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Lock the stable door, the cloud is coming to the farm!

Rural wisdom has long proclaimed that successful farming has more to do with hard work, cooperation, frugality and common sense than science and technology. But a farm management software startup company called FarmLogs wants to modernize the industry by bringing critical farm data online. It replaces paper record keeping with software that is accessible via cloud computing on smartphones and web browsers.

An exciting venture, for sure.

But there’s another notable development in the story of FarmLogs, which recently received $1 million in seed funding to expand its mobile applications in time for the 2013 planting season: The tech company – which was incubated in Silicon Valley – has set its roots in Michigan.

Twenty-something co-founders Jesse Vollmar and Brad Koch grew up in the rural Thumb area of mitten-shaped Michigan. They headed off to Silicon Valley to develop their vision after receiving seed funding from Y Combinator.

Their next move? Leave the world’s largest conglomeration of technology corporations and start-ups and return to Michigan. They’ve set up their growing shop in Online Tech’s hometown of Ann Arbor.

“We decided the right move for us was to move back to Michigan, right here in Ann Arbor,” Vollmar told Concentrate Media. “Ann Arbor has a better start-up culture and vibe that we thought would be better for attracting talent.” >>Read more

Source: OnlineTech

Enterprises are quickly realizing that their future success is dependent on their ability to adapt their business to the Cloud. That realization however comes with more questions and concerns about executing an effective cloud-based strategy. The explosion of the OpenStack community has made it possible for hosting providers and businesses to create or utilize Amazon-like public and private clouds, but it's clear that the Cloud is not a one-size-fits-all solution. One prime factor that dictates the success of a cloud computing strategy is the particular workload an enterprise is tackling. From DevOps, to rapidly deploying dynamic and scalable websites, enterprises' workload needs should dictate their cloud architecture.

The specific workloads have an impact on many elements of the cloud, particularly the architecture of the infrastructure. It becomes clear how integral infrastructure architecture is to meeting workload requirements as we examine specific workload use cases.

The first element to consider in the architecture of cloud infrastructure is computing power. The number and speed of compute nodes within a cloud configuration will dictate how quickly processes can be executed. This comes into play prominently when assessing a workload, as the computing power required to develop a web app pales in comparison to the compute power required to execute Big Data analysis. Large-scale data analysis projects require powerful compute capabilities. While this kind of project is completely within the purview of well-constructed cloud architectures, that architecture must be designed as such.

The next integral ingredient to a cloud's architecture is the storage architecture. There are several different types of storage that vary in availability, resiliency and transactional performance. Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3) provides a multi-tenant object storage environment, while block storage, like Amazon EBS, provides a persistent storage target. Typically an enterprise architecture would require a multi-level SAN architecture that provided enough IOPS (input/outputs) for the storage of the VMs as well as the transactional block storage. As flash storage has matured, it has become possible to collapse the typical storage architecture, running virtual machine operating systems and persistent transactional data on the same tier. >>Read more

Source: SearchCloudComputing

When it comes to personal use the cloud has always stood for a comfortable means for storing your most valuable data in an online server where you could easily access it from any internet terminal. It also represents a place where you and your family can access the same pictures, movies and documents at any given time. But, despite the increasing security measures, there are still a lot of people who do not trust the security of the cloud with their more private data, although they would still like the ability to share that data with their family and loved ones.

And for the families that leave in one place there are now several solutions allowing them to have a personal family cloud independent of any online resource. We are talking about what is basically a smart hard drive capable of working under its own power, not being connected to any PC, and that interacts with the family’s wireless router. It can be accessed by any computer that knows the router’s password and it can automatically back up important data for all the computers in its range.

Of course the major problem with this system is the fact that the users still need to be in range of the wireless network in order to access data on the hard drive but there are many third party apps that can allow an administrator to share information from the hard drive online. Obviously this raises again the question of online security but since your personal data would not be saved on a dedicated server it will be safer from the attacks of hackers who usually go for thousands of user accounts at once. What’s even more important is the fact that your particular IP address is usually randomized and so it is even more difficult for a hacker to target a specific person.

Still there are several drawbacks to the system, particularly in terms of the cost. The usual offer from producers like Western Digital is $150 for a 1TB hard drive and the prices only go up. Just to give you an idea of what that means there are several online storage companies like BackBlaze who offer unlimited storage space for $3.96 a month if you pay for a 2 year membership with them. Of course, there are those that will argue that you cannot count on your data’s security no matter the online service and so the extra money you would be paying are worth the effort but if you are not very worried about the data you would be backing up than it is definitely cheaper and safer to go with them. >>Read more

Source: CloudTweaks

VMware is finally getting ready to spin off most of its non-core products to an EMC-run subsidiary, GigaOM has learned. If everything goes according to plan, the move will be announced next week, according to several sources familiar with the effort.

We reported on a similar plan in July but now it looks like it’s ready to roll with the Cloud Foundry Platform as a Service (PaaS); GemStone data caching technology; SpringSource Java frameworks and other non-core VMware offerings all moving over to a subsidiary owned by VMware parent company EMC, the sources said.

Sources said former VMware CEO Paul Maritz (pictured) will play a key role in the new organization although whether he would be CEO is unclear. And former Pivotal Labs CEO Robert Mee, will also be a key figure. EMC bought Pivotal in March for its agile development expertise.

The move will free VMware up to focus on its critical Vsphere and VMware cloud management and virtualization business while the new organization will devote itself entirely to these other products which many say VMware has had a hard time selling.

“The only thing VMware can sell is VMware,” said one source familiar with this situation.

VMware made waves this summer when it talked up a paid commercial version of its Cloud Foundry open-source PaaS, and that ruffled feathers among many of the partners VMware had encouraged to build PaaSes of their own based on Cloud Foundry.  By offloading Cloud Foundry, VMware can avoid that distraction. >>Read more

Source: Gigaom

Building on its strong ties to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Eucalyptus today unveiled the latest update to its open source cloud computing platform, adding expanded AWS storage compatibility as well as features to speed up installation and simplify management via a new GUI with self-service capabilities.

In discussing Version 3.2 of Eucalyptus' private and hybrid-cloud software with InfoWorld, company CEO Marten Mickos reiterated what he sees as one of the company's key advantages over rivals such as OpenStack: its unique partnership with Amazon that has enabled Eucalyptus to bake Amazon-API functionality natively into its product. Mickos has predicted that, just as IBM created the industry standard for the PC back in the 1970s, Amazon has created the industry standard for the cloud that will shape the market for years to come. He's confident AWS is the right horse to attach to the Eucalyptus wagon.

"We're just dead certain that the Amazon paradigm will be dominant in the cloud industry for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years," Mickos said.

Eucalyptus customers ought not expect the company to roll out similar levels of support for AWS public cloud rivals anytime soon. But "any public cloud that reaches 20 to 25 percent market share, we will support," he said. "Whoever the next major player after Amazon will be, we will go about supporting them. Today, Amazon has 90 percent of the market or something."

Release 3.2 isn't focused entirely on AWS, mind. In this go-round, the company aimed to simplify installation and management of Eucalyptus. "We've traditionally been focused on advanced features before usability," Mickos said. "We are now achieving and striving to achieve simplicity on the far side of complexity." >>Read more

Source: InfoWorld