New Zealand commissioner offers cloudy advice for SMEs

The New Zealand Privacy Commissioner has released a document discussing data and security implications for companies moving to the cloud.

Even though the report looks at the relative basics of cloud computing from an enterprise perspective, the guidelines it recommends still make interesting reading.

The key tenet from the research was that nobody else except the user is ultimately responsible for the information they put in the cloud. “If there’s a privacy breach, you’re going to be the one answering questions about what went wrong,” the report notes.

Yet in terms of security, the report advocates that users be clear on the different elements of security and whose responsibility they are; the user’s or the provider’s.

Above all, however, the report advocates that if all goes wrong, check the contract and the SLA and perform due diligence on the cloud provider. This is particularly key for …

Mellanox Technologies to Exhibit at Cloud Expo New York

SYS-CON Events announced today that Mellanox Technologies, a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Mellanox Technologies is a leading supplier of end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage. Mellanox interconnect solutions increase data center efficiency by providing the highest throughput and lowest latency, delivering data faster to applications and unlocking system performance capability. Mellanox offers a choice of fast interconnect products: adapters, switches, software and silicon that accelerate application runtime and maximize business results for a wide range of markets including high performance computing, enterprise data centers, Web 2.0, cloud, storage and financial services.

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Getting Real with Ruby: Understanding the Benefits

Ruby is an advanced language for many programmers, but it’s a powerful language used to make dynamic interfaces on the web. Dynamic web hosting shouldn’t be taken lightly because security holes still exist. A good cloud web host will offer a safe environment for development while still offering scalability and usability for Ruby programming, testing and deployment.
Web applications can grow to several gigabytes. For newer Ruby developers, it’s helpful to have enough storage space for backups, so a backup can be made to support the deployed code changes. Ruby is an interpreted language, but a bug can still mean a lot of time and resources devoted to discovery and fixing. Instead of emergency code reviews, the developer can restore the old version of the application before troubleshooting bugs.

read more

Getting Real with Ruby: Understanding the Benefits

Ruby is an advanced language for many programmers, but it’s a powerful language used to make dynamic interfaces on the web. Dynamic web hosting shouldn’t be taken lightly because security holes still exist. A good cloud web host will offer a safe environment for development while still offering scalability and usability for Ruby programming, testing and deployment.
Web applications can grow to several gigabytes. For newer Ruby developers, it’s helpful to have enough storage space for backups, so a backup can be made to support the deployed code changes. Ruby is an interpreted language, but a bug can still mean a lot of time and resources devoted to discovery and fixing. Instead of emergency code reviews, the developer can restore the old version of the application before troubleshooting bugs.

read more

SoftLayer Partners with Startup Texas

SoftLayer Technologies on Monday announced that its Catalyst startup program will support member companies from Startup Texas, a branch of Startup America. These promising startups can take advantage of generous IT credits on the SoftLayer platform for one full year, and get executive mentorship and valuable insights into how to build and scale the next killer application or game.
“Catalyst is unique because as a former startup ourselves, we know what it takes to transform an idea or vision into a viable business,” commented Paul Ford, vice president of community development for SoftLayer. “Our entrepreneurial spirit runs through Catalyst, helping equip the next generation of web-savvy entrepreneurs with infrastructure and support that is critical for growth and success, especially in the early stages. That includes best-in-class hosted infrastructure, mentorship from SoftLayer’s Innovation Team and executives, and increased exposure through marketing initiatives.”

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Mellanox Expands Line of MetroX Long-Haul Interconnect Solutions

Mellanox Technologies on Monday announced the availability of new RDMA InfiniBand and Ethernet long-haul interconnect solutions as part of the company’s MetroX product line. MetroX products enable long-reach, high-throughput RDMA connectivity within and between data centers across multiple geographically distributed sites. MetroX enables IT managers to effectively connect remote data centers together, and provide faster disaster recovery and better utilization of remote storage or compute infrastructures.
“The need for long-haul InfiniBand and Ethernet with RDMA connectivity continues to grow,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of market development at Mellanox Technologies. “The MetroX series extends InfiniBand and Ethernet lossless RDMA beyond a single data center network location. Data center expansion or Disaster Recovery (DR) sites can now benefit from Mellanox’s fastest interconnect solutions with no performance degradation. Utilizing Mellanox high-throughput interconnect solutions, our customers are able to reduce their database recovery time from days to hours, and thus maintain their business continuity and gain a competitive edge.”

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F5 Aqcuires LineRate

F5 Networks, Inc. today announced that it has agreed to acquire LineRate Systems, a developer of software defined networking (SDN) services. Through this acquisition, F5 gains access to LineRate’s layer 7+ networking services technology, intellectual property, and engineering talent, further building on F5’s commitment to bring superior service agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers.

“F5’s vision is to enable application-layer SDN services for software defined data centers, providing our customers with unprecedented automation, orchestration, and control,” said Karl Triebes, EVP of Product Development and CTO at F5. “Extreme scale of applications, infrastructure, and services will be vital to SDN, core to F5, and the key to customers realizing the benefits of software defined data centers. LineRate’s programmable network capabilities and innovations in layer 7 will bolster our efforts to extend F5’s market leadership in these areas, and we are very pleased to welcome the LineRate team to F5.”

Critical to the success of SDN architectures are security, acceleration, optimization, and intelligent traffic management services at the application layer. Application-layer services will be vital to meet customers’ expectations of flexibility, scale, and performance, and to provide significant competitive advantages. The LineRate acquisition aligns with F5’s vision for application control plane architecture and goal of delivering application-layer SDN services to bring superior agility, application intelligence, and programmability to software defined data centers.

LineRate Systems, based near Boulder, Colorado, provides software that offers layer 7+ network services. LineRate’s software defined solution is an early-stage product, which will become an important part of F5’s broad range of development initiatives focused on software defined data centers.

“In order to reap the benefits of software defined data centers, programmable, scalable network services must be present throughout the entire network stack—up to the application layer,” said Manish Vachharajani, Co-Founder and Chief Software Architect at LineRate Systems. “We recognize that the SDN fabric may be good at layer 2-4, but ultimately customers care most about the applications. The LineRate team is excited to join F5 and looks forward to helping F5 accelerate development initiatives in this important market.”

A defining moment for SDN

As traditional, and even more modern, network architectures struggle to cope with more dynamic applications and services, another acronym has emerged as a possible answer to operators’ challenges. But ask ten different industry pundits what SDN (software defined networking) means and you will likely get ten different answers. At the time of writing, telecoms.com had just published a poll offering a variety of definitions, the clear leader of which was “other”—effectively meaning something else not on the list.

Ultimate Enhances Cloud People Management With Tablet, Smartphone Apps

Ultimate Software a cloud provider of people management solutions, today announced the delivery of global HCM enhancements, including new country localizations, and redesigned, multilingual tablet and smartphone solutions in its Fall/Winter 2012 release.

“Ultimate continues to extend its leadership for people management in the cloud for multinational businesses of all sizes. We’re increasing our commitment to serve global organizations by not only delivering additional global HCM enhancements, but also with an aggressive strategy to support country-specific requirements,” said Adam Rogers, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Ultimate Software. “As the largest cloud provider focused exclusively on HR, payroll, and talent management, Ultimate is committed to helping our customers manage their employee operations around the world with accurate employee master data in a single, comprehensive system of record.”

Sailthru Gets $19 Million for Smart Data Digital Brand Communications

Sailthru, a technology company specializing in digital brand experiences and communications, has announced a $19 million Series B investment led by Benchmark. Sailthru will use the investment to accelerate the growth of the company by increasing both staff and infrastructure and expanding the use of Smart Data™ by Fortune 500 companies. Sailthru joins Benchmark’s portfolio that currently includes other industry-leading companies such as Dropbox, Twitter, Instagram, Uber, Quora, Yelp and Zillow.

Sailthru’s Smart Data is leading a major shift in how companies engage with their customers through the automatic analysis of big data sets to generate informed, personalized communications across all digital channels. Unlike Big Data, which merely exists in a passive state and can often be overwhelming, Smart Data powers decisions. Sailthru’s Smart Data allows businesses to understand, predict, and engage each consumer on an individual level in real time. Sailthru’s clients are improving their ROI, customer time on-site and are seeing strong increases to customer lifetime value from their adoption of Smart Data.