AT&T's Vapor
Reuven Cohen
announced today that they too are going to be entering the "cloud
computing" market with a cloud of their very own. The press release
was light on details other then their intent to enter the market.
Verizon has also stated they plan on offering cloud services and have
partnered with Desktone to offer cloud desktops to their customers.
BT, FT, and DT in Europe all have cloud projects in the works as well
as China Telecom. Seems the telecom biz is quickly becoming a poster
child for cloud computing. Which is great given their regionalized
positions.
Regardless of whether or not AT&T offers anything of substance, the
release can only help maintain a level of cloud hype already in full
effect. Having the ability to geographically scale will be made a lot
easier if every country's telecom provider offers localized cloud
services. So for this reason alone I'm very excited by the various
announcements.
More details:
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSBNG2305620080805
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Reuven Cohen
Founder & Chief Technologist, Enomaly Inc.
blog > www.elasticvapor.com
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Get Linked in> http://linkedin.com/pub/0/b72/7b4
Cameron
something and it's vapor. Amazon goes down for hours or days and
people jump to defend them and avoid using terms like "accountable" or
"responsible". Please be aware that this forum's credibility declines
in direct proportion to this type of behavior ..
p.s. not that I expect this to get posted, since it's a moderated
forum (how inane!) and other non-supportive messages got blocked ..
Peace,
Cameron Purdy | Oracle
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/coherence/index.html
Khazret Sapenov
Reuven Cohen
> something and it's vapor. Amazon goes down for hours or days and
> people jump to defend them and avoid using terms like "accountable" or
> "responsible". Please be aware that this forum's credibility declines
> in direct proportion to this type of behavior ..
>
> p.s. not that I expect this to get posted, since it's a moderated
> forum (how inane!) and other non-supportive messages got blocked ..
>
> Peace,
>
> Cameron Purdy | Oracle
> http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/coherence/index.html
I think you miss the point of the post. A PR release is meaningless
with no detail to what they're actually doing, how they're going to do
it, what it will cost etc. My posts are my based on my particular
point of view and are therefore "VERY bias". Anyone who disagrees is
free to express their point of view. All I'm trying to do is
stimulate discussion of various topics (with a catchy subject line).
Cameron
Moshref
Chris Steel
subjectivity, but after reading the press release, you have to agree
that it is in fact vapor at this point. I hope AT&T brings a strong
product to the market to compete against Amazon. But it looks like it
is going to be a while.
-Chris
Sent from my iPhone
Khazret Sapenov
AT&T has become the latest company to launch a cloud computing service with its launch of Synaptic Hosting. The service provides pay-as-you-go access to managed hosting, providing computing, storage, security, and networking on an as-needed basis.
In 2006, AT&T purchased USinternetworking, an application service provider offering managed hosting of enterprise applications like PeopleSoft and SAP. Synaptic Hosting combines this technology with AT&T's 38 global data centers. The company will upgrade five of its data centers into "super data centers"—three in the US, one each in Singapore and Amsterdam—to provide the infrastructure for large-scale computing applications.
Synaptic Hosting builds on virtualization technology. Customers will get a virtual environment with storage, operating system, network connectivity, a certain amount of processing power and memory, with management and monitoring facilities from AT&T. This virtual environment will be burstable so that it can get access to more resources as required. As well as the basic system infrastructure, Synaptic Hosting also offers management of applications like web servers and database servers, including configuration, patching, and other maintenance. And if customers have specific needs, dedicated hardware is also available. Synaptic Hosting, therefore, offers the benefits of cloud computing—ease of scaling, broad application support—with the hands-off convenience of software-as-a-service.
The target customers are those with variable capacity demands; for example, online retailers that have a Christmas rush, or the US Olympic team website (which uses Synaptic Hosting today). This variable demand is one of the big motivators behind the idea of cloud/utility computing; it allows businesses to satisfy their peak demand without having huge amounts of excess capacity during quiet periods. When a site only sees a lot of traffic for two weeks in every four years, this is a very valuable feature.
AT&T is describing Synaptic Hosting as enterprise-class; unlike services like Amazon's EC2 and S3, Synaptic Hosting offers service-level agreements, rapid support, and management of off-the-shelf applications, and the company believes that this enterprise-level support sets AT&T's cloud computing capabilities apart from anything else on the market. AT&T's objective is to provide a cloud platform suitable for the enterprise, and Synaptic Hosting's combination of the provision of the full stack (computing, storage, networking, operating system, and perhaps applications) along with service guarantees is the company's first step towards that. For customers bitten by Amazon S3's recent outage, the greater guarantees of AT&T's system may be very appealing.
This move by AT&T shows that the cloud computing market, although still young, is maturing fast. Using utility computing to provide IT infrastructure is still only a small market—some 5 percent of all data center outsourcing, according to a recent Gartner report—but it's one that's already worth $5 billion. With the availability of enterprise-ready solutions, this is an area sure to see further growth.
sources:
http://www.business.att.com/enterprise/Family/eb_hosting_storage_and_it/synaptic-hosting-enterprise/
Dan Kearns
I'm still not seeing the cloud aspect. It sounds like an old school hosting outfit which has moved to virtualization (I'm failing to see how that benefits their customers unless it affects the pricing). Traditional SLAs and "enterprise class" support aren't uncommon in that space, and companies could have moved to that anytime in the last decade (and mostly didn't - have the reasons changed?).
Is there any sign of an API for provisioning new resources?
Stuff that pops out at me:
- I like the little graphic labeled "accelerators" - that sounds cool, where do I get me some of those?
- "Utility print services" sounds like really useful cloud service which I wish existed stand-alone.
- "Utility ldap directory services" sounds really frightening, especially coming from att.
- CDN-as-a-service would be a really useful feature as well, though it doesn't look to be integrated (if the whole thing is vapor anyway and you already offer the service separately, why not slap another icon in there so we can imagine the day when it does exist?).
Khazret Sapenov
I'm still not seeing the cloud aspect. It sounds like an old school hosting outfit which has moved to virtualization (I'm failing to see how that benefits their customers unless it affects the pricing). Traditional SLAs and "enterprise class" support aren't uncommon in that space, and companies could have moved to that anytime in the last decade (and mostly didn't - have the reasons changed?).
Is there any sign of an API for provisioning new resources?
Stuff that pops out at me:
-d
- I like the little graphic labeled "accelerators" - that sounds cool, where do I get me some of those?
- "Utility print services" sounds like really useful cloud service which I wish existed stand-alone.
- "Utility ldap directory services" sounds really frightening, especially coming from att.
- CDN-as-a-service would be a really useful feature as well, though it doesn't look to be integrated (if the whole thing is vapor anyway and you already offer the service separately, why not slap another icon in there so we can imagine the day when it does exist?).
Kevin L Jackson
(From Cloud Musings (http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-
important-point-for-federal.html) on August 7th)
3 Important Point for Federal Government Cloud Computing
Point 1: In May, Verizon and AT&T were awarded a DHS task order for
just under $1B to provide telecommunications services to the
department. Verizon won the lead provider’s spot and a lion’s share of
the contract: $678.5 million over 10 years. (See Verizon Nabs Networx
Deal and AT&T Wins DHS Deal.)
Point 2: AT&T has entered the cloud computing market with the
worldwide launch of a service called AT&T Synaptic Hosting. This
follows Verizon's cloud-computing service anouncement in June. That
service is set to launch in early 2009.
Point 3: According to Federal Computer Week, GSA released the Trusted
Internet Connections (TIC) Statement of Work to Networx vendors on
July 17, 2008. According to INPUT:
"The General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service
(FAS) Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS), in coordination
with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Cyber Security
Division (NCSD), may have a requirement for aid in the implementation
of Trusted Internet Connections (TIC)."
Award is scheduled in November.
On Aug 6, 2:01 pm, "Khazret Sapenov" <sape...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 1:49 PM, Dan Kearns <d...@thekearns.org> wrote:
>
> > I'm still not seeing the cloud aspect. It sounds like an old school hosting
> > outfit which has moved to virtualization (I'm failing to see how that
> > benefits their customers unless it affects the pricing). Traditional SLAs
> > and "enterprise class" support aren't uncommon in that space, and companies
> > could have moved to that anytime in the last decade (and mostly didn't -
> > have the reasons changed?).
>
> > Is there any sign of an API for provisioning new resources?
>
> > Stuff that pops out at me:
>
> > especially coming from att.
> > - CDN-as-a-service would be a really useful feature as well, though it
> > already offer the service separately, why not slap another icon in there so
> > we can imagine the day when it does exist?).
>
> > -d
>
> I agree, it is not clear enough to qualify as true cloud.
> Also I don't see magic button 'Buy/Sign Up Now' for Synaptic Hosting
> *structure
>
> - Show quoted text -
Khazret Sapenov
My view?
(From Cloud Musings (http://kevinljackson.blogspot.com/2008/08/3-
important-point-for-federal.html) on August 7th)
3 Important Point for Federal Government Cloud Computing
Point 1: In May, Verizon and AT&T were awarded a DHS task order for
just under $1B to provide telecommunications services to the
department. Verizon won the lead provider's spot and a lion's share of
the contract: $678.5 million over 10 years. (See Verizon Nabs Networx
Deal and AT&T Wins DHS Deal.)
Point 2: AT&T has entered the cloud computing market with the
worldwide launch of a service called AT&T Synaptic Hosting. This
follows Verizon's cloud-computing service anouncement in June. That
service is set to launch in early 2009.
Point 3: According to Federal Computer Week, GSA released the Trusted
Internet Connections (TIC) Statement of Work to Networx vendors on
July 17, 2008. According to INPUT:
"The General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service
(FAS) Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS), in coordination
with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Cyber Security
Division (NCSD), may have a requirement for aid in the implementation
of Trusted Internet Connections (TIC)."
Award is scheduled in November.