Top 10 Cloud Vendors

I came across this blog post by Peter Laird (Blog link) which I found to be an interesting way to rank the cloud vendors but since this list had been prepared almost 2 years before, I decided to give it a shot now to see how the ranking had changed over time.

Based on the methodology used by Peter I did the following :

• Cleared all browser cookies
• Ensured I was logged out of Google (to avoid personalized results)
• Navigated to the www.google.com search page
• Typed “cloud computing” in the search box

However unlike Peter I did not browse through all the pages but restricted my ranking until I found 10 vendors. The result is as follows.

From the search results scrubbed off all non vendors and then collected the first occurrence of each of the following vendors.

Page	Rank	Vendor	URL
1	1	Salesforce	http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/
	2	IBM	http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/
	3	Amazon EC2	http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
2	4	Dell	http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/cloud-computing.aspx
	5	Microsoft	http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud/default.aspx
	6	VmWare	http://www.vmware.com/solutions/cloud-computing/index.html
3	7	F5	http://www.f5.com/solutions/cloud-computing/
	8	CloudVertex	http://www.cloudvertex.com/
	9	Novell	http://www.novell.com/cloud/
5	10	EMC	http://www.emc.com/microsites/cloud/cloud.htm

Congrats to Salesforce for being on the top of the list…

Technorati Tags: Cloud,Cloud computing,Cloud Vendors,Rank,2011

IITF Trade Fair , 2010

The trade fair in Pragati Maidan for the year 2010 started on November 14th but was not open to public until 19th November. The experience I had the previous year has taught me not to go to IITF in a weekend and was planning to take a off some time in the weekday to visit the trade fair which I did not want to miss in any cost.

While I was still wondering when to take the leave I got to know that Interviewers were required in office this Sunday for some walk-ins my company had planned. I luckily made a deal with my senior colleague and convinced him that I will volunteer to be in office the following Sunday if I was allowed to take off the Friday. With my plans to visit Pragati maidan on a weekday coming in shape I was more than happy chalking the travel plans for the next day. Since I assumed it would be difficult to find parking nearby the Pragati Maidan I decided to use the Delhi Metro from Mayur Vihar. Although the initial plan was to wake up early and leave for the trade fair early morning, we were able to leave home only around 11 AM, but luckily got an auto till the nearest metro station, where I also bought the entry ticket for the Trade fair and in no time we were at the Pragati Maidan gate near the Metro Station.

Even though it was Friday morning there was a good crowd lined up in the entry for security checking. There were lines separate for Ladies and Gentlemen and one dedicated line for those who did not carry and bags with them. Since this was a very small line and there was no point that me and my wife carrying a bag each wait in line, I asked my wife to hand over her hand-purse to me and quickly use the third line but at last moment it was known that the no bags line was only for Men. Even thought dissapointed I handed over the bag and hand-purse now to my wife and I quickly completed my security check and started waiting for my wife for whom it almost took half an hour in the long line and limited security equipments.

As soon as we entered we were able to get into stall number 8,9,10,11 which housed the cosmetics, CSIR technology hall (Psst do not miss the DNA identification stall here). Hall number 12 is home appliances good to see stalls from Toshiba, BSA (some nice tread mills & Cycles), Singer sewing machine, Prestige etc., A lot of these brands were offering great discounts to woo customers. Even though I was enjoying all these my wife was in the lookout for the Khadi stall where she would get some nice sarees. We soon exited the Stall 12 and reached the Khadi stall which is near the Maharashtra hall.

The Khadi Gramudyog stall is the place where you could find the handicraft or hand-woven cloths from all over India. Do lookout for the nice bamboo and cane furniture's here. While my wife was still on the lookout for the sarees I spotted a interesting object. A small motorcycle totally made out of bamboo parts. Even the wheel of the bike is a bamboo diagonally cut piece. There is no plastic/metal part in the mobike but all bamboo. This was from the Nagaland Stall and It was so catchy that it will surely interest anyone. This guys had very less stock and have no plans to get more from Nagaland. The motorcycle was priced at Rs.1500 which at the first may seem slightly more but in a second thought the delicate work surely is worth of it. There was also a Glider/Airplane that was also made using only bamboo. This was a bit lesser in price (Rs.300) owing to the less amount of effort involved in this. I was able to bargain and strike a deal of Rs.1500 for both the bike and the airplane which I felt was a fair deal. My wife still around the saree stall was able to spot a beautiful Kantha work saree which she bought for Rs.4500 and a suit material with Kashmiri work over that.

Check the link for the picture of the bike

Finally tired walking till now we took a snacks break and again resumed visiting the remaining stalls. The Hall no 6 which is having the international stalls from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Korea, Indonesia. (Do checkout the marble works from Pakistan and stone pendants and ornaments from Afghanistan)

Locked outside

I was very happy when I bought this Godrej Ultra twin bolt lock (“India’s first unpick able Locking System) and installed in the main entrance of my rented apartment which happens to be in the second floor. Great lock with those computerized dimpled keys and did not require a key to lock just shut the doors and feel safe.. But least did I realize that this great feature will become a curse.

A friend of my wife had visited us along with her husband and child after half a day long conversation and get together when it was time for them to leave myself and my wife walked them out of the door leaving my father-in-law at home. We walked all the way down the stairs to their car, our talks continued a little more before they got seated themselves in their car. It was when I noticed that my Father-in-law too had come just behind us to see them off and inadvertently slamming the door on the way out.. Great news… none had carried the keys while coming out … Just that we all realize that we are all now locked outside our house at 8.00 PM.

The doors in the balcony facing the road was open but there was no way that it could be accessed easily. I do always have an extra set of key in my car but guess what the car keys too are locked in the house.. So looking into the situation the options left were.. Break the wooden door (Not possible with the landlord living in the first floor), Break one of the side glass of the car and get the house keys( this would certainly dent my wallet), Or ask the neighbors to let me in and since their balcony and ours is side by side I can try sling shot my self into our floor (But problem is this is to occur in the second floor and would be highly risky to be doing out in the dark). After analyzing all the pros and cons the last option of me dangling out of the neighbors balcony seemed to the one with no direct monetary impact as long as i do not fall off and break my bones.

I walked up to my neighbors door and apologetically enquired if they would permit me do what I had thought of doing.. They agreed to that immediately and I know they too would have wanted to watch me fall that's why they agreed to it so easily… Clinging to their balcony wall carefully I managed to reach out my balcony and finally jumped in safely to retrieve the keys which were inside and in no time opened the door from inside to everyone's relief…

But not much days have gone by after this incident that it happened again. Me and my wife had a tussle and being angry and show it she walked out of the door and sat in the step in front of the door and acting as if she was crying.. A little while later I came out and finding her sitting out there covering her face I wanted to make some noise.. How stupid of me .. I slammed the door close to make her realize I was standing behind her.. Guess what no keys this time as well…

There I was sheepishly standing at my neighbors doors requesting them to allow me do my stunt once more…

Technorati Tags: Godrej,locks,unpickable,locked out,stupid,keys

Nothing Succeeds like Success

“Nothing Succeeds like a Success” is the favorite quote of my Wife and I am glad it suits the following incident.

I have always been an average child. My marks in my school were barely enough to fetch me a decent rank somewhere ranging between 15 – 25 in a class of 45. I was not a popular student but neither a trouble maker, I was the average timid guy.  I’ve often wondered how poor my luck was.  I did not have skills like singing or dancing but I did fairly well in sketching. However in  my school days I rarely won any competition.

I could still remember the day I joined my engineering college which was a newly opened college and we were first batch.  The college being a new one did not have a logo/emblem of its own and it was announced that the college would give opportunity to its new students to showcase their talent and allow them to design the college logo/emblem.  Although I knew how good my stars were I thought I should give it a shot. In the evening when I returned back to my room, I started sketching out a logo in my college notebook and almost finished it in a couple of hours. As I did not want to tear this off my note I decided I would photocopy it and submit the following as my entry.

The centre of the logo was the famous Rock Fort of Tiruchirapalli (Trichy), and the four sides were symbols to represent four streams Computer Science, Communication, Electrical and Mechanical. Since I probably submitted to early and the deadline was still on I almost forgot about this competition. A couple of days later when I entered our class room a group of my classmates informed me that My Logo had been selected to be the college logo. It truly was a new beginning and I could sense my luck changing already. My Joy knew no bounds and within the first few days I was already popular in my college and everyone in my college (roughly 140 students) and the faculty seemed to know me now. I received a cash award or Rs.500 from the director of my College Dr.Shanmuganathan.

This incident certainly changed me from an average timid guy to a confident person which I am now.

Haemophobia

I still remember the day I first donated blood.  I have been having this fear of seeing blood (Haemophobia) since birth but I first identified this condition of mine while I had to do a blood test in school. This is the time when they prick you with a needle, collect a drop of blood and smear it in a glass plate.  Everything went normal so far… even the pricking but when the nurse starts to squeeze the finger and a drop of blood emerges that's when I felt some what like missing a heart beat and with minutes I found myself flat on ground… (Obviously I had fainted).

Being aware of this particular weakness in me I usually avoid watching blood but there are times when I try to be bold and take the first step to try and see if this still happens and mostly the result is same as the first time. Once while I was in college there was some requirement of blood and there was a peon who enquired in every class if someone was willing to donate.  Since it had been a while when I had fainted I thought I would give it a try.  I volunteered and we were all to reach a nearby hospital where it was actually required. After the initial formalities the hospital staff over there enquired who would like to have it done first.. Being the scared one I thought it would be better if its quick and I go first so that I need not see others and get scared more embarrassing all others and my self. I was asked to lay down in one of those beds and in a while the nurse was nearby with a cotton and needle in hand wiping the upper part of my forearm just in the elbow joint. Even before I realized she had already pierced the needle and the job was started. I thought it would be better if I avoid seeing the sachet where the blood was filled up. To my amazement in few minutes the pouch was full and needle removed from my hand and after wiping it off with cotton a band-aid was applied over the spot. I felt greatly relieved as there was no drama involved in this encounter. One by one all those who volunteered had donated blood and we were provided some coupons so that we can have some fresh fruit juice from canteen. We drank the juice and as it was already time in the evening when all our classes were over we decided to return back home. I boarded the public transport bus which was already full with no vacant seats. Just as I continued the journey towards home I thought what if my parents see the band-aid and enquire about it … It would really be awkward that I had to explain all those things. I decided I should peel off the band-aid and removed it in a jerk. This is when I spotted the needle mark and silently a small drop of blood peeked through it.

Bham !!! The next thing I remember was I was seated in the bus with few of the passengers fanning me and wiping the sweat off my forehead.