Seemingly every tech vendor seems to have a cloud strategy, with new products and services dubbed “cloud” coming out every week. But who are the real market leaders in this business? Gartner’s IaaS Magic Quadrant: a who’s who of cloud market article shows Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for IaaS. Research firm Gartner’s answer lies in its Magic Quadrant report for the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market.
It is interesting that missing from this quadrant figure are big-name companies that have invested a lot in the cloud, including Microsoft, HP, IBM and Google. The reason is that report only includes providers that had IaaS clouds in general availability as of June 2012 (Microsoft, HP and Google had clouds in beta at the time).
Gartner reinforces what many in the cloud industry believe: Amazon Web Services is the 800-pound gorilla. Gartner has also found one big minus on Amazon Web Services: AWS has a “weak, narrowly defined” service-level agreement (SLA), which requires customers to spread workloads across multiple availability zones. AWS was not the only provider where there was something negative to say on the service-level agreement (SLA) details.
Read the whole Gartner’s IaaS Magic Quadrant: a who’s who of cloud market article to see the Gartner’s view on clould market today.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
In five years, SaaS will be the cloud that matters
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3142407/iaas/in-five-years-saas-will-be-the-cloud-that-matters.html
To help IT make the mental shift, the cloud industry uses analogs to the datacenter’s divisions—but ultimately they’ll merge into simply ‘services’
I’ve read many stories that say IaaS is the future of computing. I disagree. All IaaS does is take the ghosts of networks past and shove them into the cloud. Granted, there are a few benefits in IaaS—mainly that it’s not all legacy infrastructure running in cloud VMs. But when I think of the future of computing, and more specifically the future of cloud computing, I see SaaS offerings like Office 365 as the last “aaS” standing.
In other words, I see IaaS and PaaS as interim technologies, not as the long-term future. They’re cloud-based halfway houses for the datacenters that IT has long focused on. But the move to SaaS means you won’t ultimately need to run anything like a datacenter, whether locally or in the cloud.
The overall cloud trend is to reduce hardware on-premises and push services to someone else’s infrastructure. But there remain many in IT who believe they need some infrastructure for their current environment, mainly for control of implementation, security, and data. IaaS, as well as PaaS, is where IT can exercise that control by shifting where the computing happens while still owning it.
In other words, IaaS is really about maintaining compatibility with the legacy, on-premises approach to IT.
You might argue that the growth of IaaS such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure prove that IaaS is an integral part of the future technology stack. I believe we will continue to see growth in the use of cloud infrastructure. After all, many systems and services aren’t available in a neat SaaS package, so you move your legacy on-premises world onto cloud servers.
Over time, more “infrastructure” services will become software services. Because once it’s SaaS, the boundaries between infrastructure, platform, and software don’t matter to the IT customer—it’s merely a service. That’s a mental shift from IT’s on-premises view, where the boundaries matter in how IT delivers the ultimate service. Those boundaries will still exist for the provider, but won’t be IT’s concern.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS to launch Aurora service for PostgreSQL at re:Invent – report
Juicy tidbits of what’s to come ahead of user conference
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/23/aws_to_launch_an_aurora_service_for_postgresql_at_reinvent_report/
Amazon Web Services will announce a PostgreSQL compatible managed cloud service during its re:Invent conference next week, according to reports.
Just as AWS cloned MySQL to create Aurora – its own MySQL-compatible relational database engine which it claims is the fastest-growing service in its history – it is now set to launch a PostgreSQL-compatible database engine to make even more managed service bucks, reported Fortune.
Exclusive: Amazon To Play Up New Database, Artificial Intelligence at Cloud Confab
http://fortune.com/2016/11/22/amazon-cloud-conference/
PostgreSQL Aurora database and artificial intelligence news to come at AWS re:Invent.
Next week at its annual AWS re:Invent tech conference, Amazon Web Services is expected to unveil a new easier-to-manage version of the popular PostgreSQL database for its cloud customers.
PostgreSQL database is seen by many as a better option than MySQL for larger customers looking for less pricey alternatives to offerings from Oracle ORCL -0.49% and Microsoft MSFT -1.34% .
AWS execs are also expected to use their stage time in Las Vegas to talk about how they will make the machine learning technology that powers Alexa, Amazon.com’s AMZN -1.42% popular personal assistant, available to more developers.
To be clear, AWS partisans already use tools like AWS Lambda to build Alexa applications that can do banking, schedule an Uber UBER 0.00% ride, or order a pizza.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Understanding Office 365 identity and Azure Active Directory
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Understanding-Office-365-identity-and-Azure-Active-Directory-06a189e7-5ec6-4af2-94bf-a22ea225a7a9#BK_Sync
Office 365 uses the cloud-based user authentication service Azure Active Directory to manage users. You can choose from three main identity models in Office 365 when you set up and manage user accounts:
Cloud identity. Manage your user accounts in Office 365 only. No on-premises servers are required to manage users; it’s all done in the cloud.
Synchronized identity. Synchronize on-premises directory objects with Office 365 and manage your users on-premises. You can also synchronize passwords so that the users have the same password on-premises and in the cloud, but they will have to sign in again to use Office 365.
Federated identity. Synchronize on-premises directory objects with Office 365 and manage your users on-premises. The users have the same password on-premises and in the cloud, and they do not have to sign in again to use Office 365. This is often referred to as single sign-on.
Tomi Engdahl says:
After Microsoft joins Linux, Google Cloud joins .NET Foundation
Next up, dogs and cats living together
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/16/after_microsoft_joins_linux_google_cloud_joins_net_foundation/
It has been a day for software surprises – first Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation, and now Google is joining the Technical Steering Group of the .NET Foundation.
“Google is already an active contributor to .NET, including heavy involvement in the ECMA [European Computer Manufacturers Association] specification for C#. Joining the Technical Steering Group for the .NET Foundation expands our participation,” said Chris Sells, product manager for Google Cloud.
“We’re excited to work with the industry to contribute to .NET as an excellent open platform for developers in the enterprise.”
Sells said that Google has a long record of having .NET libraries for more than 200 of its cloud services, and it recently added native GCP support for Visual Studio and PowerShell. The firm is looking to do a lot more to support .NET in the future, he promised.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Azure Flaws Exposed RHEL Instances
http://www.securityweek.com/microsoft-azure-flaws-exposed-rhel-instances
Vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform could have been exploited by attackers to gain administrator access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) instances and storage accounts, according to a software engineer.
Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) rely on the Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) to manage yum repository content for RHEL instances. Red Hat Update Appliances, which contact the Red Hat Network to fetch new and updated packages, have been created by Microsoft and Amazon for each region.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Amazon Web Services expands partner programs, unveils an integrated program for VMware and AWS that will be launched in 2017
AWS launches new programs to support its partners
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/29/aws-launches-new-programs-to-support-its-partners/
Amazon’s AWS cloud computing division is hosting its annual re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas this week. Ahead of the main part of the event, the company today hosted a keynote for its ecosystem partners who sell tools and services for AWS. During the keynote, the company announced a major extension of its partner programs, as well as a few new features for vendors who want to sell their software, APIs and other services in the AWS Marketplace.
In total, AWS announced a few new partner programs: one for businesses who want to sell to the public sector and one for partners who focus on helping their customers use specific AWS services like Redshift, Lambda, Kinesis, Machine Learning and others, for example. In addition, AWS and VMware will announce an integrated partnership program in 2017, and companies that build Alexa skills will also get a dedicated partner program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft refuses to join the Zero Outage brigade, Google and AWS keep mum
Heads in sand time. If service providers don’t admit a problem exists, does it?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/02/microsoft_refuses_to_join_the_zero_outage_brigade_google_and_aws_keep_mum/
Microsoft snubbed an invitation to join a brigade of tech titans that linked arms to work on minimising network crashes that can cripple cloud service availability.
The Zero Outage initiative was launched in November by founding members HPE, Cisco, Brocade, HDS, Dell EMC, Fortinet, Juniper, NetApp, SAP, SUSE, T-Systems and IBM.
The group of old world vendors will try to mitigate technical defects, human errors or untrained process execution.
Tim Wasle, a T-Systems staffer and spokesman for the group said it wanted to “identify and react faster” to technical incompatibilities, by “more complete testing” and “sharing best practises”.
Back in 2011, Microsoft admitted that it can’t guarantee 100 per cent uptime, and as world + dog has seen, rivals can’t keep their services up and running all the time either.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Custom silicon, 9PB storage boxes, and 25Gb Ethernet – just another day in AWS hardware
Turns out printing money requires a buttload of compute muscle
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/30/aws_hardware/
AWS says it has moved into building its own silicon to help deliver the throughput for its massive cloud service.
The profitable side of the Amazon empire says it has started using a custom-designed Annapurna ASIC chip to help control the networking activity – both physical and SDN – in its AWS servers. This is freeing up the CPUs on its hundreds of thousands of servers to focus on compute tasks.
The custom chips also power a custom AWS network architecture that uses 25Gb Ethernet, a format Amazon believes is actually more scalable and efficient than the 10Gb and 40Gb Ethernet standards commonly used.
James Hamilton, Amazon VP and distinguished engineer, said at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas this week that the chips add another level to the flexibility that allows Amazon to optimize all of its data centers specifically for the task of hosting AWS cloud instances. It also allows Amazon to take a different approach to networking that he says reflects a larger industry trend of going away from the traditional closed router box.
“If you look at where the networking world is, it is sort of where the server world was 20 years ago,” Hamilton offered. “As soon as you chop up these vertical stacks and you have companies competing and working together, great things start to happen.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS launches managed-services-as-a-service
Cloud concern ITIL-ises the big end of town, so created a service to get them moving
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/13/aws_launches_managedservicesasaservice/
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced it’s getting in to the managed services business.
The cloud colossus has operated a substantial consulting practice for some time, the better to help cloud migrants clamber aboard.
But until now it’s left the mucky bits of managing a cloud – patch management, backup, monitoring, security, and operational process for incident, change, and problem management – to users or partners.
Now the company has created a “set of integration points (APIs and a set of CLI tools) for connection to your existing service management system” and hired “a dedicated team of Amazon employees” that provide the managed services. The Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 are the target for the service, which Amazon says was developed in response to the requests of such companies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon pitches ‘safe and responsible’ AWS at suits
We have database engines, too
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/08/aws_makes_enterprise_pitch/
Sandwiched between its third-quarter results and re:Invent conference, Amazon’s been pitching AWS as production-ready.
Amazon wheeled out a host of corporate big names and government super-users to testify to AWS’s suitability beyond pure dev and test at a London event on Tuesday. AWS chiefs sought to reassure the suits of middle and upper management that its cloud is safe and familiar. Among the names cited by AWS were HSBC, British Gas and Hive, Direct Line, the FT and the UK Met Office.
Microsoft is offering healthy competition in the enterprise space with Azure, now ranked number two by Gartner.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cisco to kill its Intercloud public cloud on March 31, 2017
Snuffing OpenStack cloud means it’s all hybrid cloud and network function virtualisation from now on at Switchzilla
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/13/cisco_to_kill_its_intercloud_public_cloud_on_march_31st_2017/
Cisco will turn off its Intercloud Services (CIS) public cloud next year, The Register understands.
We have sighted a message from veep for Cloud Platform and Services Kip Compton, which CCs a number of Cisco marketing and communications people, announcing the service’s termination.
Compton says: “Today we are taking an important step to better align our resources so that we are well positioned to execute on Cisco’s Cloud Strategy. Effective March 31, 2017, the CIS multi-tenant hosting platform will be shut down and all tenants fully migrated to other platforms.”
Cisco launched Intercloud back in September 2014, billing it as an OpenStack-based platform enabling the easy shuttling of workloads between data centres and opining that the platform was a grand way to move its own and partners’ businesses to subscription services.
That vision’s clearly proven rather harder to realise than hoped, because Compton’s letter says Cisco has now decided to pursue “Enterprise Hybrid Cloud and SP Network Function Virtualization.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fancy an AWS region in your own data centre? Stratoscale can do it
It’ll be virtual, natch, but so is the rest of your bit barn – in a bad way
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/14/fancy_an_aws_region_in_your_own_data_centre_stratoscale_can_do_it/
Israeli outfit Stratoscale has updated its Symphony suite so it can effectively become an on-premises Amazon Web Services (AWS) region.
Symphony is a software overlay that does the “turn your pile of x86 into a cloud” thing and Stratoscale isn’t averse to describing the results as “hyperconverged” to cover all the buzzword bases.
Whatever you call the resulting rig, it uses formats compatible with AWS to make hybrid clouds easier to conceive and operate. The new Symphony 3 release adds the ability to treat the logical pool as an AWS region, mimicking the mighty, city-spanning multi-bit-barn brews that Amazon creates in the cities if favours with its presence.
This time around there’s also compatibility with Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service, as the new release adds the ability to run object storage side by side with block storage inside the same pool of x86.
At the moment the scoreboard says he’s not winning: between Nutanix, Simplivity and the hordes of virtualisation-centric converged appliances offered by HPE and Dell EMC, the VM-centric approach has plenty of points on the board. Yet all players agree the hybrid cloud game has scarcely begun.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Cloudflare acquires app platform Eager, will sunset service in Q1 2017
http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/13/cloudflare-acquires-app-platform-eager-will-sunset-service-in-q1-2017/
Cloudflare is making moves to beef up its app store by acquiring Eager Platform. Cloudflare will integrate its newest purchase to help its customers make their web properties not only more secure, but more powerful and scalable from a monetary standpoint.
“Eager has built a high-quality product for both developers and web property owners, that, when integrated with Cloudflare’s vast network, will make adding applications drag-and-drop simple,” said Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince. “Together we’re democratizing access to internet tools to help our users accomplish things that were impossible before.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS opens UK cloud region, predicting “incremental demand”
http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/leadership/6521/aws-opens-uk-cloud-region-predicting-incremental-demand
New availability zone targets enterprises with data location concerns
Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s UK data centres opened for business today, with the company hoping to attract a wave of new cloud customers so far perturbed by data location or latency issues.
AWS’s UK & Ireland MD, Gavin Jackson, told Cloud Pro the new region puts customers “in complete control” of their data, as they can choose to host it in the UK or another of the company’s 42 availability zones around the world.
He said: “It gives people more choice. We have had a perception challenge before [over cloud]; this will give them the sense they are in complete control at all times and if they want to host their data in the UK they can, if they want to host it abroad they can.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:
Cisco confirms it won’t offer its Intercloud public cloud infrastructure beyond March 2017, shifting existing clients to other services
Cisco confirms it’s killing Intercloud public cloud in March 2017
http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/13/cisco-confirms-its-killing-intercloud-public-cloud-in-march-2017/
Cisco has confirmed that it will stop offering its Cisco Intercloud Services public cloud infrastructure in March 2017. Cisco will move workloads to other infrastructure, “including in some cases public cloud,” a spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email. The spokesperson would not specify which public clouds will be taking the additional workloads. The Register reported the decision earlier today.
Cisco first introduced Intercloud in 2014, emphasizing partnerships with cloud providers and the ability to move workloads from cloud to cloud. In October, Cisco announced a timeline for the end of life for its Intercloud software, which organizations could use to move workloads from private clouds to public clouds. Cisco’s Intercloud Services Platform is different — it includes computing, storage, and networking services that bear a resemblance to what you can find from the top public cloud infrastructure providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
On the compute side, there are virtual machine (VM) instances optimized for general-purpose workloads, as well as instances optimized for compute, memory, and storage, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Windows operating system (OS) options available, atop Cisco UCS servers running Intel Xeon chips. Cisco also offers block and object storage.
Intercloud Services is based on the OpenStack open-source cloud software,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Another One Bites the Dust: Cisco Discontinues Its $1B Cloud Initiative as AWS, Azure and Others Expand
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/12/15/1221200/another-one-bites-the-dust-cisco-discontinues-its-1b-cloud-initiative-as-aws-azure-and-others-expand?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Cisco will abandon its InterCloud cloud-computing offering on March 31 and will move any InterCloud workloads to other, unnamed cloud providers, including “in some cases, public cloud.” From a report on GeekWire:
Cisco’s pull-back from the cloud scene marks the latest example of smaller participants — many of them hardware-makers — bailing in the face of huge growth by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, and to some extent by Google Cloud, IBM and other, smaller public-cloud services. Hewlett-Packard in 2015 abandoned its efforts to be a public-cloud company. Then, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises essentially shut down its much-ballyhooed Helion cloud offering earlier this year.
Another one bites the dust: Cisco discontinues its $1B cloud initiative as AWS, Azure and others expand
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/another-one-bites-dust-cisco-discontinues-1b-cloud-initiative-aws-azure-others-expand/
Cisco will abandon its InterCloud cloud-computing offering on March 31 and will move any InterCloud workloads to other, unnamed cloud providers, including “in some cases, public cloud,” VentureBeat quoted Cisco as saying.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Oracle reports $9B Q2 revenue, with SaaS and PaaS revenue up 81% YoY to $878M, IaaS up 6% YoY to $175M; firm says it beats Salesforce in cloud computing revenue — Database giant Oracle (ORCL) this afternoon reported fiscal Q2 revenue slightly below consensus, and beat by a penny on the bottom line …
Oracle Slips: FYQ2 EPS Beats; Q3 Revenue View Beats
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2016/12/15/oracle-slips-fyq2-eps-beats-says-bigger-than-salesforce/
Database giant Oracle (ORCL) this afternoon reported fiscal Q2 revenue slightly below consensus, and beat by a penny on the bottom line, claimed to have surpassed competitor Salesforce.com (CRM) in cloud computing revenue, and forecast this quarter’s revenue above consensus but profit a bit short of consensus, and its shares traded down in late trading.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building a Coder’s Paradise Is Not Profitable: GitHub Lost $66M In Nine Months Of 2016
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/12/16/1639222/building-a-coders-paradise-is-not-profitable-github-lost-66m-in-nine-months-of-2016?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Though not much popular outside the technology circles, GitHub is very popular among coders around the world. The startup operates a sort of Google Docs for programmers, giving them a place to store, share and collaborate on their work. But GitHub is losing money through profligate spending and has stood by as new entrants emerged in a software category it essentially gave birth to,
GitHub Is Building a Coder’s Paradise. It’s Not Coming Cheap
The VC-backed unicorn startup lost $66 million in nine months of 2016, financial documents show.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-15/github-is-building-a-coder-s-paradise-it-s-not-coming-cheap
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Joins the Open Source Cloud Foundry Foundation
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/12/16/2053232/google-joins-the-open-source-cloud-foundry-foundation?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Today, Google announces that it has joined the Cloud Foundry Foundation as a gold member. This is yet another example of the search giant’s open source focus. Google joins some other respected companies at this membership level, such as Verizon, GE Digital, and Huawei to name a few.
“From the beginning, our goal for Google Cloud Platform has been to build the most open cloud for all developers and businesses alike, and make it easy for them to build and run great software.
”
Open source champion Google becomes Cloud Foundry Foundation gold member
http://betanews.com/2016/12/16/open-source-google-gold-cloud-foundry-foundation/
Say what you want about Google, but the company is clearly a major proponent of open source ideology. Some people criticize the search giant for making billions on the back of open source (such as with Android), but Google is a code contributor too. You know what? If a company can have success using open source code, that is a good thing — as long as it is properly licensed, of course.
Today, Google announces that it has joined the Cloud Foundry Foundation as a gold member. This is yet another example of the search giant’s open source focus. Google joins some other respected companies at this membership level, such as Verizon, GE Digital, and Huawei to name a few. For whatever reason, the search giant stopped short of committing as the highest-level platinum member, however.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Verizon to sell 24 data center sites to Equinix for $3.6 billion
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/12/verizon-to-sell-24-data-center-sites-to-equinix-for-3-6-billion.html?cmpid=enl_CIM_CIMDataCenterNewsletter_2016-12-20
Confirming reports that emerged in October, global interconnection and data center company Equinix, Inc. said on Tuesday Dec. 6 that it signed a definitive agreement to purchase a portfolio of 24 data center sites and their operations from Verizon Communications Inc. for $3.6 billion in an all cash transaction. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2017.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2016: The Rise of the Intelligent (cloud) Machines
Only smart survives the cloud consolidation
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/25/2017_rise_of_the_intelligent_machines/
Review of 2016 Blame Mark Zuckerberg. Not for the election of Donald Trump as US president, but for Artificial Intelligence becoming the trend du jour in enterprise tech circles in 2016.
Back in those now forgotten days of January, before The Great Inversion of 2016, Zuckerberg was surely kicking his heels when he set himself that “personal challenge” to build a simple AI, which he said would be like: “[l]ike Jarvis from Iron Man – to help run my home and help me with work.”
Since then, Zuckerberg’s challenge has taken on a different, rather more pressing dimension, one which even the deliverance of his actual Jarvis couldn’t distract us from: elevating Facebook from the mire of fake news.
Whether Zuckerberg was first to the punch or simply the cipher for a trend, he succeed in putting the stamp of AI on 2016 – at least in enterprise circles – and 2016 broadly became the year when anything AI-related could generate headlines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This ‘cloud storage’ thing is going to get seriously big in 2017
Microsoft embiggens cloudy BLOBs from 195GB to 4.77 TB, blocks from 4MB to 100MB
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/23/azure_bloats_blocks_and_blobs_also_stoops_to_25_tiddlers/
The waistline of Azure’s storage service continues to expand, with Microsoft upping the size of the Binary Large Objects it can define.
Redmond’s cloud can now support BLOBs of 4.77 terabytes, up from the previous 195 gigabytes. Block sizes are also up, from four megabytes to 100. And you can commit 50,000 blocks to a single Blob.
Microsoft says the changes will help users handle “storing and processing 4K and 8K videos to cancer researchers sequencing DNA.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
2016: The Rise of the Intelligent (cloud) Machines
Only smart survives the cloud consolidation
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/25/2017_rise_of_the_intelligent_machines/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Week In Review: IoT
http://semiengineering.com/the-week-in-review-iot-33/
AWS seeks cloud domination; CES returns to Vegas; AT&T Developer Summit set.
Amazon Web Services has 81 services for its customers in the Internet of Things, online video games, and other markets, Quentin Hardy notes in this analysis. AWS is competing with Microsoft Azure and the Google Cloud Platform in cloud computing services, which are now extending beyond data centers and servers to offer software and a multitude of online services
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS’ WorkMail service now supports Apple Mail, Outlook 2016 for Mac, Thunderbird
http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/28/aws-workmail-service-now-supports-apple-mail-outlook-2016-for-mac-thunderbird/
Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services today announced an enhancement to its subscription-based WorkMail email and calendar service. Now it’s possible to access email from WorkMail over Microsoft Outlook 2016 for Mac, as well as from email clients that support the 30-year-old IMAP protocol.
Email clients that support IMAP include Apple’s Mail app and Mozilla’s Thunderbird, among others. Apple’s Calendar app can also be hooked up to WorkMail over IMAP.
“In addition, IT applications that use the IMAP protocol to access email will now also work with Amazon WorkMail,” AWS said in a blog post.
Amazon WorkMail now supports a wider range of email client applications, including Microsoft Outlook 2016 for Mac and those that use the IMAP protocol
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2016/12/amazon-workmail-now-supports-a-wider-range-of-email-client-applications-including-microsoft-outlook-2016-for-mac-and-those-that-use-the-imap-protocol/
Tomi Engdahl says:
2016 – the year 3D XPoint came down to earth from Planet Hype
And the year hyper-converged infrastructure put a dent in SANs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/05/the_year_3d_xpoint_came_down_to_earth_from_planet_hype/
Storage Review in 2016 Storage in 2016 saw its on-premises SAN/filer array heartland assaulted by the public cloud on the one hand, and hyper-converged and software-defined storage on the other.
The now-classic dual-controller disk array went hybrid to keep storing primary data, but all-flash arrays are taking on that role and so the hybrids went all flash too. High-end monolithic arrays saw newcomer Infinidat make roaring progress as it took share with its low-priced and highly available InfiniBox array.
Secondary data was sucked off more and more to object storage, which itself saw a mass adoption of S3 as the preferred interface, leaving mainstream disk and hybrid arrays storing relatively less and less on-premises data.
The public cloud growth was unstoppable, with AWS out ahead, followed by Azure and Google, and then by Oracle and IBM – the only on-premises storage suppliers with public cloud service ambitions. The 451 Research group forecast public cloud storage spend to double in two years – with NetApp, HPE and IBM moving down the supplier rankings as Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure clawed their way up.
Hyper-converged infrastructure was a storage hot point, with Nutanix having a successful IPO and powering ahead to lead the market. Cisco, Dell EMC, Lenovo, and HPE made hyper-converged products move as suitability for sales of servers inside a combined server, storage and networking sell exploded.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS chief: Tens of thousands flocking from database rivals
What data giveth AWS, AWS taketh away from everybody else
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/04/aws_database_migration_service/
AWS’s database migration service (DMS) is storming along according to its head Andy Jassy, who offered a rare data point on the company’s development last week.
Jassy took to Twitter to boast that Amazon Web Services had facilitated 16,000 database migrations last year, since launching on 15 March. 2,000 of those migrations took place following the re:Invent conference which concluded at the end of November.
Cloud providers do not publish data offering a holistic view of their revenue generation, and when information is put about it is not only unverifiable, but regularly contestable.
AWS is expecting to bring in $10bn over this financial year, and if making the claim that its database migration service is one of its fastest areas of growth, then perhaps questions might be asked of how its previous golden growth child, Redshift, is doing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Novet / VentureBeat:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise buys datacenter infrastructure startup SimpliVity for $650M — Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which split off from HP in 2015, today announced its latest acquisition, SimpliVity, a company that sells data center hardware that unites computing power and storage, which traditionally have been sold separately.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise buys converged infrastructure startup SimpliVity for $650 million
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/17/hewlett-packard-enterprise-buys-converged-infrastructure-startup-simplivity-for-650-million/
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which split off from HP in 2015, today announced its latest acquisition, SimpliVity, a company that sells data center hardware that unites computing power and storage, which traditionally have been sold separately. HPE paid $650 million in cash for SimpliVity, and the deal is expected to close in the second quarter of HPE’s 2017 fiscal year, which ends on June 30, according to a statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Adds Intel’s Clear Linux Open-Source OS To Azure Market
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/17/01/19/0014206/microsoft-adds-intels-clear-linux-open-source-os-to-azure-market?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Microsoft announced today that it has added support for the Intel-backed Clear Linux distribution in instances for its Azure public cloud platform. It’s the latest in a lengthy string of Linux distributions to become available on the company’s Azure cloud.
Microsoft’s new Linux option for Azure is Clear in the cloud
http://www.networkworld.com/article/3159122/linux/microsoft-s-new-linux-option-for-azure-is-clear-in-the-cloud.html
Microsoft announced today that it has added support for the Intel-backed Clear Linux distribution in instances for its Azure public cloud platform.
It’s the latest in a lengthy string of Linux distributions to become available on the company’s Azure cloud. Microsoft already supports CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu in Azure instances.
The new distro is available in three versions from Microsoft – first, in a stripped-down, simple VM designed for maximum customizability, second, in a Docker-based container runtime, and, finally, in a “sample solution image” designed for machine learning applications, to demonstrate some of the possibilities.
Clear Linux is a lightweight Linux distribution
It features a sophisticated workload scheduler, optimizations to the kernel and major Linux components like systemd and stateless operation.
Stateless is a big deal
“By separating the system defaults and distribution best practices from the user configuration, Clear Linux simplifies maintenance and deployment which becomes very important as infrastructure scales,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
IBM reports Q4 revenue of $21.8B, down 1.3% YoY, as full-year cloud revenue reaches $13.7B, up 35% YoY — Big Blue’s cloud business was once again the star growth category, with revenue climbing 35 percent to $13.7 billion fo
IBM beats Q4 estimates, quarterly revenue down 1.3 percent
http://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-beats-q4-estimates-quarterly-revenue-down-1-3-percent/
Big Blue’s cloud business was once again the star growth category, with revenue climbing 35 percent to $13.7 billion for full-year 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Oracle to buy API development firm Apiary for an undisclosed sum, says it will continue to offer Apiary’s products to other companies
Oracle to buy API development firm Apiary
Apiary provides a front-end platform for designing, creating, and governing APIs.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/oracle-to-buy-api-development-firm-apiary/
Oracle has announced that it plans to acquire Apiary, a startup that makes tools for developing application programming interfaces (APIs) for cloud software.
Founded in 2011, Apiary is known for its APIFlow platform that allows developers to build, test, and monitor APIs while supporting API Blueprint and OpenAPI industry standards.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle co-CEO predicts 80% of corporate data centers will be gone by 2025
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2017/01/oracle-co-ceo-predicts-80-of-corporate-data-centers-will-be-gone-by-2025.html?cmpid=enl_cim_cimdatacenternewsletter_2017-01-31
Oracle Corp. co-CEO Mark Hurd said on Tuesday [Jan. 17] that the company expects 80% of corporate data centers to disappear by 2025, as the cloud becomes the primary way that information technology is deployed.
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/01/17/oracle-co-ceo-mark-hurd-says-80-of-corporate-data-centers-gone-by-2025/
Tomi Engdahl says:
GitLab.com melts down after wrong directory deleted, backups fail
Upstart said it had outgrown the cloud – now five out of five restore tools have failed
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/01/gitlab_data_loss/
Source-code hub GitLab.com is in meltdown after experiencing data loss as a result of what it has suddenly discovered are ineffectual backups.
On Tuesday evening, Pacific Time, the startup issued a sobering series of tweets we’ve listed below. Behind the scenes, a tired sysadmin, working late at night in the Netherlands, had accidentally deleted a directory on the wrong server during a frustrating database replication process: he wiped a folder containing 300GB of live production data that was due to be replicated.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s cloudy desktops now tiptoe across hot sand
Spinning rust for desktops-as-a-service is soooooo 2016
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/02/aws_workspaces_add_ssd_option/
Amazon Web Services has found another way to make its “Workspaces” desktop-as-a-service offering more attractive: as of today the cloudy Windows instances run on solid state disks instead of ye olde spinning rust hard disks.
The change doesn’t change AWS’ price for the service.
The new disks are AWS’ general purpose SSDs, so run at 160 MB/s. That’s half the speed of Amazon’s “Provisioned IOPS SSD” that it recommends for latency-sensitive workloads.
Which is not to say the new service is a slouch: the cloud colossus is talking up faster boot times and better performance for latency-sensitive applications. Given that AWS has also imbued Workspaces with GPUs, it looks like the company is pulling out the stops to make Workspaces more palatable for even heavy desktop workloads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS: We’re gonna make mobile apps great again with Lambda functions
The best apps will come from America, using Amazon, which will be paying all that tax
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/10/aws_mobile_apps_serverless/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle co-CEO predicts 80% of corporate data centers will be gone by 2025
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2017/01/oracle-co-ceo-predicts-80-of-corporate-data-centers-will-be-gone-by-2025.html
Oracle Corp. co-CEO Mark Hurd said on Tuesday [Jan. 17] that the company expects 80% of corporate data centers to disappear by 2025, as the cloud becomes the primary way that information technology is deployed. Hurd explained that as more and more applications move to the cloud, a tipping point will be crossed and the economic rationale for standalone corporate facilities will in turn diminish.
Oracle CEO Hurd Says 80% of Corporate Data Centers Gone by 2025
Oracle forecast says 80 percent of production applications will move to cloud within eight years
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2017/01/17/oracle-co-ceo-mark-hurd-says-80-of-corporate-data-centers-gone-by-2025/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud price wars resume as Microsoft cuts by up to 51 per cent
Storage and VMs get cheaper, especially for wimpy Windows VMs in Brexit-land
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/07/cloud_price_wars_resume_as_microsoft_cuts_by_up_to_51_per_cent/
Microsoft’s made another round of cuts to its cloudy costs, for both virtual machines and storage.
Microsoft’s F-series VMs, which offer cores on a Xeon E5-2673 v3, are down by up to 23 per cent for Linux and 18 per cent for Windows machines.
The A1 Basic VM, Microsoft’s second-wimpiest cloud server, is down by up to 42 per cent in a penguin-powered configuration or 51 per cent under Windows.
Figuring out exact costs is hard because the figures Microsoft’s provided us pertain to price cuts in particular regions. And Microsoft has lots of those, detailed here on the Azure pricing page.
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/blog/new-lower-prices-on-azure-virtual-machines-and-blob-storage/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches Cloud Search, previously known as Springboard in limited preview, a search engine for G Suite products that also provides cards with useful info
Google debuts Cloud Search, a smart search engine for G Suite customers
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/07/google-debuts-cloud-search-a-smart-search-engine-for-g-suite-customers/
Google today launched for its business customers a new tool called Google Cloud Search, which will allow users to search across G Suite products, including Drive, Gmail, Sites, Calendar, Docs, Contacts and more. The service was previously available in a limited preview, where it was known as Springboard, and described as something like a Google Now for enterprise workers.
Springboard, now Cloud Search, is designed for use in larger companies where different groups and individuals have access to different files. The search service respects file-sharing permissions, so users can only access what’s available to them, whether that’s company-wide resources like a policy manual, team projects or documents only they can see.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Barb Darrow / Fortune:
Rackspace lays off 6% of US workforce, about 276 jobs, plus an undisclosed number of overseas jobs — Three months after being taken private in a $4.3 billion buyout, Rackspace is cutting 6% of its U.S. workforce along with an undisclosed number of jobs overseas.
Rackspace To Cut 6% Of its U.S. Workforce
http://fortune.com/2017/02/08/rackpace-layoffs/
Three months after being taken private in a $4.3 billion buyout, Rackspace is cutting 6% of its U.S. workforce along with an undisclosed number of jobs overseas.
Rackspace has long helped customers run their information technology whether it was housed in Rackspace facilities, in the customers’ own data centers, or more recently in massive public clouds like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft (msft)Azure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft debuts Azure IP Advantage, a new program to provide customers with access to 10K Microsoft patents to help fight “baseless patent lawsuits” — Microsoft’s new Azure IP Advantage program is providing Microsoft cloud users with access to 10,000 Microsoft patents to help them fight ‘baseless patent lawsuits.’
Microsoft to aid Azure customers in taking on patent trolls
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-to-aid-azure-customers-in-taking-on-patent-trolls/
Microsoft’s new Azure IP Advantage program is providing Microsoft cloud users with access to 10,000 Microsoft patents to help them fight ‘baseless patent lawsuits.’
Microsoft is introducing a new program called Azure IP Advantage, which it is touting as a way to protect users against “intellectual property risks in the cloud.”
azureipadvantage.jpg
The company plans to make 10,000 Microsoft patents available to Azure customers to help them defend themselves against “baseless patent lawsuits,” in Microsoft officials’ words. And if the company ever transfers a patent to a non-practicing entity, that patent cannot be asserted against the customer. (This is called a “springing license,” in Microsoft’s description of the program.)
Microsoft already offers uncapped indemnification coverage to its cloud customers. With the new Azure IP plan, it also will cover any open source technology powering Azure services, such as Azure HD Insight, which is built on top of Hadoop.months, according to officials.
For the “patent pick,” users must have Azure usage of $1,000 per month over the past three months; have not filed a patent infringement lawsuit against another Azure customer for their Azure workloads in the last two years; and show evidence of a current patent litigation that occurred after February 8, 2017. “Legal transactional costs apply,” according to the fine print.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Another day, another cloud price cut – from partly free to all free
Bluemix welcomes database migrants to the Hotel California with cut from $.02 to $0.00
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/08/cloud_price_wars_bluemix_lift/
IBM has revealed that the standard tier Bluemix Lift service is now free. Which sounds great save for one small problem: the service was just about free already.
Bluemix lift is a database migration service that Big Blue says “makes it easy to quickly, securely and reliably migrate your database from on-premises data centers to an IBM Bluemix cloud data property … with zero downtime.” That’s possible because IBM’s Aspera file transfer tech can monitor changes to the source database and make sure they’re captured on the cloudy side of the house.
Which sounds pretty handy because downtime is bad and cloud has may benefits.
But was we mentioned at the top of this story, Bluemix Lift standard tier was already cheap as: the product’s pricing page says shifting the first 100GB of data was free and thereafter cost US$0.02 per gigabyte. Let’s do the math: if you uploaded another 100GB after the free allowance that would be 100 times two cents … or two dollars!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evernote Reaches the Cloud: Migration to Google Cloud Platform Complete
https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2017/02/08/evernote-reaches-the-cloud
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s not just Google — Snap has a $1 billion cloud services deal with Amazon, too
Snap disclosed the deal in a revised version of its S-1 made public Thursday.
https://www.recode.net/2017/2/9/14555202/snap-amazon-google-cloud-services-deal
It turns out that Google isn’t the only company Snap is paying for cloud and infrastructure support.
Snap also has a $1 billion deal with Amazon to use its cloud computing services, according to an updated version of its S-1 IPO paperwork made public Thursday morning.
The deal — originally signed last year, then amended on Wednesday — is for “redundant infrastructure support of our business operations,” and Snap says it may also “invest in building our own infrastructure to better serve our customers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Run this in April: UPDATE Azure SET SQLthreat_detection = ‘generally available’
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/10/microsoft_adding_security_for_sql_databases/
Microsoft says it will fully power up its Azure SQL Database Threat Detection service this spring.
This technology, which has been in preview mode for the past year or so, monitors for suspicious database activities, and raises the alarm if malicious access is detected. It has been two years in the making, and will enter general availability in April, we’re told.
This feature is supposed to reassure Azure subscribers that their information is protected on remote servers. Microsoft is keen to stress to businesses that it is safe to run their applications on its infrastructure.
The Azure service will continuously monitor and profile customers’ application behavior to detect suspicious database activities and identify potential mischief, using machine learning algorithms written in R, which is now supported by SQL Server 2016 running on Azure’s back-end.
“We get 300 billion authentication requests each month,”
There are 1.3 billion calls to Azure Active Directory daily, and Microsoft scans more than 200 billion emails for malware and phishing attacks each month. Microsoft collects between 600 and 700TB of telemetry data on a daily basis, not all of which is collected for security purposes, but “a significant proportion” of which is used to create the models that will be used with the threat detection service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Multi-Cloud Convergence Tipping Point
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2017/02/07/multi-cloud-convergence-tipping-point/?utm_source=internal-link&utm_medium=foot-link&utm_campaign=previous
Cloud adoption has matured to an advanced stage where enterprises are increasingly relying more on cloud infrastructures, and the industry at large is extremely bullish when it comes to cloud futures. Cisco predicts that global cloud IP traffic will almost quadruple between 2015 – 2020, reaching 14.1 zettabytes. By then, global cloud IP traffic will account for more than 92 percent of total data center traffic. This surge in cloud adoption also represents a huge shift in cloud spending by IT organizations, directly or indirectly affecting more than $1 trillion dollars in IT purchases dedicated to the cloud by 2020, according to Gartner.
Forrester predicts 2017 will be the tipping point for cloud adoption and sees a convergence of multiple clouds across the enterprise as “CIOs step up to orchestrate cloud ecosystems that connect employees, customers, partners, vendors and devices to serve rising customer expectations.”
In 2017, more than 85 percent of enterprises will commit to multi-cloud architectures that IDC describes as “encompassing a mix of public cloud services, private clouds, community clouds and hosted clouds.”
Some of its greatest benefits to organizations are:
Faster access to infrastructure and IT resources and services
Greater speed-to-market and global expansion
Business continuity and disaster recovery
Higher performance and scalability
The economies of scale of pay-per-use cloud business models are also enticing enterprises to move to the cloud, however, they have also been a major source of confusion and frustration for companies. Today, there are multiple ways to buy cloud services ̶ on-demand, pre-paid, reserved capacity, monthly enterprise agreements ̶ and this trend will accelerate in 2017.
Also, migration of those applications that are not “cloud-ready” is not a slam-dunk. This has brought about the rise of cloud migration and orchestration tools, such as open source containers (Docker, Mesosphere) and container-based migration services from leading cloud providers such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The Next Steps
Ultimately, a well-planned hybrid and multi-cloud cloud migration strategy is necessary to facilitate comprehensive assessment, migration and optimization plans to reduce cloud migration risks and costs. Your strategy should also include cloud exchanges for fast, cost-effective, direct and secure provisioning of virtualized connections to multiple cloud vendors and services to best leverage the flexibility and agility converged cloud infrastructures contribute to becoming a competitive digital business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google launches Cloud Spanner in beta, a globally distributed relational database service that the company’s used internally for years, promises 99.9999% uptime — Google today announced the beta launch of Cloud Spanner, a new globally distributed database service for mission-critical applications.
Google launches Cloud Spanner, its new globally distributed relational database service
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/14/google-launches-cloud-spanner-a-new-globally-distributed-database-service/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Finland lacks a data center professionals”
Finland has data centers in the promised land, but we lack expertise in the field.
Gartner and industry analysts are predicting that the data center investments accelerate further this year. Europe, the new centers will be invested up to € 54.5 billion.
- Major competitors of data center investments are still in the other Nordic countries. One point on which we suffer in Finland, is a skilled and experienced data center professionals lack. This should be addressed in study programs are constructed. At the moment, unfortunately, Espoo, Helsinki Metropolia University is the only educational institution providing data center education, Mikko Aho says.
Internet of Things and Internet of Everything will make its breakthrough in 2017. A growing number of devices and terminals connected to the network and “industrial clouds” will increase production plants, public buildings and logistics.
Companies anticipate fierce savings, the efficiency increases. Market analyst IDC expects the so-called “Industry collaboration cloud” -pilvien to triple by 2018. Created platforms are available to all companies sharing their own data, the integration of processes and services, or for accelerating product development.
IoT and data-intensive analytics often need to very quickly react to the data network. When there is a massive amount of data processing, the calculation must be carried out near the place where the data is generated.
In 2017 the companies prefer the acquisition of IT services from the cloud instead of your own data center expansion
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5854&via=n&datum=2017-02-16_15:28:13&mottagare=30929
Tomi Engdahl says:
TechCrunch:
A look at Alibaba’s cloud computing business, which generated $254M revenue from 765K customers last quarter, and is said to be China’s leading cloud vendor
Ambitious Alibaba takes aim at the kings of cloud computing
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/27/alibaba-aliyun-cloud-computing/
When you think of the biggest cloud players in the world, one company you might not consider is Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant that held a record $25 billion U.S. IPO in 2014.
Alibaba entered the cloud computing business in 2009, just three years after Amazon launched its cloud division, AWS — and Alibaba’s cloud computing efforts are among the ambitious projects that the Chinese e-commerce giant is pursuing aggressively.
It’s impossible not to note the similarities between the two companies. While Alibaba is the premier e-commerce company in China, Amazon is the biggest in the U.S.
The utter dominance of both is proven on paper: NASDAQ-listed Amazon’s market cap exceeds $400 billion, while Alibaba is valued at $250 billion according to its NYSE share price. When it comes to the cloud, the nature of their core businesses and the size of their computing requirements both necessitate computing on a massive scale. Both believe they can parlay that knowledge and experience into a significant business offering cloud services to others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AWS’s S3 outage was so bad Amazon couldn’t get into its own dashboard to warn the world
Websites, apps, security cams, IoT gear knackered
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/01/aws_s3_outage/
Tuesday’s Amazon Web Services mega-outage knocked offline not only websites big and small, by yanking away their backend storage, but also knackered apps and Internet of Things gadgets relying on the technology.
In fact, the five-hour breakdown was so bad, Amazon couldn’t even update its own AWS status dashboard: its red warning icons were stranded, hosted on the broken-down side of the cloud.
Essentially, S3 buckets in the US-East-1 region in northern Virginia, US, became inaccessible at about 0945 PST (1745 UTC). Software, from web apps to smartphone applications, relying on this cloud-based storage quickly broke, taking out a sizable chunk of the internet as we know it.
AWS has many regions, and US-East-1 is just one of them. Developers are supposed to spread their applications over different data centers so when one region goes TITSUP, it doesn’t take your whole platform down. For various reasons – from the fact that programmers find distributed computing hard to the costs involved – this redundancy isn’t always coded in.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s AWS S3 cloud storage evaporates: Top websites, Docker stung
‘Increased error rates’ is the new ‘outage’, according to Bezos’ bit-barn bods
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/28/aws_is_awol_as_s3_goes_haywire/
Amazon Web Services is scrambling to recover from a cockup at its facility in Virginia, US, that is causing its S3 cloud storage to fail.
The internet giant has yet to reveal the cause of the breakdown, which is plaguing storage buckets hosted in the US-East-1 region. The malady kicked off around 0944 Pacific Time (1744 UTC) today.
It has led to major websites and services – including Imgur, Medium and the Docker Registry Hub – falling offline, losing images, or left running like treacle. We’re also hearing loads of media titles that use S3 to serve pictures, plus Runkeeper, Trello, and Yahoo webmail, are all suffering: basically, this outage has knackered half the internet, it seems, because it all relies on S3 to store data online.
Just to stress: this is one S3 region that has become inaccessible, yet web apps are tripping up and vanishing as their backend evaporates away.
AWS, for some reason, insists this isn’t an “outage” but rather a case of “increased error rates” for its most popular cloud service. Infuriatingly, the status dashboard for AWS shows all green ticks at time of writing, despite what feels like a chunk of the internet going missing as a result of the downtime.