OpenStack. Cloud Computing Now Has Sanity

Rackspace has released an OpenSource project that has far reaching implications and will highly accelerate the progress of Cloud Computing. 

Microsoft....I'm sorry honey bunch, but you better ride the Linux wave or become the next Atari. Yes, like Atari. They are still around, but at one time...they RULED gaming!!!! Now...I mean...seriously. You act like it can't happen, but anyway....time will tell you Romans of the Desktop.

Option A. is how Cloud Computing looks today with the likes of Amazon, Rackspace, GoGrid, Terremark, etc. It is essentially a bunch of tools smashed together to solve an internal or external problem. They are usually complex and their is no single API or code to base changes off of and their is nothing but vendor lock-in. 

A.B.

Option B. Their is a single solution API and a single place for all vendors, manufacturers, or company's to grab, download, modify and support or sell Cloud Computing Software. This initiative has had the alarm sounded through the RackSpaceCloud. OpenStack is a community of developers that seek to move away from the vendor lock-in that is harming genuine innovation. 

Amazon EC2 is horrid to use until you get used to the interface. Then Amazon EC2 becomes easier. Terremark has a great UI, but an abusive amount of time to build an Cloud Server, etc...etc. Everyone is trying to build things on their own. Their is a solution. 

Imagine this. NASA, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Rackspace, Amazon (Yes, they are not stupid. They WILL use OpenStack if they are smart), Terremark (them also), Google (Doesn't seem to fit their objectives, but Google Apps does need some kind of storage ability above 25GB!), Canonical (Ubuntu, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, and Landscape), Eucalyptus (Currently, it is just a private Cloud suite), US Government, UK Government, African Governments, Brazil, Germany, China, Russia, all using OpenStack to build their clouds. Talk about a revolution...whew! Innovation will go through the roof.

2011 is shaping up to be a VERY interesting year for IT, Healthcare IT, and Cloud Computing.

~MK

Google Apps for Government

Google Apps for Government will be a game changer for many municipal, county, state, and federal IT computing facilities and staff. For the last 30 years. The only option for computing were on premise solutions. There never was a viable alternative that could address the needs and demands of email or collaboration since the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Actually, no company ever had any incentive to promote or illicit this type of collaborative non-desktop centric approach. It isn't as profitable as a per seat user license. Per Use Server CAL licensing. Storage and a myriad of other different technologies and their costs to actually make an email, calendaring and collaborative communication hub work. 

In 2010....this is no longer the case. 

Consumerism has driven change. Business dynamics of mobile computing and distributed operations that are supported by highly mobile and dispersed staff has shifted. The World Wide Web has 100% changed the way that we work. This is not your Daddy's workforce from 1980 or 1990. It is not even close to the restrictions of the year 2000. It is a new millennium in computing and the workplace. Cloud computing is redirecting and shifting how people work, provide services, address customer concerns and needs and network solution providers, software vendors and entrepreneurs provide services. In this bold new world. On  premise solutions cannot and will not keep pace with innovation. The dexterity found in the DNA of high adaptability and the ability to change is super scary to many old mindset 1990 raised CIO, CEO, CFO and any other C title executive. I mean...these guys and gals graduated college in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's. They do not think in terms of high mobility. Real-time collaboration and its DO IT NOW reasoning for adaptability. This mentality is the problem. If executives and IT people that are more concerned with working like dogs, instead of working smartly would grab a nice tasty cup of SAL (Shut-up and Listen). Cloud computing can be extremely pervasive much faster. The harsh reality is consumers and the highly mobile worker is forcing this change. Google's Google Apps is addressing this need loud and clear. 

We're not going to hark on Virtualization. If you don't realize that 1:1 physical servers are a beast to manage and it is very cost prohibitive. You will learn the hard way...eventually. You can give any excuse you want. You will eventually do it. Period.

Google Apps for Government offers CIO's and CFO's the ability to truly evaluate extremely high priced contracts and value add a position of them with an alternative. There really was no alternative to Microsoft Exchange. I mean...you can say Lotus Notes, but seriously. Have you used it? Replications are a serious pain in the neck. Microsoft Exchange is head and shoulders above Groupwise or Lotus Notes. However, Microsoft Exchange does not offer ANY means of real-time collaboration. Why do Government employee's take so long to do anything? Hmmm...500 emails with the same topic from 300 different people. The workflow is prohibitive. Why do you think Microsoft saw the Google Apps light in Gmail and added threading to Microsoft Outlook 2010? It was a forced change from Google. It was not innovation from Redmond. GMail had threading of conversations for years!

Look. When a Contracting Officer Representative (COR) receives a proposal for an email upgrade. Their are SANs (EMC, HP, Dell, NetAPP) in excess of $40-100,000 each. Some may cost as much as $200,000 or higher. Their are servers (Dell, HP mostly) in excess of $18,000-70,000 each depending on configuration. Their is Cisco or Juniper network equipment in excess of $7,000-90,000 each depending on configuration. Their are server licensing keys from Microsoft, support subscriptions from IBM, Novell, Red Hat, etc. and let's not forget third party software to manage spam filtering and the list just goes on...and on...and on. Now, this is versus a FISMA certified (Federal Law on Security and IT Operations people...) $50 per user, per year. Another optional add-on of $12-$30 for Message Discovery for a guaranteed period of 10 years (completely obfuscates the need for any SAN storage of email) for all email storage. Yes. 25GB per account. So. 5000 people x $50 per user/per year = $250,000 ala carte. This includes chat, collaboration, document storage, email, calendaring, internal or external websites, internal or external facing user groups and over 25GB of email storage. 

So...what is the problem? FEAR!

Fear that you will loose your data to a hacker. Valid. 99.99% unfounded. Take your best hacker in the world to Google Apps and see if you can get someone's data. We are not talking Joe Not Bright that leaves his email password on his desktop, has junk anti-virus software, uses Internet Explorer 6 and leaves his password handy with autofill. I mean....brute force attack a login directly into Google's Login Screen. It won't happen. Users are the reason things get exposed. User education and training is needed. It may be "THEIR" account and "THEIR" fault, but it will NOT be the entire system. No way.

Exchange, Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Network Engineers and so-called "security" analysts and even IT Managers practice fear mongering. Executives have no-clue what Google Apps is. Why should they? They are business people right? They want to save money and improve organizational development to meet their overall objectives right? Yet, when they do find out about it. All they hear about it when they ask their IT person who thinks (and in some cases it is true) that he/she will not have a job if they move to Google Apps is all negative comments. So they slam it and say, "No sir! It is not secure. You don't want to use the cloud. We will loose our data!" etc...etc...It is not about the technology. It is job security to bash Google Apps for Government or any other edition. Hellooooo!

Let's step back and let's make it easier for our Government, Universities, Organizations and Company's to do their work and not worry about why email is out again. Welcome to the Revolution. Use Google Apps. 

Hey, before you open your mouth. This is what Microsoft did with Windows in 1980's-1990s. Guess who is #1 in the world on PC's and Office software. A Tidal wave is coming. Google Apps is the boogy board you need. Otherwise. You may just enjoy high bills, high costs, continuous outages and waisted tax dollars.

If you want to drop $5 Billion dollars in IT expenditures. Migrate our email systems to Google Apps. 

Google We NEED the following from YOU:

1. Single Sign On Integration Directly from Google Sites. Optionally, a way to customize the Email Login from within Google Apps itself. (SAML is a pain to setup and implement).

2. Email Encryption and a method to have send/read receipt messages for emails. (A huge feature in email).

3. Drag and Drop Attachments from Internet Explorer 8/9, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome.

4. Groupwise Migration Tools. 

5. Enable Official Support for CAC or RSA Key Authentication Logins for Google Apps for Government Edition. (Now only supported through SSO)

~MK

Google Apps for Government Is Released! FISMA for Google Apps!

Google Apps for Government with FISMA Certification has been released! 

FINALLY! For us that work with people in IT and in conjunction with military, DOD, or Federal IT. Can everyone please...please...say it aloud...LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLEEEEE! This will change many things and piss a ton of vendors and high price contractor's and network support consultants off that only speak and ride the Exchange, Groupwise, or Lotus Notes train and on premises solutions.

Also, just FYI. MICROSOFT'S ONLINE HOSTED SYSTEM IS NOT FISMA CERTIFIED!!!!!!!!!!

1. Your Network Security person can cry about "Security": It has FISMA certification and SAS 70 Type II and is a part of the Cloud Security Alliance.

2. Your Desktop Support person or Contractor can whine about "Compatibility": Microsoft Outlook, Blackberry, iPhone, Android and any modern web-enabled mobile device is supported.

3. Your Systems Architect or Administrator or Vendor can say "Manageability": It has user policy management segmented by groups, departments, or organizations and multiple domains that you can manage.

4. Your IT Manager can say,  "It's Hard to Setup and/or Migrate": Their are Google Supported Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and IMAP conversion tools. Google supported Groupwise Tools are on the way. However, their are a bunch of 3rd party Groupwise tools that are great to use. CloudSolutions (www.cloudsolutions.co.uk) has a freely downloadable Groupwise Migration Tool or just have a Google Partner do it for you since Cloud Sherpas also has a Groupwise Migration Tool here are the URLs www.cloudsherpas.com, www.ltech.com, etc.Want to lock it down more. Enable or setup SSO (Single Sign) On so that all users authenticate against your in-house or hosted OpenLDAP or Microsoft/Novell Active Directory.

5. Your IT Manager or Staff can say,  "Does It Have Flexibility":  Ok. Is your Exchange, Lotus Notes, Groupwise, Squirrelmail, POP3, and any other email you can name supported on every major mobile device, IE7/IE8, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail cross-platform supported and ALWAYS available with no "maintenance" downtime and "unsuspected server downtime" or "antivirus and spam overload" outages?!

6. Your Consultant Company can say, "It Costs Too Much": $50/user per year for Premier Edition. Education Edition has all of the features of Premier Edition and is $0/user per year. It does not matter if you have 300,000 students. If you are a .edu. It is $0/user per year. $50/user per year for Government (Federal, State, Towns and Municipalities)

7. Your IT Manager or Systems Administrator might say, "No Storage Retrieval or Spam Filters!": Postini
  and Message Discovery is all I have to say. 

8. No other company releases ANYTHING close to the innovation that Google does: Check Innovations

9. Need Applications???: Google Marketplace! Yeah...everyone is not there yet. More are coming!


So, go ahead and waist that money on Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or Groupwise. Give you money away for that in-house server or SERVERS. That EMC, HP, or Dell (storage area network) or Iomega NAS device or SAN's and NAS's (yes, plural). Pay that $100,000 per year and above salary to the Exchange, Lotus Notes, Groupwise or Network Support Consultant.Pay for those high VMware licensing fees or consultant support. Go ahead. Throw it all away. If you care...If you like working freely...Join the Revolution!

You finally now have an alternative to no collaboration, high costs, and no flexibility....

It is called: GOOGLE APPS!

Use the Cloud Calculator to get a rough estimate of your savings and costs: http://www.gonegoogle.com

Welcome to the Revolution...  

"The Revolution will not be Televised....It Will Not Be Televised...It will be Live...", -Gill Scott Heron

Google Apps New Control Panel! Enterprise Google Apps!!!!!!

Google has really outdone themselves on the integration of more Active Directory GPO type of application organization and LDAP like functionality for Google Apps Education Edition, Premier Edition, Government Edition, and Standard Edition.

The new tree cluster functionality just makes Systems Integrators and Engineers like myself smile beyond belief.

You can now manage Google Apps with subsets of user locations, departments or whatever and however you want to organize your people:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-user-policy-management-for.html

MigrationKing - New Google Apps Control Panel

I hate to say this...well...not really, Microsoft Online Services does not allow this functionality with Exchange Online. All I can say is....be careful what horse you place your money on. The future is in cloud computing and Google, Salesforce, VMware, Eucalyptus and RedHat is leading the pack. On premises solutions...catch up if you can!!!!

~MK

Upgrade vSphere 4.0U2 ESXi to 4.1 ESXi

How to upgrade your ESXi 4.0U2 to ESXi 4.1. Contrary to what some may believe. VMware's documentation is not the simplest to navigate sometimes. However, this is what happens when you have technical writers typing up stuff for Systems Engineers! We don't need 10 pages of text to say the following!

You need vSphere CLI - Download Here vCLI
For Windows or Linux and install on your workstation.
Download the Upgrade Package for 4.0 to 4.1 or the Upgrade Package from 3.5 to 4.1
Power off your VM's and put the host into maintenance mode from the vSphere CLI prompt:

vihostupdate.pl --server hostname or IP -i -b c:\temp\upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip -B ESXi410-GA

vihostupdate.pl --server hostname or IP -i -b c:\temp\upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip -B ESXi410-GA-esxupdate


Thanks to Sebastian: http://blog.jargontech.com/?p=19

Thanks to MicroKid: http://communities.vmware.com/message/1570298

Thanks to Peacon: http://blog.peacon.co.uk/wiki/Upgrading_ESXi_4_to_4.1

VMware vCLI Reference: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/vcli41/doc/reference/index.html

Just FYI for new CLI folks on Windows. Make sure you cd into the /bin directory under the vSphere CLI so that you can run the Perl commands or just create an alias in Powershell.

Post installation. You will get a pop-up Window.

The required client support files need to be retrieved from the server 'vsphereclient.vmware.com' and installed. Click Run the Installer or Save the Installer.

I would recommend just running it if you have time.It is just going to update your vClient on your Windows/Linux machine.

Which Cloud Server Company Should You Pick!

Many people are looking into Cloud Servers as a solution to spin up a server for development, cloud integration with on-site environments, or for serious costs savings when running a small, medium or even large scale business, non-profit, or public agency.

WHAT THE INDUSTRY NEEDS IS STANDARDIZATION AND ORGANIZATION!

A Universal standard by which to secure the Cloud infrastructure. (i.e. RSA, Verisign, Thawte, Google Certificate Services, Equifax, GeoTrust, etc)

Cloud Security (i.e. http://www.cloudsecurityalliance.org/, etc)

Cloud Certification - Hands on exam in all major hypervisor's (e.g. KVM, VMware, Hyper-V, Amazon EC2, etc.).

The following is just an objective assessment of popular Cloud Server Hosting providers:

PUBLIC/EXTERNAL CLOUD SERVERS

Rackspacecloud - http://www.rackspacecloud.com/

PROS: 

UI is excellent! Rackspacecloud is logically organized and billing and tasks are easy to navigate.

UI for building servers is excellent!

iPhone, Android and iPad support. 

Servers build, rebuild, reset of root password for Windows and Linux Machines.

Rackspace's Knowledge base is absolutely excellent. - http://help.rackspacecloud.com/

CONS:

SSH Key integration and automation for launching of Linux servers is missing. Amazon EC2 is the best!
Lack of RSA/Key Dongle Type Integration.
Installation or configuration of Active Directory on Windows Servers gives a bunch of DNS errors.
Hyper-V cannot be installed or configured for any kind of testing since servers on on RHEV release.

Terremark vCloud Express - http://vcloudexpress.terremark.com/

PROS: 

UI is excellent! Terremark has gotten their UI and billing correct! Competitors should review!!!!

UI for building servers is excellent!

CONS:

SSH Key integration is a bit clunky. If pop up blocker is enabled, it is a pain to download key again.

VMware KMS issues are very problematic when attempting to view server in console. 

No cross browser compatibility for Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome. They are an IE8 shop. 

Windows Server VM machines take a VERY, VERY long time to build. (Like 8-10 minutes).

Amazon EC2 - http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
PROS: 
Amazon EC2 has all of the bells and whistles that you need to setup and launch a server.
SSH key integration for Linux servers is wonderful.
The keys for Windows Servers are good, but they take a very long time to load and setup.
Fedora 8 Images based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.
CONS:
Their pricing is pretty high. They nickel and dime EVERYTHING.  Good grief.
RSA/Dongle Key only supports one key at a time.
UI Interface really takes a few times to get used to since it is not logically structured or organized.
UI is problematic until a user gets used to it.
Windows Server 2008 R2 are not supported right now.
No Red Hat Enterprise Linux image support.

GoGrid - http://www.gogrid.com/
PROS: 

Load balancing of servers with F5 GUI configuration.

Large variety of images for Operating Systems.

CONS:

UI is very horrible and not logically structured or useful and the navigation of the UI is a nightmare.
UI has too much Flash.
They will not change that horrible UI until customers start really complaining.

PRIVATE CLOUD SERVERS

Eucalyptus - http://www.eucalyptus.com/
PROS: 

Ability to build and rebuild VM's on any Hypervisor (e.g. VMware, Xen, KVM) on demand.

Ability to manage any hypervisor behind the firewall.

Documentation is very good. 

CONS:

Getting setup is not simple, but not overly complex either. 

Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud - http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/private
PROS: 

Landscape can be installed and used internally to an organization unlike RHN.

Ubuntu Server LTS 8.04/10.04 has free updates, upgrades, and security updates without any costs.

CONS:

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is still a little bit buggy. I would wait until the next SP Release for adoption 10.04.1. 

Landscape has some serious catching up to do with tools like RHN on the market.

~MK

Google Chrome OS will Reinvent PC Desktop Market

Google's Chrome OS will be just the shakeup in the PC market that is necessary to fulfill Shea's Law. This law identifies the nuances of educational technology, psycho-social engineering, population dispersion and how it effectively shifts technology in a new direction every 10 years.

When you have an operating system that is 100% free and built by the engineering wizards of Google and has the support of Dell, HP, ASUS, Adobe, Lenovo, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Acer OEM Netbook, laptop and desktop PC providers. (Yes, PC means "personal computer", not Windows), you can guarantee that something will change!

Google Chrome OS "...is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems." Ok. So what is the big deal? FISMA Certification from Google Apps + Single Sign On + CAC authentication or Smart Card authentication + Chrome OS + Chromoting = serious $$$$$$ Savings.

Universities, small and medium businesses (SMB), global corporations, non-profit organizations, municipal, city, state, and federal government IT departments pay incredulous amounts of money on Microsoft Exchange, Blackberry Enterprise Server, Windows 7, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Sharepoint and Windows or Linux File Servers for their organizations. The Google Chrome OS "stack" can solve these very high licensing price problems, distributed staff headaches, and mobile computing nightmares often found in IT Departmental support arenas.

"Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS." This is a trait and factor in the equation that needs to be recognized, theories created and possibilities explored. Can you imagine a SaaS world without Windows. I mean, for government and state IT departments, this could be a huge win. They can take the OS which is open source and modify it as they see fit. It is 100x's easier to lock down a Linux kernel than to deal with the nightmare of .DLL files on Microsoft's Windows platform operating system. CAC Reader Software and DOD certificate plugins can be created for Google Chrome through http://www.forge.mil (OpenSource US Government Development platform) and http://www.cac.mil/ and can be released for all of DOD, GSA, and other US Government agency's. PKI encryption will then be 100% controlled within authentication schemes through inter-relay communication authentication with a browser.  Since Google Chrome OS will be secure and hardened out of the box, it would just need hardware manufacturers like HP, Dell, IBM, Toshiba, Sony, and Lenovo to embed a CAC Hardware enabled reader as an option installation component for these populations into the physical form factor of the netbook, laptop, or desktop.

Just imagine if this was done and the US Government (the largest consumer and backer of Microsoft technologies) and the likes of Wal-Mart, IBM, and Oracle picked up Chrome OS as a mobile or desktop computing platform? Can you say wowsa?!

The only main constructive criticism that I do have is how will it be supported? Online support is fine, but phone support and troubleshooting is just a way of life in IT and computing that as RedHat has proven is 100% necessary in the Linux OS ecosystem. Microsoft sells you a high price operating system, then they almost force you to use their Office Suite and then they offer you no support. You have to pay for it through their partner programs. And let me tell you...it is NOT cheap.

Also, some form of engineer or systems certification for Google Apps or Google Chrome OS would be equally important. However, Google is not a software company.

What it actually is as a company is changing. It is changing rapidly at the pace of the innovation of 20,000 highly motivated, educated, innovative, OCD and keyboard swinging, coding in your sleep dreaming, and creative engineers and ancillary management and other operational staff.

Google's Chrome OS will be a nightmare for Microsoft's Windows Desktop OS engineering division. It will also be a competitive seesaw for Apple's Desktop Mac OSX.

The landscape of computing has changed. It will continue to adapt in and be shifted by consumers. The financial crisis has stimulated a new era in innovation. It is called Cloud computing and guess what folks...it is here to stay. Google, Apple, Linux and Opensource are now leading the way...Microsoft is just riding on the fact that many company's use it because they don't have much choice.

However, we live in a country where at one time many people thought that races should never be mixed, eat together, marry, or have women vote and work together.

Nothing remains the same and everything is subject to change and will change.

References:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
http://www.portablegadget.com/android/dell-thinking-about-releasing-a-tablet-on-google-chrome-os
http://mashable.com/2010/06/02/google-chrome-os-autumn/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/googles_new_os_will_offer_remote_desktop_capabilities.php
http://www.pcworld.com/article/197797/Google_Chrome_OS_Could_Shake_Up_PC_Market.html?tk=rss_news
http://venturebeat.com/2010/06/25/google-dave-girouard-ipad/
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Michael-Dell-Talks-Streak-PCs-Chrome-OS-at-Conference-730352/
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Photos:
(2nd Image) http://chromeosblog.com/