How to define and design cloud APIs, step by step
Most cloud computing services are not consumed using visual interfaces; instead, they’re consumed through nonvisual interfaces, or APIs. These APIs are typically RESTful services that provide access to fine- or coarse-grained features of the cloud — for example, infrastructure services such as storage or provisioning, or business services such as updating a purchase order.
Let’s say you’re building a cloud computing system for an enterprise, and you need to define, design, and implement the services. What are the steps?…
Milliman Launches MG-ALFA in the Cloud
Grazed from MarketWatch. Author: PR Announcement.
Milliman, Inc., the international firm of consultants and actuaries, today announced that MG-ALFA is capable of utilizing Windows Azure for on-demand processing. This represents a major step forward and a valuable feature as insurers look to expand computing capacity while controlling costs.
MG-ALFA Compute for Windows Azure, a proprietary computing component developed by Milliman in collaboration with Microsoft Corp., lets clients take advantage of a variable cost structure and gives them on-demand access to data centers with massive computing capacity. Running MG-ALFA on Windows Azure helps relieve insurers of the planning, management and fixed costs associated with building and maintaining on-site computing resources. Infrastructure, support, maintenance, and monitoring of the grid are all provided by Milliman…
Cloupia Continues to Strengthen Converged Infrastructure Orchestration Offerings With New Solution Announcements
Cloupia, a leading data center orchestration and cloud management software provider, today announced expanded converged infrastructure management offerings to help enterprises and service providers transition to next generation dynamic data centers. Cloupia’s announcement is a major advancement in converged infrastructure management and orchestration. These new offerings will enable enterprises and service providers to easily transition to clouds with one integrated and comprehensive data center management platform across the entire IT stack — physical, virtual, cloud and converged infrastructure.
“Organizations are looking for flexible and integrated data center management platform to rapidly deploy converged infrastructure based solutions on demand,” said Raju Datla, CEO of Cloupia. “Cloupia unified converged infrastructure management offerings will accelerate the enterprise data center transformation towards fabric-based data centers with the necessary automation capabilities. As a leading converged infrastructure management provider, we will continue to work closely with major infrastructure vendors to provide our customers with best-in-class unified data center orchestration solutions.”
Transcend Announces TopStack Web Edition for Eucalyptus
Transcend Computing, an innovator in Amazon Compatible Environments (ACE) for public, private and hybrid cloud computing, today announced a partnership with Eucalyptus, creator of the most widely deployed on-premise cloud computing platform. As part of the agreement, Transcend TopStack Web Edition for Eucalyptus, a set of platform services that emulate the Amazon PaaS, is now available for the Eucalyptus on-premise Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution. Eucalyptus provides AWS-compatible services at the IaaS layer, while TopStack provides complementary AWS-compatible services at the PaaS layer. As part of this arrangement, Transcend will offer a pre-integrated software platform that bundles the two solutions and will act as a reseller of the new solution.
Jeff Schneider, Transcend Computing’s CEO commented, "Eucalyptus has done a great job of building out an AWS-compatible IaaS platform for on-premise IaaS clouds. Our TopStack PaaS offering is a natural fit for enterprise customers who want to avoid cloud lock-in for their applications."
Embotics Raises $8.4M for Cloud Management
Embotics Corporation, a virtualization and private cloud management, announced that it has closed $8.4 million in equity financing. Bringing Embotics’ total financing-to-date to $18 million, this latest round includes $2.5 million from VentureLink LP and $2.5 million from Covington Fund II Inc. (Covington), with the remainder of the funds coming from other private investors. Embotics will use the funding to accelerate global sales and marketing efforts, as well as to hire more software engineers.
This mix of pragmatic growth, strategic marketing and sales investments will build upon the momentum of the past year’s 300 percent growth in sales to further strengthen Embotics V-Commander’s leadership position in the private cloud management market.
Dell Drives Public and Hybrid Cloud Adoption with vCloud Trial, Global Expansion
To make it easy for customers to test and adopt secure, enterprise-class hybrid cloud solutions, Dell is expanding availability of its Dell Cloud with VMware vCloud Datacenter Services into Canada and Europe, and offering an introductory trial offer. The offer, which is currently available in the U.S. and Canada for $999, provides organizations of all sizes and industries an easy way to experience Dell’s hybrid and public cloud offerings, including full security, support and deployment from Dell Services.
While public clouds can offer on-demand computing capacity, more agility and lower entry-level costs than private clouds, some organizations may be hesitant to move to a public cloud due to concerns about security. A recent study by Dell, Intel and TechTarget found that adoption of hybrid and private clouds is outpacing public cloud adoption. Dell Cloud with VMware vCloud Datacenter Services addresses security concerns by offering some of the industry’s most robust security services, including active monitoring from SecureWorks, data encryption services from Trend Micro, and multiple layers of virtual and physical security in Dell data centers. All of these are now included in the current trial offer.
Alliant Technologies: Customer Demand Shaping Cloud Services
While cloud computing has often been viewed as an amorphous term, Alliant Technologies says cloud today is being shaped by customer demand for more utility-like services.
In an interview with CRN TV, CEO of Alliant Technologies Bruce Flitcroft said his company has transitioned from traditional managed services to cloud services in recent years. "We started to change our product development around customer demand," he said. "And customer demand really wasn’t clear four or five years ago."…
DynamicOps Joins Intel Cloud Builders Program
DynamicOps, pioneer of the Operations Virtualization(TM) platform that enables unified cloud automation and management, announced today that it has joined the Intel Cloud Builders Program, which publishes best practices, blueprints and software architectures on how to deploy cloud infrastructures. The DynamicOps-Intel Reference Architecture, published as part of the program, demonstrates how to build private and hybrid cloud solutions using the DynamicOps Cloud Suite and Dell servers powered by Intel Xeon 5600 processors.
"IT consumers are demanding self-service access to resources with delivery measured in minutes, not days, while their IT organizations are increasingly looking to cloud automation solutions to help them respond to these accelerated demands. By joining the Intel Cloud Builders program and publishing our reference architecture, we’re giving enterprise IT organizations the information they need to rapidly configure and deploy business-relevant private clouds that leverage their existing IT investments, processes and skill sets," said Rich Bourdeau, VP Marketing, DynamicOps.
Yippy, Inc. (YIPI) and MuseGlobal to Merge, Offering Unified Access to a Data Cloud of Curated Content
Yippy, Inc. (otcqx:YIPI) ( www.yippy.com ) ("Yippy" or the "Company"), a unified search company known for its clustering technology, reported that the Company entered into an agreement to merge with MuseGlobal, a leading provider of content integration and data virtualization services.
The merger of Yippy and MuseGlobal combines two wholly synergistic companies that bring together an exclusive and vast range of resources and abilities that no other search or information-based company in the world possesses including majors such as Google, Microsoft and HP/Autonomy. The combined companies will create an information cloud that will represent a significant shift in the business of enterprise, vertical and consumer search with unlimited consumer and commercial uses. The Companies’ registered trademark "Welcome to the Cloud" embodies its combined data virtualization initiatives.
Yippy.com (formally www.clusty.com ) is an award-winning deep research engine developed out of Carnegie Mellon University. The programs were acquired by Yippy in May 2010 from Vivisimo, Inc., an industry leading Enterprise Search company that was recently acquired (May 2012) by International Business Machines (IBM). In conjunction with the purchase of the search engine software, Yippy acquired from Vivisimo/IBM a transferable, unlimited lifetime perpetual license for the software known as Velocity for web-based search applications. Velocity is the most advanced enterprise software solution with patented clustering methods that are the keys to the future of enterprise and consumer search. IBM currently holds a 10% stake in Yippy, Inc.
eApps Hosting Announces Improved Affiliate Program for Cloud Hosting Services
eApps Hosting announced a new Affiliate program for third parties that want to earn on-going commissions for referrals to the eApps Cloud Hosting services. The new program retains the favorable recurring commission terms, which pays 10% for all purchases and renewals made by a referred customer, for as long as that customer remains with eApps. A major new feature of the program is the assignment of a named Affiliate Account Manager. The Account Manager is a personal concierge, ready and willing to assist the Affiliate in any way with all aspects of the program and to ensure that the Affiliate receives personalized sales support. The new program also includes improved banners and logos and other sales collateral to help the Affiliate attract and inform potential referrals.
Affiliates will have a personal relationship with their Account Manager, who’s responsibilities include the following: