Cloud Computing Articles
Unisys has advice for CIOs seeking to get the most out of their investment in cloud computing: Before plunging in, consider how the proposed cloud solution can best be integrated with the organization's existing mission-critical systems and IT processes. Taking an analytical approach, Unisys says, is the best defense against "cloud in a corner" syndrome, where new cloud solutions become isolated from the rest of the IT environment and don't contribute the business value they should.
Posted September 14, 2011
As data grows, the reflex reaction within many organizations is to buy and install more disk storage. Smart approaches are on the horizon but still only prevalent among a minority of companies. How is it data has grown so far so fast? Technology growth along the lines of Moore's Law (doubling every 18 months) has made petabyte-capable hardware and software a reality. And data growth itself appears to be keeping pace with the hardware and systems. In fact, a petabyte's worth of data is almost commonplace, as shown in a new survey conducted by Unisphere Research among members of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG). In "The Petabyte Challenge: 2011 IOUG Database Growth Survey," close to 1 out of 10 respondents report that the total amount of online (disk-resident) data they manage today-taking into account all clones, snapshots, replicas and backups-now tops a petabyte.
Posted September 14, 2011
For many organizations, data is not only crossing into the hundreds of terabytes, but into the near-petabyte (PB) and multi-petabyte range. In a new survey sponsored by Oracle and conducted by Unisphere Research among members of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), "The Petabyte Challenge: 2011 IOUG Database Growth Survey," close to one out of 10 respondents report that the total amount of online (disk-resident) data they manage today - taking into account all clones, snapshots, replicas and backups - tops a petabyte.
Posted September 07, 2011
IBM announced a new hybrid cloud solution - building on its acquisition of Cast Iron - to help clients reduce the time it takes to connect, manage and secure public and private clouds. With new integration and management capabilities, organizations of all sizes will be able to gain greater visibility, control and automation into their assets and computing environments, regardless of where they reside.
Posted September 06, 2011
At VMworld 2011 yesterday, VMware, Inc. announced a new database provisioning and operations solution designed to deliver a database as a service model for the enterprise. Described as an extension of VMware's Cloud Application Platform strategy, VMware vFabric Data Director aims to give IT the ability to control and manage a growing set of heterogeneous databases through policy-based automation, while streamlining application development via a self-service provisioning model for developers to rapidly access the database services needed for modern applications. Built on VMware vSphere, vFabric Data Director will also extend the benefits of virtualized infrastructures to the database tier, optimizing resource utilization for increased operational efficiency and cost savings.
Posted August 30, 2011
Another IT initiative is in the news. What does it really mean for you? Is it an opportunity? Or is it a distraction? Whatever your perspective, it seems clear that internet computing standards have reached another plateau of standardization and capability, such that vendors see an opportunity to pursue new models of computing.
Posted August 11, 2011
Gluster, a provider of scale-out, open source storage solutions, has introduced the Gluster Connector for OpenStack, which provides scalable and highly-available VM storage functionality for OpenStack. "The Gluster Connector for OpenStack enhances the storage options that are available for OpenStack," John Kreisa, vice president of marketing at Gluster, tells 5 Minute Briefing. By enabling users of the OpenStack framework to now use GlusterFS as the primary storage model, OpenStack users can have both file and object in one common storage model, explains Kreisa.
Posted July 29, 2011
CA Technologies has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Watchmouse B.V. (WatchMouse), a provider of SaaS-based monitoring for cloud, mobile and traditional web applications. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. "As companies extend more applications to their customers through the web and smartphones, the performance of those applications is having a greater impact on revenue, customer loyalty and brand value," says David Dobson, executive vice president, CA Technologies.
Posted July 29, 2011
The Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG), the world's largest user knowledgebase for Oracle Applications users, is launching the OAUG Educational Series 2011, a virtual learning series offered to OAUG members from Aug. 8-19, featuring the most popular presentations from the COLLABORATE 11 - OAUG Forum.
Posted July 25, 2011
SafeNet, Inc., a provider of information security solutions, has announced that Sentinel Cloud is now supported by the Dell Boomi AtomSphere cloud integration platform, enabling cloud service providers to easily connect SafeNet's licensing and entitlement management services with their existing on-premise or cloud-based back-office systems.
Posted July 25, 2011
SUSE, an enterprise Linux operating system provider and division of The Attachmate Group, says it is shipping the latest update to its development platform for building, updating and managing application images across x86, public cloud and IBM System z deployments. SUSE Studio Version 1.2 is designed to provide the ability to assemble, build and maintain complete portable application stacks quickly across a range of platforms. SUSE Studio also is intended to bridge x86 microprocessor architectures and mainframes by simplifying the creation, testing, maintenance and deployment of software applications on the mainframe. The toolset supports hundreds of mission-critical Linux images on mainframes, accessible by an interface for building mainframe workloads.
Posted July 25, 2011
TransLattice, which calls itself "the geographically distributed application company" for enterprise, cloud and hybrid environments, has announced the availability of TransLattice Application Platform 2.0. "We allow you to build a large enterprise system processing critical data out of identical components that are spread across geographies, spread across either your physical data center, across cloud computing providers, or both," Mike Lyle, president and CTO of Translattice, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted July 25, 2011
BMC Software and Unisys Corporation have formed a joint initiative to deliver and manage advanced cloud solutions. The two companies are basing their joint solutions on BMC's second-generation Cloud Lifecycle Management (CLM) offering combined with Unisys' cloud advisory, implementation and management services portfolio. The BMC and Unisys initiative will address strategy, planning, design, implementation and operational management of cloud computing solutions to make it possible for customers to realize both immediate and long-term business value through a disciplined approach to cloud computing.
Posted July 15, 2011
A longtime supporter of Linux and open source technologies, IBM has also become a leading proponent of Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and is a founding member of the recently-formed Open Virtualization Alliance. With 2011 marking IBM's centennial, as well as the 20th anniversary of Linux, Jean Staten Healy, director for Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization, reflects on the ways each has contributed to the other, and the promise offered now by open virtualization to help customers ensure cost efficiency and avoid vendor lock-in in virtualized environments. "As it happened with Linux, the need for virtualization technology will continue to grow, and open virtualization solutions based on KVM will become more and more important to customers looking for choice and cost benefits," Staten Healy observes.
Posted July 13, 2011
A longtime supporter of Linux and open source technologies, IBM has also become a leading proponent of Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and is a founding member of the recently-formed Open Virtualization Alliance. With 2011 marking IBM's centennial, as well as the 20th anniversary of Linux, Jean Staten Healy, director for Cross-IBM Linux and Open Virtualization, reflects on the ways each has contributed to the other, and the promise offered now by open virtualization to help customers ensure cost efficiency and avoid vendor lock-in in virtualized environments. "As it happened with Linux, the need for virtualization technology will continue to grow, and open virtualization solutions based on KVM will become more and more important to customers looking for choice and cost benefits," Staten Healy observes.
Posted July 13, 2011
CA Technologies announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Interactive TKO, Inc. (ITKO), a provider of service simulation solutions for developing applications in composite and cloud environments, for $330 million in an all-cash transaction. "The addition of ITKO to CA Technologies will extend our ability to deliver a complete set of capabilities to help our customers and partners to increase their adoption and value from cloud-based applications," says David Dobson, executive vice president, Customer Solutions Group, CA Technologies.
Posted July 11, 2011
HP has unveiled a new suite of software which it says is designed to rationalize, measure and improve IT performance called the HP IT Performance Suite. The suite provides CIOs insight from across a comprehensive range of solutions to manage and optimize application development, infrastructure and operations management, security, information management, and financial planning and administration. Each product in the HP Software portfolio improves the performance of the discrete IT functions addressed, while a new IT Executive Scorecard helps technology executives optimize overall IT investments and outcomes.
Posted June 24, 2011
Is the day of reckoning for big data upon us? To many observers, the growth in data is nothing short of incomprehensible. Data is streaming into, out of, and through enterprises from a dizzying array of sources-transactions, remote devices, partner sites, websites, and nonstop user-generated content. Not only are the data stores resulting from this information driving databases to scale into the terabyte and petabyte range, but they occur in an unfathomable range of formats as well, from traditional structured, relational data to message documents, graphics, videos, and audio files.
Posted June 22, 2011
QueplixCorp., a provider of data integration and data management products, has introduced the new Data Quality Manager for QueCloud, enabling companies to create and maintain data consistency throughout the data migration, integration and management lifecycle with a single cloud-based platform. As a central component of the QueCloud dashboard, Data Quality Manager is tightly coupled with the solution's core data integration and data management functionality.
Posted June 21, 2011
Talend, a developer and distributor of open source middleware, has announced Talend Cloud, a cloud-enabled integration platform that provides a unified integration platform for on-premise systems, cloud-based systems and SaaS applications. Based on Talend's Unified Integration Platform, it also provides a common environment for users to manage the entire lifecycle of integration processes including a graphical development environment, a deployment mechanism and runtime environment for operations and a monitoring console for management - all built on top of a shared metadata repository.
Posted June 21, 2011
CiRBA Inc., a provider of data center analytics software, says it will soon be offering new cloud planning analytics that streamline and improve decision-making processes around cloud migration. To be made available with CiRBA Version 6.2, these new analytics will help support organizations in determining how to set up their internal cloud environments, as well as determine the optimal environment, placement, instance size and software profile to migrate individual workloads to."Cloud migration planning can be far more complex than pure virtualization planning, partly due to the added variables of instance sizing and costs, but primarily because policies take on an even more critical role in the decision of where to place workloads," says Andrew Hillier, co-founder and CTO of CiRBA.
Posted June 13, 2011
Ingres Corporation, an open-source database and analysis tools vendor, says it is now offering a cloud-based managed service for interactive reporting and analysis. Built on the vendor's VectorWise analytic database, the online toolset, called SkyInsight, is intended to offer rapid data analysis on an on-demand basis.The key to Skylight's purported fast processing is the underlying VectorWise database, Greg Wood, co-president of Ingres, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted June 07, 2011
Vormetric, Inc., a provider of enterprise systems encryption and key management for physical, virtual and cloud environments, has joined the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA). The non-profit organization promotes the use of best practices for security within cloud computing, and offers education on the uses of cloud computing to help secure all other forms of computing.
Posted May 31, 2011
The Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 and X2-8 with the Solaris option began shipping just this month. Now in its third generation, the Database Machine combines all the components to create what the company describes as the best platform for running the Oracle Database. Here, Tim Shetler, vice president of Product Management, Oracle, talks about the performance innovations that differentiate Oracle's offering, how customers are using the system today for business advantage, and also — what's ahead.
Posted May 26, 2011
Informatica Corporation has announced Informatica Cloud Summer 2011, a major new release of its cloud integration service. The Informatica Cloud Summer 2011 release enables universal cloud integration and unified hybrid deployment for both on-premise and cloud deployments. The new release provides ease of use cloud features to enhance the simplicity of learning, deploying, administering, managing and configuring cloud integration, as well as enterprise-class functionality, including fine-grained access controls and delegated administration.
Posted May 25, 2011
Queplix Corp., a provider of products for data integration and data management, has introduced QueCloud, which enables companies to securely integrate cloud applications such as Salesforce, NetSuite, LinkedIn, and FaceBook. QueCloud is the company's first cloud-based platform and it expands the Queplix product line which already includes on-premise products such as Virtual Data Manager.
Posted May 10, 2011
Radiant Logic, a provider of identity and context virtualization solutions, has released the Cloud Federation Service (CFS) for its RadiantOne Identity and Context Virtualization platform. The solution federates disparate identity sources, and securely delivers claims to cloud-based applications supporting SAML 1.1 and 2.0. The CFS connects multiple Active Directory domains and forests, as well as other identity sources (LDAP, SQL, web services), with applications such as Sharepoint 2010, Google apps, Salesforce, and Workday. There are a number of drivers for the new solution, Dieter Schuller, vice president of sales and business development at Radiant Logic, tells 5 Minute Briefing. For one, the borders between the varying constituents that an organization serves are starting to become blurred, Schuller explains.
Posted May 03, 2011
Full 360 Inc., a New York-based systems integrator, has introduced a new release of its elasticBI platform-as-a-service (PaaS). elasticBI pairs Jaspersoft4, the open source BI application, with the Vertica Analytic Database in a PaaS offering that is tightly integrated via the Opscode Chef framework. The platform is offered by Full 360 on Amazon Web Services, the Amazon cloud. According to Full 360, elasticBI provides a complete BI-data warehouse platform that is accessible from a cost and technical perspective for small and mid-market companies, as well as enterprise departments.
Posted April 26, 2011
Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) met with Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) president Mark C. Clark during last week's COLLABORATE 11 conference in Orlando, Florida. Now, more than 2 years following the financial meltdown of late 2008, it is clear that more users are again out attending COLLABORATE. "We have gone through a period of very tight IT budgets, a 2-to-4 year phase of maintenance. Everybody I am talking to is looking at opportunities to do projects this year. And if they aren't doing it this year, they are planning for it next year," said Clark, commenting on the renewed enthusiasm for attending the conference.
Posted April 19, 2011
CA Technologies announced a new version of its service catalog that integrates with CA Virtual Automation and CA Oblicore Guarantee, designed to enable the automatic provisioning of physical, virtual and cloud services based on the cost and performance criteria of the service request. With these new additions, companies can now employ use CA Service Catalog 12.6 to enable private and hybrid cloud provisioning, service automation, user self-service, IT costing/financial management, and provisioning role-based security. This single point of contact, says CA, is intended to support a customer's journey to an increasingly virtualized service environment. CA Service Catalog also bridges the gap between current IT operations and the challenge of moving existing services to private clouds.
Posted April 18, 2011
IBM announced two new services for companies moving enterprise business processes into production cloud environments. They are IBM SmartCloud, an enterprise cloud technologies and services offering for private, public and hybrid clouds, and IBM Workload Deployer, a single platform designed to enable companies to provision middleware and application components to run web workloads in the cloud.
Posted April 18, 2011
HP has updated its Information Management portfolio to enable organizations to reduce risk, increase efficiency and simplify the way they manage their business information. By bringing a holistic approach to information management, HP says the solutions and services will help executives harness the power of their information to make better decisions, manage for cost and compliance, and deliver the right information to the right users at the right time.
Posted April 12, 2011
Unisys has announced its Unisys Hybrid Enterprise framework, a comprehensive methodology and set of services for helping organizations manage multiple IT delivery models - both traditional and cloud-based - within a consistent computing environment managed as a single entity.
Posted April 11, 2011
With the annual Oracle users conference COLLABORATE about to begin, Andy Flower, president of the IOUG, spoke with 5 Minute Briefing about the IOUG's strong areas of focus in terms of overall conference content, and how the addition of the MySQL user base into the Oracle community is evolving. Citing a MySQL keynote, 75 sessions at COLLABORATE focused on MySQL, and a new MySQL Council headed by Sarah Novotny, Flower says the IOUG is making strides in giving voice to the MySQL community within the IOUG and setting a stage for positive interaction with Oracle.
Posted April 06, 2011
CA Technologies and Unisys Corporation have announced that they have extended their alliance to offer joint solutions that accelerate customers' path from virtualization to the cloud. The solutions will combine CA Technologies' virtualization management, service automation, and service management products with Unisys' virtualization and cloud advisory, planning, design and implementation services. The first solution, available now in North America, is designed to help organizations overcome "virtual stall" - the complications that can arise from enterprise virtualization projects. According to the vendors, this is a challenge for enterprises - both in their existing data centers and as they evolve their infrastructure toward cloud computing.
Posted March 22, 2011
Cloud.com announced the latest version of an open source cloud computing platform intended to help manage highly-scalable public and private infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clouds. The new release, CloudStack 2.2, is a foundation designed to enable data center operators to build on-demand, elastic cloud services within their existing IT infrastructures.
Posted March 21, 2011
CiRBA Inc. says it is shipping a new release of its data center intelligence software, designed to provide IT organizations with "fully-loaded utilization," a new metric for measuring the infrastructure efficiency. CiRBA Version 6.1's fully-loaded utilization feature provides a precise and simultaneous measurement of server infrastructure requirements that factors in utilization patterns, technical constraints and business and operational policies. Leveraging this measure, organizations can identify exactly how much infrastructure is required to safely service workloads, allowing excess capacity to be accurately measured and reclaimed for other purposes, according to the vendor. According to Andrew Hillier, co-founder and CTO of CiRBA, data centers can face challenges in understanding how efficiently and how well utilized their IT and virtualized environments are running. This is because they tend to rely solely on traditional measurements such as CPU utilization, I/O rates and other measurements. But these can be misleading, he says.
Posted March 21, 2011
On the heels of the IBM Jeopardy! Challenge, in which the IBM Watson system demonstrated the capability to understand natural language, IBM launched a global skills initiative to educate clients, business partners, and college students on how to use IBM business analytics and information management software, and many of the underlying technologies of the Watson computing system, to capture information from new sources and use it to create business opportunities.
Posted March 21, 2011
IBM has announced new software and the creation a new consulting practice dedicated to the emerging category of "Smarter Commerce," focused on helping companies adapt to rising customer demands in today's digitally transformed marketplace. The new software and services offerings, supported by global sales and marketing resources, will address the spectrum of enterprise commerce activities - new ways to buy, sell and secure greater customer loyalty in the era of mobile and social networks. "It's a buyer's world now," says Craig Hayman, general manager of IBM Industry Solutions. "Businesses require a tighter and highly responsive network of suppliers and partners to ensure they deliver the right product or service at the right price, time and place. The key to business success in this unfolding environment is predicting trends and automating market responses in advance to eliminate the gaps between buy and sell, supply and demand."
Posted March 21, 2011
ScaleBase is seeking 50 additional customers to participate in an expanded private beta program for the ScaleBase Database Load Balancer, which enables multiple database servers to work like a single database. The ScaleBase private beta was first announced on January 1, and since then dozens of customers have registered for the program. The company is now seeking additional users of MySQL on Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS who would like to try the technology.
Posted March 16, 2011
Cloud.com today announced CloudStack 2.2, the latest version of its open source cloud computing platform. CloudStack is an open source software solution that accelerates the deployment, management and configuration of scalable public and private infrastructure as a service (IaaS) clouds. Using CloudStack as the foundation, data center operators can build cloud services within their existing infrastructure to offer on-demand, elastic cloud services. CloudStack is available for immediate download from the open source cloud computing community.
Posted March 15, 2011
On the heels of the IBM Jeopardy! Challenge, in which the IBM Watson system demonstrated the capability to understand natural language, IBM has launched a global skills initiative to educate clients, business partners, and college students on how to use IBM business analytics and information management software, and many of the underlying technologies of the Watson computing system, to capture information from new sources and use it to create business opportunities.
Posted March 15, 2011
ScaleBase is seeking 50 additional customers to participate in an expanded private beta program for the ScaleBase Database Load Balancer, which enables multiple database servers to work like a single database. The ScaleBase private beta was first announced on January 1, and since then dozens of customers have registered for the program. The company is now seeking additional users of MySQL on Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS who would like to try the technology.
Posted March 15, 2011