Todas las entradas hechas por Richard

Digital integration, Telecommunications Equipment, UltraEdge, Unified Communication, Voice over Internet Protocol

PCN Introduces UltraEdge VoIP System for Legacy Copper

PCN, the provider of connectivity solutions for legacy copper wiring today announces the introduction and availability of its UltraEdge™ system for rapid cost effective deployment of VoIP and Unified Communication data networks.

With a single Ethernet connection to access the Internet or outside data networks, the UltraEdge™ system requires limited IT knowledge for installation and enables access and transport for IP device connectivity at every edge. Using any grade copper the UltraEdge™ VoIP system easily interfaces to existing junction boxes, legacy PBX consoles, or other wiring infrastructure already in place.

Providing maximum capabilities and feature rich applications, the system is a true IP networked solution leveraging PCN’s high-performance 19” Rack Mount Multi-Channel Server (PCN3485-MCS4) for 10/100 IP transport to every UltraEdge™ module (PCN3485-SCC1) which enables access for VoIP enabled phones or other devices. Unlike media converters, each UltraEdge™ module is a true Ethernet switch where each end point has access for up to three Ethernet RJ45 ports.

Unlike DSL extenders and converter technologies, the PCN UltraEdge™ solution is built on PCN’s patented “Dynamic Adaptive Channeling” data prioritization algorithms which run over 500 times per second in real time scanning, monitoring and managing the physical layer of legacy copper looking for anomalies and moving IP data to its most optimum spot on the wire. This not only provides 3X the noise immunity of DSL, but enables distance stretching. When combined together this not only allows more reliability and robustness of your VoIP system, but provides access to IP at distances up to 1500 feet and far greater than other solutions.

Across the world there is an abundance of legacy copper that is unusable for IP enabled Ethernet systems and where running new structured cabling is either too expensive, or requires significant shut down and disruption to business operations. This is true for government buildings, hospitals, historic buildings, factories, college campuses and office buildings that have Cat-3 or older wiring.

“PCN provides its UltraEdge™ VoIP and Unified Communication systems and services largely to qualified network providers, system integrators, and large enterprise customers. They continue to tell us they need a solution that not only solves the IP integration problem across legacy copper for any wiring topology, but one that also allows them to continue using existing analog and digital solutions until their entire IP migration is complete. The PCN UltraEdge™ system does just that,” stated Jeff Davis, VP of Sales for PCN.

Without having to run any new structured cabling, the UltraEdge™ system allows owners and integrators to instantly leverage and take advantage of legacy wiring as if their facility was just wired with new Cat 5/6 cabling.

The UltraEdge™ VoIP system supports high-speed 10/100Base-T Ethernet-on-Demand™ across any grade copper wiring topology. This includes multi-drop, daisy chain, point to point and others allowing access in the far reaches of a building or installation.

Davis also commented, “Customers love the fact that they can easily install the multi-channel router at their old PBX locations or at other junction wiring; and then simply drop a plug-and-play UltraEdge™ module anywhere to have immediate access to high-bandwidth VoIP networks.”

The UltraEdge™ VoIP system supports third party standard Layer 2 and Layer 3 Ethernet switching, QoS and a variety of network security features including port security, multi-level passwords, DoD protections, SSH and SSL for encryption. When combined with PCN’s physical layer technologies the result is a comprehensive VoIP and Unified Communications system that is more reliable, more robust and one that goes further.


AppFog, Big Data, Garantia Data, Heroku, NoSQL, Redis, Redis Cloud

Garantia Brings Redis Cloud to Heroku, AppFog, AppHarbor

Garantia Data, a provider of in-memory NoSQL cloud services, today announced the availability of its Redis Cloud database hosting service on Heroku, AppFog and AppHarbor platforms over AWS. Garantia Data’s new Redis Cloud add-ons will provide the hundreds of thousands of developers who run their applications on these platforms with an infinitely scalable, highly available, high-performance and zero-management Redis solution in just one click.

Used by both enterprise developers and cutting-edge start-ups, Redis is an open source, RAM-based, key-value memory store that provides significant value in a wide range of important use cases. Garantia Data’s Redis Cloud is a fully-automated service for running Redis on the cloud – completely freeing developers from dealing with nodes,clusters, scaling, data-persistence configuration and failure recovery.

“Redis Cloud has been running in a private beta on Amazon EC2 since January and in a free, public beta since June, and we survived several node failures and three AWS outages without losing any customer data,” said Ofer Bengal, CEO of Garantia Data. “After successfully navigating these events, we are now 100 percent confident that our service is fully reliable and ready for PaaS environments. Heroku, AppFog and AppHarbor developers will now be able to enjoy the powerful benefits that our solution can bring to their critical databases, while gaining more time to focus on building the best possible applications.”

Redis Cloud is the only solution that scales seamlessly and infinitely, so a Redis dataset can grow to any size while supporting all Redis commands. It provides true high-availability, including instant failover with no human intervention. In addition, it runs a dataset on multiple CPUs and uses advanced techniques to maximize performance for any dataset size. Redis Cloud add-ons let developers create multiple databases in a single plan, each running in a dedicated process and in a non-blocking manner.

“We’re very excited to welcome Garantia Data to the AppFog ecosystem,” said Lucas Carlson, CEO and founder of AppFog. “Redis Cloud is exactly the sort of production, workload-ready service that our customers have been demanding. As huge fans of Redis, we feel that Redis Cloud’s robust performance and complete feature set makes it one of the best NoSQL DB-as-a-Service options out there. We can’t wait to see what developers create with Redis Cloud and AppFog!”

“We’re excited to welcome Garantia Data’s Redis Cloud into the AppHarbor add-on catalog,” said Michael Friis, co-founder of AppHarbor. “Redis is becoming a critical component for many .NET developers and is used by prominent .NET-powered web-properties like StackOverflow.

“We’ve seen Redis become an integral part of modern web applications, in part because of its amazing performance and flexibility,” said Glenn Gillen, Engineering Manager for Heroku Add-ons. “We’re excited to include Redis Cloud in the Heroku Add-ons marketplace so our customers can take advantage of its highly available and scalable solution in the quickest and simplest way possible.”

Garantia Data is currently offering the Redis Cloud free of charge to early adopters of its Heroku, AppFog and AppHarbor add-ons. The company will demonstrate the Redis Cloud and its new PaaS add-ons at Booth #332 duringAWS re: Invent, November 27-29 in Las Vegas.


EMEA, Rackspace, Venture Funding

Rackspace Launches UK Startup Programme to Fuel New British Businesses

Rackspace the open cloud company, announced plans to launch its Rackspace Startup Programme in 2013 to provide cloud computing resources to new businesses driving growth in the UK economy. With a global track record of partnering with premiere startup accelerators and incubators in the USA and Australia, the firm now broadens its focus to include the EMEA region aiming to help power thousands of UK startups to success.

“Since launching in the US two years ago, we’ve helped over 850 startups through the programme. We’ve also worked with over 100 programme partners, including some of the top accelerators, universities, co-working spaces and VCs, and we are thrilled to launch the UK startup programme,” said Taylor Rhodes, Managing Director, International at Rackspace.

Given the cloud model’s inherent flexibility and elasticity, the fact that it requires minimal capital expenditure up front, and its unmatched ability to scale, it’s an essential differentiator for many fast growth businesses. In 2009, nearly 250,000 VAT registered businesses started in the UK*. This highlights the vast number of startups that could potentially benefit from cloud services, if they aren’t already.

Starting as a ten man entrepreneurial venture itself back in 1998, Rackspace recognises the need to provide fledgling businesses harbouring great potential the enabling technologies for growth and commercial success. The Rackspace Startup Programme therefore exists to provide low cost cloud hosting and support services to startup incubators who have identified cloud computing as a more efficient route to IT service delivery.

As a company that likes to refer to information technology as the “fifth business utility”, Rackspace views cloud computing as a means of democratising access to powerful IT resources at every tier of the business spectrum. As such, the Rackspace Startup Programme has been engineered from the outset to give incubators an unrivalled opportunity to drive startup firms towards development, expansion and commercial success.

“Cloud computing services are built around the principles of not only flexibility and scalability, but automation and self-service too as we serve customers’ needs from our local datacentres with additional service layers all backed up by our world-renowned Fanatical Support,” said Rhodes. “Bringing the power of our continuously available cloud services to the dynamic world of startup business is, to be quite honest, really exciting. I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Rackspace unveiled its Startup Programme at a ‘Boost Your Start-Up’ networking event held in the heart of London’s Tech City on 20th November 2012. The event featured a panel discussion with some of the most prominent thought leaders in this space, moderated by Robert Scoble, the world’s pre-eminent blogger and evangelist on technology and start-ups. Moving forwards, Rackspace expects to work with high profile accelerators including DreamStake and Springboard, to ensure that businesses across the UK have access to its Startup Programme.

“With a multiplicity of extremely sensitive and highly fluid business factors to juggle, startups need an IT backbone built around maximum levels of elasticity, control and automation. We welcome Rackspace’s commitment to providing this through their cloud offering. The scalability in a pay-as-you-go model is essential for fast-growing businesses and will be a key business enabler for startups now and in the future,” said Sean Kane, Co-Founder, Springboard

Rackspace is also offering one start-up team the chance to win a trip to San Antonio, Texas, plus a 1-on-1 mentoring session with founder and Chairman, Graham Weston, while they’re there. Entrants must submit a pitch video for a start-up idea centred around cloud computing by December 14th for a chance to win. The winners will also receive £3,000.


Amazon Web Services, Google Apps, Research

Cloud Service Deal Stats Show Rapid Growth, Tripling Since 2010

Our friends at Cloudreach asked today if we had seen the Information Services Group’s recent report that said global IT services deals with a Cloud computing element have tripled since 2010 The report, which looks at more than 24,000 contract records, shows the number of IT deals featuring Cloud have doubled from nine per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent in 2012.It also suggests that private Cloud does not fully realise Cloud’s promise, whereas public Cloud offers great economies of scale.

Pontus Noren, director and co-founder of Cloudreach, a Google Apps and Amazon Web Services reseller, also commented, “This report demonstrates how Cloud computing is living up to the hype – it is one of the only areas in IT that is rapidly growing. Cloud’s continual growth can only be good for the global economy because it allows them to concentrate on core business activities, leaving behind traditional IT set-ups that involve purchasing and managing equipment, which can prove expensive and time consuming.

“I see future growth being unstoppable for Cloud computing. I have heard suggestions that in five years time, 50 per cent of emails will be cloud-based, whereas today that figure is just two per cent. A twenty five fold increase in five years is just explosive.

“It is also encouraging to see that public Cloud is preferred over private, as it offers a much more scalable and flexible solution.Largely unlimited data storage and universal access makes public Cloud an ideal option for many businesses, such as those with offices at more than one location, a mobile workforce, limited IT resources or rapidly evolving IT requirements. Firms can increase or decrease capacity as they need, and only pay for what they use.”


Lifeline, Research

UK Survey: Public Cloud Not Considered Safe Enough by 87 Per Cent of Businesses

City Lifeline, the central London colocation data centre, has found that private Cloud is the more popular choice for businesses, with 63 per cent choosing private over public. Although the results, which come from an on-stand survey carried out at this year’s IP Expo, also demonstrated a growing understanding of Cloud in general (only 4 per cent of businesses claimed not to understand it), 87 per cent felt that private was safer than public.

Roger Keenan, managing director at City Lifeline said, “With technology, security risks should always be considered, but they do not need to become obstacles. Our aim at this year’s IP Expo was to increase understanding of Cloud among businesses, so they can make the most of all it affords. Both public and private Cloud have merits, but security should not be a concern with either if you are working with a reputable provider”.

Although acceptance of the Cloud as a concept continues to increase, the Federal Cloud Computing Survey recently found that security was one of the top challenges facing businesses when they consider the Cloud. However, City Lifeline found that privacy and security issues surrounding the Cloud in general are quickly becoming a thing of the past, with only 37 per cent of respondents letting this stand in their way. 41 per cent of businesses believe there are no obstacles at all, so why is there such a discrepancy around public over private?


Chrome Web Store, Google Chrome, Messaging, Mobile phone, SMS

Bulletin Messenger VI Now Available as Chrome App

Bulletin.net has made its service, Bulletin Messenger VI, available through the Chrome Web Store from Google Chrome. Consumers are now able to access from the Chrome Web Store the cloud-based service that allows organizations large and small to easily send multiple SMS messages to communicate directly with their audiences globally.

Bulletin.net’s patented IP provides Conversational Message Threading (CMT), the backbone of Messenger VI. Users can organize, send and receive SMS messages from the convenience of their desktop, mobile device or web browser, and deliver their message directly to their audience where they are sure to receive it – on their mobile phone. Leveraging SMS communications is a cost-effective method to connect businesses with mobile customers around the globe.

“SMS is ubiquitous, almost spam-free, and boasts a 96% open rate. It is the single most effective form of what we call ‘conditioned response marketing,’” said Michael Messner, Director of Marketing. “Customers have been conditioned to immediately check and respond to text messages.”

“SMS represents a key channel for mobile marketing and strongly complements other business communication strategies,” said David Hayes, Australian Country Manager.


Authentication, Network security, Secure channel, Swivel, Swivel Secure

Swivel Secure Launches University Licensing in UK, North America

Tokenless authentication provider Swivel Secure today announced the launch of its university licensing scheme, which enables universities in both the UK and North America to secure their network infrastructures at a fraction of the typical costs, regardless of whether their data is stored in the cloud or on a virtual private network.

Under the terms of the scheme, Swivel Secure channel partners are able to offer free licences for Swivel’s tokenless authentication platform to a university’s student population, when full licences are purchased for staff members. The scheme enables budget conscious universities to add an additional level of security to their network infrastructure without the need for extensive additional investment.

In both markets, data and network security is a growing concern amongst university IT administrators. Compliance with strict data protection regulations, together with increasing demands from students to access the campus network from a range of different devices and applications, is creating a complex environment that is putting pressure on existing access controls. Additionally, many campuses are also looking to realise the cost savings offered by migrating to a cloud-based infrastructure, which raises fresh concerns about authenticating off-premise users of the campus network.

“Cloud is already an attractive cost saving option for universities and Microsoft’s recent offer of free university licences for Office 365 will undoubtedly encourage more campuses to adopt the model,” comments Chris Russell, VP Engineering at Swivel Secure. “But universities should tread carefully. The ubiquitous reuse of username and password combinations is a real threat to cloud security. Often, all a hacker needs to do is to obtain and reuse a student’s login details for, say, Facebook, in order to gain unauthorised access to the campus network.

“Universities need to be implementing an authentication solution that requires an additional piece of information so if a user’s password is compromised the network remains protected. Our new licensing scheme enables universities to secure their VPN or cloud-based infrastructures in this manner using the only tokenless authentication platform approved for the Microsoft Office 365 environment. Providing free licences to all students should put the technology within reach of most, if not all universities, even those working hard to contain additional costs.”

The Swivel authentication platform was first launched in 2003. It is now used by local government, the NHS, major global enterprises and hundreds of smaller businesses, in over 35 countries, to remotely access their business networks, virtual desktops and cloud-based applications. Offering the widest range of user deployment options according to Gartner, the Swivel authentication platform offers the choice of mobile apps, SMS and interactive voice response channels when full two-factor authentication is mandatory.


CCN, NetDNA, Tools

New NetDNA Platform Lets Developers Embed CDN Services Into Web Apps, Services

NetDNA today announced the NetDNA Acceleration Platform, a content delivery network (CDN) service that allows developers to embed web acceleration capabilities into their web services and applications.

The new platform redefines how deeply integrated CDN services can be in a web service or platform.  NetDNA Acceleration Platform gives web developers control over CDN provisioning either to resell CDN services to their customers through their apps, or for competitive advantage as extra site performance or a free customer feature.

Early customer Player.IO, a game developer network, uses the NetDNA Acceleration Platform as a part of its service, helping to make the games developed on its network faster and more successful.

WPEngine, a hassle-free and high-performance Word Press hosting service lets its customers that need performance add a CDN to their site using the self-managing control panel right from the WPEngine user interface. The service makes it easy for WPEngine to handle thousands of CDN zones in its platform.

The NetDNA Acceleration Platform leverages NetDNA’s worldwide network of edge servers and adds to that a new representational state transfer (REST) -based API for web application integration and a very powerful control panel that lets developers completely manage their services.

Demand for CDN services has skyrocketed with market analysts expecting 25 percent to 30 percent annual market growth between now and 2017.  That growth reflects how essential CDNs are becoming to most websites, helping to improve search engine optimization, customer satisfaction and e-commerce sales.

“Slow web performance is a significant pain point for websites and Internet businesses of all sizes.  With NetDNA Acceleration Platform, we are expanding the market for CDN services by enabling developers to pass on web acceleration to their customers,” said Chris Ueland, Co-Founder and President of NetDNA.  “Our goal is that CDN services become a widespread feature of web apps giving all Internet sites the capability to deliver optimal performance.”

The NetDNA Acceleration Platform control panel provides total self-management of all CDN-related services and features.  It can be accessed on computers or using iOS or Android tablets and smartphones.  The control panel allows self-management of all CDN functionality including instant zone creation, cache-setting adjustments, instant purge, CNAME manager and the ability to instantly set up an SSL service.

The REST API allows developers to create a plug-in that allows users to provision a new CDN with changes taking effect across the network in minutes

Developers can also use the REST API to build access to any feature or function found in the control panel into their apps or services.  The API includes functions to create, modify and delete zones, prime and purge cache files, list and update users and create all of the various reports.

To help ease integration, the NetDNA Acceleration Platform features a developer’s center (developer.netdna.com) with tools and sample code that developers can use to test drive their implementation and simplify their integration and testing of the CDN. The developer’s center features libraries for PERL, PhP, Microsoft .net, Python and Ruby on Rails.

NetDNA Acceleration Platform is available now.  Pricing depends on data volume, and starts at $800.


Dell, Gale Technologies, M&A Activity

Dell Acquires Gale Technologies

Dell today announced the acquisition of Gale Technologies, a provider of infrastructure automation software that allows organizations to streamline the deployment of on-premise and hybrid clouds for self-service access to infrastructure. Dell also announced the formation of its Enterprise Systems & Solutions organization focused on the delivery of converged and enterprise workload topologies and solutions in alignment with Dell’s Enterprise vision.

Gale Technologies helps customers turn discrete compute, network and storage components into integrated and highly-optimized application, virtual desktop infrastructure, and private cloud solutions featuring self-service and advanced automation. Gale Technologies’ solution provides a comprehensive management, automation and orchestration platform for simplifying end-to-end provisioning across heterogeneous infrastructures. Gale Technologies delivers automated physical and virtual resource allocation, preserves best practice enterprise infrastructure deployment through reusable templates, and masks that complexity from the end user to provide a valuable enterprise asset.

Gale Technologies’ solutions are complementary to Dell’s enterprise approach in that they provide cost-effective management and orchestration tools that are easy to deploy and customize in both homogeneous and heterogeneous IT environments. This approach allows customers to extend their current IT investments to capitalize on new IT models.


Business Processes, E2open

E2open Announces Availability of Next-Generation E2 Cloud Connectivity

E2open, a provider of cloud-based solutions for collaborative execution across global trading networks, today announced the availability of the newest version of E2 Cloud Connectivity, the foundation layer of the E2open Business Network.  With a next-generation open cloud interoperability model that fundamentally changes the way transactions and data are mapped between trading partners, E2 Cloud Connectivity reduces the time and the cost of ownership of trading partner connectivity.

“E2 Cloud Connectivity changes the economics of trading partner on-boarding,” said Lorenzo Martinelli, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, E2open. “One of the biggest challenges to rapid and cost-effective trading partner connectivity is the traditional practice of one-off, custom, point-to-point maps for transactions and data.  Working with some of the most complex supply chains, and hundreds of customer deployments, we have created a next-generation model that enriches our network content using open canonicals and cross-standard maps.”

For many companies, connecting trading partners is both expensive and time consuming, as the task of mapping data and transactions between companies creates a bottleneck. The latest version of E2 Cloud Connectivity brings industry-first productized maps that speeds data transformation across industry standards such as X12, EDIFACT, OAGIS and others, providing businesses with unparalleled open, cross-standard interoperability.

“Canonical messages reduce the number of transformation maps that an organization must create and manage — one of the most time-consuming activities in implementing interfaces”, said Benoit Lheureux, Vice President, Research, Gartner. “Consequently, their use significantly reduces interface development time and simplifies interface asset management.”

The latest version of E2open’s open network cloud connectivity includes the following new capabilities:

  • New Network Content: 20 OAGIS standards-based canonicals, 69 productized maps that support cross-standard interoperability with X12, EDIFACT and other industry standard formats.  For a list of available Network Content, see “Find a Message Guide” at businessnetwork.e2open.com/message-guides
  • New Software Functionality: Support of end-to-end interchange of a transaction across de-coupled productized maps and tools to develop and manage canonicals, productized maps, and map deviations.

“At OAGi, we are committed to building the open standards for mobile, cloud, business to business, and enterprise interoperability”, said David Connelly, CEO, Open Applications Group (www.oagi.org). “E2open’s use of product maps that interoperate with other industry standards and OAGIS-based canonicals addresses an untapped capability in the market.  This solution has the potential to accelerate trading partner connectivity across many industries.”