TVP Strategy Archives

Does the Cloud Need a New Programming Language?

The question of whether there is a specific cloud programming language has emerged in our internal discussions at TVP. We’ve noticed a tendency amongst “born in the cloud” companies like Cloud Physics to follow the example of Twitter and develop server-side components in the Scala programming language. Scala runs on the JVM and is supported by a significant number of PaaS, including CloudFoundry. Does this mean that enterprises moving to PaaS should now be coding in Scala?

News: Stratus Technologies Acquires Marathon Technologies

Stratus Technologies, one of the leaders in hardware fault tolerant platforms, has acquired its main competitor, Marathon Technologies in a move that consolidates the best of hardware and software fault tolerant computing systems into a single entity. Stratus’s claim to fame came from its hardware fault tolerant servers that were built in pairs, with duplicate hardware, to ensure that no single component failure will cause any system downtown. Stratus built very solid and reliable systems but on its own proprietary hardware and this acquisition now expands Stratus’s ability to provide software fault tolerance to any industry-standard physical or virtual server. This opens opportunities for new customers no matter what physical hardware the customers uses and prefers.

Oracle and VMware Update Desktop Virtualization Platforms

Oracle and VMware have both been busy with their respective desktop-focused type II hypervisors, with each vendor releasing updates in the last month. Focus on Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 and Windows server 2012 is inevitable, but that aside both vendors continue to drive their respective products in clearly defined directions with no real regard for competition. Oracle’s updates to VirtualBox have added significantly to its appeal, but leave it trailing behind VMware Workstation in both its finish and feature count. While VMware has done much to optimize Workstation to work with the forthcoming Windows 8, many of the other updates that VMware has released could be thought of as gilding the lily, offering features such as Thumbnail Actions that allow virtual machine power state to be controlled from the taskbar.

Defense in Depth: Bromium vSentry for End User Computing

On the 8/9 Virtualization Security podcast we continued our discussions on defense in depth with a look at end user computing devices, specifically laptops and end point desktops, with Simon Crosby, CTO of Bromium. While we did also discuss phones and tablets we were focused more on the technology preview that now is Bromium vSentry. Bromium vSentry looks to protect laptops (and others) from unknown and 0-day attacks in a unique hardware assisted way. There is now a new tool in our defense-in-depth toolbox that meets an ever growing need. But what is the need and what is the tool?

Microsoft and VMware: Two Different Paths to the Future

Now that VMword 2012 San Francisco is over and I have some time to reflect on my virtualization thoughts in general before getting ready for VMworld Barcelona. One thing I took noticed with the recent announcements about vSphere 5.1 and Hyper-V 2012. Microsoft and VMware both released a specific new feature to each platform respectfully at basically the same time. Is this a sign that Microsoft is really closing the gap on VMware? I think we are getting there but I have also made some other personal observations on how I think both see virtualization in the future and I foresee a completely different method and mindset for the future between these two companies.