Monday, October 12, 2009

CloudCamp Christchurch - Fri October 30th

Cloud Camp Christchurch Unconference

October 12, 2009 - "CanterburyCloud", an emerging idea for a network amongst SaaS/Cloud Computing businesses in Christchurch, today announces the first Cloud Camp Christchurchunconference (agenda free event where attendees can exchange ideas, knowledge and information in a creative and supportive environment) to discuss what such a network could achieve for its participants, the region and the world.

In Christchurch and Canterbury we have a surprising number of players in this field - all doing interesting things with internet technologies but, at least to a certain extent, isolated from the good advice, talent, resources and plain support of their peers.

We believe we can change this, thus the idea of developing CanterburyCloud. So what is CanterburyCloud? It is a network where start-ups can access and leverage the communal wisdom of their peers. It is potentially a co-working space where growing companies can work and bounce ideas off like-minded businesses. It is potentially a marketing platform - a network of businesses that can, to an extent, share key messages about our value proposition, resources and evangelise each other's services within New Zealand and internationally. It will become what we want it to be but ultimately, it has to be unique - shine for its excellence from a healthy dose of agility, smart business and web savvy people.

We would like to explore this opportunity with you and we are therefore inviting you to join an unconference - but beware! It is not going to be a tech event, rather it is going to look at developing this idea of CanterburyCloud further- vision, goals, forming, participants, sponsorship, venues, business models, strengths and weaknesses and the general appetite for working together.

We will be holding this event at 1pm-5pm on Friday 30 October at CDC, 193 Cashel Street, Training Room T1, Level 2, followed by free drinks and nibbles at Memia, 107-109 Cashel Street, Level 1. Please RSVP by 28 October to smina@memia.com

We would like to thank CDC and Telecom for their generous contribution in supporting us with organizing this event.

See also Ben Kepes' blog post at diversity.net.nz for a bit more background.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

NSFW: The Cloud Computing Consultant

This is bang on the nail, laugh out loud funny. (Warning it's NSFW so not for sensitive types).

Presenting Course at CDC 24th Nov: Productivity and Internet Technology

For anyone based here in Canterbury, Smina and myself will be presenting a course on "Productivity and Internet Technology" at CDC next month 24th November. Course synopsis:

"A workshop designed for owners and managers of service based businesses looking to improve productivity and reduce costs through better use of IT.
Participants will be introduced to Enterprise Architecture techniques for small to medium sized businesses, productivity improvement by using better IT, whilst exploring the benefits that Cloud-based IT can provide your business and especially your workforce. You will take part in discussions on the basic approaches to improving productivity: change technology, change processes or change how people work. We will show you how businesses use technology make it a worthwhile investment to their business.

Follow-up coaching with the presenter provides a valuable opportunity to discuss challenges and opportunities specific to your business."

For more details and to register, go to the CDC website at:

http://www.cdc.org.nz/main/fast-track-detail/?course=34#

Did you know?

Thanks @Smina who emailed this over, worth taking 5 minutes of your time. Video presentation on the progression of information technology, researched by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman.

"By 2049 a $1000 computer will have more computational capacity than the whole human race". Get your head around the consequences of *that*!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Amazon Web Services provisioning 50,000 EC2 server instances PER DAY

Picked this up from Reuven Cohen @ Enomaly's blog: The Business of Cloud Computing is booming:

"An analysis by Guy Rosen also sheds some light on the cloud opportunity in which he estimates that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is provisioning 50,000 EC2 server instances per day. A 50K/day run rate would imply a yearly total of over 18 million provisioned instances. "

Read the rest of @ruv's post: this confirms something that we've noticed is that cloud provisioning provides up to 90% cost savings relative to traditional outsourced data centre hosting, PLUS with no vendor lock-in or minimum contract terms. Bring it on.