How to leverage WAN optimisation for high-performance cloud services
Grazed from IT Pro Portal. Author: Keao Caindec.
Cost savings, convenience, speed-to-market and freedom from technology lock-ins are all benefits of migrating business applications to the cloud, and many that have already adopted cloud strategies have indeed realised significant cost savings and productivity gains. However, some have also experienced performance and availability issues that have led to resistance to migrating business-critical functions. As a result, the bulk of successful cloud projects to date have been departmental and not ‘mission critical’ core systems which have significant requirements for resource-intensive functions such as database replication, file synchronisation, backup and disaster recovery between data centres.
Part of the problem is that the public cloud ‘Infrastructure as a Service’ (IaaS) market is evolving more slowly than other areas such as ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS). Providers are only beginning to recognise the level to which performance levels need to be increased and the capabilities their offerings need to make them a viable platform for mission critical purposes.
One area of IaaS that providers have quickly evolved is services that support wide area networks (WAN)…
Rackspace US Inc. recently released its Rackspace Cloud SDK for Microsoft .NET, a suite of tools that enables .NET developers to work with the OpenStack cloud OS. OpenStack is an open source cloud computing platform created by Rackspace and NASA. The Rackspace Cloud SDK for .NET "lets the .NET community develop and consume cloud features or services," according to a blog post by Rackspace Product Marketing Manager Cole Humphreys.
Google and NASA are forming a laboratory to study artificial intelligence by means of computers that use the unusual properties of quantum physics. Their quantum computer, which performs complex calculations thousands of times faster than existing supercomputers, is expected to be in active use in the third quarter of this year.
Barracuda Networks, eyeing Google’s move to unify storage across its products, has increased the amount of free cloud storage for its own Copy online file syncing users, from 5GB to 15GB. Copy’s sharing and storage service is built on the secure Barracuda Cloud, to provide what Barracuda says is a secure alternative to other cloud storage services. Included data verification inspects data before Copy accepts it into the user’s cloud storage, while file-level ownership is verified prior to transferring anything to other devices. Copy also allows users to share files privately using Copy’s built-in identify verification.
Many enterprise IT shops may be reluctant to jump head first into cloud computing. After all, there are a variety of concerns that come with using the cloud, from security to integrations with existing systems, and perhaps most scary: What the cloud will mean for your IT job. But cloud services are being used within organizations with or without the blessing of IT. ServiceNow has a solution for this dichotomy, a sort of onboarding process to get IT comfortable with using the cloud, while enabling functionality to business end users. ServiceNow says what better department to start with using the cloud than IT itself. IT shops get a first-hand look at how the cloud is used, what it’s good for and what it’s not.
Centrify Corporation, a leader in Unified Identity Services across data center, cloud and mobile, today from NetSuite SuiteWorld 2013 announced Centrify for NetSuite. Centrify for NetSuite is a free, comprehensive solution for Active Directory-based NetSuite single sign-on, user provisioning and mobile management for NetSuite. With Centrify, organizations can secure NetSuite for employees, reduce helpdesk burden, improve access controls, and leverage their existing Active Directory infrastructure and skillsets.
CloudBees, Inc., the Java Platform as a Service (PaaS) innovation leader, today announced a new office in Brussels, Belgium, as well as another record-setting quarter in Q1 2013 of new account acquisition and revenue growth. In 2012, CloudBees’ business increased by 350 percent. That success, along with an expanded presence in Europe, will lay the foundation for even greater growth in 2013.
CohesiveFT has been shortlisted for the 6th Annual International Datacentres Award. CohesiveFT is nominated in the award category for Public Cloud Services & Infrastructure. "The need for business application-layer security remains universal, and largely unanswered by IaaS and cloud vendors," said CohesiveFT CEO Patrick Kerpan. "By combining VNS3 Overlay SDN with IaaS provider infrastructure security features, our customers are able to create and control a multidimensional security solution."