The new version of OpenStack, which will be released in Q2 of 2012, does not support Microsoft Hyper-V anymore. The developers have had enough with the buggy code.

One of the developers of OpenStack has written a patch with which the Hyper-V code and support will be removed from the cloud platform. The patch has already been approved and constitutes a part ofthe next version of OpenStack, codename Essex, which is expected to be released in Q2.

At the end of 2010 Microsoft announced that they would deliver code which would enable the use of Hyper-V in a cloud solution based on the open-source cloud platform, OpenStack. Microsoft never finished and maintained this, causing the code to be full of errors. After people in the OpenStack-forum suggested to remove the Hyper-V code, Microsoft quickly released a statement saying “Microsoft is committed to working with the community to resolve the current issues with Hyper-V and OpenStack“. However, the OpenStack developers decided not to wait until Microsoft finally fixed their code and decided to remove Hyper-V support with the new release.

OpenStack, Founded by Rackspace Hosting and NASA, is a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing the ubiquitous open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds. The project aims to deliver solutions for all types of clouds by being simple to implement, massively scalable, and feature rich. The technology consists of a series of interrelated projects delivering various components for a cloud infrastructure solution.

Yesterday VMware announced that it is ready to deliver the enterprise hybrid cloud with the availability of VMware vCloud Datacenter services.

For now this is only available from BlueLock and Colt and through beta services from Verizon.

VMware also introduced VMware vCloud Connector, a free plug-in that will allow deployment and management of virtual machines across VMware vCloud powered cloud services from within the VMware vSphere Client.

The vCloud Connector will be available for download in Q1 2011.

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Last Friday we had a session with Microsoft about ‘the Cloud’. We already heard a lot about clouds, but I must admit that both Microsoft presentations that day were refreshing.

Every cloud provider does his best to bring cloud thinking to the mind, but what exactly is ‘the Cloud’ ? There seems to be more than 76 different definitions for cloud computing.  While Googling for some background information I came across a quote from Larry Ellison (Oracle) which he did at Oracle OpenWorld:

The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we’ve redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can’t think of anything that isn’t cloud computing [..] The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women’s fashion. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It’s complete gibberish. It’s insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

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Title: Webcast: Security in the Cloud: Protecting Confidential Data in Cloud Computing Environments
Location: online
Link out: Click here
Description: Cloud computing is opening up opportunities for cost savings and increased scalability of IT infrastructure. However, security concerns can sometimes obscure these benefits. In this webcast, you will hear from the CIO of Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on a joint project using VMware and Third Brigade solutions to provide a secure, robust and cost-effective electronic health records (EHR) infrastructure in a private cloud environment supporting 200-300 independent physicians. Learn how protecting confidential data and ensuring security compliance of cloud resources can enable even greater flexibility for cloud deployments.
Start Time: 20:00
Date: 2009-03-24
End Time: 21:00

Yesterday Cisco revealed more details about their Unified Computing System. The term was announced some time ago but nobody really knew what Cisco was planning. Some people even thought that Cisco was about to take over VMware as we already talked about in this article. Luckily this is not the case and even the opposite is true.

Cisco and VMware join forces in Cisco’s Unified Computing System which will incorporate product engineering and integrated sales and support strategies for datacenter virtualization and unified computing. The resulting combination of the Cisco Unified Computing System with VMware’s virtualization platform will provide customers with access to a unique and powerful virtualized and physical computing system over an intelligent, unified network fabric.

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Still not tired I finally found the time to check out the Flickr version of Roy Tancks cloud widget. It shows photo’s from a Flickr RSS feed in the same way as it shows tags in a cloud.

Looks funny. Just hover over the photos and see them move in all directions.

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