Category: News

Today, Rackspace Hosting, the open cloud company, announced the release of Rackspace Private Cloud Software, powered by OpenStack – making it simple and easy for companies to install, test and run a multi-node OpenStack based private cloud environment. The software, code named “Alamo,” uses the same OpenStack compute platform, Nova, used to run Rackspace clouds and is available as a free download from the Rackspace website. This software is based upon Rackspace’s experience in deploying and operating OpenStack-based public and private clouds in a variety of environments including in Rackspace’s own datacenters as well as in external datacenters. The Rackspace Private Cloud is backed by an optional support offering.

The Rackspace Private Cloud Software combines the capabilities of public cloud with the customization, reliability and control advantages of a dedicated environment. Customers now have a simple way to install an OpenStack-based private cloud in their own datacenter, at Rackspace, or in a colocation facility.

Grazed from SocialPandas.  Author: PR Announcement

SocialPandas (www.socialpandas.com), a startup provider of social selling applications, today announced that it has closed a $1.5 million round of seed funding led by True Ventures, a premier early-stage investment firm. The oversubscribed round also includes prominent angel investments from former Salesforce.com, VMware, and Apple executives as well as the Alchemist Accelerator. The company will use the funds to fuel product development for a launch in 2013.

“Social networks including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn represent enormous opportunities for new revenue streams for business-to-business (B2B) companies,” said Mark Trang, CEO & Co-Founder of SocialPandas. “Enterprises can track vanity metrics like Fans and Followers. However, no comprehensive tools exist for sales teams to discover new leads, engage top prospects, or optimize deal pipelines across social channels. Sales professionals are stuck using pre-social CRM tools, email, and phones while their customers are spending more time on social networks. We’re excited to bridge this gap with a platform built from ground-up that lets sales teams finally ‘speak social’ and compete in the social era.”

Grazed from Equities.com. Author: Editorial Staff.

The new Dell Wyse D Class Cloud Client Family empowers customers with enhanced enterprise grade features, and packs a punch with improved computing performance.

– New dual core mid-range cloud client family delivers an exceptional user experience including high definition multimedia, voice and video functionalities and essential I/O support for virtualized desktop environments

– Includes flexible networking and storage options and easy "hands off" management

– Extremely energy-efficient, using only 9.2 watts of electricity in operation…

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.