GoGrid is “suping up” its CPU architecture. Within the next few months, we will be rolling out new infrastructure using next-generation Intel microarchitecture, specifically the Nehalem 5500 line. Recently, we have been running a series of internal tests as we evaluate Intel’s new multi-core performance as enabled within these CPU chipsets.

Nehalem & GoGrid

I spent some time with Telemachus Luu, GoGrid’s Director of Business Strategy, and a senior-level GoGrid cloud architect in order to better understand what this means to GoGrid and its customers. I won’t bore you with overly technical details, if you do have any technical questions about the Nehalem processor or how GoGrid will be using it, please feel free to leave a comment on this post.

There are three main items that were outlined to me, specifically:

1. Increased Memory Bandwidth – For GoGrid users who have larger Virtual Machines that are processing a great deal of data (e.g., financial analysis or large database queries), those users will see a definite benefit with better memory handling.
2. HyperThreading – By utilizing HyperThreading, GoGrid is able to provide a better ratio of CPU processing elements (in the form of cores or threads) to our customers. This means that under heavy VM CPU loads, the scheduling latency improves.
3. Extended Paging Tables (EPT) – By using Extended Paging Tables and architecting appropriately, some of the critical memory management work that would have been done in the software layer can now be largely performed within the hardware itself.

However, in my discussions, I also picked up some other interesting tech tidbits that make a lot of sense. For example, there is a definite advantage of using the HT/Virtual Cores of the Nehalem processor versus just throwing in other older chipsets. You can, for example, get 30% “more” out of a virtualized core that uses only 5% more silicon than you can by simply adding more physical CPUs. Also, you can pack more cores (physical and virtual) within a server using the Nehalem than you could with the previous generation Intel chipsets.

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C|net and Webware have announced their list of user-submitted nominations for the 2009 Webware 100. Of the numerous nominations, GoGrid was then later selected by the Webware editors as one of the final 100 in the list. This is a “People’s Choice” type of award around the best Web 2.0 applications and services. More information about the Webware 100 can be found here.

To jump right to the voting for GoGrid, under the Infrastructure & Storage category, please click here or click the logo below.

There are 10 categories that users can vote on, as well as an 11th category where the Webware editors select an additional winner. The categories are:

• Audio and music: Music streaming and download, podcasting, audio book services, recommendation systems.
• Browsing: Tools to access online content, including browsers, start pages, RSS readers, widgets, and runtime engines
• Commerce: Retail, auctions, marketplaces, travel, event tickets, and real estate
• Communications: E-mail, chat, voice
• Infrastructure and storage: Web app platforms and tools; online storage and synchronization products
• Location-based services: Mapping, friend finders, business locators, geographic services (new category for 2009)
• Photo and video: Photo storage, sharing, and editing; video storage, playback, streaming, editing, and animation
• Productivity: Tools for work and organization
• Search and reference: Data and ways to find it; search tools and knowledge repositories like wikis
• Social and publishing: Social networking, shared online environments, content management, blogging, and micro-blogging
• Editors’ awards: To be announced, but these will include awards for up-and-coming products, design, innovative use of technology, and so on.

GoGrid was nominated under the “Infrastructure and storage” category and we couldn’t be happier. We have been providing Infrastructure “in the Cloud” since our launch at the beginning of 2008. Others have already “seen the light” as evidenced by our Linux World 2008 Product Excellence Award of “BEST OF SHOW.”

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Raditha Dissanayake posted a blog entry comparing Amazon EC2 and GoGrid performance. Unfortunately, we think Raditha did not use the most rigorous methodology possible for doing his comparison. It would be inappropriate for GoGrid to performance test Amazon’s EC2. In fact, their Customer Agreement may actually make such activity questionable, but IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer).

Let’s take a more rigorous look at GoGrid disk subsystem performance.

Framing the Issue

As a start the entire issue is a LOT more complex than can potentially be covered here. Today’s disks, hard drive controllers, and operating systems have many different kinds of caching mechanisms. In addition, virtualization systems like Xen can impact results in unexpected ways. For example, did you know that Xen can be deployed in two major manners?

Either ‘paravirtualized’ or ‘hardware virtualized’. The two different models almost certainly impact any testing methodology. And yes, you guessed it, Amazon and GoGrid don’t configure Xen in the same way. Amazon uses paravirtualization and GoGrid uses hardware virtualization. Beyond this public information neither Amazon nor GoGrid provide significant details about their infrastructure considering it, rightfully so, proprietary intellectual property.

Without a deep understanding of all of the issues it’s difficult to do a test much less a proper comparison.

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Okay, let’s face it. I know at least one Enterprise organization that has migrated their traditional infrastructure to one based on Cloud Computing. That would be The North Pole. Their CEO is none other than Santa Claus (Saint Nicolas, Kris Kringle & Father Christmas are some of the other aliases he goes by). He runs an incredibly efficient organization with Mrs. Claus as CFO and the Head Elf as CIO. They have a very predictable business cycle, which includes global, year-round information gathering and management that catalogs the “naughty” and “nice” people world-wide coupled with a robust transportation and distribution system active only one day annually. How is this all accomplished so efficiently year after year?

I recently spent some time with Santa and had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his organization. Below is a transcript of our discussion:

Me: Hello Mr. Claus.

Santa: Ho ho, please call me Kris.

Me: Ok Kris. Thanks for spending some time with me today and granting me some insight into your traditionally “closed” organization.

Santa: But of course. Transparency seems to be quite important nowadays. Obviously I can’t disclose all of my secrets; that would take away my magic!

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Many of you have been asking about when the next release of GoGrid will be and what new features it will have. Trust me, we have been just dying to get this exciting release out, so much so that I tried to extract some details from the development team back in September. Well that day has arrived and you can now unwrap your holiday gift early!

Some highlights of what is included in this release:

Cloud Storage v0.7

GoGrid Cloud Storage is an instantly scalable and reliable file-level storage service for Windows and Linux servers running in the GoGrid Cloud. If you want to place it within the Cloud Pyramid, it would be considered a Cloud Extender which means that it works in conjunction with another Cloud Service (specifically, GoGrid Server Clouds):

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There have been a flurry of announcements in the Cloud Computing space in the past two days, most notably coming from Rackspace and Amazon. I have been trying to digest these quickly and wanted to post a recap and my analysis of this news. It’s pretty obvious to those of us within the Cloud Computing space that this is not a trend, but actually a logic progression of technology and services. The benefits of the Cloud are clear: pay for what you use, use only what you need, internet infrastructure provisioned using a web browser or API. But once again as the space becomes cluttered with new providers or features, the confusion starts bubbling up.

Rackspace Announcements

So let’s take a look at what Rackspace announced on Oct 22nd. Billed as expansion of their “Cloud Hosting Portfolio”, Rackspace’s Cloud announcement provides some insight into their vision and roadmap. I listened to their “Cloud Event” which seemed to get a lot of hype, however, nothing truly jumped out at me as being earth shattering. A phrase comes to mind after all of the dust settled from the event “innovation through acquisition.” Don’t get me wrong, Rackspace’s achievements within the hosting business are definitely impressive and the company did manage to pull off one of the only IPO’s of 2008 within the Technology Sector. But this event seemed to be more of a requirement stemming from stockholders and their Board to “show something noteworthy.” They did do a great job at getting everyone’s attention though.

From the Cloud Event, I wrote down some points that they mentioned:

• They broke down the Cloud into only 2 segments: Cloud Hosting & Cloud Applications
• Their Cloud Hosting Division now consists of 3 products: Cloud Sites, Cloud Files & Cloud Servers
  • Cloud Sites – this is the current Mosso offering, rebranded. I view this to fall under the Cloud Platform part of my Cloud Pyramid. You are free to do what you want within it, but with some limitations (predefined application frameworks, no SSH or RDC access currently, no API access, month-to-month billing). This is a good option for people who want slightly more than what Google App Engine offers Python users for free.
  • Cloud Files – one can view this as a CDN meets an online storage solution (e.g., an Enterprise DropBox). For this solution, Rackspace acquired JungleDisk (which interestingly uses Amazon’s S3 service for their cloud storage solution – this is expected to change to CloudFS, Rackspace’s own product, at a later date). I think of this offering as falling within the Cloud Extender’s portion of the Cloud Pyramid, detailed within this presentation.
  • Cloud Servers – with the acquisition of Slicehost, an innovator within the Xen virtualization, low-cost VPS hosting arena, Rackspace adds to their product line “cloud servers.” Similar features here compared to EC2 and GoGrid with some feature omissions and I view this to be Rackspace’s Cloud Infrastructure entrance.

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GoGrid user Mitch Denny created an outstanding use of the GoGrid API using Windows PowerShell. For the uninitiated, Windows PowerShell is a command line shell and scripting language designed to help IT professionals achieve greater control and productivity through the use of of an admin-focused scripting language, complete with 130 standard command line tools, consistent syntax and utilities (paraphrased from the PowerShell product page). PowerShell runs on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003 and Server 2008 and is a great way for sysadmins to control existing IT infrastructure through scripting.

The GoGrid API has been available for some time now and I have been waiting for a stellar use of it to showcase. (I’m still waiting for a very resourceful developer to use it either to create an iPhone web application or stand-alone application…hint, hint.) Mitch, who is an avid .NET developer from Australia and Senior Consultant at Readify, created a PowerShell Snap-in for GoGrid which uses the GoGrid API. His project, documented here, is open-source, hosted at CodePlex, and seems like will continue to evolve. Currently a Beta2 release, the “PowerShell Snap-in for GoGrid” was designed to “demonstrate how useful it can be for infrastructure-level SaaS providers to expose an API for their customers to use.” Mitch has some good visions on how and why API’s should be available, including:

• Configure applications for performance testing.
• Run load agents for performance testing.
• Test disaster recovery scenarios.
• Provision hardware for project work (i.e. development teams).
• Support instructor led training with virtualised labs.
• Host demonstration environments for presentations.
• Controlling scale of your underling SaaS infrastructure.

Mitch’s code seems to work quite well. Following his instructions, I actually used it to provision a new load balancer within my GoGrid instance. It simply worked and took just a few minutes to set up. It’s actually fun executing the commands within PowerShell and watching devices magically appear within the GoGrid GUI.

What you need to get started:

1. A GoGrid account – sign up now!. You will need access to the GoGrid portal in order to create an API Key.
2. Windows PowerShell – download it from the Microsoft website here. Be sure to select the proper version for your OS. Have it fully installed before you start.
3. The PowerShell Snap-In for GoGrid – this is the CodePlex project page, current version is “GoGrid 1.0 (BETA2)”. As of this writing, some of the Wiki pages describing some of the actions have not been fully built out but I expect that to change over time. The Snap-In is available for download in the upper right of the project page.

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Author’s Note: This post was revised on 6/23/08. The nature of computing is under going a revolution and rather than fully remove this post, I elected to refresh it so as to provide a better framework for readers.

There seems to be a lot of debate around different types of Computing Terms being used to describe server and hosting solutions. In fact, in the past, the blogosphere seemed to throw around terms like Grid, Cloud, Utility, Distributed and Cluster computing almost interchangeably. But, as of this revision, one term is rising to the top: Cloud Computing. (See recent trend analysis here.)

The definitions vary from source to source, author to author. While I cannot (and will not) attempt to articulate the end-all definition, I can write about how I view these terms and how they apply to the products that we offer, namely GoGrid. But before I dive into MY interpretation, providing what others view on these subjects may shed some light on our framework.

Terms as defined by Wikipedia

Many people view Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information but that is always subject to debate. Wikipedia defines some of these terms as follows (not the end-all definitions though) and I have taken some liberties of removing non-relevant information for argument’s sake:

• Grid Computing – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_computing
  • Multiple independent computing clusters which act like a “grid” because they are composed of resource nodes not located within a single administrative domain. (formal)
  • Offering online computation or storage as a metered commercial service, known as utility computing, computing on demand, or cloud computing.
  • The creation of a “virtual supercomputer” by using spare computing resources within an organization.

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