Esta breve guía fue realizada mediante traducciones y algunos agregados de la página oficial de Wave de ayuda.

Espero les sea de utilidad.

Con calma y sin pausa, se va fabricando la tormenta en la inmensidad del llano cerealista. Grandes cumulus congestus y cumulonimbus calvus, de oscuras bases, se van creando y hacinando con una finalidad común, el espectáculo atmosférico, la tormenta…

Been on a longer walk with the boys again and thay have been together since we came back. (at about 11:00) Cloud is still a bit tensed but it’s getting better and better.

Later….. 

//Ninni

*****************************

Framsteg

varit på en längre tur med grabbarna grus igen och de har sedan varit tillsammans ända sen vi kom in (vid 11-tiden). Cloud är fortfarande lite spänd men det går bättre och bättre.

//Ninni

Well, I really don’t know what to say about yesterday actually. We took Cloud and Frost on a 2½ hour walk in pouring rain and it went well…REALLY well?! Cloud was a bit tensed, tail high, growled a couple of times at Frost but otherwise nothing. They walked side by side, had their heads close together when sniffing the same things etc so it went really smooth. Frost licked Clouds face at one point and Cloud accepted that as usual.

When we came home we Cloud got a little bit tensed again and “searched” for Frost but after a few minutes he relaxed and they both went to sleep in the same room. At one point Frost was lying in front of Kim and Cloud came, walked right over Frost to get some TLC from Kim, it felt great! Frost also came up to Cloud once, started licking his face and whining as always. *smile* But then I had to go to the store and when I came back something change?

Cloud got really tensed and couldn’t take his eyes from Frost, Frost on the other hand showed all the signs of submission and just wanted to lay down somewhere without having to worry about Cloud. Biggest problem is that SWH in general are not obedience champions, they learn fast and KNOW what you mean but they often do as they please. If Neddy was the one walking after Frost I could just say “No, go to bed” and she’ll do that. Our SWH’s on the other hand often do things their way instead of our way. So, to tell Cloud NO when he really wants to do something else…well…. It’s probably more effective to yell at the cat.

We had to feed the dogs, take the night walk and Annika (who helped us) had to go home. Cloud was extremely tired and at the same time very tensed and all the activities that went on probably just became too much for him. He just couldn’t relax at all so we separated them again. (I know, it’s not a good solution)

We’ll go on a walk with them both again today and give it another try. And if it doesn’t work we’ll try again..and again…and again… They do not HATE each other, don’t try to attack or anything so we still hope for the best.

//Ninni

*************************

Upp…och ned

Tja, jag vet inte riktigt vad jag skall saga om gårdagen. Vi tog ut Cloud och Frost på en 2½ timmars promenad i ösregn och det fungerade bra, MYCKET bra?! Cloud var lite spänd, hade svansen högt och morrade vid ett par tillfällen mot Frost men annars var det inget. De gick sida vid sida, hade huvudena tätt ihop när de luktade på samma saker osv så det hela avlöpte fint. Frost slickade Cloud i ansiktet vid ett tillfälle och Cloud accepterade det som vanligt.

När vi kom hem så blev Cloud lite spänd igen och började leta efter Frost med blicken men efter ett par minuter så slappnade han av och de båda somnade i samma rum. Vid ett tillfälle låg Frost framför Kim och Cloud kom gående och gick rätt över Frost för att bli klappad av Kim, kändes himla skönt. Frost gick även fram till Cloud och slickade mungipor och gnällde så som han alltid gör. *ler* Men sen var jag tvungen att gå till affären och när jag kom tillbaka så hände något?!

Cloud blev jätte spänd och kunde inte släppa Frost med blicken, Frost å andra sidan visade alla tcken på att han var minst och ville bara gå iväg och lägga sig utan att riskera att ha Cloud hängandes i röven. Största problemet med SWH överlag är att de generellt sett inte blir lydnads champions, de lär sig fort och VET vad du menar men oftast gör de som de behagar. Om Neddy hade varit den som gick efter Frost hade jag bara behövt säga ”Nej, gå och lägg dig” och så hade hon gjort det. Våra SWH däremot gör oftast som de vill istället för som vi vill. Så att säga NEJ till Cloud när han har bestämt sig för något…tja…det är förmodligen mer effektivt att gapa på katten.

Vi var tvungna att utfodra hundarna, ta kvälls turen och Annika (som var och hjälpte oss) var tvungen att åka hem. Cloud var extremt trött och samtidigt väldigt spänd så alla aktiviteter som föregick runt omkring honom kanske helt enkelt blev för mycket. Han kunde inte slappna av så vi separerade dem igen. (inte den bästa lösningen jag vet)

Vi skall ta en promenad med dem båda idag igen och se hur det avlöper. Fungerar det inte så försöker vi igen…och igen…och igen. De HATAR inte varandra, försöker inte attackera eller något sådant så vi hoppas fortfarande på det bästa.

//Ninni   

If you love Rowan Summer Tweed, you really should check out The Kasbah Collection – far superior to their first dedicated Summer Tweed book.

Honestly, isn’t the back so cute? I’m thinking I’m just going to have to walk backwards all the time now so people see it.

Pattern Cloud by Martin Storey in The Kasbah Collection
Yarn Rowan Summer Tweed
Modifications Put edging all around the neck
Thoughts I knitted the extra-small, even though I’m bigger than that and I ended up with 2 balls not used, but it is still, well, certainly not small on me. Probably about perfect. Moral: ALWAYS knit summer tweed way too small. I attached the bow with press studs so I don’t have to wash and iron it when I wash the jumper. I’m not completely fond of this yet, but I think after I wash it, Cloud and I will become closer.

Cloud computing is Internet- (“cloud-”) based development and use of computer technology (“computing”). In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer need knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. It typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet.

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and is an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it conceals. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.These applications are broadly divided into the following categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Utility Computing, Web Services, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Managed Service Providers (MSP), Service Commerce, and Internet Integration. The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that is often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.
Characteristics
In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis. Sharing “perishable and intangible” computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, “increased high-speed bandwidth” makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.
Economics
Diagram showing economics of cloud computing versus traditional IT, including capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx)Cloud computing users can avoid capital expenditure (CapEx) on hardware, software, and services when they pay a provider only for what they use. Consumption is usually billed on a utility (e.g., resources consumed, like electricity) or subscription (e.g., time-based, like a newspaper) basis with little or no upfront cost. A few cloud providers are now beginning to offer the service for a flat monthly fee as opposed to on a utility billing basis. Other benefits of this time sharing-style approach are low barriers to entry, shared infrastructure and costs, low management overhead, and immediate access to a broad range of applications. In general, users can terminate the contract at any time (thereby avoiding return on investment risk and uncertainty), and the services are often covered by service level agreements (SLAs) with financial penalties.According to Nicholas Carr, the strategic importance of information technology is diminishing as it becomes standardized and less expensive. He argues that the cloud computing paradigm shift is similar to the displacement of electricity generators by electricity grids early in the 20th century.Although companies might be able to save on upfront capital expenditures, they might not save much and might actually pay more for operating expenses. In situations where the capital expense would be relatively small, or where the organization has more flexibility in their capital budget than their operating budget, the cloud model might not make great fiscal sense. Other factors impacting the scale of any potential cost savings include the efficiency of a company’s data center as compared to the cloud vendor’s, the company’s existing operating costs, the level of adoption of cloud computing, and the type of functionality being hosted in the cloud.

Architecture

The majority of cloud computing infrastructure, as of 2009, consists of reliable services delivered through data centers and built on servers with different levels of virtualization technologies. The services are accessible anywhere that provides access to networking infrastructure. Clouds often appear as single points of access for all consumers’ computing needs. Commercial offerings are generally expected to meet quality of service (QoS) requirements of customers and typically offer SLAs. Open standards are critical to the growth of cloud computing, and open source software has provided the foundation for many cloud computing implementations.
Cloud architecture, the systems architecture of the software systems involved in the delivery of cloud computing, comprises hardware and software designed by a cloud architect who typically works for a cloud integrator. It typically involves multiple cloud components communicating with each other over application programming interfaces, usually web services.This closely resembles the Unix philosophy of having multiple programs each doing one thing well and working together over universal interfaces. Complexity is controlled and the resulting systems are more manageable than their monolithic counterparts.Cloud architecture extends to the client, where web browsers and/or software applications access cloud applications.Cloud storage architecture is loosely coupled, where metadata operations are centralized enabling the data nodes to scale into the hundreds, each independently delivering data to applications or users.
Public cloudPublic cloud or external cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned on a fine-grained, self-service basis over the Internet, via web applications/web services, from an off-site third-party provider who shares resources and bills on a fine-grained utility computing basis.

Hybrid cloudA hybrid cloud environment consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers “will be typical for most enterprises”. A hybrid cloud can describe configuration combining a local device, such as a Plug computer with cloud services. It can also describe configurations combining virtual and physical, colocated assets—for example, a mostly virtualized environment that requires physical servers, routers, or other hardware such as a network appliance acting as a firewall or spam filter.

Private cloudPrivate cloud and internal cloud are neologisms that some vendors have recently used to describe offerings that emulate cloud computing on private networks. These (typically virtualisation automation) products claim to “deliver some benefits of cloud computing without the pitfalls”, capitalising on data security, corporate governance, and reliability concerns. They have been criticized on the basis that users “still have to buy, build, and manage them” and as such do not benefit from lower up-front capital costs and less hands-on management, essentially “[lacking] the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept”.While an analyst predicted in 2008 that private cloud networks would be the future of corporate IT, there is some uncertainty whether they are a reality even within the same firm. Analysts also claim that within five years a “huge percentage” of small and medium enterprises will get most of their computing resources from external cloud computing providers as they “will not have economies of scale to make it worth staying in the IT business” or be able to afford private clouds. Analysts have reported on Platform’s view that private clouds are a stepping stone to external clouds, particularly for the financial services, and that future datacenters will look like internal clouds.The term has also been used in the logical rather than physical sense, for example in reference to platform as a service offerings, though such offerings including Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform are not available for on-premises deployment.

Key Characteristics
Agility improves with users able to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological infrastructure resources.
Cost is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational expenditure. This ostensibly lowers barriers to entry, as infrastructure is typically provided by a third-party and does not need to be purchased for one-time or infrequent intensive computing tasks.
Pricing on a utility computing basis is fine-grained with usage-based options and fewer IT skills are required for implementation (in-house).
Device and location independence enable users to access systems using a web browser regardless of their location or what device they are using (e.g., PC, mobile). As infrastructure is off-site (typically provided by a third-party) and accessed via the Internet, users can connect from anywhere.
Multi-tenancy enables sharing of resources and costs across a large pool of users thus allowing for:
Centralization of infrastructure in locations with lower costs (such as real estate, electricity, etc.)
Peak-load capacity increases (users need not engineer for highest possible load-levels)
Utilization and efficiency improvements for systems that are often only 10–20% utilized.
Reliability improves through the use of multiple redundant sites, which makes cloud computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery. Nonetheless, many major cloud computing services have suffered outages, and IT and business managers can at times do little when they are affected.
Scalability via dynamic (“on-demand”) provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads. Performance is monitored, and consistent and loosely-coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.
Security typically improves due to centralization of data, increased security-focused resources, etc., but concerns can persist about loss of control over certain sensitive data, and the lack of security for stored kernels. Security is often as good as or better than under traditional systems, in part because providers are able to devote resources to solving security issues that many customers cannot afford. Providers typically log accesses, but accessing the audit logs themselves can be difficult or impossible. Furthermore, the complexity of security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area and / or number of devices.
Sustainability comes about through improved resource utilization, more efficient systems, and carbon neutrality. Nonetheless, computers and associated infrastructure are major consumers of energy.

Layers
Clients : A cloud client consists of computer hardware and/or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or that is specifically designed for delivery of cloud services and that, in either case, is essentially useless without it. Mobile (Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile) Thin client (CherryPal, Wyse, Zonbu, gOS-based systems) Thick client / Web browser (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, WebKit)
Application : A cloud application leverages cloud computing in software architecture, often eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer’s own computer, thus alleviating the burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support.  Peer-to-peer / volunteer computing (BOINC, Skype) Web applications (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) Security as a service (MessageLabs, Purewire, ScanSafe, Zscaler) Software as a service (A2Zapps.com, Google Apps, Salesforce) Software plus services (Microsoft Online Services) Storage [Distributed] Content distribution (BitTorrent, Amazon CloudFront) Synchronisation (Dropbox, Live Mesh, SpiderOak, ZumoDrive)
Platform : A cloud platform (PaaS) delivers a computing platform and/or solution stack as a service, generally consuming cloud infrastructure and supporting cloud applications. It facilitates deployment of applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software layers.
Services Identity (OAuth, OpenID) Payments (Amazon Flexible Payments Service, Google Checkout, PayPal) Search (Alexa, Google Custom Search, Yahoo! BOSS) Real-world (Amazon Mechanical Turk)
Solution stacks Java (Google App Engine) PHP (Rackspace Cloud Sites) Python Django (Google App Engine) Ruby on Rails (Heroku) .NET (Azure Services Platform, Rackspace Cloud Sites) Proprietary (Force.com, WorkXpress, Wolf Frameworks)
Storage [Structured] Databases (Amazon SimpleDB, BigTable) File storage (Amazon S3, Nirvanix, Rackspace Cloud Files) Queues (Amazon SQS)

Servers : The servers layer consists of computer hardware and/or computer software products that are specifically designed for the delivery of cloud services. Fabric computing (Cisco UCS)
Infrastructure : Cloud infrastructure (IaaS) is the delivery of computer infrastructure, typically a platform virtualization environment, as a service. Compute (Amazon CloudWatch, RightScale) Physical machines) Virtual machines (Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Rackspace Cloud Servers) OS-level virtualisation Network (Amazon VPC) Storage [Raw] (Amazon EBS)

Site de ensino EAD – “Ensino a Distância” com diversos cursos pagos mas com um curso gratuito de Use Case.

Entendendo Casos de Uso Grátis!
Curso Online Grátis com acompanhamento de Instrutor
Fóruns, Lições, Videos, Atividades Práticas!
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Mais de 6.000 alunos inscritos no Brasil e no Exterior.

Link para o curso:

http://www.aspercom.com.br/ead/

La Fantasía Final de Square Enix esta a punto de llegar a los aparadores japoneses, 17 de Diciembre para ser mas exactos, y todo mundo esta con grandes expectativas sobre el juego, el primer juego de la serie que llega a esta generación hoy se ha lanzado el ultimo trailer del juego, para su versión japonesa en el cual podemos ver a nuevos personajes, nuevos summons y posiblemente nuevos enemigos; además de una mayor interacción entre todos los personajes y mas del gameplay. El trailer solo puede hacernos decir WOW, se ven geniales los cinemas y el video in-game no se queda a tras, todo se ve bastante fluido, pero de este lado del charco tendremos que esperar la llegada de Ligthening, Snow y Hope para conocer este nuevo universo de esta Fabulla Nova.

http://cdn-static.viddler.com/flash/simple_publisher.swf?key=6cf092ca
[Fuente: Joystiq]

Diversos cursos para quem quer aprender a programar. Cursos oferecidos:

• Banco de Dados
• Sistemas Operacionais
• Segurança
• Programação WEB
• Desenvolvimento de Aplicações Móveis
• Engenharia de Software
• Estruturas de Dados
• Introdução a Programação I e II

Curso com vídeo aula , apostila e fórum.

Acesse:

http://www.dfjug.org/DFJUG/jedi/index.jsp

In 2009, we saw a number of vendors turn their attention to addressing memory limitations in the data center.  From the Intel Nehalem processor’s integrated memory controller and ability to address more DIMMS, to Cisco and their UCS Extended Memory Blades, it seems that the core data center infrastructure providers are working hard to innovate around server memory limitations. This type of validation for the problem has been welcomed and extended by vendors like RNA networks who launched similar software-based offerings earlier this year, with broad support for leveraging server memory footprints across multiple platforms and operating systems. All of these advancements point to the realization that by combining large memory servers with unused network resources (memory), companies can reduce IT infrastructure costs and complexity and extend the life of their infrastructure investments.

Just as a desktop computer slows down when its memory gets full, limited memory prohibits the data center from operating at peak capacity.  This is a great use case for virtualization, and we expect the focus on “Memory Virtualization” to continue well into next year.  After all, who wouldn’t want to improve performance without investing in expensive hardware upgrades?  On that note, RNA networks expects demand for memory virtualization to accelerate in 2010, fueled by the following predictions.

1. Storage will Run out of Headroom

Storage is often looked at as a way to address I/O bottlenecks and  memory capacity limitations, but this approach does not address the core I/O issue  without large latency and throughput implications. Storage acceleration can only marginally improve application performance, whereas memory is 100 times faster than storage and is ‘application-aware’.  Meaning, memory operates at the application layer where it can more easily and quickly interact with active data – providing orders of magnitude increases in utilization, performance and speed. Regardless of the type of storage (spinning or SSD) or the acceleration options (NFS, storage caching), memory will remain the fastest option.

2. Data Volumes will Outpace Available Server Memory

The rate of proliferation and amount of data in the data center that must be quickly analyzed and interpreted is growing exponentially.  Memory density is not, and the density improvements available (16GB DIIMS for example) have cost implications that make them prohibitive for many applications. Methods to make data available to distributed servers are expensive in terms of programming complexity, bandwidth and IT oversight.  Not to mention the scaling issues.  As data volumes continue to grow it will outpace available memory on a server.

3. Memory as a Service in the Cloud

The success of a cloud, whether hosted or within the enterprise, hinges on its ability to ensure SLAs and keep costs down by harnessing as much utilization of the infrastructure as possible.  Tools to provision servers, storage, and I/O bandwidth are common in the cloud.  In today’s world, memory is available as a component of a server – requiring it to be provisioned and managed in concert with processor capacity. But in practice, many application workloads are either highly compute bound (requiring minimal memory) or highly IO bound (requiring minimal CPU power but access to large data spaces). Yet these two resources are tightly coupled in terms of their provisioning and management, resulting in “lumpy” allocation of resources and suboptimal utilization. Memory virtualization breaks the fixed relationship between memory and servers, giving cloud providers far more flexibility and scale. Pools of networked memory are fundamental requirements for clusters, and will be a key component of the cloud infrastructure.

4. The Concept of ‘Caching 2.0’ will Take Off

Changes in the data center landscape will give rise to a new caching model that reduces replication, enables large network-based in-memory application sets, and supports a broad range of data types and scalability.  Conventional alternatives such as adding more database nodes, expensive storage or faster processors can no longer keep data centers running effectively and efficiently.  Caching 2.0 dynamically scales as the volume of data in the enterprise increases. By applying memory virtualization across the existing infrastructure and enabling terabytes of active data to be kept in memory, companies will be well-equipped to stay ahead of the curve. We believe this memory-based application architecture will emerge over time as a foundational pattern for optimized data center operations.

The web role in windows azure is limited to 2 instance only. We can configure the instance count only upto 2 in CTP, when it exceeds more than 2, it warns an error message during the updation of configuration file. The error message is “Role Instance counts are out of allowed range.”

So, try keeping the instance count only 2 before you are publishing the web role to the cloud.

Cisco a réalisé une belle performance avec 11% de croissance dans la sécurité du contenu (Web et Mail) au troisième trimestre 2009. L’analyse d’Infonetics apporte quelques éléments intéressants sur l’évolution du marché : La croissance moyenne annuelle devrait être de 14.5% pour les 5 années à venir pour les appliances, et le haut de gamme devrait très bien se comporter, grâce aux investissements des opérateurs Internet et l’augmentation des débits. Il faut noter que 65% seulement des entreprises sont équipées. L’augmentation du trafic, l’inflation des menaces et la vitesse sidérante de propagation au travers des réseaux sociaux font qu’on aura besoin de machines plus puissantes dans les datacenters et d’équipements dédiés chez les clients qui auront à choisir entre une solution à base de produits, de services ou d’un mix des deux.

Le marché évolue vers le « Cloud » et le « SAAS » depuis le rachat de Postini par Google en 2007. Cisco vient de relancer la course en achetant Scansafe, leader du filtrage Web en mode hébergé. 20% des grandes entreprises se prononcent pour la Sécurité du Contenu « dans le nuage ». La question est évidemment : cela aura-t-il un impact sur les ventes de matériel ?  Oui certainement, mais lequel, rien n’est moins sûr, en effet, les déploiements se feront probablement beaucoup en mode « hybride », où un équipement sur site collaborera avec un service hébergé « dans le nuage ». Les acteurs qui tireront leur épingle du jeu seront ceux qui offriront le plus de choix à leurs clients.

Les solutions appliances seront-elles autonomes ou partie d’un équipement qui fait également firewall, VPN ou IPS ?  Le gain de performance et la volonté de ne pas remettre en cause des solutions firewall et VPN déjà opérationnelles font que 60% des entreprises devraient choisir une appliance dédiée au filtrage de contenu par opposition à une solution tout-en-un. Le tout-en-un reste adapté à la PME, mais c’est également sur ce segment  de marché que les solutions hébergées vont progresser rapidement, pour libérer les PME d’une gestion fastidieuse et leur faire bénéficier d’un suivi efficace des menaces à moindre coût.

Директор по планированию продукта Windows Azure Mike Wickstrand организовал сайт, на котором можно предложить свою и проголосовать за другие идеи для Windows Azure:
http://www.mygreatwindowsazureidea.com.

Данная уникальная возможность повлиять на развитие продукта появилась после подобного успешного опыта с Silverlight.

Спешите проголосовать за функционал Windows Azure, которого Вам больше всего не хватает!

Hace mucho tiempo lo único que querían hacer las empresas de informática era vender hardware, grandes mainframes donde el rey era IBM, luego vino Apple y cambió las cosas, y las empresas empezaron a vender software, que era más barato y proporcionaba mayor rango de beneficios.

Con el boom de internet, las empresas descubrieron que distribuir el software era más barato y podías tener servicios asociados, como por ejemplo, la actualización de contenido de Encarta! Este concepto se comenzó a expandir, y tras años de evolución ha llegado a los conceptos que estamos oyendo ultimamente como SaS (Software as a Service), cloud computing (la nube), o incluso S+S (Software + Servicios). Esto se reduce que en la actualidad, muchas empresas de software “de toda la vida” han evolucionado para ponerse al día y nos ofrecen servicios asociados para mejorar la calidad de sus productos.

La visión de Google

Google es, actualmente el rey de los servicios web, pero todo comenzó como un buscador, y el gran secreto del éxito de google es su algoritmo de búsqueda, el famoso PageRank, y como han incorporado dicho algoritmo a todos los servicios que han ido ofreciendo, irónicamente, es una empresa que en vez de hacer software y complementar con servicios, ofrece servicios que complementa con software, entre lo que podemos destacar Chrome y Android, este último aunque no es directamente propiedad de Google, la compañía de Silicon Valley tiene mucho que decir.

La visión de Apple

Apple es una empresa que se ha caracterizado por ser rompedora en sus diseños y por revolucionar la industria, inventaron  el ordenador personal, inventaron el reproductor mp3 tal y como lo conocemos, y han cambiado la manera en la que interactuamos con los teléfonos. Además, es una empresa que hace uso de la nube para proporcionar servicios asociados, hablamos de mobileme y de iWork.com

mobileme es un servicio que se presenta como un complemento a los mac y al iPhone, incluye correo web, sincronización de calendarios, espacio para tu página web, galería de imágenes (al estilo picasa) y servicio de backup. Además incorpora servicios de valor añadido como “Back to my mac”, que es un acceso remoto sin necesidad de conocer la ip de tu mac, y opciones para el iPhone, entre las que destacan la posibilidad de localizar el teléfono en caso de pérdida o robo, hacer que suene (sí, desactivan el modo silencio) e incluso si tenemos datos importantes, nos dan la opción de un borrado remoto, con lo cual podemos garantizar de cierto modo que nuestra información no caiga en malas manos.

La visión de Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation, gigante de software por excelencia, está bastante más vinculado con la web que lo que pensamos, el  servicio live, originalmente conocido como hotmail, fue uno de los primeros correos web que se popularizó con el boom de internet, tanto que es muy extraño que alguien hoy no tenga una cuenta de hotmail.

Poco a poco los servicios de microsoft se van diversificando, y actualmente nos encontramos con la empresa en un proceso de evolución, donde encontramos servicios como live mesh (parecido al servicio Dropbox), office live (versión en la nube de la suite ofimática más famosa del mundo), la plataforma live como red social, y una serie de servicios que podremos analizar mejor en otros artículos, al igual que en el caso de apple, se usa la nube como un companion, un servicio de valor añadido

Conclusión

Como se puede apreciar, en la actualidad hay muchas empresas que están haciendo uso de la nube de una manera bastante peculiar, la ventaja del cloud computing no significa que todo tenga que ir en grandes superservidores, sino que podemos usar esos ordenadores para mejorar nuestro trabajo diario.

I have been thinking about Clouds. There is lots of noise (but hardly thunder). One area particularly attracts….

Assume that you have several (or many) separate applications running in your cloud. You want some or all of these applications to communicate. How do you do this?

From what I can see (and I do not see Amazon’s lightweight queuing as sufficient) there is a need for a memory based, inter-system messaging solution. This has to be able to be fast yet also be made transaction-friendly (there should be a demonstrable trade-off/choice – within the one solution – between reliability and speed which the user can select rather than have imposed).

Too me MQSeries is simply too plodding to be broad-based in a cloud. JMS is also probably too heavyweight. Something like RV might be more applicable.

There is an opportunity, in my assessment for someone to act and satisfy an opportunity that seems likely to grow and grow – and be applicable within private clouds, public clouds and especially hybrid public/private clouds.

Suggestions and/or comments are welcome.

Have you ever used a cloud computing service?

Many of you may give a negative answer to this question but in reality if you have ever searched the web using a search engine like Google, you would have used cloud computing service. The search engine takes a set of search terms from you, searches its index of web pages, and returns a list of matches as the search result. The process, which is essentially a piece of software, runs on one or more computers connected to the internet cloud somewhere in the world – you as a user have no idea where it is. This is the essence of cloud computing; one will be able to use a piece of software productively but not know the physical machine that is actually running it.

As you can see cloud computing has been around for more than a decade. Lately, cloud computing services are receiving lot of attention primarily because of advancement of technology in two specific categories:

1. Parallelization: The ability to split a software task across many machines and seamlessly add or remove machines from the task
2. Virtualization: The ability to split one physical machine into multiple virtual machines and ensuring that they run independent of each other

These technologies allow the cloud computing service providers leverage economy of scale and more efficient use of server hardware thereby providing more value for money.

Cloud computing also provides a neat solution to two major hurdles faced by an emerging entrepreneur:

• In the case when an emerging enterprise is small, it may still require access to complex IT solutions to run efficiently. Such solutions are normally very expensive and can only be cost effective for very large enterprises. However, cloud service providers can offer such solutions in shared mode thereby significantly reducing the cost of ownership through a model of pay per usage and not ownership.
• Emerging enterprises that have IT systems as the backbone of their core offering, will always have the dilemma on how much to invest on IT infrastructure. If they invest too little scalability may be a future issue whereas Investing too much upfront may have negative impact on the cash flow and even jeopardize the viability of the venture. With cloud computing it becomes easy to start small and seamlessly grow as much as necessary.

Cloud computing services can be offered in different flavors. Here are the 3 main categories:

A point to note: A cloud is not a solution to all problems nor is it useless technology and it will take a couple of years to mature.

So, mein Tee dampft hier vor sich hin, eine persönliche Auslese an besonders hässlicher Musik dröht in meinen Ohren und meine Füsse frieren sich einen ab: Bereit für ein kleines Patchwork aus verschiedensten Bereichen unseres gestörten Lebens?

Katze!

Dank eines gebookmarkten Links eines Klassenkollegen erfuhr ich von den kalifornischen IBM-Wissenschaftlern, welche sich mit der Simulation eines Katzenhirns auseinandergesetzt hatten, um die Vorgänge im Denkzentrum unserer geliebten Haustiere zu analysieren.
Diese Gehirnsimulation stellt laut dem Artikel der deutschen Tagesschau aber auch ihre technischen Anforderungen: 147′456 Prozessoren und 144 TB RAM sind wahrlich nicht ein Nasenwasser und reichen laut der Meldung nicht mal annähernd aus, um die Simulation in Echtzeit ablaufen zu lassen. Und obschon solche neuronale Netze nur entfernt mit meinem derzeitig neuen Hobby, den Genetischen Algorithmen, zu tun haben, beginne ich doch langsam Angst zu kriegen, dass dieses Teilgebiet der Informatik um einige Nummern zu gross für mich ist, der ich hier zu Hause vor einer Ottonormal-Kiste mit einem von Dell standardmässig eingebauten Intel DualCore-Prozessor sitze (ja, AGAIN handelt von genetischen Algorithmen… jetzt ist es raus).

Ein Neurologe behauptet jetzt allerdings, das Katzenhirn sei nur eine reine PR-Sache: Ein Neuroforscher von der Eidgenössischen Polytechnischen Hochschule in Lausanne (EPFL) sendete einen offenen Brief an verschiedenste Institute und Zeitungen, in welchen er das IBM-Projekt als totalen Schwachsinn und “PR-Stunt” bezeichnet. So sollen mehr als 99% der Bestandteile fehlen, die ein Katzenhirn ausmachen würden; das designte Ding sei nicht mal reif für die Funktion als Ameisenhirn.

Er bezeichnete das Konstrukt als “Eine Verbindung von ein paar Millionen simplen, mit dilletantischen Algorithmen berechnete Neuronen”, die eine Bezeichnung als “Katzenhirn” bei Weitem nicht verdient hätte. Ein paar Punkte miteinander zu verbinden sei ferner längst nichts Aussergewöhnliches: Aus Sicht von Henry Markram, dem Verfasser des Briefs, ist solch eine Simulation schon durch Zusammenschliessen einiger Grossrechner zu bewerkstelligen.

Es sind noch weitere Argumente ins Feld geführt worden, aber ich möchte dem Leser den Brief ja nicht vorenthalten; hier ist er also. Hier wird übrigens kein Blatt vor den Mund genommen, da wird richtiggehend rhetorische Kriegsführung betrieben (hier sei noch die Quelle aufgeführt):

Dear Bernie,

You told me you would string this guy up by the toes the last time Mohda made his stupid statement about simulating the mouse’s brain.

I thought that having gone through Blue Brain so carefully, journalists would be able to recognize that what IBM reported is a scam – no where near a cat-scale brain simulation, but somehow they are totally deceived by these incredible statements.

I am absolutely shocked at this announcement. Not because it is any kind of technical feat, but because of the mass deception of the public.

1. These are point neurons (missing 99.999% of the brain; no branches; no detailed ion channels; the simplest possible equation you can imagine to simulate a neuron, totally trivial synapses; and using the STDP learning rule I discovered in this way is also is a joke).
2. All these kinds of simulations are trivial and have been around for decades – simply called artificial neural network (ANN) simulations. We even stooped to doing these kinds of simulations as bench mark tests 4 years ago with 10’s of millions of such points before we bought the Blue Gene/L. If we (or anyone else) wanted to we could easily do this for a billion “points”, but we would certainly not call it a cat-scale simulation. It is really no big deal to simulate a billion points interacting if you have a big enough computer. The only step here is that they have at their disposal a big computer. For a grown up “researcher” to get excited because one can simulate billions of points interacting is ludicrous.
3. It is not even an innovation in simulation technology. You don’t need any special “C2 simulator”, this is just a hoax and a PR stunt. Most neural network simulators for parallel machines can can do this today. Nest, pNeuron, SPIKE, CSIM, etc, etc. all of them can do this! We could do the same simulation immediately, this very second by just loading up some network of points on such a machine, but it would just be a complete waste of time – and again, I would consider it shameful and unethical to call it a cat simulation.
4. This is light years away from a cat brain, not even close to an ants brain in complexity. It is highly unethical of Mohda to mislead the public in making people believe they have actually simulated a cat’s brain. Absolutely shocking.
5. There is no qualified neuroscientist on the planet that would agree that this is even close to a cat’s brain. I see he did not stop making such stupid statements after they claimed they simulated a mouse’s brain.
6. You should also ask Mohda where he got the notion of “reverse engineering” from, when he does not even know what it means – look the the models – this has nothing to do with reverse engineering. And mouse, rat, cat, primate, human – ask him where he took that from? Simply a PR stunt here to ride on Blue Brain.

That IBM and DARPA would support such deceptive announcements is even more shocking.

That the Bell prize would be awarded for such nonsense is beyond belief. I never realized that such trivial and unethical behavior would actually be rewarded. I would have expected an ethics committee to string this guy up by the toes.

I suppose it is up to me to let the “cat out of the bag” about this outright deception of the public.

Competition is great, but this is a disgrace and extremely harmful to the field. Obviously Mohda would like to claim he simulated the Human brain next – I really hope someone does some scientific and ethical checking up on this guy.

All the best,

—Henry

Tango

Ein bisschen zum Schmunzeln: Im Konsumentenschutzmagazin Saldo wurde in der Rubrik Dr. Seltsam folgender Artikel veröffentlicht:

Tango:

Tanzen ist gesund, fördert die Beweglichkeit und tut der Seele gut. Kürzlich haben Forscher der deutschen Universität Oldenburg gezeigt, dass Tango-Tanzen das Stresshormon Cortisol abbaut. Doch diese Anti-Stress-Therapie hat Nebenwirkungen. Die Forscher fanden nämlich heraus, dass der Körper beim Tango auch mächtig Testosteron produziert. Zwar können Frauen mit diesem Versprechen vielleicht Tanzmuffel aufs Parkett locken. Doch sind diese erst mal voll des Testosterons, neigen sie dazu, sich nicht mehr nur mir ihrer Tanzpartnerin zu begnügen. Und dies wirkt sich wiederum auf den Stresspegel der Dame aus.

Harry vs. Tim

Vor rund einem Monat fand ich heraus, dass sogar ein eigener Wikipedia-Artikel über die Charaktere aus den Harry Potter-Romanen existiert. Das ist soweit noch nicht wirklich atemberaubend oder abnormal.
Nun ist es aber so, dass ich beim Scrollen auf der rechten Seite einige Mühe hatte, die Scroll-Leiste zu treffen, sprich: Da hat sich jemand sehr viel Mühe gemacht (ein Besuch zur reinen Eindrucksbildung ist hier empfolen).
Mir steigen hierbei schon fast die Tränen in die Augen, wenn ich die Länge des Wikipedia-Artikels über Tim Berners-Lee als Vergleich heranziehe; desjenigen Mannes, der immerhin als der Erfinder des Webs gilt.

Ja, Enzyklopädie, Enzyklopädie…

Wolken

Dass es schon seit Längstem fällig wäre, dass ein ernsthafter Konkurrent dem Quasi-Monopolisten Microsoft die Stirn bietet, muss hier wohl nicht mehr explizit erklärt werden.
Dass sich jetzt aber ausgerechnet Google zum Widerstandskämpfer erkoren sieht, ist in zweierlei Hinsicht befremdlich, wenn auch zu erwarten gewesen:

• Einerseits ist Google das Pendant zu Microsoft aus dem Internet: Keine andere Firma hat das Webgeschehen in den letzten Jahren mehr beeinflusst als der Softwaregigant aus Kalifornien… – und keine andere Firma nervt die User so sehr mit Werbung (Google Adds), welche in letzter Zeit sogar inmitten von YouTube-Videos auftauchen, wie die “chromigen” Internet-Monopolisten.
  Umso schlechter steht nun das Vertrauen der Surfer in diese Firma, welche in letzter Zeit vermehrt als “Datensammler” die Runde machte. Und ausgerechnet solch eine Firma soll die User vom vertrauten Windows weglocken?
• Andererseits setzt Google auf ein komplett anderes Prinzip: Wir haben es hier nicht mehr mit einem Betriebssystem klassischer Art zu tun, sondern mit einem “bootbaren Browser”. Hierbei wird auf das Prinzip des sogenannten Cloud Computing zurückgegriffen, welches meiner Meinung nach noch nicht ganz ausgereift ist.
  Aber der Ansatz ist schon mal gut.

Um nicht allzu technisch werden zu müssen, hier ein kurzes, erklärendes Video:

Zugegebenermassen, das Video ist von der Machart her ein Anblick wert. Allerdings werden hier gewisse merkwürdige Behauptungen gemacht (45 Sekunden Bootzeit? “Stateless”?? “Totally re-thought web browser”???).

Nichtsdestotrotz, die Message kommt rüber:

“Weg von unnötigem Balast!”

Das Problem hierbei ist aber, dass Google davon ausgeht, der User wolle nur ins Internet. Die Behauptung, das Internet (einschliesslich das Web) sei zum wichtigsten Bestandteil unseres alltäglichen Computer-basierten Lebens geworden, mag vielleicht stimmen, doch die Annahme, man könne mit dem Internet ein Betriebssystem ersetzen, ist gänzlich an den Haaren herbeigezogen:
Als “Web-Firma”, die das Web als zentralen Bestandteil unserer Computerbenutzung sieht, vergisst Google die Bedürfnisse der User, welche vielleicht nicht umbedingt private Daten ins Netz stellen möchte. Und was Webapplikationen betrifft, können diese vorerst die auf der Festplatte installierten Programme noch nicht ersetzen.
Und sollten sie das eines Tages dennoch tun können, wird hier die Frage nach grösserer Bandbreite laut: Anstatt unsere Prozessoren zu belasten sollen wir jetzt den Router malträtieren? Die Qualität der Internetverbindung bei mir zu Hause lässt mehr als zu Wünschen übrig: Soll ich bei meiner gesamten Arbeit am Rechner etwa auf dieses wackelige Fundament setzen?

Der Sourcecode des auf dem Linux-Kernel und Google’s Browser Chrome basierenden Betriebssystems ist hier erhältlich; der Release soll im Verlauf des nächsten Jahres stattfinden. Ob er erfolgreich wird, bleibt jedoch stark zu bezweifeln.

… doch wer weiss?
Google, eure Idee ist schön, aber ihr seid noch fünf bis zehn Jahre zu früh damit.

Their is a major flaw in IE8 that may deem safe site unsafe Read More

Microsoft begins paving path for IT, Cloud integration Read More

3 Reason Azzure will Succeed  Read More

Vi avviso subito, questo post e’ composto da considerazioni che ho tratto da tre diversi articoli, che infatti indichero’ in fondo come fonti, quindi per risparmiarvi la noia di leggere i miei pensieri scomposti vi conviene leggere direttamente i tre articoli.

State continuando a leggere? Peggio per voi, vi avevo avvisati. L’argomento e’ molto interessante, si tratta della sicurezza ai tempi del Cloud Computing, ci entra a pieno titolo anche il nuovo sistema operativo di Mountain View, Google Chrome OS. L’argomento e’ complesso, dunque la trattazione da parte mia non potra’ che essere incompleta, superficiale ed a tratti scontata o errata [1].

I PROBLEMI DEL CLOUD COMPUTING – Qualche giorno fa l’ENISA (Agenzia europea per la sicurezza delle reti e dell’informazione) ha pubblicato un’approfondita analisi sui benefici e sui rischi del cloud computing in termini di sicurezza (Cloud Computing Risk Assessment). Il documento e’ bello corposo, tra le altre cose si concentra sulle PMI, perche’, come e’ scritto sullo stesso documento:

“Data la riduzione dei costi e la maggior flessibilita’ che comporta, il passaggio al cloud computing diventa irresistibile per molte PMI”

Col passaggio al clod computing pero’ ci sono almeno tre possibili rischi.

PORTABILITA’ – Uno di questi e’ il rischio di Lock-in, ossia il rischio di restare legati a quel fornitore del servizio, perche’ per il cliente puo’ diventare difficile passare da un fornitore ad un altro e trasferire i suoi dati da un servizio ad un altro. I fornitori ovviamente faranno di tutto per creare le condizioni affinche’ il cliente trovi difficile (o impossibile) la migrazione. Ad esempio chiudendo il formato dei dati, in modo da renderne difficile la portabilita’, legando il cliente ad un software proprietario, ecc.

Il fornitore gestisce un’applicazione web che mette a disposizione dei propri clienti via internet, si chiama SaaS (software come un servizio), e memorizza i dati dei clienti in un database. Generalmente i gestori di SaaS forniscono ai clienti delle API che permettono di leggere ed eventualmente esportare i dati. Esistono anche i servizi di PaaS, dove i fornitori mettono a disposizione degli utenti delle piattaforme hardware con applicazioni disponibili su web.

Tuttavia non sempre l’esportazione dei dati tramite API e’ alla portata di tutti, puo’ capitare che sia necessario sviluppare un’applicazione apposita che tramite le API interagisca col database esportando i dati richiesti e scrivendoli in un file pronto per essere usato per qualunque cosa, anche ad esempio essere importato in un altro provider.

Se pero’ questa possibilita’ non viene garantita a tutti i clienti risulta ovvio che ci sara’ un fenomeno di lock-in. Infatti generalmente le piccole e medie imprese non hanno uno sviluppatore in loco, diventa quindi una spesa aggiuntiva far sviluppare l’applicazione necessaria per “traslocare“. Anche se il piu’ delle volte e’ il nuovo fornitore stesso a occuparsi del trasferimento dei dati (con un costo aggiuntivo ovviamente). Se pero’ la PMI non vuole affidarsi ad un nuovo fornitore, ma mettere i suoi dati nel database dell’impresa, la difficolta’ di trasferire i propri dati da un database esterno ad uno interno, potrebbe scoraggiarla dal farsi carico della gestione dei propri dati.

Sarebbe dunque preferibile affidarsi ad un servizio che fornisca un’ottima portabilita’, perche’ anche se nell’immediato potrebbe sembrare irrilevante, nel medio e lungo periodo e’ indispensabile poter contare sulla possibilita’ di cambiare servizio o gestire i propri dati senza problemi.

SICUREZZA – Gli altri problemi riguardano la sicurezza, non tutti i gestori di cloud computing attuano tutti gli accorgimenti volti a impedire problemi di sicurezza, e non si tratta solo di accorgimenti sul server del fornitore, ma anche di sistemi che rendano sicuri i “dati in movimento“ dal computer del cliente al server. In entrambi i casi i rischi esistono e sono diversi (divulgazione di informazioni, intercettazioni, Denial-of-Service).

ATTENTI ALLA PASSWORD – Un grande passo in avanti nel cloud computing lo fara’ il nuovo sistema operativo di Mountain View tra un anno, quando verra’ commercializzato. Nelle varie discussioni e nelle presentazioni si fa ampio riferimento alla sicurezza di questo nuovo sistema operativo, di come il sistema venga installato su una una partizione accessibile in sola lettura (rendendo improbabile la presenza di virus e malware), in piu’ in caso di presenza di codice malevolo un semplice riavvio ripristinera’ il sistema pulito.

Ma uno dei piu’ grandi problemi di sicurezza del cloud computing (e non solo) si trova tra la sedia e la tastiera. Sono proprio gli utenti. Prendete ad esempio il caso di Google Chrome OS, potete accedere ai vostri dati da qualsiasi dispositivo con Google Chrome OS, semplicemente inserendo nome utente e password. Se questo da un lato e’ una grande comodita’, dall’altro e’ un rischio enorme. Chiunque con il nostro nome utente e la nostra password potrebbe avere accesso a tutti i nostri dati, e stiamo parlando anche di dati (estremamente) sensibili, email personali, dati sui nostri conti correnti bancari, e tutti i nostri file e i documenti.

Google non si occupa di questo problema, demandandone la responsabilita’ ai singoli utenti. Ma siamo sicuri che i singoli utenti siano in grado di scegliere una password abbastanza sicura da non essere trovata dal primo che capita?

Secondo uno studio condotto su MySpace, il 65% di tutte le password contiene 8 caratteri [2] o meno e queste sono le password piu’ gettonate: password1; abc123; myspace1 e password. “Vabbe’, sono ragazzini per la maggior parte“, direte voi. Pero’, secondo un altro studio, condotto questa volta su 1300 impiegati in grandi imprese ha evidenziato come il 66% di loro tiene la password scritta in fogli di carta nell’ufficio, e il 58% tiene la password in un file nel computer (documento di Word o foglio di calcolo).

A mio avviso Google questo problema non puo’ semplicemente scaricarlo sugli utenti, se ne dovra’ fare carico. Se vuole veramente fornire un servizio sicuro dovra’ inventarsi un sistema di autenticazione un po’ piu’ sicuro di “nome utente e password“. Il massimo che sembra essere intenzionata a fare mi pare sia un sistema di crittografia, ma non credo protegga dall’accesso tramite password, serve eventualmente per proteggere i dati da un accesso non autorizzato.

LADRI DI PASSWORD SU COMMISSIONE – Non dimentichiamo che grazie al cloud computing i ladri di password possono avere accesso ad un’alta capacita’ di calcolo, rendendo possibile “scovare” anche password che prima si ritenevano sicure. Inoltre alcuni attacchi avvengono su commissione, piu’ e’ elevato il livello di complessita’ di una password piu’ sara’ alto l’onorario. Il tutto usando attacchi di brute force (possibilmente senza venire bloccati dai sistemi di sicurezza). Immaginate cosa succedera’ con l’espansione del cloud computing usato anche da imprese.

David Campbell (consulente sulla sicurezza) ha dichiarato:

“As it becomes possible now for the black hat community to get their hands on large amounts of computing power, we as security professionals are going to need to reassess threat models that we thought previously were not a factor, [...] Using stolen credit cards, they could create a super computer that would be faster potentially than what the three-letter agencies have and they wouldn’t be paying for the CPU cycles.”

L’accorgimento piu’ ovvio in questi casi e’ che chi fornisce servizi a cui si accede tramite password implementi un sistema che blocchi l’accesso dopo alcuni tentativi errati (molti lo fanno gia’ fortunatamente). In assenza di questi meccanismi nessuno e’ al sicuro, nemmeno chi usa password complesse.

[1] Sembra un post scritto da Aranzulla, mi vergogno di me stesso. [^]
[2] La password piu’ e’ lunga meglio e’, molti consigliano sopra i 14 caratteri, inoltre dovrebbe contenere (quando e’ possibile) non solo lettere (maiuscole e minuscole) e numeri ma anche i caratteri speciali (# $ % £) [^]

Fonti:

• Turning clouds into crackers: $45 a password
• ENISA Cloud Computing Risk Assessment
• Where Google Chrome security fails: the password

[^] torna su | post<li> | 

Okay, I’m not a good photographer. You may not recognize the shape, but these are pictures of cloud. Seriously.

I wish I can grab pictures of rainbow, too.

Nov.19 – Fujitsu and Fujitsu Lab. propose “Open Cloud Standards Incubator” to “Distributed Management Task Force（DMTF）” .  Open Cloud Standards Incubato will be a working group in that body, and will handle the interoperability of cloud computing with 37 members.

J <http://www.itmedia.co.jp/enterprise/articles/0911/19/news048.html>