If you had to pick a winning news, feature or blog headline to garner maximum reader interest and the widest potential industry relevance these days then how about trying… Open Source Mobile Touch-Based Social Chinese Clouds.
Of the eight words in this banner, we can probably say that seven of them (excluding perhaps ‘based’) encapsulate the bleeding and leading edge of the IT industry at this moment.
Keyword #1: China in your handset
Look at the facts, commercial Linux player Red Hat is pushing massively for cloud computing growth in China right now. Extolling the virtues of both its open source-based data processing and data storage capabilities; the firm is openly targeting a tripling of its current fiscal year revenues.
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Basware Launches Procurement Module for InvoiceReady
Basware has announced the availability of a procurement module to its InvoiceReady solution, to “deepen the benefits of fully electronic invoice handling to SMBs.”
Automated invoice handling improves SMB’s ability to manage cash flow across their organization. To address this, Basware designed InvoiceReady to be able to be configured rapidly, deployed quickly, scaled up and down based on business need, with users paying only for what they use. As a cloud-based service, it does not require complex integration, and allows the SMB to experience the benefits of electronic processing of invoice and purchase transactions without having to worry about managing the technical infrastructure.
With a controlled way of creating, reviewing and approving purchase requisitions before and after ordering SMBs are now able to gain visibility of indirect spend and gain greater control of purchases as well as future cash commitments within the company. The procurement module also includes matching functionality that links purchase orders and incoming invoices together, allowing businesses to manage cash flow visibility more efficiently and produce reliable audit trails of the invoices processing through the organization.
Cloud Computing: Asigra Backs Up All Data End-to-End Even in the Cloud
Asigra, the Toronto-based cloud Backup, Recovery and Restore (BURR) software provider, just unveiled Asigra Cloud Backup v12, a secure, single end-to-end data protection software suite that protects data across physical, virtualized and cloud operating environments.
It claims the widgetry is the first and only backup solution to back up all enterprise data into a single repository – that means physical and virtual environments, everything from servers and storage to desktops and on to endpoint devices – laptops, tablets and smartphones as well as databases, enterprise apps and cloud-based applications.
That means that users can rip out their myriad point solutions, simplifying their environments and their recovery processes.
Hurricane Sandy Uncovers Lack of Back-Up
Based on different reports of companies in New York still caught “off-guard” with their computer systems, it is hard to believe that corporate computer systems are down for some major companies – especially financial ones – and there are no redundant systems up-and-running.
What happened to adhering to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, where it clearly states you need to have both a back-up plan as well as redundant systems? Some IT executives should lose their jobs for poorly designed mission-critical information systems.
Did Your Cloud Get Blown Away?
It’s not Disaster Recovery 101, today it’s Business Continuity 101. There is a huge difference in how you design and configure your systems and network.
Note to all affected companies: If you experienced down-time in your systems, you have laid off the wrong people and kept the incompetents to manage your operations.
Disaster recovery is the old approach of “as the impending disaster looms, shut down all systems in an orderly fashion so that you can restore them in an orderly fashion when the disaster ends.” When the disaster is over, go back and restart all the systems to get the organization back up-and-running.
FairComs Newest c-treeACE Bridges SQL, NoSQL Worlds
FairCom today announced the tenth major edition of its cross-platform database technology, c-treeACE® V10, that introduces the industry’s first Relational Multi-Record Type support for seamless integration between relational and non-relational database worlds.
c-treeACE V10 also delivers features such as new Java interfaces, performance and scalability enhancements, additional platform support, and new replication models. With this latest version come significant performance gains including 30 percent faster transaction throughput, 60 percent faster SQL performance, 200 percent better replication throughput, and 26 percent faster read performance.
“The database market is growing substantially, yet there are many problems plaguing developers today: large data volumes; requirements to reduce data access time; data access requirements from a myriad of new locations, like mobile devices and the cloud; trickier integration; and decreasing budgets,” said Randal Hoff, FairCom’s VP of Engineering. “Engineers tell us they really need technology that enables them to work seamlessly within both the relational and non-relational worlds. In the past, they’ve felt forced to choose one or the other, when, in fact, they realize concrete benefits from both. Our newest c-treeACE gives them the flexibility to enjoy the best of both worlds: high performance data throughput levels that a NoSQL database can provide; and concurrent relational access for ease of data sharing with other parts of the enterprise, including cloud and mobile devices, all at a reasonable price point.”
For more than 30 years, FairCom has provided a unique model to enterprise database developers and ISVs not available from off-the-shelf databases. Its c-treeACE offers the highest levels of tailored configuration and control while simultaneously supporting a variety of non-relational API’s (e.g., ISAM, .NET, and JTDB) along with industry-standard relational API’s (e.g., SQL, JDBC, ODBC, PHP, Python, etc.) within the same application, over the same data. Enterprises such as Federal Express, Microsoft, NASA and Visa have used FairCom technology in mission-critical solutions.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50473561&lang=en
RAMP Announces MediaCloud Video Content Platform for SharePoint
RAMP announced today at the SharePoint Conference 2012 in Las Vegas the launch of MediaCloud™ for Microsoft® SharePoint®. RAMP’s MediaCloud for SharePoint combines RAMP’s award-winning solution for ingesting, indexing and publishing audio and video content with the largest enterprise content management platform in the world. Enterprise customers are now able to leverage SharePoint’s powerful collaboration and content management capabilities to publish, manage, and search audio and video content. Specific features of MediaCloud for SharePoint include:
- Secure, cloud-based storage, transcoding, tagging, and streaming of
video content to minimize IT complexity and cost. - Tight integration of video with SharePoint’s collaboration, content,
search, and social features to increase the exposure and value of
video across these core capabilities. - Comprehensive SharePoint web parts for integrated video search and
video player for easy deployment and publishing of video content
experiences. - Unique, patented technology to automate transcription and metadata
generation on video content. - Deep in-video search and interactive video playback, enhancing
discovery and engagement of video.
“Gartner has seen an explosion of interest from enterprises seeking to publish and manage video content as video becomes a ubiquitous form of communication,” according to Whit Andrews, Vice President at Garter Research. “The ability to leverage existing investments in collaboration and content management platforms such as Microsoft SharePoint is a critical factor in the ability to manage video at scale and cost effectively.”
“We are excited to build on our experience and success in managing large scale video requirements in the media industry to solve similar kinds of problems and opportunities now facing large enterprises,” said Tom Wilde, CEO RAMP. “Video is a complex and powerful medium, and our unique capabilities, combined with SharePoint’s expansive customer base give us a huge advantage in delivering value to a new set of customers.”
Intuit’s QuickBase Goes Mobile
QuickBase from Intuit Inc. now enables information workers to build and deploy QuickBase applications across tablets, smartphones and desktop computers.
QuickBase is a cloud platform that empowers do-it-yourself workers (DIYers) to create their own applications and solutions that improve productivity. It’s easy to use so anyone can create custom, collaborative business applications with no coding knowledge needed. DIYers have built more than 3 million QuickBase applications since the platform launched in 2002.
Intuit refreshed QuickBase to make it even easier to build and access apps with user experiences designed specifically for desktop computers, tablets and smartphones. A simplified design, enhanced search and reporting functionality, and a more intuitive navigation make QuickBase easier to learn and to use on desktop computers. A mobile version of QuickBase.com enables tablet users to create new or improve existing apps, and smartphone users to access their mobile business apps on the go.
A September 2012 survey from QuickBase found that information workers aren’t satisfied with today’s off-the-shelf options.
- 53 percent said they would build their own mobile app if they could do
so easily. - 33 percent of respondents said the mobile apps they’re using are not
currently meeting their needs. Nearly all (95 percent) said they
obtained their mobile apps from IT or purchased them from an online
app store. - 76 percent cited the inability to write code or lack of approval from
IT as reasons that would keep them from developing their own apps. - 40 percent would build apps that serve business management and
collaboration functions.
“The fast and accelerating pace of business today requires enterprise employees to work dynamically, solving problems as they surface, at times on the go,” said Allison Mnookin, vice president and general manager of Intuit QuickBase. “They need tools that are easy to use, collaborative and help their teams get their jobs done faster. They need applications that solve their teams’ unique workflows and that can flex, scale, and evolve as their needs morph.
“Mobile enterprise apps on the market today don’t meet these needs well; they either solve problems with a one-size-fits-all approach or require IT resources to develop expensive custom solutions.”
QuickBase solves this need by enabling DIYers to build applications once and deploy them across any desktop or mobile device. The QuickBase platform offers unique benefits that include:
- Empowering enterprise workers to build business apps on their own,
reducing the IT development backlog and reducing development cycles
from months to days. - Providing hundreds of templates that solve problems instantly and
jumpstart the solution for complex apps, making it easier to address
any business problem. - Offering robust permission controls to determine who accesses or edits
specific data or the application itself. - Making app development collaborative and iterative so teams can modify
their work to meet their evolving needs. - Interconnecting QuickBase apps to bring data together in one place,
improving productivity and the quality of business insights, while
reducing high costs associated with managing a patchwork of solutions
from different providers.
“Our business lives in QuickBase,” said Will Wieder, chief information officer of Ministry Health Care in Appleton, Wisc. “We manage everything from meeting agendas to plans to IT projects across thousands of QuickBase applications.
“It’s our personal Swiss Army knife. QuickBase prepares us to address the changing needs of our teams’ work with custom solutions. The new mobile capability helps traveling members of the team stay productive, especially those who have ditched their PCs in favor of iPads and other mobile devices.”in the United States and other countries.
No Time for a Petulant Oracle
Oracle was notable for its absence at the recent Cloud Expo in Santa Clara. Previously a headliner, the company may be threatened by the emergence and aggressive marketing of all of the Openstack folks, if I’m reading between the lines properly.
Oracle is widely reviled – and I don’t think that’s too strong a word – by open-source vendors and others in the cloud industry for its alleged cloudwashing activities. Who hasn’t chortled at the famous clip of Larry Ellison mocking cloud a few years ago, only to watch him subsequently pour his company’s old wine into new cloudish bottles?
All kidding aside, this is no time for a petulant Oracle. All of the IT megavendors have made major moves to the cloud. Many of them have done it through OpenStack, including IBM, HP, Cisco, and Dell. Microsoft has gone directly into the hardware business with its Surface tablet as part of its strategy. SAP recently updated its Hana cloud-computing initiative.
Oracle’s cloud strategy, for better or worse, does and will have a big influence on the cloud-computing industry. This is the nature of a company that claims a locked-in presence at 98% of Fortune 500 companies. Whether its efforts are cynical, uncloudish, and anathemic to true innovation is a matter that should be available for as much public view as possible.
We are in the early stages of one of the great change cycles in the history of computing, and for one, I’d like to see Oracle competing openly (so to speak) as often as possible. It’s a pity I wasn’t able to do so while roaming the halls of the Santa Clara Convention Center last week.
Cloudwashing the Cloud Brokerage
Since ZapThink wrote our ZapFlash on Cloud Brokerages in April 2011, the Cloud Brokerage marketplace has exploded. Or at the very least, the noise level involving such Brokerages has reached a fever pitch, which the vendors in the space want you to think is the sound of an exploding market anyway. Regardless of your level of cynicism, however, there’s no question that Cloud Brokerages are a hot topic. But as with so many new markets, confusion reigns—in large part because such Brokerages come in so many different flavors. That being said, this market also suffers from rampant Cloudwashing, which refers to vendors (and service providers) who stick the “Cloud” label on existing offerings to take advantage of the Cloud hype. Let’s see if we can separate the steak from the sizzle and delineate how Cloud Brokerages are actually supposed to work.
Re-Distributed Computing
This morning, Chaucer, our relatively new Sheltie puppy, took off with my slippers. I found one lying in his favorite spot almost immediately, but the other had gone missing. I wandered about the house with one slipper in hand while he hid in his kennel, knowing I was angry but not quite understanding why. It made me ponder the state of computing today, and where we’re headed, because it made me ponder years ago with our last dog, doing exactly the same thing. One was a Shih Tzu, the other is a Sheltie, but puppies chew on slippers with rawhide ties, doesn’t matter the breed or how many years in between.