mCloud On-Demand Now Does Windows

[I originally published this post on the Morphlabs corporate blog]

Morphlabs recently released a new version of our mCloud On-Demand product and has two major features to announce:

1. Windows Support – Users can launch Windows Servers in addition to CentOS Servers and all sizes of Amazon computes are available for both platforms.
2. More free VMs — The other important feature to announce is that we have expanded the free level of service for mCloud On-Demand which means that users can now launch up to 20 VMs at a time for free (note that you still need to pay for your own Amazon EC2 expenses).  We want you to use mCloud On-Demand as your primary cloud computing interface or to use it to quickly experience the power of mCloud technology.

What is mCloud On-Demand?

mCloud On-Demand helps take the complexity out of cloud computing.  With mCloud On-Demand, users can easily create and launch virtual servers which can be configured with your choice of operating systems, development environments and packages.  These configured servers can be saved as FlexImages which can be re-used to provide you with faster configuration and standardization while streamlining your system administration.  We will also offer pre-configured FlexImages or App Stacks to get you started quickly with a cloud computing solution.

Sign up for your free mCloud On-Demand account today

Get On the Cloud Today

Since our mCloud On-Demand solution is a cloud services platform sits on top of the Amazon EC2 infrastructure, you do not need any infrastructure or IT resources to get started.  You simply sign up for mCloud On-Demand, provide your Amazon EC2 information and you will begin you experiencing mCloud technology within minutes.

Experience All of mCloud On-Demand Features

From a feature standpoint, mCloud On-Demand has the key components that define a true cloud computing solution including:

• Self-service — web-based self-service for provisioning virtual machines (VMs)
• Windows or CentOS – you can launch VMs with either a Windows or CentOS operating system
• Bundled Flex Images – ability to save and re-use server configurations
• Measured service — built-in metering of usage by VM hour and user
• Billing – capabilities for internal or external chargebacks or show-backs
• Administration — robust administration features for adding and monitoring users

Watch Our mCloud On-Demand Overview Demo

This short demo video provides you with an overview of what you can expect with mCloud On-Demand:

We also recorded four other videos that you can access from our Morphlabs YouTube Page or from the Morphlabs Facebook Fanpage:

• Signup for  an mCloud On-Demand Account
• Create a new cloud with mCloud On-Demand
• Connect to an mCloud On-Demand cloud using SSH
• Connect to an mCloud On-Demand Windows cloud

What Can You Do With mCloud On-Demand?

With mCloud On-Demand, users can:

• Create CentOS or Windows VMs using our Cloud Builder – all sizes from Amazon EC2 are supported
• Connect to the servers via SSH or Remote Desktop and configure the servers however you want to with development environments, applications and packages
• Bundle configured servers to reduce system admin time and share with others
• Launch bundled servers to rapidly deploy standardized images
• Manage users and permissions to fine tune management and control
• Explore the power of mCloud technology today with no upfront investment in hardware

System Admins Get More Efficient with mCloud On-Demand - System admins can use mCloud On-Demand to simplify the process for provisioning and setting up virtual servers.  In addition, self-service enables users to rapidly increase and decrease capacity as needed with minimal upfront costs.

Software Developers Get More Productive with the mCloud On-Demand - Software developers gain the ability to rapidly provision and set up environments that they can use for development, testing and deployment.  By spending less time on system admin tasks, developers can quickly respond to market needs and drive more innovation into their products.

Business Users Gain Access to Cloud Ready Applications with mCloud On-Demand - Business users can also benefit from mCloud On-Demand through pre-configured and supported access to software that they need to run their businesses.  We are already including Bundled Computes and will be building more App Stacks in the future that can be installed from within mCloud On-Demand to deliver cloud-ready applications.  Plus, we will also have plans for mCloud Elastic Apps (eApps) that will be scalable, elastic and fault-tolerant versions of cloud-ready applications.

Cloud Computing According To The US Government

[I originally published this post on the Morphlabs corporate blog on 2/17/2011]

The U.S. Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, released the Federal Cloud Computing Strategy on CIO.gov this week and it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in cloud computing.  And it is a definite read for anyone who manages or uses IT resources in companies of all sizes as the scope of what the Federal Government is proposing will have a large and direct impact on information technology across all sectors for many years to come.

The document starts by outlining the current situation of the Federal Government’s IT environment:

• low asset utilization
• fragmented demand for resources
• duplicative systems
• environments which are difficult to manage
• long procurement lead times

Do those issues sound familiar?

With respect to low asset utilization, an accompanying presentation estimates the curent utilization of a typical US Government server at 27%.  The executive summary also estimates that 25% of the $80 Billion of the Federal IT spend is a potential target for migration to the cloud – and that is a number that should drive cloud adoption in private business too.

The Federal Cloud Computing Strategy document is organized as follows:

1. Definitions and background cloud computing information
2. Decision framework for cloud computing migration
3. Current examples of cloud computing use in the Federal Government
4. Discussion of how Federal Government leadership can catalyze adoption and minimize risk

There are many nuggets of information in the document including the cloud computing definition provided on Chapter I which is one of the simpler yet most complete descriptions of cloud computing – “Cloud computing describes a broad movement to treat IT services as a commodity with the ability to dynamically increase or decrease capacity to match usage needs.”

Another bright spot was the identification of the three cloud computing benefits of efficiency, agility and innovation as it is refreshing to see those words published in a document from our government since those are not typical words used in governmental operations.

In the conclusion, the document paraphrases Sir Arthur Eddington (the physicist who confirmed Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity) – “cloud computing will not just be more innovative than we imagine; it will be more innovative than we can imagine.”

The entire Cloud Computing Strategy document can be viewed below or downloaded from this link.  There is also an accompanying presentation which provides a general overview at this link.

View this document on Scribd

My Blogging Scorecard for 2010

Thank you WordPress for compiling these stats for me…the most important stat is the 33,000 visits to my blog which proves the long tail impact of posting good content to the Internet as none of my most popular posts were written in 2010.  My posts in 2011 will be slowing down as I leave consulting to return to full-time employment doing product marketing for  Morphlabs, a cloud computing software company.  I will continue to be active in social media as some of my duties include blogging and tweeting (@morphlabs) for Morphlabs in 2011.

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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how the Social Media Musings blog by Tom Humbarger did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 33,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 28 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 228 posts. There were 56 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 4mb. That’s about 1 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was June 5th with 487 views. The most popular post that day was Happy Birthday John Wooden.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were bnet.com, facebook.com, ow.ly, linkedin.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for social media, john wooden pyramid of success printable, confused, nick vujicic, and social media job description.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Happy Birthday John Wooden October 2009
4 comments

2

My Social Media Job Description October 2008
20 comments and 2 Likes on WordPress.com

3

Life Without Limbs – No Problem January 2009

4

Confused About Community Registration? August 2008
1 comment

5

The Importance of Active Community Management – Proved With Real Data January 2009
27 comments

I’m Back in the Community Business with the Launch of the mCloud On-Demand Community

This is a big week for me as I have been busy working on a simultaneous product and community launch for Morphlabs.   On Wednesday, I wrote a post about mCloud On-Demand and briefly mentioned the new community.  Today, I want to provide some additional background on the actual community.

The community is called the mCloud On-Demand Community and it’s primary purpose is to support our new mCloud On-Demand product.  The community is also serving as network for cloud computing professionals and as an aggregator of cloud computing news and information.

I used Ning Professional to create the community and so far I am really pleased with how easy it was to set up and customize the look-and-feel.  And for less than $500 per year, the cost is more than a real bargin.  Plus, I was able to set up and customize my community in just a couple of days.  This experience was totally different from the first community I built almost 4 years ago.  I now have more community functionality and control at a price that is more than 20x cheaper per month than the cost of my first community.  I highly recommend Ning Professional to anyone who is interested in created a community site.

mCloud On-Demand Community Homepage

The other big difference in my latest community experience is that I will have help in adding content and responding to member questions in the forum.  Since the primary goal of the community is to support the mCloud On-Demand product, there is 24×7 team to handle the bulk of the work while I can focus on pure community management.

I can’t wait to see how my latest community adventure unfolds.  You can check out the mCloud On-Demand Community at community.mor.ph.

Up in the Clouds

I have not written many blog posts recently as I’ve been spending my time in the clouds.  Cloud computing to be specific. Since June, I have been working at Morphlabs and leading the product marketing efforts to launch a product called mCloud On-Demand.  Yesterday was our big launch day as we announced the availability of mCloud On-Demand at the Cloud Computing Expo in Santa Clara, California.  By the way you can signup for a free mCloud On-Demand account here.

The rest of this blog post is excerpted from a post I wrote for the Morphlabs website yesterday.

What is mCloud On-Demand? mCloud On-Demand is an operational management platform that works with Amazon’s EC2 service to provide an integrated cloud computing stack for deploying, managing and monitoring enterprise class applications.  mCloud On-Demand uses same mCloud technology and interface as mCloud Controller that is used by enterprises to build private clouds and by service providers who are offering cloud services to their customers.

And during the initial beta period, mCloud On-Demand is totally free including access to our user support community and 24×7 technical support.

As mentioned in the blog post title, our goal is to make public clouds more reliable and secure by extending Amazon’s rich capabilities to give users more control over their public cloud infrastructure.

mCloud On-Demand - Cloud Builder

With mCloud On-Demand, we are targeting anyone who is currently using or planning on using Amazon Web Services (AWS).  In addition, mCloud On-Demand lets anyone experience mCloud technology firsthand quickly and with minimal outlay.

Why did we launch mCloud On-Demand? The storyline for mCloud On-Demand can be summed up as follows:

1. Public cloud computing and adoption is exploding
2. AWS is the leading provider of public clouds
3. Morphlabs has more than 3 years experience in working with AWS and we are an AWS Solutions Partner
4. mCloud On-Demand will make it easier to deploy, manage and monitor applications over the public cloud

Public Clouds Are Getting “Hot”- Research firm IDC released a report in June 2010 that public cloud IT services will grow at a rate that is 5 times more than the rate of traditional IT products.  According to IDC Chief Analyst Frank Gens, “Our forecast shows that public IT cloud services are currently ‘crossing the chasm,’ with modest revenue but very fast growth.”  Cloud computing pundit David Linthicum wrote an interesting blog post titled “The Stealthy Rise of the Public Cloud” in which he discussed how public clouds are ‘sneaking’ into enterprises because they are easy to procure without any upfront investment – “you can allocate the servers and tools you need with a credit card, only getting billed for the time you use.”

AWS is the 900-lb Gorilla in Public Cloud Computing - Almost everyone outside the cloud computing ecosystem are surprised to learn that Amazon is a leader in cloud computing, but they are the leader by a large amount.  It is difficult to get exact numbers on the size of Amazon’s cloud computing business because they are not broken out separately in their financial statements, but almost everyone acknowledges that they are the leading provider of public clouds.  Some analysts have tried to estimate Amazon’s cloud computing revenue including UBS Investment Research which pegs AWS revenue at $500 million while Citibank investment bankers estimate AWS will have $650 million in revenues in 2010.

How Can I Get Started With mCloud On-Demand? The best news is that mCloud On-Demand is available now and it is free to use during our initial beta period.  It only takes a minute or two to sign up for a free account:

1. Give us your email address and confirm your password
2. Provide your Amazon EC2 account and keys

The second step is optional during the signup process and you can add the Amazon keys later from our Account tab.  You can experience most of the functionality of mCloud On-Demand without adding your Amazon keys including the cloud creator and review the system admin information.

mCloud On-Demand Signup Page

mCloud On-Demand Links and Resources:

• Signup for mCloud On-Demand Signup
• Read the mCloud On-Demand Datasheet
• Check out the mCloud On-Demand Support Community
• Learn more about mCloud On-Demand from our Knowledgebase

Tweets From @tomhumbarger for Week Ending July 23 2010

This blog post is an experiment on creating a blog post from the best of my weekly Twitter Tweets posted @tomhumbarger.

Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries : NPR http://ow.ly/

Insights from the AWS Cloud Computing for the Enterprise Event in Los Angeles « my post summarizing @werner‘s talk… http://ow.ly/2feYw

RT @morphlabs: we answer Amazon’s call for SWAG from AWS evangelist @jeffbarr and help decorate their new offices… http://ow.ly/2fek

Impact of OpenStack Project Goes Beyond the Cloud Industry Leaders – ReadWriteCloud http://ow.ly/2fc5b#cloudcomputing

How to increase the value of content without ever changing the content http://ow.ly/2faBM another great post from @dspark

Five reasons why Foursquare’s mainstream success is inevitable – Telegraph http://ow.ly/2eA

What Sucks About @Foursquare Today – an interesting rant and wishlist on geo-social from @jess3 http://ow.ly/2eCX1- posted on Slidesh

@jeffcutler will cover the BP Oil Spill for 2 weeks for the environmental professional @edrcommonground community… http://ow.ly/2eBa7

10 Fascinating Facebook Facts: http://bit.ly/an5bfN

9 Ways To Convince The CEO To Use Social Media and Enter The 21st Century | from @Jeffbullas‘s Blog http://ow.ly/2eAvK - #1=scare ‘em!

Stop Trying to Measure Social Media: 10 Things You Should Be Measuring Instead – Kommein http://ow.ly/2euAD

RT @morphlabs: “We create market value through an open core strategy.” CEO Winston Damarillo interview w/ @socaltech http://ow.ly/2e9ce

The Field Guide to Social Media Weasels – which of the 12 types of social media experts are you? from @ikepigott … http://ow.ly/2egzf

Dr Werner Vogel, CTO at Amazon, speaking at AWS Cloud for the Enterprise …http://tweetphoto.com/33891609

A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Social Media: http://bit.ly/cTRizn … An interesting retrospective…

RT @davidnour Top 10 Reasons Most Networking Doesn’t Work and Why!: Networking is one of those necessary evils for most http://bit.ly/9S7avw

Cloud Platform Startup @Morphlabs Raises $5.5 Million from TechCrunch…http://ow.ly/2dIhu

2010 Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study – Introduction http://ow.ly/2dBmF – some interesting stats on using social media channels…

The Requirements Payoff — by Karl Wiegers http://ow.ly/2dDTt …1-engage endusers, 2-prototype UIs, 3-review problems, 4-align with biz

Twitter is #2 Search Engine | Google is #1 by wide margin, Yahoo is 3rd and Bing is 4th… Social Media Today http://ow.ly/2dAIO

Can Facebook Best Google With Social Search? – MarketingVOX http://ow.ly/2dAtY

Facebook’s 500 Million Members [INFOGRAPHIC]:http://bit.ly/9IOmo2

10 Fascinating Facebook Facts: http://bit.ly/an5bfN

Is Flipboard Legal? | Epicenter | Wired.com http://ow.ly/2fKFq (Is Flipboard scraping content it doesn’t have the rights to?)

10 Great Behind-the-Scenes Glimpses of Google [VIDEOS]: http://mashable.com/2010/07/23/google-office-tour/ #10 is my fav!

40 Web Design and Development Resources for Beginners: http://mashable.com/2010/07/23/web-design-resources-beginners/

Insights from the AWS Cloud Computing for the Enterprise Event in Los Angeles

The Amazon Web Services team held a Cloud Computing Enterprise Event in Los Angeles this week and the featured speaker was Dr. Werner Vogels, Amazon’s Chief Technology Officer.

Dr. Werner Vogels, Amazon CTO, Presents at the AWS Los Angeles Event

Werner started out his talk by saying that Amazon’s goal is:

“to make cloud computing so simple that you don’t need a Dummies Book.”

After talking about the astronomic growth of the AWS service that now receives more than 120,000 requests per second and has more than 124 billion objects, Werner listed the top 5 myths about cloud computing:

1. Cloud is not reliable
2. Cloud is all or nothing
3. Cloud is all that matters
4. Cloud locks you in
5. Cloud is not secure

Using specific customer stories from companies such as NASDAQ, Lawson, Razorfish, Netflix, Recovery.gov and the US Department of the Treasury, Werner debunked each of the myths with real-life examples.

Werner also shared the 9 Business Design Principles that Amazon used to develop their AWS service.  Interestingly, many if not all of these principles could be applied by most companies when trying to design and deliver top quality products and services:

1. Design for flexibility
2. Design for on-demand
3. Design for automation
4. Decompose into it’s simplest form
5. Break transparency
6. Design with security
7. Don’t do it alone
8. Continuously innovate
9. Let your customers benefit

Werner closed his presentation by stating that:

cloud computing is still on Day 1 of it’s evolution!

Here is a similar presentation that Werner gave in April 2010 for the London Enterprise Cloud Computing event and most of the slides were the same for the Los Angeles event:

You can learn more about what makes Werner tick by checking out his All Things Distributed blog or by following him on Twitter at @werner.

Twitter Messages for Week Ending July 16 2010

This blog post is an experiment on creating a blog post from my weekly Twitter Tweets posted @tomhumbarger.

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What You’re Missing By Measuring Social Media ROI Online | BrandSavanthttp://ow.ly/2cyJZ – you need to coordinate with offline too…

The smartest people in tech – ranking of top 50 tech savvy people …from FORTUNE Magazine - http://ow.ly/2ct0l

the 4 Most Popular Videos on Cloud Computing « Data Center Knowledge – from the simple explanation to Larry Ellison… http://ow.ly/2c7OU

Should E-Mail Marketing Stay in Its Silo? – thoughts on how social media & email marketing can play together MarketingVOX http://ow.ly/2c6RW

here’s the original ExactTarget and CoTweet report on digital marketing…http://ow.ly/2c6WT

The Creativity Crisis – Newsweek http://ow.ly/2bYKH – interesting article on the decline of creativity in America including why & how to fix

Please Don’t Start a Social Media Marketing Agency – an alternative view from @pc4mediaat @hubspot - http://ow.ly/2bZu3

How to test your decision-making instincts – from McKinsey Quarterly – Strategic Thinkinghttp://ow.ly/2bYII

Jive and Lithium Top Gartner’s First-Ever Magic Quadrant for Social CRM – destinationCRM.com http://ow.ly/2bBQp

from @maggielmcg on mizz information blog: What Your Facebook Page is Worth…To Vitrue http://ow.ly/2b1QD

RT @TomHumbarger: What’s the Value of Your Facebook Fans? | my latest blog post on options for valuing Facebook Fans… http://ow.ly/2akM9

Twitter worth the extra effort :: BtoB Magazine http://ow.ly/2b1AX – i.e. you have to work at social media to get the real value…

Déjà vu for IT: The cloud wave mirrors the PC wave | @davidlinthicum on Cloud Computing – InfoWorld http://ow.ly/2b1lL

Top 10 Ways Enterprise Marketers can Leverage foursquare – fantastic free eBook from Awareness http://ow.ly/2aZ3X – registration required…

Smart and Social — HootSuite Adds Social Relationship and Support Tools – I love the new Klout filter! http://ow.ly/2aZbu

Architecting for the Cloud – the latest slide deck from @simon – Simone Brunozzi, AWS Evangelist… http://ow.ly/2aZ0r #cloudcomputing

@rubysdiner is getting a lot of free advertising during the All Star Game Home Run Derby…way to go! http://tweetphoto.com/32375470

Rethinking the Wining and Dining of Yelpers – MarketingVOX http://ow.ly/2asxM – it’s a bad idea to ‘pay’ for reviews…

Social Media Shell Game: What Do Those Followers, Fan Numbers Really Mean? – MarketingVOX http://ow.ly/2asv4