Industry News Desk

What's Under the Hood of Cloud Computing?

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:00:00 EST

This coming Tuesday, December 8, at 2:00PM EST, SYS-CON.TV will be broadcasting live from its 4th-floor studio overlooking Times Square in New York City a very special "Power Panel" in which Cloud Computing Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan and three top industry guests will be looking “under the hood” of the fastest-growing new trend in all of Enterprise IT – Cloud Computing.

SugarCRM Announces General Availability of Sugar 5.5

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:15:00 EST

SugarCRM, the world’s leading provider of open source customer relationship management (CRM) software, today announced the general availability of Sugar 5.5 which includes a new web services framework, platform improvements, the ability to create custom themes, and enhanced mobile features. To sign-up for a free trial of Sugar 5.5, please visit: http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/ondemand_eval.html. “Sugar 5.5 is the product of the guidance, testing and feedback from tens of thousands of customers, partners and developers who comprise the SugarCRM community,” said Clint Oram, co-founder and vice president of product management of SugarCRM. “The quality and depth of Sugar 5.5 demonstrates the power of the open source business model and advances SugarCRM’s mission of providing the most open, flexible and easy-to-use CRM in the market.”

Cloud Expo Show Prospectus to Reach 10,000 Marketing Managers on Monday December 7

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:30:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that the "show prospectus" for the 5th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo is now shipping. 5th International Cloud Expo will take place April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City with more than 5,000 delegates and over 100 sponsors and exhibitors participating in the conference. Cloud Expo is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held five times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley, Europe, Japan, and Brazil. Over 200 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals became part of Cloud Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together worldwide. "Cloud Expo was announced on February 24, 2007, the day the term ‘cloud computing' was coined," said Fuat Kircaali, founder and CEO of SYS-CON Events. "Cloud has become synonymous with ‘computing' and ‘software' in two short years, and this event has become the new PC Expo, Comdex, and InternetWorld of our decade. By 2012, more than 50,000 delegates per year will participate in the Cloud Expo."

Google Chrome OS Brings New Era in Cloud Computing

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:15:00 EST

More good news for cloud computing! Google last week released its once mysterious Chrome Operating System to open source. Chrome OS, available in 2010 – is a web-based operating system that promises to boot up super-fast on a netbook – way faster than the time it takes to start your basic PC. And Chrome has web applications (competing with Microsoft Windows Azure) that will run on application tabs. Users can access with one click and manage in a series of windows.

How to Send Diagnostic Info With CloudBerry Backup

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:45:00 EST

In CloudBerry Lab we are striving to make our customer service better. In this competitive market with the abundance of free offerings this is the only way to stay afloat. One of the ways to keep customers happy is to be very responsive when it comes to support request resolution. Should you delay the request and the customer will turn to a competitor. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to understand what the issue is and what caused it. This is very diagnostic log helps dramatically. In the new version of CloudBerry Backup we made it even easier to send us the diagnostic information.

ThinPrint Offers to Solve Chrome’s Printing Problem

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST

Berlin-based ThinPrint AG, the printer virtualization house, thinks it’s got a cloud solution for the admittedly printing-challenged Chrome OS. It say it will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010 when the Chrome operating system is supposed to be fit for public consumption on special Google-spec’d netbooks.

Sun’s VirtualBox Can Teleport Now

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST

Behaving like it’s got a future, Sun Monday put out what it calls a significant new version of VirtualBox, its open-source cross-platform virtualization software. The new VirtualBox 3.1 is supposed to be capable of “teleportation,” an industry first. It means that running virtual machines can be moved uninterrupted between disparate hosts, even hosts on different operating systems, different classes of computer (like server to client) and different CPUs (like Intel to AMD).

Oracle Offers the EC a Deal: NY Post

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

Oracle has offered to cordon off MySQL inside a combined Oracle-Sun to get the European Commission to approve its $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun ahead of a hearing set for next Thursday, according to the New York Post. The paper, quoting two unidentified sources, describes the vague Oracle proposal as a “separate entity” that would put a “firewall” between MySQL and the rest of Oracle and says it could involve a separate board.

Gartner Buys AMR

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:15:00 EST

Gartner is buying ~$40 million-a-year AMR Research Inc for close to $64 million in cash. AMD specializes in CRM, ERP and SCM software and should add to gartner’s events’ schedule. The deal should close by the end of the month.

Korean Government To Invest $172m in the Cloud

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:45:00 EST

The Korean government is going to sink around $172 million into cloud computing next year under a still fuzzy plan that the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the Ministry of Public Administration and the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) are backing to reduce overlapping investments and discordant approaches, according to the Korea Times quoting an official announcement. Apparently they mean to integrate cloud solutions with Internet protocol television (IPTV) and wireless Internet networks as well as connect to the government’s previously announced energy-saving projects involving “smart grid” systems, low-power Internet data centers, thin client-based gaming centers and SaaS R&D. The government is also working with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and other universities to build a cloud test bed, called CII:U, that the schools can use for training and research.

CA Wants More Than a Few Good Men

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:15:00 EST

CA is looking for talent in EMEA: associate account managers, directors of solution sales, senior solution strategists, sales account managers, technical sales consultants and alliance account managers. It says it’s launched a large-scale recruitment drive and it’s not often big companies put out press releases saying so. It says it means to capitalize on cloud computing and virtualization.

Microsoft, HP & Citrix Form Taiwan Cloud Alliance: Report

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 12:00:00 EST

Microsoft, HP, Citrix and some local service providers have formed a Taiwan cloud alliance to create customized private clouds for local businesses, according to DigiTimes quoting an official announcement. Apparently there are supposedly simplified solutions called MCloud for SaaS, PaaS and IaaS that integrate Microsoft virtualization and management with HP hardware and support along with Citrix’ virtual desktop.

IDC Sees Cisco & IBM Clouds in Our Future

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:45:00 EST

IDC’s New Year predictions include a general-purpose iPad tablet from Apple with an eight- or 10-inch screen that kicks Kindle’s butt, IBM’s acquisition of Juniper, upscale $700 netbooks, 300,000 iPhone applications, 50,000-75,000 Android apps and public clouds from IBM and Cisco.

Virtualization Expo Call for Papers Deadline December 15

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

Delegates will leave Virtualization Expo with a full understanding of the interaction between virtual servers and the rest of the data center infrastructure. Indeed our overall aim is to ensure that all attendees leave the Jacob Javits Convention Center with abundant resources, ideas and examples they can apply immediately to leveraging Virtualization in their own corporate datacenter, on the desktop, and elsewhere. If you wish to submit a speaking proposal for the 8th Virtualization Expo, April 19–21, 2010, then you can do so right here

Norwest Raises Big Fund

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:12:00 EST

Despite the times, Wells Fargo affiliate Norwest Venture Partners has pulled together a $1.2 billion investment fund, its largest ever. Its last fund, which closed in ’06, was only $650 million. Norwest backed Rackspace Hosting, one of the rare IPOs last year. It’s apparently looking at opportunities in China and India.

Sun Microsystems Brings Teleportation to VirtualBox

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:37:00 EST

Some great news came out of Sun Microsystems yesterday with the release of VirtualBox 3.1.o. This is Sun’s virtualization platform, which has been at the core of many of Sun’s newest technologies. What is great about VirtualBox, aside from being a professional quality hypervisor based virtualization solution, is that it is open source.

Cloud Expo New York Call for Papers Deadline December 15

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:45:00 EST

Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered. Entrepreneurial opportunities abound as this classic disruptive technology begins to proliferate, so it is no surprise that SYS-CON's industry-leading International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is going from strength to strength.

Is Monitoring Virtual, Physical and Cloud Assets Easy?

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:45:00 EST

up.time makes it easy, right out-of-the-box: Deep Virtual Server Monitoring: CPU ready, Memory Balloon, Memory Zero, and many more granular Metrics; monitor Physical, Virtual, and Cloud: Services, applications, servers and more. Onsite/remote datacenters, hybrid environments, outsourced infrastructure; real World Cost Savings: Per-Physical-Server Licensing. Reduce costs up to 90%.

New SOA Modeling Book

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:45:00 EST

Michael Bell, founder of Methodologies Corporation, the leading service-oriented modeling company, announced the completion of a new modeling book titled "SOA Modeling Patterns for Service-Oriented Discovery and Analysis". The book will be available for orders in book stores and on Internet book sellers' Web sites on January 7, 2010. Michael Bell is an industry recognized expert on advanced and innovative software modeling implementation, methodologies, and strategies. This book is Mr. Bell's third book on service-oriented architecture modeling, which is devised to guide business and IT practitioners to foster business agility and promote software elasticity.

Broadcom to Expand Its Large Scale Cloud Computing

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST

Dune Networks' Highly Scalable Switch Fabric Technology Expands Broadcom's Product Portfolio for Data Centers and Large Scale Cloud Computing. Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM) announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Dune Networks, a privately-held company that develops switch fabric solutions for data center networking equipment. Data centers are scaling to provide significantly more bandwidth to meet the requirements of cloud computing, where computing resources, products and services, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), can be delivered real-time over the Internet. Dune Networks has developed a scalable chipset that supports bandwidth speeds of up to 100Gbps per port and can connect more than ten thousand servers (ports) in a single deployment.

Intel Demos Cloud Computing Chip

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:15:00 EST

Researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated an experimental, 48-core Intel processor, or “single-chip cloud computer,” that rethinks many of the approaches used in today’s designs for laptops, PCs and servers. This futuristic chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the processing engines inside today’s most popular Intel Core-branded processors. The long-term research goal is to add incredible scaling features to future computers that spur entirely new software applications and human-machine interfaces. The company plans to engage industry and academia next year by sharing 100 or more of these experimental chips for hands-on research in developing new software applications and programming models.

JetBrains TeamCity 5.0 on EC2 Cloud Computing Platform

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:15:00 EST

JetBrains, creators of intelligent, productivity-enhancing development tools, announced the public availability of TeamCity 5.0, the company's distributed build management and continuous integration tool. TeamCity offers easy setup and delivers out-of-the-box continuous unit testing, sophisticated code quality analysis, and early reporting on build problems. It has a gentle learning curve, so you can quickly improve your release management practices by gradually adopting its advanced features and capabilities.

Crystal Reports Founders Aim Cloud Computing

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST

The founders of Crystal Reports and veterans of Microsoft, Symmetrics and Business Objects have launched a start-up out of Vancouver called Indicee that’s developed a cloud-based reporting application meant to give SMBs frustrated with cutting and pasting data into spreadsheets a faster way to mash data and create reports. The company sees itself as bringing reporting and analysis to the masses. The widgetry eliminates manual spreadsheet data manipulation; consolidates data from different systems, reports and spreadsheets; bypasses direct access to information locked up in corporate databases; and processes queries in plain English.

Dell Dumps Polish Plant on Foxconn

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST

Dell is transferring ownership of its new factory in Poland over to contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group on undisclosed terms. Foxconn will produce desktops, laptops, servers and storage for Dell at the Lodz plant and reportedly retain present staff. Dell just shifted its EMEA production from Ireland to Poland for Lodz's marginally cheaper wages, savaging the recession-ravaged Irish economy and adding to its already long unemployment lines.

IGEL's Linux Universal Desktop Now Supports Touch Screen Monitors

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:00:00 EST

IGEL's Linux firmware now supports popular touchscreen monitors, including the LG L1730SF Monitor and the ELO 1915L LCD Desktop Touchmonitor. The convenient and easy-to-operate touchscreens paired with a reliable and secure IGEL Universal Desktop is the perfect combination for work environments, such as hotels, healthcare facilities, retail locations and manufacturing floors. Finally, the new firmware includes integration ofPhilips SpeechMike drivers, allowing users access to the latest high-end dictation technology and services from Philips.

Sourcefire Announces 3D System 4.9 and VMware-Based Virtual Appliances

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST

Sourcefire’s innovative Adaptive IPS automates key intrusion prevention functions, such as IPS tuning, impact assessment, user correlation and network discovery. With the 4.9 release, Sourcefire has raised the bar by offering the industry’s first Policy Layering capability, enabling organizations with multiple detection policies to construct them in “building blocks,” making it easy to create and modify policies by geography, site, department, or even by user. Sourcefire has also added a Custom Analysis Widget to its portal-like dashboard affording even greater flexibility, and it has expanded its application detection capabilities by adding new detectors for Oracle, Firefox, Gnutella, Timbuktu, and more. Along with the 3D System 4.9 release, Sourcefire is now shipping its first VMware-based virtual appliances, including the Sourcefire Virtual 3D Sensor and Sourcefire Virtual Defense Center. Compatible with VMware’s ESX and ESXi platforms, the Virtual 3D Sensor offers IPS protection from 5 to 500Mbps and can be monitored and managed by physical or virtual Defense Center management consoles. These new virtual appliances afford enterprises, managed security service providers (MSSPs), and cloud computing providers with the same Snort-based IPS protection as their physical 3D Sensor counterparts.

Veriplace Enables Cloud Location Service for Facebook

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:45:00 EST

WaveMarket's Veriplace Location Aggregation Platform is a cloud-based platform that enables developers of Facebook, Web, mobile Web, SMS, and voice applications to remotely locate tens of millions of feature phones and smartphones via Veriplace's direct connections into multiple Tier One carrier networks. Veriplace already counts nearly 1,000 developer partners building successful location-aware services on the platform as the Veriplace developer community and Veriplace carrier coverage continue to grow rapidly.

Broadcom to Pay $178 Million for ‘Cloud’ Chip

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:15:00 EST

Broadcom is paying $178 million and mostly cash for nine-year-old privately held Israeli-based Dune Networks and its “cloud” chipset, which can connect upwards of 10,000 servers (ports) at bandwidth speeds of 100 Gbps a port. That’s supposed to be Google-scale, which indicates where Broadcom is placing its bets, having failed to secure Emulex this summer. The widgetry is supposed to extend the lifecycle of packet platforms from three years to more than 10.

Telecom Service Assembly Standards in the Cloud

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:30:00 EST

Comptel Corporation announced that BT and Progress Software will be participating in the second phase of the Service Model Catalyst, as it explores the creation of new converged services that include cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) components. The collaborative effort brings together business use cases from BT and Qwest as co-sponsors, with BT providing cloud brokering and cloud assurance services on Amazon Web Services' EC2 platform, Comptel providing a consolidated product and service catalog, Network Cadence providing systems integration with a service fabric broker for fulfilment and assurance orchestration, and Progress providing a management tool for the canonical data model.

HP Unveils Converged Infrastructure Solutions for Microsoft Environments

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:15:00 EST

HP today announced new integrations of the recently introduced HP Converged Infrastructure architecture for Microsoft applications, enabling customers to simplify the management of their computing environments while increasing efficiency. The proliferation of IT sprawl has created technology silos in data centers with maintenance and operations consuming approximately 70 percent of an organization’s technology budget.

rPath Refines Release Automation Platform

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

rPath today announced enterprise-focused productivity and management enhancements to the rPath release automation platform. The upgrades refine the functionality and user experience of the fully version controlled release automation solution, meeting the needs of each stakeholder in the enterprise release management process. These upgrades are the first product delivery against “Project Javelin,” which extends rPath’s system version controlled management model into the broader data center automation market.

Apparent Networks Updates PathView Cloud Service

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:45:00 EST

Apparent Networks today announced that it has released an updated version of PathView Cloud, its hosted network management service. The new version includes unique features for managing end-to-end network performance in virtualized environments. With PathView Cloud’s virtualization-enabled analytics, IT and operations teams can, for the first time, understand network performance from the perspective of applications running on virtual machines. With this extended visibility, PathView Cloud lets IT teams quickly find and fix network performance problems, regardless of whether they occur in physical or virtual infrastructure.

CloudBench Applications Reports Q3 2009 Results and Business Highlights

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:15:00 EST

CloudBench Applications, Inc. announced its financial results for the three months and nine months ending September 30, 2009. All amounts are stated in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Revenues from BasicGov, the Company's cloud computing solution for local government, grew to $66,649 in the third quarter, a 140% increase from $27,822 in the same quarter of the prior year. The Company's annualized committed recurring revenues, a non-GAAP measure, increased 220% to US$288,000 compared to US$90,000 for the same period last year.

CSC Signs Cloud Computing Agreement With UK Royal Mail Group

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:45:00 EST

The new contract is an industry first, with CSC being the first Microsoft partner to lead and win a cloud computing services agreement of this scale. Under terms of the contract, CSC will provide Royal Mail Group's 30,000 employees with access to new IT services using Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), part of Microsoft Online Services. CSC will also provide first line helpdesk support. CSC's cloud services are designed to help businesses easily and securely adopt cloud computing solutions, allowing them to reduce the costs of managing and maintaining business systems while giving them access to the latest Microsoft Online Services including Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Communications Online and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.

Centerstance Joins Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:30:00 EST

Google Apps brings simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools to all sizes of organizations. With Google Apps, users have access to applications such as Gmail webmail service, Google Talk instant messaging service, Google Calendar calendaring service, Google Docs program, Google Sites web application, and Google Video for business with their own domain to work together more effectively. Best of all, everything is hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software to download, install or maintain. "It's a natural partnership," stated John Marshall, Director of Technology Services at Centerstance. "Centerstance is the Northwest's premier Cloud Computing consulting company and Google is a major player in both Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)."

GDS International: Global Warming Scam?

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:45:00 EST

Operates in over 170 countries and is one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services. Richard Tarboton talks for MeettheBoss.TV on his role as Head of Energy & Carbon for BT and what they are doing towards reducing carbon emissions.

CA & BMC To Support Salesforce.com

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:15:00 EST

CA is going to put its Agile Planner software on salesforce.com’s Force.com platform in the first half to accelerate development time and give users visibility over their development initiatives to reduce time-to-market. Customers are supposed to be able to accelerate the deployment of Salesforce CRM within their organization. The software will include CA Clarity PPM On Demand, Federation Manager and CA Wily Application Performance Management to monitor and manage cloud-based composite applications. BMC will be putting a new cloud-based service desk offering on Force.com for self-service and inventory management in Q2.

Sun Fields Cloud Desktop for K-12

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Despite its uncertain fate Sun soldiers on. Monday it trotted out a cloud-based multiplatform desktop as a service for K-12 and community colleges that can run Windows, the Mac OS, Linux and Solaris applications to nearly any client device, including its own Sun Ray thin clients. Sun claims it’s the industry’s first full-function, cloud-based desktop as a service. It runs on Sun’s Open Cloud Platform. Its subscription pricing can run as little as $1 a day per concurrent user. Ashbourne Technology Group is apparently taking it to market.

No Real Recovery with Europe Still in the Tank: HP

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

HP, which pre-announced relatively happy results a couple of weeks ago when it said it was buying 3Com, came in exactly on target with earnings of $2.4 billion, or 99 cents a share, up 14%, on revenues of $30.8 billion, down 8.4% year-over-year from $33.6 billion. And the company reiterated that it should do $29.6 billion to $29.9 billion this quarter and earn 90 to 92 cents a share. Its full-year outlook is for $118 billion-$119 billion and EPS of $4.25-$4.35.

Why the Cloud Needs Virtualization

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:00:00 EST

Lots of discussion lately about the need for virtualization in a cloud computing context. On one side you have people saying it's not necessary and adds extra complexity, on the other you have people (vendors) saying that virtualization is inherently a cloud infrastructure. Some even go as far as saying that virtualization and cloud computing are one in the same. I'm here to tell you that neither is true. My position is Virtualization Doesn't Make the Cloud, it makes the cloud better. Sure, you could manage raw servers Google style, but why? For me, it comes down two main aspects of scale, scaling up, and scaling out.

First let's look at scaling out, or to scale horizontally which basically means to add more nodes to a distributed system, such as adding a new servers or storage (which is easier). These could be in the form of physical or virtual servers. An example might be scaling out from one web server system to many dedicated slaves machines. Google has made an art form of scaling out. They have data centers around the globe geared toward this one core task - just in time hardware provisioning, but for most this is a very difficult and costly endeavour. Virtualization makes this sort of instant replication & provisioning of many virtual machines much easier.

Next is scaling up or the ability to scale vertically which means adding resources to a single server in a distributed system. Typically this involves the addition of CPUs or memory to a single virtual server in the form of Virtual CPU and RAM. Unlike a physical server, in a virtual environment you can change your virtual hardware characteristics, a physical server is what it is. You run at it's maximum potential limiting it's ability to easily scale up. If you need more scale you need more hardware or have to manually add more components to the physical server (RAM, CPU, storage, etc), which means downtime while the servers are upgraded. In virtual environment this isn't a limitation and can often be done on the fly.

Vertical scaling of existing systems also enables you to better leverage Virtualization technology because it provides more resources for the hosted Operating system and Applications that can share these resources in a multi-tenant environment. Virtualization also allows for more automated programmatic control of the system resources in correlation to the demands placed on the infrastructure or application being hosted. This is because in a virtual infrastructure you are not managing any actual physical components but instead virtual representations of them.

So it is very true that virtualization isn't a requirement of a cloud infrastructure, it just makes it a heck of lot easier to manage and scale out or up or both.