Sep 15 2011
It is great to hear some positive news in a week that seemed full of bad news – VMware is to create 250 new jobs in Ireland over the next three years. See Cork to get 250 new technology jobs for more details.
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Aug 10 2011
Unbelievable – Dublin lightning strike zaps Amazon, Microsoft data centres! Surely, having and testing a UPS is really basic data centre management!
This says an awful amount about the data centre in question, and it is yet another self-inflicted blow to Cloud Computing.
Jun 15 2011
I came across this concise summary of the differences between Google‘s Cloud Computing approach and Apple‘s Cloud Computing approach: Apple cloud vs. Google cloud: The philosophical differences.
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May 31 2011
I heard a review of the papers on the radio this morning that referenced this article: ‘Cloud’ postgrad course a world first. In summary, CIT is to run some third and fourth level taught courses focusing specifically on Cloud Computing. For more details see Cloud Computing @ Cork Institute of Technology.
I think this is a really great idea for two reasons:
I bet the other institutions are regretting that they did not think of this first! To me, the key issue should be that all courses are sufficiently fresh and up-to-date to allow successful students to go into any area that is currently in demand!
The unfortunate thing for CIT was that the homepage of its website contained no mention of these courses at the time :| It does now – see CIT partners with EMC to deliver world’s first degree in Cloud Computing :o
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May 30 2011
I just read that Marketo is to setup in Dublin, and in the process create 125 new jobs. See Silicon Valley cloud player Marketo creates 125 jobs in Dublin. It is great news, although from what I have read I do not think that it is really a true cloud computing player.
The other thing that concerned me was the following motivation in coming to Dublin:
Phil Fernandez, president and CEO of Marketo, explained the company selected Ireland because it needed a European hub with a large talent pool of skilled people.
I really hope that Marketo does not experience the same problems as many other companies here are experiencing (for example, see Demonware boss warns of skills gap in Irish computer science courses in the media this morning).
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Apr 22 2011
OK – I admit that the title of this blog post is a bit dramatic! I am of course referring to the fact that Amazon‘s cloud infrastructure was out for several hours yesterday. See Amazon fault takes down websites or Amazon cloud sinks, smothers Web 2.0 darlings.
It is a pity really, because this is the sort of incident that moving into the cloud is supposed to prevent! As somebody I know who deals with Amazon said:
Amazon keep promising us 100% reliability, because “Telcos’ five 9s are so yesterday”!
Yes – this has effected his companies cloud strategy!
Apr 09 2011
I heard a term for a new type of cloud computing during the week:
I remembered that I had listed the different types of Cloud Computing before on my blog, so I found the article: Cloud Computing in 2009. The amazing thing about this article is that I published it in January 2009!
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Apr 06 2011
I read an interesting news release last week from Amazon Web Services (AWS), but for some reason I forgot to add it here :o
Anyway, the article announced that Amazon will soon allow customers to run their machine instances on dedicated hardware within the cloud. For more information see Amazon VPC Adds Dedicated Instances and Amazon EC2 Dedicated Instances.
This is an interesting development, because it moves the machine instances slightly away from the original spirit of the cloud. However, it does enable Amazon to compete with other existing cloud providers who were offering dedicated hardware (unfortunately, I cannot remember their names).
Mar 21 2011
Amazon, Microsoft, and many more see Dublin as an ideal location for their data centres according to Dublin Emerges as Cloud Computing Hub.
Some of the linked articles are also very interesting, such as Colocation Dublin that lists all of the data centres in the Dublin area.
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Feb 08 2011
It is election time in Ireland at the moment, but I am not going to discuss politics. However, I can still write about the political manifestos as long as they relate to technology. The policies that caught my attention today come from the Irish Green Party, and they are contained in We will recover if we play to our strengths.
The first interesting policy is:
Transfer all public services to cloud computing
This really makes me wonder if the author understands what cloud computing means! “Public Services” in the election context generally means tangible services that are available to the public, such as policing, health, and education. I am unclear how health care will be provided by cloud computing :D
Seriously, is it meant that all government computing will be performed in the cloud? This raises many interesting questions:
If I was a cloud provider, I would probably be very excited about the opportunities here (as long as I ignore the political opinion polls).
Another policy that caught my attention is:
Invest €70m in web training for 20,000 unemployed people who can then work to web-enable Irish business
Hmmm… I think that I would instead focus on improving the take-up of science and computing for those already in education at all levels.
Provide access for the private sector to Government data
Interesting… Was the Green Party not involved in curtailing Freedom of Information rights during the last few years?
Finally, the last policy that caught my attention is:
Roll out ultra fast broadband Exemplar network nationwide
The Exemplar network is very exciting (see Exemplar Network), but I do not think that it is ready for a nation-wide commercial deployment yet. Also, I do not think that this would be the best usage of this technology.
I think that the cynics will wonder why the Green Party did not do these wonderful things during its time in power :|
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