Google built their own switches using merchant silicon. Now they've built their own routers, and they're using OpenFlow between the control and data plane. Here's Ivan Pepelnjak's take on the news, the hype, and the reality. Google is (as far as I know) the first one that implemented the end-to-end … [Read more...]
Google’s Knowledge Graph bringing semantics to the masses
May 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Paul Miller sings the praises of Google's Knowledge Graph, which I somehow overlooked in the shadow of the mighty collapse of the Facebook IPO. Reading this, I decided to have a look! With Facebook’s IPO just around the corner, the timing of Google’s latest press blitz should probably be … [Read more...]
Amazon Redefines Durability with Reduced Reliability Storage (RRS)
May 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Before Google could even take to the stage to announce their new “Google Storage for Developers” cloud storage offering in their I/O conference keynote, Amazon hit back with a new low-cost “Reduced Redundancy Storage” option for S3. The titans are at war, and cloud storage is the new battle … [Read more...]
Are Microsoft and EMC beginning a renaissance of geek respect?
January 8, 2010 by 1 Comment
Making a list? Who's naughty and who's nice? Who’s naughty and who’s nice? The average computer geek of the last decade would have placed Microsoft atop the naughty list. The average corporate IT manager’s nice list probably wouldn’t have included EMC and Oracle. Yet … [Read more...]
Google for the Infrastructure
December 16, 2009 by 2 Comments
I've been thinking about FAST and especially FAST v2 but not entirely from a storage point of view. FAST v2 and indeed any automated storage tiering product has some interesting uses beyond storage and could be a basis for a whole new way of managing IT as a service. In fact, it finally enables … [Read more...]
The Dumb Disk Fallacy
October 13, 2009 by Leave a Comment
I am spending a few weeks examining the truths and fictions that bind our industry together. Let’s start with one of my favorite old canards: That enterprise storage must be overpriced because bare disk drives are so cheap. I have seen this straw man argument set up by so many throughout my … [Read more...]
We Don’t Need Cloud Standards (Yet)
September 16, 2009 by Leave a Comment
Championing “open” and calling for standards has become the first stalling action by late-movers in technology spaces. They see opportunity passing by and try to hold back progress and FUD the market by yelling about proprietary solutions, vendor lock-in, and a lack of standards. Many … [Read more...]
VMware Will Virtualize Google Chrome, But Will Chrome Run VMware For VDI?
August 24, 2009 by Leave a Comment
There was a lot of excitement when Google announced it’s intent to develop the Chrome operating system (Chrome OS). Almost immediately journalists, analysts, and bloggers began speculating if Google’s future OS offering could pose a threat to Microsoft’s dominance on the desktop. VMware … [Read more...]
The Public Corporate Face of Cloud Computing
July 28, 2009 by 2 Comments
As cloud computing becomes more mainstream, investors will start looking to get in on the act. With that in mind, a friend and I began discussing which public companies were getting into the cloud computing market and to what extent. I have put together the following list, and encourage comments, … [Read more...]
Sun Launches Their Own Cloud, But For Which Market?
March 19, 2009 by Leave a Comment
While the bulk of Sun-related news this week relates to reported talks of a buyout by IBM, the company took a break from negotiations to introduce their own cloud computing and storage infrastructure, challenging Amazon, Google, Rackspace, and perhaps VMware, Microsoft, and Nirvanix. Sun is … [Read more...]