Earlier this month an interview I did with Robert Duffner, Director of Product management for Windows Azure, went live on the Windows Azure team blog. Robert asked me a variety of questions about Cloud security, how I see the Cloud evolving, the pitfalls of the cloud, where Dell plays etc.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that my ramblings actually turned out coherent 🙂 Here is a section from the interview (you can check out the whole piece here):
Cloud computing is a very exciting place to be right now, whether you’re a customer, an IT organization, or a vendor. As I mentioned before, we are in the very days of this technology, and we’re going to see a lot happening going forward.
In much the same way that we really focused on distinctions between Internet, intranet, and extranet in the early days of those technologies, there is perhaps an artificial level of distinction between virtualization, private cloud, and public cloud. As we move forward, these differences are going to melt away, to a large extent.
That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to still have private cloud or public cloud, but we will think of them as less distinct from one another. It’s similar to the way that today, we keep certain things inside our firewalls on the Internet, but we don’t make a huge deal of it or regard those resources inside or outside as being all that distinct from each other.
I think that in general, as the principles of cloud grab hold, the whole concept of cloud computing as a separate and distinct entity is going to go away, and it will just become computing as we know it.
Pau for now…
Barton's Blog 
Hey Barton – This is good stuff. I know a lot of people are still trying to get their arms around the Azure Cloud offering, and with Open Stack, I am getting twice as many questions. Wonder if you might comment on where you see both offerings.
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Thanks David. Im going to let Joseph who is riding point on these two efforts for our team respond.
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Sure thing, Barton.
In July 2010, Dell and Microsoft agreed to a strategic partnership and announced two things:
1. Dell intends to use the Windows Azure platform as a part of its Dell Services Cloud to develop and deliver next-generation cloud services
2. Dell will also work with Microsoft to develop a Dell-powered Windows Azure platform appliance for enterprise organizations to run in their data centers
Regarding OpenStack, Dell has been one of the pioneer partners, with involvement since Day 1 of the initiative. In fact, Dell’s Forrest Norrod was a featured quote in the OpenStack announcement. Since then, Dell has been a key participant in OpenStack design summits, has provided Dell PowerEdge C gear for the “InstallFest” portion of the summits, has hosted OpenStack to Austin a number times, and have had a number of discussions around optimal configurations for deploying OpenStack. We see this as a key initiative in the cloud space, and are glad to be so tightly aligned with the movement.
Now you only inquired about Azure and OpenStack, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that Dell offers a few other interesting cloud solutions as well.
Dell Cloud Solution for Web Applications is our turnkey PaaS solution with our partner, Joyent – a great option for customers who are looking to get a cloud enabled web dev environment up simply and quickly.
Dell Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud solution on Dell PowerEdge C servers is a great choice for customers desiring to build and test an IaaS cloud that can scale internally as well as take advantage of public clouds.
Finally, Dell offers the Virtual Integrated System (VIS) which allows users to streamline management tools and tasks while getting more from your existing infrastructure investments.
If you’re interested in discussing further or in getting a Proof of Concept (POC) going, reach out to Barton and/or myself – happy to have a chat.
Thanks.
JOSEPH
@jbgeorge
More on Dell and Microsoft Azure
– http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/d/press-releases/2010-07-12-dell-microsoft-cloud-azure-appliance.aspx
More on Dell and OpenStack
– http://www.openstack.org/press/rackspace-openstack-7-19-2010/
– http://bartongeorge.net/2011/01/27/stacker-mark-collier-gives-an-openstack-update/
– http://bartongeorge.net/2010/11/10/poweredge-c-powers-openstack-install-fest/
– http://bartongeorge.net/2010/09/15/a-dell-openstack-update/
More on Dell Cloud Solution for Web Applications
– http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/enterprise/b/inside-enterprise-it/archive/2010/11/29/announcing-the-dell-cloud-solution-for-web-applications.aspx
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCQJ9UESXrU
– http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Uniserve-Adopts-Dell-Cloud-Solution-Web-Applications-Bring-Public-Cloud-Canada-TSX-VENTURE-USS-1359573.htm
More on Dell Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud
– http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/business~solutions~cloud-computing~en/Documents~dell-canonical-cloud-standard-edition-datasheet.pdf.aspx
– http://blog.canonical.com/?p=362
More on Dell Virtual Integrated System (VIS)
– http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/landing/en/virtual-integrated-system?c=us&l=en
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