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Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

• Private clouds from Cisco and Savvis.  Savvis (SVVS) and Cisco (CSCO) announced an expanded relationship Monday that will focus on the development of private clouds for the enterprise. Formerly dubbed Project Spirit, the Savvis Symphony private cloud platform will integrate the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS). This new platform will power the industry’s first enterprise-class Virtual Private Data Center (VPDC) with multi-tiered security and quality of service capabilities.  Savvis learned the benefits of the Cisco UCS solution early as they worked with Cisco to develop a reference architecture that will enable enterprise customers to take advantage of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) benefits available in Savvis Symphony.
• Axxana Enterprise Data Recorder to be available through EMC Select. Data protection startup Axxana announced that its Phoenix System RP Enterprise Data Recorder will be available in January 2010 through EMC Select. The Phoenix System RP is a black box solution that was developed in cooperation with EMC’s RecoverPoint and delivers asynchronous data protection over any distance. ”Axxana’s Phoenix System will allow customers using RecoverPoint and CLARiiON networked storage to utilize replication over any distance, while maintaining the ability to recover data without data loss,” said Matt Mainstruck, manager of EMC SelectLast month Axxana secured $9 million in series B funding, led by Israel based Carmel Ventures.
• Enomaly launches cloud service provider edition. Cloud computing provider Enomaly announced the launch of 10 new global cloud computing service providers who have standardized and are powered by Enomaly’s Elastic Computing Platform (ECP), Service Provider Edition.  Called a “cloud in a box” solution for service providers, the ECP service provider edition is designed for carriers and hosting providers looking to build a line of business offering Infrastructure-on-Demand or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) to customers.  The platform delivers a self-service dashboard and web-based API to manage virtual servers in whatever quantity needed.  Platform features include a multi-tenant, carrier class cloud platform with support for KVM, Xen and VMware hypervisors, detailed resource metering and accounting, tiered classes of service, a hard quota system and easy integration with back-office provisioning and billing systems.
• ColoHouse completes SAS70 audit. Miami data center and colocation provider announced completion of a SAS70 audit.  The audit focused on control environment, risk assessment, monitoring, control activities and information and communication systems. ”Obtaining our SAS 70 certification allows ColoHouse customers to rest easy knowing that we are following through on our commitment to provide the very best in Miami Data Center and Miami Colocation services, with a 3rd party validation to ensure our customers ultra secure access with a 100% uptime guarantee,” said Chief Operating Officer Alan P. Sabourin.

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Roundup: Savvis, Axxana, Enomaly, ColoHouse

Popularity: 6% [?]

Managed hosting provider Hosted Solutions today expanded its Stratus Trusted Cloud offering, adding a hybrid option for companies that want to blend public and private cloud offerings. Stratus was introduced earlier this year, and can be used as either a multi-tenant infrastructure platform and a private/dedicated cloud.

The Stratus hybrid cloud option allows customers are able to cross-connect their existing back-end resources such as databases and other supporting applications to the Stratus Trusted Cloud, where they can host front-end computing power and other resources like network, firewall, load balancing and web servers. Customers can also cross connect Stratus cloud computing resources directly into their environment to handle overflow situations such as seasonal spikes that require excess compute capacity.

Multiple companies have already begun taking advantage of the hybrid cloud, including BrandPort, Belk, Rollover Systems, VMware, Knowledge Point 360, Cleveland Cavaliers, Baylor School and NRCCUA. Companies can use the hybrid version of the Stratus Trusted Cloud to take advantage of rapid and elastic deployment and usage, with the ability to add or subtract resources depending on changing requirements.

“We’ve seen tremendous interest in the hybrid approach,”” said Christopher “Kip” Turco, Hosted Solutions’ Chief Operating Officer. “Many customers want to take advantage of the benefits of cloud, but they are not ready to move their entire environment to the cloud. The Stratus hybrid option enables them to do just that – leveraging the benefits of cloud without reconfiguring their entire environment.”

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Hosted Solutions Goes Hybrid, Links Clouds

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AT&T continues to build out its suite of cloud computing services to offer features similar to Amazon Web Services. Today it is announcing Synaptic Compute As a Service, which offers processing power that can be used for “cloudbursting” of in-house apps or as a testing and development platform. The service can run as a public cloud, or as a private cloud on AT&T’s infrastructure, connected to a customer data center by AT&T’s network.

The new offering expands AT&T’s cloud portfolio, which also includes AT&T Synaptic hosting – essentially a managed hosting offering using cloud technologies – and Synaptic Storage As a Service. With the storage and compute services, AT&T is hoping to leverage its familiar brand and network to win over enterprises seeking a comfort level with cloud computing.

“This will enable customers to create a provider-based private cloud accessed either via the public Internet or private connections, which many companies will already have with AT&T,” said Steve Caniano, Vice President, Hosting and Cloud Services for AT&T. “We’re looking to address the concerns customers have related to cloud computing. The model that folks like Amazon have introduced is of interest to a lot of customers. We’re offering the same kind of value proposition to enterprises, but without the issues that scare them a little bit.”

Those concerns include control over their data, performance and security. Caniano said customers may be particularly interested in AT&T’s ability use its network to defend against denial of service attacks.      

Caniano said accessing compute and storage services in private clouds housed in AT&T  data centers may prove attractive to companies where developers are using Amazon and other public clouds to quickly deploy testbeds for application development. Noting that many developers are using credit cards to set up AWS accounts, Caniano said that Synaptic Compute services can be billed on a credit card or as a line item on an enterprise bill.

Synaptic Compute as a Service is built atop hardware from Sun Microsystems and software from VMware. AT&T will introduce the service in the fourth quarter of 2009. The service will initially be deployed in U.S. data centers, but AT&T plans to add the service to some of its global data centers to meet international customer demand.

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AT&T Cloud Adds Compute As a Service

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A view of the Intergate.Columbia data center complex built by Sabey Corp. in Wenatchee, Washington.

Sabey Corp.’s Intergate.Columbia data center complex near East Wenatchee, Washington has received the Technology Development of the Year award from NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association. Sabey, a Seattle-based developer was presented the award at the Washington Chapter of NAIOP’s event on Nov. 6.

Intergate.Columbia is a 438,000 square foot data center campus, which includes large data centers for T-Mobile and VMware. Sabey Construction Inc. broke ground at the 30-acre site near the Columbia River in April 2008 and simultaneously constructed the shell and core for two buildings. Despite the dual schedules, the work was completed by the end of the year on time and within budget.

“The project would have been much more difficult had it not been for the support of the Douglas County officials who vigorously worked with us and assisted in our success,” said John Sabey, Senior V.P. Real Estate for Sabey.

The Douglas County Public Utility District gets 98.5 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric dams and 1.5 percent from wind generation. Other energy saving measures included the use of air economizers for “free-cooling” for most of the year, as well as evaporative cooling which is possible due to the relative dryness of eastern Washington’s air.

Sabey is in the final stage of LEED silver certification for Building B, where the tenant, VMware, is pursuing a platinum LEED certification for its Sabey-built tenant improvements. Building B’s mechanical system uses hot air/cold air physical separation as well as evaporative cooling. This enables a significant increase in data center efficiency by extending the number of hours that the data center can use air-side economizer “free cooling.” The cooling system also captures the server-generated heat to help maintain office temperatures year round.

Sabey also recognized John Ford, Director of Technology Real Estate; John Sasser, Manager of Data Center Operations; Doug Gardner, Senior Project Manager; Andrew Gardner, Superintendent; and Marcus McFarland, Project Engineer of Sabey Construction, Inc.

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Sabey Wenatchee Project Honored by NAIOP

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The announcement of the Virtual Computing Environment and Acadia joint venture involving Cisco, VMware and EMC has triggered much discussion among analysts and bloggers, particularly about the competitive landscape and impact of the alliance on partner ecosystems. Here’s a roundup of notable analysis and commentary:

• First, some resources from the partnership. Chuck Hollis from EMC points to PrivateCloud.com, the new information hub created by the VCE partners. There’s also several posts on Cisco’s blogs. 
• Mark Bowker from Enterprise Strategy Group wonders whether IT will buy into the “shared vision” put forth by Cisco, EMC and VMware. “Vblocks are a great example of a platform that delivers a top to bottom, integrated solution to enable businesses to hit the ground running, but it remains to be seen if IT will consume infrastructure in this manner,” he writes. “IT is accustomed to procuring a bunch of individual pieces and bolting them together (sometimes with super glue and duct tape).”  
• The Cisco Subnet at Network World sees storms ahead. “The danger is that VMware may have wounded its relationships with HP, IBM and several other partners. Cisco already did that earlier this year when it rolled out UCS. If anything, the coalition has created even more division between data center compute, storage, networking – and now virtualization – vendors. Tensions mount with each partnership as groups of vendors mill around nervously, trash talking and brandishing their hardware and software.”
• Scott Lowe raises a number of questions about the alliance. Among them: “Does this new coalition signal a move away from the ‘arms-length’ relationship between EMC and VMware, a move that some (competitors, notably) have been talking about for some time? If so, what danger does that put VMware in with regards to storage relationships?”

• Indeed, the announcement seems to have prompted quite a bit of discussion on storage blogs. Marc Farley at StorageRap sees potential culture conflicts ahead. “There is a lot of risk with vBlock for both EMC and Cisco,” he writes. “Certainly, its an opportunity for Cisco and EMC to expand their markets, but sharing is hard for companies with voracious appetites and flattening revenue streams.”
• Martin Glassborow at StorageBod mentions the competitive landscape with VMware and Microsoft’s Hyper-V. “Iit’s worrying when Microsoft could hold up their hypervisor as an example of infrastructure neutrality and whisper ever so quietly but insistently, ‘How neutral is VMware, think of the risk of being locked into their hardware and software…they are no more open than us!’”
• Virtualization.info also sees partner issues. “VMware is taking a lot of risks with this move,” writes Alessandro Perilli. “HP alone sells 36% of all virtualized servers. And it has EDS. Dell just acquired Perot Systems, which is one of the biggest consulting arms in the world to sell the VMware-centric Dell virtualization portfolio.” 
• EMC’s Chad Sakacs steps up to the questions about VMware’s independence and offers an insider’s view. “EMC understands that we cannot hug VMware too closely,” he writes. “They must be able to partner openly.VMware is, and will continue to be, an independent company, that makes it’s own independent decisions, and openly partners with those that partner with them. ”
• At GigaOm, Stacey Higginbotham takes a broader view of the impact on cloud computing. “Today’s announcement divides compute clouds into those built on commodity gear and those that aren’t, as well as showcases the split between how folks plan to deliver private clouds for enterprise customers,” Stacey writes. “The choices made at both the hardware level and when a company is determining how private it wants to be will affect the economics of cloud computing profoundly.” 

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Roundup: The VCE Alliance & Its Implications

Popularity: 6% [?]

Cisco, EMC and VMware today announced the formation of the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE), which bundles the three companies hardware and software in a single “infrastructure package.” In this video, CEOs Joe Tucci of EMC, John Chambers of Cisco and Paul Maritz of VMware provide a high-level overview of why they are working together and how their customers may benefit. This video runs about 3 minutes.

For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

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CEOs Discuss Virtual Computing Environment

Popularity: unranked [?]

An example Vblock infrastructure package will offer Cisco Unified Computing servers and MDS switches (in the two left-hand cabinets) and EMC Symmetrix-VMax hardware (at right).

Seeking to leverage the collective strength of their partner ecosystems to forge a leadership position in enterprise cloud computing,  Cisco, EMC and VMware are bundling their hardware and software in a turn-key solution for enterprise customers.

The three companies today outlined their shared vision for a Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) powered by an “infrastructure package” called Vblock. They also unveiled Acadia, a long-rumored joint venture to provide implementation services for private clouds built using Vblock.         

Vblock brings together Cisco’s Unified Computing System, EMC’s Symmetrix V-Max storage and VMware’s VSphere platform in three packages that allow customers to run anywhere from 300 to 6,000 virtual servers. Vblock includes a security framework from RSA, which is owned by EMC.   

Build, Operate and Transfer
Acadia offers a “build, operate, and transfer” roadmap for companies who want to implement Vblock while working closely with vendors and hosting partners. Intel will be an investor in Acadia, which will begin customer operations in early 2010.

Contrary to some early rumors, Acadia will not offer a hosted solution based on Unified Computing technology.

“Acadia does not aim to be in the hosting business, but rather to help IT organizations to accelerate their journey to pervasive virtualization and private cloud computing while reducing their operating expenses,” Cisco said in a statement.

“The systems built will be based on Vblock, and will either reside in the customer’s data center, or could reside with the customer’s SI (system integrator) or hosting partner,” the statement continued. “Acadia’s goal is to work with SIs and service providers to complement their services. After building, Acadia will operate the system for a year or two, but not long term, then when the customer is ready, will transfer operations to the customer, SI, or service provider.”

Hosts, Integrators Express Support 
Several leading players in the manged hosting and IT infrastructure field have worked closely with Csco and VMware, and welcomed today’s announcement.

“We believe the pre-integrated Vblock integrated packages from VMware, Cisco and EMC will accelerate the market for cloud to new and existing enterprise customers,” said Bryan Doerr, chief technology officer for Savvis (SVVS), which has been an early adopter of Cisco’s Unified Computing.

Another provider expressing enthusiasm was Terremark (TMRK), which recently sold a 5 percent stake to VMware. “The new business model being forged by this venture
provides a simplified solution that will help to streamline the procurement of cloud infrastructure for our current and prospective customers,” said Marvin Wheeler, chief strategy officer for Terremark.

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Cisco, EMC, VMware Team on Private Clouds

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I was invited as a guest blogger to the Under The Radar conference organized by the Dealmaker media. This year’s focus was to track early stage start-ups in cloud computing. The format was simple – each start-up gets six minutes to pitch their company and a panel listens to the pitch and provides feedback. It was a blast! The place was filled with the venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and curious bloggers. I would highly recommend to check out the conference blog, Twitter updates, and watch some of the pitches. I wish I could blog about all the companies that participated in the conference. I have picked few companies – Twilio, Boomi, Zuora, and Cloudkick – based on their potential to cause some serious disruption in the cloud computing space. At the conference, while interacting with several people, the cloud computing felt to be nascent space bursting with energy and enthusiasm. The venture capitalists were drooling for the leads. It felt 1999 all over again.

Twilio commoditizes the telephony skills and uses the cloud to allow the companies to easily build and scale the voice applications without upfront capacity planning and expensive contracts with telco. Twilio has potential to revolutionize how developers build voice applications and allow companies to add a voice channel, by leveraging cloud-as-a-utility, to enhance the customer experience.

Watch Twilio’s pitch:

Twilio’s presentation:

Boomi’s tag line “Connect Once Integrate Everywhere” is a riff on Java’s tag line “Write Once Run Anywhere“. Boomi is positioning their product Atomsphere as an integration middleware for the cloud that works across SaaS and on-premise systems. Boomi chose a hub-and-spoke architecture against an ad-hoc point-to-point integration. This not only allows Boomi and the partners to continue adding integration connectors without disrupting the core product and customers’ deployments but it also allows the SaaS vendors to tap into Atomsphere to connect to other SaaS and on-premise vendors. The revenue model is based on integration-as-a-service – how many systems an organization wants to connect to. This allows Boomi to extract the maximum value out of the integration efforts that can be reused and resold.

Watch Boomi’s pitch:

Boomi’s presentation:

Zuora wants to be the Amdocs for SaaS and they are getting there much faster than I originally thought. In addition to commoditizing the billing for SaaS they also demonstrated that the cloud is a great platform not only for the edge applications but also for core applications such as billing that the organizations never thought of putting it on the cloud. Organizations are increasingly looking for a payment system and not just a billing system. Zuora does a great job by combining their billing domain expertise with an integration with PayPal. Zuora seems to be an acquisition target for eBay. I can’t help notice that the typeface for “Pay” in Zuora’s marketing collateral is identical to the typeface that PayPal uses. Coincident? I don’t think so.

Watch Zuora’s pitch:

Zuora’s presentation:

I have used many management consoles but haven’t seen a holistic design approach and simplicity in a management console that Cloudkick demonstrated. Three founders built the entire company in four months with $20k investment from Y Combinator and launched it to support other 40 Y Combinator companies to help manage their EC2 instances. Instead of waiting for the cloud vendors Cloudkick solved the interoperability problem by allowing the customers to get an AMI out of Amazon and put it on other cloud provider such as Slicehost. This is certainly encouraging for the organizations who see lack of interoperability as an adoption issue. The cloud management start-ups do run into risk of getting steamrolled by Amazon, but the fast and agile approach of Cloudkick could bring in some great innovation in the cloud management and interoperability domain that we may not see from the big cloud providers in the near future.

Watch Cloudkick’s pitch:

Cloudkick’s presentation:

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Disruptive Early Stage Cloud Computing Start-ups

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