Grazed from CIO. Author: Mikael Ricknas.

Boundary is trying to reach more customers for its application performance monitoring service with a free version that has all the same features as the existing offering. The service has also been upgraded to simplify problem diagnosis, the company said on Tuesday.

Boundary is used to keep track of cloud-based applications, distributed applications and clusters. It works by monitoring the flow of packets between servers and alerts users when something is going wrong.

The addition of a free version is meant to make it easier for enterprises to try out the service. The free version has all the same features as the paid version, but Boundary limits the amount of data that can be sent for analysis. Users also have to rely on community support and they can’t store historical data…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Saleem Abdul.

Modern businesses are now beginning to understand the importance of the cloud in terms of delivering services and even products. The cloud makes everything easier and more efficient so more and more businesses are reaping the benefits of cloud computing. But just in case you do not know how this is done yet, here is your answer. Agreements-based billing (ABB) allows you and your business to monetize your cloud applications in order to appeal to customers in new and revolutionary ways and allow you to track and capture their activities on the cloud.

So here are 10 ways that you can use ABB to monetize the cloud:…

Grazed from ZDNet. Author: Ellyne Phneah.

Companies need to move away from the mentality of having complete control over their IT infrastructure and securing different IT stacks in a piecemeal manner when they make the move toward cloud computing, industry executives urge.

Jim Reavis, co-founder and executive director of Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), said traditional IT security practices have always been black and white in that tech departments know they have complete control over the company’s hardware and infrastructure.

In knowing this, they can develop their own security regime or outsource it to a third-party provider completely, Reavis added during the CloudSec 2012 conference held here on Wednesday…

Grazed from SiliconRepublic. Author: Editorial Staff.

Microsoft has repurposed its SkyDrive cloud storage service for the smartphone, ultrabook and tablet computing age just ahead of the official rollout of Windows 8. The new SkyDrive comes with some snazzy new HTML 5 features that work across Windows and Mac environments, as well as a new app specifically for Android devices.

The move ideally positions Microsoft to compete aggressively against competition in the form of Google Drive, Apple’s iCloud, Amazon’s cloud services and fast-moving ventures like Dropbox.

The company has also revealed that its new Outlook.com email service, designed to take on Gmail and stave off competition in the form of Apple’s iCloud, has hit 10m users just one week after its big reveal…

Grazed from ITWeb. Author: Editorial Staff.

The first question that a CIO should ask his cloud provider is, “Where is my data located?”

The implication of releasing control of sensitive organisational data assets to third parties, such as cloud providers, remains a significant inhibitor to businesses transitioning to cloud-based services. Businesses need to be assured that the risk of data compromise and regulatory non-compliance either stays the same or is reduced when outsourcing.

There are multiple steps businesses should follow as data is transitioned outside of the organisation and during its ongoing management:…

Grazed from Datamation. Author: Sean Michael Kerner.

Cloud computing relies on the ability of networks to scale effectively. HP is now expanding its network scalability efforts in a series of new efforts announced today.

The new HP Ethernet Virtual Interconnect (EVI) is a technology that enables up to eight different data centers located in different geographical locations to easily be interconnected. The EVI technology is a software upgrade for HP FlexFabric core switches.

In contrast with simply moving virtual machines from one data center to another with a software-based solution like VMware’s vMotion, the EVI approach is somewhat different.

Piston Cloud Computing, Inc., the enterprise OpenStack™ company, today announced it will provide live demos of Cloud Foundry™ BOSH integration with Piston Enterprise OpenStack™ at the 2012 VMworld® Conference. This community open source project allows the Cloud Foundry Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to run on OpenStack. With cooperation from VMware®, Piston Cloud will distribute and support this new integrated capability in the next release of their flagship product, Piston Enterprise OpenStack.

Cloud Foundry is the leading open source PaaS offering with a fast growing ecosystem and strong enterprise demand. OpenStack is a global collaboration of developers and cloud computing technologists producing the ubiquitous open-source cloud computing framework for building public and private clouds.

Bluelock, a certified VMware vCloud Datacenter provider of Virtual Datacenters hosted in the public cloud, announces continued strong enterprise growth as the company closes out the first half of 2012. Bluelock continues to witness rapid adoption of its Virtual Datacenters (VDCs) within the midsize and large enterprise and expanding its footprint within the industry, with new customers including organizations such as VMware vFabric Application Director , F5 Networks, eMeter (Siemens), Codesigned, and Pitney Bowes. Bluelock’s growth in its Virtual Datacenter revenue exceeds 50% on a year over year comparison.

The company also continues to gain national recognition within the industry, being named to Network World’s list of “10 most powerful IaaS companies,” CRN’s 2012 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors list, Nine Lives Media’s Talkin’ Cloud 100 report and having Bluelock CTO Pat O’Day included in a “Top 10 Cloud Influencers, Thought Leaders ” feature on Wired.com. All of this comes on the heels of Gartner, Inc. positioning Bluelock in the “Leaders” quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in December 2011.