
orchestrate.io CEO Antony Falco dissects the database industry
Portland-based Orchestrate (orchestrate.io) rolls out its commercial NoSQL offering today, claiming to significantly decrease the time, cost and complexity of putting cloud-based data to work. I took the chance to speak with co-founder and CEO (and former Basho co-founder) Antony Falco, to learn more about the company and the problems it’s seeking to address. Our...
![[Some of] what you need to know about the cloud for 2013 [Some of] what you need to know about the cloud for 2013](https://149351417.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/342289398_ddfd22d1a5_z-290x290.jpg)
[Some of] what you need to know about the cloud for 2013
Towards the end of last year, David Linthicum and I joined GigaOM’s Adam Lesser on a skype chat to take a look back at cloud successes and failures in 2012, and forward to cloud opportunities in 2013. GigaOM released the conversation as a podcast this morning. Amazon, Rackspace, Google, OpenStack, DropBox, and more get a...

Big Data as Core, Big Data as Context, and Big Data as Buzzword Bingo
It’s neither particularly newsworthy nor insightful to suggest that ‘Big Data’ gets everywhere these days, but two recent items reminded me of the gulf between credible execution of a big data play and the more questionable tacking of the big data meme onto an otherwise useful product. Christmas is coming. Which means skating, and pantomimes...

When did Amazon abandon Main Street for ‘the Skyscrapers of Cloud Hosting’ ?
In the competitive world of cloud-based computing infrastructure, Amazon remains top dog. It’s highly visible, its footprint is almost global, it incrementally adds features or cuts prices to keep competitors on their toes, and it generally manages to meet most people’s needs, most of the time. It may not always offer the lowest prices, or...

Solar power in the data centre – solution or window dressing?
Most of us recognise that the Earth is warming and that — despite our planet’s temperatures having dramatically risen and fallen before — we humans must accept some measure of responsibility for the current changes. Already consuming at least 1.1-1.5% of global power, and only forecast to grow ever-more rapacious, the data centres that power our information...
Strata Conference 2011, Day 2 Keynotes
Day 2, and after yesterday’s tutorials the conference is really getting going. Here’s a stream of consciousness from the morning’s keynotes at this sold-out event.
In a world of niche Clouds, how do you define a useful niche?
There are a couple of interesting posts on the blog of the UK’s FLESSR project, detailing their efforts to work out how feasible it might be to offer a new Cloud service to universities. More on that in a moment. I don’t think I’ve ever really been convinced by the argument that everything will end...
Repositories in the Cloud? Why on earth not?!
To be honest, I’ve never fully understood Higher Education’s penchant for building ‘institutional repositories.’ These frequently under-populated aggregations of academic papers produced by ‘research active’ employees of a particular university appear aligned almost exclusively to vaguely expressed institutional imperatives, and seem largely unrelated to either the selfish aspirations of the contributing authors or the tangible...
Sun, IBM, and the value of a comprehensive proposition
Image via Wikipedia Twitter is aflutter once again this morning, this time over a Wall Street Journal suggestion that ‘IBM in talks to buy Sun.’ I am not able to comment on the veracity of the rumour itself, but it’s clear that Sun needs to do something in order to strengthen its position in a...
My podcast conversation about Cloud Computing with Nick Carr
Nick Carr’s most recent book, The Big Switch [UK, US], was published in January of 2008. Whether by luck or judgement, he caught the meme of the moment and became closely associated with growing interest in the notion of ‘Cloud Computing‘ throughout last year. The paperback edition of Nick’s book has just been published, and...