Cloud Computing: Greenplum Buys Israeli Outfit

EMC’s Greenplum Division, which is about to move into EMC and VMware’s new Pivotal Initiative operation, just bought six-year-old More IT Resources Ltd, a privately held Israeli developer whose MoreVRP database control and monitoring platform will be “immediately” integrated with its Big Data analytics widgetry.
Terms were not disclosed but Globes thinks it was between $10 million and $20 million.
Greenplum says More’s tools are monitoring billions of finance, telco, Internet and pharmaceutical transactions.

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Red Hat Delivers Now Supported by HP Virtualization VS2

Red Hat, Inc.  today announced that Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization is supported by HP VirtualSystem VS2. HP VirtualSystem VS2 is a new converged system reference architecture designed to speed virtualization software deployment while maximizing performance and scale as organizations move to cloud computing.

HP has offered Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization subscriptions and support services on HP ProLiant servers since the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 in January 2012. Consulting, education and implementation services for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization are also available through HP.

The HP VirtualSystem VS2 Reference Architecture for Red Hat is an enterprise-business, single-rack solution that is optimized for compute density. It is based on the HP BladeSystem C7000 Enclosure, HP ProLiant BL460c servers, HP 5800 Switch Series and HP LeftHand P4800 Storage for BladeSystem and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. The combined solution is designed to support hundreds of virtual machines, and provides a base set of extended configurations and sizing for typical workloads for deployment optimization.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, including the new 3.1 update, is available worldwide today from HP.

Terracotta CEO Predicts Big Data Trends for 2013

Big Data has been a hot topic throughout 2012. With 2013 fast approaching, we sat down with Terracotta CEO Robin Gilthorpe to get his predictions for the top trends that will drive Big Data activity in the coming year. His top five predictions, explained in detail in this video, are:
Big Data has to be fast data – Enterprises will profit from Big Data intelligence in proportion to how quickly they can act on it.
Rise of the hybrid cloud – It’s no longer about building your own platform; it’s more efficient to play in ecosystems.
CIOs and CMOs get a lot closer – Marketing spend on technology is about to eclipse IT spend on technology.
The Internet of things crosses the chasm – In just a few years, over 25 billion data-producing devices will be connected.
Social becomes part of life’s fabric – Remember e-business departments? Social will permeate in the same way.

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Completely Unscientific Hybrid Cloud Survey Results from Gartner DC 2012

Presenters asked, attendees responded, I compiled.
Of COURSE you know I have something to say about these results, particularly with respect to the definition of “cloud bridges” comprising a variety of features that are more properly distributed across cloud brokers and cloud gateways, but we’ll leave that for another day. Today, enjoy the data.

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Nutanix Fields Next-Gen Software-Defined Data Center Widgetry

Nutanix, a cloud hardware start-up that’s offering a hybrid scale-out compute-cum-storage appliance backed by $72 million in VC funding only half of which is reportedly spent, has put out next-generation software-defined data center products.
It’s updating its server hardware and its software to deal with divergent workloads. It’s going to a quad-node box made by Quanta and should be able to support 400 VMs per chassis, up from 300.
It’s got VM-centric disaster recovery, adaptive compression and a new highly configurable hardware platform. The widgetry includes Nutanix OS 3.0 and NX-3000 series hardware. It’s supposed to help enterprises build next-generation software-defined data centers.

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Cloud ERP is the next big thing in the cloud

By Sharon Florentine

The Cloud ERP (enterprise resource planning) landscape is expanding, and competition is heating up. Back in July 2012, Web-based business software provider NetSuite’s Q2 revenue and earnings numbers were the first indicators of a growing trend in the Cloud ERP space.

As Ben Kepes reported in the Cloud Ave blog, NetSuite’s subscription and support revenues were $61 million, a 27 percent increase of Q2 2011. And NetSuite’s cash flow from operations was up 80 percent year-over-year to $15.2 million.

Don’t yawn – yes, earnings reports in and of themselves aren’t exactly riveting. But as Kepes said, the trend that these numbers indicate signals a very important shift in the ERP space. 

Enterprise software isn’t “sexy,” but it continues to be a growth sector year-over-year, he said, because it’s directly monetisable – enterprise software companies deliver a service customers are very willing …

When is a stack not a stack? When it’s Unified in the cloud

While trawling the blogs, feeds and news I came across an analyst’s article about best security practices in which he kept referring to “the stack.” And by this he meant a multitude of various solutions that address certain security needs and capabilities; everything from email filtering, firewalling, authenticating, credentialing, logging and intrusion detection, etc…

And, if you read my blogs often enough, you know I am a big proponent of unified security. However, unified security is not a stack. It is easy to be confused as both look to utilize best of breed tools to prevent negative impact on IP assets. A stack references a number of technologies where each operates independently from one another. Single sign on by itself is a sufficient tool, but when operating alone in its own silo, important contextual information is lost.

The unified approach, as I describe in REACT, is a collaborative practice …

When is a stack not a stack? When it’s Unified in the cloud

While trawling the blogs, feeds and news I came across an analyst’s article about best security practices in which he kept referring to “the stack.” And by this he meant a multitude of various solutions that address certain security needs and capabilities; everything from email filtering, firewalling, authenticating, credentialing, logging and intrusion detection, etc…

And, if you read my blogs often enough, you know I am a big proponent of unified security. However, unified security is not a stack. It is easy to be confused as both look to utilize best of breed tools to prevent negative impact on IP assets. A stack references a number of technologies where each operates independently from one another. Single sign on by itself is a sufficient tool, but when operating alone in its own silo, important contextual information is lost.

The unified approach, as I describe in REACT, is a collaborative practice …

Cloud Computing: SAS Gets rPath’s Key Assets

Reports that rPath, the source code automation start-up founded in 2005 by ex-Red Hat technical folk, was looking for a buyer proved true.
Business analytics software shop SAS Institute has acquired its code and some of its staff expecting to expand its ability to automate and manage IT operations on multiple platforms and environments, including on-demand and in the private and public cloud.
It said it would better automate the set-up and management of SAS solutions in any virtual environment and is thought to give SAS a more direct path to support public, private and hybrid clouds than building the widgetry itself.

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