Skrocki's Blog: Sun, Social Networking, Random Thoughts...

Thanks to the beauty of the social web, we have tons of communication channels that are alive with JavaOne, CommunityOne & Sun Cloud conversations. Here's a quick summary of those channels -- please join the discussions:

• JavaOne blog posts
• CommunityOne blog posts
• Sun Cloud blog posts

• All Inclusive JavaOne & CommunityOne Tweets
• JavaOne on Twitter
• CommunityOne on Twitter
• The Sun Cloud on Twitter
• Sun's primary Twitter handle
• Sun's Software Team on Twitter
• Java's Mascot, Duke, on Twitter

• JavaOne Conference Fan Page
• CommunityOne Group
• Sun Microsystems Fan Page

• Sun Microsystems on YouTube
• Sun Total Access Net (or the chicks I refer to as the Barbara Walters & Katie Couric of JavaOne)
• Dude, where's my pass? videos submitted by Java fans around the world. Here's my fave:

Sun Radio on Blog Talk Radio

If you join any of these conversations & would like to tag your posts, a summarized list of tags are posted here.

If you can't attend the conference, a live webcast will be made available for the CommunityOne General Session and Technical Sessions.

If you are at JavaOne, I'll be at the community corner booth on Monday and the spinning wheel on Tuesday -- drop by to say hello.

A collection of resources to help demystify cloud computing...

Cloud Computing in Plain English

About cloud computing as a utility -- much like electrical & water utility services where you pay only for the computing and storage that you use, as opposed to paying the overhead of creating & maintaining your own data center.

Data Center of the Future: Supernap by Switch

It's no longer a thing of the future -- it's a glimpse inside the brick walls that physically house cloud engines. Think of it as being a cloud compute and storage utility site equivalent to an electricity plant.

The Cloud, Virtualization, and All That

A webcast featuring Jonathan Eunice on why cloud computing is relevant -- an IT culture shift from "if we should use it" to "why wouldn't we use it". Comprehensive explanations of public vs private vs hybrid clouds, how virtualization is the grease that enables it all, and definitions of:

SaaS: Software as a Service
PaaS: Platform as a Service
DaaS: Data as a Service
HaaS: Hardware as a Service
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
XaaS: X as a Service, for whatever X

A Guide to Getting Started with Cloud Computing

A free pdf on why the cloud isn't just about inexpensive computing, cloud history & how to use, leverage, build and be the cloud, Sun's Open Source and Interoperable cloud philosophy, how to join the Sun cloud API community and sign up for Sun cloud public beta.

For me, as is the case with most end-users, I simply want my favorite websites to:

A) Always be available
B) Always be snappy (even during a major events that may cause unexpected traffic spikes); and
C) As Don with SmugMug puts it, I want owners of my favorite sites to focus on "writing great software".

“We really don’t want to operate datacenters anymore. We’d rather spend our time giving our customers great service and writing great software than managing physical hardware.”

— Don MacAskill, CEO, SmugMug

1. A colleague receiving well-deserved recognition for his amazing contributions, brilliance and eagerness to share it. Congratulations, Joe Mocker, for your latest title of Principal Engineer! Not only is Joe able to solve the toughest technology problems, but he does it with such a friendly, humble style.
2. A boss who is willing to persevere through the industrial strength red tape and ridiculous volumes of work by taking the time to ensure his staff are taken care of and rewarded. See #1. Thanks Will.
3. Celebrities who have a soul and genuinely care about others beyond themselves. Well handled, @MrsKutcher!
4. People who are willing take the time to share tips based on their own challenging experiences. Thank you Katy, for your "After the RIF notice, before you leave" blog post.
5. Corporations who get that community tools are for building authentic relationships with members -- real human beings that share commonality -- in the community. Kudos to @cbs4denver for getting this! One of my favorite tweets of yours: "cbs4denver Hello all, we're just sitting down for our afternoon editorial meeting. Please join us." Every day, via Twitter, they invite their fellow neighbors into the news room to pitch ideas on what the collective "we" want to talk about. I love that.
6. This blog, and folks who follow it. Micro-blogging on Twitter is all well and good, but there's nothing like carving out un-rushed time to write down complete thoughts.
7. And lastly, via my home girl, Mary's blog (you'll want to have your lighters ready and someone you love next to you before you click play):

Yesterday was a great day for Sun. Dave Douglas, Senior Vice President of Cloud Computing and Lew Tucker, Vice President and CTO of Cloud Computing unveiled the Sun Cloud. From an internal view, it feels good to see Sun's power players from various levels and organizations within the company huddled around this effort -- the traction is obvious.

In case you missed it, you can replay the webcast -- following is the portion of the general session where Lew demonstrates the virtual data center:

Via his video blog, Jonathan comprehensively discusses how the Sun Cloud offers storage, compute and bandwidth by cohesively weaving together the use of Sun's open source assets for the entire free software community -- including deployments behind corporate firewalls.

The open cloud API is under a creative commons license -- API info is posted on The Sun Cloud API wiki.

For early cloud access and updates, sign up here.

David Berlind with InformationWeek has an excellent podcast where he interviews Michelle Dennedy, Sun's newly appointed Chief Governance Officer in the Cloud Computing Organization.

Michelle is spearheading an effort to organize a collaborative cloud privacy governance alliance to define a cloud governance framework (What is it? What needs to be regulated?) in the short term with a long term goal of building cloud trust via transparency, open standards & interoperability that is regulated by the cloud governance framework & governments/legislators around the world.

Well worth a listen...