Latest News from CLOUD COMPUTING JOURNAL

Google Is Ten: The Search Engine That Changed the World

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:50:00 EDT

Google opened its doors in September 1998. But, as the Google official site phrases it, "The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake." Maybe, now that Chrome is released, instead of waiting till the 27th of the month as it did last year, Google will feast on a nice big cake right away this week.

Cloud-Based Enterprise Applications: It's Just the Beginning

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 01:50:00 EDT

The term Cloud Computing is getting a lot of air play these days — it is the computing equivalent of a U.S. Presidential Election. It has loads of twists and turns, plenty of eager participants, lots of money being spent on it and it gets to consume large amounts of the news cycle...often without a lot of new information. We are only just beginning to imagine what a true Cloud-based Enterprise Application can mean in terms of the new business model opportunities it will create.

Former BEA Exec Joins Cloud Computing Provider GigaSpaces

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:45:00 EDT

GigaSpaces Technologies announced that John Giubileo has been named as the Company's general manager of the Americas. Giubileo will oversee all sales and go-to-market activities in the Americas, including business development, partnerships, channels and OEM actions.

3Tera Takes Cloud Computing Global

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:00:00 EDT

3Tera announced the availability of global cloud services, based on 3Tera's AppLogic grid operating system. Driven by demand from multi-national customers and customers outside the United States, 3Tera has selected partners to offer cloud solutions on four continents and provide redundant online resources worldwide.

rPath Launches New Technology to Accelerate Adoption of Cloud Computing

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EDT

rPath announced the beta launch of its rBuilder Appliance Creator and rBuilder Catalog features for the Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (Amazon EC2). When coupled with rPath's technology for release management, lifecycle management, and its comprehensive support capability for Linux technology, these new features offer one of the most comprehensive solutions for managing cloud application deployments in the industry. This solution is being offered to developers for Amazon EC2 deployments at no cost via rBuilder Online.

Red Hat Buys Qumranet

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 16:15:00 EDT

Red Hat never did like Xen. It liked it even less after Citrix bought XenSource a year ago and Microsoft cuddled up with Citrix, Virtual Iron and Novell, Xen’s first Linux promoter. Among other things, it didn’t have control of the technology.

New Biometric Access for Citrix Clouds

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:15:00 EDT

Ceelox adapted Ceelox ID, a biometric Identity Access Management tool, to work with Citrix servers and client computers. "Using biometrics to secure access to centralized Citrix networks is a giant leap forward for Ceelox," Gerry Euston, CEO, said.

Cloud Computing: What Are Private Clouds?

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:00:00 EDT

The world of clouds these days is full of definitions and counter-definitions. There are many posts that try to define the concept of cloud computing; many that try to distinguish utility computing, grid computing and cloud computing; many that try to define public vs private clouds; and many that dismisses the notion of private clouds.

Cloud Computing: Google Chrome is a Prototype Cloud Operating Environment

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Rather than blathering on to the blogosphere about the superficial features of Google's new Chrome browser I've spent the best part of my day studying the available material and [re]writing a comprehensive Wikipedia article on the subject which I intend for anyone to be free to reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (at least this version anyway) rather than Wikipedia's usual strong copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). This unusual freedom is extended in order to foster learning and critical analysis, particularly in terms of security

Google Chrome Based on Webkit?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

There has been a lot of excitment around the early announcement that Google will be releasing a new open source web browser on September 2 called Chrome. WebKit is an open source application with portions licensed under the LGPL and BSD licenses, both of which are much more Google friendly compared to the Mozilla license.

Google Chrome & Cloud Computing - The First "Cloud Browser"

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:00 EDT

"It's Google’s first step to cloud computing," declared Raymond Frame, from Wellington NZ, on hearing about the release today of Google Chrome. Nick Carr agrees, calling it "The first cloud browser." The Official Google Blog contends: "Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go."

From Amazon EC2 to Virtualization and Walled Gardens: An A to Z of Cloud Computing

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:00:00 EDT

From Amazon EC2 and App Engine from Google to Utility Computing, Virtualization, and Walled Gardens - there's no aspect of Cloud Computing that hasn't already been addressed at some level of detail in SYS-CON Media's Cloud Computing Journal (http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com). Here's a round-up of the world of Delivering Scalable IT as a Service, seen through the lens of the many contributors whose thoughts and ideas have already appeared there since it first appeared in June 2008 as the world's first journal devoted exclusively to the delivery of massively scalable IT resources as a service using Internet technologies.

Cloud Computing: The Rise of Cloud Platforms and Why the OS Doesn’t Matter

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 05:00:00 EDT

Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is one of the buzzwords that’s mentioned often in the cloud computing space. In short, PaaS is a platform for delivering applications, similar to a pre-built system with hardware, OS and application stack all built in. In the PaaS case, this system is hosted. All you have to do is “upload” the application code and it should take care of the executing and scaling of it.

Cloud Computing Expo - The Storm Cloud of Innovation

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:10:00 EDT

The Storm Cloud of Innovation is where user demands and vendor dynamics are played out, where the interactions between suppliers and architects are precipitated around the need to overcome challenges and roadblocks on the journey to adoption. In this session, 451 Research Director for Infrastructure Management, Rachel Chalmers examines a range of technologies and companies in this cloud, including virtualization management, orchestration, provisioning and datacenter automation.

AT&T Launches Cloud Computing Based Synaptic Hosting Solution

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:08:00 EDT

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "What’s News?: AT&T Launches Synaptic Hosting" report to their offering. This aDRD (Announcement-based Data-Rich Deliverable) is part of the Business Managed & Hosted Services, Business IT, Business Applications and Competitive Profiles subscriptions.

Blog-City.com Founder Alan Williamson to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EDT

As a solution provider it is vitally important you don't get locked into a specific vendor’s solution. This couldn't be truer in the world of on-demand or cloud computing. The way Amazon works is vastly different from Google, and different from Flexiscale. So how do you utilize the strengths of them all without compromising your own requirements? This session will take a look at a real world application, which spans across a number of different cloud hosts, providing redundancy, self-healing and self-scaling solutions without the fear of dancing to one vendors tune.

QTRAX Leverages Cloud Computing

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:28:00 EDT

SOASTA and QTRAX announced a breakthrough in the load testing of web applications in the Cloud. SOASTA CloudTest Lab, running in Amazon EC2, simulated 100,000 virtual users against QTRAX's soon to be launched digital music service. The test required approximately 100 test servers that were located in SOASTA CloudTest Lab. SOASTA CloudTest Lab produced a complete set of performance analytics that provided QTRAX with metrics on how their web application responded under heavy load -- allowing them to optimize their application configuration far in advance of their public launch.

Cisco Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire PostPath

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:38:00 EDT

Building upon its commitment to provide a comprehensive collaboration portfolio, Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately held PostPath. Based in Mountain View, Calif. with additional development operations in Sofia, Bulgaria, PostPath will enhance the existing email and calendaring capabilities of Cisco's WebEx Connect collaboration platform.

Asite and OpSource Announce Partnership to Deliver SaaS Platform

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:16:00 EDT

OpSource announced a strategic partnership with Asite Solutions. Asite will use OpSource On-Demand to support the delivery of their SaaS platform to an increasingly global audience. Asite joins a growing list of international companies selecting OpSource as their Web operations provider.

CDW Moves to the Cloud

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:07:00 EDT

Asigra announced that CDW has selected Asigra Televaulting as its online backup platform. Chosen for its unmatched service-oriented architecture, powerful data de-duplication and broad interoperability, Asigra Televaulting will be the technology platform behind CDW’s Remote Backup Service.

Enomaly Founder & Chief Technologist to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:30:00 EDT

As cloud computing becomes more commonplace, creating a secure method to bridge the gap between existing data centers and remote sources of compute capacity is becoming more and more important. Reuven Cohen, Founder & Chief Technologist of Enomaly, will be giving a session on Bridging the Data Center and The Cloud at SYS-CON's 'Cloud Computing Expo' (November 19-21, 2008) - a pathbreaking adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA.

Cloud Computing: 12 Signs that Your Company is Already in the Cloud

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 03:45:00 EDT

What are the telltale signs that your company is already Computing in the Cloud? Is it when the CIO makes a big announcement at the monthly IT meeting? Is it when the IT newsletter drops a reference to pilot testing of some ‘web based’ software? Or, is it when the secretary whips out the boss’s Corporate Credit Card and signs up to a Cloud Service? Here are 12 indicators that your company is *already* part of the Cloud...

Viewpoint: Seven Technical Security Benefits of Cloud Computing

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:55:00 EDT

In my view, there are some strong technical security arguments in favour of Cloud Computing - assuming we can find ways to manage the risks. With this new paradigm come challenges and opportunities. The challenges are getting plenty of attention - I'm regularly afforded the opportunity to comment on them. However, let's not lose sight of the potential upside.

Opinion: Cloud Computing in 2008 - Not For the Faint-Hearted

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:35:00 EDT

I think that cloud computing is going to be 'the way ahead' for most businesses and individuals in the coming year or two. It makes a lot of sense. However, right now, in 2008, I think it's a very brave person who would entrust their business data to one of the thousands of micro-businesses offering 'cloud computing' services.

CohesiveFT Expands Support for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:30:00 EDT

CohesiveFT announced support for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) large, extra-large and high-CPU instances. This is an expansion beyond the company's existing support for standard instances on Amazon EC2's 32-bit platform. Developers interested in defining software components for real-time deployment to Amazon EC2 can use the Elastic Server platform to build, test and deploy their Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) to a variety of virtualization and cloud-ready formats.

Nirvanix Brings Stars to the Cloud

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:18:00 EDT

Nirvanix announced that its Storage Delivery Network (SDN) has been serving as the integrated promotional platform for Doom’s worldwide promotion of its first full-length feature “On The Doll.” For the past four months, the film’s official website (www.onthedoll.com) has provided visitors with promotional trailers and other content that originates from Nirvanix’s global cluster of storage delivery nodes across North America, Europe and Asia.

SB5168XL DataServer Delivers Breakthrough Performance for the Growing Cloud Computing Market

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:14:00 EDT

Verari Systems announced the addition of the SB5168XL DataServer to its blade-based hybrid server and storage system family. The newly introduced architecture combines an Intel Xeon 3000 series processor and 10G Ethernet connectivity with the highest storage density available in a blade server. The combination of high capacity, low-cost blade-based storage with a general purpose server is a powerful enabler for a wide range of vertical markets where data and applications such as Web 2.0, Cloud and file system solutions need to be hosted on a single platform.

Cloud Computing Expo - RightScale Supports Amazon’s Elastic Block Store

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:07:00 EDT

RightScale, the cloud management start-up, is now supporting Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Elastic Block Store (EBS) cloud storage solution. Its users will have access to what it calls a “virtually limitless” storage area network directly from the RightScale Dashboard.

Stage Set for Suite of Python Tools to Integrate Web Development with Cloud Computing

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:45:00 EDT

Aptana announced the acquisition of Pydev. The combination of Pydev with Aptana Studio, which is approaching 2.3 million downloads, will bring Aptana's excellence in AJAX development ease to the Python community and bring Python support to Aptana's product lines. The move further reinforces Aptana's standing in open source products and related services for organizations who use dynamic Web application languages such as AJAX/JavaScript, Ruby/Ruby on Rails, PHP, and Python.

Hyperic Co-Founder & CEO to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:05:00 EDT

Just as people begin to understand the difference between web ops and IT, we are entering a period where clouds promise "Ops-Free" computing. Because it’s easy, scalable, available and disposable, the cloud is well on its way to becoming “technology’s next big thing.” However, with recent outages from Amazon and Google Apps, the question of the cloud’s competence, security and reliability have come into play.

RightScale CTO to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:00:00 EDT

Cloud Computing offers significant benefits over traditional solutions for deploying production systems as well as for conducting development and testing activities. Dr Thorsten von Eicken, CTO of RightScale, Inc., will be giving a session at SYS-CON's 'Cloud Computing Expo' (November 19-21, 2008) - a groundbreaking adjunct to the 4th International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA.

Cloud Computing: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cloud

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:00:00 EDT

There have been multiple white papers and articles written by analysts - Is Cloud Computing Ready for the Enterprise? The question is asked so many times now - Is Cloud Computing ready for the enterprise? So, I have to ask - Is the enterprise ready for Cloud Computing? I’ll start this discourse with a few PC and sincere comments (the two are not mutually exclusive unless one is running for political office).

Use of Ruby on Rails and Amazon-Based Cloud Computing Facilitated Market Delivery

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:25:00 EDT

Intridea announced that VisualCV has successfully integrated Intridea’s MediaPlug media appliance server with its software for building, sharing and managing Internet resumes. As a result, VisualCV customers can create media-rich resumes, called “VisualCVs,” that include photos, audio, video and more. Because MediaPlug utilizes cloud computing via Amazon Web Services, VisualCV is spared the typical cost and hardware requirements to manage and store data-intensive media files.

Morph Labs Hosts DB2 Express-C Database "In the Cloud"

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:05:00 EDT

Morph Labs has been selected to support the global "Search for the XML Superstar" contest sponsored by IBM and the International DB2 User Group (IDUG). Morph Labs will provide an online version of the IBM DB2 Express-C database server and an associated web application interface to allow contestants from around the world to take part in the competition easily.

MuseWorx Leverages Cloud Computing

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:54:00 EDT

MuseWorx announced the public launch of the MuseWorx Marketing Operating System, a marketing automation system to leverage cloud computing to support the entire marketing ecosystem of corporate marketers, agencies, and service providers. MuseWorx simplifies marketing by providing a highly affordable solution that integrates best-of-breed automation tools, resource partners and a collaboration and digital asset management system capable of handling unlimited data, rich media files and users.

Creating a Common Cloud Computing Reference API or Standard - Part Two

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:25:00 EDT

I'm not totally sold on the whether or not cloud computing is ready for a cloud standard just yet. What I do think we need is a reference implementation (Platform & Infrastructure) and common extensible API - "CloudVirt". This API may someday form the basis for a standard, but in the meantime gives us a uniform API to work against, so whether you're using Google App Engine or Force.com, GoGrid or EC2, Nirvanix or S3, you'll have a central point of programmatic contact.

Amazon’s Elastic Block Store Opens Up S3 and The Cloud

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 06:00:00 EDT

Cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon are putting out the technology that the enterprise and SaaS providers need to move beyond testing the waters and take advantage of the Cloud today. The latest, and most important from the data storage perspective, is Amazon’s Elastic Block Store, or EBS.

Cloud Computing: Creating a Generic (Internal) Cloud Architecture

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:30:00 EDT

I've been taken aback lately by the tacit assumption that cloud-like (IaaS and PaaS) services have to be provided by folks like Amazon, Terremark and others. It's as if these providers do some black magic that enterprises can't touch or replicate. However, history has taught the IT industry that what starts in the external domain eventually makes its way into the enterprise, and vice-versa.

SYS-CON.TV: View "Virtualization Power Panel" Live from Times Square, NYC

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:20:00 EDT

Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, Egenera CTO Pete Manca, Allen Stewart, Group Manager, Windows Virtualization at Microsoft, and Brian Duckering, Sr. Director of Products and Alliances at Symantec were the top industry executives who joined Jeremy Geelan in the 4th Floor Reuters Studio overlooking Times Square for a special SYS-CON.TV 'Virtualization Power Panel' recorded on June 22, 2008, the day before the opening of SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo - which was held 23-24 June 2008 in New York City.

AJAX RIA Load Testing: Isomorphic and SOASTA Partner

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:30:00 EDT

Isomorphic Software and SOASTA announced a partnership that will give AJAX developers the ability to conduct in-cloud performance and scalability testing of applications built on the SmartClient AJAX RIA Platform for just a few hundred dollars.

Two Views of Virtualization: Does It Mean the End of the OS?

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 06:47:00 EDT

Does virtualization mean the end of the OS? There appear to be basically two views on how virtualization will affect the future development of operating systems and computing environments in the personal computing space. One camp believes that virtualization functionality will be present within the operating system. The other camp believes it will be outside the operating system, perhaps in the form of a hypervisor or thin virtualization layer that resides 'below' the OS and governs access to hardware.

Salesforce.com's Stock Drops 15%

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:45:00 EDT

Salesforce.com, the king of SaaS, reported Q2 earnings of $10 million, eight cents a share, nearly triple its results last year on revenues up 49% to $263.1 million. The strong results Wednesday were roughly in line with expectations but the company’s stock dropped 15%. Oppenheimer blames weaker-than-expected deferred revenues that hint of a “meaningful slowdown.”

RightScale Delivers Full Support for Amazon’s Elastic Block Store In the Cloud

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:30:00 EDT

RightScale announced full support for Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Elastic Block Store (EBS) cloud storage solution, providing immediate benefits of a virtually limitless storage area network for all RightScale users, directly from the RightScale Dashboard. RightScale customers, including users of its free developer edition, can utilize EBS with RightScale to manage and allocate one or more disk volumes from 1GB to 1TB each, maintain data availability even when virtual servers are shut down, and create backups via the snapshot feature.

Merrill Lynch Estimates "Cloud Computing" To Be $100 Billion Market

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 09:51:00 EDT

What do the following companies all have in common: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, EMC, VMware, IBM, Sun, Dell, Akamai, SalesForce.com, NetSuite, and Activision. Answer: Cloud Computing. Merrill Lynch analysts reckon that by 2011 the volume of cloud computing market opportunity will amount to $160BN, including $95BN in business and productivity apps (e-mail, office, CRM, etc.) and $65BN in online advertising.

Getting Your Groovy On with Grails and Cloud Computing

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 06:00:00 EDT

You need to think of cloud computing in three different layers - infrastructure, infrastructure management & platform as a service. At the infrastructure level you have the basis for cloud computing. This is where you'll find virtual servers or services like Amazon.com EC2. A level above the infrastructure layer you find companies that provide tools to help developers deal with managing their own systems running on top of the infrastructure layer. The third layer is Platform as a Service and is where Morph plays.

Cloud Computing: The SmugMug Approach to Using Amazon's EC2 and S3

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 06:00:00 EDT

Everyone knows that SmugMug is a heavy user of S3, storing well over half a petabyte of data (non-replicated) there. What you may not know is that EC2 provides a core part of our infrastructure, too. Thanks to Amazon, the software and hardware that processes all of your high-resolution photos and high-definition video is totally scalable without any human intervention. And when I say scalable, I mean both up and down, just the way it should be. Here's our approach in a nutshell...

Cloud Computing: It's the Future of Enterprise IT

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:50:00 EDT

We're still relatively early in the cloud computing hype cycle but I strongly believe that in the future, most if not all server-side software applications will be deployed in a cloud-computing-like manner. That is not to say that all applications will be run in one of exactly five global clouds. On the contrary, every enterprise will have one or more 'clouds' into which they deploy applications.

Cloud Computing vs. Grid Computing - What's the Difference?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:30:00 EDT

I always come back to this distinction between cloud and grid computing when people talk about 'in-house clouds.' It's easy to say 'ah, we'll just run some cloud management software on a bunch of machines,' but it's a completely different matter to uphold the premise of real-time resource availability. If you fail to provide resources when they are needed, the whole paradigm falls apart and users will start hoarding servers, allocating for peak usage instead of current usage, and so forth.

Cloud Computing Expo: How to Port an Application to EC2

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:15:00 EDT

There are a variety of notions to how cloud computing is defined. I tend to think that what this really boils down to is the ability to procure hardware or services that you wouldn’t normally have access to in a physical sense. Rather than buying 20 new servers, you can spin them up on-demand, and also dump them whenever you want. It’s the “utility” or “pay-as-you-go” model.

IBM Allows Clients to Access Services that Support Business Continuity from A Cloud Computing Environment

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:00:00 EDT

IBM announced it is investing US$300 million to construct 13 Business Resilience service delivery centers in 10 countries in 2008, increasing its ability to address surging demand from businesses and governments from around the world seeking to keep their operations safe from disruption. The massive infrastructure expansion is the largest of its kind and will permit IBM clients to access services that support business continuity for the first time from a cloud computing environment.