You can have a secure overlay network - in less than 1 hour!

Really you can! And we would like you to give it a try.
We are looking for a handful of Beta testers for a custom version of VPN-Cubed packaged for EC2.

Why should you signup?
Getting the overlay network up is pretty easy, you get to see an overlay network in action at EC2, and beta testers who successfully complete the beta will get a DRAMATIC price discount when we go live!

***Email us at vpncubed_beta(at)cohesiveft.com or @reply elasticserver on twitter to contact us.***

Here are the steps you go through:

1. We provide you access to the EC2 USA and EC2 EU AMIs. You can bring up a total of 4 VPN-Cubed managers in this configuration. Use all 4 in the US or EU, or split them between the two locations. Our Beta instructions assume you split between the two EC2 regions.
2. You use the EC2 API Tools command line to build your security groups. We provide detailed "cut/paste" instructions. Unfortunately ElasticFox and AWS Console can't handle some of the port settings.
3. You launch the AMIs.
4. You use the VPN-Cubed web-based UI to link the 4 managers together
5. You plug some of your other EC2 servers into the overlay network.

Here are some screenshots from the Beta documentation:

Requirements for the Beta

Overview of VPN-Cubed for EC2





Set up EC2 security groups, launch AMIs, use the web-based
UI for setting up the VPN-Cubed Managers



Generate the credentials to be used in the "cube"



Connect the managers together for fail over, routing,
and common addressing



The 4 VPN-Cubed Managers should then know about each other



Connect some EC2 servers to the overlay network in EC2 US
and EC2 EU, communicate securely through the overlay network.


Easy-peasy!
Check out the VPN-Cubed page for more information and reason why you can't live without our secure overlay network.

Lock it up.

Joining Forces with I.D. Rank Security

The partnership is pretty simple: I.D. Rank Security are the network security experts and we are the cloud computing and virtualization experts. With our powers combined we are Captain Planet... sorry, wrong combination of powers. Our partnership will help refine answers to the question of security and control in the and across cloud and virtual infrastructures.

I.D. Rank Security has numerous product solutions for seamless data encryption, detection, and prevention applications that focus on two critical and pervasive security issues: Secure and Private Communications and Data Leak Prevention. I.D. Rank Security is a trusted vendor to governments and enterprises alike. Our partnership with such a seasoned security savvy firm will help us continue to offer our users the most robust onboarding solutions for virtual and cloud computing infrastructures.

Wait there's more...
In addition to collaboration on cloud computing and virtual security, we plan on making I.D. Rank Security's solution catalog available for consumption via the Elastic Server factory. Check back for updates!

Face-2-Face Opportunity
CFT COO Dwight Koop and I.D. Rank CEO Peter Rung will be attending and presenting at numerous security events like FOSE 09 and SOFIC 09. As always don't hesitate to invite any member of CohesiveFT out for a beer! Contact us to schedule time to chat.

Build on.

Cloud vs. Grid, the conversation continues

I will add to the noise - much of which plays out on the Google cloud forums, but here is the distinction we use internally at CohesiveFT.

Products that were "GRID" products before "cloud things" were products like Gigaspaces, Globus, the UD of UnivaUD, Data Synapse, Condor and more.

Common uses for these products were for problems that could be chunked up and units of work handed off to worker nodes by some sort of distributor node. In the early days they replaced in-house built, cpu-scavenging techniques created by internal IT, most notably in global capital markets.

There was not, for the most part, in place, any software in enterprises that made it easy to roll these products out, and allocate resources to them. As such this sector of vendors have had a REALLY hard slog.

Here WAS the sales cycle:

Dear Mr. Customer,

Thank you for agreeing to do a trial evaluation of Grid Product Foo.
Here are the steps we will be going through:

1) Allocate us 50 hardware servers in your facility
2) Have your sys admins learn how to install our software and any of its dependencies for the OS's you allow in your facility
3) Have your operations staff learn how to start, stop, status, manage our software.
4) Run our "canonical" Hello World program just to see the basics of our solution's capabilities.
5) Start thinking about what the "hello world" analogies of your company are that might be valuable.

Thanks,

Fred Salesguy, Grid Foo Inc.


Those vendors were collectively the Grid market. I am a pragmatist - and I look at it from the market's view.

Now after the Amazon Cloud (I think we agree Amazon is a cloud, we just don't agree what a cloud is) and facilities like is, here IS the sales cycle:

Dear Mr. Customer,

Thank you for agreeing to do a trial evaluation of Grid Product Foo.
Here are the steps we will be going through:

1) You staff will need to make sure you can use a web browser or a VNC desktop to this IP_Address of our Grid Foo User Interface.
2) There you will be able to evaluate the "Hello World" program of Grid Foo and begin thinking about analogies in your business needs.

Please contact me when you are ready to start your evaluation.

Thanks,

Fred Salesguy, Grid Foo Inc.

ps. We will need 10-12 minutes notice before you want to begin your trial, because we do need to startup all of the necessary infrastructure.


OK - so there was an entire set of products that fall into the realm of dynamic distribution of workloads, usually in the form of a computer language module, usually Java, and they were called Grid.

Now we have a thing called Amazon Cloud (and a few others like it) and the thing called Cloud absolutely transforms the business model and sales cycle of the things called GRID. Gigaspaces, a partner of ours, have shown we can bring the customer time-to-evaluation down to minutes from an infrastructure point of view. This is transformative.

I would start there in my understanding and classification endeavors.

Personal Edition: Friends and Family Features

The Personal Edition makes it easier for you to get your technology friends and family involved in your Elasticizing. And yes it is as fun as it sounds. If you like the hassle-free server creation capabilities of the Community Edition you'll love the increased freedom of the Personal Edition. We have added a complete set of sharing and collaboration features that make it easy for multiple users to work together using the Elastic Server Factory.

Great ideas get even better when you share them
Do you have a software project that you want to share with the world? What better way than creating an Elastic Server Site custom built to serve your users. Speeding adoption is about removing hurdles so people can focus on using the software instead of installing it. Alan Williamson (co-founder of aw2.0 Ltd., Java Champion, and cool dude) was one of the first to build an Elastic Server Site for his software project Open BlueDragon, check out his blog post about the experience.

With a custom Elastic Server Site you can make your project available on multiple OSs, multiple clouds, and multiple virtualization formats. The guys over at Razuna DAM also created their Elastic Server Site quickly and easily and are loving the flexibility it offers them and their users.

"The Elastic Server Sites feature allowed us to expand our application in a very easy and affordable way to all major virtualization and cloud environments," said Nitai Aventaggiato, the CEO of SixSigns and the lead developer of Razuna. "The Elastic Server Factory delivers and let's us deploy once to many platforms."

A quick personal walkthrough is all it takes, so sign in, upgrade, give us a shout, and we can help you get your Elastic Server Site up in running in no time.

When two eyes aren't enough
Whether you are working on uploading your software component to the Elastic Server Factory, assembled a fantastic server that you want your buddies to check out, or want to share editing rights of your newly created Elastic Server Site, the Personal Edition is the way to go. Sharing is easy and the Personal Edition lets you collaborate with up to 3 other users. It's always helpful to have another set of eyes looking over your ES content before releasing it to the public. Check out our Quick Tip video on Sharing to learn more about the collaborative features of the Elastic Server Factory.

One more thing... Production Elastic Servers
Elastic Servers assembled and deployed under the Community Edition are for development and testing only. What do you do if you want to move an Elastic Server into production? Upgrade your account to the Personal Edition. The upgrade gives you the rights to use 5 VMs in production (all internal component licenses remain your responsibility to the respective vendors). Production Elastic Servers assembled, deployed and ready to manage in minutes.

Happy Building!

Cloud Interop Caution

Some of this is a bit of a repeat from several years ago but the example works in this instance as well. Let's start with the parable of "On, Off".

The reasons why I found myself owning a computerized voice changer are irrelevant to the following point, but suffice it to say that for a sophomoric prank not too long ago I found myself a proud owner of a computerized voice changer for my Verizon Kyocera phone. I put in the batteries, turned it on, and proudly called my wife upstairs. Chuckling I spoke to her only to have her interrupt and say – “it sounds like you”. Darn. I flipped it on and off a couple times, back to on, and spoke some more – but it still sounded like me. I took the batteries out, rubbed them, rubbed the contact points, battery back in, turned it on, spoke – still me. Because my wife is a good person, many years used to me, she sat there on her phone, waiting for me to get over the disappointment. Wondering why it wasn’t working I stood there flicking it on-and-off, on-and-off. All of a sudden – my wife yelled – there – you sounded like a robot. I looked at the device – and it was off. “Ahhh…”, I thought., “cheap, imported electronic junk device.” They put the contacts in up side down, they mislabeled the battery compartment – and “off” really means “on.”

After this success – for some reason – I decided to THEN read the instructions. And at this moment I realized how hard metaphor is to deal with. Because staring me in the face was the fact that even concrete, binary concepts like “ON and “OFF” are culturally and experientially based. The instructions told me “in order to operate, turn your voice ‘off’”. So – it was not mixed up terminals, it was not bad labeling, it was the fact that from the point of view of the device maker – the product concept was about turning my voice on and off – not the device.

So, if we can’t assume shared definition of “off” and “on” clearly across different cultures and experiences – how do we have enough common shared metaphor and language to begin cloud interop standards? The answer is – in dribs and drabs, gradients, and shades of grey.

I am not saying we should just stand pat, and I applaud David Berlind and Stephen O' Grady for running the recent cloud interop event. And some of the first simple actions like "work on a taxonomy" are, I think, the place to start.

But this is not merely a technical situation we need to quickly muscle through - there is a lot of our inner mammal at work here - and we need to be steadfast in simple forward steps and patient with how many of those steps there will be.

Central London being 'Powered By Cloud' today

PoweredByCloud 2009, a conference launched by BroadGroup, is giving industry leaders the opportunity to debate the coming changes, position their organizations to take advantage of them, and network with clients and providers in the fast-moving Cloud Computing space.

Our own master presenter, Alexis Richardson, is there giving his tuppence. Alexis chaired the "Making Money from Cloud Computing" and sat on the "Finance, Investors & Cloud Computing" panels (see programme). If you didn't have a chance to attend, you can check out his slides from the presentation (pdf).

If you are interested in contacting Alexis he will be roaming the PbC conference for the rest of the day. He will also be speaking with Simone Brunozzi, AWS Technology Evangelist in Europe, at the first 2009 Amazon Web Services Meetup in London, tomorrow Feb 4th (registration required). The meetup will be held at Skillz Matter in London starting at 6:30. After the formal stuff, the meeting will then adjourn to the Crown Clerkenwall Green. Go, listen, learn, and buy Alexis a pint!

UPDATE: ElasticHosts CEO Richard Davies Presentation
Richard Davies, CEO of ElasticHosts (the guys responsible for the really cool UK-based KVM Cloud), is speaking at the Powered by Cloud closing session right now. His presentation "How cloud will change your Company" details some of the real world benefits ElasticHosts' users are realizing today. Check out his slide deck here.