Industry News Desk

Acer Sues Ex-CEO

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:52:00 EST

Acer has sued its former CEO Gianfranco Lanci in Milan, charging him with breaching a one-year non-compete by going to work for its Lenovo rival. It is asking for damages. Lanci left Acer last year at the end of March in a strategy flap over the company’s direction, mobile gismos and an underestimated global downturn and started consulting for Lenovo in September. He was named head of a new Lenovo EMEA unit last month, starting April 2. Acer reportedly doesn’t want an injunction stopping him from taking the job, just money. Lenovo is on a tear currently challenging HP’s grip on its title as the world’s top PC vendor. Lenovo bought IBM’s PC unit a few years ago and last year added German merchant Medion, a move regarded as dangerous to Acer.

ScaleOut Software to Exhibit at Cloud Expo 2012 New York

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:17:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that ScaleOut Software, a leading provider of distributed in-memory data grids and data analysis solutions, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. ScaleOut Software develops and markets distributed in-memory data grid (IMDG) software for storing, managing, and analyzing data in the cloud, on-premise, and mixed environments. Its flagship product, ScaleOut StateServer®, accelerates application performance with linear scalability and enables automatic data migration to and from the cloud. Integrated map/reduce functionality provides intuitive, powerful data analysis.

Cloud Expo New York: Goodbye PaaS 1.0, Hello PaaS 2.0

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST

The Platform as a Service (PaaS) market grew out of the fact that no other cloud solution addressed the ever-increasing complexity of managing and writing modern applications: no frameworks, libraries or APIs alone could tackle the sticky application engineering challenges. Unfortunately, PaaS 1.0 is what people are now seeing as strictly a “tool” to easily deploy apps to the infrastructure in a self-service way with little or no differentiation among offerings. However, in order for PaaS to reach its full potential and become the modern day abstraction layer for software delivery, we must enter the PaaS 2.0 phase. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Sinclair Schuller, Co-Founder & CEO of Apprenda, will explain how organizations are currently using PaaS, where PaaS is evolving to, and highlight best practices to maximize the value of existing investments when adopting PaaS today.

Cloud Expo New York: Best Practices for Big Unstructured Data Storage

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:15:00 EST

Big Data has become very popular as what can probably best be described as “loosely structured large scale data”, i.e., data sets of relatively small files. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Tom Leyden, Director of Alliances and Marketing at Amplidata, will explain what Big Unstructured Data is (lots of large, unstructured files) and how you build scalable storage infrastructures that can handle such volumes of data. The focus will be on Object Storage, which is the future storage paradigm that uses concepts of cloud computing to optimize the back-end storage for cloud applications.

Cloud Expo New York: The Growing Big Data Tools Landscape

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:45:00 EST

Hadoop, MapReduce, Hive, Hbase, Lucene, Solr? The only thing growing faster than enterprise data these days is the landscape of big data tools. These tools, which are designed to help organizations turn big data into opportunities, are gaining deeper insight into massive volumes of information. A recent Gartner report predicts that enterprise data will increase by 650% over the next five years, which means that the time is now for IT decision makers to determine which big data tools are the best – and most cost-effective – for their organization. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, David Lucas, Chief Strategy Officer at GCE, will run through what enterprises really need to know about the growing set of big data tools – including those being leveraged by organizations today as well as the new and innovative tools just arriving on the scene. He will also help attendees gain greater insight on how to match the right data center tools to a specific enterprise challenge and what processes need to change to handle big data.

Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Architectures Require Scale-out Storage

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:15:00 EST

Building a cloud computing environment with on-demand access to compute, network, and storage resources requires an elastic infrastructure at multiple levels. Virtualization combined with x86 servers has transformed the way we scale out compute resources. Unfortunately, legacy Fibre Channel and iSCSI storage architectures are rooted in rigid mainframe-era designs, and are fundamentally mismatched with the dynamic, shared modern data center. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Kevin Brown, CEO of Coraid, will discuss how Ethernet SAN architectures leverage off-the-shelf hardware, standard Ethernet, and distributed storage processing to enable a building block approach to scalability – no forklift upgrades required. With Ethernet SAN, capacity and performance both scale linearly with user demand without forcing users into a complex tiered storage environment to deal with price-performance tradeoffs. Now the same storage building blocks can be configured for backup or production, virtualization or database, enabling a flexible one-tier-for-all architecture. Learn how organizations today are already leveraging Ethernet SAN as the storage backbone of their dynamic public and private cloud architectures.

The New OpenNebula Self-Service Portal in Action

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:00:00 EST

A new episode of the screencast series is now available at the OpenNebula YouTube Channel. This screencast demonstrates the new easily-customizable self-service portal for cloud consumers. Its aim is to offer a simplified access to shared infrastructure for non-IT end users. The screencast shows how to create a virtual network, how to upload an image, and how to launch virtual machines using them.

Cloud Expo New York: The Dark Side of Virtualization

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:00:00 EST

Virtualization and private cloud are good for server consolidation, creating flexible environments, and saving IT budget dollars. A recent survey of 1200 companies with 500+ employees showed that 59% had server virtualization in production or pilot. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Dave Asprey, VP of Cloud Security at Trend Micro, will explain the types of situations when you should consider not virtualizing some of your applications. Reasons range from technical to legal to IT ops to politics to finances. Attend this session, and hear a true IT insider’s guide to the truth about virtualization.

SoftLayer Appoints New Chief Financial Officer

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:45:00 EST

SoftLayer Technologies on Monday announced the appointment of Walter Z. Berger as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective in March. A seasoned finance and accounting executive, Mr. Berger will help guide and oversee the company’s continued market leadership and financial growth. He brings more than 30 years of experience to SoftLayer, including extensive operational experience as a CFO with several large, publicly held companies. Lance Crosby, CEO for SoftLayer, notes that Berger’s “proven track record and leadership will be invaluable as we embark on our next phase of growth. We’re delighted to have such a high caliber executive join our team.” Prior to joining SoftLayer Technologies, Mr. Berger was the CFO and executive vice president of Leap Wireless International Inc. From 2006 to 2008, Mr. Berger served in senior management roles at CBS Corporation, including as executive vice president and chief financial officer for CBS Radio, a division of CBS Corporation. Prior to joining CBS Radio, Mr. Berger served as executive vice president and CFO and a director of Emmis Communications from 1999 to 2005. From 1996 to 1997, Mr. Berger served as executive vice president and CFO of LG&E Energy Corporation and in 1997 was promoted to group president of the Energy Marketing Division, where he served until 1999. Early in his career, Mr. Berger held a number of financial and operating management roles in the manufacturing, service and energy fields. Mr. Berger began his career in audit at Arthur Andersen in 1977. Mr. Berger is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts in business administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Security for Regulated Industries – CloudAudit

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:45:00 EST

Regulation of consumer and corporate data is increasing in response to the growing movement into cloud service offerings. Coupled with high-profile intrusions by groups such as Anonymous and Lulzsec, the necessity for a standard way to assess the security of cloud service providers becomes apparent. CloudAudit is an open standard developed by a Cloud Security Alliance working group that provides an open, common, extensible namespace and interface to enable cloud providers and authorized customers to automate audits, assertions, assessments and assurance for their cloud infrastructure, platform or application environments.

Cloud Expo New York: Cloud Computing and Healthcare

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:00:00 EST

What are the legal implications and consequences of cloud computing in the healthcare and high-tech sectors? What are the potential legal protections and solutions from the point of view of providers, suppliers and consumers? In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Paul Rubell, a Partner at Meltzer Lippe, will discuss the federal mandates that will encourage “meaningful use” of EHR technology by 2015, and what those mandates will require executives to understand about cloud computing and solutions for implementing cloud computing across large companies, corporations and not-for-profits in advance of federal mandates.

SeaMicro Adapts Xeon for Microservers

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST

SeaMicro, the ambitious start-up that has been building so-called microservers out of low-power Intel Atom chips, has started building microservers out of low-voltage quad-core Intel Xeon chips using the same architecture its Atom systems use. The development is called the SeaMicro SM10000-XE. Needless to say, it’s the first fabric-based Xeon microserver ever made. It’s also supposed to be the most energy-efficient, highest-density, highest-bandwidth Xeon server now available, period. A single SM10000-XE replaces 32 dual-socket servers, but draws half the power and takes up a third the space without any changes to operating systems, applications or management tools. It eliminates layers of Ethernet switches, server management devices and expensive load balancers.

Tilera’s New Server Chips Arrive

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:45:00 EST

Tilera, the wannabe many-core Intel server replacement, said Monday that it’s delivering the expected 16- and 36-core versions of its new 64-bit low-power proprietary TILE-GX processors along with evaluation systems it hopes will give Intel something to worry about. The things should be in volume by mid-March. They’re Tilera’s first 64-bit chips capable of using more memory than its original 32-bit widgets – like 512GB or 1TB. They’ve been shipping in limited quantities – alphas – since September. The start-up claims to have 20 design-wins and 80 “deep” engagements for the GX family that it expects will turn into design-wins – probably this year – because they’re do-or-die mission-critical projects. Forty-seven are in the US, 13 in Europe, and 20 in APAC, mostly China.

Cloud Expo New York: Big Data, Colocation and the Cloud

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:15:00 EST

As more enterprises are adopting clouds, the nature of cloud computing is changing. Previously, clouds were used to test applications or for non-mission critical applications. Today, enterprises are using clouds for cost-saving advantages and launching more mission critical applications that have defined performance needs. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Eric Shepcaro, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Telx, will discuss how distributed computing has many advantages. It would allow organizations to have a cloud at various data centers instead of one cloud at one datacenter. Costs are reduced significantly since one big Internet pipe is not needed.

Open Data Center Alliance Named “Bronze Sponsor” of Cloud Expo New York

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that The Open Data Center Alliance, an independent organization that gives stakeholders a voice in shaping the future of cloud computing, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. The Open Data Center Alliance was formed in 2010 as a unique consortium of leading global IT organizations. The Alliance is led by a steering committee of senior IT executives from BMW, China Life, China Unicom, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin, Marriott International, Inc., National Australia Bank, Terremark, Disney Technology Solutions and Services, and UBS. Intel Corporation serves as the organization’s technical advisor. The Alliance came together to deliver a unified voice for emerging data center and cloud computing requirements. Its mission is to speed the migration to cloud computing by enabling the solution and service ecosystem to address IT requirements with the highest level of interoperability and standards.

SoftLayer Introduces Flex Images

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:30:00 EST

The lines between physical and virtual IT resources are being erased with the introduction of SoftLayer Flex Images. Flex Images allow users to capture, replicate, and store an image of a cloud or dedicated server, and then deploy the image on either type of computing environment. Capabilities traditionally in the domain of virtual infrastructure, including the ability to quickly clone and reload servers, are extended to dedicated servers, along with cross-platform compatibility and simple migration between physical and virtual environments. “Flex Images provide our customers with unprecedented flexibility and scalability,” said Simon West, Chief Marketing Officer for SoftLayer. “The ability to provision and automate server images seamlessly between cloud and dedicated computing environments empowers users to easily build out their IT environments while being able to quickly meet changing requirements. Our customers can focus on the purpose of their application and then on the right technology solution—with the freedom to move between or integrate technologies as needed.”

Open Data Center Alliance to Co-Locate “Forecast 2012” at Cloud Expo NY

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:54:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that the Open Data Center Alliance, an independent organization that gives stakeholders a voice in shaping the future of cloud computing, will co-locate its one-day event “Forecast 2012: Shaping the Future of Cloud Computing” on June 12 at SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. “Forecast 2012: Shaping the Future of Cloud Computing” will be open to Alliance members, partner organizations and any companies and organizations interested in addressing the most pressing challenges associated with transitioning to cloud computing. The event will include presentations by top cloud visionaries, classes presented by Alliance technical leaders and the latest industry advancements in delivery of solutions based on Alliance requirements. For more information, or to register for Forecast 2012, please visit Forecast 2012.

UShareSoft to Exhibit at Cloud Expo 2012 New York

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:45:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that UShareSoft, provider of a cloud template factory, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. UShareSoft offers a cloud server template factory and enterprise app store platform for self-service software onboarding to cloud. UShareSoft's UForge enables customers to automate the creation and management of cloud images and server templates, with full software governance. Additionally, UForge allows hosting providers to build their own dynamic app store for enterprise IT applications, quickly scaling their cloud services business and ecosystem. UShareSoft tools are helping hosting providers, ISVs and enterprises in their transition phase to the cloud. Headquartered in Europe, UShareSoft has an R&D center in Argentina and offices in the United States and Japan.

Riding the Enterprise Cloud Computing Wave of Change into the Future

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:30:00 EST

In her general session at the 9th International Cloud Expo, Jill Tummler Singer, CIO for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), discussed the key elements needed for a triumphant enterprise cloud computing migration and highlighted strategies (including security advantages found in the cloud) to ensure you don't crash and get caught in the riptide of this rapidly emerging technology. Jill Tummler Singer is CIO for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)- which as part of the 16-member Intelligence Community plays a primary role in achieving information superiority for the U.S. Government and Armed Forces. A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program.

Jon Rubinstein, Father of webOS, Leaves HP

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:45:00 EST

HP has dispensed with the services of former Palm CEO and pivotal Apple graduate Jon Rubinstein, according to AllThingsDigital. Rubinstein has been like a man without a country since HP, after spending billions on the stuff decided it couldn’t go toe to toe with Apple and Google, and up and dumped Palm’s webOS-based phones and TouchPad last August then announced that by September it would open source the operating system on which Rubinstein spent four-and-a-half years of his life.

The DNA of an Enterprise Cloud

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:45:00 EST

Cloud computing has gained momentum and is increasingly being embraced by enterprises of all sizes for application delivery. But the cloud itself is often its own worst enemy as performance, reliability, and the lack of enterprise level capabilities have led to obstacles in growth and adoption of this still promising infrastructure methodology. This is only exacerbated by an increasingly mobile and global world, one that is plagued with security concerns. In his Day 3 Keynote at the 9th International Cloud Expo, Willie M. Tejada, Senior Vice President & General Manager of the Enterprise Cloud Division at Akamai, discussed what Akamai is doing to solve the challenges you face in the cloud, and how Akamai's Intelligent platform can help you leverage both public and hybrid cloud infrastructures without sacrificing security or control.

Europe's IT Commissioner Announces European Cloud Partnership Initiative

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:00:00 EST

"The cloud has the capacity to make lives easier for many of us, including the smallest of businesses. But to achieve that requires us to take many different policy areas and really test them to make sure they are as cloud-compatible as they can be." Writing in her official capacity as Europe's Commissioner for the Internet - and therefore as Czarina of the 'Digital Agenda' of the European Union - Commissioner Neelie Kroes has just announced a brand new initiative on cloud computing – the European Cloud Partnership.

C12G Labs Announces the Release of OpenNebula Pro 3.2 Cloud Manager

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 EST

C12G Labs has just announced an update release of OpenNebulaPro, the enterprise edition of the OpenNebula Toolkit. OpenNebula 3.2, released two weeks ago, brings important benefits to cloud providers with a new easily-customizable self-service portal for cloud consumers, and builders with full support for VMware that now includes live migration, advanced contextualization and image management. The new release additionally included important enhancements in networking and security. C12G delivers OpenNebulaPro for business, government, or other organizations looking for a hardened, certified, supported cloud platform. OpenNebulaPro combines the rapid innovation of open-source with the stability and long-term production support of commercial software. Compared to OpenNebula, the expert production and integration support of OpenNebulaPro and its higher stability increase IT productivity, speed time to deployment, and reduce business and technical risks.

Three Down: Another HP Director To Leave Board

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:30:00 EST

HP told the SEC Monday that long-time board member Lawrence Babbio won’t be standing for re-election at the stockholders meeting in March. Babbio’s been on the notoriously dysfunctional HP board since the divisive Compaq acquisition, made over accusations of vote-buying, there through the pretexting spying scandal, the fallout resignation of chairwoman Pat Dunn; the Mark Hurd ouster; the questionable Léo Apotheker hire, the Apotheker ouster 10 months later; the shopping of the HP PC unit; the repudiation of the $1.2 billion Palm acquisition; the unpopular ~$12 billion Autonomy acquisition and assorted other overpriced board-approved acquisitions.

NaviSite Announces SSAE 16 SOC 1 Compliance

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:00:00 EST

NaviSite on Monday announced it has completed its annual Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) No. 16 Service Organization Control (SOC) 1 compliance for its cloud-enabled data centers in Andover, MA and San Jose, CA. SSAE 16 compliance also extends to managed services and managed cloud services in these two flagship data centers, as well as managed services in NaviSite’s Syracuse, NY and London, UK data centers. "The SSAE 16 program is of great benefit to customers of our managed services, including our industry-leading cloud services,” noted Allen Allison, Chief Security Officer at NaviSite. As an SSAE 16 SOC 1-compliant company, NaviSite has demonstrated its commitment to providing customers with the highest standards in processes, controls and procedures.

Tucci’s Reign Extended

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:45:00 EST

EMC CEO Joe Tucci is gonna keep his eventual replacement waiting a while longer. When the company posted pretty Q4 results the other day Tucci said he won’t be stepping down this year as planned. He said the board asked him to stay into 2013 and that “after much soul-searching” he agreed. “As I’ve said in the past, the board and I fully expect that my successor will come from within the existing, talented and experienced ranks of the EMC management team” – who reportedly all asked him to reconsider his transition plans.

CodeFutures Corporation to Exhibit at Cloud Expo 2012 New York

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:30:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that CodeFutures Corporation, the company behind dbShards, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. CodeFutures Corporation, the company behind dbShards, is a leading supplier of database performance and reliability tools that reduce the time and effort required to dramatically increase database scalability and performance. With dbShards, production environments gain scalability, high-availability and easy management of multi-terabyte databases through its Continuous Replication technology, providing an ideal foundation for fast-growing, 24X7 applications.

ICOS and Joyent Partner Up

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:30:00 EST

Joyent’s SmartDataCenter IaaS platform is going to be sold to Italian VARs and service providers by ICOS, an Italian value-added distributor, for private cloud infrastructure or value-added private cloud services. SmartDataCenter’s local storage is supposed to reduce the TCO of cloud data centers. It’s designed to manage tens of thousands of virtual machines, a k a SmartMachines, and supports a multi-tenant PaaS. ICOS means to develop its own cloud infrastructure for channel partners too so they don’t have to build their own cloud data center. JoyentCloud.com delivers public cloud services to LinkedIn, Gilt Groupe and Kabam and licenses its cloud software to service providers that include Dell, FirstServer, XYBase, ClusterTech and Uniserve. Its offerings include a Platform-as-a-Service based on Node.js, the open source server-side JavaScript development environment that’s been embraced by Microsoft.

OpSource Named “Bronze Sponsor” of Cloud Expo 2012 New York

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:00:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that OpSource, Inc., Dimension Data’s wholly owned enterprise cloud and managed hosting business, has been named “Bronze Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. OpSource provides cloud and managed hosting solutions that enable businesses to accelerate growth and scale operations while controlling costs and reducing IT infrastructure support risks. Headquartered in Santa Clara, with operations in California, Virginia, the UK, Ireland, and India, more than 600 enterprises, service providers and Software-as-a-Service ISVs rely on OpSource's expertise, experience and cloud automation technology to operate high-availability, business-critical hosting environments. OpSource is a Dimension Data company.

Cloud Expo New York: The Java EE 7 Platform - Developing for the Cloud

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:45:00 EST

The focus of Java EE 7 is on the cloud, and specifically it aims to bring Platform-as-a-Service providers and application developers together so that portable applications can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure and reap all its benefits in terms of scalability, elasticity, multitenancy, etc. The existing specifications in the platform such as JPA, Servlets, EJB, and others will be updated to meet these requirements. Java EE 7 continues the ease of development push that characterized prior releases by bringing further simplification to enterprise development. It also adds new, important APIs such as the REST client API in JAX-RS 2.0 and the long awaited Concurrency Utilities for Java EE API. Expression Language 3.0 and Java Message Service 2.0 will undergo an extreme makeover to align with the improvements in the Java language. There are plenty of improvements to several other components. Newer web standards like HTML 5 and Web Sockets will be embraced to build modern web applications.

OpenNebula Public Cloud Updated to 3.2

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:00:00 EST

The OpenNebula project has just announced that its OpenNebula Cloud has been updated o 3.2 and now offers a virtual computing environment accessible through two different remote cloud interfaces, OCCI and EC2, and two different web interfaces, Sunstone for cloud administrators and the new SelfService for cloud consumers. These mechanisms access the same infrastructure, i.e. resources created by any of the mentioned methods will be instantly available on the others. For instance, you can create a VM with the OCCI interface, monitor it with the EC2 interface, and shut it down using the OpenNebula Sunstone web interface. This Cloud has been migrated to the last OpenNebula version, 3.2. If you have an account you can still use your old username and password. If not, request a new account and check out the new OpenNebula 3.2 features. These interfaces will show you the regular user view of the Cloud, but you will not be able to manage ACLs, hosts, groups nor users, since that will be delegated to the oneadmin group.

Private vs Public vs Hybrid: Moving Beyond the Soundbites at Cloud Expo

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:15:00 EST

Endless discussion about the "right" cloud delivery model has not produced a consensus. Instead, the cacophony of discussion resembles a Fox News Show – all talking points and no enlightenment. The reality is that every IT organization will face a mixed deployment model going forward. The key issue is how that mixed environment will be implemented and managed as well as how to decide which environment is right for a given application. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Bernard Golden, CEO of HyperStratus, will address the opportunities and constraints IT organizations confront as they chart their hybrid cloud future. It will discuss the deployment decision criteria IT organizations should follow as they decide where to install applications, and identify administrative tool requirements to make operating a hybrid cloud environment successful.

Unlock the Value of the Cloud

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:00 EST

Red Hat technology powers the world’s largest and most successful clouds. We have seen firsthand how to make cloud work for businesses and government organizations, both large and small. Companies are looking to cloud computing as a way to fundamentally change the economics of information technology and the agility of their enterprise. In his general session at the 9th International Cloud Expo, Vijay Sarathy, Director of the Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat, discussed how Red Hat helps transform IT service delivery, build production infrastructure and applications in the cloud where new levels of openness, interoperability and flexibility can be realized.

The Enterprise Cloud Tightrope - Balancing for Success

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:00:00 EST

Implementing a successful Enterprise Cloud requires that the needs of all stakeholders be balanced and in harmony. Without this balance, it simply doesn't work, leading to failed projects - as a number of early cloud adopters have already discovered to their cost. Balance is not just about consultation, it's about selecting technology that works to address the needs of each stakeholder. In his Day 2 Keynote at the 9th International Cloud Expo, Pete Malcolm, CEO of Abiquo, demonstrated that not only is balance possible, but that with it, the Enterprise Cloud actually becomes greater than the sum of its parts, truly achieving both the individual goals of each stakeholder, and the collective goal of the organization.

An Enterprise Cloud for Business-Critical Applications

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:45:00 EST

For enterprise class cloud services, companies need a broad, comprehensive and flexible platform for their applications. Oracle recently announced the Oracle Public Cloud, which offers a broad set of best-in-class, integrated services that are elastic, secure and manageable, offering organizations choice in development and deployment of business critical applications. In his opening keynote at the 9th International Cloud Expo, Tyler Jewell, VP, Product Management & Strategy, Oracle Public Cloud, discussed how the new services can speed your application development and deployment time, while maintaining a low cost infrastructure and the ease with which you can access, use and manage them.

Abiquo Enterprise Cloud Powers Claranet’s Virtual Data Centre

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:00:00 EST

Abiquo on Tuesday announced that its award-winning solution was selected by Claranet to power its recently announced Virtual Data Centre offering. Claranet’s Virtual Data Centre is an integrated Infrastructure as a Service offering available to the European market. Combining the provision of network and compute resources, it offers a new way of managing infrastructure to Claranet’s customers, addressing the key proposition of cloud deployments: the ability to control costs, scalability and speed of implementation. Pete Malcolm, Abiquo CEO, noted that “Claranet is a great example of how Managed Service Providers use our technology to build sophisticated, self-managed cloud solutions for their customers.”

F5’s Certified Firewall Protects Against Large-Scale Cyber Attacks

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:02:00 EST

F5 Networks on Tuesday announced that the latest release of the F5 BIG-IP product family has been certified by ICSA Labs as a network firewall, helping customers protect their public-facing websites from today’s massive cyber attacks. The newly certified solution handles eight times more traffic at the same cost of the closest competitor’s solution. “F5 provides an entirely new and more intelligent approach for defending public-facing web properties and DNS services against harmful attacks,” said Mark Vondemkamp, Director of Product Management at F5. “Many of the world’s largest and most prestigious brands are leveraging F5’s BIG-IP solution to protect web properties that have substantial traffic levels and are frequent targets of malicious attacks. An added benefit of our solution is that it delivers dramatically better price/performance than traditional firewalls.”

Has Cloud Computing Changed IT for the Better?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:30:00 EST

fast-moving industry discussion panel at the 9th International Cloud Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, November 7-10, Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan was joined by Dr. Rich Wolski, CTO and Co-founder of Eucalyptus Systems Inc.; Sheng Liang, CTO Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix Systems; Rick Nucci, Co-Founder and CTO of Dell Boomi; Paulo Rosado, Founder & CEO of OutSystems; Jeff Hobbs, VP Engineering, ActiveState; Brian Lillie, CIO at Equinix; and Vineet Tyagi, Head of Impetus Labs at Impetus Technologies. Some of the questions discussed were: are truly secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? and how exactly does a company or organization go about deciding whether to migrate only specific applications to the cloud - such as storage or security - or their overall IT infrastructure?

Managing Virtual Data Centers

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:45:00 EST

A new episode of the screencast series is now available at the OpenNebula YouTube Channel. This screencast, second part of the oZones screencast, shows how to manage and use Virtual Data Centers, both with the oZones CLI and with the oZones web-based interface, to isolate virtual infrastructure environments. It shows how to create a VDC by assigning a group of users to a group of physical resources and by granting one of the users, the VDC administrator, with privileges to manage all virtual resources in the VDC. The users in the VDC, including the VDC administrator, only see the virtual resources and not the underlying physical infrastructure, and can create and manage virtual compute, storage and networking capacity. Enjoy the screencast!

Mission-Critical Applications and the Cloud – Myth or Reality?

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:30:00 EST

The first generation of cloud computing focused primarily on low-cost personal cloud services along with some capability for application developers and non-mission–critical applications. The latest generation of cloud computing is now capable of addressing the needs of enterprise mission-crucial applications. Mission-critical applications of the enterprise require computing infrastructure that is secure, optimizes performance and is highly resilient. In his general session at the 9th International Cloud Expo, Henry Fastert, Chief Technologist and Managing Partner at SHI, highlighted how the latest cloud computing designs have evolved in terms of security, availability and overall service quality to meet the needs of mission-critical applications.