Singapore Inforcomm Resource Marketplace

Some information on Singapore Cloud Initiatives

Cloud Computing initiatives and policy directions in Asia during CloudAsia 2012 by Assistant CEO of iDA

Sharing on Cloud Computing experience by Mr Loo Kian Wai of Diners World Travel during the Singapore Cloud Forum seminar on 27 July 2012.

To view the videos,

Introducing IBM Cloud Academy and IBM Cloud Computing

Follow up links from IBM Cloud Computing Academic Initiative

1. IBM Smart Business - Cloud Computing
2. North Carolina State University and IBM Extend Access to Educational Resources to the World Through Cloud Computing
   
   

Cloud Computing - Office Suites & Tools

There is an interesting information on Cloud Office suites & tools. Taken from "The rough guide to cloud computing" by Peter Buckley and continuation of "Rough Guide to Clouds Computing - Office Suties & Tools" Blog Entry. Please buy the book for the comprehensive lists. I'm listing only a few interesting sites that the book mentioned


Office Suites

1. Google Docs
2. Office Live Workspace
   A useful web-based environment from MS where one can work, share and store office documents.
3. Slide Rocket
   A presentation cloud that have impressive kit and interface
4. TwiddlaA browser based whiteboard meeting tool
5. DimdimA web-based conferencing and collaboration tool

Rough Guide to Clouds Computing - File Sharing

Interesting book on Clouds Computing on Internet. I read this sniffy little book "The rough guide to cloud computing" by Peter Buckley. It seems sometimes for users cloud computing seem quite mysterious but most of us are already on cloud consciously or not.

I like the session on storage and office tool. Buy the book if you are curious. Some of the interesting site mentioned are
File Sharing

1. MailBigFile.com
   Transfer large files if they are too big for email. Upload up to 2GB per file.
2. RapidShare
   Upload up to 200MB file and even spilt archive
3. You Send It
   Upload up to 2GB per file

Online Storage

1. Microsoft SkyDrive
   Can provide up to 25GB on storage for anyone with a Windows Live
2. Microsoft Live Mesh
   Allow syncing of files between the cloud and seperate pcs. Interesting! Up to 5GB
3. Sugarsync
   Award-winning file backup & sync software. Up to 2GB.

For more read the book :)

Limiting Latencies in the Cloud

This is a very good article on HPCwire that summarise on Limiting the Latencies in the Cloud by Dr. Casimer DeCusatis and Todd Bundy. A must-read on the convergence of the numerous protocol used in storage, HPC and Enterprise Computing

eyeos - The Open Source Cloud Web's Desktop

According to the eysos website,

eyeos is an open source web desktop following the cloud computing concept. It is mainly written in PHP, XML, and Javascript. It acts as a platform for web applications written using the eyeos Toolkit. It includes a Desktop environment with 67 applications and system utilities. It is accessible by portable devices via its mobile front end. eyeos lets you upload your files and work with them no matter where you are. It contains applications like Word Processor, Address Book, PDF reader, and many more developed by the community

My Thoughts on what is Cloud Computing? (Part 1)

Cloud Computing is gaining a lot of publicity. I have attended a few myself. But up to now even if you gather the experts on this, even the definition is abstract. Maybe one of the best way is to ask a question and try to answer it

So what is Cloud Computing?

• Cloud Computing can be referred to as IT as a service. In the same way, a utility company delivers electricity for the end users for their specific and unique consumption, the challenge is whether Cloud Computing can deliver cheaper, faster, superior user experiences.

What are the essential components of Cloud?

• Service Catalogue - From my limited understanding, Service catalogue is the standardised IT offering you are offering to the customers. Maybe it is just some virtualised infrastructure for development, maybe it is a development environment like Hadoop, or even maybe it is even a Windows environment inside for an application requirement....
• Automation - By automation, what I meant was the ability to auto-provisioned by users for the standardised environment they require. In other words, there is some sort like a self-service portal where the users can select their choices from. Another essential atribute of automation comes in the form of workload analysis. The ability of the Cloud Computing infrastructure to meet the demand based on the workload analysis
• Virtualisation - Virtualisation is very essential as many image format of the computing environment or the service catalogue can be kept efficiently. It is also a mean where the image can be deployed very quickly and the environment consistently kept for the particular user. Bare-metal provisioning is not impossible for the Cloud Environment, it is just less efficient and more time consuming as the nodes have to be reformatted with the OS and the image. Of course you can dual-boot or triple-boot. If your number of images are small or have very standardised user base, it is still manageable.

What are the catalysts pushing industry to Cloud Computing?

• I think the current IT infrastructure limitation will gets more and more glaring as the explosion of services and data are harder to manage in a distributed environment. On average, about 85% of a compute resource remain idle. This is definitely not the best use of resources.
• Another is the amount of budget spent on maintaining instead of adding new capabilities is another "push" factor. With a consolidated environment, cost will definitely be more managed.
• I guess the last catalyst will be is the rising perception of the users. IT services is going to be just a utility. IT is so pervasive now like electricity. If you check in a hotel and there is no Internet, it is perceived as very out-of-touch. Rising expectation will definitely put demands on IT resources and yet the need to be flexible to provision with peak and trough of computing demands. This is the impetus given to the Cloud

Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers (RMSC) - Supercomputer platform as a Service

Cloud Computing is evolving so quickly. Usually HPC and Enterprise Computing are usually very seperate with distinct characeristics and usually it does not converge so easily.

Cloud Computing which is the natural evolution of virtualisation and consolidation and usually comes from the Enterprise Computing paradigm is  finally closing the gap of this convergence.

One important development can be seen from Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers (RMSC) may be one of the first HPC Cloud being developed with the concept of supercomputing on the demand concept or Supercomputer platform as a service (SPaaS). See Rocky Mountain Supercomputing Centers (RMSC) offering.

Very thought provoking

Video of IBM Cloud Computing Community

IBM has setup a IBM Cloud Channel via Youtube. In the Cloud Channel, you have a collection of customers testimonials and how IBM is shaping business strategy via Cloud.

Good site to know more about IBM Cloudburst offering.

MagCloud - Publish your own magazine in the Cloud

MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and MagCloud take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.

Interesting application on using the Cloud from Hewlett Packard

EnFuzion3D 2009 enabling 3D Application in EC2 Cloud

EnFuzion® is the first commercial product on the market today to enable seamless rendering with major 3D applications in the Amazon® EC2 Cloud.

According to EnFuzion, it can supports major applications including Autodesk products, Adobe products vRay etc.

For more information read "EnFuzion3D 2009 Enables Resizable Image Rendering in the Amazon Cloud"

Cloud is In!

MOAB Adaptive Datacenter and Cloud Solution

If you are considering MOAB solution for Cloud Computing, here 4 sets of online video which might help in your decision

1. Adaptive DataCenter
2. Key Benefits
3. Internal Hosting
4. External Hosting

Happy viewing.....

MOAB and Cloud Computing

For those who are keen on Cloud Computing and how MOAB can make the HPC Cloud-like. Go to Chris's Blog on MOAB. Excellent Resource

Archive for the ‘Moab’ Category

Special Feature Writeup of ISC09

A good collection of Articles and Commentaries dedicated to ISC 09 Conference
HPCwire's special section dedicated to ISC09

Grand unification of supercomputing and cloud computing?

There were a posting by Michael Feldman, editor of HPCwire on the title High Performance Cloud Computing Still an Oxymoron.

A good article where experts provide differing view on the feasibility of Cloud Computing on HPC infrastructure.

IBM Cloud Computing Academic Initiative

Web information

1. More information on IBM Cloud Computing Academic Initiative
2. Collaboration of Univeristy with IBM on Cloud Computing

IBM Cloud Initiatives

1. IBM Cloud Initiatives

1. IBM Cloud Computing Initiative Information Site
2. Technology Centric Cloud Computing Site

2. IBM Cloud Research Project

1. April 16, 2009: IBM Establishes First Cloud Computing Laboratory in Hong Kong
2. April 16, 2009: Kogakuin University in Japan Manages Next-Gen Infrastructure with Public Cloud Services from IBM
3. April 23, 2009: National Science Foundation Awards Millions to Fourteen Universities for Cloud Computing Research