Category: News

Flexera Software, the leading provider of next-generation software licensing, compliance and installation solutions for application producers and enterprises, announced today the launch of InstallAnywhere 2014.  The new release simplifies deployment of multi-tier applications and adds support for the latest versions of Windows, Apple, Linux and virtual applications.

Agile development is increasing the frequency of software releases and, as a result, the time and effort around developing software installers.  InstallAnywhere 2014 is the only multi-platform installation solution capable of automatically detecting and removing previous versions of an application, and correctly upgrading a previous version on an existing customer’s PC. This new standard installation framework simplifies development and installation of upgrades for application producers.

Grazed from Bloomberg. Author: Jack Clark.

Key components of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Azure cloud-computing service are currently unavailable for users around the globe. The world’s biggest software maker said today that Azure, which lets businesses access computing resources and run programs via the Internet, is undergoing a service interruption in at least six of its major components in multiple data centers around the world.

Azure, which competes against rival businesses from Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., also experienced some outages in August. It’s unusual for cloud outages to affect more than one data center at once, and this is Microsoft’s most severe Azure interruption since some storage tools went offline in February 2013…

Read more from the source @ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-18/microsoft-s-cloud-computing-service-azure-experiencing-outage.html

Grazed from CloudTech. Author: John Dixon.

Last week, Chris Ward and I hosted a breakout session at Cloudscape 2014, GreenPages’ annual customer Summit. We spoke about cloud service models today (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), as well as tomorrow’s models — loosely defined as XaaS, or Anything-as-a-Service. In this post, I’ll discuss XaaS: what it is and why you might want to consider using it.

First, what is XaaS? Is this just more marketing fluff? Why do we need to define yet another model to fully describe cloud services? I contest that XaaS is a legitimate term, and that it is useful to describe a new type of cloud services — those that make use of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS all neatly delivered in one package. Such packages are intended to fully displace the delivery of a commodity IT service…

Grazed from TalkinCloud. Author: Chris Talbot.

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) provider CloudSigma has signed on to Equinix Cloud Exchange to give a boost to its hybrid cloud solutions portfolio. CloudSigma is also hoping to expand its global cloud footprint and make it easier to access its services around the world.

This announcement follows up on the October 2013 news that CloudSigma had expanded its presence in the U.S. using Equinix’s DC6 International Business Exchange (IBX) data center in Washington, D.C. The addition of a relationship with Equinix for its cloud interconnect solution expands CloudSigma’s footprint even more, providing it with the potential for accelerating adoption of its own cloud infrastructure services…

Grazed from TechCrunch. Author: Frederic Lardinois.

Google and Mesosphere today announced a partnership that brings support for Mesos clusters to Google’s Compute Engine platform. While the Mesos project and Mesosphere aren’t quite household names yet, they are quickly becoming important tools for companies that want to be able to easily scale their applications, no matter whether that’s in their own data centers, in a public cloud service, or as a hybrid deployment.

With this collaboration between Google and Mesosphere, Cloud Platform users will now be able to set up a Mesosphere cluster on Google’s servers in less than 10 minutes. Developers get to choose between two basic installs: a development cluster with four instances, eight virtual CPUs and 30GB of memory for prototyping their applications, or a production-ready install with 18 instances, 36 virtual CPUs and 136GB of memory. If those two options don’t fit, they can also create their own custom clusters…

Grazed from SooperArticles. Author: Lauren Ellis.

Cloud computing has enabled companies to operate at lower expenses and startup costs, and also advanced mobility and access factors. Despite all these advancements in the technology and capabilities, there are a multitude of risks that need to be assessed and addressed as appropriately as possible. Regarding the processes and protocols of privacy and security in the cloud, there seems to be a lingering haze of confusion and doubt. The latest spike in hacks only furthermore fuels this, with the increase in cybercriminals and other data breaches of large enterprises. Thankfully, nowadays, cutting edge security software is to block off unauthorized access and terrible data leaks.

Information technology professionals continually quote cloud security as one of their leading worries. The purpose following this is the massive amount of treasured possessions and information saved through cloud storage. As per statement of Insulation Partners principal analyst Marian Wright, "Given the latest progressions in cloud technology and acceptance, information tech professionals and chief information security officers are suggested to employ more advanced and more suitable tactics for cloud security defenses…

Grazed from WhaTech. Author: Editorial Staff.

Cloud computing is becoming mainstream and a familiar concept at all levels of society. A recent survey by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) estimated that approximately 55 percent of the adult population had heard of the term. However cloud computing has not yet reached the stage in Australia where mainstream newspapers devote entire supplements to the topic, as that august UK journal, The Times, did recently with the publication of its 25 page ‘Cloud for Business’ report.

It’s full of useful stuff. There’s a two page spread "Understanding the Cloud Ecosystem" that explains the distinctions and the interplay between public, private and hybrid cloud. Another looks at the role of the cloud integrator: an organisation that manages a business’ multiple private and public cloud services…

Zetta.net today launched its new DataProtect 4.5 cloud backup and disaster recovery (DR) solution, allowing users to make full server image backups without requiring an appliance or a local staging drive. The new solution is the first SaaS-based service to deliver complete cloud backup and DR – from files to databases to server images – directly to the cloud, with integrated WAN acceleration for optimal transfer speeds.

The appliance-free approach enables customers to start recovering data immediately after a disaster without needing to wait for replacement hardware, as well as offering reduced deployment times and maintenance costs. With 279 percent customer growth in the first half of 2014, Zetta.net has seen rapid adoption by organizations looking to replace older, complex tape- and appliance-based backup systems with faster, more flexible alternatives.

Infoblox Inc., the network control company, today announced that it has enhanced the Infoblox IPAM Plug-in for VMware vCenter Orchestrator, VMware vCloud Director, VMware vCloud Automation Center for Desktop and VMware vCloud Automation Center for Server, adding powerful new capabilities for DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) for private cloud networks.

The Infoblox IPAM plug-in for VMware, introduced in June 2013, eliminates the need to manually set up network services for VMware environments. By automatically provisioning and de-provisioning IP addresses and DNS records for virtual machines as they are created, moved, and removed, the plug-in can dramatically reduce the time required to bring up services and can increase network agility while lowering operating costs.

Grazed from CipherCloud.  Author: Michael Higashi.

The cloud technology landscape has grown more complicated and more fraught with FUD in recent months. This is being driven by the ever-changing landscape of data residency and data privacy laws, and the growing mountain of revelations of government agencies demanding cloud service providers (CSPs) to hand over private consumer and enterprise data. For markets outside the United States, fears are particularly strong that any data stored on US soil or by US-based CSPs is vulnerable to NSA surveillance.

Some CSPs headquartered outside the US are leveraging these fearsDomestic-Only Cloud Services Address Cloud Computing Risks to push a model of domestic-only data centers as a way of addressing the cloud computing risks surrounding data residency and privacy…