Cloud Computing Articles
InterSystems Corporation will next week roll out a new version of its Caché high-performance object database. The new release targets the growing demand by CIOs for economical high availability by introducing database mirroring, while also addressing Java developers' need for high-volume high-performance processing combined with persistent storage for event processing systems. Robert Nagle, InterSystems vice president for software development, recently chatted with 5 Minute Briefing about the release and the new features it offers. Commenting on the growing interest in NoSQL databases, Nagle observes that many of the beneficial characteristics people see in NoSQL are in fact true of Caché - a flexible data model and zero DBA cost. "But for us, what is unique is that it is not NoSQL, it is that it needs to be SQL - without the overhead of relational technology - because I think SQL is extremely important for almost every class of application that is deployed."
Posted September 21, 2010
CiRBA Inc., a provider of data center intelligence software, has introduced a new version of its flagship software that combines cross-platform analytics with flexible role-based views of environments through customizable dashboards. Version 6.0 of CiRBA provides an enterprise solution for capacity and efficiency management, with cross-functional dashboards that enable executives, capacity managers, and operations to collectively manage efficiency and risk across physical, virtual, and cloud infrastructure.
Posted September 20, 2010
Symantec Corp. announced the availability of Symantec Enterprise Vault 9.0 and Enterprise Vault Discovery Collector, technology to help organizations store, manage and discover information across the enterprise. The vendor also announced NetBackup 5000 deduplication appliance and cloud storage for NetBackup and Backup Exec to help organizations reduce their data storage footprints and more effectively leverage cloud-based data storage services.
Posted September 20, 2010
Bluewolf is teaming with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to exhibit their joint services for Oracle technology at Oracle OpenWorld next week.
Posted September 15, 2010
CA Technologies has expanded its support for Amazon Web services (AWS), bundling a number of key products into a service offering to help manage and monitor cloud implementations through Amazon. The CA products now supporting Amazon include CA Virtual, CA Service Automation, CA Service Assurance and Nimsoft Monitoring Solution, which can now be plugged into the AWS Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC).
Posted September 14, 2010
The promises of public cloud computing - pay as you go, infinite scale and outsourced administration - are compelling. However, for most enterprises, security, geography and risk mitigation concerns make private cloud platforms more desirable. Enterprise customers like the idea of on-demand provisioning, but are often unwilling to take the performance, security and risk drawbacks of moving applications to remote hardware that is not under their direct control.
Posted September 07, 2010
Oracle is a fast-changing company, and in recent years, its pace has accelerated to blinding speed. The software giant has expanded well beyond its relational database roots to encompass applications, management tools, service-oriented architecture and middleware, and even hardware. There are now many components to Oracle - from three major databases, to enterprise resource applications, to web applications to development languages to open source desktop tools.
Posted September 07, 2010
Quest Software, Inc. announced today that it has added Apache Cassandra, an open source NoSQL database, to its list of supported NoSQL platforms with the second beta release of Toad for Cloud Databases. Toad now supports data access and management for Apache Cassandra, Amazon SimpleDB, Microsoft Azure Table Services, Apache HBase, and any open database connectivity-enabled relational database.
Posted September 07, 2010
Oracle recently hosted a 6-hour online forum to showcase its strategy for virtualization. Oracle's Edward Screven, chief corporate architect, and John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems, kicked off the agenda of analyst, customer and product webcasts, by explaining how Oracle delivers a complete virtualization offering, all the way from desktop through the data center and why that approach provides more customer benefits than point solutions.
Posted September 02, 2010
At VMworld 2010, HP yesterday introduced HP CloudStart, an all-in-one solution for deploying an open and flexible private cloud environment within 30 days.
Posted August 31, 2010
HP also announced that it has acquired Stratavia, a privately held database and application automation company based in Denver. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to HP, the acquisition of Stratavia will strengthen the HP Software and Solutions portfolio, adding deployment, configuration and management solutions for enterprise databases, middleware and packaged applications. The solutions will help clients simplify application deployment and management in hybrid IT environments, which consist of on-premise, off-premise, physical and virtual environments.
Posted August 31, 2010
At VMworld, Precise unveiled Precise for Cloud, a transaction performance management solution designed to ensure quality of service (QoS) for applications running on private cloud platforms at the Global 5000 and their global ISPs. Precise for Cloud is intended to solve what the company says are most pressing issues facing cloud architects and virtualization managers: application QoS, performance problem isolation, and problem resolution. Now in beta, the product is expected to be generally available before the end of the year.
Posted August 31, 2010
Translattice, a predictive data software startup, has announced a cloud-based computing infrastructure designed to anticipate application and data needs based on policy, usage and geography. Translattice offers data delivery across the network, supported by infrastructure components such as load balancing, application run times, and relational storage that reside on identical, deployed nodes. Capacity and scalability are increased by adding nodes, which may be deployed on-premise, in the cloud, or a combination of both. If a site becomes unreachable due to an outage, geographic redundancy preserves the availability of applications and data, the vendor says.
Posted August 24, 2010
CA Technologies continued its investment in virtualization and cloud management, by announcing the acquisition of privately-held 4Base Technology, a virtualization and cloud infrastructure consulting firm. 4Base will become the CA Virtualization and Cloud Strategy group, a competency practice within the CA Services division. With experience in more than 300 engagements, 4Base will help customers move quickly, pragmatically and successfully from virtualization to cloud by providing strategic advice and implementation expertise.
Posted August 18, 2010
Continuity Software, a provider of disaster recovery (DR) and high availability (HA) management solutions, has announced the general availability of RecoverGuard version 5.2 (v5.2), featuring a Private Cloud Advisor designed to enable customers to ensure availability, recoverability and adherence to industry best practices in the private cloud. "Until about a year ago, no one really used private clouds in the mid and large enterprise for mission-critical systems, but in the last 12 months, we have started to see a shift toward people either deploying such systems or at least planning the deployment of private clouds in the medium and large data centers," Gil Hecht, founder and CEO of Continuity Software, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted August 18, 2010
IBM announced the zEnterprise mainframe server and a new systems design that allows workloads on mainframe, POWER7 and System x servers to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualized system. "The new mainframe is the fastest enterprise server in the world and represents a giant leap forward in performance," says Tom Rosamilia, general manager for IBM Power and z Systems. "This new dimension in enterprise computing - extending mainframe governance to POWER7 and System x blades integrated into the zEnterprise System architecture - was developed over the past three years with direct involvement from a team of IBM's 30 top customers, which provided direct input at every stage of the development process."
Posted August 11, 2010
IBM announced the zEnterprise mainframe server and a new systems design that allows workloads on mainframe, POWER7 and System x servers to share resources and be managed as a single, virtualized system. "The new mainframe is the fastest enterprise server in the world and represents a giant leap forward in performance," says Tom Rosamilia, general manager for IBM Power and z Systems. "This new dimension in enterprise computing - extending mainframe governance to POWER7 and System x blades integrated into the zEnterprise System architecture - was developed over the past three years with direct involvement from a team of IBM's 30 top customers, which provided direct input at every stage of the development process."
Posted August 11, 2010
CA Technologies announced new identity and access management (IAM) solutions intended to enhance security, ease compliance efforts, and automate IT processes within cloud computing environments. The company released a new version of CA Identity Manager, which extends identity management to cloud applications, as well as leverage CA SiteMinder portfolio to control access to its SaaS applications.
Posted August 10, 2010
First elected to Oracle Applications Users Group board of directors in 2009, David Ferguson became president of the OAUG this year. He talks with DBTA this month about how the users group is getting "back to basics" with educational sessions and networking opportunities as well as the new approaches it is taking to meet its members' evolving needs.
Posted August 10, 2010
Earlier this year, Andy Flower took over as president of the Independent Oracle Users Group from Ian Abramson. With Oracle OpenWorld right around the corner, Flower talks with DBTA about how the IOUG is changing to best meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the expanding Oracle ecosystem, despite what continues to be a difficult economy. For the IOUG, it is "the year of the member" and it all starts with the database, he says.
Posted August 10, 2010
Many see 2010 shaping up as a boom year for cloud computing, with cloud adopters capable of realizing significant reductions in administrative IT costs compared to non-adopters. However, it's not enough to simply develop and implement a cloud strategy. Rather, enterprises must take into account the performance of their cloud-based assets and the impact of the cloud on their end users' and customers' experiences. After all, the apparent cost and elasticity advantages of the cloud won't yield any business benefit if the direct consequence is a poor end user experience. For this reason, businesses considering the cloud must do the due diligence and insist on performance guarantees from cloud service providers that map directly to business objectives - or risk impacting revenue, brand image and customer satisfaction.
Posted August 10, 2010
Unisys has introduced the first in a planned series of managed cloud solutions for its ClearPath family of mainframe servers. ClearPath Cloud Development and Test Solution is a "platform as a service" (PaaS) solution that is intended to extend Unisys' strategy for delivering secure IT services in the cloud and to set the stage for delivery of further ClearPath Cloud solutions. According to Unisys, in its recent online poll, 46% of respondents - the largest single percentage response to any question in the poll - cited development and test environments as the first workloads they would consider moving to the cloud.
Posted August 08, 2010
Aiming to help organizations simplify application security, Oracle today announced Oracle Identity Management 11g, an integrated and open set of best-of-breed components built on a common platform and engineered to deliver integration within and across the suite through a series of common components. As the industry's first "service-oriented security architecture," Oracle Identity Management 11g provides enterprises with shared services for everything from identity administration, password management, authentication and authorization, workflow, encryption, and auditing to simplify application security, Rohit Gupta, vice president of product management for Oracle Identity Management, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
Posted July 21, 2010
Creating standards for cloud computing is key to its future evolution and broader adoption. What is the role of Linux in the cloud? What economic or technological advantages (if any) do open standards-based clouds have? Where else is open source software gaining traction in the cloud, and will customers choose to run a mix of open and 'private-source' software? How does the history of the evolution of Linux relate to the future of the cloud?
Posted July 21, 2010
A new IBM Cloud Computing Competence Center in Ehningen, Germany, will provide a broad range of cloud solutions and services to clients locally and internationally. "The opening of this center places IBM in a strong position to meet the growing demand for cloud solutions and services in the market," states Michael Diemer, general manager, Global Technology Services, IBM Germany. "Meeting the highest standards of technological innovation and data security - which is vital to clients in sensitive areas such as insurance, banking and the public sector - the new facility joins our Cloud Delivery Center in IBM Raleigh, North Carolina as part of our globally integrated cloud delivery network. It will offer local and international clients world-class secure and cost effective cloud capabilities to meet their fast-changing business needs."
Posted July 21, 2010
Did you miss a webcast covering important information about technologies you need to learn more about? IBM offers replays on-demand of webcasts presented by IBM experts and partners.
Posted July 21, 2010
IBM's solutions for New Intelligence - running on Linux - enable you to unlock the insights in your data, without overspending to do so. You can crystallize trends, patterns and anomalies that yield valuable insights without retraining your employees each time your IT needs change.
Posted July 21, 2010
A new IBM Cloud Computing Competence Center in Ehningen, Germany, will provide a broad range of cloud solutions and services to clients locally and internationally. "The opening of this center places IBM in a strong position to meet the growing demand for cloud solutions and services in the market," states Michael Diemer, general manager, Global Technology Services, IBM Germany. "Meeting the highest standards of technological innovation and data security - which is vital to clients in sensitive areas such as insurance, banking and the public sector - the new facility joins our Cloud Delivery Center in IBM Raleigh, North Carolina, as part of our globally integrated cloud delivery network. It will offer local and international clients world-class secure and cost effective cloud capabilities to meet their fast-changing business needs."
Posted July 21, 2010
Creating standards for cloud computing is key to its future evolution and broader adoption. What is the role of Linux in the cloud? What economic or technological advantages (if any) do open standards-based clouds have? Where else is open source software gaining traction in the cloud, and will customers choose to run a mix of open and 'private-source' software? How does the history of the evolution of Linux relate to the future of the cloud
Posted July 21, 2010
EMC Corporation has signed a definitive agreement to acquire California-based Greenplum, Inc. Greenplum is a privately-held provider of data warehousing technology, and a key enabler of "big data" clouds and self-service analytics.
Posted July 13, 2010
Oracle today announced Oracle Business Intelligence 11g, an integrated and scalable suite of business intelligence products for helping customers to achieve better business visibility and alignment. The new release provides a unified environment for accessing and analyzing data that resides in relational, OLAP, and XML data sources; improved end user experience with a new integrated scorecard application and innovations in enterprise reporting, visualization, search and collaboration; and enhanced performance, scalability, and security through deeper integration with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g and other components of Oracle Fusion Middleware.
Posted July 07, 2010
Red Hat has unveiled Red Hat Cloud Foundations, which is intended to deliver solutions for planning, building and managing infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service private and public clouds. Cloud Foundations: Edition One, available immediately, provides "everything that a customer needs to successfully plan, deploy and manage a private cloud and it is the first in a family of Cloud Foundations that Red Hat will expand along with its partners to provide a complete set of cloud services," said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager, Cloud Business Unit, at a press conference during the recent Red Hat Summit in Boston.
Posted July 07, 2010
At the Red Hat Summit in Boston, Dr. Kristof Kloeckner, vice president, Strategy & Enterprise Initiatives, Systems and Software, and CTO, Cloud Computing, at IBM, delivered a keynote address on current cloud computing initiatives and the future of cloud computing in the software industry.
Posted July 07, 2010
Red Hat has announced a set of solutions for planning, building and managing Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service private and public clouds. The first series in its Red Hat Cloud Foundations line, dubbed Cloud Foundations: Edition One, targets private cloud efforts. Edition One bundles Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Network Satellite, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, JBoss Enterprise Middleware and Red Hat Enterprise MRG Grid. The solution also includes a "cookbook" implementation guide for cloud setup, as well as a detailed reference architecture providing step-by-step instructions, scripts and settings for creating and configuring private clouds. Red Hat is also providing consulting services and training to enable turnkey assessment, implementation and operational management of private clouds. Cloud Foundations: Edition One is "everything that a customer needs to successfully plan, deploy and manage a private cloud and it is the first in a family of Cloud Foundations that Red Hat will expand along with its partners to provide a complete set of cloud services." said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager, Cloud Business Unit, at a press conference during last week's Red Hat Summit in Boston.
Posted June 28, 2010
At the recent Novell BrainShare EMEA event in Amsterdam, for which IBM was a sponsor, Jay Ennesser, vice president, Global Alliance Solutions, IBM, was interviewed about the emerging role of Linux in the cloud, and the strong IBM and Novell partnership which spans more than 10 years. Commenting on the role of Linux in the cloud, Ennesser noted it is already in utilities, water management systems, in how the infrastructure of people's homes is managed, and in cars. It is in everything people do every day and becoming more and more mainstream. "Cloud is just another natural extension of what has already gone on with Linux today. We will just provide you another opportunity from a cost of ownership point of view to deploy the services that are being deployed."
Posted June 23, 2010
Openness was the theme of the OpenForum Europe Summit 2010 earlier this month in Brussels. Speakers included Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president for the Digital Agenda, and Dr. Michael Karasick, vice president of technical and business strategy, IBM Software Group, as well as Don Deutsch, vice president, Standards Strategy and Architecture, Oracle, Prof. Yochai Benkler of Harvard University, and Prof. Nigel Shadbolt of University of Southampton.
Posted June 23, 2010
VMware and Novell have expanded their strategic partnership with an original equipment manufacturer agreement through which VMware will distribute and support the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system. Under the agreement, VMware also intends to standardize its virtual appliance-based product offerings on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Posted June 23, 2010
At the recent Novell BrainShare EMEA event in Amsterdam, for which IBM was a sponsor, Jay Ennesser, vice president, Global Alliance Solutions, IBM, was interviewed about the emerging role of Linux in the cloud, and the strong IBM and Novell partnership which spans more than 10 years. Commenting on the role of Linux in the cloud, Ennesser noted it is already in utilities, water management systems, in how the infrastructure of people's homes is managed, and in cars. It is in everything people do every day and becoming more and more mainstream. "Cloud is just another natural extension of what has already gone on with Linux today. We will just provide you another opportunity from a cost of ownership point of view to deploy the services that are being deployed."
Posted June 23, 2010
Openness was the theme of the OpenForum Europe Summit 2010 earlier this month in Brussels. Speakers included Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president for the Digital Agenda, and Dr. Michael Karasick, vice president of technical and business strategy, IBM Software Group, as well as Don Deutsch, vice president, Standards Strategy and Architecture, Oracle, Prof. Yochai Benkler of Harvard University, and Prof. Nigel Shadbolt of University of Southampton.
Posted June 23, 2010
VMware and Novell have expanded their strategic partnership with an original equipment manufacturer agreement through which VMware will distribute and support the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system. Under the agreement, VMware also intends to standardize its virtual appliance-based product offerings on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Posted June 23, 2010
Quest Software, Inc. plans to launch a beta program tomorrow for Toad for Cloud Databases, a new data access and management tool for non-relational data stored in cloud databases, also known as NoSQL databases. Toad for Cloud Databases is intended to help users unlock data stored in the cloud by using the familiar SQL language or Toad's popular visual query and data access capabilities. Users can query and report on non-relational data, migrate data in both cloud and relational databases from one to the other, and create queries that combine the two.
Posted June 22, 2010
According to a new Unisys online poll of 124 IT professionals, 62% said that their companies had plans to migrate to Windows 7 - with 36% likely moving within 6 to 12 months. In Unisys' view, IT executives need to look beyond the migration itself to consider the new management challenges and benefits Windows 7 affords them. For example, they must capitalize on the the innovative support automation features of Windows 7 not only to save money, but also to help information workers resolve service events quickly and remain productive through anywhere, anytime access to the desktop environment.
Posted June 09, 2010
In only a few years' time, the world of data management has been altered dramatically, and this is a change that is still running its course. No longer are databases run in back rooms by administrators worrying about rows and columns. Now, actionable information is sought by decision makers at all levels of the enterprise, and the custodians of this data need to work closely with the business.That's because, in the wake of the recent financial crisis and economic downturn, there's a push from both high-level corporate management and regulators to achieve greater understanding and greater transparency across the enterprise, Jeanne Harris, executive research fellow and a senior executive at the Accenture Institute for High Performance, and co-author, along with Tom Davenport, of Competing on Analytics and Analytics at Work, tells DBTA. "In many ways, I think the ultimate result of the financial crisis is that executives realized they cannot delegate analytics to subordinates; they can't view it as technology or math that doesn't really affect them."
Posted June 07, 2010
The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected the InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database to support the scientific processing of the Gaia mission. This mission's aim is to map the Milky Way with precision. The Gaia mission will launch in mid-2012 to conduct a census of all the billion stars in our galaxy. Gaia will observe all celestial objects down to their lowest magnitude. Each object will be observed an average of 70 times during a 5-year period, charting their positions, distances, movements and changes in brightness. Gaia is expected to discover hundreds of thousands of new objects, such as extra-solar planets and failed stars known as brown dwarfs. Within our own solar system, Gaia will be able to identify hundreds of thousands of asteroids.
Posted June 01, 2010
At CA World, CA Technologies launched three new and two enhanced products in its virtualization management portfolio. The three new products are designed to deliver robust virtualization management capabilities for virtualization-focused administrators. The company also announced enhancements to two existing products to offer more advanced capabilities for integrating specialized virtualization management into the end-to-end management of hybrid physical and virtual systems, networks, storage and applications.
Posted June 01, 2010
IBM has opened a Center of Innovation for Linux and Open Standards in the capital city of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with the goal of driving the development and adoption of open standards and open source technologies among the businesses and government organizations of Kazakhstan. Opened under a comprehensive Memorandum of Understanding, signed by IBM and the Kazakhstan Ministry of Information & Communications, the agreement covers several areas of cooperation. The IBM Center of Innovation for Linux and Open Standards will help local software developers increase their Linux and open standards expertise and better connect them to the worldwide Linux community. As part of this process, IBM will develop new ways to apply information technologies to improve business life in Kazakhstan.
Posted May 26, 2010
IBM announced on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sterling Commerce from AT&T for approximately $1.4 billion in cash. The acquisition of the Dublin, Ohio-based company will expand IBM's ability to help organizations create more intelligent and dynamic business networks by simplifying and automating the way they connect and communicate with customers, partners and suppliers both on-premise or through cloud computing delivery models. IBM and AT&T expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2010, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Posted May 25, 2010
Microsoft last week announced that volume licensing downloads for SQL Server 2008 R2 are available in all languages, including the public availability of PowerPivot functionality. Customers can now download the trial version of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 and the web downloads of PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint.
Posted May 18, 2010
ParaScale, Inc. has introduced a new version of its cloud storage platform with advanced features for data security, protection and accessibility. Release 2.5 of ParaScale Cloud Storage software also includes features to efficiently address 'big data' requirements by enabling data services and application integration directly onto storage nodes.
Posted May 18, 2010
IBM announced that it has acquired Cast Iron Systems to broaden the delivery of cloud computing services for clients. Cast Iron Systems, a privately held company founded in 2001 and based in Mountain View, Calif., provides cloud integration software, appliances and services. Cast Iron Systems' clients include Allianz, NEC, Peet's Coffee & Tea, Dow Jones, Schumacher Group, ShoreTel, Sports Authority, Time Warner, and Westmont University.
Posted May 17, 2010