"We’re witnessing unprecedented demand for OpenStack by organizations large and small as more and more enterprises embrace private clouds and adopt OpenStack as their preferred platform," said Adrian Ionel, CEO of Mirantis. "With Mirantis OpenStack 5.0, we are offering customers a future-proof solution for OpenStack, along with key new features that help make OpenStack robust enough to support mission-critical workloads."

Metacloud, Inc., a leader in deploying and operating OpenStack as a Service for some of the world’s largest companies, is pleased to announce a deal with SK Telecom subsidiary SK Planet. Established in October 2011, SK Planet is leading the revolution of online and mobile service platforms with its digital content, integrated commerce, and advertising and marketing businesses. Since its merger with SK Marketing & Company in February 2013, the new SK Planet has become a truly integrated service platform that encompasses both online and offline marketing channels.

SK Planet is not new to server virtualization. For years they have leveraged commercial software to get greater utilization from their hardware and increase efficiency within their organization. But as the business grew, the SK tech team began searching for a solution that would take them beyond simple virtualization. Something that would give them the agility and scalability of the public cloud, while reducing TCO.

Responding to the needs of its customers and the overwhelming interest in Logstash – the leading open-source alternative to Splunk, Stratalux has released a hosted version of Logstash to the public.

Centralized logging solutions like Stratalux’s Hosted Logstash help companies solve operational problems faster by collecting, tracking and analyzing logs from applications, systems and AWS without the cost and time required to manage similar solutions like Splunk or running Logstash internally.

Stratalux’s Hosted Logstash is a fully-managed, open-source IT log management solution for companies who need the ability to customize a solution, but don’t want the IT overhead or enterprise software price. Stratalux Hosted Logstash provides the scalability and availability of managed AWS and includes 24/7 support to ensure the service is always running. In addition, customers get the added assurance of a team of Logstash open-source log management experts that can address any required customization. And unlike other solutions, Stratalux’s Hosted Logstash no lock-in promise means that clients have the power and flexibility to migrate and assume management responsibility anytime they like.

Grazed from TheStreet. Author: Eric Johnson.

Government agencies that supervise China’s digital economy want Chinese companies to control more of the domestic and world cloud computing markets. Beijing policymakers are encouraging state-run companies such as China Mobile (CHL_) and Hong Kong-listed ZTE to expand their existing cloud services. And they’re accepting applications for government funding from any domestic company with a major cloud project that meets certain criteria.

The government hasn’t said how much it plans to spend on the project, which was rolled out late last month jointly by the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Finance. NDRC said the government now ranks cloud computing as a nationally strategic industry. Companies in other strategic sectors, such as military hardware manufacturers, are eligible for market protection…

Grazed from Investors. Author: Patrick Seitz.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has earned high marks for his first four months at the helm of the software giant. His performance garnered the company’s stock an upgrade Thursday from research firm FBR Capital Markets. FBR analyst Daniel Ives raised his rating on Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) stock to outperform from market perform and hiked his price target to 49 from 43. Microsoft stock was up 1.5% near 41 in afternoon trading on the stock market today.

"We have a high degree of confidence in Satya Nadella’s plan for Microsoft’s future," Ives wrote. "With Nadella at the helm, Microsoft is off to a golden start with his improved transparency and strategic focus on the mobile/cloud space," Ives wrote. Based on the company’s March quarter results and FBR checks with customers, Microsoft is experiencing accelerated traction in cloud computing with its core cloud Office product (Office 365) showing good subscriber momentum, he said…

Grazed from SysConMedia. Author: Ignacio LLorente.

OpenNebula features unique functionality for virtualization of the datacenter. Among them, it is worth highlighting its support to build cloud bursting architectures where private cloud resources can be easily supplemented with resources from a remote public cloud to meet fluctuating demands. The reason behind this uniqueness is the transparency to use and maintain the cloud bursting functionality for both end users and cloud administrators.

The latest version of OpenNebula, Carina, offers a simple but comprehensive framework that enables resource allocation to different groups of users in federated data centers and hybrid cloud deployments. OpenNebula offers a single management point for both local private and remote public cloud resources, with an end user self-service portal (Cloud View) that enables the consumption of hybrid virtual machine templates…

Grazed from ScientificComputing. Author: Rob Farber.

A complicated decision: To purchase infrastructure or run remotely in the cloud? Bandwidth and data security issues provide the easiest gating factors to evaluate, because an inability to access data kills any chance of using remote infrastructure, be it the public cloud or at a remote HPC center. If running remotely is an option, then the challenge lies in determining the return on investment (ROI) for the remote and local options including:

1. using a hybrid local and remote solution
2. running entirely in a remote cloud
3. pursuing a traditional infrastructure procurement…

Grazed from ITProPortal. Author: Jeramiah Dooley.

It’s hard to imagine a conversation that happens between C-Level enterprise executives without ‘the cloud’ coming up. While cloud computing is obviously nothing new, breaking through the noise and determining the best strategy is still a very real and difficult issue for CIOs. Everyone seems to be sharing a different opinion on the changing landscape of the cloud.

At the centre of the cloud debate we often have legacy hardware vendors trying to push their own agendas. They’re doing everything they can to protect their market share by delaying the innovation of their customers. We know they’re doing this because there are certain things surrounding cloud that are not being discussed…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Charles Babcock.

Federal agencies looking to buy cloud services, just like the private sector, need to develop a common method for evaluating cloud providers, the services they offer, and the prices they charge. That’s the advice from TechAmerica Foundation, a nonprofit formed to advise government on cloud computing in its newly updated guide on how government agencies can adopt the cloud.

TechAmerica Foundation’s cloud computing initiative was formed three years ago to convey best practices in adopting the cloud to the federal and state governments. The new guide makes such common sense recommendations as mapping agency priorities, then finding a business case that fits them. The business case must define requirements, set performance objectives, and estimate costs, it said…

Grazed from SmallBusinessComputing. Author: Pam Barker.

It’s hard to imagine a small business owner today who hasn’t heard how moving business processes to the cloud saves money and lets you access data from anywhere. And that you’d be a fool not to jump on board the cloud computing bandwagon. To hear cloud services vendors tell it, moving everything to the cloud is a no-brainer, and it’s so easy-peasey that you’re crazy to keep buying, installing and maintaining your own software and servers. You might have even heard that cloud integration—getting all of your various cloud services to play well together—is also a simple thing.

Conversations with some cloud vendors can sometimes sound like this: save money, they said. An application programming interface (API) makes cloud integration a snap, they said. You can lay off your IT people because you won’t need them with the cloud, they said. Those things can be true but they aren’t always. That kind of buzz is only a half-truth…