Reports that retailer Wal-Mart plans to expand its use of Rackspace services based on OpenStack should have enterprise IT pros doing a double-take. Indeed, if you haven't heard of OpenStack by now, it's time to get with it.
OpenStack, as most of you know, is open-source software designed for the creation and management of infrastructure-as-a-service cloud offerings. Originally designed by Rackspace and NASA two years ago, OpenStack is now an independent project supported by an army of big IT vendors, including IBM, AT&T, HP, and VMware. Some in this army are part of another platoon of early adopters.
At this time, OpenStack's creators have stepped off center stage. Rackspace is just another supporter, albeit a powerful one whose influence is
still questioned. And NASA stopped development work on OpenStack earlier this year.
The news that Wal-Mart may join the OpenStack bandwagon is significant because it represents a use of the software by a mainstream enterprise -- a big, mainstream enterprise in a key vertical: retail. Until now, much OpenStack publicity has centered on firms using it to create their own cloud services. Wal-Mart would reportedly use OpenStack as implemented by Rackspace: to power an internal cloud for data analytics.
No doubt lots of other enterprises will be keenly interested to see how Wal-Mart, a frequent early adopter of technology, fares in terms of OpenStack's practicality for enterprise applications in private clouds.
(Inquiries to Wal-Mart for verification of its use of OpenStack for data analytics went unanswered at press time.)
The Wal-Mart news also prompts a review of OpenStack as an alternative to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the foundation for many cloud services. Indeed, NASA itself prompted talk about this issue when it reportedly embraced AWS after abandoning OpenStack development this past spring.
The flurry around Wal-Mart's rumored adoption of OpenStack shows the vigorous interest in the emerging alternatives for IaaS, not only for service providers, but for enterprises in other industries. The IT world will be closely tracking the progress of the Wal-Mart project, as well as others that surface.
Being free is no doubt a big factor, slfisher. Still, when you consider the development costs and lack of support, no sophisticated open source technology is free. I think the flexibility and control that open source provides are important to enterprises looking for freedom to implement what they want without vendor strings attached.
Perhaps the advent of 3-D printing will let UPS make their own vehicles in house.
Or even, to create a new type of vehicle, a self driving delivery vehicle, or set of vehicles adapted for each package class, route class and so on.
That is the contention of Chris Anderson in his new book, "Makers".
The point being that with software, we can do that right now...grab the code, make it the most optimized application possible for a specific business...and squeeze out the costs not pertinent to that business.
A. Balfour: The future... Revealed in doll house furniture
"But now we have a 3-D printer, a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic, and so this quest ended differently. We went to Thingiverse, an online repository of 3-D designs that people have uploaded. And there it was, just like The Sims. Every furniture type we could want, from French Renaissance to Star Trek, was available, ready for the downloading. We grabbed some exquisite Victorian chairs and couches, resized them with a click to perfectly fit our dollhouse scale, and clicked on "build." Twenty minutes later we had our furniture. It was free, fast, and there was so much more choice than in the real world, or even on Amazon. We may never buy dollhouse furniture again."
Originally, I believe that most software was written by IS shops. The people who bought the original IBM mainframes, wrote the software. This then evolved into pure "software companies". But I wonder if we've come full circle with open source to where it might make sense that critical business applications, even the lower level application server software, be brought back in house.
As far as UPS...a quick Google shows that, yes, to some extent...they did build their own trucks. Well, as far as not buying an off the shelf model:
UPS currently has over 88,000 "Big Brown" delivery trucks in its fleet, all with no visible manufacturer logos. Why? Because every design aspect of the UPS truck, from the hubcap to the tail light, is proprietary. [...] 1966 - Grumman teams up with UPS to develop the now familiar UPS P-600 and P-800 truck bodies, featuring lift-up fiberglass hoods and translucent fiberglass roofs."
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Precor, which makes exercise equipment for gyms and homes, needed to transform itself into a cloud services provider in order to keep up with the changing demands of its customers.
Like other leading technology-using businesses, Walmart is starting to look like a vendor in its integration of the latest technologies to serve its customers. That's what led it to buy two Silicon Valley cloud startups this week.
IT executives are worried about business units that use social media, Dropbox, Skype, and other public clouds without working through IT. This "cloud sprawl" creates concerns about security, compliance, and other potential problems for the enterprise, according to a study.
Cloud computing helped Netflix score a big win this week, meeting a thousandfold increase in demand and driving the Internet video service provider back to profitability. It provided Netflix with "availability, scalability, and cost savings," chief executive officer Reed Hastings wrote in a letter to shareholders.
Enterprises are discovering that using social networking within the secure setting of a SaaS provider's network gives them an unusual opportunity to freely collaborate with partners, suppliers, and even competitors.
All the recent hoopla about cloud security overlooks an important point, which is that it's not strictly a cloud problem. The linkage of online services into cooperative chains creates the risk, and only biometrics and federation of providers can save us.
Microsoft's recent decision to bundle its Office software with business partner offerings indicates that cloud software may be in the news, but licensed packages are still in demand for failover.
The Amazon smartphone rumor and the Apple mini-iPad rumor show that the mobile device giants think they have to be in all the device spaces to win. Why? Because the cloud can create an ecosystem where every device can cooperate to support the user, and if you don't supply all the devices you miss out on the total value.
CIOs need to be developing their ROI metrics for cloud now. Why? Because there may be a number of "hidden" fees that need to be added to the vendor's user "per seat" cost.
Many CIOs are findng themselves in the midst of a "cloud honeymoon," with little empirical data available about how cloud should perform and with other C-level executives just happy to have cloud. But this is likely to end in the next 18 months, when the hard questions about cost savings, agility, and speed of deployment begin to emerge.
Companies are rushing, cash in hand, to adopt cloud computing, but what about those maintenance costs involved with the PCs in the office? Are thin clients a funky good choice?
If you listen to the hype, clouds are everywhere. But if you look at the data, it turns out most customers say they still wouldn't use cloud computing for mission-critical apps or data. What's holding them back? Fritz investigates.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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