Using Microsoft Azure Table Service REST API to collect data samples

Sometimes we need a simple solution that requires collecting data from multiple sources. The sources of data can be IoT devices or systems working on different platforms and in different places. Traditionally, integrators start thinking about implementation of a custom centralised REST API with some database repository. This solution can take days to implement and test, it is very expensive and requires hosting, maintenance, and support. However, in many cases, it is not needed at all.… [Keep reading] “Using Microsoft Azure Table Service REST API to collect data samples”

Cloud Strategy – do you need one?

Today’s organisations demand that their services perform better, cost less, are more reliable and offer greater flexibility than ever before. With high quality and quickly evolving consumer technologies, the expectation of IT services in the workplace is that they now reflect the same calibre of tools available to people outside of the office.

With common perceptions that business IT capabilities are too far behind, many departments look to acquire and provision cloud services themselves, without involving the IT organisation.… [Keep reading] “Cloud Strategy – do you need one?”

Do It Yourself Cloud Accelerator

This intro is unashamedly lifted from a Microsoft article but I couldn’t say it any better: “The cloud has enormous potential to reduce operational expenses and achieve new levels of scale, but moving workloads away from the people who depend on them can increase networking costs and hurt productivity. Users expect high performance and don’t care where their applications and data are hosted” Cloud is a journey, to get there takes more than just migrating your workloads to the cloud.[Keep reading] “Do It Yourself Cloud Accelerator”

Are My Cloud Services Vulnerable to “Heartbleed”?

I have been receiving questions from a number of customers about the “Heartbleed” vulnerability that has been widely reported by the media.  Many customers are concerned as to whether they are at risk by using cloud services from Microsoft and other providers.  There a reasonable concern with any IT service when it comes to security.  Your provider should be able to answer simple questions about whether a service is vulnerable or not to Heartbleed and what steps are being taken to mitigate the risk.… [Keep reading] “Are My Cloud Services Vulnerable to “Heartbleed”?”

Why You Should Move Your IT to the Cloud

​Cloud Computing is a revolutionizing the way IT is delivered.  Today, business of all sizes rely on IT to operate effectively.  IT is mission critical.  Unfortunately, very few enterprises can afford the operational costs required to deliver a highly available IT environment.

The Cloud is changing the economics of delivering IT.  Now, businesses of all sizes can subscribe to a highly reliable, elastic, cloud service for a fraction of the cost of running the infrastructure on premises. … [Keep reading] “Why You Should Move Your IT to the Cloud”

Simulate moving to the Cloud with NEWT

I’ve blogged a bit in the past about the unique challenges encountered when moving to the cloud and the unavoidable consequence of introducing new network hops when moving workloads out of the data centre. I’m currently working for a unique organisation in the mining industry who are quite aggressively pursuing cost saving initiatives and have seen cloud as one of the potential savings. The uniqueness of the IT operating environment comes from the dispersed and challenging “branch offices” which may lie at the end of a long dedicated wired, microwave or satellite link

Centralising IT services to a data centre in Singapore is all very well if you’re office is on a well serviced broadband Internet link but what of these other data centres with more challenged connectivity.… [Keep reading] “Simulate moving to the Cloud with NEWT”

Ideal Workloads for Cloud

Working in the fast changing world of IT, sometimes is good to stop, take a breather and reflect on where we are and how we got here. Cloud computing is certainly no exception and has had an enormous amount of hype over the past 5 years, but has it lived up to the promise?

Looking Back

I and many others at PDC 2008 listened to the announcement of Azure and the follow up communications as Microsoft went “all in” on the cloud.… [Keep reading] “Ideal Workloads for Cloud”

Latency, Caching and Cloud

Q: What is the one unavoidable issue when moving services to the cloud?

Security? Reliability? Ownership? Performance? Nope

A: Latency!

Physics 101

Latency is the amount of time required to communicate between one point and another and is limited by the speed of light. Using high school physics and geography:

Circumference of planet: 40,000km
Longest distance point to point: 20,000km
Speed of Light: 300,000 km/s
Send time: 66mS
Ping time (send and reply): 133mS
That is the theoretical minimum for sending a message to the other side of the planet and getting an answer.… [Keep reading] “Latency, Caching and Cloud”

Cloud Revolution – The Blind Entrepreneur

[Following from Cloud Revolution]

Profitable since the first quarter, 375 million page views per month, $4 million in annual revenue, 75 employees and $30 million in venture funding. Certainly sounds like a successful business, and it is.

I Can Has Cheezburger has leveraged the initial success of that hit web site by launching hundreds of other similar but slightly different sites based on the original. Many of these sites fail to attract traffic and are shut down within weeks, but every now and then one works, like “Fail Blog” or “Totally looks like“.… [Keep reading] “Cloud Revolution – The Blind Entrepreneur”

Cloud Revolution – The Late Night Scientist

[Following from Cloud Revolution]

It’s late at night in January and an email just arrived that has someone very excited. A medical student has won an auction, but this is no eBay auction, it’s an Amazon EC2 instance auction. She has been preparing for this moment for over a year and will make or break her post-doctoral research paper.

She is continuing the valuable work done by her predecessors in the field of on Parkinson’s research and its relationship to dopamine levels in the brain.… [Keep reading] “Cloud Revolution – The Late Night Scientist”