Image from Sephora.com

To cut to the chase I adore both of these concealers. I even like them more than the Bobbi Brown creamy concealers. I find Bobbi’s too creamy and it settles into fine lines under my eyes. I also think it gets cakey. for someone with dry skin go for it, but my combination/ oily skin can’t handle that much creaminess. LM on the other hand is fantastic.

Secret concealer is the pinker of the two. It’s creamy but not as creamy as BB. I thought it might be too pink for my yellow undertones but it really brightened and blended beautifully. The texture is emollient and sets nicely. I normally as a rule set all my liquid products with powder and this concealer never caked or creased. It wore through an entire work day and had minimal fading.

Secret camouflage is a different texture. It’s quite hard and you have to work it. I find fingers or a brush work well. I prefer to use this on my face for spots of hyper pigmentation. Even with my oily skin this products holds up well and stays put. I can see why Lisa Eldridge uses this in heaps of her videos. While it’s not your typical creamy concealer the longevity is worth the extra effort.

Indoors

outdoors

The only downside is the packaging. While the powder is nice it’s your basic translucent powder. I didn’t find it helped with oil control but it did set the under eyes nicely.  When I received this product the bottom compartment with the powder was ajar and there was powder everywhere. I’m hoping this is just mine but I can’t get the bottom to securely shut. So I will not be traveling with this kit as a whole. Maybe check your pot before you buy. Besides that this is an amazing concealer duo that I would happily repurchase.

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HGUC

1/144 Nemo (Unicorn ver.) (April 21)

This is the Katoki Hajime-redesigned Nemo that made its appearance in Episode 4 of Gundam Unicorn. The Nemo itself, having originated in Z Gundam, has not yet received a spot in the HGUC lineup, so this is quite welcome! It comes complete with all the weapons a rebel AEUG pilot would need, too.

RG

1/144 RX-178 Gundam Mk-II AEUG and Gundam Mk-II Titans (April 28)

The next entry in the super-high class series of Real Grade model kits is going to be a pair of Gundam Mk-II models – one in the white AEUG color, and one in the deep blue Titans color. Like the previous Real Grade models, these look absolutely fantastic.

Hacchaka – HGUC Juaggu Review

KenBill Blog – HGUC MSN-04G Juaggu (Unicorn Ver.) Review

Hobby no Toriko – HGUC Juaggu (Unicorn Ver.)

For those that don’t know, BOOM BOOM SATELLITES is an electronic rock band formed in Europe in 1997. Since then they’ve done quite a few things, such as the music for the 2004 movie APPLESEED as well as the score for the award-winning movie The Dark Knight. They also did the opening for Xam’d – Lost Memories, a (pretty sweet) anime that was aired over PSN a few years back.

Q: It seems a lot of other UC-MSV appear in Gundam UC for the PS3.

A: Before any talk of a game started, there were already ideas for UC-MSV pretty early on in Unicorn anime’s production phase, so after the other game design-related conversations I had with Sunrise’s folks and Mr. Katoki, we discussed some concrete ideas for mechanics. In other words, we were pretty much normally talking about just Gundams(laugh). Now, it feels like that flower has finally blossomed.

Q: What can you tell us about the Silver Bullet and EWAC Jegan, which are both unique mobile suits of their own?

The Silver Bullet can be called the first UC-MSV. When the first original expansions on the UC story happened in the manga(Gundam UC Bande-sine), it was planned that an already-existing mech would be the Unicorn Gundam’s opponent in its test battle phase, but Mr. Katoki had the idea to use an original design instead, so this MS was created on the spot.

Using a Doven Wolf captured from Neo Zeon as a base, it’s a mobile suit with quite a story behind it. It have sub-Psycommu equipment installed for the purposes of research. It was also given the test version of a Federation-made large funnel weapon, for which research has been advancing as well. Both variations[one without the funnel, one with] have been prepared for this game.

The EWAC Jegan is a recon-based variation of the Jegan Type-D that can equip a variety of parts for versatility. The bonus mission in the DLC brings out the specialties of this mobile suit in a rather unorthodox mission. The pilot of this mobile suit, while not actually having a name, was also given an interesting personality.

Q. What was a mobile suit that you really put a lot of time and work into?

I’d like to just say “all of them, of course!”, but if I had to give a strong example it would be the two varieties of the Defensor Unit for the ReZEL.

In the uniqueness of the Gundam UC anime, I think the Rezel stands in a rather obscure, out-of-the-way position. There aren’t many scenes for it because of the story’s developments in one direction or another. They’re really cool, and can do a lot more than was shown. I put my faith in Captain Norm, who was piloting the Rezel Type C, but… as everyone knows, he lost in power to the beam saber.

Well then, what about a Hyper Beam Saber? With that idea in mind, the Defensor A unit was born. The Defensor B unit, equipped with two Mega Beam Launchers, gains a unique shape when transformed into Waverider mode, and is definitely something one would want in a plastic model. The idea to have a front-line type(the A Unit) and a rear-line type(the B Unit) was from Fukui Harutoshi[t/n: author of Gundam UC].

In Custom Cast Mode, it would be cool to have the powered-up ReZEL clash with he Red Comet. I’ve already taken my revenge, and I’m now leading a loving life with the Defensor B Unit, transforming for no reason whatsoever and making me dizzy, over and over again(laugh).

Q. Finally, what can you tell us about episode 5?

I think episode 5 will be a very detailed, dense episode whose progression is different again from episode 4. Instead of me talking about it here, please watch it for yourself when it comes out. I think it will definitely be something where you’ll think “Could that just now have been (X)?” and go back and watch it a lot of times, so please anticipate it!

*****

In other news, MAHQ has just launched a new mobile suit lineart/description section for UC-MSV. Go check that out too!

Volume 4 – MSN-06S Sinanju Stein

Model number: MSN-06S
(MS – Mobile Suit (Zeon), N – designed for Newtypes, 06 – model, S – for Commander)
Height: 22.6m
Weight: 25.2t
Armaments:

• High Beam Rifle
• Beam Saber
• Shield

Short Description(from Gundam info portal site):

“An existence that can be said to be the “foundation” upon which the Sinanju, the exclusive mobile suit that the Second Coming of the Red Comet “Full Frontal” pilots. Originally, it was a test type that was too much for a person to pilot; however…”

DSZ’s Thoughts: The Sinanju Stein is one of the representative mobile suits in the so-called Gundam Unicorn MSV line that appeared in The Post-War War(yes, it’s a pretty terrible translation, I knwo). It’s established to be the predecessor for the Sinanju, but details are rather thin, as I have access to neither the game nor the novel. Hopefully some good friends will get their hands on some info soon…

The thing honestly looks pretty damn cool. It has the harder, straighter lines as befitting of something developed by the Federation, so obviously Sleeves brought out the nice curves, Zeon symbol, and red color for the Sinanju. Full Frontal is shown in a couple of screen shots piloting it without wearing his mask; I’m not sure what happens during the prequel though.

Q: Just what kind of mobile suit is the Gundam Delta Kai?

A: The Gundam Delta Kai is a transformable mobile suit(TMS) based on the designs of the Delta Plus, with the goal of putting a few special additional weapons and pieces of equipment to real use. It was designed to specialize in attack power, and ends up being very similar to an experimental machine, but its setting is one where it was used in actual combat and showed high abilities.

Q: What are the details behind the creation of the Gundam Delta Kai?

A: With the Sinanju Stein being one of the representative mobile suits of UC-MSV, we talked about having the second major one be a Gundam type to form the main “pair”. At first we were all thinking to use the Delta Gundam for this role, but as we discussed it more, we talked about how cool it would be to give it(the Delta Gundam) the V-antenna and a tricolor paint scheme(laugh).

Q: It seems to be quite the unique mobile suit.

A: In contrast to the Sinanju Stein, which has an important connection to Gundam UC’s story, we actually created the Delta Kai to be more removed from its setting. We thought it would be important to have a mobile suit as colorful as this, as compared to the mobile suits in Gundam UC, which use relatively simple color schemes to bring out their image. Nonetheless, the one who pushed the design in that direction was the designer himself, Katoki Hajime. The only ideas that came from our side were the two main weapons – the carry-on firearm Long Mega Buster and the close-combat weapon Explosive Bolt. However, Mr. Katoki propsed that it might be better to have more gimmicks for the player to be able to choose from, so that the mobile suit itself would have a nice feel to it in the game itself, so we added gimmicks such as the Proto Fin Funnels on the back, as well as the High Mega Cannon and Mega Machine Cannon as weapons that can be switched in and out.

Q: What can you tell us about this DLC?

A: The new DLC contains a bonus mission called “The Delta Kai Quickens”, which is kind of a prologue-style story featuring the Delta Kai. The Delta Kai also comes equipped with a system called “Nitro” in this mission. This is a new variety of Psycommu that could be called a “dream” system since it lets the pilot gain Newtype-like abilities just by piloting it, but if you pay close attention in the mission to the pilot’s behavior and dialogue, you may be able to glean a sense of discomfort… The new DLC has a few other things as well, such as a new composition just for the Delta Kai mission and a cute female operator(laugh), so please give it a try!

In the third special, there will be information recarding the Silver Bullet and the EWAC Jegan, as well as another interview from Mr. Kansai, on March 22! Those two mobile suits appear to be the fifth and sixth designs in the UC MSV lineup, which currently contains the Sinanju Stein, Delta Kai, Full Frontal’s custom Geara Doga, and the Early Production Type Jegan.

Volume 3 – MSN-001 Delta Gundam

Model number: MSN-001
(MS – Mobile Suit, N – design by Professor Nagano, 001 – first design in Z Project)
Height: Unknown
Weight: Unknown
Armaments:

• 60mm vulcan gun
• Beam rifle
• Beam saber
• Beam gun
• Shield

Description(from model manual):

“It can be said that in the history of mobile suit development, the development of the TMS(Transformable Mobile Suit) in particular was rife with difficulties. In order to implement a transformation system given the starting point of a humanoid form, not only did they need to further develop current technologies, but they needed fundamental innovations. In the end, this call was answered with the construction of the “Movable Frame”, a new inner-skeleton technology, and this culminated in Anaheim Electronics(AE)’s development of one of their finest machines, the MSZ-006 Z Gundam. However, many trial machines existed before this.

This company would continue its development in the realm of TMS, but the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki, for which the transformation system had been omitted due to fairly large difficulties with the frame actually transforming, was one of these trial machines. The Hyaku Shiki, which was used in real combat situtations, displayed unusually high abilities for a high-speed space combat mobile suit, and later became a famous machine with a rememberable history that gave birth to many unique mobile suit designs. Its original design specs were not achievable with the technological level of the time, but it did prove to be a very good design, and the techs involved in its development pronounced it as having abilities that did not fall behind even the Z Gundam – the mobile suit codenamed “Delta Gundam”.

By transforming into Waverider mode, it can not only be used in all terrain, but also gains a great amount of mobility for little cost. It is equipped with the same golden emulsion paint that acts as an anti-beam coating as the Hyaku Shiki, causing uniqueness to flow from its whole body.

As if the Delta Gundam was designed with ideas that were ahead of its time, it fell into the recesses of everyone’s memory. However, in UC 0090, the MSN-001A1 Delta Plus, which uses the original plans as a base, is completed. The experimental TMS of the Federation Army is a machine with a strong sense of being a unique testbed outside mainstream development and sports high abilities, having no sense of being an outdated design.

—The Delta Gundam, designed demanding innovation. Even now, that name lives on in the Universal Century.”

DSZ’s Thoughts: The Delta Gundam is an experimental Gundam type developed by Anaheim Electronics. It was never actually produced, but you can fight one in a simulator battle in the new Mobile Suit Gundam UC PS3 game by purchasing the model kit and inputting the code to get the DLC. There is also a “Delta Gundam Kai”, which was designed by Katoki Hajime; it’s listed on the Gundam Info Portal site as downloadable content, but it doesn’t appear to be available yet.

Because of the transformation problems they were still having at the time, they redeveloped it into the Hyaku Shiki, which appears, of course, as Quattro Bajeena’s mobile suit in Mobile Suit Z Gundam. The transformation technology envisioned for the Delta Gundam would go on to be used in the Zeta Gundam itself, and, of course, the Delta Plus from Unicorn.

Speaking of Greek letters, did you know that the RMS-099 Rick Dias’s project name was “Gamma Gundam”? It was only after it was presented to Char just before Z Gundam begins that it’s renamed to Rick Dias. This Delta Gundam eventually was reworked into the Hyaku Shiki and other mobile suits, leaving Epsilon as the only letter between that and Zeta Gundam.

And hey, there actually is one codenamed Epsilon. It was called Epsy Gundam and was built from Gundarium Epsilon, and was eventually used to construct the Nemo. Between Epsilon and Nu there are plenty of letters – and all of these have some background too. Eta Gundam, titled the Rapier, Theta Gundam, developed into the ZZ Gundam, Iota Gundam, which became S Gundam from Sentinel, Kappa/Sigma Gundam, Lambda Gundam, developed into the Nemo’s successor Nero, and Mu Gundam, which was a kind of test design for the Nu Gundam. After that, we all know of the Xi Gundam from Hathaway’s Flash. There are a few more Gundams in the Z Project that come after this, but they’re not important.

Regarding the model number: This was the first attempt at a transformable mobile suit, the first designed by Professor Nagano(where the N comes from), and the first in the Zeta Project. When the Hyaku Shiki, the implemented version of the Delta Gundam, was completed, he made its model number MSN-100 rather than MSN-001 to compliment its codename, Type 100. Later, the Hyaku Shiki’s model number was changed to be MSN-00100, which represents both of the ideas at once.

First off, the story mode spans Episode 1 through Episode 3. However, the game does have a simulator mode with some extra stuff in it, and you can even play through the main story mode from the enemies’ point of view.

There are two gameplay modes in the game: Unicorn Mode and Custom Cast Mode. The first follows the main story of the anime/novels normally, while Custom Cast Mode lets you put together your favorite characters and play through an original story.

More importantly, news regarding the download content – as well as some new mobile suits! – has been released.

The first round of DLC features paid-for features as well as free features:

1. 500 yen: You gain access to a bonus mission called “The Post-War War”, which is derived from the draft of a story that Fukui Harutoshi, the author of Unicorn, wrote. In it, you play as Full Frontal in a prototype version of the Sinanju called the Sinanju Stein. Along with the mission, dubbed Episode 0 since it’s a prequel of sorts, you’ll gain access to both the Sinanju Stein and Angelo’s Geara Doga, as well as the High Beam Rifle for the Stein and two Clapp-class battleships: the Rah Delus and the Unkai. You also get a title screen theme for the Sinanju Stein.

2. Free: You gain access to a simulator mission to fight against Full Frontal in his Sinanju Stein.

3. Free: You can grab Full Frontal’s custom Geara Doga and the Early Production Type Jegan.

Other information on DLC has been revealed, as well, such as another original design by Katoki Hajime, the Delta Gundam Kai. The Delta Gundam ended up as the Hyaku Shiki, but this appears to be a customized version of the original(without the gold colors).

Also, as previously stated, the HGUC Delta Gundam box contains a code for a simulator mission to fight against it.

Those of you with some more money on your hands can grab the off-the-wall collector’s edition that also includes a special version of UC Episodes 1-3 and a “making of” documentary for Episode 4. You’ll also grab the actual paper version of “The Post-War War”.

Visit gundam.info for some pictures – here is their first special about the game, and here is another article regarding the DLC.

Just one more reason I need to grab a PS3 at some point. One day, I’ll get it and grab Extreme VS, 0081, and this game. One day!

Volume 2 – MS-08TX/S Efreet Schneid

Model Number: MS-08TX/S
(MS = Zeon Mobile Suit, 08TX = Efreet type, S = “Schneid”)
Height: 17.2m
Weight: 52.4t

Appears in Episode 4 of Gundam Unicorn.

Official Description(taken from the Gundam Unicorn OVA website):

“An improvement on the MS-08TX Efreet, a close combat-type experimental mobile suit developed by the Principality of Zeon during the One Year War. Numerous Heat Darts, weapons meant for throwing, are mounted on its frame. After the war, the remnants of Zeon that were in hiding, without losing sight of their goals, repeatedly worked to improve their own weapons, and now, in the year U.C. 0096, this mobile suit proudly carries on the name Efreet with its superior land combat capabilities.”

DSZ’s Thoughts: First, a little history on where this unit came from. The MS-08TX Efreet is a lesser-known mobile suit that Zeon made during OYW. Assumedly, it was based on the MS-08 High Mobility Test Type, one of the very first mobile suits designed for MSV. It never appeared in the anime, but was created later on for the Super Famicom game Cross Dimension 0079 as one of the main enemies you need to fight. It has made occasional appearances since then, even being included in most iterations of the SD Gundam G Generation series of SRPGs. The customized MS-08TX[EXAM] Efreet Kai, complete with an EXAM system, appeared as the main enemy’s mobile suit in the game Mobile Suit Gundam Gaiden: The Blue Destiny. It never showed up besides that until the recent release of the PS3 combat simulation game Mobile Suit Gundam Battlefield Record UC 0081, in which an all-black version appropriately named Efreet Nacht(MS-08TX/N) made an appearance.

Following right up with Unicorn’s decision to use all those old units for the Zeon remnants’ forces, they introduced this customized version. They moved to a purple color scheme from the blue one it usually sported – I’m not sure why, as it’s used for land combat, but whatever. Probably just so it looks cool; we all know how Zeon is with that kind of thing.

The Efreet Schneid was pretty much the only Zeon Remnant mobile suit that wasn’t shown to get blown up during this episode. Kirks called for a retreat, but it’s unknown if this one made it out or not.

Gallery

Volume 1 – RAS-96 Ankusha

Model Number: RAS-96
(R = Federation, AS = “Ankusha”, 96 = developed in 0096)
Height: 22.3m
Weight: 28.3t

The Ankusha is going to be appearing in Episode 5 of Gundam Unicorn, The Black Unicorn.

Official Description(taken from the Gundam Unicorn OVA website):

“The successor model to the NRX-044 Asshimar. Designed with the goals of simple maintenance and easy production, as well as the ability to operate at full efficiency within the Earth’s atmosphere, the Ankusha was developed to serve as one of the Federation’s main mobile suits(along with the Jegan series). They are currently being used as powerful flying escorts for the super-large transport Garuda.”

DSZ’s Thoughts: So here we have the Federation’s new main aerial combat unit – the Byarlant Custom, as you can imagine, is probably a bit difficult to mass-produce. Since it’s, you know, custom. Taking the concept of the Asshimar, the Ankusha can easily transform between humanoid mode and flight mode as the situation demands. The Asshimar was one of the first mobile suits that could really do that – until then, pilots relied on things such as Minovsky crafts and other apparatus to fly. Of course, the Asshimar was mainly used by the Titans, and it seems to be a repeating theme that the Federation doesn’t want to use that which symbolized their military power, so the Ankusha is painted in shades of blue-green and given a model number more fitting of a Federation unit.

(A note on the model number: Asshimar had the code NRX, which follows the numbering scheme of most of the Titans-used experimental mobile suits. Since this is a mass-production unit(and not to seem too Titans-ish), they instead used the coding scheme of the rest of the Federation units – an R, followed by a two-letter code that’s basically the unit’s name abbreviated, such as the RGM(GM), RB(Ball), RGZ(Re-GZ), and then the year it was built in coming afterwards.)

I definitely like the color scheme. After the purpleness of the Geara Zulu and the odd greens of the Stark Jegans, these blue-green colors look pretty sweet. Since this is awfully cool-looking for a mass production suit, I’m looking forward to seeing it in action in Episode 5!

HGUC

1/144 Delta Gundam (March 8th)

What? It’s not the Delta Plus? No sir, this here is the true successor to the Hyaku Shiki – a transformable mobile suit that stars in the video game adaptation of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. Unlike the Delta Plus, this one retains its ridiculous golden color. It wouldn’t quite be a good successor to the beloved Type-100 if it wasn’t, now would it? The model actually includes a DL code for said video game that unlocks a Simulator mission where you battle against Quattro in this suit.

The original Delta Gundam appeared in a visual book called Gundam MS Graphica and is part of the Anaheim line of Gundams using Greek letters as their designation, such as the ν(Nu) Gundam and Ξ(Xi) Gundam.

1/144 Zaku I Sniper Type (Yonem Kirks) (March 24th)

The Zaku I Sniper Type as it appeared in Unicorn episode 4 while Kirks was sniping EVERYTHING from a freaking helicopter.

Originally a product of the Harmony of Gundam project, a collaborated effort among Sunrise, Bandai, Banpresto, and Bandai Namco Games to bring newly-designed mobile suits to the One Year World settings, the MS-05L also stars in Bonds of the Battlefield, that awesome arcade game where you sit in this big pod like you’re actually piloting a mech. It’s amazing, by the way.

1/144 Marasai (Unicorn Ver) (March 24th)

This is pretty much a green version of the RMS-108 Marasai. While originally developed by the Federation for use by the Titans as the successor to the Hyzack, it was nonetheless always seen as a very Zeon-like mobile suit. In Gundam Unicorn episode 4, the Zeon remnants have gotten a hold of some – and assumedly painted them green.

1/144 Juaggu (Unicorn Ver) (March 30th)

Now here is a mobile suit that no one knows about! Along with units like the Acguy and Z’Gok, the MSM-04G is an amphibious mobile suit developed for Zeon’s attack on the Federation’s Jaburo base.

The original design for this sexy thing dates way back to the original line of Mobile Suit Variations, and appears to be a direct variation of the MSM-04 Acguy. Because of its rocket launchers and built-in mega particle cannons, it never quite got old, and the Zeon remnants in UC Episode 4 end up using it to attack the Federation capital, Dakar.

Master Grade

1/100 Unicorn Gundam 02 Banshee (March 24th)

This month we’re gonna get a master grade form of the second RX-0 Unicorn Gundam unit, nicknamed “Banshee”. It’s pretty much stated to be way better than the original and that it’s being used to fulfill the original ambitions of the Unicorn Project – since, you know, Banagher isn’t really going for that. This model has weapons that were only featured in the anime version, though I doubt many of the people reading this have read the novels. As with the first MG Unicorn, it can transform between Unicorn and Destroy modes.

And that does it for this month. The latest episode of Unicorn certainly gave the HGUC line a lot to work with, it seems. But a Juaggu? I doubt there’s been a model kit of that thing since the MSV model kits were being released in 1983.

Students, in a style similar to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, setup camps in their quads on campus and refused to leave after Ms Katehi requested them to remove their tents from the quads. Ms Katehi then ordered the uc police to step in and remove the encampment. This order led to the chilling images of a police officer blanketing the students in a cloud of red dust, while students scream in horror.

Ms. Katehi apparently did not know that the police would handle the situation as they did. She must not have ever read a history book, or doesn’t know much about America’s history and the clash between protestors and police that have led to extreme violence and death by police brutality. As a uc chancellor making well over 400k a year, such inability to recognize the potential harm you could be submitting your students to is why you should be fired. Ms Katehi’s lack in foresight and forethought should be throwing up red flags, and with a paycheck like that, you don’t get pardoned for mistakes, especially ones like that.

On behalf of the police. What kind of public servant are you? You are attacking peaceful students on their campus that they are paying for out of pocket and that their parents have been paying to the state through taxes for years! How cold do you have to be to inflict so much pain on someone who is defenseless and peaceful? I hope you look back at the race riots in the south and see the potential you have to kill children and innocent people with that type of mentality! This black and white mentality that cops and others in authority are taught and encouraged to have, is what has created a callused and ineffective police force. Peaceful protestors are easy prey for police to exercise their power hungry egos, however their real job is to protect those students and their rights!

I have seen a ucpd report with students being assaulted every three days on my campus. I barely ever see them out at night when we need protection and instead they harass students by patrolling the streets by the dozens at 11 am… Ticketing everyone they possibly can. I have personally been sexually harassed by a chp officer in San Bernadino county and was too young and too scared to say anything about it. But, back to the subject this idea that police should be able to act because the book says they can is not the type of simple thinking that police should be exhibiting. Instead, we should be hiring smarter cops, with a higher education, and placing value in complex thinking and reasoning. Remember, grey is good. We want people to think in the grey, because that’s where humanness, empathy, creativity and everything that this country is based on, lies.UC Davis protest video

Katehi’s response

In defining the best strategy to follow (Multi-Tennant or Multi-Instance) I found it helpful to first determine the types of CaaS clouds I forsee. In the following graph i have allocated certain characteristics to the 4 types. Please leave me a comment if you disagree or have a different opinion.

Let me explain 3 terms here.
With “open code” I mean the ability for a customer to change (almost) all the features and configuration of the system. For a typical Enterprise Communications system that could come down to 700+!
“Ported DDI number only” is when the existing onsite PSTN connections are disconnected and the numberblocks come into the provider datacenter centralised (SIP) trunks and are then distributed to the sites using the customer WAN connectivity.
A “User Profile” is the specific combination of features (SIP hardphone + softphone + voicemail and mobile app for example)

The Private Cloud is the closest to a hosted environment. A provider basically takes a communications platform and puts it in a datacenter. Connect a single customer and charge the customer all the associated costs of for example deployment, configuration, housing and billing. The customer will have (almost) complete access to the features and configuration options available on the platform and will be generating their own user profiles. The customer is connected through dedicated physical firewalls, sbc’s and make use of dedicated Active Directory, DHCP and IPservices running on dedicated hardware servers. Several local survivability options are available ranging from local servers and gateways to multiple WAN and PSTN connections.
One variation here is when the private CaaS cloud actually runs on another cloud provided by a IaaS or HaaS (hardware as a service) provider.

The Virtual Private Cloud is also based on dedicated servers and services like AD but the key difference here is that those elements can be running as virtual machines on a Multi-Instance platform. The customer does not have acces to all the configuration options and can only order specific (predefined with the provider) profiles that will be implemented by the provider. The VPC will be connected on dedicated hardware (or virtualised) firewalls, SBC’s and IP services depending on customer comfortable levels with virtualised security devices. The customer is free to determine the SLA’s of the VM’s running the solution.
Variations here are the ability to run multiple instances on the same dedicated hardware server or truly virtualised on a platform that guarantees CPU cycles and I/O actions but could run on 200x Playstation 3 platforms linked together to form a supercomputer.

The Open Public Cloud is similar to the VPC in that it also runs on a Multi-Instance platform but its open code will allow the customer to change the configuration and build their own user profiles. It connects to the customer network using shared or virtualised Firewalls, SBC’s and IP services. It features predefined SLA’s that are dependant on the provider cloud platform. For example with the VPC the customer defines how many VM’s can be transferred and by what conditions. With the OPC those are fixed. The OPC depends on the numberblocks of the customer to be transferred to the centralised provider PSTN connection in the datacenter that will route the calls over the WAN to the site. The OPC does allow for a local gateway that will route locally originated calls in case the WAN fails.

The Closed Public Cloud is the closets to what the MT purists in the in-cloud community call a Multi-Tennant solution. No open code, predefined profiles running on a shared communications platform. Shared security devices carefully segmented to avoid data leaks between customers and shared, predefined SLA’s for redundancy and resiliency. There are no local survivability options as there is no on-site equipment like gateways. The main redundancy feature is the ability of the communications platform to perform twinning between SIP hardphone and mobile phone, routing the call to the mobile when the SIP hardphone is not available in case of a WAN failure.

So there you have it, my braindump on the 4 types of CaaS cloud I forsee. Using these determinations i will start my analysis of the Multi-Tennant or Multi-Instance issue I am facing when designing the Future of my CaaS model.

Drop me a note !

FromTheFields
NLSept10

So here we are. The technological barriers of the enterprise server box have been broken, wideband connectivity rushes us in milliseconds to every place on the earth and we see a host of software developers racing to get their apps cloud-enabled. Stories like the successfull matching of the exponentially increasing capacity needs of the Animoto video plugin into facebook that started out with 50 servers and grew within 3 days to 3500 servers, doubling in size every 3 hours and high profile failures where Microsofts BPOS Exchange and Sharepoint services were unavailable for hours are the daily digest for the blogs and tweets.

I have scoured the web hoping to find such a thriving UC community as the web community is today. Interestingly enough as universities like the respected Berkeley and UCSB publish their proposals for Cloud Ontologies much of the attention is geared towards the storage and application sides and outshadows the Unified Communications frameworks built to interact with these technologies and drive the progress forward. VoIP has been around for what seems ages but the Unified Communications features built upon it are not. Terrabytes of well written and influencable text about what the in-cloud movement can do for your websites and enterprise apps can be found scattered across the web but a discussion on the adoption, development and deployment of UCaaS and CaaS (Unified Communications and Communications as a Service) models are hard to find. Some would say isnt voice just an apllication that would just reap the same benefits as would an enterprise app like sharepoint and therefor when we talk about apps from the cloud UCaaS or CaaS is directly implied? IMHO, yes and no. Yes, Voice-as-a-Service and its parent container Communications-as-a-Service will and do reap the benefits of centralised architecture, centralised management and consolidation of license structures to avoid over- or under-dimensioning, but running it virtualised on an IAAS platform …. That’s a tough cookey to crack.

Avaya was the first company to deploy a virtualised structure using XEN on its midsize UC server. It runs a sip server, voicemail server, presence server and its flagship communication manager call processing software for upto 2400 users, but still requires a purpose built, avaya certified server architecture. Traditionally we see a lot of avaya kit in featured office buildings where a company rents space to businesses and supplies voice features of the house switch using the Multi-Tennant features of the Avaya kit. But that was for “mere” voice with almost unhackable digital lines directly connected to dedicated boards in the switch or simple VLAN segmentation of the VoIP traffic. Nowadays high tech UC deployments with integrations into Active Directory, shared databases, federated companies sharing NDA covered information and a host of online services tied directly to physical servers, the question arises if Multi-Tennancy with the previously available featuresets for UCaaS is still the way to go. MT-purist are making a strong case for it in the in-cloud community and the potential cost savings on management and support are clearly visible but wil it hold ground with UCaaS?

Mitel’s on the other hand released their MICD (Multi-Instance Communications Director). A PBX running in VM-ware on any x86 server architecture with enough umphhhh. It allows for multiple deployments of virtual pbx’s all with their own trusted servers, AD instances and databases without having to combine all the different customers requirements into the same single security instance. It makes me think of one of Einsteins quotes: Beyond complexity lies simplicity. It must have been what people at Intel must have been thinking a couple of years ago. When intel realised the physical boundries of the computerchips were almost in sight, they found that creating multiple instances of that chip and glueing them together performed just as good and delivered additional featuresets like redundancy and cpu time dedication. Instead of building ever complex, costly and (ironically) smaller chipsets they chose the simpler route and built multiple chips on the same wafer. (not to say that cpu design is simple by the way) And we all know how that panned out. We build and cherish the multicore architectures that are actually driving to a large degree the in-cloud movement Question here is if and when will the management overhead with 1000′s of customers all running different software releases and configs (that support engineers need to know) in VMware prove to much of an ongoing efford and be to expensive to maintain for all but the very very large providers? Is this a playable scenario for all involved?

In my next posts i will be investigating the ups and down of both types of architectures and designs focussing on the Avaya and Mitel platforms. Will Multi-Tennant or Multi-Instance come out victorious? Tune in and find out!

Best Regards

From The Fields
NLSept10