Some of the ground Mark covers

• The cloud, Ubuntu and OpenStack involvement
• The developer story: connecting the dots between app work on the client and testing and then deployment on the other end.
• The world of DevOps and how JuJu fits in
• Apple’s iOS as a developer platform and where Linux might have the edge going forward

Extra-credit reading

• Mark Shuttleworth part one: UbuntuTV
• Hadoop World: Ubuntu, Hadoop and Juju
• What is DevOps?

Some of the ground Mark covers

• Making the next version of Ubuntu server better for Hadoop and big data
• (0:34) What are “charms” and what do they have to do with service orchestration
• (2:05) Charm school and learning to write Juju charms
• (2:54)  Where does “Orchestra” fit in and how can it be used to spin up OpenStack
• (3:40) What’s next for Juju

But wait, there’s more!

Stay tuned for more interviews from last week’s Hadoop world.  On tap are:

• Todd Papaioannou from Battery Ventures
• John Gray of Facebook
• Erik Swan of Splunk
• Nosh Petigara of 10gen/MongoDB.

Extra-credit reading

• Ubuntu Juju Delivers Cloud Server Magic
• Ubuntu cloud update — OpenStack, Eucalyptus, Ensemble & Orchestra
• Hadoop cluster with Ubuntu server and Ensemble

Pau for now..

Some of the ground Rich covers:

• Eucalyptus’s major release which is coming out in the next 4 weeks
• [0:40] The RightScale myCloud integration that they announced yesterday (linking Eucalyptus private clouds with various public clouds)
• [2:01] Eucalyptus’s relationship with Canonical and how their interests are diverging
• [3:15] Where specifically Eucalyptus is targeted
• [4:25] What are some of their goals and product features they’d like to add over the next year

Extra-credit reading

• Ubuntu cloud update — OpenStack, Eucalyptus, Ensemble & Orchestra
• The Cloud is a marathon — Marten Mickos, Eucalyptus CEO
• Talkin’ to Eucalyptus Founder & CTO — Rich Wolski

Some of the ground that Dustin covers

• The big areas of focus on the server side coming out of Budapest
• Getting behind OpenStack as the Ubuntu IaaS platform
• [1:09] The pioneering work they’ve done with Eucalyptus and how its use case differs from that of OpenStack
• [2:05] The Ensemble project, a service orchestration framework for the cloud which is the brainchild of Mark Shuttleworth.
• [3:59] Ubuntu Orchestra for cloud installation, provisioning and configuration management (using Puppet)

Extra-credit reading

• Talking to Canonical’s KVM Kid — Dustin Kirkland

Pau for now…

Who cares?

Application developers and IT service providers and admins who are setting up cloud POC’s are perfect candidates for this pre-configured testing and development environment.  With regards to industries, areas where there is a lot of software development work like Hosters, Telco & Communications, Media & Entertainment and Web 2.0 businesses are prime markets for the Dell UEC solution.

So what’s in it?

The solutions’ basic components are Dell PowerEdge C systems plus a Dell-specific download of the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (made up of the Ubuntu operating system and the Eucalyptus platform for private cloud computing).  To simplify getting the whole shebang up and running Dell and Canonical are providing the following:

• Reference Architecture: Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud on Dell Servers Stnd Edition
• Deployment Guide: Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud on Dell Servers Stnd Edition

Here’s a peak at the hardware that supports it:

The Dell UEC cloud solution pod.

• Cloud Compute Server – PowerEdge C6100 that embeds four discrete compute nodes in a single enclosure
• Cloud Front-end Server – PowerEdge C2100 server that acts as an all-in-controller and runs all shared UEC-related services
• Infrastructure Server – PowerEdge C2100 that runs two components of the cloud infrastructure:
  • Cloud Deployment and Landscape Management
  • Cloud Storage
• Network switch – PowerConnect 6248

And on the software side…

The architecture looks something like this:

The Dell UEC cloud solution architecture

The software components are:

• Cloud Controller (CLC) – the cloud portal
• Walrus Controller (W) – the cloud’s storage repository
• Cluster Controller (CC) – the controller for a up to 1024 compute cores grouped together as a cluster
• Storage Controller (SC) – the controller for cluster’s storage repository
• Compute Node (CN) – cloud’s compute node

And on the support side…

If you’re looking for systems management and support services with your order, you are in luck.  Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has put together UEC Assist, a support service built specifically for Dell customers deploying SE Edition and which is delivered by Canonical’s Global Services and Support team.

Its all about efficiency

From a Dell DCS (the group at Dell behind this) point of view, this offering fits in well with our strategy of bringing total solutions to market that optimize efficiency at every layer, from code to servers to storage.  The open source Dell UEC solution is tailor made to deliver a ready to go IaaS solution.

Extra-credit reading:

• Mark Shuttleworth’s blog: Private cloud “in a box” from Dell

• Mark Shuttleworth on UEC and OpenStack
• Ubuntu, the Cloud and the Future — Neil Levine
• The Cloud is a marathon — Marten Mickos, Eucalyptus CEO

Pau for now..

Here’s what Neil had to say:

Some of the topics Neil tackles:

• The next Ubuntu release “Maverick Meerkat” and its geek-a-licious launch date: 10.10.10.
• Look for Maverick to make Eucalyptus even easier to deploy and use.
• Data processing and data analytics is one of the key use cases in the cloud and Canonical is looking to move up the stack and provide deep integration for other apps like Hadoop and NoSQL.
• What are some of the areas of focus for next year’s two releases i.e. 11.04 and 11.10.
• Project ensemble: what it is and what its goals are.

Extra-credit reading

• The Register: Canonical fluffs one-click Ubuntu cloud stack
• The VAR guy: Canonical adjusts Ubuntu linux partner strategy

Pau for now…

Rick talked to me about what he brought with him from Canonical as well as the details behind OpenStack Compute.

Some of the topics Rick tackles:

• What is the OpenStack Compute project (hint its a fully open sourced IaaS project)
• Leveraging what Rick learned from the Ubuntu community, including a regular six month cadence.
• Rick’s goals for design summit: develop a roadmap for the first release, spec out the software and spend the last two days prototyping and hacking.
• Why they went with the Apache 2 license and why not AGPL?
• The Rackspace API (NASA had already started to switch from the Amazon API before combing
• The project’s core principles: open, open, open

Extra-credit reading:

• Press Release: Rackspace Open Sources Cloud Platform; Plans to Collaborate with NASA and other Industry Leaders
• Blog: Introducing OpenStack — an open source cloud platform
• Blog: NASA’s chief cloud architect talks OpenStack
• Blog: Talkin’ to the project lead of OpenStack Object Storage

Pau for now…

Some of the highlights:

• The PowerEdgeC 6100 holds the equivalent of 4 systems which have been packaged into “sleds,” each containing boards, RAM and microprocessors.
• Upfront you can put a ton o’ disk drives, either 24 x 2.5″ drives or 12 x 3.5″ drives.
• Great for markets like HPC clustering and search engines where compute density is key.  (This is not intended for running general purpose apps like Exchange, SQL or Oracle).
• It will serve as the compute node in the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud solution from our partner Canonical.

Still to come, overviews of the C2100 and C1100.

Extra-Credit Reading:

• insideHPC article about the C6100 based off of the above video.

Pau for now…

• Dell Cloud Solution for Web Applications, our first Revolutionary cloud solution.  Partnering with enterprise-class cloud pioneer Joyent, we are offering a turnkey private PaaS solution comprised of pre-tested, pre-assembled and fully-supported hardware, software and services — all sold and supported by Dell.  This integrated solution is targeted at enterprise app developers who are looking to develop “new world” applications in the cloud to be deployed in the cloud.
• The Cloud Partner Program Working with cloud ISVs we will be offering easy-to-buy and deploy cloud solutions and blueprints optimized for and validated on Dell platforms.  The first three partners we are announcing are Aster Data (providing web analytics), Canonical (offering an open source Infrastructure-as-a-Service private cloud) and Greenplum (self-service data warehousing).   (On the Evolutionary cloud side we will continue to work with VMware and Microsoft  and stay tuned for news on what’s happening on the Windows Azure front .
• A new line of hyperscale-inspired PowerEdge C servers including the PowerEdge C1100, C2100 and C6100 targeting HPC, data analytics, gaming and cloud builders.  These are based on the designs we have created for the some of the worlds largest internet companies and cloud providers.
• A suite of cloud professional services to help customers assess, deploy, design and manage dedicated solutions.

This is just a quick overview of what we are announcing today.  Stay tuned for more details and info in the coming days and weeks.

Extra credit reading: Our Cloud solutions press release

Pau for now…

Some of the topics Mark tackles:

• Where Canonical is currently working with Dell
• Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (to build your “own little EC2″)  and how its doing
• Passing the CEO mantle to Jane Silber in March
• The 10.4 Ubuntu release Lucid Lynx and what to expect: a strong cloud focus on the enterprise side and a lot of shiny new bling on the desktop as well as making the desktop “social” (e.g. Tweet straight from your desktop)
• What Ubuntu is doing in the Netbook space
• What excites Mark the most in technology today and why cloud is like HTTP in the early 90′s

Extra-credit reading

• Article in the Register based on this podcast:  Ubuntu’s Lucid Lynx to Facebook and Twitter you

Pau for now…

Today he popped by Dell here in Austin to chat.  I grabbed him for a few minutes right before lunch. Here is the result:

Some of the topics Mark tackles:

• The release yesterday of Dell’s Mini netbook with Ubuntu Moblin Remix – Developer Edition. (More details on the release from the Dell blog.)
• Mark’s keynote yesterday at Linuxcon and the themes of cadence, quality and design.
• His kerfluffle with the Debian community around release schedules.
• The cloud-related goals for next month’s Ubuntu 9.10 release, Karmic Koala:
  • To be able to deploy your own cloud across 5-10 servers in 15 mins to an hour
  • Be able to enable private clouds that are completely EC2 compatible
  • Ability to create a library of virtual appliances that will deploy on EC2 or private clouds
• The announcement earlier this week of the 10.04 Long Term Support (LTS) release named “Lucid Lynx.”
• Mark’s thoughts on Windows 7 or as he calls it, “the wonderful Service Pack for Vista.”
• How long until profitability.

Pau for now…

The presenters were their CEO, their head of marketing and a mini team of techies.  Below is part one of some of my thoughts and takeaways.  But first a slight digression…

Enter the Dolphin Master

One thing I noticed during the presentation and which warmed my heart was that MySQL played prominently in a bunch of the slides.  It was only today when I was poking around the RightScale site that I saw the press release from a few weeks ago announcing that Marten Mickos, former MySQL CEO and Sun employee joined the RightScale board of directors.  Its interesting but not surprising to note in the release that Marten calls out Sun and Canonical (the commercial sponsor behind Ubuntu) as two strategic partners helping to expand the RightScale ecosystem.

Where Right Scale fits within the tri-sected cloud.

Where they play in the Cloud(s)

RightScale positions themselves as a cloud management platform or as I like to think of it “a cloud tamer.”  If you split the cloud in three — software as a service, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service — they play in the last space. Basically Right Scale sits on top of Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) and can handle all the tricky bits so you don’t have to.

Choose or choose not to choose

For those who want more control over their infrastructure RightScale will allow you to “choose among a variety of development languages, software stacks, data stores and cloud providers.” For those less intrepid in the cloud they have server templates that you can start off with.

One of the key benefits they stressed was getting rid of vendor lock-in, “so that you never get locked in to a single provider.”  You’ll notice on the X axis above they show lock-in decreasing and portability increasing as you move to the right.  My question however is that with Right Scale aren’t you simply locked in to a different layer of the cloud?  Doesn’t the control point simply move up the stack?  Just wondering…

Tune in tomorrow for part deux!

Extra Credit Reading/Listening

• What is MySQL founder Monty Widenius up to post MySQL/post Sun? The Open Database Alliance and his MariaDB – May ’09
• An interview with Marten Mickos, the day the MySQL deal with Sun closed — Feb ’08.
• An interview with Marten Mickos after he keynoted Canonical’s first (and last) Ubuntu Live — Aug ’07.

Pau for now…

Some of the topics Dustin Tackles:

• KVM, Canonical’s hypervisor of choice
• Ubuntu’s next release and its focus on Eucalyptus to enable companies to set-up their own EC2 compatible “private clouds” based on Ubuntu servers.
• What Dustin likes most about cloud computing (hint: think green)
• What he likes most about working at Canonical

Update: And on a related note — Eucalyptus goes commercial with $5.5M funding round

Pau for now…

Michael Cote of Redmonk welcomes us all. (credit Dave Nielsen)

This past Saturday, Cloud Camp Austin was held down on the UT campus.  There was a very healthy turnout and a lot of great discussions were generated.

Sequence of Events

After opening salutations, camp got underway with a series of six five-minute lightening talks delivered by the camp’s gold sponsors.

My lightening talk: Mapping Processes in the Cloud (credit: Dave Nielsen)

The Main Event

From there, Dave Nielsen, the man who originally developed the cloud camp format (and who took most of the pictures in this post — see them all), guided us through the process of coming up with topics for session discussions.  That process, appropriately enough given that this was an unconference, began with an “unpanel.”

The Unpannel: Michael Wilde of Splunk, (not sure), Dustin from Canonical, Cote, myself (credit Dave Nielsen)

All Together Now

The way it worked was the room first brainstormed a list of topics they were interested in discussing/learning more about.  Anyone who thought they were an expert on one or more of these topics got to get up from their seats and form a five person panel at the front of the room.   Each member of the panel then answered two questions from the board and as the question was answered the audience was asked if the topic had been covered by the answer or if it warranted further discussion in an afternoon session

(L->R) Dave Nielsen leads us through our unconference set up. Canonical's Dustin Kirkland and hero-for-hire John West lend a hand.

A Schedule is Born

After the panel, as a group we all decided what the final sessions would be and who would lead them.  To lead a session you could either be knowledgeable in the area or completely clueless but wanted to learn about it.

The completed schedule: three sessions ran at a time and there were three time slots (credit Dave Nielsen)

Coming Soon

While at camp I did a couple of video interviews, one with Dustin Kirkland of Canonical and one with Todd Morey of Mosso/Rackspace.  I should be posting those in the next few days.  I also found myself on the other end of the microphone being interviewed by Mr. Cote.  That should be appearing in the near distant future on his blog.

Update:

• I have posted the video with Dustin of Canonical.
• I have posted the video with Todd of Mosso/Rackspace.
• Cote has posted his interview with me.

Pau for now…