Cloud Use-Cases for IT Operations

Some common use-cases we’re seeing for the private cloud approach to infrastructure:

• Horizontally scaling, primarily of Web-based applications. Using variations of the LAMP or Ruby stacks these appear to be sites and portals engineered for horizontal scaling via HTTP load-balancing and loosely coupled application components.
• Specialized cluster-aware applications. A mixture of HPC, MPI, and Hadoop-based applications usually with an emphasis on research or batch processing.
• Traditional Enterprise applications – collaboration, file serving, directory services, primarily being delivered by Managed Service Providers.

Posted in: Applications, General Monitoring | | No Comments |
Tags: cloud, cloud management, it operations

Building a private cloud? Help shape the future of GWOS.

Now that the wraps are off on our partnership with Eucalyptus Systems I’m happy to be able to share more about our plans for the GroundWork Monitor Enterprise Cloud. Our mission is to create a seamless application monitoring solution that delivers timely, actionable intelligence across across public clouds, private clouds and traditional infrastructure.

Our engineers, in conjunction with the incredible Eucalyptus team are busy tackling many of the Hard Problems associated with hybrid and dynamic infrastructure but we’re looking for a few customers and users to provide direct feedback on what they’d like to see from the MEC product. We’re looking for early adopters of private clouds to participate in an MEC beta program to shape the future of application monitoring in dynamic envrionments.

We’re accepting sign-ups now, to learn more and to complete the beta program application, check out the MEC product page.

Posted in: Applications, General Monitoring | | No Comments |
Tags: amazon, cloud, ec2, eucalyptus, GroundWork, GWOS, vmware

Ubuntu Debut for GWOS Virtual Appliance

If you are an Ubuntu shop, we are happy to deliver a pre-configured GroundWork Monitor Enterprise appliance built upon Canonical’s Ubuntu 9.10.

Last month, we announced support for Enterprise Server (excluding NMS add-ons) running on Ubuntu, and this month we package it up so that you have a stable, ready-to-go package that can get Enterprise Edition 6.1.1 up and running in under 10 minutes.

The Enterprise Quickstart Ubuntu powered appliance costs $59 for a year. It includes Enterprise 6.1.1 and coverage for any 100 devices on your network. The $59 also gets you a four hour, self-paced, online training class which will help with any configuration questions you may have. It also comes with 60 days of unlimited email support after completing the training class.

Buy Enterprise Quickstart Ubuntu powered appliance for $59 now.

Posted in: Uncategorized | | No Comments |
Tags: Canonical, GroundWork Monitor, GWOS, it monitoring, ubuntu, virtual appliance

The little things are the big things

I’m happy to announce we just released GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 6.1.1. As a minor release it doesn’t have much in the way of new features but it does include some really popular customer requests:

• Status viewer page load times greatly improved. Our testing team claims navigating around the status viewer is 25-30% faster than 6.1 - feels a lot quicker than that to me.
• New status viewer tab behaviour - whizzing around Status Viewer means more tabs get opened. There’s now is now a button to clean them all up with a single-click.
• A significant problem with the availability reports was reported and addressed in this release. Highly recommended for our advanced reports mavens.

As always the complete list of changes (over 75) are included in the release notes. Don’t forget updates and new releases are included in our Flex subscriptions, something to think about if you’re considering paying someone else to upgrade to their next version?

Posted in: Applications, General Monitoring | | No Comments |

SXSWi 2010 Redux

I’m flying back to San Francisco from Austin in just a few hours. I began my journey last Tue on The Startup Bus, a three-day road trip to South By Southwest. I thought I’d give a brief rundown of the conference.

There’s no doubt that mobile apps were a major source of buzz. I was particularly intrigued with Sticky Bits, a mobile app / bar code reader / social app. Who knew?

I heard a lot of talk about crowd sourcing and decentralizing just about everything. These concepts really seem to embody what open source is all about -distributed brainshare and collaboration. I attended a session given by Scott Heiferman of Meetup.com about sparking a movement. I feel like his grass roots approach to activism is like taking the open source ethos and applying it to more than just code.

Of particular interest to me were the Design and UX sessions. I attended a few and found them to be informative, but nothing said was particularly new. I heard practically the same lectures that I got at Web 2.0 in 2008, and an Event Apart in 2007.

I definitely enjoyed the BBQ and the Austin Street Food scene, and admittedly, I did not make very many of the parties. I was pretty drained after three days on a bus.

The awesome networking was without a doubt the highlight of my week. I participated in so many interesting discussion with my peers, including some a heated debate about user interface design theory and whether progressive enhancement is important. (I absolutely think it is.)

I’ll be back at GWOS tomorrow, ready to share plenty of great new ideas with the team. It’s been a incredibly stimulating adventure and I look forward to taking what I’ve learned back to San Francisco.

Posted in: News, Open Source | | No Comments |
Tags: austin, sxsw

On the Road with the Startup Bus

Since early Tuesday morning, I’ve been on a bus heading East to Austin for the South By SouthWest Interactive conference. I’m on The Startup Bus, which has been receiving hype for the past few weeks on various tech rags.

For those of you catching up, the Startup Bus is an experiment in which twenty five tech industry whiz kids have been put on a bus for three days with the task of creating and launching six startups to be pitched to venture capitalists at sxsw. Today is day three. We arrive in Austin this evening.

So far, it has been an exciting experience representing GWOS in this project. The energy here is alive with creativity. Despite close quarters, spotty wifi and sleep deprivation, many of the projects are moving ahead with impressive speed.

When discussing my “real job” with my peers on the bus, I’ve been honored by some of the compliments I’ve received for GroundWork. With our mention in the Wall Street Journal this week, the placement in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, and our impressive increase in our customer base, GWOS is seeing the payoff that comes from hard work and that start-up spirit.

Like the startups being built on this bus, GroundWork was formed by a couple of guys with a great idea, whose best resources were creativity and hard work. Next month will be my fourth year working at GWOS and I’ve been present for many exciting milestones.

One of the startups on this bus will get venture backing. I suspect the others will not make it further than the weekend. The desire to try something that hasn’t been done, or in a way that hasn’t been done will continue to bring great ideas to fruition.

This is Amy Abascal, signing off for now from a bus about three hours East of El Paso, Texas.

Posted in: Applications, Monitoring SIG, News, Open Source | | No Comments |
Tags: silicon valley, startup bus, startups