This is the email which Google Apps customers wuill be recieving in the near future. Google has levelled it’s Google Message Service features with that of Postini and is deprecating the latter. Users are advised to move their Postini rules over to GMS as this won’t happen automatically.

Subject: Change to Postini Message Security for Google Apps

This message affects only customers who have activated the Postini Message Security as part of their Google Apps service. If you aren’t sure whether you are using Postini, please contact us.

What Changing?
The Google Apps team recently added key features of Postini Message Security directly into the Google Apps control panel. The email features– including compliance footers, restricted email delivery, attachment controls, and more — are comparable to those offered with Google Message Security, and simpler to manage.

As a result, Google is deprecating the Postini Message Security service that is integrated with your Google Apps account.

What’s Next?
Google is asking all Google Apps customers with integrated Postini Message Security to consolidate their email management settings in Google Apps and to remove Postini from their mail flow.

In the coming months, you will receive notifications from Google with instructions and a deadline for completing this transition for the domains on your account. We can work with you on making those changes and answer any questions you may have.

We also expect see lower false positive rates for messages sent within your organization by using only Gmail’s spam filtering capabilities.

• FAQ: Postini to Google Apps Transition
• User’s step-by-step Transition Guide (you will receive an email when your account is ready to transition)
• New email filters in Google Apps: Blog post and setup article

I’ve decided that it’s about time for a change around here, so I’m going to be updating the look and feel of Hosting Thoughts to reflect the more news-oriented focus I now have here.

That’s not to say that you won’t still be getting my ramblings and thoughts too, they’ll just be in a better structure. The Blog format has worked until now, but it’s time for a change so if you’re getting weirdness on the screen, please refresh and try again, I may be tinkering!

Thanks

John

1. Microsoft (finally!) are starting their new cloud campaign with offers for organisations who switch from ‘another provider’ to Dynamics Online and the “Don’t get stuck in the IT past” video. With regards CRM Online, the pricing itself should be good enough – $44 per month as opposed to $125 for Salesforce’s popular enterprise package. This post on Microsoft press site provides the details of the campaign: http://bit.ly/n1WJhR 
2. DELL are becoming a Cloud Provider with the launch of an IaaS service based on VMware vCloud tech. But this is the first of 3 offerings, the other two will be based on Azure and OpenStack. Quite how these technologies will be leveraged isn’t clear yet, – remember DELL are still due to deliver an Azure Appliance following Fujitsu – but DELL are obviously spreading the risk in terms of it’s customer pre-disposition, we know that there are still ‘religious’ convictions out there about VMWare, OpenSource etc etc. http://bit.ly/qSmnuz
3. Virtualization is now the norm and hybrid is the focus for product development. I love being right and I’ve consistently said that hybrid clouds are going to be the way of the (foreseeable) future, VMware’s product launches at the recent VMworld show also pointed to that being the direction those folks see things moving. And here;s the thing, VMware occupy a mid 90′s percentile position for enterprise IT virtualisation and a key point was reached this year with more then half of all IT workloads no running on a virtualised platform. Article at eweek http://bit.ly/rfat6s
4. New pricing comparisons are now available from Microsoft for it’s Hyper-V stack vs VMware’s equivalent. There are, of course, some assumptions which are made in the pricing and a little bit of ‘vendor math’ surrounding the licenses themselves but the results still make interesting and useful reading! The whitepaper is available from Microsoft http://bit.ly/oCbwd0
5. Saleforce believe the future is social. According to Marc Benioff, enterprise customers are continuing the rebel against the traditional models and demanding more social aspects from their core applications. Benioff also pointed to what he believes are the social aspects of his business, with partners and a community being what cloud computing is all about, not a single organisation sitting at the top. Of course he would say that, given it’s the core of his companies ethos, but it seems to be working if you look at their string of acquisitions this year. http://zd.net/ozdlMz

The sun seems to be shining and the world is out on the beach, but there were still a few interesting stories around last week.

1. Gartner Hype Curve and report. Gartner have released this years ‘Hype Curve’ which shows some interesting shifts. In particular the positioning of Private Clouds and the Peak of Inflated Expectations and the slide of Cloud Computing downwards towards the Trough of Disillusionment, not a huge surprise that one. Curves.. http://rww.to/qJwujs Of interest to me was the quote in ReadWriteCloud from Carsten Casper – a Gartner Research Director – indicating the most Cloud Service Providers will be changing their privacy policies in the next 12 months to more effectively protect their customers data. http://rww.to/nuK8ud
2. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has updated it’s organisational presentations decks including it’s Roadmap. If you using the CSA’s stuff – even in passing – you should grab the new decks.  In addition the organisation has announced STAR, the Security, Trust & Assurance Registry, which will be a publicly accessible registry of the security controls in place at registered service providers. The information is all submitted using the CSA’s controls matrix by the organisations themselves so should provide a like-for-like comparison invaluable to organisations seeking to make the best supplier decision. https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/star/
3. With Amazons most recent outage – there’s a phrase to ponder over… most recent! – apparently being caused by a lighting strike to a power transformer which took out primary and secondary power sources – mains and backup generator – the finger-wavers have been quick to flock around, shake their heads and suck on their teeth in that ‘see I warned you about these new fangled gizmos’ kind of way. But this is why Cloud Computing is on that downward slope into the trough of disillusionment on Gartner’s hype cycle and we’ve seen this before. Web-selling got almost exactly the same bad press and look at where we are now! Be stout of heart and firm of mission, on-line service delivery IS the future and the lessons being learned today will simply add strength to those ultimate systems. The article at ReadWriteWeb (http://rww.to/nHwkfr) hits the issue squarely on the head but pointing out that it’s not about IF you use Cloud Services it’s about how well you use them. Relying on 1 provider in 1 location is very much akin to putting all of your eggs into that singular metaphorical basket.

That’s all for this week.. Ciao for now

1. SharePoint and Hybrid Cloud Storage. The storage company behind this, StorSimple, seem to have devices and solutions which work for SharePoint and Exchange. I found these genuinely interesting and, I think, my first exposure to “Cloud storage” solutions which had a focus. http://bit.ly/kyb94K
2. Veeam tools coming to Hyper-V. Veeam have, until now, been primarily associated with VMware in terms of visualization platform support. This has now changed with the introduction of their backup and replication solution for Hyper-V. This is good in a couple of way, firstly is shows hoe Hyper-V is growing in terms of significance in the eyes of other vendors and secondly, the Veeam solution gives the Microsoft DPM team a shove to continue to enhance and improve that product too.  There isn’t a huge amount of information around, but there is a video here http://bit.ly/ixuBcj which explains things a bit
3. Rackspace are, once again, proving to be real leaders in delivering ‘Cloud’ services. This time they’re launched Hosted Virtual Desktop based on the Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop solutions. I don’t often pull quotes out into bullets like this but this one was significant… “… Rackspace got the customer up and running with 8,000 virtual desktops in about three weeks, and that the customer has plans to host 40,000 virtual desktops with Rackspace” Full story at http://bit.ly/kZm4Fx
4. Cloud services mean more office space! This is a ‘benefit’ I’ll admit I’ve never had in my list, but I’m sure it’s quantifiable in some cases! A move to the adoption of Cloud services means that office space can be freed up for more ‘productive’ purposes that housing servers and there associated kit. Interesting perspective! http://bit.ly/jbj3sX
5. Privacy of data held on cloud services is now being examined before the Senate as a Bill has been proposed to require a search warrant and just cause to be established before data can be accessed. I’m sure this will be much discussed before it’s passed, but it’s an interesting item if you’re involved in data privacy. http://bit.ly/j9lCMz
6. The need for solid, standardized education on Cloud is growing. Organizations ARE confused and I’m afraid Microsoft’s “to the Cloud” ad’s get another beating in this article. http://bit.ly/jwTZ3Q The great thing about this is, we’ve been doing the right things and already have the right language to use!

More next time!

Here’s my problem with this, where is the ‘free’ version? There’s a good reason that a lot of services have a ‘free’ entry level, it encourages initial sign up and, if correctly positioned the value proposition for the paid upgrade becomes very easy to justify. Now, there IS the Skydrive / Live services which are free and are actually pretty damn good – I use them a lot – but they don’t support working effectively as a small group. OLSB did support this for up to 5 users and, although it had it’s own issues with regards service seperation and management, was certainly a solid entry point to the Microsoft on-line services stack.

There MUST be a starting point which could be offered to small groups for free and which value upgrades to the entry-level paid for service would make sense.

Are the products worth paying for? For sure! Is that enough to tempt people away from their free Google Apps account, I’m not so sure, maybe for some but not for others.

1. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) have decided to get on the Cloud Standards train and have set up 2 groups to look at portability and interoperability (P2301 and P2302 respectively). These will look at things like standarizing gateways for data interchange between Cloud based services.. that kind of thing. Story at http://bit.ly/gXr1DD
2. Olafur Ingthorsson (Great name!) at Datacenterknowledge.com takes a look at the key decision points for Enterprise orgs when looking at Cloud Services. http://bit.ly/hdQ9oq
3. This weeks featured acquisition is by VMware. This time it’s Mozy the former EMC service offering Cloud-based data backup and security. It seems that there is some core technology that VMware like the look of and are going to leverage in yet-to-be-announced products. http://bit.ly/gCMvkV
4. What a tactical cloud computing node actually is, I’m not sure. But the Army have apparently deployed on, according to Kevin Jackson. http://bit.ly/e4iQdi
5. Cloud as a life-saver. An application running on AWS cross matches kidney donors from incompatible parings to greatly increase the coverage available. Technology does indeed change lives! http://bit.ly/hFNAoF
6. DELL, $1bn and a change of direction. Servers and datacenters are at the center of DELLs investment plans for the next 12 months. Cloud services and their delivery is where it’s at. I love being right! http://dell.to/hUh562
7. But that’s nothing compared to the $8.64bn which Microsoft are reportedly to invest in Cloud services development. Where this should be spent is very much open to debate and straddling the service provider / technology provider line makes Microsoft vulnerable on two flanks. Azure needs to match, keep pace with and (hopefully) move ahead of it’s rivals like Amazon and the Hyper-V + Systems Center technology stack needs to integrate better, extend further and start delivering serious punches to VMware who are still the leader in the field. Good luck everyone! http://bit.ly/e6s3WP
8. AND FINALLY.. Because it’s got the word Cloud in it – the Cloud Gate. Pretty. http://lat.ms/geyQIO

Things aren’t getting any easier for organisations – both public and private – would are looking at “Cloud” services and solutions. Typically such a view is driven by two things, a feeling that they ‘should’ or a direct requirements that they ‘must’.

Whatever the source, the efforts can be derailed with something as simple as the wrong advice. Get the right definitions and understanding of what “Cloud” is and build from there.

1. It seems the message is getting through that Hybrid is where businesses are heading.”Cloud adoption will be gradual, and SMEs will continue to operate using a hybrid model with an increasing blend between off-premises and traditional on-premises infrastructure, for the foreseeable future.” An MS study show 40% of smaller business are planning for Cloud in some way. That’s a nice market if the figures are reliable. http://bit.ly/fT4c0Q
2. Amazon’s Cloud Drive for documents and music – which allows you music to be streamed anywhere – seems to have beaten Apple to the the punch (Apple bought LaLa last year and iTunes Cloud has been rumoured for a while) but users say that the service is cumbersome to use and doesn’t really match what they are looking for. My thoughts are that they hit the first of the three magic target…”Do it first”. If they can follow this up with “Do it best” and “Do it cheapest” then they win. Story here. http://bit.ly/ge1Flf
3. Personal Cloud storage, at home. At first I thought this was just Cloudwashing, but the two devices featured here do seem to offer and ‘access anywhere’ level of functionality. While not truly a Cloud service, it’s interesting that consumers are getting this kind of exposure. As we know it’s those tech-savvy consumer who go to work and say “I’ve got this at home.. Why don’t we have something similar here?  http://bit.ly/fzxHWl
4. Google Print now supported directly on HP printers. No longer is a PC running Chrome needed to print when you’re away from home / office. The new HP printers allow direct access so you can access you doc via your phone and print it at home (or to any HP device you have the address of!). This is actually pretty cool, I guess it’s possible from other services, but It’s Google which has taken the lead with HP on this one. http://engt.co/idO6dw
5. Cicso still in acquisition mode, this time it’s newScale for their IT automation and self-service portal products. http://bit.ly/dUSdM1
6. The Rackspace OpenStack cloud infrastructure platform is also gathering steam, they’re now working with DELL and Equinix and have produced a ‘test cloud’ platform. The goal of course it that you buy the solution having seen how good it is. http://bit.ly/i5wdHm

More next week!

Two answers to this issue floated across my vision this week, the first from those funky folks at Novell (remember Netware? I do.. ahh well). The Novell solution is called Cloud Manager and purports to provide a single management interface to Hyper-V, VMware and Xen virtualisation environments.  Ben Grubin, Novell’s Director of Datacenter Management, said that this kind of environment allows organisations to use the right level of virtualisation functionality for any particular environment. VMware is feature rich but also expensive and it could be that certain applications don’t need the levels of functionality VMware provides and it would therefore be  more cost-effective to use something like Xen. Novell say that Cloud Manager “allows you to do is make infrastructure choices based on what you need to do to support your business services, rather than trying to maintain a single unified stack”.

The second, albeit more technical, option is OpenStack. OpenStack is an open source solution released by RackSpace and including a scalable compute provisioning engine based on NASA’s Nebula engine (yes NASA, really). It’s been announced that the next release of the code will support a collection of hypervisors including Xen, KVM, UML and also supports VirtualBox which allows virtual machines to be run locally (say on a laptop) for easy build and test prior to deployment.

Microsoft have also said that they’ll support Xen in the next release of the System Center management suite so that’ll provide parity with the Novell offering (Hyper-V, VMware and Xen), but there’s no release date for this as yet.

Some big names are signed up along side VMware nowadays – EMC, Cisco, Intel and HP to name but a few. Today’s news drop caught my attention in particular though and not because it ties in some more partners (Verizon Business, Terremark and Bluelock) but because of what one of those partners, Bluelock, is bringing to the party.

“The Cloud” (I will continue to address this in quotations!) and all of it’s variants – standardised AND ad-hoc – is dominating our thinking right now. The creation and realisation of ‘public cloud’ services such are Amazon’s EC2, Azure from Microsoft etc. are ensuring that thought processes are changing with regard to how compute, storage, application delivery and other services are actually consumed but the future must surely be the seamless hybrid environment?

Of course I mean seamless from a usage and consumption perspective, not from a technical architecture one. There must always be air-gaps, firewalls and security at such boundaries, but the model for services must certainly move to that of some here, some there, some moving between.

The VMware / Bluelock story is significant then as it provides the facility for this hybridisation to be constructed. I know that there are many solutions out there which provide connectivity with EC2 for off-loading and scale-up needs, but, as far as I’m aware, none have been packaged as a product ready for installation in a commercial environment using standard components (perhaps I’m wrong and I invite ALL comments to broaden the knowledge!).

The ability to move workloads between a managed local VMware environment and a hosted one within the same management interface is a boon to those IT / IS leads who are desperate to take advantage of this kind of service but who don’t have the development skills or the time to work something up. VMware IS playing catch-up here of course as they don’t didn’t have the hosters out there ready or able to provide this kind of service but the Verizon Business and Terremark partnerships in the US, COLT covering Europe and Singtel for APAC show that they are moving solidly in the direction of global hybrid cloud supplier. It’ll be interesting to see what others – Microsoft in particular as they want to hit VMware hard with Hyper-V and Systems Center – will be doing to counter this. The rumours of VM’s in Azure may well have been premature but they now look like a necessity OR Microsoft could follow VMware’s suit and team up with some key service providers around the globe…. Ahhh… Azure Appliance! Perhaps the waters clear? Add a little of rumour 1 to product 2 and you have solution 3(ish). Let’s see.

How the VMware / Bluelock solutions works