The Frugal Networker

Selecting a VM Template

IBM recently announced its partnership with CloudShare enhancing the world of cloud application development. The partnership provides advanced application lifecycle management capabilities for agile development in a single virtual package. IBM and CloudShare provide you with a complete development environment using Rational Team Concert, pre-installed and ready for your development projects. And, you also have ready-made client systems setup with the Eclipse IDE for rapid development.

CloudShare’s environment offers quick setup from single client systems to multi-server farms. The interface is very easy to use–so easy, in fact, that you could be logged into your new system in as little as five minutes.

The eight easy steps to your own CloudShare Cloud infrastructure:

1. Register
2. Login to CloudShare
3. Select your Template
4. Add Machine
5. Save and Run
6. View Machine
7. Login
8. Get to work

Working with a Linux VM

You might have a difficult time selecting from all of the available operating systems and setup options. Although, the CloudShare Available Machines site lists just over 30 options, you’ll find more than 60 when it’s time for you to setup your infrastructure. From classics such as Windows XP, CentOS 5 and Windows Server 2003 to Windows 8 Enterprise, Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows Server 2012 and everything in between and a few beyond, they’re all there and ready to serve.

Cloud computing addresses one of the more frustrating aspects of traditional application development, according to Guri Stark, CEO of CloudShare. “Getting additional resources and new versions of servers and software is costly and takes a long time,” he said. In contrast, a cloud service can spin up new virtual machines in minutes.

If you’re looking for spectacular, CloudShare has it with 23 different SharePoint Templates in every possible configuration. And, to get you up and running rapidly, you can deploy an entire SharePoint Development farm with a single click. For example, you can deploy the community written SharePoint farm for developers.  This “Small Farm” configuration has a separate SQL Server, separate Active Directory, a Web Front End, and an App server with all your favorite SharePoint development tools.

Deploying a SharePoint “Small” Farm

Imagine the possibilities with your own N-Tier, shareable, Cloud-based application development environment consisting of an Active Directory Server, two SharePoint Enterprise Servers and a SQL Server 2008 R2 deployed in under ten minutes.

The benefits of this type of environment and service are that SMBs can take advantage of low cost Cloud-based solutions without any capital expenditures or long-term contracts.

For those of you who’ve wrestled with Amazon.com’s AWS, you’ll thank IBM and CloudShare for this easy to use and rapid deployment solution.

Further information regarding the announcement and platform. If you’d like to try CloudShare for yourself, check out the 14-day free trial.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

On August 20th from 2pm – 3pm ET the @IBMPureSystems handle hosted a Twitter Chat around the question of “Integrated Systems & Virtualization for Midsize Businesses”. Listed below are our expert panelist answers, as well as top answers from others in the community. After each question, there is a synopsis of the answers and further analysis. Comments have been sprinkled throughout the post to guide the reader and help establish a flow to what is a free-flowing twitter conversation.

Recap of the Tweet Chat

The five questions asked during the Tweet Chat were as follows and my answers (I didn’t attend the Tweet Chat):

Q1: What ROI benefits does @IBMPureSystems deliver beyond more computing power?

Q2: Aren’t expert integrated systems too complex for midsize businesses to implement?

Q3: What common concerns do midsize businesses have when considering virtualization?

Q4: How can virtualization help with the cost and complexity of infrastructure management?

Q5: What are some essential requirements for simplifying a data center at a midsize biz?

Q6: #IBM says @IBMPureSystems is designed ‘with cloud in mind.’ What exactly does that mean?

A1: Efficiency improvements in deployment and management–two huge pain points for the #SMB market. The return on those two areas alone is worth the cost of the initial investment.

A2: Not at all too complex. It sounds complex but IBM makes it easy to implement and offers assistance where required. The increased efficiency negates any perceived complexity.

A3: I would say cost. Business owners and execs see dollars flying out the window with any technology shift. What they must understand is that there is an investment in any technology but it’s the return on that investment that really matters. Don’t look for the short term return. The real return on virtualization is realized longer term through fewer technology refreshes, lower staffing requirements and more efficient operations.

A4: I think I partly answered this one in Q3. However, virtualization brings all of the complexities of a standard network into a single location and makes them simpler. It also increases efficiency, and lowering costs, by leveraging skills. For example, System Administrators can now fully provision and deploy systems without help from a Network group, Storage group or Facilities staff.

A5: Consolidation would be number one. Consolidation decreases the number of physical systems to worry about, maintain and refresh. The second would be virtualization. Virtualization simplifies the server environment as discussed previously.

A6: It’s built with elasticity and workload optimization as part of its feature set, which is part of the definition of cloud solutions. Cloud solutions are elastic in nature and are workload optimized. This means that you can quickly deploy and undeploy computing resources as needed and you’ll know that you won’t have performance bottlenecks regardless of workload type or magnitude.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet.