this small group who you could fit around a few tables in the cafeteria.  The idea this group had was to change how IT consumed resources.  The group my friend joined is called Amazon Web Services.  After 8 years he has retired.

My background is broad. While I have a business degree (BBA - Finance), and experience founding and running successful businesses, my professional experience over the past number of years has been as a technologist -- with experience that ranges from managing teams at Microsoft to writing code to being part of Amazon Web Services since the early days of Cloud Computing.

Cloud Computing is amazing. It proves that a small group of driven people with a vision can change the world. No one would have said just a few years ago that organizations are open to running mission-critical applications “in the cloud”. Fast forward to today, and that’s the conversation on the table.

Currently I am attempting to be retired.

Now that my friend is retired I know he’ll be at home more, and he still lives only 2 miles from me.  

The Cloud has come a long way in 8 years, and my friend has deserved to take a break and enjoy retirement.

How many people do you know have spent 8 years working on the Cloud?

Microsoft expands for 3rd time in Boydton, VA

Timesdispatch posts on Microsoft’s 3rd expansion in Boydton, VA.

Microsoft Corp. will invest $346.7 million to expand its data center site in Mecklenburg County — for the third time — creating 90 jobs.

“This expansion opens up many more opportunities for our county to offer jobs to our citizens and greatly expand our economic base,” Glenn Barbour, chairman of the Mecklenburg County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Microsoft well into the future.”

When the new expansion is complete, Microsoft will employ 170 workers at the data center in Boydton.

“Each expansion allows us to better meet our customers’ growing cloud service needs,” Christian Belady, Microsoft’s general manager of data center services, said in a statement.

Here are the past two projects.

Microsoft’s original project in 2010 involved an investment of up to $499 million and creation of 50 jobs at the Mecklenburg data center. In 2011, the company invested an additional $150 million to expand the site, and in 2013 announced a $348 million expansion.

 

Biggest use of Containers in Data Centers are Dockers, not the slacks, the software container

There were many people and companies who thought Containers would revolutionize the data center industry.  Containers have enabled a choice, but not taken over.  There is a new container that has buzz. It is not a container for hardware, but a container for software.  Called Docker.

What is Docker?

Docker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications. Consisting of Docker Engine, a portable, lightweight runtime and packaging tool, and Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, Docker enables apps to be quickly assembled from components and eliminates the friction between development, QA, and production environments. As a result, IT can ship faster and run the same app, unchanged, on laptops, data center VMs, and any cloud.

There is even a post that Docker is in hype cycle.

The Docker container hype cycles into overdrive

June 10, 2014 6:17 AM EDT
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Here comes the 'production-ready' Docker 1.0.

Docker, Inc. announces its eponymous cloud container product. Based on the open-source project of the same name, the company claims it's now ready for prime time.

In addition to Google, Amazon and Microsoft are moving quickly to accept Dockers.
Docker is a particular format for Linux containers that caught on with developers since its inception 15 months ago. Both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are moving quickly to make Docker containers welcome guests on their respective cloud hosts.

What is the difference between VMs and Docker?  You don’t ship the OS around.  Makes so much sense.
NewImage

Scary Data Center Outage coming in the next year

It has been over 2 years since there has been a serious data center outage.  An outage that takes out major parts of the data center infrastructure and IT equipment for days.  I brought up this point while at 7x24 Exchange chatting with some friends.  And, they all nodded their heads.  For many companies, financially focused people have cut back on maintenance thinking it is a waste of money.  

We discussed who we thought would be hit with a serious outage. And, even one person suggested a betting pool.  The trouble is everyone wanted to bet on the same company being the one who is hit.  A serious outage can hit many of a range of companies who have been compromising on safety and maintenance of their data centers.

Unfortunately, it takes a major outage, a scary one to get financially focused people to understand the impact of not spending on maintenance of facilities.

Many of you know all too well what could happen.

Amazon Web Services is starting to look like Germany in WW2, surrounded by its enemies

Amazon Web Services has a dominant position in the Cloud which leads people to think they are invincible and will win.  But, there are weaknesses in AWS and for those who are fierce competitors, they are taking advantage of those weaknesses.  There are some services when you push them hard, they break.  Some things don’t scale like the way you thought they would.

When you have Microsoft, Google, IBM, and a whole range of other technology companies competing against you it is hard to sustain a dominant position.

Gigaom’s Barb Darrow posts on Microsoft, Google, and IBM vs. Amazon in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant.  You ever wonder what is so magical about the Gartner Quadrants?

Microsoft ranks #2, albeit a distant #2 to AWS

Gartner cited Microsoft’s “brand, existing customer relationships, history of running global-class consumer Internet properties, deep investments in engineering and aggressive road map.” Microsoft is second when it comes to IaaS market share, “albeit a distant second” to Amazon, they wrote. Microsoft is pushing Azure not only to dyed-in-the-wool Windows and .NET shops but as a development platform for mobile apps — not traditionally a strong suit for the company.

...

Google does well on debut; IBM makes strides

Other highlights: Google gets props for its new public cloud, which became broadly available in March, so Google didn’t even show up last year.  IBM Softlayer also showed huge improvement compared to Softlayer-less IBM, which was a laggard in last year’s report.

Also showing strong vision and ability to execute (but below AWS and Microsoft in both categories) were CenturyLink (now with Tier 3 aboard); CSC, which ranked second after AWS last year; and Verizon Terremark, which is building an ambitious public cloud from scratch.