Episode 110: s/private cloud/hybrid cloud/ig

Software Defined Talk LLC — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 22:00:00 +0100

This week, if you can stand it, we talk about why kubernetes won (no solid conclusions are reached), the announcement around Cisco and Google, and IBM’s new private cloud stack, “IBM Cloud Private.”

This week’s exegesis

The Corporate Podcast, plus EBC’ing - sign-up and listen!
Last week we looked at The Lone Wolf Analyst, by way of Ben Thompson.

This week in kubernetes

Why did kubernetes win? (Nerds like to tinker, Google brand? Did the rest of us just need to buy more native advertising in The New Stack?)

Cisco and Google

Not really sure what this Cisco/Google thing is. What does Cisco bring to the table?
“Cisco's HyperFlex platform that includes management tools to enforce security and other policies as applications and services are released with greater frequency.”
Private cloud bundling of kubernetes, Istio, all the great cloud natives.
"This is what we hear customers ask for," Diane Greene.
Big picture: what’s Google’s goal here? Is it really as simple as “on-ramp?”
Even bigger picture: how did it kubernetes win?

IBM’s private cloud stack

So, is the “Blue Mix” brand out the mix?
IBM page: “Overview of IBM Cloud Private.” Another announcement overview.
“Is built on the latest versions of Kubernetes and Docker” - what that mean?
Jeffrey Burt: “IBM Cloud Private can run on a variety of infrastructures, including the vendor’s own mainframe and Power systems, its hyperconverged infrastructure that runs Nutanix software, and IBM Storage’s Spectrum Access solution. In addition, it can run on systems from Dell EMC, Lenovo, Cisco Systems and NetApp, and can be deployed by such VMware, Canonical and other OpenStack distributions as well as bare-metal systems. The private cloud platform also includes such developer services for data analytics as Db2, Db2 Warehouse, PostgreSQL and MongoDB, developer tools like Netcool, UrbanCode, and Cloud Brokerage and open-source management software such as Jenkins, Prometheus, Grafana, and ElasticSearch.”
Chris Mellor, The Register:
- All the great middleware now in (Docker) containers: “IBM has provided containerised versions of WebSphere Liberty and Open Liberty, MQ, and DB2, plus Microservice Builder as software bundle components. For example, Cloud Private for Application Modernization provides Cloud Private capabilities plus WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment, MQ Advanced, API Connect Professional, DB2 Direct Advanced and Urban Code Deploy.”
- Value-prop’in! “The standout aim is to help legacy apps transition to a more cloud-native style of construction and operation so that they can run inside a public cloud-like environment on-premises – private cloud – and connect to and/or be integrated with public clouds in some fashion. The destination in IBM's view, of the evolution of legacy apps is the hybrid cloud with private cloud as a stepping stone.”
- The white papers also mention “regulated industries” and the like.
- Goin’ for that enterprise cloud, hey, boy.
Also: Coté’s highlights, brief coverage from Tom Krazit at GeekWire.
An oral history of “bursting”: from 2010 to 2017.

Congress now follows you

Kind of a dick move to not send the CEOs.
Holy Shit! “Revealing exactly what was smeared all over the internet during the 2016 elections would, we reckon, be like opening Pandora's box: it would allow citizens to join the dots between Kremlin-crafted lies, the gradual acceptance of those lies online, the discussion and even promotion of said lies on mainstream news networks, resulting in, presumably, dozens of clips of senators responding with indignation about made-up information. In short, everyone is going to look like a chump if it turns out everything argued over last year was based on nothing but Kremlin-devised myths and urban legends. Rumors, in other words, designed to destabilize American politics and perhaps install a preferred candidate in the White House.”
Looks like my rep has been keeping up on Ben Thompson: ‘Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) asked: "Why should you be treated any differently to the press?" All three California outfits responded with a version of the fact that they are "platforms" and not publishers, that their content is user-created, and that they protect people's right to free speech and expression. Cornyn made it clear he was not persuaded. "They may be a distinction lost on most of us," he said.’
Speaking of…Ben nails the analysis:
- “Facebook served [an estimated] 276 million unique ads per quarter, and my entire point was the same as Kennedy’s: there is no way that Facebook could ever review every ad, much less investigate who is behind them, without completely ruining their revenue model.”
- ‘What this hearing highlighted, though, is the degree to which the position of Facebook in particular has become more tenuous. The fact of the matter is that Facebook (and Google) is more powerful than any entity we have seen before. Magnifying the problem is that, over the last year, Facebook has decided to “take responsibility”, and what is that but a commitment to exercise their control over what people see?’
Tech industry doesn’t think/care about the effects of their products
- https://twitter.com/kumailn/status/925828976882282496

BONUS LINKS! Not covered in show

MongoIPO

Don’t hate if you have options. ## Australasian technology update - what’s the long-term plan at Atlassian?
"Revenue climbed 41.7% year over year to $193.8 million.”
Things are going well down under.
Well, they do spend as much on R&D as sales & marketing. Compare to Mongo, which is 1:2 or so.

Misc

Using the Correct Tool for the Job written by J Asghar - Monetizing The Hot Dog - I’m sure the VC stockholders are ecstatic about this development

Meta, follow-up, etc.

Patreon - like anyone who starts these things, I have no idea WTF it is, if it’s a good idea, or if I should be ashamed. Need some product/market fit.
Check out the Software Defined Talk Members Only White-Paper Exegesis podcast over there.
Join us all in the SDT Slack.

Mid-roll & Conferences

Get $50 off Casper mattresses with the code: horraymattray
The Register’s conference, Continuous Lifecycle, in London (May 2018) has it’s CFP open, closed October 20th - submit something!
Coté’s junk:
- Innotech Microservices Conference, Austin, 11/16/2017.
- SpringOne Platform registration open, Dec 4th to 5th. Use the code S1P200_Cote for $200 off registration. Coté and many others speaking.
Matt’s on the Road!
- November 6-7 - AgileNZ
- November 10 - Microsoft Open Source Roadshow

Recommendations

Matt Ray: Kevin Shields/Brian Eno collaboration, “Only Once Away My Son .”
Brandon: Mindhunter and Netflix Skip Intro
Coté: Programmed Inequality.

Episode 86: Life after artisanal pork rinds (i.e. tech M&A), CostCo Down Under

Software Defined Talk LLC — Mon, 30 Jan 2017 23:00:00 +0100

With a flurry of M&A over the past few weeks, we discuss some of the more popular ones: AppDynamics, Trello, and Apiary. These kind of buys are all about what the acquirer plans to do with the new “asset” and the financial health of the company being acquired. We discuss these recent acquisitions, including who the “losers” are. Also, the low-down on CostCo in Australia!

Mid-roll

Coté: I’m speaking at DevOpsDays Charlotte, day two keynote, I think. Use the code SDT to get 25% off!
Matt:
Coté: much self-promotion to catch up on: I’m writing more “original content” on my blog, and plan to write more; subscribe to my newsletter for a round-up of stuff I blog, sent out on Sunday night, will tweak more.
Also, in the “grim” vein, Coté reviews some books on "automation," which John Allspaw rightly says should be called "new technology," fair enough. The 1983 paper on automation and humans is a good read too.

CostCo field report: Australia

It’s great!
US: No need for a hot pizza sign holder.
US: Rayban Wayfarers are like $130 now!

AppDynamics files for IPO… Cisco says NOT SO FAST

IPO filing...
“Our revenues for the fiscal years ended January 31, 2014, 2015 and 2016 were $23.6 million, $81.9 million and $150.6 million, respectively”
Cisco
$3.7 billion, about a 14-17X multiplier

Atlassian Buys Trello for $425 Million

Oracle Buys Apiary

“API Integration Cloud”
Coté’s coverage, with plenty more links: small asset working on a $660m API management market.

BONUS LINKS! Not covered in show.

HP Buys Stuff

You Know What DevOps Needs? An IEEE Standard

They’re working on it

Twitter

Google buying Fabric.
Facebook still king.

Do We Talk About Trump?

OpenStack Summits leaving the US
Red Hat, Microsoft, others making announcements against the Muslim ban
Coté says: these people are proven idiots. Don’t work with them.

Trump’s Twitter Moves Markets

Apparently he watches Fox and parrots their lines, so maybe someone at Fox is making a killing with “insider trading”?

RethinkDB: Why We Failed

Good read for how hard it is to crack the DB and OSS markets.
“In hindsight, two things went wrong – we picked a terrible market and optimized the product for the wrong metrics of goodness.”
Coté follow-up: be careful with TAM picking.

Yahoo is Altaba

Google’s AI Awakening

“How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and how machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself.”
Extensive article on Google’s AI push from back in December