John Savageau

With dozens of public cloud service providers on the market, offering a wide variety of services, standards, SLAs, and options, how does an IT manager make an informed decision on which provider to use?  Is it time in business? Location? Cost? Performance? Pacific-Tier Communications met up with Jason Read, owner of CloudHarmony, a company specializing in benchmarking the cloud, at Studio City, California, on 25 October.  Read understands how confusing and difficult it is to evaluate different service providers without an industry-standard benchmark.  In fact, Read started CloudHarmony based on his own frustrations as a consultant helping a client choose a public cloud service provider, while attempting to sort through vague cloud resource and service terms used by industry vendors. “Cloud is so different. Vendors describe resources using vague terminology like 1 ... (more)

Taking Aim at the US Broadband Deficit

During his October 6th speech on Universal Service Fund (USF) and InterCarrier Compensation (ICC) reform, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski admitted the United States has not adequately fulfilled our obligation to deliver broadband Internet and communications services to all areas of the country.   Genachowski noted “harm from not having (access to) broadband – the costs of digital exclusion – already high, are growing every day.” He continued “The broadband divide means economic opportunities denied for ordinary consumers who lack broadband access; educational opportunities dimi... (more)

Selecting Your Data Center Part 2 – Geography and Location

Data Center Automation on Ulitzer Data center selection is an exercise in compromise. Everybody would like to have the best of all worlds, with a highly connected facility offering 24x7 smart hands support, impenetrable security, protection from all natural and man-made disasters, in addition to service level agreements offering 5-Nines power availability at $.03/kW. Not likely we will be able to hit all those desired features in any single facility. Data center operators price their facilities and colocation based on several factors: Cost of real estate in their market Cost of ... (more)

Queplix Brings Data Portability into the Cloud

What can you do when your company data in locked in legacy applications such as DB2, Sybase, Oracle 10, or other proprietary systems when you want to graduate into the age of cloud computing and SaaS?  According to Mark Cashman, CEO of Queplix, the answer lies in having a tool to discover what data resides in existing systems, classify the data, and make that data available for future applications and reporting. “We are out to solve the data discovery and integration problem that exists today,” says Cashman.  “Some of the largest companies in the world still have challenges inte... (more)

Future Visions of Global Telecoms

Bjarni Thorvardarson is a rare telecom visionary. He thinks on a level of telecoms at an intercontinental level, rather than a national or local level. Hibernia Atlantic is his current project, and with recent news that the submarine and terrestrial cable system is now in the global media distribution business, he is shaking up the telecom community. An Icelandic native, he has brought his knowledge and skills to the United States, basing Hibernia Atlantic in Summit, New Jersey. Pacific-Tier: Bjarni, what's been happening with Hibernia Atlantic in the past few years, since I ha... (more)