Category: News

September 25, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Apigee launches product as telcos prep software defined networks

By David

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Stacey Higginbotham.

Many interested in deploying software defined networks are eager for the agility and programmability they can provide. But the fear of breaking their network means IT is leery of deploying SDNs. Apigee has updated its API management products to work on SDNs to alleviate those fears.

Apigee, a company that helps customers manage application programming interfaces that developers use to build services, is introducing a product specifically for software-defined networks that will help its telco customers manage their APIs based on the state of the network and policies already in place for specific users. Apigee, which counts customers such as Walgreens, Telefonica and AT&T, is adding software that can be deployed on controllers such as those offered by Nicira, BigSwitch, IBM and others as well as a platform that will help apply analytics to the network to determine when to take specific actions based on polices or the network’s health…

September 25, 2012 Off

IT industry in vital need of cloud computing security standards

By David

Grazed from V3.co.uk. Author: Rosalie Marshall.

The lack of industry-wide security standards is slowing business adoption of cloud services, according to cloud computing firm Mimecast. Speaking at the V3 Security Summit, Mimecast chief scientist Nathaniel Borenstein said often businesses will not move to the cloud if they are unsure about which providers to trust when it comes to security.

He renewed previous calls he has made for industry standards that will allow businesses to properly evaluate cloud providers. "All clouds are not created equally. The decision about who to trust is absolutely critical. There’s a lack of evaluators telling you who to trust," said Borenstein…

September 25, 2012 Off

Which Cloud Model is Right for Your Company?

By David

Grazed from Data Center Knowledge. Author: Jim Thompson.

Cloud computing can mean many different things depending on whom you speak with and what their experience has been thus far with the cloud. I think we would all agree about the significance cloud computing plays and that it will continue to positively impact us within the communications industry. It’s a fast-growing segment as noted by Altman Vilandre & Company, which reported worldwide revenues from cloud services are expected to reach $31 billion by 2013. In the U.S. alone, revenue could exceed $10 billion by 2014.

Knowledge is Power

Fully understanding what’s available and the differences in cloud models will help you optimally structure your IT environment and capitalize on the benefits, as well as plan for future growth. If you are an IT professional managing network and data resources in a data center environment, you will most likely have access to a variety of resources and tools to help you leverage the cloud for your company…

September 25, 2012 Off

With new service, Nasdaq brings Wall Street data to Amazon’s cloud

By David

Grazed from GigaOM. Author: Derrick Harris.

Nasdaq OMX is offering a new service called FinQloud for financial services clients that want to store regulatory data or analyze trade data using on-demand resources. Built atop Amazon Web Services, the service seems to be the result of a close partnership between the two companies.

Nasdaq OMX is offering a new cloud computing service for storing and analyzing financial trading data, and it’s built atop the Amazon Web Services cloud. The service, named FinQloud is comprised of a regulatory data retention product called Regulatory Records Retention, or R3, and an on-demand analysis tool for trade data called Self-Service Reporting, or SSR. Given the seemingly close partnership between AWS and Nasdaq, FinQloud looks like another step in AWS’s quest to prove itself ready for enterprise workloads and might suggest more such partnerships to come…

September 25, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: Why OpenStack owes its success to Amazon

By 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…

September 25, 2012 Off

Spare cloud capacity creates opportunities for CIOs

By David

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…

September 25, 2012 Off

HP Internal Memo Outlines Cloud Group Reorganization

By David

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…

September 25, 2012 Off

Cities expected to spend $4.8B on big data and cloud by 2017

By David

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…

September 24, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: VMware Welcomed Into OpenStack Foundation

By David

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…

September 24, 2012 Off

Cloud Computing: DH2i Rolls Out Enhanced Application Virtualization, Load Balancing

By David

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…