A while ago Rick Parker told me about his amazing project: he started a meetup group that will build a reference private/hybrid cloud heavily relying on virtualized network services, and publish all documentation related to their effort, from high-level architecture to device and software configurations, and wiring plans.

In Episode 8 of Software Gone Wild Rick told us more about his project, and we simply couldn’t avoid a long list of topics including:

• Once you virtualize servers, virtualizing routers and network appliances is the logical next step;
• If you use Juniper SRX in VM format (Firefly Perimeter), you can build a private cloud with no routers (as SRX includes Junos routing functionality);
• Do private clouds exist? Note: I guess this question could only be asked in one slightly-biased geography;
• Storage: the biggest pain in hybrid cloud deployments;
• How do you orchestrate a hybrid cloud?
• Can you build a data center architecture where you can shut down one or more data centers for maintenance during business hours?
• Can you reach 100% availability with enterprise applications?

Listen to the podcast, join LA Cloud Engineering meetup group, and don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast feed (RSS or iTunes).