That Conference – From The Clouds #1
Welcome to the first installment of “That Conference – From the Clouds”. I am honored to be the Track Chair for That Conference’s Cloud Track. I will be working with you, the attendees, to bring interesting and informative Cloud sessions to our Summer Camp for Geeks.
Cloud is a huge and growing space with a lot of surface area across technologies and platforms. As a result, Cloud has become a huge market opportunity for vendors and this leads to lots of marketing hype. Today, there are many Cloud products and services to choose from, and while most of them fit, there are some that stretch the Cloud quite a bit.
Cloud Litmus Test
So how do you know what is and isn’t Cloud? What is the Cloud Litmus test? When I consider whether something should be classified as Cloud, I look for the five essential characteristics embedded in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) definition of Cloud.
“Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”
The Five Essential Characteristics of Cloud
- On-Demand, Self-Service: Consumers can provision computing resources as needed without requiring human interaction with a service provider.
- Broad Network Access: Resources and services are available anywhere using common communication standards.
- Resource Pooling: Resources and services are available for multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model. They are assigned and unassigned to consumers based on demand to achieve resource leveling and economic benefit.
- Rapid Elasticity: Resources and services can be provisioned and released rapidly and in some cases automatically to accommodate demand. This often gives the illusion of infinite scale.
- Measured Service: Usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported for consumers. Often services are billed on a pay-per-use or consumption model.
When considering vendors, products and services that claim to be Cloud, this is the Litmus test that hold them against.
Cloud Confusion
Last month, I spoke in Silicon Valley at Cloud Connect Santa Clara. I saw many thought provoking sessions and speakers. And the expo floor was full of vendors showing off their offerings and making big announcements. When I see vendors marketing Cloud, they fit into lots of categories. Here are some examples:
- Networks and Connectivity
- Infrastructure, both hardware and software
- Storage, Backup and DR
- Data Centers and Hosting Providers
- Development and Testing Tools
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Providers
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) Providers
- Software as a Service (SaaS) Providers
- Orchestration, Monitoring and Management Tools
- Consultancies, Professional services firms and Integrators
- And then, Other
It’s pretty easy to see how Cloud can get cluttered and confusing quickly. Developers are often concerned with a small subset of these categories, but it’s difficult to wade through the marketing to determine what vendors have something interesting to explore further.
Cloud @ That Conference
At That Conference, Cloud will be interesting and informative for attendees. To do that, we have to collaborate. So I’ll leave you with three questions.
- What would you like to see and hear more about?
- What technologies, platforms and vendors are interesting?
- What questions do you have?
Please provide your thoughts and continue the conversation in the comments below or on twitter.
How to Install Windows 8 with Native Boot to VHD
Windows 8 Consumer Preview released this past Wednesday following the announcement at Mobile World Congress. During the 24 hours that followed, the Windows 8 Consumer Preview was downloaded over 1 million times. Some might be installing it on separate hardware, but if you’re like me, you’d like it on your good day-to-day hardware. I run multiple OS’s on my day-to-day laptop and I do that by using a feature introduced in Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, Boot to VHD aka Native Boot. Native Boot allows me to have my entire system inside a VHD, but still take advantage of my hardware and not be restricted to virtualized hardware. This makes it easy to add and remove OS’s to my PC without affecting anything else. I can also backup and restore an entire machine by copying one file. The following video will walk you through adding a Windows 8 Consumer Preview OS to your Windows 7 PC using Boot to VHD aka Native Boot.
If you’d like to follow a written guide, the following are the steps to setup Windows 8 Consumer Preview with Native Boot.
- Download Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO
- Download and Install a tool to mount ISO, SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive
- Download and Install Windows Automated Installation Kit for Windows 7
- Create a directory on your hard drive for your Windows 8 VHD
Create a VHD for Windows 8 Using Diskpart
- Open Command Prompt as Administrator
diskpart
create vdisk file=<VHDPath>\<VHDName>.vhd maximum=<MaxMB> type=expandable
select vdisk file=<VHDPath>\<VHDName>.vhd
attach vdisk
create partition primary
assign letter=<VHDDriveLetter>
- Using an ISO Tool like Virtual CloneDrive, Mount the Windows 8 Consumer Preview ISO
Copy Windows 8 to VHD
- Run the Deployment Tools Command Prompt as Administrator
- Programs > Microsoft Windows AIK > Deployment Tools Command Prompt
imagex /apply <Windows8ISODrive>:\sources\install.wim 1 <VHDDriveLetter>:\
Add Windows 8 to Boot Menu
- Open Command Prompt as Administrator
bcdboot <VHDDriveLetter>:\Windows
Reboot and Select Windows 8 Consumer Preview at Boot Menu
Leap Day is a Big Hack
Our Earth makes a complete revolution around the sun every 31,556,956 seconds. This means a year is truly 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds. However, the average of the true solar day is 86,400 seconds, or 24 hours. The length of the solar day also has variation depending on the orbital motion of the Earth, but the average is 86,400 seconds. When you do the math and divide 31,556,969 by 86,400, you end up with some left over time, which is what causes Leap Year. Leap Year was created to maintain our seasonal calendar and prevent seasons from drifting, for example, Winter in July. Leap Year takes the remainder 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds, rounds it to 6 hours, accumulates it, and every 4 years, the 24 hours of accumulated time is tacked onto the end of February, Leap Day, Feb 29th.
Now if you were paying attention, you caught that we cheated a little and we rounded the 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds up to 6 hours. What happens to the leftover 10 minutes and 44 seconds?
Leap Year Misunderstood
A common misconception is that Leap Year occurs every 4 years. For most of us reading this, we can go on believing that Leap Year occurs every 4 years because that’s how we’ll see it for the rest of our lives. However, for those that make it to 2100, you won’t see a Leap Year in 2100, even though 2100 is divisible by 4. Why? Every 134 years, the left over 10 minutes 44 seconds accumulates into a full day. To account for that, only years that are divisible by 4 and not divisible by 100 is a Leap Year. 2100 will not be a Leap Year.
If you look back at the 2000 calendar, there was a February 29th. Two thousand is divisible 4 and 100, therefore it shouldn’t have been a Leap Year. What’s going on? Well, we have another math problem. Every 134 years that leftover time makes a full day, but we compensate every 100 years, so we end up with a 34 year deficit that gets handled by another rule. This rule states that if the year is divisible by 4 and 400, ignore the previous rule and add a Leap Day. Now if you are still tracking with me, you may be thinking that this math doesn’t solve the problem and there still seems to be some time left over after all of those hacks and adjustments. If you are thinking this, you are correct.
The purpose of Leap Year is to keep seasons lined up with our calendar. Keeping the vernal equinox on or close to March 21st is the objective. This Superman III, Salami Slicing means that in 8,000 years, the calendar will be one day behind. There have been suggestions to help with this too. Some think that by the time this occurs, the length of the vernal equinox will have changed. Unfortunately, the Cone of Uncertainty is at play and this far out the change to the vernal equinox cannot be accurately predicted. As a result, the current series of Leap Day hacks will have to do. Others like John Herschel have suggested that we need another hack in the algorithm that would make the year 4000 a non-Leap Year. Who knows what this will look like by year 4000. By then I will long be forgotten, the Earth might not even exist and this Leap Year hack won’t concern me. However, if you’re a software developer like me, here’s a chunk of C# code to help you determine if a given year is a Leap Year.
bool IsLeapYear(int year)
{
return (year % 4 == 0) && ((year % 100 != 0) || (year % 400 == 0));
}
All of that Leap Day history is interesting and it’s interesting to know that something as central as our calendar has a big hack like Leap Day. But I now have a practical Leap Day question for you and it’s likely more important than this useless trivia.
What do you have planned for Leap Day 2012?
Leap Day 2012 is shaping up to be a day of announcements and product releases from Microsoft. My plan for Leap Day includes downloading and installing the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, Visual Studio 11 Beta, taking a certification exam, tuning in to hear announcements from Mobile World Congress and following the MVP Summit 2012 buzz on twitter. The following is the list of the Leap Day 2012 items that I’ll be paying attention to with links for more information and downloads.
Mobile World Congress – Windows 8 & Windows Phone Announcements
www.mobileworldlive.com
www.mobileworldcongress.com
Windows 8 Consumer Preview
msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/windows
windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/preview
blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/
blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsstore/
www.buildwindows.com/
Visual Studio 11 Beta
www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/
blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/
MVP Summit 2012
https://twitter.com/#!/search/mvp12
What’s on your list for Leap Day 2012?