All posts by Richard

Android, Heroku, JQuery Mobile, Mobile, Mobile device management, Parse

AnyPresence Updates Its Mobile BaaS

AnyPresence today announced the general availability of its fourth generation enterprise backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform solution. AnyPresence targets enterprises looking to solve the challenge of leveraging cloud backend services for mobile application development, by establishing scalable infrastructure that makes it easier to cost-effectively mobile-enable their business processes.

“AnyPresence continues to raise the bar for what to expect from an enterprise-class backend service platform”, said Anirban Chakrabarti, AnyPresence CEO and Co-founder. “Unlike other MBaaS solutions like Kinvey, StackMob, and Parse, AnyPresence was optimized for enterprise use cases, such as hybrid deployments and IT data source integration, from day one. Furthermore, because of our unique no lock-in architecture, CIOs can rest assured that AnyPresence can adapt to their existing development processes, resources, and IT infrastructure going forward.”

This latest release adds significant development accelerators and integration with best-of-breed technology partners, to further reduce enterprise app development costs and time-to-market. Among the list of enhancements delivered and already being used by customers are:

  • Application Cloning: For organizations looking to build multiple apps that have common core functionality with only minor variations, this powerful feature allows them to create a copy of an existing app along with all data source, object, and user interface definitions, saving significant development effort.
  • Automated App UI Testing: Developers who use AnyPresence to generate a starter mobile app user interface (UI), now get the added benefit of functional test scripts for native iOS, native Android, and jQuery Mobile web apps. These test scripts can be run to ensure the app is interacting with backend functionality as expected, saving time in testing and improving reliability.
  • Custom Server Extensions: While developers have always been able to add custom code to objects within AnyPresence, they can now create re-usable “Extensions” that can be shared across teams or lines of business. This also enables third parties to encapsulate their services as official AnyPresence Extensions, enabling a marketplace of add-ons that can be used across the AnyPresence customer base.
  • Enterprise App Store Integration: AnyPresence now supports the ability to deploy apps to employees directly via enterprise app stores powered by Mobile Application Management (MAM) or Mobile Device Management (MDM) vendors. Apperian EASE is first MAM partner solution to be integrated directly with the AnyPresence Designer.
  • Cloud Infrastructure Management: For the default cloud backend server deployment to Heroku, administrators can now control the performance characteristics of their app, and choose from hundreds of Heroku add-ons, directly from the AnyPresence Designer. This seamless integration enables developers to plan for the required capacity and usage of each individual backend server instance, and manage them from one central location.

Bitcoin, CDN, Cloud & IT Management, Content delivery network, Content Management, Electronic money, Payment

MaxCDN Now Accepting Bitcoin

NetDNA LLC, a content delivery network (CDN) provider, today announced that MaxCDN is the first CDN to accept payment via Bitcoin.

Bitcoin, a decentralized digital currency, enables instant peer-to-peer transactions, worldwide payments with low or zero processing fees. The community-driven software operates with no central authority – managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network.

“Developers are a core part of our customer base and have been requesting this payment model,” said Justin Dorfman of NetDNA. “We’re strong believers in open source and part of that commitment is being responsive to developer requests. Bitcoin as the emerging “coin of the realm” for this community and we’re excited at the opportunity to be accepting Bitcoins.”

Big Data, Mobile, Mobile device, Mobile network operator, SAP, SAP HANA

SAP Pilots Service to Unlock Value of Mobile Data

SAP today announced the SAP Consumer Insight 365 mobile service, a pilot initiative of a new cloud-based offering aiming to unlock the value of big data. The service will be powered by the SAP HANA platform and will allow enterprises to gain insight from the analysis of massive amounts of aggregated and anonymized consumer data residing in operator networks in real time. This market intelligence will ultimately allow brands to strengthen relationships with consumers through more targeted and context-specific marketing efforts.

“The rise of the always connected mobile world is creating a new source of data that has the potential to provide deeper insight into consumer behavior,” according to Guy Rolfe , global mobile practice leader at Kantar Mobile. ”The challenge is that this data is on a scale not seen before, therefore any service that can address this will create a new empirical data source that will not only complement existing research methodologies, but will also enable brands to better connect to consumers.”

There are more mobile devices in the world than there are people. The proliferation of mobile devices has significantly changed the way people communicate, live and engage with each other at work and in their personal lives. As more consumers get connected around the world through mobile devices, smartphones and the Internet, all of these interactions create massive amounts of data. The sheer volume and scale of this data has made analysis difficult.

With SAP Consumer Insight 365, data from operator networks will be analyzed through advanced analytics providing population level insight as well as high-definition detail through an intuitive Web portal, without drilling down into user-specific information. All mobile network operator data will be stored discreetly and individually partitioned within a global network of SAP data centers.

 

 

DigitalOcean, Referral marketing, Solid-state drive, Storage, TechStars

DigitalOcean Launches Incentivized Customer Referral Program

DigitalOcean, a New York-based cloud server and hosting provider has launched a commission-based customer referral program. The plan is accessible to registered DigitalOcean customers and will compensate them with a $10 commission for each newly acquired customer that totals $10 in billing. Registered users are provided with their own unique referral code link that allows them to track the customers they’ve brought in, as well as their commission totals.

Boasting over 190,000 Linux–based cloud servers launched since inception, DigitalOcean is a TechStars startup accelerator graduate. Each SSD “Droplet” — the company  term for its cloud servers — provides disk and network performance, coupled with the capability to easily migrate and resize existing Droplets with a single click.

“We love listening to our customers and our new referral program is one way we can give back,” says Ben Uretsky, CEO of DigitalOcean. “Referrals have been a huge driver of success for DigitalOcean. We want to give back to our loyal customers by rewarding them for continuing to spread the word and help our business grow.”

Additional cloud hosting plans include options ranging from the initial 512 MB of RAM starting at $5 per month, to a maximum of capacity of96 GB of RAM and 10 TB of bandwidth transfer.

Hewlett-Packard, HP Cloud Services, Information technology management, OpenStack, Partnerships, PZFlex, Saas, Tools, Weidlinger Associates

Weidlinger Launches PZFlexCloud 3D Virtual-Prototyping SaaS Using CliQr Technologies CloudCenter, HP Cloud

Weidlinger Associates, Inc., the developer of PZFlex, a 3D virtual-prototyping and wave-propagation analysis software, and CliQr Technologies announced the launch of PZFlexCloud on CliQr’s CloudCenter platform. PZFlexCloud extends the market reach and performance of PZFlex’s engineering software by exploiting the power, elasticity, and ubiquity of the cloud. Running on HP Cloud Services, HP’s public cloud, PZFlexCloud is offered as a professional service as well as an additional feature of the full PZFlex solution suite.

“Cloud computing’s almost infinite on-demand resources, with its utility billing model, combined with our PZFlex finite element analysis [FEA] software as a service, is a game changer for the scientific and engineering communities,” said Dr. Robert Banks, PZFlex director and senior associate at the Mountain View, California, office of global engineering firm Weidlinger Associates. “PZFlexCloud represents a step change in the way high-fidelity FEA solutions can be accessed by a broad set of users, from large enterprises to innovative departments and individuals.”

By taking advantage of the power and elasticity of cloud computing, PZFlexCloud will permit experienced users to realize unprecedented performance and flexibility of use. An accurate multi-run 3D simulation for piezoelectric and wave propagation analysis that traditionally took 32 days was recently completed with the CliQr platform and PZFlexCloud in just 14 hours, allowing for more test iterations and shorter analysis times. PZFlexCloud also makes advanced FEA available to a broader market. With CliQr and PZFlexCloud, new users who have had to compromise on functionality can now use the PZFlex suite on a pay-as-you-go basis without the costs and complexities of building and maintaining capital-intensive physical computing resources.

Dr. Banks added, “PZFlexCloud eliminates the longstanding trade-offs between advanced speed, functionality, and approachable economics. Customers can get simplified access and high-performance use of the PZFlex solution without having to design, build, or maintain their own information-technology infrastructure.”

Contributing to PZFlexCloud’s success, the CliQr Technologies CloudCenter platform simplifies the migration and runtime management of the PZFlex software suite without requiring any modification of the leading FEA software. With CliQr’s CloudCenter, PZFlex was able to benchmark the price and performance of their application across all possible cloud environments and determine where their offering could deliver the best value for their customers. Running on HP Cloud Services, PZFlexCloud makes it easy, powerful, and secure to perform complex FEA on the cloud.

“CliQr shares Weidlinger’s value and vision to make the most sophisticated cloud solutions approachable and manageable by the broadest user base,” said Gaurav Manglik, CEO and co-founder of CliQr Technologies. “CliQr understands that software vendors want to take advantage of the cloud while protecting the time and investments they have already made in their core offerings. CliQr provides a complete platform for businesses like Weidlinger and their PZFlex offering, looking for an integrated approach to commercially use the cloud and maintain the ability to flexibly adapt to future changes in the cloud-computing landscape.”

“Scientific and engineering communities are looking for ways to access 3D virtual-prototyping solutions without having to build and maintain their own physical infrastructure,” said Dan Baigent, senior director, Business Development, Cloud Services, HP. “Running on HP Cloud Services, PZFlexCloud provides users with the ability to access PZFlex in the cloud in one click, which leads to much shorter analysis time at much lower cost.”

Backup, Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity, Google, Google Apps, Partnerships, Spanning, Spanning Backup, Spanning Cloud Apps

Spanning Cloud Apps Launches Reseller Program for Spanning Backup

Spanning Cloud Apps, Inc., creators of Spanning Backup for Google Apps, has launched the Spanning Authorized Resellers Program.  Through the program, partners can provide their customers a product for protecting Google Apps data.

Spanning Backup provides backup and recovery of the complete Google Apps suite: Gmail, Drive, Sites, Calendar and Contacts.  The solution features a secure cloud-to-cloud environment for protecting Google Apps data and SSAE 16 Type II audited processes that ensure its integrity.  Spanning also provides constant monitoring of data backup, allowing administrators to correct issues before they become problems.

“We have designed a program that extends the value of reseller services, and brings together the key support pieces for their ongoing success,” said Jeff Erramouspe, chief revenue officer, Spanning.  “We’re excited to already be working with leading VARs and system integrators worldwide and look forward to expanding into new relationships.”

“As enterprises encounter obstacles in moving to the cloud, Spanning Backup provides a unique solution that solves the challenges facing our customers in North America, Europe and Asia,” said Doug Shepard, president of the Google Business Unit for Cloud Sherpas, the world’s largest cloud services brokerage and two-time Google Apps Global Partner of the Year.  “We look forward to a successful partnership with Spanning as we integrate their solution into an overall cloud strategy for our clients.”

Key features of the Spanning Authorized Reseller program include:

  • A discount structure with strong margins that gives reseller partners complete control over end-user pricing and a higher average revenue per user (ARPU); potential for increased ARPU by 60-80 percent over selling Google Apps alone
  • Lead referral and distribution of new business opportunities
  • A simple contracting process to get resellers into the market quickly and efficiently
  • Customized marketing programs for specific territories, market segments and business practices, including email marketing, webinars and other co-marketing activities

“We have found Spanning Backup to be an excellent platform for delivering value-added services to our clients,” said Rob Morgan, managing director for PIT Group in Wollongong, Australia.  “Managing data protection policies isn’t always easy and many of our customers contract with PIT Group to do that for them.  The Spanning program gave us the flexibility to bundle our services with Spanning Backup and deliver them both to our clients in one cost-effective package.”

Spanning has partners reselling Spanning Backup around the globe, including in North and South America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia/New Zealand.

ACID, Google, Google App Engine, Google Compute Engine, Google I/O, PHP, SQL

OK, Google, What Do I Need To Know About I/O Cloud Announcements?

With all the focus on Google Glass, new Maps features and Star Trek-ish conversations coming to Google Search everywhere (“OK Google…”) let’s not forget Google’s cloud computing moves:

Google Compute Engine – now available for everyone

New Compute Engine features:

  • Sub-hour billing charges for instances in one-minute increments with a ten-minute minimum, so you don’t pay for compute minutes that you don’t use
  • Shared-core instances provide smaller instance shapes for low-intensity workloads
  • Advanced Routing features help you create gateways and VPN servers, and enable you to build applications that span your local network and Google’s cloud
  • Large persistent disks support up to 10 terabytes per volume, which translates to 10X the industry standard

ISO 27001:2005 international security certification for Compute Engine, Google App Engine, and Google Cloud Storage.

Google App Engine adds PHP runtime

Google Cloud Datastore (AKA NoSQL)

Google Cloud Datastore is a fully managed and schemaless solution for storing non-relational data. Based on the popular App Engine High Replication Datastore, Cloud Datastore is a standalone service that features automatic scalability and high availability while still providing powerful capabilities such as ACID transactions, SQL-like queries, indexes and more.

You can catch today’s live streams for two Google Cloud talks, or watch recordings of yesterdays, here.

This time next  year we’ll probably just open up the Google home page, tap the mike, and ask, “OK, Google, what do I need to know about Google Cloud?”

Data center, Electric power, Hosting, James Glanz, Telecommunications Industry

Cloud Data Center Draw is Often Power

Interesting trend reported on by James Glanz of the New York Times. Ample access to electrical power is driving up data center rents across the river in New Jersey — to levels higher than the trophy skyscrapers in Manhattan.

…electrical capacity is often the central element of lease agreements, and space is secondary.

Read “Landlords Double As Energy Brokers”.

GigaSpace, HP Cloud Services, Open Source, OpenStack

GigaSpaces Launches Cloudify Player Service on HP OpenStack

GigaSpaces Technologies announced today the launch of the Cloudify Player, a new patent-based service that makes testing and deploying  complex, multi-tier big data applications like playing a video on YouTube. The new service currently supports OpenStack-based clouds and is available as a free online service from HP Cloud Services and GigaSpaces’ Cloudify. The source code for the service is also available as an open source project on Github. The Player was developed in collaboration with HP Cloud Services, GigaSpaces’ cloud partner and leading provider of OpenStack-based public cloud services.

Unlike many of the current online deployment tools, the Cloudify Player was designed as a lightweight widget that can be easily embedded in any external website using JavaScript embed code, similar to the way one would embed a YouTube video.

The lightweight design makes the Cloudify Player a classic tool for open source projects and ISV’s such as NoSQL database providers, (e.g. Couchbase, ElasticSearch, MongoDB and Cassandra), as well as web framework owners such as the Play Framework, NodeJS, or even complete web platforms like Redmine or Drupal. These providers can use the Player as a tool for launching their product on the cloud from within their own website, personalizing the Player with their own logo and brand. The Player allows vendors to offer a single-click, hassle-free deployment experience for users who want to test drive their product. As the widget is based on Cloudify and Chef, users will have a streamlined experience from a simple trial to a full production environment on a public or private cloud of their choice, all using the same tool.

“With the Cloudify player, Couchbase users can instantly launch a full-blown Couchbase instance on the cloud and give it a test drive, without going through the usual download-configure-install cycle”, said Dipti Borkar, Couchbase Director of Product Management. “This can lower the barrier for new users as they evaluate our technology, and can help existing users to evaluate new Couchbase releases without needing to upgrade their already existing installation”.

Prior to the joint development of the Player, GigaSpaces worked with HP using Cloudify to enable on-boarding of enterprise applications to HPCS.

Cloudify users can also use the new Player to easily experiment with and test new tools online without downloading or installing Cloudify.

“One of the biggest challenges in managing applications in the cloud is keeping the right balance between control and convenience,” said Uri Cohen, VP Product Management at GigaSpaces.  “We have focused on making Cloudify the most open framework for deploying any application on any cloud, while also keeping the user in control over the environment, the stack and the cloud of choice. With the new Cloudify Player we provide both full control and convenience at a level that was previously unattainable, through a streamlined experience from a simple trial to full production deployment.”