Where Google Computing Engine fits in
InfoWorld described yesterday how Compute Engine is Google's first unabashed IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) product, a cloud that allows users to spin up enormous numbers of virtual Linux machines that run on the same infrastructure that powers Google.
But how will customers decide whether to use Google Compute Engine, Rackspace Cloud, Windows Azure, HP Cloud, or another IaaS provider? For an informed answer that question, InfoWorld turned to Michael Crandell, CEO and founder of RightScale, the cloud-management services company that helps customers work with everything from Amazon EC2 to Microsoft Azure. Read more...
Google pledges computing without limits in Compute Engine cloud platform
With its Google Compute Engine launched Thursday, Google is offering an IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) cloud for running Linux virtual machines on the same infrastructure that powers Google itself.
Unveiled at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, the service offers scale for tasks requiring large amounts of compute power. "You can launch enormous compute clusters -- tens of thousands of cores or more" said Google's Craig McLuckie, Compute Engine product manager, in a blog post. Read more...
Security problem in VMware vSphere 5
Security experts from ERNW have demonstrated the ability to break out of the virtualisation hypervisor of VMware ESXi 5.0 using crafted VMware images. If a provider offers customers the ability to run customer-supplied VMware images on its servers as part of an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offering, a malicious user could access all data on the server, including other customers' user passwords and virtual machines. Read more...
Eucalyptus 3: Your own private Amazon cloud
Eucalytpus announced Version 3 of its open source IaaS (infrastructure as a service) software, which equips organizations with a way to build their own elastic, highly available AWS (Amazon Web Services)-compliant clouds. With new features like fault tolerance beneath the virtual machine layer, improved RAC (resource access control), and greater support for various cloud storage platforms, Eucalytpus 3 could well prove itself a go-to solution for companies seeking to reap the benefits of cloud computing.
Similar to OpenStack, Eucalyptus is open source, but it adheres to the AWS APIs, meaning organizations can leverage their AWS skills in-house, as well as third-party tools that integrate with AWS. For instance, a company might develop a large-scale application on AWS but decide to run the production version in-house for reasons of security, reliability, or cost. Eucalyptus eases that transition, while maintaining the ability to pool CPU and storage resources and dynamically allocate them to the application as the workload requires. Read more...