Newsletters




Cloud Computing

Public Cloud, Private Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud approaches as well as services such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) are being embraced for cost efficiency, scalability, and consolidation. Hypervisor technologies, Open Source versus Proprietary Hypervisor technologies, Security, Open Standards, Interoperability, High Availability, and Backup & Recovery are among the issues that are critical to consider when evaluating a move to the cloud.



Cloud Computing Articles

IBM announced on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sterling Commerce from AT&T for approximately $1.4 billion in cash. The acquisition of the Dublin, Ohio-based company will expand IBM's ability to help organizations create more intelligent and dynamic business networks by simplifying and automating the way they connect and communicate with customers, partners and suppliers both on-premise or through cloud computing delivery models. IBM and AT&T expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2010, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Posted May 25, 2010

Microsoft last week announced that volume licensing downloads for SQL Server 2008 R2 are available in all languages, including the public availability of PowerPivot functionality. Customers can now download the trial version of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 and the web downloads of PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint.

Posted May 18, 2010

ParaScale, Inc. has introduced a new version of its cloud storage platform with advanced features for data security, protection and accessibility. Release 2.5 of ParaScale Cloud Storage software also includes features to efficiently address 'big data' requirements by enabling data services and application integration directly onto storage nodes.

Posted May 18, 2010

IBM announced that it has acquired Cast Iron Systems to broaden the delivery of cloud computing services for clients. Cast Iron Systems, a privately held company founded in 2001 and based in Mountain View, Calif., provides cloud integration software, appliances and services. Cast Iron Systems' clients include Allianz, NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group, ShoreTel, Sports Authority, Time Warner, and Westmont University.

Posted May 17, 2010

IBM Offers Linux Webcasts On-Demand Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.For a replay of "Discover the Benefits of Running Your WebSphere Workloads on Linux and System z" go here.For a replay of "Cloud Computing Made Easy with IBM and Linux," go here. For a replay on "System z and Linux: The Winning Combination," go here. For a replay on "Leveraging Linux with the IBM Client for Smart Work," go here.For a replay on "IBM Smart Business Development and Test with Linux on the Cloud," go here.

Posted May 12, 2010

Cloud computing offers dynamically scalable IT resources, on-demand self-service, network access, rapid up and down scalability, resource pooling, flexibility, and pay per use.

Posted May 12, 2010

To broaden the delivery of cloud computing services for clients, IBM has acquired Cast Iron Systems, a privately held company, founded in 2001, that provides cloud integration software, appliances and services. Cast Iron Systems' clients include Allianz, NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group, ShoreTel, Sports Authority, Time Warner, and Westmont University. The acquisition will expand IBM's process and integration software portfolio, which grew more than 20% in the first quarter of 2010.

Posted May 12, 2010

SpringSource, a division of VMware, Inc., and a vendor in Java application infrastructure and management, has announced that VMware has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire GemStone Systems, Inc., a privately held provider of enterprise data management solutions based in Beaverton, Ore.

Posted May 11, 2010

While enterprise users are ready to move a broad set of workloads to the cloud, they remain wary of moving their most critical business application workloads there, according to the results of a recent Unisys poll.

Posted May 10, 2010

In today's economic climate, application modernization has an even greater significance and return on investment potential for global organizations than has been seen over the past few decades. While most business drivers for application modernization are well known and change little from year to year, some newer drivers are emerging, and certain older drivers are growing in urgency - all increasing the impetus for change.

Posted May 10, 2010

IBM announced yesterday that it has acquired Cast Iron Systems to broaden the delivery of cloud computing services for clients. Cast Iron Systems, a privately held company founded in 2001 and based in Mountain View, Calif., provides cloud integration software, appliances and services. Cast Iron Systems' clients include Allianz, NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group, ShoreTel, Sports Authority, Time Warner, and Westmont University.

Posted May 04, 2010

IBM is delivering a portfolio of software appliances across IBM brands, all powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Leveraging the SUSE Appliance Program from Novell, the initiative enables IBM to provide "plug-and-play" appliances that lower the cost and complexity of deploying applications for small and medium-sized businesses and help independent software vendors simplify the packaging of their solutions for multiple environments, enabling them to test, deploy and scale offerings.

Posted May 03, 2010

5 Minute Briefing: Information Management visited the COLLABORATE 10 conference for Oracle users last week in Las Vegas and had an opportunity to meet with new Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) president, David Ferguson. The conference, held at the Mandalay Bay convention center in Las Vegas, was jointly sponsored by the OAUG, the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and Quest International Users Group. Attendance was estimated at over 5,000 with excellent attendance at the sessions and brisk exhibit floor activity during the breaks.

Posted April 27, 2010

Layer 7 Technologies, a provider of Web management solutions, announced it is shipping a new line of management software to enhance the management and security of cloud environments. Layer 7's new CloudSpan family of products include three products intended to help address critical connectivity, security and delivery needs of both consumers and providers of cloud services.

Posted April 19, 2010

SpringSource, a division of VMware, Inc. and provider of Java application management solutions, announced the acquisition by VMware of Rabbit Technologies, Ltd., an open source software company based in the United Kingdom. SpringSource will add the RabbitMQ open messaging system into its suite of technologies that are designed to reduce the complexity associated with development, deployment and management of enterprise applications. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Posted April 19, 2010

Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.

Posted April 14, 2010

Greenplum Software, a data infrastructure company, has introduced what it calls the industry's first commercially available "Enterprise Data Cloud" platform. Called Greenplum Chorus, the solution offers self-service provisioning, data collaboration and data services features to complement traditional enterprise data warehouses. "Greenplum Chorus is a distributed software platform that is run on premises within an enterprise — potentially spanning multiple data centers and encompassing tens or hundreds of warehouses and marts," Ben Werther, director of product management for Greenplum, tells 5 Minute Briefing. The product is available under subscription or perpetual licensing models, Werther adds.

Posted April 13, 2010

The Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), has announced the availability of a virtual educational program that will run concurrently with the annual Oracle users event COLLABORATE. Presented jointly by the IOUG, as well as the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and Quest International Users Group (Quest), the COLLABORATE 10 conference will take place April 18-22 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center in Las Vegas.

Posted April 13, 2010

It's hard enough to lock down sensitive data when you know exactly which server the database is running on, but what will you do when you deploy virtualization and these systems are constantly moving? And making sure your own database administrators (DBAs) and system administrators aren't copying or viewing confidential records is already a challenge - how are you going to know when your cloud computing vendor's staff members are not using their privileges inappropriately? These are just two of the obstacles that any enterprise must overcome in order to deploy a secure database platform in a virtual environment, or in the cloud. In some cases, these concerns have been preventing organizations from moving to virtualization or cloud computing.

Posted April 07, 2010

COLLABORATE 10 will at long last bring together Sun and Oracle users for the first time under one roof. Ian Abramson, president of the Independent Oracle Users Group, talks with DBTA about what the group is planning for the April conference in Las Vegas, and how the integration of customers and technology is being handled by Oracle and the IOUG.

Posted April 07, 2010

SOA Software, an SOA and cloud services governance provider, is delivering a toolset that includes advanced policy and security federation for SOA (service-oriented architecture) and cloud services. The new product, Policy Manager 6.0, is intended to enable the right level of control over distributed, heterogeneous systems and platforms, the vendor says.

Posted April 05, 2010

Terracotta, a provider of Java application scalability solutions, and EnterpriseDB, which provides enterprise-class products and services based on the PostgreSQL open source database, announced they are teaming up to jointly address the complex technical challenges of scaling the data layer in private clouds.

Posted April 05, 2010

Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? Two new webcast replays have just been added to the IBM's on-demand offering.

Posted March 31, 2010

The world of work is evolving faster and faster. Whether you're a business or IT professional, Impact 2010 is the premier conference designed around you.

Posted March 31, 2010

Providing evidence of increasing migration to the cloud for collaboration capabilities, IBM has announced that more than 200 partners are planning to sell to their customers LotusLive cloud services. New integrated solutions from partners are bringing LotusLive to new global customers in the insurance, banking and other industries around the world. The news comes just 2 months after the introduction of the LotusLive partner program.

Posted March 31, 2010

The opportunity for progress for the planet is clear, emphasized Dr. Bob Sutor, vice president, Open Source and Linux, IBM Software Group, and Jean Staten Healy, head of IBM's Linux strategy, during a presentation they made at Novell BrainShare 2010 last week titled "Linux as a Catalyst for a Smarter Planet." With the world becoming increasingly instrumented and interconnected, virtually all things, processes, and ways of working are becoming intelligent. Only Linux is able to provide the operating system from embedded devices gathering the data to supercomputers analyzing the data. Linux can support dynamic infrastructures that can help drive down costs, and are intelligent and secure.

Posted March 31, 2010

Red Hat, Inc. has announced the availability of the fifth update to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5. Adding features designed to operate across physical, virtual and cloud deployments, the update offers enhanced virtualization and interoperability capabilities, combined with support for important new hardware platforms including the POWER7 and Nehalem-EX processors while retaining support for existing processor platforms (mainframe, Itanium, Nehalem-EP, etc.).

Posted March 31, 2010

Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? Two new webcast replays have just been added to the IBM's on-demand offering.

Posted March 31, 2010

Providing evidence of increasing migration to the cloud for collaboration capabilities, IBM has announced that more than 200 partners are planning to sell to their customers LotusLive cloud services. New integrated solutions from partners are bringing LotusLive to new global customers in the insurance, banking and other industries around the world. The news comes just 2 months after the introduction of the LotusLive partner program.

Posted March 31, 2010

The opportunity for progress for the planet is clear, emphasized Dr. Bob Sutor, vice president, Open Source and Linux, IBM Software Group, and Jean Staten Healy, head of IBM's Linux strategy, during a presentation they made at Novell BrainShare 2010 last week titled "Linux as a Catalyst for a Smarter Planet." With the world becoming increasingly instrumented and interconnected, virtually all things, processes, and ways of working are becoming intelligent. Only Linux is able to provide the operating system from embedded devices gathering the data to supercomputers analyzing the data. Linux can support dynamic infrastructures that can help drive down costs, and are intelligent and secure.

Posted March 31, 2010

As businesses worldwide embrace netbooks as a way to bridge the gap between low price and high performance in information technology, IBM, Canonical, and Simmtronics have announced that Simmtronics netbook, the Simmbook, is available to emerging markets at a low price of $190. With initial availability in emerging markets such as South Africa, the Simmbook is preloaded with IBM Client for Smart Work, which includes IBM Lotus Symphony, access to IBM LotusLive cloud collaboration services, and choice of adding other IBM Lotus collaboration software like Lotus Notes and Lotus Sametime.

Posted March 31, 2010

Lieberman Software Corporation, a provider of privileged identity management and security management solutions, has announced enhancements to its account password management solution, Enterprise Random Password Manager (ERPM). ERPM now delivers fine-grained management features to protect every asset in the cloud infrastructure - including physical and virtual computers and network appliances, hypervisors, databases, middleware, and line-of-business applications. With this version of ERPM, cloud service providers can assure both customers and IT auditors that privileged access to sensitive data is continuously monitored and secured.

Posted March 30, 2010

SpringSource, a division of VMware, Inc. and vendor in Java application infrastructure and management, has launched a platform based on the Apache Tomcat server, intended to provide higher levels of productivity, operational control and deployment flexibility for customers building and deploying Spring applications. The new product, SpringSource tc Server Spring Edition, is intended to provide developers and operators with faster development and insight into the performance and health of their Spring applications. Additionally, the lightweight footprint of tc Server helps ensure greater resource utilization across virtual and cloud environments.

Posted March 22, 2010

The world of world of work is evolving faster and faster. Whether you're a business or IT professional, Impact 2010 is the premier conference designed around you.

Posted March 18, 2010

Yesterday at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, Dr. Bob Sutor, vice president, Open Source and Linux, IBM Software Group, presented a keynote address that examined key issues that users should think about when considering adoption of open source solutions. The talk was titled "Asking the Hard Questions About Open Source Software."

Posted March 18, 2010

IBM has announced plans to go online with its commercial cloud service for software development and testing, allowing enterprise and government clients to test and develop on an IBM Cloud.

Posted March 18, 2010

Yesterday at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, Dr. Bob Sutor, vice president, Open Source and Linux, IBM Software Group, presented a keynote address that examined key issues that users should think about when considering adoption of open source solutions.

Posted March 18, 2010

IBM has announced plans to go online with its commercial cloud service for software development and testing, allowing enterprise and government clients to test and develop on an IBM Cloud.

Posted March 18, 2010

Virtual Bridges, developer of the VERDE suite for desktop virtualization, and ZSL, an ISV and global software solutions and services provider, have formed a worldwide reseller agreement, through which the Virtual Bridges VERDE suite will be an integral component of ZSL's PowerCube DaaS (Desktop as a Service) packaged service offering.

Posted March 18, 2010

Data Strategies International, a provider of data migration services, says it has teamed up with Micro Focus, a provider of application modernization tools, to better enable moving data from mainframe-based physical tape libraries to cloud-based environments.

Posted March 16, 2010

IBM today announced plans to go online with its commercial cloud service for software development and testing. IBM, which already delivers a test and development cloud, is now allowing enterprise and government clients to test and develop on an IBM Cloud. According to IBM, the average enterprise devotes up to 50% of its entire technology infrastructure to development and test, but typically up to 90% of it remains idle. IBM's approach to cloud is intended to complement clients' current data centers and traditional development efforts.

Posted March 16, 2010

CA announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held 3Tera, Inc., a provider of cloud computing solutions. 3Tera's AppLogic offers an approach for building cloud services and deploying complex enterprise-class applications to public and private clouds using an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Posted March 08, 2010

Open source applications were somewhat niche at the beginning of the decade but now are clearly mainstream. Credible open source alternatives now exist for almost every category of application, as well as every component of the application.

Posted March 04, 2010

After the misery that was 2009, most of the SQL Server users I talk to are happy that 2010 started in languid fashion. Not that there isn't a lot of work to do; on the contrary, there's more work than ever. However, the long hours and multiple projects of 2009, compounded by freezes in all levels of spending, raised the general stress level to unhealthy heights. With the new year, stress levels dropped significantly, and many IT leaders see signs of improving prospects. What does that bode for 2010? I have a couple of predictions, though I doubt they'll surprise many people.

Posted March 04, 2010

Sybase, Inc. recently reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2009. "2009 was obviously a great year of major accomplishment for Sybase," stated John Chen, chairman, CEO and president, during the Q4 earnings call. "We are very pleased that we delivered consistent financial performance throughout the year," which culminated in "the best quarter of the company history in Q4 and a third consecutive year of record revenue, earnings, as well as cash flow." For the full year, he noted, revenue came in at $1.17 billion, the highest ever, and above the company's outlook as it entered into 2009, 12 months ago.

Posted February 25, 2010

Zmanda, a provider of open source and cloud-based backup solutions, today announced a product that enables Tivoli administrators to incorporate backups of MySQL databases as part of an enterprise-wide backup and disaster recovery strategy. The solution, Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) Option for Zmanda Recovery Manager (ZRM) for MySQL, enables MySQL users to manage their data protection policies through Tivoli.

Posted February 22, 2010

CommVault is shipping an integrated cloud storage connector for its Simpana software platform designed to enable customers to move on-premises backup and archive data into, and out of, private and public cloud storage without complex scripting or the addition of disparate cloud gateway appliances. With the addition of this new connector, the Simpana software can treat cloud storage providers as simply another target storage destination, along with onsite disk, VTL, and optical devices.

Posted February 17, 2010

To make it easier for application developers and data management professionals to access the software tools they need, while also reducing the cost and time associated with managing software tool licenses, Embarcadero today announced Embarcadero ToolCloud.

Posted February 16, 2010

Cloud computing emerged as a key technology trend in 2009. While concerns about economic payback and data protection may be holding organizations back, Unisys predicts that in 2010 previously reluctant users will clearly see the potential the cloud represents and start making the move to take advantage of it. 5 Minute Briefing recently chatted with Brian Ott, vice president of Unisys' worldwide cloud program, about what the company sees ahead this year in terms of the enterprise embrace of cloud computing and the cloud trends Unisys expects to dominate 2010.

Posted February 10, 2010

UC4 Software, a provider of IT automation solutions, announced a new agent designed to initiate and manage web service-enabled jobs as part of background processing, and enable customers to extend the benefits of automation into SOA and cloud environments.

Posted February 08, 2010

Pages
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140

Sponsors