Author: David

Grazed from ITBusiness Edge. Author: Julie Knudson.

Now that cloud technology is seeping into every corner of the business world, IT departments are focusing on how efficiently and effectively their cloud providers and platforms are performing. Founded in 1999, Plixer International is a network performance management provider that helps organizations get a holistic view of the entire enterprise regardless of equipment vendor.

Sanford, Maine is not Silicon Valley but …

The Sanford, Maine-based (yes, Maine) company specializes in analyzing network traffic using NetFlow and the newer IPFIX exporters.

"Enterprise adoption of cloud computing is expected to be the most important factor driving the demand for the market of cloud-based application monitoring," said Srihari Padmanabhan, senior industry analyst for Frost & Sullivan’s Measurement and Instrumentation practice. "This factor will boost the demand for cloud-based monitoring services in future" adding that metrics offered as part of a cloud service providers package "don’t provide enough visibility into the network or application."…

Grazed from Seeking Alpha. Author: Amit Bilgi.

Medidata Solutions (MDSO) is not a company you may have heard of, and with good reason. The computer technology company had its initial public offering in 2009 and maintains a market capitalization of just over a billion dollars. This New York-based firm specializes in providing drug companies software for the clinical development process. Using a cloud-computing approach, the business provides a "software as a service" (colloquially known as SaaS) to help increase the efficiency of various clients’ clinical trials. As there are a plethora of restrictions and protocols a company must adhere to when going through the trial process, it’s vital to ensure all of these regulations are met and done in a proper and well-organized manner to ensure overall legitimacy and increase the probability of approval.

This market can be bifurcated into electronic data capture and clinical data management. The former involves a simplified method of data entry to help expedite the trials themselves, along with various tools to assist with analysis and reporting. CDMS is oftentimes used in conjunction with EDC software to manage much of the data from these various trials. As Medidata is currently attempting to maximize their market share of this business, they have represented themselves as a powerhouse taking a commanding lead with much room for growth…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Barb Darrow.

If the OpenStack Summit is anywhere near as dramatic as the events leading up to it, it will be a really good show. As the open-source cloud effort transitions from a Rackspace-dominated move to a true community effort, here are 8 big questions.

To say there’s been a lot of build up to this year’s OpenStack Summit would be an understatement. The drama around VMware’s application to join the OpenStack Foundation and the delayed acceptance of that bid got tongues wagging. It’s only natural, as OpenStack transitioned from a Rackspace-dominated project to a multi-vendor effort with participation from IBM, SUSE, Cisco, HP and pretty much the rest of the known tech universe with the notable exception of Amazon…

Kovarus, Inc., a leading systems integrator specializing in increasing IT efficiency by architecting and integrating business-aligned IT solutions, and VirtualSharp Software, the leading provider of next generation automated Disaster Recovery solutions for private and public clouds, today announced that they are partnering on Recovery Assurance solutions for the private cloud.

Kovarus has integrated VirtualSharp Software’s technology with virtualization and storage solutions and is now offering Recovery Assurance to customers who need Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery compliance or who want to reduce the cost of Disaster Recovery while protecting applications better.

NetApp and Desktone, Inc., announced today a solution that simplifies the delivery of virtual desktops as a service (DaaS). The solution helps service providers avoid the common challenges of virtual desktop deployment by reducing startup costs, removing design and management complexity, and improving performance. With this solution, service providers can rapidly deploy a full-featured service that enables their customers to easily reap the benefits of virtual desktops such as supporting mobile users, reducing the cost of desktop support, helping to safeguard intellectual property, and supporting user demand for "bring your own device policies" policies.

The new service, built specifically for cloud delivery environments, features technology that enables a single infrastructure to be elastically scalable and cost efficient. Security is designed in at the application, network, and storage layers to help maintain the privacy of customers’ data.

ServiceNow, a leading provider of cloud-based services to automate enterprise IT operations, today announced a new release of its IT service automation software. By embedding new IT Asset Management application, ServiceNow enables companies to more efficiently utilize software and help achieve compliance with license terms and requirements. At the same time, companies can avoid over-purchasing of software licenses and maintenance or support contracts. The release also includes new capabilities for agile software development that ultimately lead to an improved user experience.

Enterprises today waste a great deal of money and time through improperly managed software resources. ServiceNow software can help businesses rightsize and monitor a software portfolio through a fully integrated cloud-based service for all types of IT assets, while helping achieve audit-ready license compliance automation and reporting.

Grazed from Array Networks.  Author: PR Announcement

Array Networks Inc., a global leader in application delivery networking solutions for mobility, security and performance, today announced the immediate availability of its new vxAG Virtual Secure Access Gateway virtual appliance for cloud and virtualized environments. Powered by Array’s award-winning 64-bit SpeedCore platform, the new product gives enterprises and service providers the ability to run Array’s proven AG Series secure access gateways as virtual machines on commodity servers running VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer or OpenXen hypervisors.

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: Mikael Ricknäs.

Content delivery accelerator Akamai Techologies has launched a service for adapting websites to the device used to access them, which it says also simplifies the upgrade to IPv6. The service, Aqua Ion, has been shaped by the increasing diversity of devices used to access websites, and is composed of technologies Akamai has acquired and developed in-house.

The most important addition is the front-end optimization, which to a large extent is the result of Akamai’s acquisition of Blaze Software. "Blaze’s technology has been re-engineered to have it scale across the Akamai platform," said Joel Reid, Akamai sales manager for Enterprise in the U.K. and Ireland…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: John Omwambu.

There is always a bridge between different platforms be they devices or networks. The same case applies to vehicles, handheld devices and the latest nebula in the Internet skies, cloud computing. It has become easier to communicate comfortably in the driver’s seat without lifting a finger courtesy of Bluetooth and other technologies that have hitherto been inherently mobile. It is also a show of coercion between the three platforms that makes it possible to call someone while using only the voice as the command for making that call. Here is a dissection of the thin line that separates the three platforms.

Mobile in cars

Mobile gadgets are becoming more of a non-entity inside vehicles. They may even lose the term ‘handheld devices’ because they are now customized into the system. They come with their buttons on the dashboard whereby if one wants to send a message or place a call, he or she will just have to turn on the button and communicate directly. Alternatively, one can decide to attach the gadget to a connector so that whenever a call comes through, there won’t be any need to use hands to receive it. The basic technologies that are now migrating from the phone to the auto industry include that of Bluetooth and wireless web connections…

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Rick Blaisdell.

Cloud technology has created new opportunities and job roles. In order to be ready for them, we must enhance our current skills set to include cloud computing. The worldwide demand for implementing cloud infrastructure by governments, enterprises and educational institutions is a call for IT professionals to attend trainings and courses, in order to get better educated in this technology.

As the need for the development of cloud computing standards became apparent, major companies have launched cloud computing certification programs. These certification programs include cloud-focused training programs targeting service providers or vendors, operations professionals in the enterprise, as well as systems integrators who are trained to navigate, deploy and operate cloud platforms…