You are interested in cloud computing, but where do you start? How are vendors and companies defining cloud computing? Do you know the differences between public, private, community and hybrid clouds? What do you need to know to figure out which applications make sense in the cloud? And is any of this real today?
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Bill Zack, Cloud Architect with Slalom Consulting, explores a set of five patterns, based on real-world customer engagements, you can use for moving to the cloud. Avoiding the general product pitches, he will provide the tools and knowledge to help you more clearly understand moving your organization to the cloud.
Monthly Archives: June 2012
Dell Boomi Eases Cloud Integration with Summer 12 Release
Dell Boomi on Tuesday announced an improved cloud integration platform that helps organizations modernize, simplify and manage their changing IT environments. Dell Boomi AtomSphere Summer 12 expands application and data integration capabilities, enhances security and offers Boomi Assure, crowd-sourced regression testing. According to Rick Nucci, General Manager, Dell Boomi, “AtomSphere Summer 12 release addresses the concerns that IT leaders face when it comes to application and data integration.”
Dell Boomi AtomSphere integrates applications and data in customers’ IT environments by acting as the connection between applications, whether they reside in the cloud or on-premise. The latest release of AtomSphere helps deliver predictable service levels for real-time data transfers in the cloud by reserving cloud resources. In addition, it provides a solution to manage their security policies with improved flexibility and governance.
Parallels Automation 5.4 Launches, Delivering Enterprise-Grade Hosted PBX, Microsoft® Lync and Microsoft® Hosted Exchange Capabilities
Additional features, including the new Parallels Web Presence Builder, are specifically designed for service providers to meet the growing demand for cloud services by small and medium businesses (SMBs)
We are excited to announce the general availability of Parallels Automation 5.4, the latest version of the most comprehensive hosting and cloud services delivery system used by hundreds of service providers worldwide, from the world’s largest telecom operators to top hosters and providers of vertical solutions.
Among the new cloud service delivery capabilities in Parallels Automation 5.4 is a suite of communications and collaboration features, including a full-featured virtual PBX enablement solution for delivering hosted BroadSoft BroadWorks PBX and hosted Microsoft® Lync™ services. These features are designed specifically to meet the growing demands of small and medium businesses (SMBs) for hosted PBX and other cloud applications. According to Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™, the market for hosted communications and collaboration services experienced a 75% year-over-year growth in 2012, reaching $2.5B and is expected to carry a 35% CAGR through 2014.
The new hosted communications and collaboration capabilities in Parallels Automation 5.4 enables hosters of any size to launch much needed hosted PBX services, bundled with business email, instant messaging and other services. These services are suited to meet the communications needs of SMBs, whether they are replacing a legacy PBX system or moving to their very first PBX service. Parallels has also simplified the deployment of these services by partnering with best-in-breed providers to add flexibility and enhanced capabilities. Hosters can choose to integrate these services with their own BroadSoft Broadworks solution, or use wholesale services enabled by preferred partners Apptix, Alteva and Sipcom.
In addition, Parallels Automation 5.4 delivers hosted Microsoft Lync services, appealing to the 178 million employees of SMBs worldwide who seek to leverage cloud-based messaging, collaboration and unified communications across desktops, laptops and mobile devices. Microsoft Lync also includes built-in web and call conferencing support and is a natural upsell to those SMBs already utilizing Microsoft Exchange, either on-premises or in a hosted environment. Parallels Automation 5.4 also provides billing automation and provisioning of this and other hosted Microsoft services, while enabling additional application integration of other hosted third-party applications from leading ISVs.
“Parallels Automation continues to be a competitive differentiator for Apptix and a key reason why blue chip channel partners are turning to Apptix to drive their cloud success,” said Joy Nemitz, Chief Marketing Officer, Apptix. “It provides a single platform for provisioning, management, and billing of all of our Cloud services and allows us to beat our competitors to market with new services and capabilities into the market – such as Microsoft Lync.”
“Parallels Automation continues to be the platform of choice for service providers seeking to profit from the rapidly-growing opportunity for delivering cloud services to SMBs,” said Jack Zubarev, President of Parallels. “With the addition of hosted PBX, and Microsoft Lync, Parallels Automation is delivering even more opportunities for service providers to meet the diverse needs of SMBs.”
In addition to the Hosted PBX and Microsoft Lync capabilities, Parallels Automation 5.4 also delivers number of enhancements, including:
- • Updated Control Panel – Parallels Automation has an entirely refreshed end-user control panel. Many scenarios have been optimized based on customer input and the look and feel has been unified with Parallels Plesk Panel to offer a common interface throughout all Parallels control panels. These and other new self-service features make Parallels Automation more efficient for both the service provider and their end-user customers.
- • New Parallels Web Presence Builder – As the worldwide market for Web presence is expected to grow to $12.6 billion by 20141, hosters continue to seek ways to capitalize on this growing market, to differentiate their offers and grow their service revenue. The new Parallels Web Presence Builder features prebuilt site templates with customized text for more than 75 different industries – enabling SMBs to set up a complete, professional-looking website in record time. Parallels Web Presence Builder also enables users to easily customize website content, integrate it with Facebook, and let visitors share content on popular social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn.
- • Parallels Windows Provisioning Engine (WPE) – As Microsoft has wound down its Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) solution, service providers will have to find a new platform to deliver hosted and syndicated Microsoft Exchange and other tools. Parallels Automation 5.4 is a leading Microsoft-certified solution that allows service providers to migrate their customers from HMC to future hosted e-mail and other applications. This includes Hosted Exchange 2010 SP2 services via Parallels WPE, which enables the migration from older Exchange versions.
The market continues to take notice of Parallels momentum. In a recently published report, technology industry research firm IDC states, “Given Parallels’ current base of 5,000 partners/customers in the SMB IT channel (hosting providers, resellers, and integrators) and market penetration of the Parallels Plesk Panel product (50% market share in the control panel segment), IDC believes that the company is well positioned to establish an up-the-stack presence in the service delivery/enablement platforms of SMB cloud IT supply chain participants.”2 The full IDC report is available for download from Parallels Web site at: http://bit.ly/yt6kg7
For more information on Parallels Automation, visit: http://www.parallels.com/products/automation/
1 Parallels SMB Cloud Insights, 2012
Oracle to Buy Collective Intellect
Oracle has signed the papers to buy Collective Intellect, a Boulder, Colorado cloud-based analytics outfit that attempts to wring meaning from consumer conversations on social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
The widgetry is supposed to divine customers’ intentions and interests, track trends, create better marketing campaigns, products and customer service and result in more targeted leads.
Collective Intellect claims CNBC, Viacom Media Networks, Hallmark, PepsiCo, Nestle Purina Pet Foods and General Mills as clients. Apparently it predicted that a major discount retailer wouldn’t meet its sales projections over Black Friday and Cyber Monday based on consumer purchasing intent for CNBC News.
Its semantic analytics engine is said to process tens of millions of conversations a day.
Oracle to Buy Collective Intellect
Oracle has signed the papers to buy Collective Intellect, a Boulder, Colorado cloud-based analytics outfit that attempts to wring meaning from consumer conversations on social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
The widgetry is supposed to divine customers’ intentions and interests, track trends, create better marketing campaigns, products and customer service and result in more targeted leads.
Collective Intellect claims CNBC, Viacom Media Networks, Hallmark, PepsiCo, Nestle Purina Pet Foods and General Mills as clients. Apparently it predicted that a major discount retailer wouldn’t meet its sales projections over Black Friday and Cyber Monday based on consumer purchasing intent for CNBC News.
Its semantic analytics engine is said to process tens of millions of conversations a day.
C12G Launches the New OpenNebula Marketplace
C12G Labs has just announced the availability of the brand new OpenNebula Marketplace, a catalog of third-party virtual appliances ready to run in OpenNebula environments.
In the current version, users can download existing appliances from the public catalog and access specific information of the appliance configuration. Future work will be focused on providing new features that will enable users to share their own appliances and fully integrate the Marketplace with OpenNebula.
C12G Launches the New OpenNebula Marketplace
C12G Labs has just announced the availability of the brand new OpenNebula Marketplace, a catalog of third-party virtual appliances ready to run in OpenNebula environments.
In the current version, users can download existing appliances from the public catalog and access specific information of the appliance configuration. Future work will be focused on providing new features that will enable users to share their own appliances and fully integrate the Marketplace with OpenNebula.
OutSystems to Lead Sessions at Cloud Expo 2012 New York
OutSystems, provider of the industry-leading Agile Platform application development tool, announced on Tuesday the participation of two company executives at the Cloud Expo New York. OutSystems’ vice president and general manager, North America, Jeff Newlin, will join a CEO Power Panel to discuss “Cloud and Big Data Strategy Viewed Through the Lens of Business Value.” Additionally, OutSystems’ senior technology evangelist, Rodrigo Sousa Coutinho, will lead the session “Game Changers: How the Cloud and Mobile Are Improving Business.”
The 10th International Cloud Expo New York is the only enterprise IT event covering the entire scope of the cloud computing spectrum. Cloud computing is steadily becoming an integral part of the enterprise computing environment and the conference, taking place June 11-14, 2012 in New York City, NY, will bring together the leading cloud industry players in the world to discuss trends and strategies.
BYOD, CISPA, & Bacon Under Discussion in Special Podcast
The latest installment of a series of podcasts called RUN! is now available. The brainchild of StorSimple storage & cloud guru Marc Farley (@metafarley), RUN! focuses on how we use tech and what it does to us. EMC engineer Matthew Brender (@mjbrender) is also one of the RUN! Gang of Three.
The latest installment welcoms Emulex engineer Gabriel Chapman, aka @Bacon_Is_King. We discussed bacon, of course, as well as the BYOD phenomenon, relentless Congressional efforts to destroy the Internet, intellectual property, and J. Edgar Hoover for those more mature folks in the listening audience.
We have a lot of fun at RUN! Listen here.
Follow me on Twitter
BigDataExpo New York Speaker Profile: David Lucas – GCE
With BigDataExpo 2012 New York (www.BigDataExpo.net), co-located with 10th Cloud Expo, now less than a away, what better time to remind you in greater detail of the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference…?
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else have they written and/or said about the Cloud that is transforming the world of Enterprise IT, side by side with the exploding use of enterprise Big Data – processed in the Cloud – to drive value for businesses…?