In the old days – way back before virtualization – no one really needed (or even cared much about) ways to automatically configure a new server. The process looked like this: a) purchase a physical server, b) install that server in a rack in the datacenter, c) configure the server for its intended use, d)… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Blog
Case Study: North Carolina State University – Automated ERP Provisioning
Background In 2004, when NC State University embarked on its journey to the cloud, IT executives did not know they were helping to develop a new technology that would define a whole new era in IT. At that time, they were just looking for a cost-effective way to deliver desktop applications to more than 30,000… Continue Reading
Cloud Expo West… Conference Recap
Thanks to everyone who came to visit Cato, Maestro and our Mini-Maestro (pictured to the right shaking hands with Master Chief) at the Cloud Expo West last week! It’s always great to share what we’re developing and get a better handle on the technologies that are making a difference in customer deployments. With over a… Continue Reading
Cloud Sidekick announces VMware partnership along with automation support for vSphere and vCenter
Cloud Sidekick is pleased to announce our partnership with VMware as a Technology Alliance Partner, as well as our recent support for VMware vSphere and vCenter APIs within the Cato Cloud Automation Platform and Maestro Enterprise Orchestration. As VMware is the undisputed leader in enterprise virtualization with 99.5% of the Fortune 1000 as customers, adding… Continue Reading
Why use CloudFormation Compatible Declarative Provisioning in your Private Cloud?
At Cloud Sidekick, we’ve been automating complex application builds and tear downs in data centers since 2000. We developed the Cato technology to automate the process and in late 2011 got the brilliant idea to extend Cato with a CloudFormation compatible deployment automation service we call Storm. Storm effectively delivers a PaaS service for standing… Continue Reading
One-Step Chef via Cato
In a previous post, I walked through using AWS CloudFormation and a user data script to spin up a vanilla Ubuntu instance, install Chef, and direct Chef to create a WordPress server. Once you get the hang of it, CloudFormation templates, user data scripts and bootstrapping start to become ‘easy’, but there’s no denying this… Continue Reading
Chef and AWS CloudFormation
AWS CloudFormation provides a powerful mechanism for starting a “Stack” in AWS, using any one of the hundreds of Amazon Machine Images available.Opscode Chef is a fantastic tool for provisioning a vanilla server instance into something more useful. Sure, there are many images available with a pre-configured setup, but in reality operating systems are patched… Continue Reading
CloudExpo talked … Cato Listened!
Cloud Expo last week was simply an awesome experience for Cato and the whole Cloud Sidekick team. We gave away a thousand wonderfully obnoxious bright orange “Be The Hero” t-shirts, and left many people disappointed when we ran out. We hope you’ll proudly wear yours and who knows – if I ever see one out… Continue Reading
Cato Use Case #17 – Oracle Automation at T-Mobile
With the recent Oracle/AWS announcement we thought it might be a good idea to dust off this use case describing how the T-Mobile operations team is putting Cato to work building test environments for their large Oracle-based billing system. Bill processing at T-Mobile spans many applications that collectively process hundreds of millions of calls, text… Continue Reading
The Cloud Sidekick Story
Since 1999, we have been hard at work developing and refining a truly awesome automation platform. While our strategy and name have evolved over the last 12 years, our passion to develop the most powerful and easy to use solution has not waivered! And now that Cato lives in the clouds – putting him to… Continue Reading