A Pedestrians Right of Passage in Powai

A Pedestrian has NO right of passage in Powai, why single out  Powai this may be true for most parts of Mumbai /Bombay.
It is a wonderful experience to take a walk in the streets of Powai in the evening, not only it energizes you but it also keeps you alert and makes you combat ready.
The first rule  is to look on the surface of the road more than you look ahead, since you will have to navigate through the doggy  and human poo on the road.
Since there are no walkways for pedestrians you will have to walk on the road, competing with bicycles, motorcycles, cars, auto rickshaws, trucks and also pedestrians, you need to be Agile to overcome these obstacles.
Also you will have to be  alert for a speeding vehicle whose driver owns the roadway, so one has to be careful and give the vehicle right of way.
After this hard negotiation of traffic, people and excreta I finally manage to reach a pedestrian walkway which is beautiful and nice on the banks of the Powai lake.
There are enough dustbins provided but people still believe it is their birthright to litter the pathway, then there are the various vendors who sell peanuts, bhel and what not and occupy their positions on the walkway. But still is I think the only place where the pedestrians right of passage is possible in Powai.
Of course you need to be tolerant to the pollution from the road in the peak hour and hooting of horns as the traffic trundle through this congested road in the evenings.
Certain sections of the Powai  lake walkway is reserved for couples who are quite active in the evening, the police  sometimes arrive and take the couples in their vans for more rest and recreations until the judge is done with them.

Sunset and Fountains at Powai Lake

  The most outstanding aspect of the Powai walkway is the beautiful sunset and the musical fountains which  add life and glamour at the end of a tiring day.
Of course over the months I have become a veteran and have started enjoying my evening walks in Powai, after all adaptation is the name of the Game.
But still there are days when I wonder whether it is time to move on the from this  Urban hell to a Rural setting, maybe the poo with its smells maybe more pungent in the village, but I think the roads are cleaner and people nicer.

Amazon Outage - Welcome the future leaders IBM, HP and CISCO

I have been tracking the Amazon outage from April 21st and am happy to state though some key service providers have been affected the mood has been optimistic which is a relief for the future of computing in the cloud.
Though Amazon has promised to give a post mortem report it has been a long Easter End for them to bring back their services to normal, and as I write this blog Amazon are still busy resurrecting their dead services.
Easter is a good time to for  service providers of cloud computing to arise from their old practices and review  their IT Governance and  Fault Tolerant  Engineering.
Most cloud vendors have their  IT compliance in place but what about the IT Governance to address  resilient services, the focus should be of Governing for 24x7x365 availability, they may want to map to the COBIT framework for the Cloud.
The second area of Fault Tolerant Cloud Engineering, this is an area where larger investments will be needed especially by a company like Amazon which is known for its frugality. Unfortunately frugality and fault tolerance do not tango, you need large investments to provide resilient systems. Amazon may have to depart from  frugal investing.
Amazon is  legally covered for the cloud outage from any liability but their Brand as well as the confidence of users of  cloud computing service has been affected .
The damage done by Amazon for their approach on frugally building cloud services has affected all Cloud Vendors; it is going to take money and marketing effort to bring back business to the cloud.
I believe the future of cloud computing will  belong to data center hardware vendors like IBM , HP and CISCO  who understand and have expertise in 24x7x365 services.
Customer truest and rely on them for their exceptional support and service.
I see retail vendors like Amazon and software vendors like Microsoft and Oracle who have never been know for being hyper active support being blown away as leaders in Cloud Computing.
Let us Welcome the future  leaders IBM, HP and CISCO who will usher in the next generation of cloud computing.

BIG 5 in Cloud Computing

@larrycincy Larry Carvalho

#Cisco, #Oracle and #HP are behind #IBM and #Microsoft on #cloud messages - agree?

20 Apr via HootSuite Favorite Retweet Reply

 

Larry Carvalho's twitter question a few days ago got me thinking and here are my thoughts !

The BIG 5 is a popular term used in South Africa and I have picked a few points from Wiki

source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_game

 

The BIG 5 collection consists of the lion, the African elephant, the Cape Buffalo, the leopard and the rhinoceros.^[2] The members of the big five were chosen for the difficulty in hunting them and the degree of danger involved, rather than their size.^[1][3]

 

The BIG 5 were not enough for this blog, so I have extended the species to include animals from other parts of the world to bring out the impact of M&A.

 

So let us map Larry's BIG five to the African BIG 5; which of the BIG 5 is the best? You can be the judge !

 

Lion  - MICROSOFT

African Elephant - IBM

Cape Buffalo - ORACLE

Leopard - CISCO

Rhinoceros  - HP

 

Here goes pairing of the BIG 5 in the Cloud .

 

Lion  - MICROSOFT

 

Microsoft is like a Lion a big cat and hunts only when needed; it is also a endangered species in the world of computing . It has been reactive to competition (read Google) in the Cloud rather then rolling out a brand new strategy, also it has picked up all its existing  products and plastered it on the Cloud, not a very innovative idea to drive  new products and solutions.

 

Source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion

The lion (Panthera leo) is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg (550 lb) in weight,^[4] it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia with an endangered remnant population in Gir Forest National Park in India, having disappeared from North Africa and Southwest Asia in historic times. Until the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago, the lion was the most widespread large land mammal after humans. They were found in most of Africa, across Eurasia from western Europe to India, and in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru.^[5] The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a possibly irreversible population decline of thirty to fifty percent over the past two decades in its African range.^[6] Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern.

 

 

African Elephant - IBM

Source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_intelligence
IBM is like an elephant intelligent and patient and not an first mover in technology, it waits watches and when ready rumbles along. It is difficult given its mass of products and divisions for IBM to be agile in the Cloud. But their loyal customer base may see them through.

 

Elephants are amongst the world's most intelligent species. With a mass of just over 5 kg (11 lb), elephant brains are larger than those of any other land animal, and although the largest whales have body masses twenty-fold those of a typical elephant, whale brains are barely twice the mass of an elephant's brain. The elephant's brain is similar to that of humans in terms of structure and complexity - such as the elephant's cortex having as many neurons as a human brain,^[1] suggesting convergent evolution.^[2]
Elephants exhibit a wide variety of behaviors, including those associated with grief, learning, allomothering, mimicry, art, play, a sense of humor, altruism, use of tools, compassion, cooperation,^[3] self-awareness, memory and possibly language.^[4] All point to a highly intelligent species that are thought to be equal with cetaceans^[5][6][7][8] and primates.^[9][10][11] Due to the high intelligence and strong family ties of elephants, some researchers argue it is morally wrong for humans to cull them.^[12]
Aristotle once said that elephants were "The beast which passeth all others in wit and mind."^[13

Cape Buffalo - ORACLE
Oracle owns the database space and the description of the African Buffalo says is all " Its head is carried low, its top located below the backline. " Databases have always been the back end defenders and never in the forefront if it leads with SUN it will have some competitive advantage, else it may be a non starter in the  cloud and may retire to its core competence of databases .

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_buffalo

The African buffalo is a very robust species. It is up to 1.7 metres high, 3.4 metres long. Savannah type buffaloes weigh 500–900 kg, with males, normally larger than females, reaching the upper weight range. Forest type buffaloes are only half that size.^[2] Its head is carried low, its top located below the backline. The front hooves of the buffalo are wider than the rear, which is associated with the need to support the weight of the front part of the body, which is more powerful than the back
The horns of African buffalo are very peculiar. A characteristic feature of them is the fact that the adult bull's horns have fused bases, forming a continuous bone shield which can not always be penetrated even by a rifle bullet. From the base the horns diverge, then bend down, and then smoothly curved upwards and outwards.

 

Leopard - CISCO

CISCO has changed its spots like the leopard, it has done a number of acquisitions and put together a new offering for the Cloud computing. Cisco has a winner suite, but like the leopard its "body is long but the legs short", can it run the extra mile to shed its networking image and don the new coat of  the cloud computing  leader image. Time will tell !

Source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard

Leopards are agile and stealthy predators. Although smaller than other members of the Panthera genus, they are able to take large prey due to their massive skulls that facilitate powerful jaw muscles. Head and body length is between 125 and 165 cm (49 and 65 in), and the tail reaches 60 to 110 cm (24 to 43 in). Shoulder height is 45 to 80 cm (18 to 31 in). The muscles attached to the scapula are exceptionally strong, which enhance their ability to climb trees. They are very diverse in size. Males are about 30% larger than females, weighing 30 to 91 kg (66 to 200 lb) compared to 23 to 60 kg (51 to 130 lb) for females. Large males of up to 91 kg (200 lb) have been documented in Kruger National Park in South Africa; however, males in the South Africa's coastal mountains average 31 kg (68 lb). This wide variation in size is thought to result from the quality and availability of prey found in each habitat. Smaller sized leopards also are known in the deserts of the Middle East.^[4] Its body is comparatively long, and its legs are short.^[5]

 

Rhinoceros  - HP

Source :  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros
HP is like a Rhinoceros, it has a so many sub species withing itself that it could be a different creature to different customers. To some it is the old HP, to others it is Tandem, To some Digital, to others EDS plus and plus which includes Palm, Compaq, 3 com etc , the string of acquisitions has been spectacular, the treasure chest is overflowing with world class solutions to put together as a  cloud computing offering.
But lack of cohesiveness between various acquired divisions may slow down HP in getting its market share and due recognition in the Cloud. See the full list in wiki  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Hewlett-Packard

Below I have mapped the different species of Rhinoceros to different acquired companies of HP .

 

White Rhinoceros

Main article: White Rhinoceros ( Digital Equipment)

There are two subspecies of White Rhinos; as of 2005, South Africa has the most of the first subspecies, the Southern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum). The population of Southern White Rhinos is about 14,500, making them the most abundant subspecies of rhino in the world. However, the population of the second subspecies, the critically endangered Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), is down to as few as four individuals in the wild, and as of June 2008 this sub-species are thought to have become extinct in the wild.^[7] Six are known to be held in captivity, two of which reside in a zoo in San Diego. There are currently four that were in held in captivity since 1982 in a zoo in the Czech Republic which were transferred to a wildlife refuge in Kenya in December 2009, in an effort to have the animals reproduce and save the subspecies.^[8]
The White Rhino has an immense body and large head, a short neck and broad chest. This rhino can exceed 3,500 kg (7,700 lb), have a head-and-body length of 3.5–4.6 m (11–15 ft) and a shoulder height of 1.8–2 m (5.9–6.6 ft) The record-sized White Rhinoceros was about 4,530 kg (10,000 lb).^[9] On its snout it has two horns. The front horn is larger than the other horn and averages 90 cm (35 in) in length and can reach 150 cm (59 in). The White Rhinoceros also has a prominent muscular hump that supports its relatively large head. The colour of this animal can range from yellowish brown to slate grey. Most of its body hair is found on the ear fringes and tail bristles with the rest distributed rather sparsely over the rest of the body. White Rhinos have the distinctive flat broad mouth which is used for grazing.

Black Rhinoceros ( EDS)

Main article: Black Rhinoceros

The name Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) was chosen to distinguish this species from the White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). This can be confusing, as those two species are not really distinguishable by colour. There are four subspecies of black rhino: South-central (Diceros bicornis minor), the most numerous, which once ranged from central Tanzania south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to northern and eastern South Africa; South-western (Diceros bicornis bicornis) which are better adapted to the arid and semi-arid savannas of Namibia, southern Angola, western Botswana and western South Africa; East African (Diceros bicornis michaeli), primarily in Tanzania; and West African (Diceros bicornis longipes) which was tentatively declared extinct in 2006.^[10]

An adult Black Rhinoceros stands 150–175 cm (59–69 in) high at the shoulder and is 3.5–3.9 m (11–13 ft) in length.^[11] An adult weighs from 850 to 1,600 kg (1,900 to 3,500 lb), exceptionally to 1,800 kg (4,000 lb), with the females being smaller than the males. Two horns on the skull are made of keratin with the larger front horn typically 50 cm long, exceptionally up to 140 cm. Sometimes, a third smaller horn may develop. The Black Rhino is much smaller than the White Rhino, and has a pointed mouth, which they use to grasp leaves and twigs when feeding.
During the latter half of the 20th century their numbers were severely reduced from an estimated 70,000^[12] in the late 1960s to only 2,410 in 1995.^[13]

Indian Rhinocero (Tandem)

The Indian Rhinoceros or the Great One-horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is now found almost exclusively in Nepal and North-Eastern India. The rhino once inhabited many areas of Pakistan to Burma and may have even roamed in China. But because of human influence their range has shrunk and now they only exist in several protected areas of India (in Assam, West Bengal and a few pairs in Uttar Pradesh) and Nepal, plus a few pairs in Lal Suhanra national park in Pakistan. It is confined to the tall grasslands and forests in the foothills of the Himalayas.

The Indian Rhinoceros has thick, silver-brown skin which creates huge folds all over its body. Its upper legs and shoulders are covered in wart-like bumps, and it has very little body hair. Fully grown males are larger than females in the wild, weighing from 2,500–3,200 kg (5,500–7,100 lb).The Indian rhino stands at 1.75–2.0 metres (5.75–6.5 ft) Female Indian rhinos weigh about 1,900 kg and is 3–4 metres long. The record-sized specimen of this rhino was approximately 3,800 kg. The Indian Rhino has a single horn that reaches a length of between 20 and 100 cm. Its size is comparable to that of the White Rhino in Africa.
Two-thirds of the world's Great One-horned Rhinoceroses are now confined to the Kaziranga National Park situated in the Golaghat district of Assam, India.^[14]

Javan Rhinoceros (Hewlett Packard)

Main article: Javan Rhinoceros

The Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is one of the rarest and most endangered large mammals anywhere in the world.^[15] According to 2002 estimates, only about 60 remain, in Java (Indonesia) and Vietnam. Of all the rhino species, the least is known of the Javan Rhino. These animals prefer dense lowland rain forest, tall grass and reed beds that are plentiful with large floodplains and mud wallows. Though once widespread throughout Asia, by the 1930s the rhinoceros was nearly hunted to extinction in India, Burma, Peninsular Malaysia, and Sumatra for the supposed medical powers of its horn and blood. As of 2009, there are only 40 of them remaining in Ujung Kulon Conservation, Java, Indonesia.
Like the closely related larger Indian Rhinoceros, the Javan rhinoceros has only a single horn. Its hairless, hazy gray skin falls into folds into the shoulder, back, and rump giving it an armored-like appearance. The Javan rhino's body length reaches up to 3.1–3.2 m (10–10 ft), including its head and a height of 1.5–1.7 m (4 ft 10 in–5 ft 7 in) tall. Adults are variously reported to weigh between 900–1,400 kg^[16] or 1,360-2,000 kg.^[17] Male horns can reach 26 cm in length while in females they are knobs or are not present at all.^[17]

Sumatran Rhinoceros (Compaq)

Main article: Sumatran Rhinoceros

The Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) is the smallest extant rhinoceros species, as well as the one with the most fur, which allows it to survive at very high altitudes in Borneo and Sumatra. Due to habitat loss and poaching, its numbers have declined and it is one of the world's rarest mammals. About 275 Sumatran Rhinos are believed to remain.

Typically a mature Sumatran rhino stands about 130 cm (51 in) high at the shoulder, a body length of 240–315 cm (94–124 in) and weighs around 700 kg (1,500 lb), though the largest individuals have been known to weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms. Like the African species, it has two horns; the largest is the front (25–79 cm) and the smaller being the second, which is usually less than 10 cm long. The males have much larger horns than the females. Hair can range from dense (the densest hair in young calves) to scarce. The color of these rhinos is reddish brown. The body is short and has stubby legs. They also have a prehensile lip.

End Note:  I have seen the BIG 5 at Kruger National Park when I was in South Africa thanks to my friend Sadha  Govender ! 

 

 

Outsourcing - Unhappy Customers

LSS (@subramanianls) has shared a Tweet with you:

"MKajimoto: Outsourcing: IT Customers Disappointed With Results http://t.co/Sgv87pV"
--http://twitter.com/MKajimoto/status/60732939260014592

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More from Less !

IT professionals are under pressure to deliver More from Less; the good old days of incremental technology budgets are over. Business today demands more value for their investments in IT and are reviewing IT expenditure through a magnifying glass.
These are exceptional times and the Cloud may not provide all the answers, but it may be a good time for IT leaders to take time to understand Cloud Computing and approach the technology without any bias.
The Cloud may be the proverbial last straw for many IT leaders before the Business kills them  by asphyxiation by severing budgetary support.
Negotiations with vendors are tough and more then 70% of the IT budget go in  keeping the lights ON!Business continues to demand agility, innovation and excellence from the IT leaders with exceptional budget cuts and demand an OPEX budget.
A radical  approach of innovation and excellence in IT Management may be the key to deliver more from less;
The IT teams need to become Lean Mean Fighting Machines and adjust to the new reality in their relationship with Business.

Ten years of NISE !

The meeting is still fresh in my mind when with the support of my manager the late Mr. R.  Ravimohan I decided to leave a secure job in CRISIL and start the journey of a consultant.  Those early days were hectic, one had to select  a name for the new consulting venture;  next came registering the domain and putting together a website,  finding an office and also restructuring my investments to support the business. The first contract was from CRISIL thanks to Ravimohan. Other  customers trickled in slowly, there were times when there was no work and only proposals to write; and there were assignments where one had to roll up the sleeves and move into execution.
At the end of the first decade I would like to say a Big thankyou to my wife and kids for their support in this long journey as an entrepreneur advisor; they have made enormous sacrificies to keep NISE going.
There are also a few special people who have supported NISE over the years and  I would like to thank them;  Sudesh Puthran for his unstinting support, Stephen Lobo for the wonderful logo of  NISE, Shanunak Ashtaputhre  for tracking me down and giving  me an opportunity for global consulting, C.G. Gokhale for believing in my abilities, V Mani for giving me a heads up in SAP consulting, Nirmalendu Jajodia for his steadfast support, Hemant Nerurkar for teaching me on how to value my services, David Parker for teaching me Selling, Mahesh Subramaniam  for teaching me pre sales consulting, Gautam Mansukhani for being a patient listener; Captain Raghuraman for teaching me information security consulting, Pradeep Kar for giving me an assignment to rediscover Bangalore, my mentor  M.Chandrashekar who has been the guiding spirit in keeping me firm and steadfast in my goals and also a number of well wishers who have supported and cheered me  in this journey.
As I start the next decade of NISE I look forward to continuing the journey of  Nurturing Innovation and Sustaining  Excellence ; and once again a Big Thankyou each and everyone of you  who made NISE a reality!

 Subbu

Banking on the Clouds

The Temenos Microsoft alliance to bring banking on cloud computing is commendable and the fact that 12 Mexican Banks have agreed to Migrate and work is in progress is heartening news for those who believe that the future of computing is the cloud.
Microsoft has also signed with Misys to offer their banking solutions on the Microsoft cloud Azure.
Some of the key development over the last few months are given below which I have taken from the Microsoft website.

Temenos Announces the Availability of its T24 Core Banking System on the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform

Misys Announces Core Banking Solution to be Extended to the Cloud with the Windows Azure Platform
BNP Paribas Envisages the Future of the Branch
North Shore Credit Union boosts innovation and customer service with Temenos and Microsoft
Source : http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/industry/financial-services/banking/default.aspx

The cloud provides  a great opportunity of  banking software solution providers migrate their current and future customers to the cloud, thus bringing in resilience and economy in technology operations in Banking.

NASDAQ had already moved some operations to the cloud, now it is the turn of the Banks and I am sure in following months Financial Services and Insurance companies will also make their moves into the cloud.

The Cloud is slowly and surely getting traction from the Risk Averse BFSI  Sector!.



Does Infosys results signals the cloudburst before the deluge for Indian IT Industry ?

Last week I was in Bangalore at Electronic city and outside the venerable Infy campus and there was hardly any activity outside the campus, I remember the same Infy campus  entrance a few years ago which used to bustle like a fish market.
At the airport as I moved up the escalator I saw this advertisement positioned in a way that one could not miss it , see the picture below

Today the Infy results were out and the domino affect was not only Infy  stock prices but all IT stocks  which has brought gloom in the market.

I remember this article written more then a year ago by Arun Mysore and I applaud him for getting it right.

"Noted Indian offshore vendor Infosys released its annual results this week. In the last fiscal year 39% of its revenue came from application development and maintenance, 26% from consulting and package implementation, 7.2% from system integration and 7.2% from infrastructure management.
 The key question before vendors like Infosys is what would happen to these revenue streams when cloud transforms the traditional ways of setting up IT infrastructure and running apps."
You can read the full article by clicking on the link below :
http://jaxenter.com/how-exactly-will-cloud-impact-outsourcing-10936.html

Maybe we must now ask the Indian IT companies to share their cloud computing strategy and their projected revenue numbers from cloud related work in their guidance.
Indian  Companies which adopt the cloud will be around in the next five years, the others will be absorbed by the winners at throwaway prices for their ready to use campus and resources.
Today's Infosys results signals the cloudburst before the deluge in sinking the once poster boy Indian IT  industry.

Indiranagar 100 feet road in pictures

I was in Bangalore/Bengalooru on Thursday morning, used my mobile camera to capture  photographs of the destruction of the lovely trees on the 100 feet road, Indiranagar.

"A picture is worth a thousand words
[slideshow]

Cloudy Business

                                                                                                                           

A few months ago I shifted my domain hosting to sitecloud which met my criteria of going green and being on the cloud.

Sitecloud  (http://www.sitecloud.com/ ) is now merged with GreenGeeks (http://greengeeks.com/).

The service had its own problems and there were outages on my email and  there were apologetic emails from the CEO of sitecloud.

The letter below clearly illustrates how running a business on the cloud can fail if you do not have resources with the required technical competence and understanding of the cloud.

I am sharing this experience because I did not do a thorough vendor evaluation and hence have to go through this transition.

This underlies the importance of cloud  vendor evaluation not only on price but also leadership, financials and technology competence.

I reproduce the email from sitecloud and greengeeks, the

sitecloud email is from the CEO, the greengeeks email is from the Sr. system administrator.

SiteCloud LLC to me

show details 12:26 AM (8 hours ago)

Dear L S SUBRAMANIAN (NISE), This is Trey Gardner, CEO of SiteCloud.com and GreenGeeks.com with important information about SiteCloud.com. From inception SiteCloud was intended to be a cPanel cloud web hosting provider which would allow larger clients "bursting" capabilities which would be supported by a cloud infrastructure environment. At that time we believed we had a technology expert, who would be able to manage the technical aspects of our Cloud hosting service goals. Ultimately we learned that once we had started to grow larger that the technical management of our Cloud could not be done as efficiently as we had hoped. Last January we moved our hosting services back to a platform we are very familiar with, shared and VPS hosting, and our service standards improved dramatically for everyone. SiteCloud's support has always been done using GreenGeeks.com staff. GreenGeeks.com was started back in 2007 and we support over 25,000 domains on that service. Since both brands now do the same types of hosting services it no longer makes sense to run each company as individual entities which are supported by the same group of staff Therefore we will be closing the SiteCloud.com brand and changing SiteCloud's customer communication and billing over to the GreenGeeks brand. This change will occur on Friday April 8th, 2011 and essentially all we will be doing is merging the SiteCloud billing database with the GreenGeeks billing database and where you communicate with us to receive help with your account. Your hosting account settings, logins, pricing and anything related to the actual hosting service will not change. We will send a follow up with more information regarding contact numbers, etc. I would like to thank you for your business and we look forward to continuing to support your web hosting needs through GreenGeeks. Have a great rest of the week and please contact us if you have any questions about your account. Thank You, Trey Gardner CEO SiteCloud.com & GreenGeeks.com

Dear L S SUBRAMANIAN (NISE),

We've received some feedback from some of our customers who seem to be confused and I would like to apologize for that. This e-mail is intended to clear this up for you.

We are simply no longer offering the SiteCloud service to new customers. Our existing customers, which is you, will continue to be on the same hosting platform that you currently are on. There will be NO CHANGES to your actual hosting service. There will be no downtime, no re-configuration, no migration of hosting data, etc.

The only change that will be occurring is you will now be a GreenGeeks customer instead of a SiteCloud customer. You will be billed and supported by GreenGeeks instead of SiteCloud. This will occur AFTER the 8th of April, 2011.

If you still have any questions or concerns, please e-mail support@greengeeks.com (not sitecloud) and our team will escalate this to our transition team, who will be more than happy to answer any questions or concerns that you may have.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Karl D

Sr. Systems Administrator

GreenGeeks/SiteCloud

Bangalore Musings - 100 feet road indiranagar

This in continuation of another day in Bangalore - Bengalooru on Sunday, when i decided to take a morning walk on the magnificent 100 feet road in Indiranagar.

When Indiranagar was carved out the 100 feet road was named because it was 100 feet wide and the measure was not yet the metric system, some legacies die-hard.

Indiranagar was named after the then Prime Minister of India Ms. Indira Gandhi, and the 100 feet road as the main avenue and smaller dimensioned roads were 80 and 90 feet as subsidiary feeder avenues.

We used to love the 100 feet road for the shade it provided when we cycled through Indiranagar, and later drove our mopeds and subsequently motorcycles when in college.

The trees still survive and the shade it provides is really cool and the protection it provides during the rains is invaluable.

 A new  development is that the 100 feet road is a commercial district now and has a number of fancy restaurants and also upmarket designer outlets.

The old grand houses were broken down and made into commercial complexes and along with the house went the trees both in the houses and on the road.  

Every commercial establish has chopped  them down for a better frontage, these sections of the road looks like M.S.Dhoni's pate after the world cup win bald and hostile .

The exception was the Provogue outlet which for some reason has not cut down the big tree which stands in the center of its frontage, maybe they truly practice conservation and also the building which houses the Coffee Day and Pizza corner.

Some of the  brand outlets  had loud banners about being eco-friendly, but somewhere they had forgotten that charity begins at home.

I fear as more commercial establishments spring on 100 feet road, more trees will be uprooted and sent into oblivion.

Maybe after five years the pavement will be paid parking since there will be no more tree to obstruct the frontage of the commercial establishments.

Wonder how the people in Bangalore feel about this massacre of their green house !  I felt that it was barbaric !

Cloud Computing Workshop at Vellore Institute of Technology

Drove down to Vellore from Bangalore and was rewarded with the lovely sunrise on the highway.

Reached Vellore Institute of Technology  and was impressed by the guest house for that matter the whole campus  was green and beautiful. The photo below is the courtyard in the guest house of the Vellore Institute of Technology.,

The Seminar started at 10 a.m. in the Kamaraj Auditorium and everything worked like a breeze, there were more the 80 participants which included professors,research scholars and students from various colleges.

Their interest in cloud computing was encouraging and no one left the room during the sessions, all mobiles were switched off and  it was a pleasure to share my knowledge with this wonderful crowd.

Sharing  the  definition  cloud computing with the audience.

The audience listened with rapt attention and there were many excellent queries raised by the participants.

We closed the session at  3 p.m. with a tea break. I rested for a while in the lovely guest house.
After a while I had a guided tour of the lovely green environmental friendly campus.
They even have a lake in the campus which is created by recycling water used in the 300 acre campus.

The garden in front of the University Library was beautiful, here is a picture.

It was time to board the train for Bangalore and say good bye to this lovely campus at Vellore, look forward to visiting VIT sometime in the future.
To know  more about this wonderful University you can visit their website www.vit.ac.in/ .



Bangalore - Bengalooru

Today I landed in Bangalore, today renamed as Bengalooru. The airport was laid back, there was a que for the bus, there was also a patient que until they opened the door to get out of the apron into the airport building.

I realized my old Bangalore had not changed, it was still the laid back city, irrespective of the pressures of development.

NO one was in a hurry , you could differentiate the locals from the outsiders by their speed of movement .

The Volvo bus politely waited until it was 5 minutes after its scheduled time of departure to allow the last passenger with a cup of coffee to saunter into the bus. NO one seemed to mind!

The Volvo bus has a governor these days so it takes it some time to reach town. The road was congested and narrow, the traffic was chaotic, but the city had not lost its charm.

The weather was hot and awful once I got off the Volvo bus, here is where the old Bangalore charm of the garden city or air conditioned city was missing.

The city is now dusty, crowded and miserable in most parts, the place seeps with construction and flyovers and slow-moving traffic.  The once beautiful lakes have all vanished, gobbled for real estate.

But still Bangalore  has a life of its own, it is laid back and courteous. people still have time to answer questions and no one is  in a hurry.

Landed in the club in the afternoon, one card of the four was missing, it was rectified in half hour, a far cry from the five minutes of Mumbai... Well you need to slow down, and enjoy the climate and greenery.

Well to conclude the old Bangalore is still around, you only have to look for  it as you deal with the locals and the local institution.

It is still a pensioners paradise at heart even after being  Bangalored by the global IT industry.

Jai ho Bangalore, may you retain your old world charm and graciousness.