Video Interviews from Cloud Foundry Summit

August 10, 2017

Back in June I attended the Cloud Foundry Summit in Santa Clara, CA and grabbed a bunch of interviews.  As an example, here is a quick summary of the summit as seen through the eyes of Tech evangelist and commentator Ben Kepes:

Ben Kepes

  • Ben  talks about the great vibe and community as well as how Cloud Foundry and “serverless” computing do or do not fit together.
  • He also gives his thoughts about what over the next year, Cloud Foundry needs to do and watch out for.
  • Ben ends by talking about what he thinks is the most exciting technology/development out there today (spoiler alert, its developer tools).

Some context

Before we get to the rest of the videos here are some quick notes:

There was a bunch of announcements at the event, two of the biggest being Microsoft joining the Cloud Foundry Foundation and the announcement of the Foundation’s inclusion of the Kubo project which is designed to help manage containers using Kubernetes by applying Cloud Foundry’s BOSH.

On the Dell EMC  side we gave a bunch of talks and had a booth where we showed of the work that our “Dojo” is doing in writing and contributing code to the Cloud Foundry foundation.  We also featured our Native Hybrid Cloud offering, which is a turnkey developer platform based on Pivotal Cloud Foundry.

Interviews from the front 

Below are the rest of the videos I captured at Cloud Foundry Summit.  Featured are representatives of Google, Datadog, GE Predix, the Cloud Foundry foundation, anynines and Dell EMC.

Enjoy!

Datadog: 

  • Ray Colletti of Datadog talks about what they do, where they’ve been and where they’re going.  (Datadog is infrastructure monitoring platform that plays well with everyone from Cloud Foundry to AWS to Azure to Google Cloud and more).
  • Ray discusses how Datadog has adapted to the changes in the industry over the last four years, the announcement of Datadog’s official Cloud Foundry integration and general integrations with other ecosystem players.
  • He ends by discussing their focus on alerts over the next year.

 

Native Hybrid Cloud: 

  • Drew Dimmick of Dell EMC’s Native Hybrid Cloud team talks about what this Pivotal Cloud Foundry-based offering is made of and what it allows organizations to do.
  • Drew talks about Dell EMC’s value-add on top of Pivotal Cloud Foundry, the Developer Workbench. The Workbench is made up of the Access tool as well as Fractal.
  • He also explains the different focuses of Native Hybrid Cloud and Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.

 

Kubo: 

  • Chip Childers, CTO of the Cloud Foundry Foundation talks about Kubo which just joined the Cloud Foundry Foundation.
  • Kubo is a packaging of Kubernetes that can be deployed by Cloud Foundry’s “BOSH” onto any cloud infrastructure.
  • Chip also discusses Microsoft joining the Cloud Foundry Foundation.

 

anynines: 

  • Talking to Julian Fischer, founder and CEO of anynines which is based in Germany. AnyNines’ main focus is building data services around Cloud Foundry.
  • Julian see’s the Cloud Foundry runtime as one of its key assets but became aware of its need for production grade data services. As a result they have chosen to focus on these services.
  • Key segments they focus on are insurance and manufacturing which are currently undergoing digital transformation.

 

Google Cloud Platform

  • Colleen Bryant of Google talks about her team which handles Open source integration with google cloud platform as well as her specific focus on the GCP service broker for Cloud Foundry.
  • She explains how Cloud Foundry, GCE (Google’s VM offering) and GCP all work together as well as what the heck’s a “tile.”

 

GE Predix

  • Talking with Ryan Bohm, a Developer evangelist within GE digital, focusing on their Predix Platform.
  • Ryan talks about their Cloud Foundry-based platform and its focus on the Industrial Internet of Things and specifically the analysis of big data.
  • She explains their efforts to build their developer program and the dev certification program they launched recently.

 

Extra-credit reading

Cloud Foundry Summit-related news

Video playlists from other events

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Ubuntu-based All-in-One joins the brawn brothers

April 18, 2017

Today we are happy to announce, that the Dell Precision 5720, a 27” All-in-One workstation class machine is available for purchase.  The system can be ordered preloaded with either Ubuntu 16.04, RHEL 7.3 or Windows 10.

What were they thinking

When the team designed the 5720, they focused on the front of screen experience with the 27” 4K UHD display, support for multiple displays out, and an integrated high-end sound bar that delivers best in class audio in an AIO, no need for added speakers.

Also supported are the latest generation Intel CPUs, including an option for Xeon CPUs, as well as the latest AMD Radeon Pro professional graphics.

The Precision line roll out

The availability of the 5270 marks the last of the Ubuntu-based Precision mobile workstations announced back in January.  In January, the Precision 5520, the world’s thinnest and lightest 15” mobile workstation and Precision 3520, an affordable and fully customizable 15” mobile workstation were available for purchase.  Under the heading, “coming soon,” were the 7720 the 7520 and, new to the lineup, the 5720 All-in-One.

Two weeks ago the world’s most powerful 15″ and 17″ laptops, the Precision 7520, and the Precision 7720 became available.  These two brawny brothers debuted in two flavors, Ubuntu and Windows (drivers are also available for RHEL 7.3).

A look at the Precision line thanks to LAS

The week before last, Chris Fisher and Noah Chelliah of the Linux Action Show made their way from the Pacific Northwest to Dell.  Besides recording LAS on site, Chris and Noah conducted a bunch of interviews.  The episode above is the first of two.  In this episode you not only get to learn about Dell’s Linux-powered coffee machine but you get an overview of the Precision line of systems.

The Dell segment starts at 35:36 and the overview of the Precision line, starting with the new 5720 All-in-One, begins at 37:20.  When you get to the part about the 7720, which starts at around $1,699, you’ll learn what you get if you decide to drop $10K and max it out.

[If you’re interested, here’s second LAS — Dell’s Secret Sauce | Linux Action Show 465]

How to get the Ubuntu or RHEL flavors

To get the preloaded Ubuntu or RHEL versions of the 5720, simply head to the landing page. Once there, click on the green “Customize & Buy” button on the right.  This will take you to the “Select Components” page where under “Operating System” you can choose either Ubuntu 16.04, RHEL 7.3 or Windows and away you go!

Extra-credit reading

  • Order here: The Dell Precision 5720, 27” All-in-One workstation class machine
  • Dell’s Secret Sauce | Linux Action Show 465
  • Dell Precision 5520 is a beauty and a beast, This the best laptop for Linux power users — CIO
  • Dell Launches World’s Most Powerful 15″ and 17″ Laptops Powered by Ubuntu Linux – Softpedia
  • Dell lancia cinque nuovi sistemi Linux — Techninja
  • Five new systems join Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition that come with Ubuntu pre-installed — Linux Magazine
  • Dell doubles down on high-end Ubuntu Linux laptops – ZDnet
  • Why Dell’s gamble on Linux laptops has paid off –  TechRadar
  • Dell lanza nuevo Precision con Ubuntu y no será el único – SYSGURU
  • PODCAST: Jan-17-2017, Dell Linux Hardware w/Barton George – The Lunduke Hour
  • PODCAST: Project Sputnik Interview | LINUX Unplugged 179
  • Welcome the new Ubuntu-based Precision line-up – Ubuntu insights
  • Dell’s new Precision mobile workstation PCs available with Ubuntu or Windows – Liliputing
  • Dell lanza nuevo Precision con Ubuntu y no será el único – muylinux

Pau for now…

13 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Welcome the new Ubuntu-based Precision line-up — Mobile Workstations plus a new All-in-One

January 9, 2017

Update: Precision 7520 and 7720 available as of March 28;  Dell Precision 5720, a 27” All-in-One available as of April 18.

Today I am excited to announce the next generation of our Ubuntu-based Precision mobile workstation line.  Not only have we rev’d the current line-up but we have also added the Precision 5720 All-in-One.  This follows the introduction back in October of the 6th generation XPS 13 developer edition.

23536-sb-workstation-precision-27-5720-260x150

Dell Precision 5720 All-in-One

Available today

All of the systems above, which will be available worldwide, come preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, feature 7th generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Xeon™ processors and support Thunderbolt 3 (scroll down for more detailed specs).

How did we get here

Four and a half years ago a scrappy skunk works project by the name of “Project Sputnik” was kicked off at Dell to gauge interest in a developer-focused laptop.  The project received an amazing amount of interest and support from the community and as result, nine months later this project became an official product — the ultra-mobile XPS 13 developer edition.

jared-in-canoe

Jared hacks in a hammock

While the XPS 13 was a big hit the team soon started getting a steady stream of requests to add a bigger, beefier system.  This caught the attention of team member Jared Dominguez (on twitter) who decided to work on his own time to get Ubuntu running on the Dell Precision M3800 mobile workstation.  Jared documented his work and then posted the instructions publicly.

Jared’s efforts got so much interest from the community that a little over a year later it debuted as an official product.   A little over a year after that, one Ubuntu-based Precision workstation became four and today we are announcing the next generation of this line-up along with the new Precision 5720 All-in-One.

A double-click on the specs

Dell™ Precision 3520, mobile workstation – Available now!

Affordable, fully customizable 15” mobile workstation

Key features

  • Preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • 7th generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Xeon™ processors
  • 15.6” HD (1366×768), FHD (1920×1080) and FHD touch
  • Up to 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage
  • ECC memory, Thunderbolt 3 and NVIDIA graphics
  • Availability: worldwide

 

Dell Precision 5520, mobile workstation  – Available now!

World’s thinnest and lightest 15” mobile workstation

Dell Precision 5520

Dell Precision 5520

Key features

  • Preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • 7th generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Xeon™ processors
  • 15.6” UltraSharp™ FHD (1920×1080) or UltraSharp™ UHD (3840×2160)
  • Up to 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage
  • Thunderbolt 3
  • NVIDIA Quadro graphics
  • Availability: worldwide

 

Dell Precision 7520, mobile workstation – Available now!

World’s most powerful 15” mobile workstation

Key features

  • Preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • 7th generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Xeon™ processors
  • 15.6” FHD (1920×1080), UltraSharp™ FHD (1920×1080) both Touch and Non-Touch, UltraSharp™ UHD (3840×2160)
  • Up to 64GB of memory and 3TB of storage
  • Thunderbolt 3
  • NVIDIA Quadro® and Radeon Pro™ graphics options
  • Availability: worldwide

 

Dell Precision 7720, mobile workstation – Available now!

World’s most powerful mobile workstation

Key features

  • Preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • 7th generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Xeon™ processors
  • 17.3” HD+ (1600×900), UltraSharp™ FHD (1920×1080) or UltraSharp™ UHD (3840×2160)
  • Up to 64GB of memory and 4TB of storage
  • Thunderbolt 3
  • NVIDIA Quadro® and Radeon Pro™ graphics options
  • Availability: worldwide

 

Dell Precision 5720, All-in-One – Available now!

27” All-in-One workstation class machine

Key features

  • Preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • 7th generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Xeon™ processors
  • 27” UltraSharp™ UHD (3840×2160) both touch and non-touch
  • Up to 64GB of memory and Up to (1) M.2 PCIe SSD and up to (2) 2.5” SATA
  • Thunderbolt 3
  • Radeon Pro™ graphics
  • Availability: worldwide

 

How do I order a 5520, 7520, 7720 or 3520 today

In the case of the US, you can get to the Ubuntu-based version of  the Dell™ Precision 5520 Dell™ or Precision 3520, mobile workstation by going to their respective landing pages: Precision 5520, Precision 7520, Precision 7720, Precision 3520. Once there, click on the green “Customize & Buy” button on the right.  This will take you to the “Select Components” page where under “Operating System” you choose Ubuntu 16.04 and away you go!

With regards to availability for the rest of the line-up, watch this space!

Extra credit reading

  • New Precision 5520 – Buy now
  • New Precision 3520 – Buy now
  • New Precision 7520 – Buy now
  • New Precision 7720 – Buy now
  • New Precision 5720 All-in-One – Buy now
  • Ubuntu-based Developer and Engineering systems line-up – Dell.com

Project milestones

  • The New XPS 13 Developer Edition Lands in Europe, United States and Canada — October 04, 2016
  • Live in Europe: Next gen XPS 13 developer edition — March 31, 2016
  • XPS 13 Developer Edition launches in US, Ubuntu-based Workstations available worldwide — March 3, 2016
  • 4th gen Dell XPS 13 developer edition available! — April 9, 2015
  • Welcome the Dell Precision M3800 mobile workstation, developer edition — January 27, 2015
  • Sputnik 3 online in Europe just in time for Holidays — December 20, 2013 
  • Introducing Sputnik 3 and its unofficial big brother — November 15, 2013
  • Sputnik 2 is here: Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition goes 1080p and lands in Europe — February 18, 2013
  • Sputnik has landed! Introducing the Dell XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition — November 29, 2012
  • Project Sputnik to go from Pilot to Product — July 18, 2012
  • Introducing Project Sputnik: Developer laptop — May 7, 2012

Pau for now…

85 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Video Walk thru of the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition (9350)

December 15, 2016

Last night as I was surfing the interwebs, I came across a “Tech Pills” video that covers the XPS 13 developer edition (9350).  [The 9350 is the generation that proceded the current offering (9360) which came out in October.  The two systems utilize the same chassis and the former features the Skylake processor whereas the latter comes with Kabylake.]

The host does a great job of running through the developer edition from both a hardware and software perspective.  In his case, his distro of choice is Arch and the review was originally posted on the Arch Wiki.

Check it out:

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

2 Comments | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Digital Transformation: The Perils and the Keys to Success

November 2, 2016

The week before last Dell EMC held its first Dell EMC World here in Austin.  The event was full of keynotes, breakouts and Dell EMC and partner booths.  On the expo floor a stage was set up where partners and various Dell EMC employees, from Michael Dell on down, were interviewed as a part of Dell EMC World Live.

I was fortunate enough to participate in two of the live sessions, one about speeding up app development for the digital enterprise, and the one embedded below.  The session below was entitled “Stop Hitting Yourself. Tips for Succeeding at Digital Transformation” and featured Richard Seroter and Michael Cote of Pivotal as well as myself.

Check it out

Some of the ground Cote, Richard and I cover

  • How Uber delivered a Digital-transformation wakeup call to ordinary enterprises
  • Evolving your business to being a software-enabled business
  • It’s not about software for software’s sake, it’s about developing a more intimate relationship with the customer
  • The last 20 years for IT has been about driving efficiencies rather than improving the customer relationship
  • Moving from silos to platforms
  • Often support will come from the CEO down and the developers up but it’s the those in the middle who have the toughest time

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Speeding Up App Development for the Digital Enterprise – A conversation

October 27, 2016

Last week over 9,000 people attended the first Dell EMC world here in Austin.  As you would expect there were keynotes, breakout sessions and an expo floor.  On the floor itself, besides the various Dell EMC and partner booths, was an area set up for Dell EMC World Live.

Dell EMC World Live featured a full roster of  live interviews on a variety of topics with everyone from Michael Dell on down.  One of the two sessions I was fortunate enough to participate in was “Speeding Up Application Development for the Digital Enterprise.”  My co-conspirator was Trey Layton, CTO and SVP, Converged Platform and Solutions Division in Dell EMC.

Take a listen

Some of the ground Trey and I cover

  • The challenges of moving to a cloud-native architecture and the need for software to become a core competency of today’s enterprises.
  • The use of company names as verbs e.g. “don’t get Uber-ed”
  • “Two pizza” teams vs. hundreds of developers
  • The “Square of Despair” — Complexity, Procurement, Legacy and Security
  • The need to abstract the complexity of the infrastructure away from developers so that they can focus on writing code
  • Unleashing the power of the mind

Extra-credit reading

  • Allianz Fireside Chat –  Dr. Andreas Nolte, CIO, Allianz – Cloud Foundry summit
  • UK gov keynote – ‘Open’ as a Disruptor for Government – Liam Maxwell, UK National Technology Advisor – Cloud Foundry summit
  • ComputerWorldUK – Allianz app deployment goes from ‘days to minutes’ with Pivotal Cloud Foundry PaaS and agile practices –

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

The New XPS 13 Developer Edition Lands in Europe, United States and Canada

October 4, 2016

Today, on the 59th anniversary of the launch of the Sputnik satellite, the 6th generation XPS 13 developer edition makes its debut in both the US, Canada and Europe.  This Kaby Lake-based system comes with Ubuntu 16.04LTS preloaded and features the InfinityEdge display.

A Quick RefresherDino

As you may remember, these systems began life four years ago as Project Sputnik, an open-ended exploratory project.  From the very begining, the effort was designed to solicit and incorporate input from the developer community as to what they wanted in a laptop.

Courtesy of nasaimages.org

Courtesy of nasaimages

With the community’s input, Project Sputnik became an official product and continues to evolve.  Recently, as the ultimate honor, Linus Torvalds selected the XPS 13 developer edition as his mobile laptop.

Additionally, as a happy by product of the program, an initial investment of $40,000 from an internal innovation fund has turned into in tens of millions of dollars in revenue, helping to keep the effort humming along 🙂

Thanks everyone for all your support!!

Specifications — Next gen XPS 13 developer edition

Here is what the 6th generation developer edition (9360) features:

  • 7th generation Intel® Core™Processors
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS preloaded.  Augmented with the necessary hardware drivers (drivers are upstreamed to allow a variety of distros to work)
  • Killer Wireless cards*
  • InfinityEdge™ display, FHD (1920×1080) and QHD+ (3200×1800) versions available

*Killer cards are a branding of Qualcomm Atheros.  Their Linux drivers are open source and the firmware is now upstream.

US Configurations

As was the case last time, the US is offering four configs.  This time around we are offering the following (including one in Rose Gold):

  • i5/8GB/128GB, FHD – $949.99rose-and-silver-xps13s
  • i5/8GB/256GB, FHD – $1,349.99
  • i7/8GB/256GB, QHD+ (touch) – Rose Gold – $1,599.99
  • i7/16GB/512GB, QHD+ (touch) – $1,799.99

You’ll find the XPS 13 developer edition collocated with Windows version on the following page.  The easiest way to see the Ubuntu line up is to select “Ubuntu” in the “Operating System” pull-down menu on the far left.

Canada

European Configurations

The following configurations are available both online and offline in Europe.  All of three of the XPS 13 developer edition configurations come with the Killer Wireless card and international keyboards can be selected.

  • i5/8GB/256GB, FHD
  • i7/8GB/256GB, QHD+ (touch)
  • i7/16GB/512GB, QHD+ (touch)

Where to order your system

As is the case in the United States, both versions of the XPS 13, Ubuntu and Windows, are featured on the same product page. Click on the country name below and it will take you to the XPS 13 landing page.  Once on the page, you can get to the Ubuntu-based configs by scrolling right to the last three systems.

There is a second group of nations where the developer edition is available by contacting your local Dell representative.

Extra credit reading

32 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Dell EMC’s Ceph Performance and Sizing Guide for the PowerEdge R730XD

September 23, 2016

If you’re not familiar with it, Red Hat’s Ceph storage is a distributed object store and file system.  To support its deployment on the Dell EMC PowerEdge R730XD, a team from Dell EMC recently put together a white paper that acts as a performance and sizing guide.

In the first video below, Amit Bhutani of Dell EMC’s Linux and open source group explains Ceph and takes us through the test environment that was used to create the deployment guide.  Video number two stars Valerie Padilla from Dell EMC’s server solution CTO team.  Valerie gives an a high level view of the white paper and the five categories of the results.

Take a listen

Extra credit reading

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Microsoft and Containers

August 24, 2016

Earlier this summer I was out in Seattle for DockerCon.  Among the people I interviewed was Taylor Brown of Microsoft.  While Microsoft may not be the first company you think of when talking containers, they actually have a bunch going on.  Taylor in fact leads the team focusing on the server container technology coming out of Windows e.g. Hyper-V containers and Windows server containers.

Taylor and I sat down and he took me through what his team has been up to and their goals for the future.

Take a listen

Some of the ground Taylor covers

  • Taylor and his team support customers running Windows on Azure, Amazon, Google and others.
  • The team has been working closely with Docker and the community contributing code to allow Docker to work with Windows
  • Windows Server 2016 will come with full container support
  • Following on Azure’s container services with Linux, they’re adding Windows support
  • Goals for the future: performance and scaling are a big focus; security around authentication and authorization;  also thinking about Linux containers on Windows

Extra-credit reading

  • Docker’s Close Integration with Windows Server – Redmond magazine
  • Microsoft PowerShell Goes Open Source, Arrives On Linux, Mac – InformationWeek
  • VIDEO: Ubuntu comes to the Windows desktop — OpenStack summit – Barton’s Blog

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

EMC Dojo – Teaching the way of Modern Software Development

August 24, 2016

Last but not least in my series of interviews from SpringOne Platform stars Brain Roche of EMC.  Brian heads up engineering for EMC Dojo, headquartered in Cambridge Massachusetts.  The dojo, which has been around for a year, teaches modern software development practices based on DevOps and focuses on Cloud Foundry.

Take a listen as Brian talks about the dojo, how it works and where it’s going.

Some of the ground Brian covers

  • Teaching pair programming, extreme programming and more with the goal of showing customers and partners how to rapidly deliver software in the modern world to better serve customers.
  • Qualifying as a Cloud Foundry dojo by contributing to a Cloud Foundry sanctioned open source project.
  • The dojo’s qualifying project is RackHD which acts as a cloud provider interface, providing and management and orchestration layer to run Cloud Foundry on bare metal.
  • The goals for the dojo going forward including expansion and evangelism.

Extra-credit reading

  • EMC Dojo on Github 
  • EMC Dojo Blog
  • EMC Is Pumping $10M Into Open Source, Launching Dev Program in Cambridge – BostonInno
  • RackHD — Storage kingpin EMC is open-sourcing software to manage and orchestrate server deployment – Fortune
  • An Interview with Cloud Foundry Foundation’s CEO, Sam Ramji – Barton’s Blog

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

An Interview with Cloud Foundry Foundation’s CEO, Sam Ramji

August 23, 2016

A couple of months ago at the Cloud Foundry summit I tried to grab Sam Ramji, CEO of the Cloud Foundry Foundation, to do a short interview.  Unfortunately the stars didn’t align and it didn’t happen.  At SpringOne Platform however I had better luck.

Sam, who lead off the keynotes on day two, sat and talked to me about Cloud Foundry’s origins, what’s going on today and what its goals are for the future.

Take a listen

Some of the ground Sam covers:

  • Cloud Foundry began at VMware in 2009 and was open sourced back in 2011.  The foundation itself was set up a year and half ago.
  • CloudFoundry.org wa established to increase the velocity of contributions (over the last year, over 2000 individuals outside of  the core companies have contributed.)
  • While they want to grow the foundation, they need to be thoughtful on how they grow.
  • What drew Sam to the CEO opportunity and the role that APIs and Warner music played in his decision.
  • The foundation’s goals: 1) increase diversity of contributions, 2) increase the foundation’s population, predominantly via end users, 3) determine how best to build a framework that will allow to the effort to survive and thrive over the next 20 years.

Extra-credit reading

  • Talking Cloud Foundry Foundation – OpenStack summit Austin – Youtube
  • SpringOne: The Spring Platform, Where its Been and Where its Going – Barton’s Blog
  • SpringOne: Native Hybrid Cloud — The Pivotal Cloud Foundry Developer Platform in a Box – Barton’s Blog
  • SpringOne: When Web Companies grow up they turn into Java Shops –Barton’s Blog

Pau for now..

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

The Spring Platform, Where its Been and Where its Going

August 22, 2016

Early this month, armed with my trusty Flipcam (and oldie but a goody), I attended SpringOne Platform hosted by by Pivotal.io.  While there I was able to grab a few interviews with some of the movers and shakers.  Given that the title of the event was “SpringOne,” I would have been remiss had I not grabbed one of the Spring community leaders.  I was able to convince Spring Framework developer, Rossen Stoyanchev of Pivotal to chat with me.

Take a listen as Rossen talks about the history and evolution of the Spring Framework.

Some of the ground Rossen covers

  • Spring Framework’s birth 12 years ago and the role of Rod Johnson’s book
  • Providing tools that simplify and symbiotically work with Java Enterprise
  • Additional Spring Projects e.g. Web Frameworks, Spring Integration, Spring Batch
  • The debut of Spring Boot in 2012 and the quick follow up by Spring Cloud which extended programming to new models
  • Where Spring is headed: reactive programming and much more

Extra-credit reading

  • Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development – Rod Johnson
  • Spring Boot, a quick overview — Barton’s Blog
  • SpringOne: Native Hybrid Cloud — The Pivotal Cloud Foundry Developer Platform in a Box – Barton’s Blog
  • SpringOne: When Web Companies grow up they turn into Java Shops – Barton’s Blog

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Native Hybrid Cloud — The Pivotal Cloud Foundry Developer Platform in a Box

August 17, 2016

A few weeks ago at Pivotal’s SpringOne Platform event I met Drew Dimmick of EMC.  Drew heads up product management for EMC’s Native Hybrid Cloud offering.  Native Hybrid Cloud, or “NHC” is a complete shrink-wrapped Pivotal Cloud Foundry developer platform that can be set up in as little as two days.

I grabbed some time with Drew and had him take me through the offering at a high level.

Here is what Drew had to say:

Some of the ground Drew covers

  • How NHC cut set-up time from weeks to days and provides a single-vendor solution
  • Today’s stack is composed of: VxRack with Neutrino nodes + Pivotal Cloud Foundry with metering, monitoring billing etc, all siting on top of OpenStack
  • There are couple of other NHC flavors wating in the wings:
    • Pivotal Cloud Foundry + VMware’s VxRail solution sitting on top of vSphere (today half of all Pivotal Cloud Foundry implementations sit on top of vSphere)
    • Further out, a version featuring VMware’s Photon platform which customers could choose in place of OpenStack

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

 

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

When Web Companies grow up they turn into Java Shops

August 17, 2016

Earlier this month I attended Pivotal’s SpringOne platform conference in Las Vegas.  In case you’re not familiar with it, Spring is a Java Framework “that helps development teams everywhere build simple, portable, fast and flexible JVM-based systems and applications.”

For some of you out there you may be thinking Java is old school and not relevant in in today’s modern world of digital business.  Au contraire mon frere.  James Governor, the D’artagnan of the analyst world,  countered this belief of irrelevance in his SpringOne talk entitled, “When Web Companies grow up, the become Java Shops.”

Take a listen as James backs up his claim.  (For extra credit see the Redmonk Programming Language Rankings below that places Java in the top right corner second only to JavaScript.  Click on the chart to enlarge the rankings).

Some of the ground James covers

  • Facebook as a big Java shop.  Twitter as a member of the JCP (Java Community Process)
  • Seeing a lot of Java innovation even outside of Android
  • Big Data e.g. Hadoop written in Java/JVM
  • We will see cloud native Java in the next 3-5 years

 

Redmonk Q3-16 language rankings

Redmonk Q3-16 language rankings

 

Pau for now…

 

 

 

 

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Of Linux Laptops, Open Source and Hawaiian Food

August 8, 2016

In the last two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to participate in two podcasts.  The first was the wild and wacky Lunduke & Whatnot (with Matt) show where System76 founder CEO, Carl Richell and I talked with our hosts about pre-loaded Linux laptops.  

In the second, which was recorded last week at SpringOne platform, Michael Cote hosts me as we talk about the evolution of Free Software/Open Source as well as the history of Hawaii and it’s foods.

Check them both out below.

Some of the ground Lunduke, Matt, Carl and I  cover:

  • [First I video bomb the intro by mistake]
  • How long System76 and Dell have been selling Linux preloaded on laptops
  • Mandriva as Lunduke’s favorite Linux distro
  • How System76 went from Carl’s basement to an office and a portfolio of 60 offerings
  • Why both companies went with Ubuntu first and why only Ubuntu
  • What are the biggest issues that System76 and Dell face when producing Linux laptops

Podcast #2

Open source and devs at Dell and the changing nature of OSS

The second podcast is audio only and, like the one above, is chock-a-block full of information and zaniness.  Here’s how Cote describes the occurrence:

“I’ve had a theory that the hard-line philosophy of open source has softened in recent times. Rather than thinking closed source is to be avoided at all costs, I think most developer types are a lot more willing to accept closed source bits mixed in with open source bits. That is, open core has “won.” I discuss this topic with my long time pal, Barton George, while at SpringOne Platform, plus the work he’s doing in the developer and OSS worlds at Dell.  We also talk about Hawaiian food.”

Take a listen

Extra-credit reading

  • Cuisine of Hawaii – Wikipedia
  • The XPS 13 Developer Edition THE best Linux laptop. Dell’s fifth-generation open-source developer laptop isn’t just good, it’s great — ZDNet
  • The XPS developer edition: Dell continues to build a reliable Linux lineage – Arstechnica 
  • Dell XPS 13 Skylake (2016) review: A lot for a Linux user to like – CIO
  • Review: The Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition laptop is nearly perfect – Network World

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

EMC’s hyper converged VxRack – A Guided Tour

August 1, 2016

Back at the beginning of the summer I attended DockerCon out in Seattle.  EMC was there in not one, but two booths.  The first booth represented EMC {code} which I talked about in the previous post.  The second one was hosted by EMC proper where, besides software, they showed their VxRack.

VxRack is EMC’s hyper-converged platform designed for the data center. The platform is EMC’s preferred platform for Native Hybrid Cloud, a turnkey Pivotal Cloud Foundry developer platform.

Mike Steinberg of EMC was manning the booth and gave me a guided tour of VxRack.  Check it out:

Some of the ground Mike covers

  • Two flavors: ScaleIO software defined storage or VMware Virtual SAN.
  • The compute is on the same nodes as the storage
  • Software layer: VMware or bare metal
  • The Native Hybrid Cloud = Pivotal cloud Foundry + pre-built dashboards and management instrumentation
  • A view from the back:
    • Configured to your specs and it shows up good to go
    • Networking and x86 nodes (3 flavors to choose from)
  • What the future holds for VxRack

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

EMC {code} — What’s it all about

July 29, 2016

When you hear “EMC” you most likely think storage, you most likely don’t think open source or devops.  That’s where EMC {code} comes in.

Started nearly two years ago and championed by executive sponsor Josh Bernstein, this group of developers, evangelists and community activists is focused on enabling developers and on making EMC more relevant in the open source and devops communities.

For a high-level overview take a listen to Josh as he lays out the group’s goals and objectives.

RackHD and REX-Ray

As Josh mentions in the video above, two of EMC {code}’s key projects are RackHD and REX-Ray.  RackHD provides hardware management and orchestration services while REX-Ray delivers a vendor agnostic storage orchestration engine.  In the next video, shot at DockerCon, Josh does a double click and takes us through REX-Ray and RackHD.

But wait, there’s more

REX-Ray and RackHD are just two of the dozens of projects you can find on the EMC {code} page, including the unikernel project UniK as well as Polly which handles volume scheduling for container schedulers.

It’s all about the community

A huge part of EMC {code}’s efforts revolve around community development and developer support.  This final video stars EMC {code} developer advocate and community manager, Jonas Rosland who talks about his roll and his perspective of EMC {code}.

To learn more about EMC {code} and to get involved, check out the links below.

Extra credit reading

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

What the heck’s a Unikernel? And why should you care

July 1, 2016

Just when the tech world was starting to get their heads around containers, along come unikernels.  Like containers, unikernels have been around in some form or another for quite awhile.  Their resurgence has to do in large part to their container-like functionality.  In a nutshell, unikernels combine an uber-stripped down version of an OS packaged with an individual app or service, providing a unit even smaller and more agile than a container.

Back in January Docker, seeing the strategic importance (threat?) of unikernels, acquired Unikernel Systems.  Unikernel Systems, based in Cambridge in the UK, is made up of former developers of the Xen hypervisor project.

At OSCON I caught up with Richard Mortier formally of Unikernel systems and now a Docker employee, to learn about the wild and wacky world of unikernels.

Some of the ground Richard covers

  • What is a unikernel?
  • How is Docker positioning unikernels within its portfolio?
  • Mirage System and unikernel construction
  • How unikernels augment, rather than replace containers

Unikernels: love em? hate em?

Unikernels are not without their vehement detractors.  Roman Shaposhnik, in his post “In defense of unikernels” does a pretty good job of laying out the good and the bad.  Roman’s conclusion:

….unikernels are not a panacea. Nothing is. But they are a very useful building block that doesn’t need any additional FUD. If you really want to fight something that is way overhyped you know where to find linux containers.

Extra-credit reading

  • Introducing Unik: Build and Run Unikernels with Ease – Linux.com
  • Docker bags unikernel gurus – now you can be just like Linus Torvalds – The Register
  • ‘Unikernels will send us back to the DOS era’ – DTrace guru Bryan Cantrill speaks out – The Register
  • Docker kicks off the unikernel revolution – InfoWorld

Pau for now…

 

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

VMware’s Photon Platform

June 29, 2016

Last week I attend DockerCon 2016 in Seattle.  Besides spending time working the Dell booth, I grabbed a bunch of folks and did some short, guerrilla-style interviews.  One of my victims was Kit Colbert who heads up VMware’s cloud native applications group.

With the onslaught of container-mania VMware, the 800-pound-VM gorilla, has had to take a hard look at the changing landscape and decide if/how they wanted to join the fray.

VMware’s response

VMware’s decision was to sally forth with not one but two entrants into the land of containers: Photon Platform and vSphere Integrated Containers.  In the video below Kit gives an overview of Photon Platform and explains how it relates to vSphere Integrated Containers.

In the second video the product manager for VMware’s vSphere Integrated Containers, Karthik Narayan, provides a double-click on this vSphere-based offering.

Some of the ground Kit covers

  • Photon is targeted at those customers who are taking a greenfield approach and are looking for a platform optimized for cloud native applications.  It GA’d this month and came with a version of Pivotal Cloud Foundry
  • Photon’s components: 1) the Photon controller which acts as a manger of all the hosts, 2) PhotonOS which is a container-optimized Linux distro and 3) Photon machine which is ESX and, going forward, will be optimized for cloud native applicaitons.
  • Native Hybrid Cloud: a tightly integrated stack from EMC composed of: Photon platform + EMC’s VxRack + Pivotal Cloud Foundry

Some of the ground Karthik covers

  • vSphere Integrated Containers are an extension of vSphere which natively integrates with Docker.  It is targeted at enterprises who want to run containers alongside existing apps and workloads.
  • It is composed of vSphere + ESX hypervisor + vCenter +VSan + NSX etc.
  • It allows enterprises to take their existing environments, add vSphere Integrated Containers and in 20 minutes have an environment that will allow their developers to work with Docker while at the same time allowing Ops to use an environment they’re familiar with to manage these new workloads.

Extra-credit reading

 

  • VMware Hires Longtime Intel Linux Exec As Its First-Ever Chief Open Source Officer – CRN
  • Compare and Contrast: Photon Controller vs VIC (vSphere Integrated Containers) –CormacHogan.com
  • VMware Photon controller – Github
  • IT pros eye Photon OS as matchmaker for vSphere, containers – TechTarget
  • Learning about VMware’s Photon Controller

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

Dell at DockerCon — Config guides, developer laptops, plugins and more

June 29, 2016

Today you would have to be under an IT rock if you haven’t at least heard of containers.  Containers, which have recently been made easily usable by a wide audience, allow applications to flow in a uniform package from development, to test, to production.  Containers also allow applications to be moved between public and private clouds as well as bare metal environments.  All of this increases agility and reduces friction in the overall development to deployment cycle, increasing the speed that organizations can deliver services to customers.

The 800 pound gorilla in the space is Docker which makes the most widely used container format and is building out additional offerings in the greater container ecosystem.

DockerCon

Last week in Seattle Docker held DockerCon 2016, its fourth conference promoting the general container ecosystem.  The event featured dozens of participating companies as well as a plethora of talks.  There was a ton of energy and the event even included a “full on kitty laser death match” on the main stage:

Laser cats

I attended the show and while there I attended sessions, conducted a bunch of interviews (see below) and spent time working at the Dell booth supporting Dell’s presence.

Dell Booth

At our booth we showed off four major offerings/projects in the Docker and container DockerCon Dell boothspace (here’s a video I did giving a brief overview what we were featuring).

We showed:

 

  • BlueData configuration guide:  BlueData’s platform provides customers with Big Data as a service, giving them the ability to leverage one pool of storage across multiple versions and distributions of big data tools.  The platform leverages Docker to deliver bare-metal performance with the flexibility of virtualization.  The configuration guide details the configuration set-up for BlueData’s Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) platform on Dell’s PowerEdge Servers.
  • Developer laptops: In the booth we showed off our line of Ubuntu-based developer laptops (Project Sputnik). These Linux-based systems provide a native platform for Docker-based development and allows developers to push their container-based apps to the cloud.  On the second day we gave away a “Sputnik” laptop (see below for the crowd on hand for the drawing).
  • Flocker plugin: This plugin allows ClusterHQ’s Flocker to integrate with the Dell Storage SC Series. This allows developer and operations teams to use existing storage to create portable container-level storage for Docker.
  • Docker Swarm plugin: This plugin, which is in the proof of concept phase, connects Docker Swarm with Dell’s next gen networking operating system, OS10.  The plugin automates configuration of vlan & routers for Docker’s Macvlan/Ipvlan driver orchestrated using Docker Swarm.

All in all a great show, helping to raise Dell’s presence in the space and providing us with greater insight into customer needs and the ecosystem evolution.

Waiting in front of the Dell booth for the Sputnik drawing

Waiting in front of the Dell booth for the Sputnik drawing

Video interviews:

 

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Barton George

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »
%d bloggers like this: