Latest News from Liz McMillan

The Most Immediate Way of Getting to the Cloud: Cloud Expo New York

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT

Whether you are a large enterprise, a growing business, a government organization, or a service provider, Cloud Expo New York is THE place you need to be June 11-14...so you can better understand both the provision and use of the cloud services that increasingly transforming IT and business alike. Cloud Expo covers every aspect of Cloud Computing: performance, integration, security, availability, compliance, purchasing, budgeting, development, visibility, automation...the works!

Compuware Brings Enterprise APM to Cloud and Big Data Applications

Tue, 15 May 2012 13:10:00 EDT

Compuware Corporation on Tuesday announced a deep transaction management solution for dynamic cloud and Big Data applications. The Compuware APM Spring 2012 Platform Release introduces new innovations in Compuware dynaTrace Enterprise that simplify performance optimization, operation and management of modern, dynamic applications. These transformational application environments require a new approach to application performance management (APM) to support massively scalable architectures and dynamic, elastic resource allocation. With dynaTrace Enterprise and its patented PurePath(R) technology, EC2 and Azure cloud applications as well as Cassandra and Hadoop Big Data applications can be easily optimized and managed for greater performance and availability.

Cloud Expo New York: High Performance Database Hosting in the Cloud

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:15:00 EDT

Do you like fast MySQL databases? How about superfast databases – like near 300 TPSs? Do you think you can’t find them in the cloud? Well, think again! In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Daniel Morris, Senior Product Manager at Rackspace Hosting, explains why databases in the cloud are a reality and how you can benefit by implementing them. He will cover built-in redundancy and automated configurations as well as how using container-based virtualization will make your cloud database become blazingly fast – without locking your data into a proprietary platform. He will close by showing some real-world examples utilizing this new technology available from Rackspace.

Cloud Expo New York: Hosting in the Cloud – What You Need to Know

Tue, 15 May 2012 08:00:00 EDT

If you'd like to be able to use a PaaS offering to quickly and securely deploy your website, blog or web-based application, come see a demo and deep dive on Rackspace Cloud Sites. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jereme Hancock, a Rackspace Cloud Sites Linux Systems Administrator, will walk you through load balancing, planning capacity, managing DNS and your domains as well as setting up WordPress on Cloud Sites, MySQL DB's, and everything you need to know to optimize your web hosting needs on the cloud.

Dell Cloud for SAP Solutions

Mon, 14 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

"We’re giving customers running SAP solutions an easy, low-risk way to take advantage of all the benefits of the cloud in a way that fits seamlessly into their existing IT environments,” said Kevin Jones, vice president, Dell Services, as Dell Services announced the first offers in its new Dell Cloud suite for SAP solutions, further enriching Dell’s portfolio in support of SAP solutions.

Big Data Insight Group Named “Media Sponsor” of Cloud Expo New York

Sat, 12 May 2012 14:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that Big Data Insight Group has been named “Media 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. Big Data Insight Group aims to provide a forum for members, from across the business and IT spectrum, to come together and exchange ideas, expertise and best practice on Big Data. Big Data Insight Group’s aim is to get beyond the technology and the hype, to understand the business value of big data and help members answer questions.

Cloud Expo New York: How to Build a Secure Cloud Service

Sat, 12 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

For many of the same reasons that Software-as-a-Service is catching on with enterprise buyers, delivering web services on top of Infrastructure-as-a-Service architectures is appealing to the SaaS developers. Operational agility, lower CapEx, and a broad array of tools and services are on tap that make both public and private IaaS clouds a great platform to build on. But how do you do this securely, especially in the public cloud where you have no access to the network or hypervisor your servers are running in? Furthermore, for many SaaS providers, the person charged with security considerations isn’t a CSO or IT specialist, but rather, a “DevOps” guru – someone with their hands in both development and operations. While the traditional security professional is focused on compliance and security rules, this new crop is more concerned with continuous development and high availability.

Cloud Expo Keynote: The Era of Open Clouds Is Upon Us

Fri, 11 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT

Last year, cloud computing pundits predicted that 2012 would be the year when the clouds would open. They were right as cloud computing enthusiasts all over are embracing the open ecosystem; however, denying one vendor the right to serve as the de facto API is only the tip of the iceberg of this computing climate change. In his Day 3 Keynote at the 10th International Cloud Expo, John Engates, CTO of Rackspace, will discuss the open ecosystem and how, ultimately, winning cloud technologies will be based on the ecosystem they represent.

Public & Private Clouds: What Every Company Needs to Know at Cloud Expo NY

Fri, 11 May 2012 03:00:00 EDT

Deploying the right technology solutions can significantly increase a company’s productivity and profitability. However, for most companies today, lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their technology infrastructure is a top priority and they’re now evaluating cloud computing as a viable option to meet their needs. As companies and enterprises expand their technology footprints, they need to carefully weigh and understand the various infrastructure solutions available to them including both Public and Private Clouds. Buyers must beware – many of the supposed cloud options are dated, expensive, and consume huge amounts of human capital that in the end don’t result in cost savings.

Open Source and The Enterprise at Cloud Expo New York

Thu, 10 May 2012 13:00:00 EDT

Open source storage solutions, such as OpenStack Swift, have several benefits such as no vendor lock-in. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, John Dickinson, a Project Technical Lead at Rackspace Hosting, will explore the ABCs of Swift, one of the largest open source object storage projects, beginning with the question of whether or not an open source cloud storage solution is right for you. He'll also explore real-world scenarios in addition to the lessons learned from building and running the largest OpenStack Swift Clusters in the world at Rackspace.

Securing Cloud-Based Communications at Cloud Expo New York

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:45:00 EDT

While cloud-based communications include a complex web of ports and protocols, typically 85 percent of the traffic flowing in and out of an organization through the cloud is email and web, including identity services. Taking more of your business and business processes to the cloud begins with knowing your data and ensuring that your existing IT security controls on these major traffic channels extend well into cloud models. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Ramon Peypoch VP, Global Business Development at McAfee, will discuss what key security controls need attention when considering the cloud for your initiatives including preventing data leakage, protecting against exposure to service interruption, minimizing the risk surface as identity services are exposed beyond the physical network boundary, and maintaining your resilience to malware and web-borne threats.

Extending SANs to the Cloud at Cloud Expo New York

Thu, 10 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

While storage area networks (SANs) have become the ubiquitous deployment model for interconnecting data storage systems via high-speed networks such as Fibre Channel or iSCSI, IT administrators are now rethinking the traditional SAN in light of new technologies and economic models enabled by the cloud. Cloud storage and enterprise-class cloud storage gateways have recently begun to overcome these limitations using a pay-as-you-go cost model, unlimited capacity, multi-site scalability and even cloud-based disaster recovery without dedicated infrastructure and resources. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Nicos Vekiarides, CEO & Co-Founder of TwinStrata, will discuss how Cloud SANs are rapidly becoming a new approach to building and enhancing storage area networks.

Cloud Expo New York: Leverage Cloud Technology to Power Your Office

Thu, 10 May 2012 05:30:00 EDT

Want to save your business money? Of course you do. What if we could show you a way to use the cloud in and around your office, get your workforce mobile, make communication faster and easier, and reduce OPEX? We can. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jason Silverglate, CEO of Fortress ITX and its subsidiaries, will present a “how to” analysis of what cloud technology can do for the modern office, of any size. He will show how incorporating hosted PBX, hosted email, and even hosted desktop (virtual desktop infrastructure) methodologies can help optimize office efficiency and save your enterprise money.

Cloud: Use It? Sell It? Have Your Cake and Eat It Too at Cloud Expo NY

Thu, 10 May 2012 05:15:00 EDT

The rapid pace of technology adoption growth is driving application consumption. It impacts an ever-increasing spectrum of projects across IT organizations such as data center consolidation/expansion, application distribution, mobile workforce enablement, disaster recovery, backup and security policies, all of which effects the total cost of ownership technologies such as virtualization, VDI and web enablement and has helped improve the ways IT organizations can get more with less. But that's not enough. A true automated, standardized cloud environment is the next step in truly utilizing the business of cloud computing In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Darryl Brown, Sr. VP Global Sales & Marketing at Appcore, will cover how everyone can use cloud. He will also discuss how cloud can be used and what the hidden costs are for enterprise IT. He will also cover how cloud truly deliver on total cost of ownership and ROI, plus how Appcore Onsite makes the transition to cloud fast and easy – revenue-ready in 45 days.

Big Data: Information Spawns Innovation

Thu, 10 May 2012 03:45:00 EDT

“The speed of businesses is accelerating, requiring continuous tuning and optimization of business processes and operations,” noted Bruce Fingles, CIO and VP of Product Quality at Xsigo Systems, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “IT organizations must have an infrastructure that enables them to partner with business leaders and respond quickly to changes that can help drive the business forward,” Fingles concluded. Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility." Bruce Fingles: Yes. The speed of businesses is accelerating, requiring continuous tuning and optimization of business processes and operations. IT organizations must have an infrastructure that enables them to partner with business leaders and respond quickly to changes that can help drive the business forward.

Xerox’s Cloud Computing Capabilities to Aid Airline Safety

Thu, 10 May 2012 02:00:00 EDT

“Airlines can now leapfrog to the cloud to expedite their communications and do so at costs much lower than maintaining existing mainframe systems,” said Ken Stephens, senior vice president of cloud services, Xerox, as Xerox and AvFinity announced and agreement to provide seamless transmission of flight-critical communication. “There is no room for error in ensuring safety in the skies,” Stephens added.

Cloud & Big Data Strategy | CEO Power Panel at Cloud Expo New York

Wed, 09 May 2012 07:00:00 EDT

In this CEO Power Panel at the 10th International Cloud Expo, moderated by Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, leading executives in the Cloud Computing and Big Data space will be discussing such topics as: Is it just wishful thinking to depict the Cloud as more than just a technology solution? If not, then what concrete examples best demonstrate cloud computing as an engine of business value? Big Data has existed since the early days of computing; why, then, do you think there is such an industry buzz around it right now? Do you agree that cloud computing is basically to technology what credit is in the financial services industry, i.e., it enables companies to leverage capabilities that they don’t own. Or are there better analogies?

Cloud Expo New York: How to Capitalize on the Cloud and Protect Your Data

Wed, 09 May 2012 05:15:00 EDT

As commercial enterprises and the federal sector begin to embrace the public cloud, large organizations are facing a roadblock when it comes to compliance with various data privacy laws and industry regulations. Whether your company falls under E.U. data protection laws, HIPAA PHI guidelines, the U.S.’s FEDRamp requirements, or other regulatory guidelines, the public cloud is not out of reach. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Mike Morrissey, VP, Research & Development at PerspecSys, will introduce some of the key privacy, residency, and security areas to consider when adopting public cloud, and best practices for securing the cloud for mission-critical applications without disrupting user functionality.

Multi-FaaSited Approach to the Cloud at Cloud Expo New York

Wed, 09 May 2012 03:45:00 EDT

“Cloud” promises Flexible IT. Cloud has also taken various forms of every aaS imaginable. Determining the right model for the developer is just as confusing as it is for the end user. The primary reason – multi-vendor, cross-platform components are needed to truly deliver on the promises of flexible IT through integrated, cloud solutions. Hybrid has extended from internal to external connectivity – to easy management of multiple platforms from multiple vendors. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Mike Robski, VP of Research & Development at Hostway, will provide a technical perspective on how developers can create and service companies can integrate utilizing open API calls to deliver fully customized, service-rich solutions to the market. From a business perspective, learn how this approach has helped Hostway and its partners jointly deliver high-value solutions to the market and create new revenue streams.

Cloud Triumphs and Pitfalls at Cloud Expo New York

Tue, 08 May 2012 06:15:00 EDT

There’s no substitute for experience. If you could learn from the successes and failures of an early enterprise cloud pioneer, your own cloud journey could avoid similar pitfalls and perhaps reap faster rewards. Years ago, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia made the strategic decision to migrate to an agile IT operating model, adopting “as-a-service” IT delivery wherever possible. Now, the bank is enjoying the benefits of its early commitment. However, the journey was not always smooth. Implementing a successful cloud strategy is dependent on much more than new technologies, and hinges on a well-designed adoption plan spanning organization, operating model, and IT service portfolio changes. In their session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Dave Roberts, VP of Strategy and Marketing at ServiceMesh, and Jon Waldron, Executive Architect at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, will explore key lessons learned by the largest bank in Australia during the rollout of multiple enterprise-wide, private cloud services. Find out what worked and what didn’t so you can apply the same lessons to your own cloud initiatives.

Cloud Expo New York: Infrastructure Planning in Next-Gen Data Centers

Mon, 07 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

Capacity management may not be dead yet, but with the adoption of private clouds it’s barely recognizable. IT organizations are radically changing how they plan and manage infrastructure to cope with the complexity of these large-scale shared environments and prevent the over-provisioning that results from old school planning approaches. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Andrew Hillier, Co-Founder and CTO at CiRBA, will outline best practices for gaining control over dynamic capacity supply and workload demand in large-scale virtual and cloud infrastructure. He will also discuss how leading Fortune 500 organizations brought together infrastructure teams, capacity teams and application owners to increase agility, reduce risk and costs by optimizing infrastructure planning and management processes.

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

Mon, 07 May 2012 01:00:00 EDT

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.

Cloud Expo New York: Private PaaS for the Enterprise and Beyond

Sat, 05 May 2012 18:00:00 EDT

If your organization already uses virtualized infrastructure, you are well on your way to providing IT as a Service. But as businesses demand faster results in today’s competitive market, organizations look to gain more benefits from cloud computing than just virtualized infrastructure. Learn how to extend & ensure your private cloud investment with a private Platform as a Service (PaaS) and provide on-demand availability, flexibility, control, and ultimately, faster time-to-market for your development teams. In her session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Diane Mueller, Cloud Evangelist at ActiveState, will discuss how Private PaaS technology gives you control over where, when and how you leverage the cloud.

Looking for the Right Answers in the Clouds at Cloud Expo New York

Sat, 05 May 2012 08:30:00 EDT

The age of Big Data is here. Organizations are no longer challenged to find enough data to answer the pertinent questions required for success in today’s dynamic business environment. Rather, companies are struggling to keep pace with the enormous volumes of data invading their organizations – leaving some wondering what can we do to “connect the dots” from the data that is buried in our IT systems. Cloud Computing offers federal agencies, companies, and communities new solutions for consuming, storing, processing, and analyzing Big Data to find the right answers needed to accomplish the mission, gain competitive advantage, and collaborate in more meaningful ways. In their session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jill Tummler Singer, CIO for the National Reconnaissance Office, and Jamie Dos Santos, President & CEO, Terremark Federal Group, will share perspectives on the Big Data challenge and how organizations can look in the clouds to discover the right answers. This session will feature collective results from a recent AFCEA International Cyber Committee white paper.

Cloud Expo New York: Embracing the Mobile Cloud from Start to Finish

Fri, 04 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

As workers continue to demand business apps on their connected devices, the mobile cloud will play a key role in changing the enterprise IT landscape forever. The mobile cloud provides users with the ability to go beyond the capabilities of their smart devices by offering unlimited data storage, processing services and other functions not native to the devices – typically through the intermediary of mobile apps. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Faraz Syed, President, Keynote DeviceAnywhere, will discuss how, to make it work, companies must plan for the whole application life cycle from development and testing through to monitoring, or risk failing to realize the potential of the mobile cloud.

The Ever-Expanding Role of Big Data

Fri, 04 May 2012 05:00:00 EDT

“Security standards for moving data into and out of the cloud and for hosting it within the cloud will dramatically help accelerate adoption of the cloud as a secure computing platform,” observed Dr. William L. Bain, founder and CEO of ScaleOut Software, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. Bain also noted that “additional standards for creating elastic clusters that are physically co-located and use high speed networking will also help in hosting applications that analyze Big Data.” Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility." Dr. William L. Bain: Agree. The cloud opens up huge opportunities for everything from cloud bursting to meet peak demand to hosting a scalable data analysis platform. This full range of use cases serves to enhance business agility.

Cloud Expo New York: Intel IT’s Approach to an Open Private Cloud

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:15:00 EDT

Cloud technologies are moving at a rapid pace. The compelling drivers are the need for on-demand business solutions, lower cost for IT and the ability to deliver the rich experience that users need and expect. Enterprises are wrestling with private vs. public vs. hybrid cloud solutions. The need for high levels of customizability, flexibility, and agility will drive many enterprises to the public cloud. The foundation for this vision will be defined by an open approach that delivers best of breed technologies + flexibility + choice from data center to client. Intel is bringing together a broad network of leading hardware and solution providers to build and enhance cloud solutions that are interoperable, multi-vendor and embrace standards. This addresses the initial limiters such as security, standards, governance and legacy apps which are increasingly less of an issue.

Cloud Expo New York: Cloudbursting...A Game Changer for the Little Guy

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

There’s been much hype over benefits of the “Cloud” but it’s now becoming a game changer for smaller businesses. Previously, rendering movies, developing new drugs, or prototyping new designs required a large data center, buying numerous servers, storage/switches, and hiring an army of IT “ants” to manage the environment – reserved for larger/wealthier companies. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Scott Houston, Founder and CEO of GreenButton, will show how Cloudbursting helps smaller companies avoid expensive capital infrastructure purchases, rent infrastructure, acquire software licenses, etc., to offset costs.

Cloud Expo New York: DevOps for Application Infrastructure

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:00:00 EDT

OpenStack is becoming the most popular open source platform for building private and public clouds. The number of code commits and the engineering velocity of this project is matched by no other technology adoption in history. While OpenStack is merely two years old, there have been six production releases of it. Those who opted to deploy an OpenStack-based cloud a year ago are now likely running production workloads on a version of OpenStack that is three releases behind what they initially deployed. Just as the evolution of software development methodologies and high-level programming languages has empowered organizations to adopt continuous deployment practices at the application level, increased engineering velocity and innovation in the infrastructure space are now forcing companies to consider the same at the lower levels of the stack. In the modern age of distributed and ever-evolving infrastructure, traditional rip and replace methods of upgrading are no longer optimal. The problem becomes particularly acute when dealing with open source products such as OpenStack that do not offer a clear vendor-dictated upgrade path, tooling, and supporting services.

Cloud Expo New York: Hybrid Clouds Get Real

Thu, 03 May 2012 05:00:00 EDT

With so many cloud offerings in the marketplace, how are you supposed to understand the differences, let alone pick the right ones to meet your specific needs? And while many of your applications may be a good fit for "the cloud," how will you evaluate which cloud offering will be the best match? In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Pavan Pant, Director of Product Management for CloudSwitch, will explain the practical differences and trade-offs between private clouds, public clouds and virtual private clouds, show how to blend cloud services in a seamless and secure way with your existing data center infrastructure and tools, and describe real-life case studies on how market-leading companies are successfully selecting and deploying the right cloud services for their unique application requirements.

The Business Agility of Cloud Computing

Thu, 03 May 2012 04:00:00 EDT

“Big Data is not simply code for lots of information,” observed Victoria Kouyoumjian, Sr. Business and Technologies Strategist at Esri, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Instead,” Kouyoumjian noted, “Big Data refers to information in myriad different formats from varying sources – and many of these digital formats and streams haven’t existed until recently.” Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility." Victoria Kouyoumjian: Agree. Many organizations are initially attracted to Cloud Computing as the new bright shiny object that can potentially improve their IT portfolio. At the top of the list of benefits is cost savings, including reducing overall operational costs and exposing more cost avoidance opportunities. However, if the pay-as-you-go model does not fit with the business model of the organization, the savings aspect using the predominant cloud cost model cannot unanimously be adopted. For example, a Federal government agency accustomed to committing spend and decrementing after, or a public company with budgeting forecasting mandates might not have the same business needs as a commercial organization. Additionally, sitting down and doing the math on those cloud-hosted services that run 365 days a year may not equate to a compelling case for significant IT savings.

Cloud Computing and Big Data – It’s the Applications!

Wed, 02 May 2012 10:00:00 EDT

“While there is still a lot of interest in Big Data Analytics, we see an increasing focus on Big Unstructured Data,” observed Tom Leyden, Director of Alliances and Marketing at Amplidata, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. And, Leyden continued, “Object storage is the new paradigm to store those massive amounts of Big Unstructured Data.” Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility."

Generating New Revenue Opportunities with Cloud Computing

Wed, 02 May 2012 09:15:00 EDT

“We are embarking on a critical journey where identity information becomes the key asset of the digital age,” declared Andy Land, Vice President of Marketing at UnboundID, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. Land noted that “Facebook and Google make tremendous amounts of money just by accumulating and selling identity information.” Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility."

SoftLayer Gives Next Generation of Entrepreneurs a Foundation for Success

Wed, 02 May 2012 05:00:00 EDT

SoftLayer Technologies is giving budding entrepreneurs a strong foundation for success as one of the leading national sponsors of TechStars, an elite mentorship-driven start-up accelerator that was recently recognized as the number one accelerator program in the world. Through its own technology mentorship initiative – the SoftLayer Catalyst Program – SoftLayer is providing financial support while being a Platinum sponsor of TechStars. In addition, SoftLayer will give qualifying TechStars participants $1,500 a month toward dedicated, cloud and hybrid infrastructure resources and engage its executives as mentors. “In today’s competitive environment, entrepreneurs deserve the best resources they can receive. Those entrepreneurs are finding the support of an accelerator program like TechStars helps them get their companies off the ground and running well because of the vast resources available to them,” said David Cohen founder and CEO of TechStars. “It is critical we work with sponsors, such as SoftLayer, that can help new entrepreneurs offset their costs, minimize risks and provide the wise advice from the perspective of someone who was once in their shoes.”

Big Data, Cloud Computing, Virtual Networking and More

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

“Exponentially increasing data volume, Internet access points and speed have made Big Data more accessible and therefore more practical,” noted Mike Carpenter, VP of Business Development at CARI.net, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Add social media, mobile proliferation, cloud computing, and CDNs to the mix,” Carpenter continued, “and now it becomes the foundation of intelligence.” Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility."

Building a Dynamic Enterprise App Store in the Cloud at Cloud Expo NY

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:00:00 EDT

Interest is growing rapidly in "enterprise app stores" where software designers and users can share and consume IT applications. Such stores may be offered by hosting providers to onboard customers and partners to their cloud, or by an enterprise to facilitate collaboration among engineering teams. However, many stores are limited to supplying pre-packaged cloud images, rather than editable templates. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, James Weir, CTO and co-founder of UShareSoft, will discuss the benefits and technologies for building a flexible, "dynamic" enterprise app store. These stores allow users to customize server templates before publishing directly to cloud. Additionally, hosting providers can dynamically “inject” managed services into templates and empower channel partners to offer customized cloud solutions.

Meet the Cloud API – The New Enterprise Control Point Description

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:00:00 EDT

The mantra of "reusing" existing application assets as services has become established as part of the lingua franca, or common language, associated with Cloud-based infrastructure sharing. The key to exposing application functionality is through APIs and this is well understood by developers. While, at first glance, API management might be an old concept, cloud-based API management presents a new discipline with added security, visibility, integration, and scale requirements. As applications are shared outside the protective firewall to/from the cloud and among cloud providers, traditional firewalls do not provide the mediation or XML threat protection required to expose these applications safely. Management of Cloud APIs presents a challenge and tremendous business opportunity that some are calling "the single biggest growth area for cloud computing." In this webinar, Forrester Research will decompose the cloud broker's role as an on premise or third-party intermediary and how cloud API management opens new doors to connect smartphone applications, browsers, middleware, legacy apps and just about anything that can talk HTTP.

Announcing JReport 11: Advanced Data Visualization and Dashboards

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 11:00:00 EDT

“JReport 11 continues our mission to deliver data visualization, discovery, and self-service tools to our users on all modern platforms,” noted Dr. Bing Yao, President of Jinfonet Software, on the release of JReport 11. The new release, which provides advanced data visualization with a powerful dashboard system and a mobile solution, features 40+ chart types and styles now enhanced with live charting including motion, real-time, and scrollable charts. Motion charts allow users to dynamically view data trends by auto-playing chart parameters. For example, you can put a chart in motion to show month-by-month changes over the course of a year. Real-time charts enable any web services data feed to be displayed and refreshed automatically. It can be used for monitoring applications, including system performance, stock charts, and real time applications. Scrollable charts let users easily zoom in and out on the chart axis for inspection of details.

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

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

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.

Build Powerful Business Intelligence and Reporting Applications

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 09:45:00 EDT

View this demo for an introduction to BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools), the powerful open source report and Rich Information Application development environment, used by over one million developers. BIRT can be used to create compelling business intelligence and reporting applications that present data to users in a very simple, user friendly and intelligent way via the web on any device. Watch now to: See how simple it is to create interactive reports, ad-hoc queries and dynamic dashboards Learn how to create information-driven content based on a wide variety of sources, including your application, live feeds and legacy data Discover how to reduce the reliance on IT and improve user self-service capabilities

What PowerBuilder Users Are Planning for Mobile Development

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:30:00 EDT

The first sets of results are in for the Mobile Development Survey. After only a few weeks of release, there have been hundreds of responses from PowerBuilder users. Here’s a little sneak peek at some of the results we’ve compiled so far: The eternal battle between Android and Apple-iOS continues, so which platforms are a must for organizations developing with PowerBuilder? Eighty-seven percent are looking to use Android, with Apple not far behind at 77%. It’s no surprise that the two OS industry leaders are strongly represented in the survey. However, Windows Phone 7, representing only 1.5% of today’s smartphone market sales, has taken a surprising third place. This is in line with the predictions of certain analysts, who see a successful return of Microsoft on the OS mobile market. Only time will tell if these predictions will come true…

PerspecSys Delivers Cloud Data Protection @ Inland Empire Health Plan

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

"PerspecSys enables Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) and other healthcare customers to confidently deploy leading SaaS applications like Oracle CRM On Demand, while eliminating the security and compliance barriers that previously got in their way,” noted David Canellos, CEO of PerspecSys, the leader in cloud data protection solutions for the enterprise, as PerspecSys recently announced an agreement to provide its Cloud Data Protection gateway, including the PRS server and Oracle CRM On Demand adapter, to IEHP

Cloudera KK to Help Spur Hadoop Adoption in APAC Region

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 01:15:00 EDT

Cloudera, the leading provider of Apache Hadoop-based data management software, services and training, today announced that it has established a Japanese subsidiary, Cloudera KK, and an office in Japan. Cloudera's formal presence extends availability of its products and support offerings to Japanese enterprises that have deployed or are seeking to deploy Apache Hadoop and related technologies in the Hadoop stack to unlock business insights from their Big Data.

Will Cloud Become the De Facto Standard for Computing?

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:30:00 EDT

“The recent TOSCA initiative has made interoperability for cloud computing closer than ever,” observed Andrew Hillier, co-founder and CTO of CiRBA, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “However, until players like Amazon and Google join in,” Hillier continued, “it will be difficult for organizations to move from one cloud to the other without risks to their data and infrastructure.” Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility." Andrew Hillier: Although savings and agility are both compelling benefits, it’s usually agility that’s realized first. This isn’t because it is a higher priority, but because it occurs earlier in the cloud adoption process. The push toward standardization and self-service can rapidly increase flexibility and decrease provisioning time, but can actually work against efficiency (much to the surprise of many cloud adopters). The resulting environments are difficult to manage, and many organizations end up with higher spend (for external clouds) or much lower density (internal clouds) than they originally envisioned. Fortunately, by adopting more sophisticated methods of planning and controlling these environments, workload placements and resource allocations can be safely optimized, eliminating over-provisioning once and for all and turning the cloud adoption process into the “win-win” that was originally targeted.

SoftLayer and RightScale Partner

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:45:00 EDT

SoftLayer Technologies and RightScale have partnered to provide unmatched scalability and automation solutions that allow Internet-centric companies to speed their time-to-market. Companies such as social gaming developer Broken Bulb Game Studios are able to use SoftLayer’s public and private cloud infrastructure with RightScale cloud management to easily deploy, automate and manage their computing workloads across the globe. “Customers, such as Broken Bulb, are now experiencing the advantages of working with two leading cloud solutions providers,” said Duke Skarda, Chief Technology Officer of SoftLayer. The partnership between RightScale and SoftLayer offers a solution that is ideal for all types of web savvy companies that need to easily scale IT resources to meet the toughest workloads or steepest Internet traffic demands. This helps enable users to rapidly rollout new web-based services, applications and games through a flexible consumptive monthly billing cycle.

Cloud Computing and Data Center Services

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:45:00 EDT

“While enterprise cloud adoption is growing fast, it is still in the very early stages,” noted Sheji Jacob-Brettle, European Group Marketing and Communications Manager at TelecityGroup, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. And Jacob-Brettle continued, TelecityGroup expects “cloud to be an important driver of demand for our data center services in Europe.” Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility." Sheji Jacob-Brettle: Agree but the core underlying data center infrastructure needs to be rock solid.

AppLayer Packages IT for the Cloud

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 08:13:00 EDT

Cloud technology company AppLayer has announced the availability of its new platform, White Label Box. The solution allows businesses to outsource standard IT applications and core infrastructure through their preferred IT services company, avoiding the need to manage multiple cloud and on-premise providers. A key feature of White Label Box is the simplification of user and application management. An authorised individual - the reseller, the business customer, or both - can login to the interface, add users and instantly grant access to any of White Label Box's core services. Applications range from Hosted Desktop to SharePoint or Dynamics CRM and can be assigned individually or combined to form complete, integrated, IT solutions. This means that businesses are able to focus on managing their employees and providing them with the right tool to do their job, irrespective of whether this is a desktop, server or SaaS-based application, or a combination of all three.

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

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that Telx, a leading provider of global interconnectivity and data center solutions, 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. Telx is a leading provider of interconnection and data center services in strategic, high demand North American markets. With 17 premier C3 Cloud Connection Centers, Telx increases speed-to-market and reduces connectivity costs by providing direct connections to a community of the industry’s highest performance networks and access to 1,000+ customers, including leading telecommunications carriers, ISPs, cloud providers, content providers and enterprises.

Can Cloud Computing Open Up New Opportunities?

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 05:00:00 EDT

“There is a common view among media and analysts that the cloud computing market will see rapid growth in the foreseeable future,” observed Alex Mei, Executive VP and CMO of OCZ Technology Group, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Companies will need to adapt quickly to these fast changing conditions as cloud computing continues to mature to meet the demands of IT and ultimately end users,” Mei concluded. Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility." Alex Mei: Agree. While driving down the costs associated with IT is certainly an important factor of cloud computing, the ability to create new ways for users to interact and access their data over the cloud is changing the very way that businesses can operate. The fact that cloud computing allows companies to scale their businesses at the rate they choose provides more “agility” than heavy investments in traditional large-scale infrastructure. Ultimately cloud computing can open up entirely new opportunities that can accelerate businesses or help facilitate more efficient delivery of services.

Cloud Expo NY: Transitioning a Full Enterprise to Cloud in Just 10 Months

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:30:00 EDT

The SI Organization recently embarked on deploying a new enterprise infrastructure as part of a divestiture from Lockheed Martin. Enterprise systems were stood up to execute business and leveraged the cloud to the fullest extent possible. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Steve DeLuca, CIO at The SI Organization, will discuss the landscape and lessons learned from this experience. Steve DeLuca is the Chief Information Officer at The SI Organization, Inc. responsible for the SI’s IT operations as well as leveraging technology to help the SI's Intelligence Community (IC) customers achieve their missions. Following the SI’s divestiture from Lockheed Martin, he and his team deployed a new IT enterprise infrastructure in under ten months.