Beyond | IT : cloud computing

Microsoft creates a “Server and Cloud Division”

john.mullinax — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:44:32 GMT

The Windows Server Division weblog announced yesterday that the people who build Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio and System Center will all now be part of the same organization, Server and Cloud Division (SCD).

This re-org is part of a transition for the Azure cloud business from a set of incubation projects into a mainstream business, and is intended to help Microsoft continue and increase the “bilateral sharing of technology” between the groups.

For customers and partners, bringing Windows Server, Windows Azure, SQL Server, SQL Azure, Visual Studio and System Center together in the Server and Cloud Division should – over time – mean increasing the flexibility to:

Choose on-premise, cloud, or third-party hosting deployment architectures
Choose “hybrid” deployment architectures that span across on-premise environments, Windows Azure, and third party hosting partners
Migrate solution components between the Azure cloud, on-premise environments and third-party hosters
Manage applications and app portfolios that span across Windows Azure, on-premise, and hosting partner environments

Of course, these capabilities already exist in some ways… I personally read this re-organization as a positive signal that Microsoft is committed to additional innovation in this direction and is actively working to make these capabilities richer and more robust for our customers and partners.

These capabilities are at the core of what Microsoft means when it talks about “Software-plus-Services”. Ultimately, as computing devices (PCs, phones, TVs, cars, picture frames, industrial equipment, etc.) become more pervasively distributed, and the cloud becomes more mature as a complement to on-premise and hosting environments, we need all of our solutions to work together well – and be flexible, secure, and manageable, too.

One of the best ways to learn more about where Microsoft is going with Windows Server, SQL Server, the Windows Azure Platform, Visual Studio, and System Center is to check out the videos from PDC09 here, and especially the Ray Ozzie and Bob Muglia Day 1 Keynote.

In addition to the keynotes, you can see all the individual PDC09 session videos, and even download session PowerPoint files.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,cloud computing,Azure

New Type of Cloud Computing Vulnerability?

john.mullinax — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:33:20 GMT

The MIT Technology Review magazine recently reported that next month Eran Tromer, a postdoctoral reseacher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, will present research suggesting that Amazon’s EC 2, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud computing offering, may be vulnerable to a form of eavesdropping and other attacks. Tromer and his fellow researchers (who are from UCSD) believe the attack techniques could potentially work against other cloud services, as well. Amazon claims that the techniques described in the paper will not work in practice.

The research paper itself, colorfully titled “Hey, You, Get Off of My Cloud:Exploring Information Leakage in Third-Party Compute Clouds” is available from Tromer’s home page, and will be presented at CCSW 2009: The ACM Cloud Computing Security Workshop, happening 13-November-2009 in Chicago (logistics info below). Until then additional details may be hard to come by, but the MIT Technology Review article reports that the key concept is for hackers to gain a VM on the same physical machine used by a specific target (i.e., the “victim”) VM.

How could a hacker manage to get a VM on the same machine as a specific application they want to target? Apparently, the IP addresses for VMs on the same physical server tend to be next to each other, and also tend to be assigned at the same time. By launching a Denial of Service attack against a target site, a hacker might be able to force it to request more VMs… if the hacker also simultaneously request VMs, there’s some chance they might get one on the same physical machine as the target.

Using this technique, the researchers believe they can raise the odds of getting on the chosen physical machine up to 40%.

You might be wondering, even if a hacker gets a VM on the same physical machine as a target, what good would that do the hacker? Tromer and his colleagues claim that by monitoring resources available to the VM that they do control they can infer information about the operation of the target application VM that also sits on the same server. The researchers believe that knowing this resource utilization information for a targeted application could help a hacker make deductions about information that should be confidential or secret.

Is there a way to mitigate this risk? The authors discuss some options that would make it difficult to successfully use this exploit technique, but argue that the only certain way to protect against this kind of attack is to use all the VMs on a server so malicious parties have no opportunity to get a VM on the same physical machine.

I should note that the authors’ findings are based on analysis of Amazon’s EC2 cloud service, and also on experimental results from work with a private “EC2-like” Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud that they set up and operated themselves (that is, experiments were not done on EC2 itself). It’s also not clear (to me, at least) if the exploit techniques described in the research could be used on a Platform-as-a-Service cloud, such as Windows Azure.

Even so, cloud computing will be with us for a long time… it’s worth watching and understanding these kinds of security vulnerability claims as they emerge, even if they ultimately prove not to be practicably exploitable (as Amazon claims is the case here).

If you’re interested in learning more about this research from the researchers themselves, check out CCSW 2009: The ACM Cloud Computing Security Workshop. This CCSW 2009 is a one day workshop that will run from about 8am-6pm at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. It’s a “post-conference” for the larger 16th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (which itself runs 4 days, from 9-13 November), and also at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

Go here to register for either (or both) the Cloud Security Workshop and the larger Computer and Communications Security event.

Technorati Tags: Cloud,Security

Windows Azure Service Managment API now in CTP

john.mullinax — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:16:17 GMT

The Windows Azure team released a Community Technology Preview of the Windows Azure Service Management API the other day. This API is REST-based, and currently supports the following operations (according to the Windows Azure team blog):

Deployments – Viewing, creating, deleting, swapping, modifying configuration settings, changing instance counts, and updating the deployment.

Listing and viewing properties for hosted services, storage accounts and affinity groups

Also, x509 certificates are used for authentication, and there’s a small tool called csmanage.exe to help you manage deployments and use the API.

This is, of course, CTP – so be prepared for some changes along the way to RTW.

A couple resource links:

Get the csmanage utility.
Get Windows Azure Service Management API documentation.

Technorati Tags: Windows Azure,manage,API

Intro to Windows Azure in one slide

john.mullinax — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:27:00 GMT

NOTE: Microsoft just changed the branding a bit so this slide needs to be updated - basically, the Azure Service Platform becomes the Windows Azure Platform, SQL Data Services becomes SQL Azure. Live Services leaves the platform (does not go away, but will emphasize affinity with Windows). -JCM July 14, 2009

Here’s an intro to Windows Azure and the Azure Services Platform in one slide that I put together for use at Cloud Camps or other forums where you need to get the basics across quickly. Depending on the speaker and time available, this slide could go from 5 minutes up to an hour or more. Feedback welcome and appreciated. Enjoy! :)

Windows Azure Intro In 1 Slide

View more documents from johnmullinax.

Note: I left the SharePoint Services and Dynamics CRM Services boxes off this slide as they are not available in the Community Technology Preview at this time. The “finished” software-as-a-service solutions SharePoint Online and Dynamics CRM Online continue to be available as supported production offerings, of course. :)

Technorati Tags: windows azure,azure service platform,cloud Computing,software-plus-services

Ray Ozzie speaks on Google Wave

john.mullinax — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:20:07 GMT

Courtesy of Ina Fried, here’s Ray Ozzie speaking about Google Wave at Silicon Valley’s Churchhill Club.

In a nutshell, Ozzie compares Google Wave to Groove, and calls it anti-web because the ethos of the web is about open data formats, open protocols, and technologies that are simple enough for people to implement themselves.

He goes on to differentiate Live Mesh from Google Wave and Groove as being something built off the learnings from Groove… it’s web friendly, and simple enough for people to implement into their own solutions themselves.

Technorati Tags: Live Mesh,Cloud Computing,Azure,Google Wave,Groove

From Cloudy in Seattle: The Easy Way to Install the Windows Azure Tools and SDK Pre-Requisites

john.mullinax — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 02:46:56 GMT

Jim Nakashima has a handy little post here on an easy way to get all the Windows Azure tools and SDK pre-requites installed. The secret is to use the Web Platform Installer, which you can get here. But read Jim’s post for the step-by-step guidance, links to a few hot fixes to manually install, direct link to the Windows Azure tools, etc.

BTW, the Web Platform Installer also gives you ASP.NET MVC, Silverlight, etc. If you’re setting up a new machine, Jim’s post should save you a nice chunk of time.

Technorati Tags: windows azure,web platform installer,cloud

McKinsey on the cloud: Nick Carr gets it right

john.mullinax — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:33:59 GMT

Was thinking about posting a response to the recent McKinsey report on cloud computing for large enterprises, but then came across Nick Carr’s post and he’s spared me the task. :-) Nick’s analysis is spot on, and is worth quoting a full paragraph.

“Nevertheless, the McKinsey analysis is a valuable one, not least because it underscores how early we are in the development of the utility-computing grid - and why we shouldn't expect large companies to begin shutting down their data centers any time soon. Then again, I don't know of any large company that is even considering such a move today or any reasonable analyst that would suggest it. The scenario McKinsey analyzes - the wholesale replacement of a large enterprise computing operation with rented space within an external cloud - is a bot of a straw man. The real opportunity that the cloud offers large companies today is as a supplement or complement to their in-house operations rather than as a complete replacement. The cloud model offers a way to gain access to additional computing and storage capacity, particularly to cover fluctuations in demand or carry out a short-term data-crunching exercise, without having to make capital investments in new equipment or hire more workers. The cloud also, of course, provides a way to tap into powerful software-as-a-service applications that can provide substantial savings, not only in equipment and labor but in licensing and maintenance fees, over the cost of installing an in-house application. (The McKinsey analysis ignores those opportunities.)”

In short, the McKinsey report analyzes a scenario that is grossly unrealistic, and fails to consider much of the value proposition the cloud can create. To see the full McKinsey report for yourself here.

Technorati Tags: cloud computing

Symmetry between SQL Server and SQL Data Services – video interview

john.mullinax — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:32:05 GMT

Patric McElroy, Group Program Manager of SQL Data Services team talks with Michael Cote of RedMonk about what’s coming with the new SDS, and where there will be symmetry with SQL Server. Really nice interview!

This was recorded a few weeks back at MIX09. A few nuggets that stood out to me:

SDS will support TDS protocol and T-SQL at v1 release. More in the SQL Data Services FAQ here.
For 80% of apps deployment to the cloud will simply mean pointing the deployment scripts to a new location. The same rich toolsets used by DBAs and data programmers will still be the best way to work.
Improve compliance/management of departmental apps and data without the deployment friction of creating and enforcing internal centralized database hosting operations.

Technorati Tags: Azure,SQL Data Services,cloud

Ever wondered how Windows Azure works?

john.mullinax — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:28:07 GMT

David Lemphers has a post here that digs into a few of the details, and is worth a look. And thanks to Steve Clayton for pointing it out.

See David’s post for pretty pictures and more details on how the VMs are apportioned, how much effective compute capacity each Guest VM has, etc. For more details on how to running apps against roles, see the Windows Azure site here.

Set Up:

New machines boot to network, and get a maintenance OS
Maintenance OS talks to Fabric Controller
Fabric Controller tells the Maintenance OS to create a Host Virtual Machine
Host VM talks to Fabric Controller
Fabric Controller tells Host VM to create a guest VM. There can be many Guest VMs
Once a Guest VM is set up, a Role can can be added. A Role is the virtual server that executes a customers’ application logic.

VM Coordination and Isolation:

All application logic exists within Guest VMs, with the Guest VMs keeping applications isolated from each other
To ensure one customer VM doesn’t overwhelm another, all VMs are balanced to keep network, CPU, etc., evenly apportioned
All Guest VMs communicate with the outside world through a VMBus on the Host VM, as only the Host VM can talk to the outside world.

Running an App:

Guest VMs host Roles
Roles today can be a Web Role or a Worker Role. Additional roles are likely to be available in the future
Web Roles are essentially like IIS
Worker Roles do other computational tasks, as instructed by the Web Role, but do not communicate with outside world
Web Role hands tasks off for Worker Role to execute by adding them to a Queue

Live Blogging at PDC - Microsoft says it will offer ALL Enterprise software online

john.mullinax — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:14:00 GMT

Not moving to simple software as a service, but providing a choice of on premise or subscription from the cloud. Ray Ozzie calls has called this Server-service symmetry. And the online services will not just be “fixed” applications, but in the future will be platforms that support custom solution development. Additionally, hybrid approaches will be possible that lets people run different parts of an application in different places – servers on-premise, clients, phones, and cloud. And do this securely in a way that let’s customers use their own identity management solutions.

To my mind, a this represents an inflection point for the industry, Microsoft, and for our customers and partners.

Technorati Tags: Software-plus-services,cloud computing,PDC 2008

Live Blogging at PDC 2008 – Ray Ozzie’s keynote: Introduce Windows Azure

john.mullinax — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:32:00 GMT

Headline: Windows Azure, Windows in the Cloud, released as CTP

See the video stream here: www.microsoftpdc.com

Key theme: Transformation toward services, and enabling a new generation of apps that span the pc, web, and phone

Today: focusing on back end of that – data centers in the cloud

Some have recently asked, “Is the cloud overblown?” In a sense the concepts of utility computing was pioneered by service bureaus in the 1960s, as well as virtualization in the same period. But today, even in the best virtualized data centers, we’re serving and delivering inwardly facing solutions. they’ve been specifically built to target solutions for employees and in some cases partners. All scoped out, audited, and controlled by an IT organization skilled in management.

Now, every organization, school, government witnessing the externalization of IT. People are expecting more interactions with each other – community elements like wikis, ranking and rating, reviews, etc. The web a critical part of every company’s demand generation. Additionally, the previous separate world of software development and operations are more and more closely related.

For some customers, they see huge spikes in demand for computing capacity. Today, people ensure they have ample capacity for each application that has spikes in traffic. Spare power, cooling, compute, storage, network. And business continuity requires people to build multiple data centers in different locations. Far away customers have network latency issues that impact their experience and satisfaction. And to serve those far away, people build data centers all around the world which creates a host of other issues around tax and regulations.

So is the cloud different? Resoundingly yes. A system to serve the web is vastly different.

Over the years, we accumulated lots of knowledge on how to run high scale, robust technology infrastructure – but it has not been packaged in a form that is useful to developers or partners or customers.

And MS realized that we were seeing a new tier in computing architecture. Experience tier, data center tier, web tier. The web tier scale is the size of the web – apparently infinite capacity with available anywhere whenever needed. As we started planning for this, Amazon released EC2. Props to Amazon.

Windows Azure – a new windows offering at the web tier of computing. Vista, mobile at experience tier, windows server at server tier, and Windows Azure at web tier. Provides core capabilities: virtualized computing, storage, a fabric controller for handling geo distribution and management.

Balancing opposing goals:

On the one hand, help Windows developers reuse/leverage existing code and skills and tools and runtimes. It’s Windows, so you would expect a world of options for tools and runtimes. Being Windows, that’s the type of familiarity we intend to foster and grow.

We also need to help developers recognize that the cloud tier is fundamentally different. Most apps today and deeply rooted in a scale up past. The systems we’re building are setting the stage for next 50 years of computing. Windows Azure enables new deployment and app models, built for horizontal scale.

Windows Azure is not software you run on your own service. It’s a service that runs on MS machines. It’s released today as a CTP, and features are only a fraction of what you will eventually see. It’s designed for dynamic, rapid improvement.

Were betting on Azure ourselves. IT will be our highest scale, highest availability, most economically, and most environmentally sensitive way to host services in the cloud.

A few other services complement Windows Azure:

Live Services – extend services outward to any pc, browser, phone in synchronized way
.Net Services – service bus, workflow services, authorization services, identity federation services
SQL Services – database services in cloud – reporting, business intelligence
SharePoint Services – more coming
Dynamics CRM services- more coming
Windows Azure- includes compute, storage (tables, blobs, streams), and management

Technorati Tags: PDC 2008,Ray Ozzie,Windows Azure,cloud computing