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Previously, I blogged about differences between hosting and cloud on cloudops.com. To continue with the theme of contrasting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud to things that are often confused with cloud, in this post I will compare IaaS cloud to virtualization. First off, SaaS can run on cloud, but is not cloud. I am strictly referring to an IaaS cloud. Cloud is an operational model I suggest we agree to use the NIST definition for cloud computing. Adopting the technology is not enough. Cloud technology needs to be adopted in a way that allows the users to self-serve. At cloud.ca, we... Continued

Learn about the benefits of our Canadian cloud infrastructure in this webinar. A short demo is also included to illustrate the self-service aspects of our Infrastructure as a Service.  Continued

Different people have different security needs, but everybody agrees that having more security options is a good thing. Two-factor authentication (2FA), also called two-step verification, is one such option that is becoming more prevalent these days. Its purpose is simple: add an extra layer of security to the login process of your application (in our case, cloud.ca’s web console). This is achieved by combining something you know (your password) with something you have (a code generated by an application on your smartphone), hence the term two-factor. Fortunately, you don’t need a... Continued

Cloud computing’s roots lie in the evolution of on-demand computing and computer networks. It has benefitted from important developments in virtualization, resource allocation and shared architectures. Now there is a true Canadian (Infrastructure as a Service) IaaS cloud. Cloud computing is attracting more and more Canadian companies, as it positively affects an organization’s strategy. It promotes innovation through the use of new applications developed in cloud environments. It also lowers the overall cost of ownership and maximises IT investment. Cloud computing offers an open and... Continued

A well designed object storage platform provides developers with an efficient way to access, store, protect and distribute their digital content independently. Object storage on cloud.ca cloud.ca’s object navigator feature allows you to easily view the contents of your object storage service. cloud.ca uses open source technology from OpenStack, a project that enables infrastructure as a service. The OpenStack SWIFT project is an open source cloud file storage solution. “We use OpenStack SWIFT to store and retrieve files using an API. It is designed to be tolerant of failure and to provide... Continued

The cloud is a powerful tool for business. Many company leaders are still debating whether or not to even use the cloud, without envisioning how the cloud can shape their long term strategy.  This article aims to help resolve this debate by identifying the different stages of the cloud and the objectives that are attainable with each one. The first phase of cloud use is Optimization. During this period, a company uses the cloud to incrementally improve their internal operations as well as their customer facing value propositions.  Currently, this is the stage that many companies are still... Continued

Cloud computing is a victim of its own success. For one thing, cloud advocates have promised so much—worry-free, turnkey IT that just works— that the reality is bound to disappoint. Worse, clouds seem immune to tough economic times, so nearly every technology company is wrapping itself in a cloud mantle, and every dynamic website is claiming it’s a cloud. We don’t want to get bogged down in definitions, but any discussion of clouds requires a clear understanding of three things: Cloud technology versus a cloud business model. Infrastructure-, platform-, and software-as-a-service... Continued

Cloud computing is a significant shift in the way companies build and run IT resources. It promises pay-­‐as-­‐you-­‐go economics and elastic capacity. Every major change in IT forces IT professionals to “rebalance” their application strategy—just look at client-­‐server computing, the web, or mobile devices. Today, cloud computing is prompting a similar reconsidering of IT strategy. But it’s still early days for clouds. Many enterprises are skeptical of on-­‐ demand computing, because it forces them to relinquish control over the underlying networks and architectures... Continued

Since the dawn of computing, there has always been a tension between centralized computing and computing at the edge. Mainframes were centrally managed, but as processing became cheaper; they gave way to minicomputers and servers.  One reason for this was the high cost of bandwidth—as Microsoft’s Jim Gray once remarked, “compared to the cost of moving bits around, everything else is free.” So companies ran those servers near end users. This proximity came at a cost, however. The companies bought packaged software, which they tailored to their own needs and ran themselves. That caused... Continued