Author: David

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Linthicum.

Who would have thunk it. The OpenStack Foundation now has a 24-person board, $10 million in funding, and, oh, yeah, 5,600 members. This is becoming more than momentum in the cloud computing market, and it certainly exceeds my expectations from when the standard was first launched.

OpenStack provides a platform to run a private cloud infrastructure, and it now boasts about 550,000 lines of code. Some cloud hosting providers, such as Rackspace and Hewlett-Packard, use the software to host their own services. More are working on OpenStack integration into public cloud services. What’s interesting about OpenStack is not the fact that’s it’s cloud code free for the download, but that so much progress has been made in just two years. We can thank Amazon.com for that, coupled with huge and continued interest in open standards…

Grazed from ComputerWorld. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing is becoming a mainstream technology. However, cloud providers are beginning to see price pressure to reduce their costs to remain competitive. CIOs need to be aware that with downward price pressures, the excess capacity that cloud providers have available for peak traffic drives cloud provider’s profits down, which may alter the relationship and service the CIO receives.

A behemoth cloud provider like Amazon can afford to have excess capacity, while for smaller providers, it’s a challenge that must be solved in order to compete and survive. Larger cloud providers have already started to differentiate themselves through new and alternative services. It’s how they compete with Amazon and also how they entice CIOs at large enterprises to commit to cloud adoption…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Jack McCarthy.

As Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman tries to ignite momentum for the tech giant following a lackluster quarterly report last month, she is counting on growth stemming from the company’s cloud computing segment.

As part of that focus, HP has set up an internal division to unify several disparate units that handled cloud products and services, according to an internal HP memo obtained by CRN. The division will be run by Saar Gillai, formerly vice president of cloud networking. The memo, written by Zorawar Biri Singh, senior vice president and general manager of HP Cloud Services, follows the company’s launch of its Converged Cloud platform earlier this year…

Grazed from GCN. Author: Rutrell Yasin.

Communication, data sharing and application development — particularly cloud computing and data analytics — will play a key role in the transformation of city government over the next five years, according to a new report from Pike Research.

Cumulative investment in smart government technology between 2011 and 2017 will be almost $4.8 billion, according to the report Smart Government Technologies. Annual investment in smart government technologies in North America alone will surpass $1 billion in 2017, and annual investment in cloud services for smart cities will reach nearly $1.4 billion worldwide by 2017, the report states…

Grazed from CRN. Author: Jack McCarthy.

The OpenStack Foundation has officially launched and is moving ahead with its mandate to foster open, interoperable cloud computing. In a board of directors meeting last week, the OpenStack Foundation opened for business and, among its first acts, accepted virtualization giant and one-time OpenStack rival VMware as a full-fledged board member, and it set an Oct. 15 release date for the launch of its Folsom cloud networking project.

Jonathan Bryce, OpenStack’s executive director, said that after a year of preparation, the foundation is ready to move ahead with a $10 million budget and lead the more than 150 companies that have joined…

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Deni Conner.

DH2i announced on Monday a new DxConsole software module designed to end SQL Server sprawl and allow enterprise applications to move transparently between physical and virtual servers in heterogeneous cloud environments. DxConsole 2012R2, the latest version of DH2i’s flagship product, features DxSRM, an automated instance-level load balancer.

DxConsole virtualizes applications in VMware environments. At present, it is limited to use with SQL Server, but in the future it will support Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange, Oracle, SAP, and Citrix XenServer land Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization environments. DxConsole consist of four components: DxAdmin, DxShield, DxElastic, and DxMotion…

Grazed from ITWorld. Author: Jennifer Baker.

The European Cloud Computing Strategy, due to be announced on Friday, will seek to cut through the current jungle of standards in the European Union. The plans, put forward by the European Commission, will also try to establish guidelines for service level agreements in order to build public trust in cloud services.

The Commission admits that setting standards will not be easy. "Currently, individual vendors have an incentive to fight for dominance by locking in their customers, inhibiting standardized, industry-wide approaches," according to Commission’s strategy document. The standards that the Commission wants would be voluntary but would apply to all cloud providers, not just to deals with public administrations…

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Bart Copeland.

Many companies — perhaps blinded by all the hype and marketing claims — are still hanging back when it comes to cloud adoption. They shouldn’t. They should make the move now — but keep these 6 potential pitfalls in mind.

Done right, the enterprise cloud reduces IT overhead, delivers scalability, fosters innovation, and improves the way enterprises work. And that can save time and money. You’ve heard the cloud marketing spiel … faster, better, cheaper. Those are seductive adjectives. But for some organizations, cloud benefits like that can remain out of reach. Cloud Computing is just so…new, and as some industry experts have oh-so-astutely noted, “much can go wrong.” And that’s reason enough for many to fear cloud computing…

Grazed from PR NewsWire. Author: PR Announcement.

Cloud Technology Partners™, the leader in transforming businesses with cloud solutions, today announced the closing of a $2 million series A-2 round. The additional funding will be utilized to underwrite the company’s continued aggressive hiring plans particularly in the area of intellectual property (IP) development, as well as sales, marketing and client services. This round brings the company’s total funding to $5 million.

"Cloud computing has changed the way we think not only about technology, but business itself. It’s not just about driving out costs anymore. The world now recognizes that virtually unlimited access to infrastructure, applications and services means that businesses can eliminate previous growth and competitive barriers and re-dedicate its resources to innovation and business differentiation," said Chris Greendale, Founder and CEO of Cloud Technology Partners. "Our early and significant success has enabled Cloud Technology Partners to attract highly experienced A+ professionals that are truly the cream-of-the-crop – each boasting many, many years of acquired knowledge and expertise, as well as direct hands-on experience…

Grazed from InfoWorld. Author: David Marshall.

Cloud computing has been on almost every IT organizations’ buzz word bingo sheet for many years, but still only a fraction of organizations out there today have successfully completed their "journey to the cloud." Even VMware — a company synonymous with server virtualization — has over the last few years turned its attention to the cloud. At last year’s VMworld virtualization conference, the theme was "Your Cloud, Own It." A year later, the VMworld 2012 conference theme was "Right Here. Right Now." And VMware was telling show attendees "this is the time to enter the new cloud era."

So is this the year of the cloud? Like VMware, VMTurbo seems to think so. Also like VMware, VMTurbo has its roots in virtualization. The company started out managing VMware ESX hypervisors and virtual machines, but it is now looking to the sky and updating its technology to bring additional intelligence and management to the cloud with the release of Operations Manager 3.2…