THE Cloud Question: Amazon or Google?

Amazon or Google is The Cloud Question:

Amazon's New Cloud Prices Show That Google Is Now a Threat | WIRED: "... Google introduced a product called Sustained Use Discounts, and this made things much simpler. If you used a lot of computing resources, you’d get a discount: no upfront fees. That’s the model that Amazon took a step toward this week... There are still differences. Amazon had previously demanded upfront payments from customers who wanted to take advantage of its reserved instances pricing. And while those payments are no longer required, customers still have to commit to using Amazon’s services for a year or more. That’s not the case with Google... late last year that Google really delivered a competitive offering, called Compute Engine. And now the company is fast catching up. In late March Google started a price war with Amazon, slashing its cloud computing prices, across the board, by 30 percent. That kind of price slashing is likely to continue, says Michael Crandell, the CEO of RightScale, a cloud management company. “There’s clearly a case of point-counterpoint going on, and it is a competitive market.” Byrne says that while Google doesn’t offer the wide range of products, it beats out Amazon in many respects. Google’s compute speed and network “is faster than Amazon’s,” he says. “They’re probably the only people where you can say that their infrastructure is really world-leading.” (read more at the link above)

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Microsoft, Azure, Enterprise Cloud Computing

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Seeks to ‘Harmonize’ With CIOs - The CIO Report - WSJ: "...The company plans to differentiate Azure by the level of enterprise support it delivers, the scale at which it can deliver services and its ability to help companies operate both in the cloud and on-premises in a hybrid environment,  said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of cloud and enterprise. By the end of 2014, the Azure footprint will extend to 19 regions around the world, more than that of Amazon Web Services and Google Inc., said Mr. Guthrie. Each region can hold up to 600,000 servers. “Going forward, we think all customers are going to need this hyperscale functionality to power their businesses,” said Mr. Guthrie. Microsoft projects that, aside from itself, only Amazon Web Services [AWS] and Google will be able to deliver this level of scale...."

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Cloud News: Google, Zync, Cloud Services Market

CLOUD NEWS Digest:

Top Tech News
Google Buys Cloud-Based Visual Effects Firm Zync
Top Tech News
Google beefed up its cloud · Relevant Products/Services -computing platform [by] acquiring Zync Inc., a Boston-based firm that specializes in visual ...


Techly
White House revamps tech management, Hillary's not a cloud expert, and more bank hacks ...
ZDNet
"I'm not an expert on software-defined storage or the intricacies of cloud computing," Clinton quipped. FBI investigates hack of JPMorgan, other US ...


BDlive
Our wildest dreams are coming true
BDlive
The human-computer interface will change fundamentally. ... both the internet of everything and cloud computing and refers to giving software systems ...

Private Cloud Services Market Grows at a 22% CAGR by 2018 - Global Analysis and Forecasts
SYS-CON Media (press release)
DALLAS, Aug. 31, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Private cloud is model of cloud computing, which involves a secure and distinct cloud environment.

ASG Software Solutions Seeks Buyer
Wall Street Journal
ASG provides so-called cloud solutions and software. The cloud broadly refers to the use of remote computingnetworks. According to its website, ASG ...


Hot Hardware
Consumer Apps and Services: Microsoft's Often-Overlooked Crown Jewels
Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows
It is here, I think, that Microsoft's "mobile first, cloud first" mantra is most ... Another part of the reason is that as our computing habits have changed, and ...

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Storm Clouds Over Amazon AWS?

Storm Clouds Over Amazon Business - WSJ: "Amazon.com Inc. has been fighting two big rivals in the world of cloud computing. But that battle shows signs of becoming a free-for-all that threatens its profitability goals for the business. Large telecom and small startups have been forging into or expanding services that let companies rent computing cycles rather than operate their own servers and data centers. The broader competition comes amid a continuing price war in the business among Amazon, Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Those pressures were underscored... when the online retailer reported a wider loss for its second quarter. Part of the reason: its Amazon Web Services, or AWS, recently cut prices by between 28% and 51% for various services as gains at AWS and similar businesses slowed to 38% from 60% in its first quarter." (read more at link above)

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Amazon, Google, Cloud price war

Amazon’s cloud price war with Google is starting to hurt - Quartz: "... Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud-computing business, is now mature enough to affect Amazon’s overall numbers. Amazon made a big price cut in late March to counter aggressive pricing from Google, with service price declines up to 65%. Customers loved it, with usage increasing 90% year-over-year, Amazon said today on its earnings call. But revenue growth took a hit as a result. + Amazon doesn’t break out AWS revenue specifically, but it’s the largest part of Amazon’s “North America – Other” segment, where growth fell to 38% year-over-year after consistent percentage growth rates in the 50s and 60s over the past two years...."

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Cloud Storage for Business, Google, Microsoft, Others

Google, Microsoft and Others Delve Deeper Into Cloud Storage for Businesses - NYTimes.com: "... Online digital storage, the repository of an increasing amount of our business and personal lives, is changing from being a small part of computing to the core way of selling corporations other kinds of cloud software and services. Soon, keeping your digital goods will also be the means for tech companies to understand who does what inside a business, just the way they understand consumers by watching what they do on the web. “Storage is where the stickiness is,” said Jeffrey Mann, vice president for research at Gartner. “It’s how they hold a customer. If they store your stuff, they get to know you better.”..."

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Cloud Computing, a Failed Revolution?

Gartner's Lydia Leong echoed this perspective in a couple funny tweets, plaintively noting that, far from being finished with cloud implementations, many IT personnel don't even really understand cloud computing. -- Has Cloud Computing Been a Failed Revolution?
CIO
Talk to IT personnel, or study what they look up on Google, and you may think they're done with cloud computing. Talk to analysts, though -- or, more ...(read more at link above)

Google Embraces Docker, the Next Big Thing in Cloud Computing
Wired
Google is putting its considerable weight behind an open source technology that's already one of the hottest new ideas in the world of cloud ...

Google battles Amazon for corporate clouds
ITworld.com
By Joab Jackson, IDG News Service | Cloud Computing. June 17, 2014, 4:50 PM —Google says it's in the enterprise cloud market to stay and and will ...

Cloud Computing: Google Says Docker Shares its Vision
Social Times (blog)
The future of personalization is cloud computing, with the Linux open-source operating system underpinning the servers that drive the Internet. Docker ...

How cloud computing is like getting a rental car
The Tennessean
... or online word processors, like Google Docs, cloud computing can involve ... to small businesses that wish to leverage cloud computing capabilities.

Cloud computing breathing new life into Microsoft
Investor's Business Daily
Cloud computing breathing new life into Microsoft ... to better compete with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and others.

Google Stands to Dockerize the Future of Cloud Computing
USFinancePost
Back in 2012, Google Inc. hired Eric Brewer, a computer science professor from the University of California, Berkeley, to redesign a brand-new ...

Acer to release new cloud apps in June, eyes partnerships in smart devices
ITworld.com
The cloud computing market is filled with plenty of competitors such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. But Acer's Shih believes the company can ...

Google looks to the day when it can quit building its own servers
PCWorld
As cloud deployments get bigger and more widespread, the industry will eventually catch up to Google's style of computing and the company will no ...

Cloud Computing's Second Act Is All Business
Forbes
He conveys the observation that Google search traffic for the term “cloud ... The curtain is now opening on cloud computing's second act, which is all ...

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Google, Docker, Next Big Thing in Cloud Computing

Google Embraces Docker, the Next Big Thing in Cloud Computing | Enterprise | WIRED: "...Google will combine Docker with its cloud computing services, Google App Engine and Google Compute Engine. For the company, this is a way of fueling interest in these services as it strives to challenge Amazon’s dominance in the burgeoning cloud market. But considering Google’s widely recognized knack for building its own massive internet applications, from Google Search to Gmail, Brewer’s speech will also provide an enormous boost for Docker...." (read more at link above)

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Google and the Cloud

HEARD ON THE STREET: Google: Weapon of Choice in the Cloud - WSJ.com: "...Google already has a reputation as a high roller. It recruits at a ferocious pace and spends billions of dollars on projects well beyond the core advertising business that still accounts for about 90% of its revenue. These include things like Web-connected glasses, self-driving cars, and home automation. Rising spending reflects what the tech business has become: a platform game. This involves the provision of mobile and cloud-based services backed by large networks of data centers. Consumers now stream music, photos and movies on the cloud rather than store all this content on their devices. Businesses, meanwhile, are shifting from using on-site software and data storage to services provided over the Internet. The networks required for all this aren't cheap, and Google's largest rivals are building them as well....(read more at the link above)

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Google-Amazon Cloud Price Battle

Google Wins In Amazon Cloud Price Battle - InformationWeek: "Let's put this week's cloud price cuts in context. Cash-rich Google has made it harder for Amazon to profit on AWS. Whether or not Google steals a ton of AWS customers, Google wins. 8 Data Centers For Cloud's Toughest Jobs (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) In a remarkable display of the cloud's pricing dynamics, first Google, then Amazon Web Services announced severe price cuts to basic services this week. Prices of popular virtual servers plummeted 30%, and a new round of competition was initiated in cloud storage, with prices cut in half. Amazon didn't quite match the price cuts that Google made in entry-level storage, so it's lost the price leader's mantle there...."

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Google Reinvents Cloud Computing Pricing

Google Reinvents How Cloud Computing Is Priced | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com: " . . .  at an event in San Francisco, the tech giant significantly reduced the prices attached to several of its cloud computing services, seeking an edge over Amazon, the world’s dominant cloud company. “This brings you industry leading pricing without the complexity you’re used to,” said Urs Hölzle, whooversees Google’s cloud services and its entire online infrastructure...." (read more at link above)

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Google Plans to Overtake Amazon as King of the Cloud

Google's Bold Plan to Overthrow Amazon as King of the Cloud | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com: "Urs Hölzle oversaw the creation of the world’s largest computer. It’s a machine that spans the globe — from The Dalles, Oregon to Hamina, Finland to Quilicura, Chile — and you use it every day. It’s called Google....this past January, Hölzle sent a thunderclap of a corporate memo across the company, laying out a new direction for both his team and the entire Google empire. In the months to come, he wrote, he and his team would be giving a little less attention to internal “customers” like Google Search and Gmail, so that they could concentrate on serving a new kind of customer outside the company. They were preparing a major expansion of the company’s cloud computing services — services that let outside businesses or software developers run their own software atop Google’s global infrastructure. “We will spend the majority of our development efforts on this New World,” wrote Hölzle. “Every developer will want to live in this world…and it’s our job to build it.”...." (read more at link above)

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Google, Amazon, a two-horse Cloud Race

Did Google just doom the lot of small-scale cloud providers? — Tech News and Analysis: "... the cloud market, at least in terms of who’ll have the most users, is really a two-horse race [AWS and Google]. It seems safe to assume Microsoft [Azure] will find a niche ... IBM Softlayer is doing some interesting things, especially around Watson as a service, and should be a strong revenue source for Big Blue. Rackspace ... it’s hard to see how it can continue with its current strategy. In this case, being in the middle is less a case of providing the best of both worlds, and more a case of being trapped in a nether region with no easy escape to either world...."

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Google, Microsoft, agreed, Cloud now safe

Google, Microsoft agree: Cloud is now safe enough to use | Security & Privacy - CNET News: "The two Internet powerhouses agree that it's time to stop fearing cloud security and embrace the future at the annual RSA Conference.Nevermind Microsoft's awkward "Scroogled" anti-Google campaign. When it comes to cloud security, the two giants are practically best buds. At the annual RSA Conference held at the Moscone Center here on Wednesday, Microsoft Chief Information Security Officer Bret Arsenault and Google Director of Security for Google Apps Eran Feigenbaum explained their stances on cloud security at a panel also featuring noted independent security expert Bruce Schneier and Verizon's data breach risk team expert, Wade Baker...." (read more at the link above)

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Mobile Cloud Era, VM Ware, Google, Google Chromebooks

News Releases | United States: " . . . . at VMware Partner Exchange 2014, VMware announced that it is joining forces with Google to modernize corporate desktops for the Mobile Cloud Era by providing businesses with secure, cloud access to Windows applications, data and Desktops on Google Chromebooks. This expanded relationship between Google and VMware enables enterprise customers to achieve greater security and lower Total Cost of Ownership of Google Chromebooks along with cloud access to current and legacy applications, delivered on the industry proven Desktop as a Service (DaaS) platform from VMware. "Google Chromebooks can save businesses about $5,000 per computer when compared to traditional PCs," said Amit Singh, President of Google Enterprise. "Chromebooks are designed for the way people use computers today and are a secure, easy and cost-effective solution to help organizations embrace a new way of doing business. Through our partnership with VMware, businesses can now capitalize on these advantages with access to legacy applications, data and desktops they need to keep employees productive. . . ." (read more at link above)

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Google, Amazon, Microsoft, the Cloud Battle

Google, Amazon & Microsoft: Cloud Battle Just Changed - InformationWeek: "...Amazon's only real competition is Google on the technology front and Microsoft on the enterprise front. Microsoft doesn't have to figure out how to sell to the enterprise; it's been doing it for many years. Nor does Microsoft have to instantly be on an equal footing with Amazon or extract large profits from its Azure cloud offerings. On the contrary, Microsoft has such a strong enterprise systems offering in place that its cash flow will help fund its expansion into cloud services. Not many companies can say this; it takes capital -- lots of it -- to launch a global cloud service. Google and Microsoft are the only two companies that I can see (and IBM, maybe) that can make a commitment to provide cloud services and stick to it. The services don't stay the same. They, like the universe, constantly expand...." (read more at link above)

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Microsoft’s Satya Nadella on Google

Next Microsoft CEO (?) dishes on Google --

The Gigaom Interview: A chat with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella from before he was the (likely) next CEO — Tech News and Analysis:You don’t think they (Google) are serious? I don’t know. I don’t run into them. We compete with them, but on Office365 and Google apps, not as much when it comes to Azure. It’s really Amazon and Azure as far as I can tell when it comes to the public cloud. That would be the other thing that I see, who are the ones – and you can’t just say I’m going to enter this business tomorrow, it requires five, six billion dollars of capital expense every year — who have the muscle to be able to get into the public cloud business. If you’re already not in it at this scale, you’re probably never going to be in it. You have to wait for the next big inflection point. And then lastly, it is like, if you go with the notion that the world will still be hybrid, and there is a need for server products that mimic what you use in your own public cloud, that’s where VMWare and others will play and I think that’s still going to be very important." (read more at link above)

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Google, the Cloud, the Internet Backbone

A natural progression: from cloud to internet backbone -- after all the internet is a cloud of networked computers/servers --

Does Google Want to Control More of the Internet Backbone?: " . . . By 2013, Google had invested about $23 billion in data centers, for example, and all that investment requires high-capacity backbone transport. In the third quarter of 2013 alone, for example, Google capital investment was about $2.3 billion, primarily for new data center capacity. But when a firm relies that heavily on cloud computing, it obviously will be able to justify operating a huge private network to support the performance of the data centers....the point is that large global enterprises always look at the cost and value of their networks... nor does either represent an attempt by enterprises to “control the Internet backbone” or compete with telcos. As with all other inputs, enterprises make “build versus buy” decisions. . . ." (read more at the link above)

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Google, Amazon, Cloud Computing, secrets of scalability

Google, Amazon reveal their secrets of scalability | PCWorld: "Internet giants such as Google and Amazon run IT operations that are far larger than most enterprises even dream of, but lessons they learn from managing those humongous systems can benefit others in the industry. At a few conferences in recent weeks, engineers from Google and Amazon revealed some of the secrets they use to scale their systems with a minimum of administrative headache. At the Usenix LISA (Large Installation Systems Administration) conference in Washington, Google site reliability engineer Todd Underwood highlighted one of the company’s imperatives that may be surprising: frugality. “A lot of what Google does is about being super-cheap,” he told an audience of systems administrators. Google is forced to maniacally control costs because it has learned that “anything that scales with demand is a disaster if you are not cheap about it.” As a service grows more popular, its costs must grow in a “sub-linear” fashion, he said." (read more at link above)

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Cloud Services Management, Google, Omega

"Too much production band stuff will just fight with each other. You can get very unstable behavior. It's very strange – it behaves like biological systems from time to time," he says. "We'll probably wind up moving in some of those directions – as you get larger you need to get into it." Though Omega is obscured from end users of Google's myriad services, the company does have plans to use some of its capabilities to deliver new types of cloud services, Magnusson confirmed. The company could use the system as the foundation of spot markets for virtual machines in its Compute Engine cloud, he said.(source infra)

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE! Google's secretive Omega tech just like LIVING thing • The Register: "Omega was created to help Google efficiently parcel out resources to its numerous applications. It is unclear whether it has been fully rolled out, but we know that Google is devoting resources to its development and has tested it against very large Google cluster traces to assess its performance. Omega will handle the management and scheduling of various tasks and places apps onto the best infrastructure for their needs in the time available." (read more at link above)

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