Digital Walkabout

The role of certification in Cloud adoption

The principal concern for enterprises in adopting Cloud Computing, particularly Public Cloud, is the security of mission-critical data - both in-transit and at-rest -  being off-premise and beyond the control of their IT. Hybrid Cloud providers such as Terremark, Savvis, CSC, IBM, Rackspace and others, as well as the Telcos (AT&T, Telefonica, Verizon, etc.) have made their mark by providing a rich set of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for securing such data, and for a degree of attestations as to who can enter their network or servics. Yet the majority of Public Cloud providers have no such thing, which is an obstacle to anyone with privacy and security concerns.

As a measure to address this impass, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) recently released a certification scheme to promote secure Cloud - the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) - which would ensure service providers and professionals have demonstrated the skills and understanding along with assuming the necessary responsibility required to secure Cloud-related services.  

Per Jim Reavis, executive director, the CSA would provide a low-cost certification that establishes a robust baseline of cloud security knowledge. "When combined with existing certifications, CCSK provides necessary assurance of user competency in this important time of transition," said Reavis. "We're also thrilled to have the European Network and Information Security Agency's support and its agreement to join our certification board,” he added. “What a certification will help you do,” said Reavis, “is break down some of those barriers that prevents transparency and understand that the provider is able to give you what you really need to match with your business.”

Certifications would measure a variety of different areas of the provider, such as background checks on the employees working at the cloud provider - the need to know who is handling the data of enterprise customers, and their level of responsibility and confidentiality - as well as audit management - how are auditable assets archived and encrypted? In an environment of muti-tenancy, confidentiality and isolation of data are crucial. And as beneficial as certifications are to customers, they would also help providers by providing a stamp of approval for their services.

Online examinations for the CCSK would be available from 1 September 2010, with discount pricing for the course of $195 (£125) for the rest of the year, with regular pricing of $295 beginning in 2011.

Canonical/Ubuntu - floating the Cloud

Cloud Computing continues to gain traction and adoption amongst consumers and businesses alike. The principal differentiation in adoption style is with enterprises - any organisation that has managed its own IT for any length of time is not going to trust its key applications and workloads in the present-day Public Cloud, no matter how facile or inexpensive that may be. Enterprise requirements continue to drive Private Cloud, as they need to operate their own Cloud within their controlled environment, and off-load specific workloads into the Public Cloud utilities on demand.

 

Canonical, with their Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud offering, seeks to meet this demand for Private Cloud, by providing on-premise Cloud appliances, with partners including Intel, that can satisfy the strict security, reliability, availability and serviceability requirements of the enterprise, inclusive of highly-regulated industry and government. If early results with UEC are any indication, there is no lack of demand for Private Cloud in the enterprise.

 

 "According to Matt Asay, who joined [Canonical] back in February as chief operating officer, the company has more than 12,000 deployments of UEC, and it's seeing about 200 downloads per day at this point."

 

Clearly, this statistic can be subject to error in converting downloads and deployments to actual use.  We know at least some of the downloads were only made to examine the materials, while some of the deployment were likely in a sandbox to evaluate the operational experience.

 

This is acknowledged in "All the company can say is that 12,000 customers are actively using UEC, and based on the engagements where it has been involved, there are anywhere from two or three to hundreds of server nodes in these initial clouds."

 

Read more at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/26/ubuntu_server_drilldown/

Cloud and Product Lifecycle Management

Product lifecycle management (PLM) at most companies is no longer the invention of new ideas within a large vertically federated R&D department.  It is now more likely to be accomplished by networks of geographically dispersed companies and consultants that offer the necessary skills and expertise to impact a products competitive advantage or time to market. 

Firms are now rethinking their traditional approaches to innovation and are seeking more collaborative forms of product development.  Enter Cloud Computing, and the concept of Private Cloud, which simply are proprietary computing infrastructures that provide self-service, on-demand services to a users behind a firewall of an organisation or enterprise.  By definition, Cloud-based PLM is simply employing the internet to provide a comprehensive information infrastructure that coordinates all aspects of a product from initial concept to its eventual retirement. 

As such, the obvious barriers to Cloud-based PLM are security, availability, and predictability. 

Cloud-based PLM must function like an electric utility company - as electricity is available to light your home when you need it, Cloud based PLM needs to always be there offering ready and secure access to your data whenever (and whereever) you need it.  It also needs to offer predictable service levels with no ebbs and flows based on competing traffic or Cloud use.  Security remains paramount - enterprise PLM prevents unauthorized access from the outside. In a virtual world, a physical perimeter no longer exists, thus businesses must assume that all data transferred may potentially be intercepted.  Encryption technologies, long been used by militaries and governments to facilitate secret communication, are now being used to help secure PLM data, by transforming its high value information using encryption algorithms, making it readable only to those possessing special knowledge. If the encryption keys themselves are lost or comprised, so is the data itself. Thus, cloud based PLM security remains a top concern.

Cloud based PLM and Intel technologies

Top concerns in cloud based computing remain security, predictability and availability.  Let’s look at how Intel technologies can help overcome these potential barriers.

• Intel Trusted Execution Technology (TXT): TXT for safer computing, is a versatile set of hardware extensions to Intel processors and chipsets that enhance the digital office platform with security capabilities such as measured launch and protected execution. Intel Trusted Execution Technology provides hardware-based mechanisms that help protect against software-based attacks and protects the confidentiality and integrity of data stored or created on the client PC. It does this by enabling an environment where applications can run within their own space, protected from all other software on the system. These capabilities provide the protection mechanisms, rooted in hardware, that are necessary to provide trust in the application's execution environment. In turn, this can help to protect vital data and processes from being compromised by malicious software running on the platform. To learn more about Intel TXT visit these URLs: Trusted Execution Technology Overview (PDF 83KB), Trusted Execution Technology Architectural Overview (PDF 184KB)
  
• Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) In an IDC report titled Optimizing Hardware for x86 Server Virtualization, they stated that “virtualization offers a myriad of benefits to an enterprise.” Beyond the obvious CAPEX and OPEX savings from server virtualization and consolidation the high availability, fault tolerance, disaster recovery, and workload balancing offered by this technology can help deliver a resilient cloud based solution.

The next generation of virtualization brings in advanced management tools for greater automation and orchestration of the datacenter and promises to further reduce operational costs and improve service levels. These new technologies will help you rapidly save, copy, and provision a virtual machine that enables zero-downtime maintenance and supports new "go live" initiatives.  Dynamic sharing of idle resources across server platforms will improve performance and use while eliminating stovepipes.  Seamless failover when a virtual server component fails will lead to higher system availability.  Net/Net with Intel virtualization technologies your PLM cloud computing solution will deliver predictable service levels.  Here is a cute video on virtualization I am sure you will enjoy - Intel Virtualization Technology for servers.  To learn more about Intel VT visit this URL: http://www.intel.com/technology/virtualization/technology.htm.

·      Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) FlexMigration - Flexible migration technologies enable cloud service providers to easily move workloads across multiple generations of processors without disrupting services. Performing live migrations from a newer generation processor with a newer instruction set to an older generation processor with an older instruction set carries the risk of unexpected behaviors in the guest. In 2007 Intel helped solve this problem by developing Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) FlexMigration. By allowing virtual machine monitor (VMM) software to report a consistent set of available instructions to guest software running within a hypervisor, this technology broadens the live migration compatibility pool across multiple generations of Intel Xeon processors in the data center. This reduces the challenges to IT in deploying new generations of hardware, enabling faster utilization of servers with new performance capabilities as they become available.

·      Accelerating I/O performance and enabling more efficient migration Virtualization solutions are inherently challenged in the area of network I/O because the guests on a host server all end up sharing the same I/O resources. Moreover, many I/O resources are emulated in software for consistency and decision-making (e.g., network packet routing from the shared I/O resource is often done in software).

Intel improves availability through a number of technologies that accelerate I/O performance. This enhances the ability to deploy I/O intensive workloads (beyond simple consolidation) and increases efficiency in Virtualization 2.0 usage models such as load balancing, high availability, and disaster recovery (all of which extensively rely on data transfer over the network). Intel’s I/O technologies for improving data transfer include:

§  Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) for Connectivity - (Intel VT-c) provides unique I/O innovations like Virtual Machine Device Queues (VMDq) that offloads routine I/O tasks to network silicon to free up more CPU cycles for applications and delivers over 2x throughput gains on 10 GbE.

§  Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d) delivers scalable I/O performance through direct assignment (e.g., assigning a network interface card to a guest) and enables single root input/output virtualization (IOV) for sharing devices natively with multiple guest systems.

Privacy and Policy

Intel recognizes that many aspects of successful policy implementation depend on software and hardware development from third party providers whose implementations are outside Intel’s direct control. Intel believes adherence to these or equivalent policies is critical to delivering the full benefits of Intel Trusted Execution

Technology and other complementary security technologies, and will vigorously encourage Intel's  fellow travelers in the industry to internalize and implement these policies. For details on these policies visit http://www.intel.com/technology/security.

MeeGo goes for a ride with IVI

The Linux Foundation - who hosts the MeeGo platform - announced the GENIVI alliance has chosen MeeGo as the basis of their next reference release for In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) applications.

“This is a critical milestone for MeeGo adoption across the compute continuum, including tablets, handsets, TVs, and IVI implementations,” said Doug Fisher, leader of Intel's Systems Software Division in the Software and Services Group. “Intel’s ongoing contribution to open source MeeGo will provide a highly optimized software platform capable of delivering value for both end users and GENIVI members in this important market for Atom.”

“We selected MeeGo as the open source basis for our platform because it is technically innovative and can provide the cross architecture build support we require for our references,” adds Graham Smethurst, president and general manager of GENIVI. MeeGo-based IVI devices will provide Internet-based features such as rear-seat entertainment, navigation, and entertainment, with the potential for social networking, hands-free interaction, and other multimedia.

GENIVI is a non-profit industry consortium with founding members BMW Group, Wind River, Intel, GM, PSA, Delphi, Magneti-Marelli, and Visteon. This adoption by a major auto consortium is a testament to the cross-device, cross-architecture advantages of the MeeGo platform.

Read more about  here.

Security vulnerabilities by the numbers

According to Secunia's Half Year Security Report 2010, 10 technology vendors account for 38% of all vulnerabilities disclosed over the past five years, a percentage that has remained relatively stable during this period. Yet, the number of vulnerabilities affecting PC users has been rising rapidly, thanks largely to increasingly vulnerable third-party applications. If the trend continues, Secunia predicts 760 vulnerabilities by the end of the year, almost double the 420 vulnerabilities detected in 2009, and approaching four times as many as the 220 vulnerabilities detected in 2007.

In the ranking of the ten vendors with the most vulnerabilities in their products, Apple overtook Oracle during the first six months of the year. Oracle dropped to second place, followed by Microsoft, HP, Adobe, IBM, VMware, Cisco, Google, and Mozilla.

Secunia says that the security of these vendors' products cannot be judged by vulnerability counts alone and that one must consider changes in the types of vulnerabilities reported, code quality, handling of vulnerability reports, update mechanisms, and other factors to fully assess security.

Indeed, one need only to look at vast amount of malware targeting the Windows platform to see that while users of Apple software may face largely theoretical risk, users of Windows (some of whom may be running Apple's iTunes or Safari) software face clearly demonstrated risk.

Secunia says that its report supports the perception that high market share correlates with a high number of vulnerabilities.

At the same time, the report notes that the security efforts by the top vendors haven't had much success in reducing vulnerability counts.

"Despite increased investments into the security of their products, none of the seven vendors who occupied the Top-10 group in 2005 as well as in 2010 managed to decrease the number of vulnerabilities discovered in their products," the report states. "On the contrary, the vulnerability count of each of these seven vendors has increased to reach in 2009 between 136% and 440% of the 2005 count."

But if the major vendors aren't seeing a reduction in vulnerabilities as a result of their efforts, at least they're doing better than third-party vendors.

According Secunia, third-party programs are almost exclusively to blame for the increased risk to end-users when using the Internet. The firm says that a typical PC with 50 applications installed had 3.5x more vulnerabilities in 24 third-party programs than in 26 Microsoft programs installed. And that ratio is expected to shift to 4.4x by the end of 2010.

The report calls for wider deployment of automated patching mechanisms, something Secunia just happens to be working on, in the form of its Personal Software Inspector (PSI) 2.0. 

Ranking the Cloud

The emergence of Cloud Computing as a dominant model for consumers, small-medium business and the enterprise - at least in mindshare - has come amid a dizzying array of providers, services and vendors. This has made it difficult at times for end users and developers to understand who provides, services and builds what. Into this fray has entered BTC Logic, a Cloud/Web consultancy, with a report ranking the leading services and providers from a total of more than 500 organisations, comparing them amongst categories including SaaS, PaaS and IaaS; management, security and network services; mindshare and market presence. 

The top ranked performers in this report include Amazon, IBM, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, RedHat and VMware - all names which are more than familiar to any engaging the Cloud - yet BTC Logic's approach has been to provide a level of qualitative comparison, such that end users and developers can better understand which providers, services and vendors meet which broad categories of capabilities, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and other differentiators of importance to them. 

Also of interest is how the Cloud market is split between established service providers and enterprise software vendors, and independents. Likewise, companies such as Cisco and RedHat have grown in importance in the market through growing their depth and breath of service offerings, through acquisition of a number of successful independents. 

For the complete report, see BTC Logic's Cloud rankings.

What is Intel Hybrid Cloud?

Intel announced a Cloud solution for SMBs, known as the Intel Hybrid Cloud. The pillars of this offering are the following:

•  Ease of use, flexibility, and pay-as-you-go cost structure of the cloud
• Peace of mind of having your data on-premise, managed by an MSP

Think of this as a “best of breed” that merges the traditional IT-managed  data centre with the cloud paradigm shift, distributed through various channels.

 

Just the facts

Intel’s Hybrid Cloud is a data centre solution developed by Intel that enables an MSP to turn on, turn off, and remotely manage multiple virtual appliances, including popular Microsoft server applications and other server apps for small businesses.  It runs on a headless server without a keyboard or mouse that is managed from another PC such as a remote laptop. Intel Hybrid Cloud will be available on special SKUs of Lenovo’s ThinkServer TS200v as part of a pilot program beginning in July.

Lenovo’s TS200v is the ideal server for Hybrid Cloud because in addition to solid reliability and energy efficiency, it has Intel Active Management Technology which enables powerful remote management for the MSP. The Hybrid Cloud Server will be available in a couple of configurations, depending on the performance needs of the small business, and these will come pre-installed with the Hybrid Cloud software stack which offers:

• A simple user interface for choosing which appliances to run on the box, and for managing the server remotely.
• The Intel Hybrid Cloud Catalog, a list of pre-configured virtual appliances, including Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 and 2008, and Windows 2008. Other pre-installed appliances include firewall, backup, disaster recovery, and IP PBX.
• Support for applications from well-known SMB Nation ISV friends including Level Platforms (LPI) for client monitoring/management and Vembu for data storage. If a Level partner, think of this as the ideal Onsite Manager appliance – one box for everything!

 

Why does Hybrid Cloud matter?

Intel’s Hybrid Cloud Server is turning IT acquisition on its head, offering a subscription model and a catalog.  The subscription model is unique in this space in that the user can “subscribe” the entire server solution for a monthly fee. That makes this blended on-site/cloud server solution an operating expense, not a capital expense. Furthermore – the user can subscribe to third-party productivity applications being used on this server and pay only a recurring subscription fee. In many cases, this could mean one can use an application to burst up for a discrete project and then “return” the application and lower your operating expenses. The small business only pays for the months in which they use an appliance.

The other concept that is exciting is the catalog. While not quite an iStore yet, the catalog is a marketplace to shop for applications you’d like to download and deploy in a virtual machine scenario.

The future is here
At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and onward, Intel is engaging with selected partners in a pilot program as they carefully scale the infrastructure to support this solution for a future broad market release.

Videos on Hybrid Cloud:

Introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkx_G6Qo4Rw
Intel Hybrid Cloud @WPC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNzd7r5gdNE

Why HTML5 is a game changer

HTML5 has quickly emerged as the leader in mindshare on Rich Services Cloud and Web development, as well as the focal point for the debate between Apple and Adobe on standards, platform abstraction and ease of development for the Cloud. This discussion is by nature multi-faceted and somewhat complex. In this entry, I put forward why I see HTML5 is the future of Cloud and Web.

What does HTML5 provide? Improved network communications and browser storage features; implements Web Sockets which provide a website with an API that opens an ongoing connection between an app (on the device) and a server, so that information can pass between them in real-time; helps Web apps work better when devices are intermittently connected, as is generally the case with any mobile device; lets Web apps store more data inside the platform, retrieve it more intelligently, and control how the platform saves parts of pages for faster loading; implements the newest version of CSS to make Web pages more responsive to user input and to allow for higher-quality graphics; provides improvements in the way browsers handle forms will reduce the amount of javascript needed and speed up page loading, particularly on mobile devices; and reads the markup used to build a page and figures out how to display it, making browsers more interoperable, particularly in the way they handle badly written code to give users a more consistent experience.

Importantly, HTML5 standardises the user interface markup language, which is used to declaratively lay out the user interface of Cloud and Web applications, implement application behaviours, and hook in business logic. This is a critical step in interoperability and bringing more developers into the Rich Services Cloud/Web. Although Adobe Flash/Flex and Microsoft Silverlight provide greater power at present, these are principally proprietary technologies (MXML and XAML), and thus by nature have limited audiences at best.

HTML5 is already being used by a number of Cloud services and web sites - YouTube and Vimeo have rolled out the video element, and others are using Canvas as well as offline storage, to enable both mobile and "desktop" Cloud and Web.

 

HTML5 is hard to beat for simple interactivity,  including charting, some limited 3D vector graphics, image transforms, video, audio. It is possible that 90 to 95% of an average enterprise needs could be met by HTML5. There are only a few classes of corporate apps that would gain significant benefit from Flash, Silverlight or other Rich Services platforms over what is available in HTML5.

 

There are some features of Rich Services Cloud/Web that require richer interaction, such as direct manipulation of graphics, real-time notifications and alerts, high-speed binary communication protocols, tight integration with local hardware capabilities, and extensive offline processing. Flash/Flex, Silverlight and other Rich Services platforms all provide rich feature sets to support these requirements. 

 

However, the emerging HTML5 platforms, in particular Google Chrome, all provide extensibility and native library integration, through which these requirements can be supported. Support for high definition The day when these requirements can be supported in any HTML5 platform is quickly approaching, which is why HTML5 is such a strategic threat to Adobe and Microsoft.

 

Adobe is the most impacted in the short term — because Microsoft has some solid territory in enterprise IT environment (for example, Silverlight is leveraging the success of the Sharepoint portal), and enterprises do not shift direction easily. Also, Silverlight leverages .NET developer skills directly. By contrast, the consumer Web (especially the smaller more agile Web properties) can change direction and platform more quickly. Flash is used in 70% of high traffic Web sites, but some of these uses are surface-level and easily removed. (yet, it will be harder to turn large scale ad-engine operations around)

 

The iPhone and iPad throw a harsh spotlight on Flash, at least for those readers who only read about Apple’s side of the story in the mainstream press. Apple says that Flash is low-performance, insecure, drains battery life.  Yet  any large powerful app will consume CPU and battery , whether that app is written in Flash, Silverlight or HTML5. Simple apps consume minimal resources, and most HTML5 and Flash apps are simple. Complex apps with high interactivity and large amounts of computation will consume CPU and battery no matter what technology they are implemented in. Some may be better than others in this regards — perhaps even 20% or 30% better –but such differences are incremental, not game-changers, in the big picture.

 

The iPad and iPhone do have the potential to change the rules of the game a bit with their customised platforms - for example, their ability to decode HD video without draining battery life quickly (Apple claims 10 hours).

 

Yet the choice among these technologies is not “all or none”. One approach that many, if not most, organizations might end up pursuing is a hybrid approach — sometimes known as “islands of Rich Services” or supporting “hot spots of interactivity”. In the near term, this requires a plug-in based approach, such as Flash or Silverlight. Over the long-term (5 years at the outside), HTML5 will fit the bill.

 

Flash has a definite advantage with respect to deployed infrastructure. A pragmatic perspective should look at the numerous tools, ad engines, business processes, infrastructure and platforms that support and/or enable Flash-based advertising. This aggregate mass will take a long time to shift to an alternative, no matter how good that alternative may be, due to sheer inertia of large scale systems that are operationally functional. Also, Flash has a long record of being light, fast and (reasonably) secure, which is why it is found in 98% of Internet connected PCs, and why it succeeded while other approaches failed in the market (client-side Java, ActiveX, WPF, etc). This does not mean Flash is the optimal choice for a Web page that requires simple interactivity (any more than Silverlight would be).

 

However, a significant majority of Flash content on the Web does not need to be in Flash. Although there are tens of thousands of Flash-based games, there are millions of Web sites that use Flash in a simple manner (for basic interactive content such as banner ads or splash pages). One could argue that much of this content is of low value (users get “banner blindness”, and are habituated to skip useless intro or splash pages). Regardless of its value, much of this simple interactive content could be replaced today’s HTML5 working subset, although only from a browser technology perspective.

 

Until now, average enterprise hasn't effectively used Flash or Silverlight, due to their proprietary nature, and the root causes for sub-optimal user experience residing with lack of appropriate process, and governance, and lack of a genuine commitment to a quality user experience. For an extensive time, very few organizations have centered development around user needs by relying on objectively measured data about user behaviou, and haven't cared enough about the user experience to change their habits (developer-driven, vendor-driven, stakeholder-driven).

 

Yet the failure of traditional Web applications in terms of interactivity, offline-mode and scalability, and the emergence of Cloud computing, have brought this issue back to the centre of attention of end users and developers alike. Combined with HTML5's  simplicity and standardisation today, and power and flexibility tomorrow, this highlights how HTML5 stands to make its greatest impact on Cloud services and Web applications going forward. This intersection of requirements and capabilities are where HTML5 will change the game the most. 

RedHat's IaaS/PaaS Strategy

RedHat recently announced a series of new offerings, ecosystem infrastructure and services designed to provide the enterprise with a comprehensive, easy on-ramp to cloud computing. They announced an expansion of development services that provide customers with the tools and expertise needed to deploy and manage cloud environments as well as enhancements to the Red Hat Premier Certified Cloud Provider Program.

"Just as we made Linux a safe place to run mission-critical applications with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we are focused on making the cloud a safe place for enterprise applications," said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager, Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat. "Red Hat is at the forefront of the industry with a broad portfolio of enterprise cloud solutions, and is driving the expansion of the cloud for new users, from developers to enterprises, with our expanded cloud offerings available today."

Simplifying the Deployment and Management of Cloud Solutions
Red Hat has announced Red Hat Cloud Foundations, a new offering family delivering solutions for planning, standing up and managing Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service private and public clouds. Each offering includes product, implementation cookbooks and reference architectures, professional services and training classes, all to successfully create and operate clouds.

The first in this family, Cloud Foundations: Edition One, is available now - this enables the deployment of private clouds, and includes:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Network Satellite, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, JBoss Enterprise Middleware and Red Hat Enterprise MRG Grid.
• A cookbook implementation guide, making cloud setup quick and simple.
• A detailed reference architecture providing step-by-step instructions, scripts and settings for creating and configuring the private cloud.
• Consulting services to enable turnkey assessment, implementation and operational management of a private cloud - including Red Hat Cloud Quickstart, which helps customers explore the usage of cloud computing in their infrastructure and develop proof points of cloud viability, and Red Hat Pathway to Cloud Computing, designed for customers ready to start strategic planning and deployment of cloud technologies.
• Training courses for hands on knowledge building

Red Hat Premier Certified Cloud Provider Program
Through the Certified Cloud Provider Program, Red Hat established one of the first programmes to certify that vendors have validated cloud capabilities and support processes that provide rapid problem resolution. Red Hat has now expanded the program to include new partners IBM, NTT Communications and Savvis, and introduces new benefits of the program.

Certified Cloud Provider Program delivers:

• Cloud-specific Red Hat offerings and pricing for developers, administrators and users.
• Preconfigured, certified Red Hat images enabled with cloud-specific configurations and security settings, including pre-configured firewall and SELinux settings for secure cloud use the moment an image is started.
• Management and updating services built for scale and designed to provide maximum security and lower costs, while ensuring consistency between customer datacenter and public cloud environments.
• Extension of the Red Hat partner ISV certification to public clouds, enabling enterprise solution availability and consistency regardless of deployment choices.

Certified Cloud Providers can run any of the major virtualization solutions, ranging from Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to VMware and Microsoft platforms. Premier Certified Cloud Providers also deliver Red Hat Cloud Access, a licensing model that allows customers to easily use existing Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions in the data center or the cloud.

Enterprise-Class Cloud Development Environments for Cloud Providers, Enterprises and Solutions Providers

Red Hat is also announcing its strategy to enable enterprises and Certified Cloud Providers to deliver industry-leading Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) capabilities, opening the cloud to a new range of developers, from large enterprises and the ISVs who serve them, to emerging Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies.

Red Hat's PaaS roadmap describes a comprehensive solution that enables users to build and deploy applications within cloud environments while bridging their on-premise application environments. It will be based upon the comprehensive JBoss Enterprise Middleware product line and become part of the Red Hat Cloud Foundations family of solutions.

Red Hat's strategy is designed to provide a path for the large installed base of Linux, Java and JBoss users, enabling them to deploy applications to the cloud, and is also designed to attract new developers, both within traditional ISVs and enterprises, and new ISVs who are creating SaaS solutions from scratch. Red Hat leverages JBoss Open Choice, an application platform approach for supporting many programming models and languages. Red Hat PaaS will support Java, Ruby on Rails and the Spring Framework, amongst others

Red Hat's PaaS solution will also provide tools for developing, deploying and managing cloud-based applications. The capabilities will include tools and services for deploying and configuring an application within a cloud environment. It will also include the capabilities for managing the application environment to optimize services and resources.

Red Hat is also introducing new Red Hat Enterprise Linux developer offerings, available exclusively through Red Hat Certified Cloud Providers, designed to give SaaS developers an on-ramp to the cloud, and provide a consistent environment for development and deployment.

Data Centers powered by Intel's Atom?

SeaMicro, based in Santa Clara, unveiled a new enterprise-class server powered not by Intel Xeon processors, but rather with low-powered Intel Atom chips, the sort usually seen inside netbooks. VentureBeat wrote SeaMicro “has created a server with 512 Intel Atom chips that gets supercomputer performance but uses 75% less power and space than current servers," adding, “If SeaMicro can deliver, then it will deal a big blow to server vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. And it could delight customers with big data centers that are consuming too much power and are having a hard time keeping up with the demand for free internet services.”

The product, the SeaMicro SM10000, is only 17.5 inches high, and costs $139K, allegedly about the same cost as a 7-foot (2m) tall conventional server rack, but using only a quarter of the space and operating costs. It is designed for companies with large but simple data loads, such as serving up email and social media updates. 

The idea of using the Atom processor in a server has been bandied about since the chip was introduced. However, AnandTech says there are limitations to using Atom for servers: “There’s no official Windows support, so this is for Linux-only deployment. Each server is limited in performance not only by the CPU but also by the memory capacity (2GB). There’s no Error Correction Code, no real RAID [data protection] support.” Intel’s Xeon chips have all those features and more.

How does Intel feel about this new product? The Wall Street Journal talked to Jason Waxman, who leads our high density computing efforts. Waxman, the paper reported, “compares Atom to a four-cylinder car engine—perfect for tasks comparable to carrying a few passengers, but not for the electronic equivalent of hauling a couple of semi trailers.” 

“Besides,” wrote the WSJ, “if SeaMicro’s concept takes off, Intel could sell quite a few more Atoms. ‘Anyone who wants to pack 2,000 of our processors into a rack—that sort of thing is always interesting to us,’” Waxman said.”

Nathan Brookwood, principal of market watcher Insight64, told EETimes that the server’s power savings were “impressive,” but added, “users who pay for software based on the number of CPUs their software uses will probably find multi-core Xeons and Opterons to be a better choice, and users who worry about data integrity may be turned off by Atom's lack of ECC support.”