Cloud news

OK; I’m not skipping or anything, but I am happy. CA Inc., obviously on the path to acquire more and more cloud technology providers in order to build up its own capabilities for cloud computing, is joining the ever-louder chorus of those in our industry recognizing that enterprises want, no, they demand, better monitoring of cloud providers. CA this week announced it has agreed to buy a company called Nimsoft, Inc., a Redwood City, CA-based provider of IT performance and availability monitoring solutions for small and mid-sized companies and managed service providers (MSPs). It’s supposedly all for cash, a transaction valued at $350 million.

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In part I of this series, we began our journey towards next generation enterprise transformation.  In part II, we will discuss some of the initiatives to abstract the enterprise, and create a virtual enterprise presence in the cloud. Last time, we spoke of undertaking initiatives, but what kind of initiatives?  Executive level, leadership initiatives, such as [...]

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How do you tap the social media sites in a way that reaches repeat customers, ensures a consistent user experience yet internally has the peace of mind regarding the customer data, scalability, and ease of development? In their session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Jeff Barnes, a Microsoft Architect Evangelist, and Jim Zimmerman, an ASP.NET MVP, will discuss how Thuzi has created a repeatable approach. For example, a whopping 540k people signed in just four weeks for an Outback Steakhouse “Blooming Onion” promotion. As many as 35,000 Facebook fans signed up per day. Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event since 2007, and is held five times a year, in New York City, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

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"China has been plagued by piracy for the last 20 years and that unfortunately has caused China not to have a software industry," Lee told Reuters in an interview at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit. "But it's irrelevant now, because software distribution is shifting from packaged software, from end user license, to cloud Internet distribution. and when you're on the cloud you gotta pay," he said. Lee resigned from Google last year, a few months before the company reported a large-scale hacking incident that caused it to threaten to withdraw from China. Google is in talks with the Chinese government and expects an outcome soon.

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Law enforcement is no different in its IT needs and constraints from many other enterprises – they run legacy hardware. Migrating to a new on-premise system and hardware can be cost-prohibitive. This compels decision-makers to look for advice and evidence on how to successfully evolve existing solutions via the cloud. In their session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Al Perez, Chief Software Architect at Total Computer, and Gunther Lenz, ISV Architect Evangelist at Microsoft, will discuss how Total Computer migrated its existing law enforcement solution to Windows Azure, the effort needed, the obstacles faced. The upshot – lower upfront investment, pay as you go, a new business model, scalability and reliability as well as familiar tools.

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Do you want a top down, business-driven, automated data center where efficiencies deliver agility and the ability to innovate? Do you want to learn how to deal with challenges such as virtual machine sprawl, additional storage requirements, increased systems management requirements, new IT management processes and specialized technical skills? In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Daniel Weiss, a Director in the IT Management Advisory Support Team at Unisys, will discuss how to mindfully move from virtualization into this agile environment. He will also show how to collect empirical data and apply that to making sound business decisions that will aid in guiding the future direction of your infrastructure and IT services delivery model, and explain how to analyze both your infrastructure and applications to determine the appropriate steps to take advantage of the new IT services delivery model – Cloud Computing.

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Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a complex challenge faced by organizations worldwide, and the introduction of cloud applications threatens to further exacerbate the matter. IAM solutions have recently emerged that use the public cloud to achieve deep cost reductions without diluting performance. What are the fundamentals of Identity and Access Management in your on-premise and cloud-based hybrid application ecosystem? In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Eric Z. Maass, Enterprise Security Solutions Director at Lighthouse Security Group, will discuss the core challenges that face every organization, such as SSO, Access Controls, Identity Provisioning, and Federation, and will take a deeper look into the components of a comprehensive IAM system. He will specifically address the extension of IAM to the Cloud and identity integration with SaaS partners and share critical information required to achieve powerful ROI while avoiding pitfalls and hype that may compromise your organization’s security.

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We started 3Tera to radically ease the way IT deploys, maintains and scales – MANAGES - applications. Our AppLogic® cloud computing platform provides the foundation of our partners’ orchestration of cloud services for public and private clouds around the world. Today, we’re taking the next step in moving toward making cloud computing mainstream by joining CA. CA and 3Tera share a common vision for the future of cloud computing, and we are excited about the opportunities that this acquisition will create for our customers, partners and their cloud users. This is a historic moment in Cloud Computing. The significance of this acquisition is a heck of a lot more than just a land grab in a hot space. We are confident that as a team, CA and 3Tera, will extend our leadership of the cloud computing platform market.

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On the heels of the 3Tera acquisition, CA strengthens its cloud services even further with the $350 million purchase of Nimsoft.

We are constantly bombarded with articles and presentations about the security risks in cloud computing and why organizations need to be concerned about them as they consider a move. The truth is that organizations do need to be concerned about security – but they needn’t be paralyzed by fear. In fact, the heightened concern we’re seeing has actually become a spur to action and has begun to drive cloud security to a whole new level. In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Scott C. Sanchez, CISSP, Director of the S&T Security Portfolio at Unisys Corporation, will focus on the key areas where a successful migration to cloud computing can actually improve security and reduce risk, and address some of the major issues to account for before and during that migration.

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Model Metrics, a provider of cloud computing services for the enterprise and an Amazon Web Services Solution Provider, today announced it has partnered with Global Business Assist and Grameen Foundation's Mifos(TM) Initiative to migrate the Mifos platform to Amazon Web Services to support Global Business Assist's microfinance programs in Africa. The Mifos platform is a centralized open source technology platform that provides microfinance institutions with the technology they need to reliably and securely process, track and record the flow of funds, and maintain accountability to their borrowers and investors. Model Metrics donated its time to work with Global Business Assist volunteer Stephen Kaufman to migrate the application from a web hosting service to the cloud. With web hosting service providers, Kaufman had encountered challenges in delivering Mifos cost-effectively, consistently and securely to micro financiers in developing countries around the world. Kaufman turned to Model Metrics for assistance in taking the Mifos platform to the cloud to provide a greater level of security and reduce the downtime required for offline testing, repairs and management.

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What are the attributes that attract applications to public clouds? Why implement private clouds? When is it appropriate to use both in a Hybrid Cloud approach? Can legacy applications be moved unchanged to the cloud or do they have to be rewritten as Web 2.0 apps? What are the implications regarding the application data migration? In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Dr. Michael Salsburg, a Distinguished Engineer for Unisys Technology, Consulting and Integration Solutions, and the Lead Architect for Unisys Cloud Engineering, will answer those critical questions that arise when considering hosting applications in the cloud. Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event since 2007, and is held five times a year, in New York City, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

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Data accumulation rates are growing astronomically and managing data in traditional ways is getting difficult in the same proportion. Hadoop is emerging as a champion in large-scale data management needs; however, it requires a lot of IT infrastructure investment and expertise. In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Vineet Tyagi, Sr. Director of Engineering and R&D at Impetus Technologies, will discuss how cloud-based Hadoop deployments offer multi-fold efficiencies and benefits, and how Hadoop in the cloud provides on-demand computing, operational scalability, efficiency, cost, etc., and local access to large data.

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CA Inc., today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Nimsoft, Inc.--a leading provider of IT performance and availability monitoring solutions for emerging enterprises and Managed Service Providers (MSPs)--in an all-cash transaction valued at $350 million. The acquisition significantly extends CA's ability to meet the unique IT management needs of emerging enterprises and MSPs, both of which are playing leading roles in the growth of cloud computing. CA estimates that emerging enterprises, which it categorizes as organizations with annual revenues from $300 million to $2 billion, will account for approximately a quarter of the software spending in CA's market space by 2013. By leveraging Nimsoft's market expertise and technology, CA expects to add an entirely new set of customers to its base, which historically has been comprised of large enterprises.

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From internal collaboration to supplier and customer interactions, enterprises are discovering new ways of increasing productivity, process accountability, and connecting those challenging "white spaces" that exist between processes, ERP, and legacy systems. In his session at the 5th International Cloud Expo, Naveen Viswanatha, Lead Architect at Google Enterprise, will show how you can embark on quick-win opportunities that provide a demonstrable ROI, and address a complex or often broken process. For example, see how you can integrate your mail, desktop applications, and legacy systems/data with Google Apps and the Cordys Process Factory. Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event since 2007, and is held five times a year, in New York City, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

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Cast Iron Systems, good as its name, wants to do the heavy lifting and synch applications running on-premise with those in the cloud, any kind of cloud. It says it can connect any combination of cloud and on-premise applications. And nobody has to leave its multi-tenant cloud environment although they could use a web-based on-premise or hosted virtual appliance or a physical appliance. They may not even know they’re using Cast Iron’s mojo since it’s letting ISVs rebrand it. Dell’s Integration Services folks, for instance, are selling it. Cast Iron is also providing the widgetry to Amazon’s EC2 customers. Cast Iron’s next-generation cloud integration platform fittingly dubbed OmniConnect promises data migration, process integration and UI mashups, effectively making it three integration products in one.

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2010 so far has been un-momentous in the telecoms industry, but this is about to change if we are to believe the latest news from the NGT NA summit hosted by GDS International. The senior executives gathered to develop a vision on the key steps needed to capture new markets and revenues. The meeting was moderated by Melanie Posey – Research Director Telecom Markets, IDC. Key points discussed focused on the future of cloud computing; hype, opportunity, or disintermediation? Customer experience and the role of portals: delivering customer satisfaction, reducing costs, and managing customer expectations and telecoms regulation.

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In a move to mainstream predictive analytics, TIBCO Software this week rolled out the latest version of its Spotfire platform. Dubbed Spotfire 3.1, the latest iteration promises a natural language statistical experience. Spotfire 3.1 aims to help anyone in an organization get fact-based answers to questions that help drive revenue. The company says its software is not just for analytics gurus but also marketing professionals, business development managers and others who need forward-looking business intelligence in a hurry.

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Google has launched an app store for its business users to integrate online office products and productivity services, but where's the beef?

SOASTA, a Bronze Sponsor of 5th International Cloud Expo cloud computing conference, upcoming next month in New York (April 19-21, 2010), has been named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the fifty "hottest" VC-backed firms in the US - the only Cloud player among the seventeen IT companies listed. The WSJ rankings were calculated based on how each company scored in the following components: the track record of success for the venture-capital investors who sit on the company's board (Board Ranking); the amount of capital raised by the company over the last three years, in comparison to its peers (Total Equity Ranking); the track record of success for the company's founders and chief executive (Executive Ranking); and the recent growth in the value of the company (Valuation Ranking).

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