Grazed from GigaOm. Author: Derrick Harris.

Heroku has rolled out a new feature in its Heroku Postgres service that lets the database act a lot more like NoSQL fave MongoDB. It’s probably good news for Heroku’s revenues and database customers, although possibly less so for the MongoDB-based services that the platform-as-a-service provider also supports.

In a nutshell, the new feature, called PL/V8 is Google’s V8 engine for running JavaScript, but turned into a procedural language within the Postgres database. V8 already runs within MongoDB and is part of what makes that database so adept at handling the JSON data type that is common among web applications. Because they are schemaless, JSON files let developers and applications work with different data types that might not fit within the rigid structure required by relational databases…

Grazed from PRNewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Akamai Technologies, Inc. the leading cloud platform for helping enterprises provide secure, high-performing user experiences on any device, anywhere, is showcasing its cloud delivery and optimization expertise at Cloud Expo NY 2013 which will be held at New York’s Javit’s Center, June 10-13, 2013. Through a combination of keynote, general and technical sessions, as well as booth demonstrations (Booth 418) of the company’s Terra Alta solutions, Akamai will show attendees how they can maximize the results of their cloud computing strategies.

Terra Alta is a cloud-based application delivery platform designed to improve enterprise agility and collaboration by offering the power to instantly configure and deliver all web-based applications, to any users, anywhere in the world. The solution also can help overcome the inherent challenges related to performance, availability, scalability and security, which cannot be accomplished by deploying specialized hardware within the data center…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Joe Lazauskas.

By 2015, global cloud computing traffic will have increased twelve-fold compared to 2010, according to a study by Cisco. As you might assume, that growth is occurring in tech-savvy metropolises like Silicon Valley, New York and London, but it’s also being driven by the developing world.

Businesses in developed nations have embraced cloud computing for the boost in speed, efficiency and flexibility it provides, but in the developing world, it provides a different set of advantages to young businesses. In lands where the electrical grid is unreliable at best, a combination of cheap, battery-powered smartphones and inexpensive cloud computing servers based in the United States or Europe allow businesses to circumvent the electrical grid all together…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Nancy Gohring.

After exuberantly throwing its weight behind OpenStack, IBM now says it will offer cloud services based on CloudStack too, through its SoftLayer acquisition. News broke this morning that IBM plans to buy SoftLayer, which it calls the largest privately held cloud computing infrastructure provider. SoftLayer is known for offering hosting and infrastructure-as-a-service, primarily to small and medium size businesses.

SoftLayer also is known primarily as a Citrix house, including a private cloud product based on CloudStack (formerly owned by Citrix). It also uses OpenStack for its object storage service. Given IBM’s stated support of OpenStack, I was curious about the future of CloudStack at SoftLayer and asked IBM what the acquisition means for the CloudStack products…

Grazed from Geek. Author: Ryan Whitman.

There was a time, not that long ago, when most users managed their own data. Now faster internet connections and cloud services offer not only storage, but data processing. But how can companies looking to crunch data in the cloud know it’s being done correctly? A new piece of software developed by Microsoft and IBM aims to tell you if the cloud is lying about the sanctity of your data.

The software is amusingly dubbed “Pinocchio”, and is being billed as a lie detector for the cloud. At its most basic level, Pinocchio could be used to verify that a cloud service did what was instructed with a data set. Alternatively, it could alert you if the service was somehow compromised, thus altering the results…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: TJ Jones.

What’s the best way to increase your profits? Improve your leading product or service? Branch out into new markets? Launch an innovative marketing campaign? All of these are great options, provided you have the ability to implement them. Sometimes, though, the best way to increase the amount you make is to decrease the amount you spend. Cutting back on costs makes your business leaner, meaner, and better able to compete in the marketplace.

It is one area which is absolutely essential for businesses of all sizes, but which can get prohibitively expensive. Even with just a couple of employees you need to ensure that you have the right software and a reliable email system. Cloud computing is quickly gaining popularity as a cost control method, with hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide adopting at least one cloud-based service in the workplace…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Ted Samson.

The Apache CloudStack project today announced Version 4.1.0 of the CloudStack, signaling that the cloud orchestration platform continues to thrive since emerging from the Apache Incubator in mid-March. The 4.1.0 release includes news features such as an events framework, API-request throttling, and Amazon Web Services-style regions. It also includes major changes in the codebase, aimed at making the platform easier for developers, along with a new structure for creating RPM/Debian packages and the full adoption of Maven as a build tool.

This new release of CloudStack should be heartening to supporters of the platform, which has been down a long and winding road since being acquired by Citrix in 2011 — then handed it off to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) last year. In March of this year, the ASF approved CloudStack as a TLP (top-level project), helping the open source cloud software effort further establish its independence from Citrix…

Grazed from TechWeekEurope. Author: Tom Brewster.

Salesforce is again set to splash out to boost its marketing prowess, chucking a whopping $2.5 billion (£1.6bn) on rival cloud-based service ExactTarget. A Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company like Salesforce, ExactTarget was founded back in 2000. It has scored some top customers over the last 13 years, including Coca-Cola and Nike, helping run their digital marketing.

Salesforce, which is still a loss making firm despite its strong revenue growth, has agreed to pay $33.75 per share in cash for ExactTarget – a 53 percent premium above the company’s $22.10 closing price on Monday…

Grazed from Wall Street Journal. Author: Michael Hickins.

The high premiums built into Saleforce.com Inc. ’s $2.5 billion acquisition of ExactTarget Inc. and International Business Machine Corp. ’s $2 billion purchase of SoftLayer Technologies Inc. illustrate the growing importance of cloud services, particularly to business users outside the IT department. Cloud applications such as these are proliferating throughout organizations, often without the knowledge or blessing of CIOs Gartner Inc. has predicted that by 2017, chief marketing officers will have larger IT budgets than CIOs, but that doesn’t absolve CIOs from the responsibility of securing corporate and customer data, and of helping their companies make the most of their technology investments.

Michael Relich, senior vice president and CIO at Guess Inc. , said, half-jokingly, that CMOs would have more power over IT budgets “over my dead body,” during MIT Sloan’s CIO Symposium last month. But he also noted that SAAS applications are adding to complexity CIOs deal with “because it’s proliferating… I call it cockroach technology,” he said. Bill Miller, CIO at Broadcom Inc. , also noted that SAAS “creates more complexity” because vendors sell “directly to the business.”…

Grazed from PRWeb. Author: PR Announcement.

StreamLink Software, a software as a service (SaaS) technology provider, closed $1,530,000 in new investment on April 15, 2013. This Series A-2 funding led by a group of individual investors will be used to accelerate the company’s growth strategy in order to meet aggressive marketing, sales and partnership goals.

Specifically, funds will be used to engage new, targeted markets for its products, decrease the sales cycle and close rates, and develop strategic federal partnerships. “Our goal has always been to build a great company, and our investors have helped us achieve significant progress toward this goal,” said Adam Roth, CEO of StreamLink Software. “This new investment will allow us to be very focused on growth strategy over the next 18 months, ensuring that we can build on our 348% growth from the previous year…