Lanham Napier, president and CEO of Rackspace, on CNBC yesterday talking about cloud computing and what it means for businesses.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1498260012&play=1
( -or- http://j.mp/cb00mH )
And is it just me, or does Lanham sound like George W. Bush after too much coffee? ;-)
-- Ed Leafe
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Ed Leafe wrote:
> Lanham Napier, president and CEO of Rackspace, on CNBC yesterday talking about cloud computing and what it means for businesses.
>
> http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1498260012&play=1
> ( -or- http://j.mp/cb00mH )
>
> And is it just me, or does Lanham sound like George W. Bush after too much coffee? ;-)
>
>
>
No, he managed to put a full sentence together :-)
Peter
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Hi Ed,
> Lanham Napier, president and CEO of Rackspace, on CNBC
> yesterday talking about cloud computing and what it means for
> businesses.
>
> http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1498260012&play=1
> ( -or- http://j.mp/cb00mH )
>
> And is it just me, or does Lanham sound like George W.
> Bush after too much coffee? ;-)
Not exactly the best orator, but being out there and making the rounds,
stating his very enticing case, should turn out good for Rackspace sales and
stock.
Sounded real good:
Q: "all I need is a screen?"
A: "all you need is a pipe connecting you to us"
But I wonder how many devils are in the details. Would a scenario be like
this:
- my customer decides to go with cloud computing, and signs up for a
RackSpace account (some sort of trial or starter system, presumably cheap)
- To setup the customer, RackSpace configures 'x' number of virtual Windows
machines for the customer, one for each authorized login
(machine/device/person) that will be logging in (each having his/her own
desktop and applications available and running). Some or all of these
machines are always running (swapped out) on the server, waiting for
customer/users/other connections to login (so new logins don't have to boot
the machine).
- Each of my customer's users get Windows configurations that include all of
the software that user normally runs, except it's all installed and
maintained on a RackSpace machine.
- Customer (and myself) would have FTP access to the RackSpace machine so we
can install products and maintenance. Or is this something RackSpace wants
to do (and changes would go through RackSpace)?
- The customer's users connect to their RackSpace machines using VNC or ? to
connect the application and see it's desktop on a PC, dumb terminal, PDA,
ipad, etc.
I can't help but wonder if RackSpace has, or plans to have, an IBM Z/OS
machine in it's cloud?
Bill
>
>
>
> -- Ed Leafe
>
>
>
>
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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On May 20, 2010, at 11:19 PM, Bill Arnold wrote:
> But I wonder how many devils are in the details. Would a scenario be like
> this:
>
> - my customer decides to go with cloud computing, and signs up for a
> RackSpace account (some sort of trial or starter system, presumably cheap)
>
> - To setup the customer, RackSpace configures 'x' number of virtual Windows
> machines for the customer, one for each authorized login
> (machine/device/person) that will be logging in (each having his/her own
> desktop and applications available and running). Some or all of these
> machines are always running (swapped out) on the server, waiting for
> customer/users/other connections to login (so new logins don't have to boot
> the machine).
Here's where your assumptions are off. Rackspace wouldn't do any of that; instead, you or your customer would. Creating a new server is a simple matter of a couple of clicks, and takes only a couple of minutes to be up and running.
Once it's ready, it's just like any other server you would have on your network. You connect to it via Remote Desktop, and add as many logins as you like. You can also install whatever software you like - it's your server. You get a fixed public IP address as well as a local net IP, so you could configure it as an IIS server for your public website, or you could install SQL Server and make it only accessible via the localnet IP to your other servers. IOW, it's just as if you purchased the servers and installed them in a room in your office (except you don't have to buy, install, maintain, connect or recycle them!).
-- Ed Leafe
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Ed,
> > - To setup the customer, RackSpace configures 'x' number of virtual
Windows
> > machines for the customer, one for each authorized login
> > (machine/device/person) that will be logging in (each having his/her own
> > desktop and applications available and running). Some or all of these
> > machines are always running (swapped out) on the server, waiting for
> > customer/users/other connections to login (so new logins don't have to
boot
> > the machine).
>
> Here's where your assumptions are off. Rackspace
> wouldn't do any of that; instead, you or your customer would.
> Creating a new server is a simple matter of a couple of
> clicks, and takes only a couple of minutes to be up and running.
Let me say first that I totally support this approach for where it fits, and
I can see it being a useful offer to certain customers. I see cloud
offerings as the pendelum swinging back to centralized computing, and that
makes perfect sense. However:
1. If RackSpace's entry level offer is a physical server machine (perhaps
supplied or the customer's own), how does a small businesses (who only
needs, say, one virtual Windows 7 machine) to test with and get started?
Stated diffently, what's the cheapest way for a small business to get
started with RackSpace's cloud offer?
2. In the interview, Lanham states that RackSpace will support the customer
"with anything that goes wrong" on the server-side, but I don't see how
that's possible if RackSpace's involvement is limited to building a server
and turning it over to the customer or his/her tekkie to load with software
and configure. How can RackSpace possibly provide support for what amounts
to "black boxes" RackSpace would have no knowledge of? Take, for example,
the customer installing my VFP app on his server. How would RackSpace handle
problems with it?
> Once it's ready, it's just like any other server you
> would have on your network. You connect to it via Remote
> Desktop, and add as many logins as you like. You can also
> install whatever software you like - it's your server. You
> get a fixed public IP address as well as a local net IP, so
> you could configure it as an IIS server for your public
> website, or you could install SQL Server and make it only
> accessible via the localnet IP to your other servers. IOW,
> it's just as if you purchased the servers and installed them
> in a room in your office (except you don't have to buy,
> install, maintain, connect or recycle them!).
Thanks for the explanation. I understand what you're saying and it makes
sense. What I'm struggling to understand is how a VFP app that uses a LAN
file server would work. I can imagine (as I did) the server running a bunch
of virtual Windows machines, one for each connected user, all sharing the
same file system, to mimic a LAN implementation.
I can understand the interest and movement to backend DBMS's, and I've been
moving in that direction (MySQL), a piece at a time, but I'm not in any rush
to replace a bunch of LAN server shared tables that work just fine.
Bill
>
>
> -- Ed Leafe
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On May 21, 2010, at 8:51 PM, Bill Arnold wrote:
> Let me say first that I totally support this approach for where it fits, and
> I can see it being a useful offer to certain customers. I see cloud
> offerings as the pendelum swinging back to centralized computing, and that
> makes perfect sense. However:
>
> 1. If RackSpace's entry level offer is a physical server machine (perhaps
> supplied or the customer's own), how does a small businesses (who only
> needs, say, one virtual Windows 7 machine) to test with and get started?
> Stated diffently, what's the cheapest way for a small business to get
> started with RackSpace's cloud offer?
"Cloud" servers are virtual machines. You go to the web page, and after opening an account (just a few clicks and a CC#), you can spin up as many servers as you want, with your choice of several Linux distros, or several Windows Server versions. In a few minutes they are up and running and ready for you to work with. When you're done, you can delete the server with a few clicks, and you only pay for the time that it's actually running. I did a demo that created 2 web servers with a third server to be a load balancer, and showed it all running as expected. When the demo was done, I deleted all 3 servers. Total cost for the 15 minutes or so for each server = $0.0.15/hour * .25/hr * 3 servers = a little over a penny!
Windows servers run at double the price, due the Redmond tax, but are still around $22/month for the basic server.
Check out: http://www.rackspacecloud.com/cloud_hosting_products/servers
> 2. In the interview, Lanham states that RackSpace will support the customer
> "with anything that goes wrong" on the server-side, but I don't see how
> that's possible if RackSpace's involvement is limited to building a server
> and turning it over to the customer or his/her tekkie to load with software
> and configure. How can RackSpace possibly provide support for what amounts
> to "black boxes" RackSpace would have no knowledge of? Take, for example,
> the customer installing my VFP app on his server. How would RackSpace handle
> problems with it?
First off, he means that Rackspace handles all the issues with power, connectivity, hardware failures, cooling... all the physical stuff that can go wrong. With a custom VFP app I doubt any of the tech support would be able to help with code-related issues, but if there was some sort of system problem, they can get access to the system and trouble-shoot it for you. We have lots of the best Windows techs in the world on our support teams!
> Thanks for the explanation. I understand what you're saying and it makes
> sense. What I'm struggling to understand is how a VFP app that uses a LAN
> file server would work. I can imagine (as I did) the server running a bunch
> of virtual Windows machines, one for each connected user, all sharing the
> same file system, to mimic a LAN implementation.
File-server apps really only have one server and a bunch of workstations, so to "cloudify" it, the file server would be replaced with a cloud server, and the workstations would be unchanged; they would simply connect to the cloud server via the IP address, and mount the server like you would normally. In almost all cases this will be much, much slower.
Now if you had a true RDBMS running on a high-powered server, that would be a lot more straightforward to move to a cloud arrangement, as you would simply point the apps to that address rather than have to deal with remote mounts.
-- Ed Leafe
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Ed,
> > 1. If RackSpace's entry level offer is a physical server
> machine (perhaps
> > supplied or the customer's own), how does a small
> businesses (who only
> > needs, say, one virtual Windows 7 machine) to test with and
> get started?
> > Stated diffently, what's the cheapest way for a small
> business to get
> > started with RackSpace's cloud offer?
>
> "Cloud" servers are virtual machines.
Okay, now I get it.
>
> Windows servers run at double the price, due the
> Redmond tax, but are still around $22/month for the basic server.
That's not unreasonable, assuming the service is right on.
>
> > Thanks for the explanation. I understand what you're saying
> and it makes
> > sense. What I'm struggling to understand is how a VFP app
> that uses a LAN
> > file server would work. I can imagine (as I did) the server
> running a bunch
> > of virtual Windows machines, one for each connected user,
> all sharing the
> > same file system, to mimic a LAN implementation.
>
> File-server apps really only have one server and a
> bunch of workstations, so to "cloudify" it, the file server
> would be replaced with a cloud server, and the workstations
> would be unchanged; they would simply connect to the cloud
> server via the IP address, and mount the server like you
> would normally. In almost all cases this will be much, much slower.
>
> Now if you had a true RDBMS running on a high-powered
> server, that would be a lot more straightforward to move to a
> cloud arrangement, as you would simply point the apps to that
> address rather than have to deal with remote mounts.
If the mount is just a startup thing, not a problem for a 24x7 server.
It's interesting to think of RackSpace as a "software as a service"
provider, with me/my customer buying a (virtual) Windows server as the
service.
What I'm exploring is whether I could effectively use RackSpace to market a
"software within a software as a service" to a customer who doesn't have or
want a server, just the use of my program, by multiple people on his staff,
each possibly using different devices. Essentially what he gets from a LAN
implementation today, except the server would be online. Importantly, I'd
need to be able to set this up without software changes.
I have a feeling this can be done, but there are a lot of links in the
chain. Even so, I'd still like to explore possibilties. I guess a test case
would be helpful. This is longer term thinking for me, but I'll keep an eye
out for a business who might be interested in such an arrangement.
I quite understand - and share - your conviction on using "real DBMS's", and
for some applications I do, but I've got a lot of LAN-centric stuff that
works just fine. So, if I can find a way to "virtualize a LAN configuration"
using the Internet, I'll see if I can find a paying customer. I imagine this
to be of interest to others with VFP LAN centric apps.
That must be a very interesting place to work!
Bill
> -- Ed Leafe
>
>
>
>
[excessive quoting removed by server]
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