Ernest de Leon

One of the things that drives datacenter architects and engineers absolutely mad is that networking is still a second-class citizen overall. While server processor speeds, number of cores, memory density and speed, hard drive size and other pieces of the infrastructure have increased dramatically over the years, networking has moved at a comparatively glacial pace. Before the modern push for Cloud Computing, this was a minor annoyance, only seen at certain junctions where large amounts of data needed to be sync'd across long distances. The Cloud, however, has brought this issue to the forefront of engineers' minds. If the Cloud is the heart of an infrastructure, the network is the blood vessels. Instead of substantive arteries and veins, however, we are working with capillaries. If we compare the progress of disk sizes over the last decade from megabytes to terabyt... (more)

Tim Cook named new CEO of Apple as Steve Jobs becomes Chairman of the Board

Apple's official press release has named Tim Cook as successor to Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. Tim has some very large shoes to fill, but I am confident that if Steve feels Tim can do the job well (as he personally stated in his resignation letter) then Tim will do fine. There are a myriad of new product launches coming very soon such as the iPhone 5 and iPad 3, so it will be interesting to see how Tim handles these launches. Of most importance to stock holders, there was a succession plan that is to be executed immediately so as not to allow a vacuum to form in the leadership of ... (more)

Cloud in a Box Brings Power and Simplicity to the Private Cloud

When companies make their first inquiry into the cloud, they are trying to solve some common problems with traditional IT. Traditional IT is complex; both in terms of management and in terms of procurement. Traditional IT is slow. It can take months to take a product to market. Traditional IT is also expensive in terms of project turn around time, power, cooling and the plethora of hardware devices (from servers to load balancers) needed to remain operational. Every CIO and IT manager will tell you that traditional IT can be a huge headache. In discussions I have had with many C... (more)

Amazon Silk brings the power of the Cloud to the new Amazon Fire Tablet

Just a few days ago, Amazon announced the release of their new Kindle Fire tablet. Before I delve into a few features of the new tablet, I must say that this is a bold step by Amazon, if not necessary, and one that will attempt to disrupt the tablet market while challenging the Apple iPad at the same time. It's no secret that the iPad, from Apple, rules the tablet market today. At the keynote that was held today for the new iPhone 4S release, some statistics were also released about the iPad. The iPad (both current models) have sold more than a quarter billion units world wide. Ye... (more)

Why Defining ‘Cloud Computing’ Is Important

It seems like every major vendor out there from hardware to software has a different definition of what cloud computing is. I’ve dabbled a little with the definition on here before, but it still seems like there is a general lack of consensus when it comes to definition. With that said, does the definition matter much? Isn’t the business value of the cloud more important than the strict definition? Of course the value is more important, but the definition can have implications with respect to understanding and quantifying that value for your business. 4th International Cloud Comp... (more)