SYS-CON Events announced today that Windstream, a leading provider of advanced network and cloud communications, has been named “Silver Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9–11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY.
Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN), a FORTUNE 500 and S&P 500 company, is a leading provider of advanced network communications, including cloud computing and managed services, to businesses nationwide. The company also offers broadband, phone and digital TV services to consumers primarily in rural areas.

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Verizon Enterprise Solutions is simplifying the cloud-purchasing experience for its clients, with the launch of Verizon Cloud Marketplace, a key foundational component of the company’s robust ecosystem of enterprise-class technologies. The online storefront will initially feature pre-built cloud-based services from AppDynamics, Hitachi Data Systems, Juniper Networks, PfSense and Tervela.
Available globally to enterprises using Verizon Cloud, Verizon Cloud Marketplace provides a one-stop shop for software-based cloud resources that are certified to operate in Verizon’s cloud environments. Designed to free clients’ IT staff from the time and effort required to configure, deploy and fine-tune applications, Verizon Cloud Marketplace helps enterprises speed innovation cycles with easy, predictable deployments of new cloud-based services and applications to enable operational transformation initiatives and optimize the digital experience.

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Leysin American School is an exclusive, private boarding school located in Leysin, Switzerland. Leysin selected an OpenStack-powered, private cloud as a service to manage multiple applications and provide development environments for students across the institution.
Seeking to meet rigid data sovereignty and data integrity requirements while offering flexible, on-demand cloud resources to users, Leysin identified OpenStack as the clear choice to round out the school’s cloud strategy. Additionally, the school sought a partner to provide OpenStack infrastructure deployment and operations expertise. They ultimately selected Blue Box’s Private Cloud as a Service, powered by OpenStack, leveraging Blue Box’s Zurich, Switzerland data center.
In his session at DevOps Summit, Myles Steinhauser, a Software Development Engineer at Blue Box Group, will discuss why they chose private cloud as a service powered by OpenStack and provide an overview of why this deployment option might be attractive to other educational institutions and companies that are hyper-focused on securing student, customer, patient or member data. He’ll also dive into the details of the deployment.

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ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ —  IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is bringing a greater level of control, security and flexibility to cloud-based application development and delivery with a single-tenant version of Bluemix, IBM’s platform-as-a-service. The new platform enables developers to build applications around their most sensitive data and deploy them in a dedicated cloud environment to help them capture the benefits of cloud while avoiding the compliance, regulatory and performance issues that are presented with public clouds.

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India defies simple explanations and solutions. Yet its government, newly energized under recently elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi, presented a Comprehensive Growth Strategy document at the recent G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia that includes a few sweeping general programs designed to contribute significantly to the G20’s stated goal of creating US$1.5 trillion in additional wealth within its membership.

It’s the sort of report that should have received more notice at a two-day summit that ended up focusing more on pesky geo-politics than its stated focus of economic and societal development.

Given is success over the past decade in building exported IT services and products to a level of $86 billion, India’s strategy as presented to the G20 outlines several programs that directly and indirectly involve the use of advanced information technology:

Development of 100 Smart Cities, comprising new satellites of major metropolitan areas an upgraded mid-sized cities, with more than $1 billion earmarked in the coming year
Expanding its Digital India program with an investment of about $80 million
Providing training in IT skills through its National Rural Internet and Technology Mission
Setting up a National Industrial Corridor Authority “with Smart Cities linked to transport connectivity, which will be a cornerstone of the strategy to drive India’s growth in manufacturing and urbanization.”
Create five more Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campuses
Create an “investor-friendly” eBiz platform and ecosystem, as well as a new e-Visa program at nine of its international airports
Allow new single-person companies to be created at a very low cost

Then there’s the “Make in India” program, which has identified 25 different sectors that encourage foreign investment. Those of us who still remember the closed India business environment from a generation ago cannot help but be impressed with how much the nation has changed, and is continuing to change, in this area.

The Make in India initiative promises a prompt response to investor inquiries. It also plans to reach domestic companies who have “leadership in innovation and new technology” for the purpose of “turning them into global champions. The focus will be on promoting green and advanced manufacturing.”

Challenges
Our research shows that India lags a bit in the dynamism of its IT infrastructure. This can be explained by an enormous population of 1.25 billion, with hundreds of millions still in poverty. The challenge is enormous.

Even so, India ranks 62nd out of the 103 nations we survey overall, ahead of Greece, Mexico, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Africa, and Nigeria, for example. In our Goldilocks measurement – calculated to see which nations are running too hot, too cold, or just right – India is running as optimally as any nation.

The overall challenge facing India’s leaders – a calculation we make by measuring instantaneous change integrated into population size – is huge, among the world’s top 10 and greater than the overall challenge facing Nigeria, for example.

The heat, noise, and traffic encountered in urban India can be paralyzing and demoralizing to both the relatively soft Western visitor and hardened native alike. India’s centralized government in northern New Delhi has been seen as a major impediment to growth, particularly among in the more-vibrant Mumbai and Pune, and southern technology centers such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai.

So a nice government document presented alongside other nice government documents from other big nations may not impress everyone. But we see progress and hope for the world’s largest democracy, and will keep tabs in particular on how the Make in India and Smart Cities programs play out.

As always, we are able to create deep, custom looks at our findings for India as with all the 103 nations we survey.

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Cloud Expo 2014 TV commercials will feature @ThingsExpo, which was launched in June, 2014 at New York City’s Javits Center as the largest ‘Internet of Things’ event in the world.

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When people think of mainframes, they typically envision ancient, obsolete technology running arcane spaghetti code – systems that IT management would love to retire if only they could free themselves from the clutches of legacy.

While there is an element of truth in this perspective, mainframes remain to this day the workhorse of core transaction processing within many industries. In many cases the technology in these systems is modern or even surprisingly cutting edge. Furthermore, retiring mainframes may not even appear on the long-term roadmap.

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The major cloud platforms defy a simple, side-by-side analysis. Each of the major IaaS public-cloud platforms offers their own unique strengths and functionality. Options for on-site private cloud are diverse as well, and must be designed and deployed while taking existing legacy architecture and infrastructure into account. Then the reality is that most enterprises are embarking on a hybrid cloud strategy and programs.

In this Power Panel at 15th Cloud Expo (http://www.CloudComputingExpo.com), moderated by Ashar Baig, Research Director, Cloud, at Gigaom Research, Nate Gordon, Director of Technology at Appcore; Ermanno Bonifazi, CEO & Founder of Solgenia; Paul Turner, CMO of Cloudian; Dave Peters, Manager of Systems Integration at Esri; Derek Tumulak, Vice President of Product Management at Vormetric; Roberto Medrano, Executive Vice President at SOA Software, discussed how enterprises should develop their processes for choosing the cloud option that truly fits what they need.

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It’s a clear message being heard across the industry – widespread adoption of cloud applications is only a matter of time. However, the tricky part for many is, how much time do organizations actually have to hold out? And why should they switch?
For starters – the cost savings are clear. Research has shown that most organizations rapidly realize significant cost savings that increase over time as they leave behind the array of indirect costs related to legacy on-premise software. A recent IDC study showed that cloud solutions offer an average payback period of 7.1 months and 5-year average ROI of 626 percent, a return few other investments can match.1 Debate over other issues of cloud computing versus on-premise implementations is making it difficult for many to ignore the bottom-line advantages of choosing cloud-based enterprise solutions.

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SYS-CON Events announced today that BigDataVendors has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 6th International Big Data Expo, which will take place on June 9–11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, and the 8th International Big Data Expo, which will take place on November 3–5, 2015, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

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