Infrastructure Expert at Cloud Counselage Inc. (www.cloudcounselage.com)
Consultant
Dec 9, 2014
Hi Henry,
I would suggest not to zero in on Rackspace/AWS until you try VMware vCloud Air offerings. Its the latest buzzword in the Public IaaS Cloud space. Its the new market leader and known for its reliable, secure and their most robust technology in Virtualization and hence Cloud space in the market. VMware's Cloud technology is built on the most robust and reliable foundation of VMware vSphere suite of products. VMware have created their own niche in the Virtualization and Cloud markets over the years.
Follow the below link to find out "Why VMware vCloud Air better than Azure and AWS clouds"? and "Why is vCloud Air 35% Cheaper Than Azure and 83% Cheaper Than AWS?"
Moreover, its Cloud Management and Automation platforms and suite of products like vCloud Automation Center, vCenter Operations Manager etc. are the class apartand much more advanced than its competitors. Also known with an umbrella name of 'VMware vRealize' suite, vRealize suite features Automated Delivery, Intelligent Operations, Business Insight, Unified Management for vendor neutral Private, Public and hybrid Clouds and also for vendor neutral Physical, Virtual (Hypervisors) Infrastructures. Refer to the below link for more details.
Rackspace offers good services for a good price.
I used Rackspace for a test environment I started to created in two years ago. (Link Listed Below)
www.itcentralstation.com/articles/new-elevation-of-understanding-cloud-based-services I was very satisfied with their support and service levels. The problems I experienced was there was no interoperability tools between using or switching from one vendor or another. This climate is now starting to change on this business model. Even with an open standard on cloud APIs not all vendors would use the entire set , only parts of the API set would be available from each vendor. If your business model is based on using only one provider then Rackspace would be a good choice.
As cloud computing evolves, the integration of cloud services can be too complex for cloud consumers to manage. A cloud consumer may request cloud services from a cloud broker, instead of contacting a cloud provider directly. A cloud broker is an entity that manages the use, performance, and delivery of cloud services and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and cloud consumers. I do think this is the new skill set of the future that I'm actively pursuing. Perhaps I can get some capital ventures on this business model.
The magic quadrant on Cloud Services that Garter, Forrester Research etc. publish for a 'small' fee will give you a good high level answer to your second question. Though I guess this probably isn't the answer you're after. (Also the story the research companies tell is more about pros/cons of AWS vs. other vendors also worth mentioning :-)
To give you some more specific advice about the project that you would like to take to the cloud, it depends very much what's in scope and what are your stakeholders' objectives.
Maybe you want to spend a couple of hours with a Senior Cloud Architect to flesh out a more detailed set of questions to consider and/or interpret that magic quadrant for you.
To get back to your first question for what it's worth Cloud Computing Services is a relatively immature and quickly evolving industry (though there's probably a more diplomatically correct term for that). It's a similar situation like with home computers in the late 80s when there still were many vendors, or at a more mature stage IBM vs Microsoft, Sun, etc. around the turn of the century and it isn't 100% clear who will be around in 5 to 10 years time or in what form.
So if you plan to stick around for the long term it may be more important to design a technology architecture that you can migrate when you have to or want to, rather than pick the best vendor today.
NB I'd be keen to hear about your experience with AWS vs Azure!
You point out Rackspace as a leader for IaaS. In my eyes this is not true in all points. For our customers and myself it would stick to the following:
Rackspace Public Cloud is a developer-centric offering, and has appealed primarily to small businesses seeking a replacement for low-cost mass-market hosting. Although Rackspace now delivers a solid set of basic features, it has not been able to keep up with the pace of innovation of the market leaders, nor maintain a competitive price. Rackspace is refocusing its business upon customers that need expert managed services for mission-critical needs, rather than trying to compete directly for self-managed cloud IaaS against hyperscale providers that can rapidly deliver innovative capabilities at very low cost, or against established IT vendors that have much greater resources and global sales reach.
Rackspace is focused on a hybrid cloud strategy, for customers who want managed cloud infrastructure both in their internal data centers and in Rackspace data centers. Increasingly, it will compete against large IT outsourcers that are moving down-market with lighter-weight managed services offerings that use the customer's choice of a best-in-class cloud IaaS offering and are facilitated by inexpensive, offshore labor.
Rackspace has made many cloud-related acquisitions, in order to enhance its cloud capabilities and rapidly expand the number of developers it employs. However, Rackspace has not integrated these acquisitions into a cohesive whole. Many of these acquisitions actually can manage or operate with multiple cloud IaaS providers. While this potentially positions Rackspace for future multicloud management, and enables it to take advantage of the growth of competitors, it does not create a compelling value proposition for using Rackspace's own cloud IaaS offerings.
www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do
Q) Would you please share your take on Cloud Computing & Cloud Services?
Ans) Cloud Services is Consumer and Business products, services and
solutions that are delivered and consumed in real-time over the Internet
Features like
1) Offsite, provided by third-party provider
2) Accessed via the Internet
3) Minimal/no IT skills to “implement”
4) Provisioning - self-service requesting, near real-time deployment,
dynamic & fine-grained scaling.
5) Pricing - fine-grained & usage-based pricing capability.
6) User Interface - browser & successors.
7) System Interface - Web services APIs, providing a standards-based
framework for accessing and integrating with and among cloud
services
8) Shared resources/common versions - the shared asset approach improves
supplier and customer economics
Cloud Computing is an emerging IT development, deployment and delivery
model, enabling real-time delivery of products, services and solutions over
the Internet (i.e., enabling cloud services)
Features like
1) Infrastructure systems (e.g., servers, storage, networks)
2) Application software that provides web-based UIs, web services APIs,
multi-tenant architecture and a rich variety of configuration
options.
3) Application development and deployment software
4) System and application management software
5) IP Networks that connect end users to “the cloud” and the infrastructure
components of the cloud to each other
6) For all of the above, pricing agreements for cloud services providers
that scale technology costs with their cloud services
volumes/revenues.
Q) What are pro/cons of Rackspace vs. the other leading vendors in this hot
field?
Ans) Please check our company website blog link given below, where in I
have compared the top three cloud providers.
Rackspace is a listed company that specializes in hybrid cloud environments to support your applications and sites. The environments are based on its open-source operating system OpenStack.Rackspace Cloud caters for the private cloud, public cloud, dedicated servers, or a hybrid of platforms. Your Rackspace Cloud environment is customizable according to your cloud requirements, and all products work together seamlessly from one portal.
![Rackspace Cloud [EOL] Logo](https://images.peerspot.com/image/upload/c_scale,dpr_3.0,f_auto,q_100,w_40/ccvicnzhidaxbstv5llojhm0fhda.jpg?_a=BACAGSGT){kind=small}
As I had said in advance, You are welcome :) Cheers!
Cool Tushar,
Let me check out vCloud:>)
Thanks
Henry
Hi Henry,
I would suggest not to zero in on Rackspace/AWS until you try VMware vCloud Air offerings. Its the latest buzzword in the Public IaaS Cloud space. Its the new market leader and known for its reliable, secure and their most robust technology in Virtualization and hence Cloud space in the market. VMware's Cloud technology is built on the most robust and reliable foundation of VMware vSphere suite of products. VMware have created their own niche in the Virtualization and Cloud markets over the years.
Follow the below link to find out "Why VMware vCloud Air better than Azure and AWS clouds"? and "Why is vCloud Air 35% Cheaper Than Azure and 83% Cheaper Than AWS?"
blogs.vmware.com/vcloud/2014/08/vcloud-hybrid-service-35-cheaper-azure-83-cheaper-aws.html
Moreover, its Cloud Management and Automation platforms and suite of products like vCloud Automation Center, vCenter Operations Manager etc. are the class apartand much more advanced than its competitors. Also known with an umbrella name of 'VMware vRealize' suite, vRealize suite features Automated Delivery, Intelligent Operations, Business Insight, Unified Management for vendor neutral Private, Public and hybrid Clouds and also for vendor neutral Physical, Virtual (Hypervisors) Infrastructures. Refer to the below link for more details.
blogs.vmware.com/tribalknowledge/2014/08/vmworld-2014-introducing-vmware-vrealize-suite-cloud-management-platform.html
Your are welcome. Cheers!
Download my presentation on slideshare on this subject.. www.slideshare.net/katiyarsaurabh/cloud-conversation-amazon-vs-rack-space
Saluting William Kosinetz, Martin E, Benjamin Hermann + Rama Rao,
Thanks again for your sound advises.
Happy Holidays.
Henry
Rackspace offers good services for a good price.
I used Rackspace for a test environment I started to created in two years ago. (Link Listed Below)
www.itcentralstation.com/articles/new-elevation-of-understanding-cloud-based-services
I was very satisfied with their support and service levels. The problems I experienced was there was no interoperability tools between using or switching from one vendor or another. This climate is now starting to change on this business model. Even with an open standard on cloud APIs not all vendors would use the entire set , only parts of the API set would be available from each vendor. If your business model is based on using only one provider then Rackspace would be a good choice.
As cloud computing evolves, the integration of cloud services can be too complex for cloud consumers to manage. A cloud consumer may request cloud services from a cloud broker, instead of contacting a cloud provider directly. A cloud broker is an entity that manages the use, performance, and delivery of cloud services and negotiates relationships between cloud providers and cloud consumers. I do think this is the new skill set of the future that I'm actively pursuing. Perhaps I can get some capital ventures on this business model.
Hi Henry
The magic quadrant on Cloud Services that Garter, Forrester Research etc. publish for a 'small' fee will give you a good high level answer to your second question. Though I guess this probably isn't the answer you're after. (Also the story the research companies tell is more about pros/cons of AWS vs. other vendors also worth mentioning :-)
To give you some more specific advice about the project that you would like to take to the cloud, it depends very much what's in scope and what are your stakeholders' objectives.
Maybe you want to spend a couple of hours with a Senior Cloud Architect to flesh out a more detailed set of questions to consider and/or interpret that magic quadrant for you.
To get back to your first question for what it's worth Cloud Computing Services is a relatively immature and quickly evolving industry (though there's probably a more diplomatically correct term for that). It's a similar situation like with home computers in the late 80s when there still were many vendors, or at a more mature stage IBM vs Microsoft, Sun, etc. around the turn of the century and it isn't 100% clear who will be around in 5 to 10 years time or in what form.
So if you plan to stick around for the long term it may be more important to design a technology architecture that you can migrate when you have to or want to, rather than pick the best vendor today.
NB I'd be keen to hear about your experience with AWS vs Azure!
You point out Rackspace as a leader for IaaS. In my eyes this is not true in all points. For our customers and myself it would stick to the following:
Rackspace Public Cloud is a developer-centric offering, and has appealed primarily to small businesses seeking a replacement for low-cost mass-market hosting. Although Rackspace now delivers a solid set of basic features, it has not been able to keep up with the pace of innovation of the market leaders, nor maintain a competitive price. Rackspace is refocusing its business upon customers that need expert managed services for mission-critical needs, rather than trying to compete directly for self-managed cloud IaaS against hyperscale providers that can rapidly deliver innovative capabilities at very low cost, or against established IT vendors that have much greater resources and global sales reach.
Rackspace is focused on a hybrid cloud strategy, for customers who want managed cloud infrastructure both in their internal data centers and in Rackspace data centers. Increasingly, it will compete against large IT outsourcers that are moving down-market with lighter-weight managed services offerings that use the customer's choice of a best-in-class cloud IaaS offering and are facilitated by inexpensive, offshore labor.
Rackspace has made many cloud-related acquisitions, in order to enhance its cloud capabilities and rapidly expand the number of developers it employs. However, Rackspace has not integrated these acquisitions into a cohesive whole. Many of these acquisitions actually can manage or operate with multiple cloud IaaS providers. While this potentially positions Rackspace for future multicloud management, and enables it to take advantage of the growth of competitors, it does not create a compelling value proposition for using Rackspace's own cloud IaaS offerings.
www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do
Hi,
Please find my response as below:
Q) Would you please share your take on Cloud Computing & Cloud Services?
Ans) Cloud Services is Consumer and Business products, services and
solutions that are delivered and consumed in real-time over the Internet
Features like
1) Offsite, provided by third-party provider
2) Accessed via the Internet
3) Minimal/no IT skills to “implement”
4) Provisioning - self-service requesting, near real-time deployment,
dynamic & fine-grained scaling.
5) Pricing - fine-grained & usage-based pricing capability.
6) User Interface - browser & successors.
7) System Interface - Web services APIs, providing a standards-based
framework for accessing and integrating with and among cloud
services
8) Shared resources/common versions - the shared asset approach improves
supplier and customer economics
Cloud Computing is an emerging IT development, deployment and delivery
model, enabling real-time delivery of products, services and solutions over
the Internet (i.e., enabling cloud services)
Features like
1) Infrastructure systems (e.g., servers, storage, networks)
2) Application software that provides web-based UIs, web services APIs,
multi-tenant architecture and a rich variety of configuration
options.
3) Application development and deployment software
4) System and application management software
5) IP Networks that connect end users to “the cloud” and the infrastructure
components of the cloud to each other
6) For all of the above, pricing agreements for cloud services providers
that scale technology costs with their cloud services
volumes/revenues.
Q) What are pro/cons of Rackspace vs. the other leading vendors in this hot
field?
Ans) Please check our company website blog link given below, where in I
have compared the top three cloud providers.
www.exelanz.com/2014/10/cloud-services-top-3-cloud-computing-providers-comparison-chart-2/
Let me know if you have any queries.