Category: News

Grazed from ITBusinessEdge. Author: Michael Vizard.

Cloud computing represents something of a fundamental shift in how IT is deployed and managed. Given that, it only stands to reason that new approaches to securing IT in the age of the cloud are also going to be required. That’s the thinking that went into the development of a new cloud application security gateway from FireLayers that, as software running on a third-party data center, is designed to support any cloud computing environment.

FireLayers CEO Yair Grindlinger says rather than relying on traditional firewalls to secure cloud applications, the FireLayers Cloud Application Security Gateway allows IT organizations to make use of a service that eliminates the need to route every request to access an application through an appliance installed on their premises…

Grazed from Forbes. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cisco recently announced its intent to acquire private cloud provider Metacloud, in an effort to bolster its global Intercloud platform and architecture. Metacloud provides private cloud solutions to organisations with its OpenStack-as-a-service model, delivering ready-to-use private clouds in clients’ data centers. The deal is expected to close by the end of the ongoing quarter (Q1 FY2015) and upon completion of the acquisition, Metacloud’s employees will join Cisco’s Cloud Infrastructure and Managed Services business division.

Cisco’s Cloud Services architecture is also based on OpenStack open source software and is designed to help customers to easily and securely use data across both private and public clouds. The acquisition is likely to provide a boost to Cisco’s plans to build the world’s largest Intercloud, which is a secure network of globally distributed and remotely managed clouds capable of meeting growing customer needs, especially as part of the Internet of Everything (IoE)…

Read more from the source @ http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/09/22/cisco-expands-intercloud-architecture-with-metacloud-acquisition/

Grazed from InformationWeek. Author: Elena Malykhina.

The federal government is known for its risk-adverse nature and tight control of IT assets. But with increasing data needs and constrained budgets, agencies are turning to cloud computing as a solution. Policies such as Cloud First have moved agencies in the right direction. Cloud First, authored by former federal CIO Vivek Kundra, mandates that agencies consider cloud computing before other options for new IT projects.

In an interview with InformationWeek Government earlier this year, Kundra, who is now with Salesforce as executive VP of emerging markets, said the public sector is experiencing a major shift in the IT landscape. "We’ve seen amazing proof points when it comes to cloud computing, like the $600 million contract that Amazon won with the CIA," he said…

Read more from the source @ http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud-computing/5-early-cloud-adopters-in-federal-government/d/d-id/1315911

Grazed from TheVarGuy. Author: Christopher Tozzi.

Data storage vendor Tesora says it is making cloud computing easier than ever with the launch of what it calls "the first enterprise-ready, commercial implementation of OpenStack Trove database-as-a-service (DBaaS)," which is now available for enterprise use. Named Tesora DBaaS Platform Enterprise Edition, the software expands upon the open source Tesora Community Edition DBaaS that the company already offered by delivering enterprise-grade support and value-added tools, such as configuration scripts and installers, that make deployment easier, according to the company.

The product also features integrated data-backup solutions, certification for compatibility with a number of databases, pre-configured Trove database images and professional support. Working from the principle that because databases require special expertise to administer, they often "don’t work well in cloud environments, especially where high-availability and reliability are critical," Tesora is pitching the solution as the first implementation of the open source OpenStack DBaaS component that is ready for enterprise deployment without investment in special talent or additional hardware…

Read more from the source @ http://thevarguy.com/cloud-computing-services-and-business-solutions/092214/tesora-targets-enterprise-commercial-openstack-trove

Grazed from MarketWire.  Author: PR Announcement.

Pertino, a company reinventing networking for the mobile and cloud era, today announced the launch of its BlueSky™ Partner Program, a new multi-channel program tailored for cloud-centric IT consultants, resellers, distributors, service providers and marketplaces. Additionally, the company developed the BlueSky Partner Portal to support partner selling, marketing and support activities, as well as new partner-based billing and onboarding capabilities for its Cloud Network Engine platform…

The BlueSky Partner Program is designed to provide a high degree of incentive and support for partners as they incorporate Pertino cloud networking services into their sales channels, product and service portfolios and marketplaces.  "The cloud is not only disrupting traditional IT models — displacing hardware with software and services — it’s disrupting long-standing channel models built on boxes…

Grazed from Business2Community. Author: Craig Such.

‘Cloud computing’ is no longer a buzzword, it’s an integral part of our digital vocabulary. But as the hype dies down, adoption of new cloud technologies shows no signs of slowing, especially when it comes to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). In fact, according to a recent report by Gartner ‘Adoption of Cloud ERP, 2013 through 2023’, nearly half (47%) of businesses plan to move their core ERP systems to the cloud within five years.

Craig Such, Director at Azzure IT, the company behind rapidNAV – the out-of-the-box Microsoft Dynamics cloud ERP solution, explains why you should move your ERP solution to the cloud:…

Grazed from CSO. Author: Brian Grant.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) in the enterprise is expected to grow at a rate of 37.3 per cent through to 2017, and is the fastest growing segment of the infrastructure service domain, according to Gartner 1and 2. The trend is supported by ESG’s 2014 Public Cloud Computing Trends report, which discloses that 47 per cent) of organisations with more than 500 production servers are already using infrastructure-as-a-service, compared to 23 per cent of those with fewer than 50 production servers.

So for larger enterprises, IaaS is no longer limited to ‘skunkworks’ proofs-of-concept (POCs). Hard contractual obligations, balance sheet objectives and increased complexity in hosting critical applications are driving IT to scale some processes off corporate premises towards a hybrid cloud model…

Grazed from SNAI. Author: PR Announcement.

In case you missed it, the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) recently released their version 1.1 of its Cloud Data Management Interface (CDMI) specification. Highlights of CDMI version 1.1 include:

• New functionality to ease CDMI implementation with other cloud API’s (e.g. AWS S3, OpenStack Swift, etc.)
• Expanded cloud data services along with backwards compatible to earlier versions among other enhancements.

Check out the full specification here.

Speaking of SNIA and CDMI, check out this pod cast post of CDMI in a conversation with Wayne Adams and David Dale of SNIA.

Grazed from GigaOm.  Author: Barb Darrow.

News this week that Larry Ellison was stepping down as CEO of Oracle rocked the industry. That juicy tidbit came out Thursday afternoon as Oracle disclosed first quarter earnings but as the earnings call unfolded, the story evolved into a Larry-stepping-up-and-over to become executive chairman and CTO.

The new co-CEOs Safra Catz and Mark Hurd report to that board which he oversees. Soooo, what does that mean?  Talking to a raft of Oracle watchers since Thursday a couple theories have arisen. And, just to make this crystal clear, this is entirely, 100 percent speculation…

Grazed from WhaTech.  Author: Jennifer Germano.

ElasticBox, the company that enables IT as a Service along with real-time collaboration on the delivery of applications, announces the launch of the ElasticBox Virtual Appliance and the ElasticBox MyServer Edition. Now, in addition to supporting public clouds such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft, customers can install ElasticBox in their own datacenter and deploy applications on physical or virtual machines.

These features will enable any enterprise–regardless of their adoption of the cloud–to achieve faster time-to-market by adopting DevOps best practices like real-time collaboration between developers and IT operations…