There was a lot of buzz about Grid Computing vs. Virtual Machines and the combination of them together. As many of you may know Amazon (Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3) like many others, such as Google (Google Page Creator) and Microsoft (Microsoft Office Live,) has released online hosting/storage services using this technology in one form or another. The technology has been out since 1990s as a metaphor for making computer power as easy to access as an electric power grid in Ian Foster and Carl Kesselmans seminal work, “The Grid: Blueprint For A New Computing Infrastructure.”

My experience with Grid Computing goes back to the late 1990s with distributed.net in helping making encryption that much secure. With the technology originally designed to harness unused CPU cycles to solve complex problems, to now being used to hosting an infinite number of hosting environments. It is amazing the level of reliability and scalability options that are available with the system. The ability to grow in resources at an unlimited rate -on the fly- with little to no exposure to change, is outstanding. The other great aspect of this system of technology is the ability to contribute to a sustainable mindset. If done properly, you can reuse old servers and hardware that in a normal life cycle would be recycled, now can be reprovisioned back into a production environment with little concern of impact of hardware failure. This rejuvenation of hardware opens up a great opportunity to get that-much-more out of your initial investment as well as being able to pass those saving onto the customer. Do I see Grid and Virtual environments replacing all hosting environments? Not likely. In theory they have great potential to revolutionize the price, uptime, and growth opportunities of hosting. However I don’t see the replacement of dedicated environments with dedicated resources. Really, the way I look at it is: the continued growth in Grid and Virtual systems is really an improvement like public light rail has been for transportation. It has become cheaper, more reliable and continues to expand where it can go. However most of us still buy our own cars customized the way we like; from rims, stereos, number of seats, 4×4, biodiesel, the list goes on. Just like the vehicles you want to own, the same holds true in hosting. As a light rail can’t take you everywhere when you need to be, grids and virtual solutions can’t host every complex environment.

The question always seems to come up with this technology, will the Corporate Giants with the large pocket books and nearly limitless resources wipe out the little local hosting companies? In my opinion – not likely. Although the large corporate empires can deliver good products and great hardware, one thing they will always struggle with is: relationships. There is something to be said with local support and the face-to-face relationship with your hosting partner that you don’t get with the Giants. Having the ability to pick up the phone and call your solutions executive-engineer-local-host 24/7 and have them know who you are by name and the solution you utilize says a lot about the type of local provider you have. Additionally, there is something to be said about the warm fuzzy feelings we all get when we can go down to the local Data Center and see the pretty lights flashing and say to yourself, “There is my site.” The fact is, what Amazon as well as other do for the industry is what helps get the exposure to the general public about technology and drive more business to local providers as well. I think it is great. It will be interesting to see how the community responds to the technology. One thing is for sure my eyes will be watching.

Hosting Con 2007 also brought information about web 2.0 applications: MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Friendster, and Xanga community. Others refer to this as a social networking movement. I find it interesting that half of Myspace users are over the age of 35.

So what does that say? To me it says there is a opportunity harness some of the power of user driven content. There is over 180,000 active and unique visitors in these communities as of Aug 2006 and they continue to grow. One way I see harnessing the power of these users is to create a community of customers for your hosting business that can help each other. They are all in one form or another doing the same thing and can use each other’s resources/knowledge to grow together. This type of value add and communication tunnel that not only your customers can contribute and drive the conversations but also your engineers and technicians can contribute ideas or solutions to drive more business. In summary, hosting is a communication vehicle to drive your customers content.

Walking through our data center it is easy to see that our collaboration with HP continues to increase day-by-day. With new Blade solutions being installed as we migrate existing partners and welcome new ones into our family, we’re taking steps to assure their businesses succeed while we move toward a sustainable existence with the nature around us.

Our commitment to these partnerships is being showcased this fall season in a print publication by HP on transforming the enterprise. You can read a snippet from the publication just below and from there you can download the entire publication in a friendly Adobe pdf format by jumping off to HP’s micro-site dedicated to the publication.

Companies routinely waste a ton of money cooling and powering open space. We wanted a micro data center that is efficient and eco-aware. And we wanted the ability to expand and optimize the data center as we grew versus filling empty space over time.”

If opus:interactive is any indication, the prevailing set of earth friendly principles are now spilling into the corporate sector. A Managed Services Provider (MSP), opus:interactive offers a variety of online services to its clients, such as Web hosting, managed servers, email hosting and high-speed Internet access. These solutions are provided through the company’s state-of-the-art data center in Portland, Ore.

“We’re not your average MSP,” says Jeremy Sherwood, Business Solutions Executive for opus:interactive. “Stewardship is very important to us, and we strive to take exceptional care of our clients as well as our environment.”

Whereas many organizations would opt to set aside a large parcel of space in which a modern data center can grow, opus:interactive contemplated efficiency more than square footage. “Companies routinely waste a ton of money cooling and powering open space,” Sherwood continues. “We wanted a micro data center that is efficient and eco-aware. And we wanted the ability to expand and optimize the data center as we grow versus filling empty space over time. We have the space, obviously, but why build it all out at once?”

Today, opus:interactive’s 1,000 square-foot Internet Data Center is home to numerous HP BladeSystem c-Class and p-Class server blades as well as 62 ProLiant servers. The facility is served by fiber optics and all vital systems are fully redundant. The company utilizes VMware on HP ProLiant BL460c server blades to offer virtual dedicated managed servers for its clients and to run many of its internal business applications without having to purchase additional servers.

“We made a concerted effort to become an eco-aware data center facility with the implementation of HP BladeSystems,” Sherwood says. “The blades have allowed us to scale faster, use power efficiently, provision servers faster and ultimately, close more deals.”

He adds that the blades are pulling a mere 15 amps of power compared the 40 amps that the stand-alone servers consume. And VMware has turned one or two day deployments into 15 minute projects from start to finish. As the company and its client base grows, opus:interactive is gradually replacing its ProLiant servers with HP BladeSystems, freeing up space in the data center, further reducing power consumption and easing cabling complexity.

“The use of HP BladeSystems stays true to our customer-first initiative by providing the best-of-the-breed hardware that truly is “Always On,” easy to manage, extensible, scalable, reliable and eco-aware,” says Eric Hulbert, Chief Information Officer of opus:interactive. “This shift in IT is our push for business innovation in all that we do. We plan to replace our entire infrastructure with the HP BladeSystem c-Class.”

Apparently, being green is easy after all.

For the full opus:interactive case study and information on the HP BladeSystem, visit: www.hp.com/go/transformblades.

Instructions:

In order to view the case study you will be asked to register. Please assure that you have selected the top check box of Step 1 (see the screen capture below for example) titled: HP BladeSystem Special Edition, Fall 2007 (PDF).

by Jeremy Sherwood

Walking into Interop in Las Vegas reminded me very much of a big kids’ Disneyland. The lights, the overly large gimmicks that scream “Look at me! Look at me!” It really was sensory overload. Looking back on the event I can still remember the booths that really made an impression. There was a lot of good swag, and of course the cheap booths that attempt to persuade you with a simple little 25-cent plastic clapper (although my 1-year-old digs the plastic clapper).

Booths that made a lasting impression despite the products or services they were selling were the booths that didn’t make you feel like you were dealing with trashy used car salesmen.

I think the booths that made a lasting impression despite the products or services they were selling were the booths that didn’t make you feel like you were dealing with trashy used car salesmen. A good example is Qwest. Although they are a big player they really invited you over to their booth to play multiplayer Half-Life2, which Eric and I played for multiple rounds, fragging each other as well as 12 strangers. (The opus boys were in the top five every game we played.) The booth was very inviting, with no real sales hook to buy or sign up for anything. It was just “come and experience what Qwest broadband can do for you and your business.” The speaker was optional, and most of it was about Qwest providing bandwidth to the whole conference. I thought it was really well done.

A different aspect of Interop that was really nice was the opportunity to meet face-to-face with the vendors we work with. After spending almost two whole days with David from GTA on the phone/RDP completing our Firewall certifications, it was nice to put a face with a name and experience. The other great thing about meeting with GTA was speaking with their president. He was very personable, but more than that he was very interested in the things we wanted changed for the better. He truly expressed the desire to receive negative as well as positive feedback. That really reassured me that they are a great partner to have.

All in all, Interop itself really brought home that we are doing the right things and heading in the right direction. There wasn’t anything that jumped out and said, “Oh man, you better do this or change this. You are behind the curve.” In reality, most everything said, “ You guys are ahead of the curve.” Which is great to hear.

Last but not least: Las Vegas. What an interesting place. Where the people are proud to say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” I never thought that would be something to be proud of. We saw Old Town Vegas, spray paint artists, and the million-LED walkway (cool technology, poor use of it). We almost got Nuss to take his picture with two guys from Chippendales to send home— now that would have been funny. We rode one too many monorails, walked more than any human should have to, ate way to much heavy food, never slept enough, inhaled well beyond some legal limit of second-hand smoke, and, most importantly, enjoyed every minute of it.

Here are some key points to look for when shopping around for a provider.

Managed Servers and Colocation are hot topics throughout the northwest. If you have been exploring hosting options I’m sure the question “What is better dedicated managed servers or collocating servers?” has come to mind. I generally respond with 3 buckets to assist clients in there search for service. These buckets help identify what you need and from whom. They are “You Do”, “I Do” and “We Do”.

The first bucket is “You Do.” This bucket is as it sounds, that you want someone to take care of all your services. Generally speaking this is what is called a Managed Server Solution or Dedicated Server. You pay trained certified technicians to managed servers, operating systems, applications, database, firewalls, security, disaster recovery, data back etc all in a secure data center facility. This solution is really designed for those companies who don’t want the headaches and responsibility of managing the upkeep of servers. A good number of companies use this solution so they don’t acquire any assets the depreciate and have a life cycle of about 3 years. This solutions is more of a worries free and headache free solution. The “You Do” is growing rapidly as more and more companies want to focus on there core business and not have to worry about the technical side of things.

The Second bucket is “I Do.” This bucket is really designed for the do it yourselfers out there. Colocation space is really what you need. You rent space just like you might at the gym for a locker to put your clothes in. You have your clothes and you just need a safe place to put them while you work out. Colocation of servers is very similar. You rent secure space, power, cooling, and connectivity for your servers. The biggest advantages of doing this are network reliability and guaranteed uptime. Yes I know, there are a lot of companies that have servers under someone’s desk or in some back closet, but that being said, you are only as strong as your weakest link. What happens when your internet goes down, or you lose power? What about the security of someone coming into your office space, or on those really hot summer days that broom closet gets pretty hot? The answer is trouble. The cost for that is far more expensive than to rent space in a facility. Besides this way if something were to go wrong you have someone else to blame, and generally you receive refunds for any outages.

The final bucket is “We Do.” This is really the best in both worlds. It truly is the buffet of services. You pick what services you would like to add to your current, or new solution, and how much control, or level of responsibility, you wish to have. All three buckets are great because the features they address to each unique business.

Now the real big question is what provider should I pick? We’ll answer that question in our next entry. Stay tuned.