Dmitry Sotnikov

I’ve been recently involved helping a new European start-up just launched a new Platform-as-a-Service capable of running and automatically scaling any Java application. Here’s a quick write-up on why I think Jelastic is really onto something, a service to try and a company to watch. Say, you’ve got a great Java application which you want to put on the internet and make it available to the world. Believe it or not, up until today, what sounds like a trivial task simply could not be done. You effectively had to choose between lack of scalability, necessity to manually set up and maintain the whole software stack, requirement to re-write your code to conform to a particular framework (and get locked into it thereafter), or a combination of the above. Traditional hosting simply leased you a server and had you set it up including the web server and Java stack – effective... (more)

SYS-CON's 1st International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo: Show Report

Dmitry Sotnikov's Blog Overall, very exciting times, and a great event put together by the folks at SYS-CON! There was a lot of excitement and optimism throughout the event. As someone put it: cloud computing is about 700 days old. That means that there are a lot of arguments about definitions, and where things are going, and so on. And that also gives a lot of vibe and a lot of fresh community spirit. Below are my notes from all the sessions I attended at the last week’s Cloud Computing Expo 2008 on: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 A few general comments on the conference. First and foremost,... (more)

Gartner surveys cloud backup solutions

“Dataquest Insight: Cloud-Based Server Backup Services, 2Q09 Update” by Adam W. Couture is a good feature-by-feature (including pricing) comparison of a dozen of major online backup solutions for the enterprise space. Backup might initially sound like the worst cloud application you can think of: after all it involves big data transfers and most likely the data about which you care the most – and thus for which you have the biggest security and liability concerns. Yet, backup and recovery products (and obviously migration solutions) are normally the first ones to emerge in any ne... (more)

Cloud Definitions: NIST, Gartner, Forrester

Analysts should love hype – it lets them jump into a hot area and be the thought leaders who everyone has to consult to make any sense out of what is going on in the area. “Cloud” is probably the most hyped word in the industry these days and everyone has a definition of what it is. And despite this being a running joke in the industry, everyone obviously needs definition conversion to happen so we can start speaking the same language here. U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stepped in and did – from my perspective – something truly amazing: they provided ... (more)

Attending TechEd Europe?

There are two cloud-related sessions in the “community” section of Microsoft TechEd Europe 2009 and you need to vote for them here if you are attending the conference (and obviously if you want them in the agenda). Basically, both are on cloud computing: one for developers and the other for IT professionals: Going to the Cloud: Are we crazy? Are cloud services about efficiency or negligence? About being able to outsource commodity services and concentrate on core competence or loosing control and risking getting out of compliance? Which IT services can be safely moved to the clou... (more)