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Quarterly Wrap-ups

Infrastructure Q1: IaaS Comes Down to Earth; Big Data Takes Flight

Summary:

Two markets stand out above all else when looking at the first quarter of 2011: infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — the epitome of cloud computing — and big data. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the IaaS space in terms of customers and innovation, while Rackspace, buoyed by momentum around OpenStack, will be its primary competitor for mainstream customers. In the big data space, there are so many players and terms floating about it’s difficult for outsiders to get a handle on who’s who and what’s what, though such activity validates the technologies. Other developments this quarter included HP’s impending presence in the cloud computing and big data spaces and the realization that Intel won’t be left to die if low-power servers based on x86 processors catch on like the buzz late last year suggests they will. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Microsoft, Cloudera, SeaMicro and Facebook. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

  1. Table of Contents
  2. About Derrick Harris
  3. About GigaOM Pro
  4. Executive Summary
  5. Public clouds
    1. The Biggest Period of AWS Innovation Yet?
    2. Meet the New Rackspace
    3. Big-Name Clouds Continue Growth Pattern
    4. More New Clouds Emerge
    5. Security Slip-ups Taint the Cloud
  6. Internal clouds
    1. VMware Slow and Steady Toward Hybrid Clouds
    2. Large-vendor Competition Keeps Heating Up
    3. Private-Cloud Startup Efforts Start to Gel
    4. Open-Source Software Embraces the Cloud
  7. Cloud Services
    1. Salesforce.com Won’t Stop Growing
    2. Microsoft Means Business with Dynamics CRM
    3. Questions Arise About Cloud-Based Email
  8. Web Infrastructure
    1. Facebook Infrastructure Keeps Growing and Showing Results
    2. If There’s One Thing Yahoo Knows, It’s Infrastructure
    3. The Other Web Giants
  9. Data Centers
    1. Networking Isn’t Just About Hardware
    2. There’s No Turning Back From the Server Revolution
    3. Green IT Still a Big Concern
    4. Everyone’s Building, Buying and Investing in Data Centers
    5. Systems Management Gets Simpler
  10. Data
    1. Have You Heard of Hadoop?
    2. NoSQL Databases Look More Real than Ever
    3. Relational Databases and SQL Aren’t Going Anywhere
    4. Analytic Databases – Now Everybody’s Got One
    5. Scale-Out Storage Still Raking in Cash
    6. Goodbye, Spinning Disks
    7. IBM’s Watson System Wins at Jeopardy!
  11. Processors
    1. Intel Comes Around on Low-Power
  12. The Internet
    1. Broadband Trends Toward a Terabit
    2. Making the Network Open
  13. Financials
    1. Landmarks, Comebacks and Personnel Shifts
  14. Near-Term Outlook
  15. Key Takeaways
  16. Further Reading