“Cloud has everything to do with what has happened with Big Data,” explained Jason Deck, Director of Strategic Alliances at Logicworks, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Big Data doesn’t exist in its easily accessible way without cloud. From reduced startup costs, to cheap storage, to fast processing, to adequate security, to the easy incorporation of third-party analytics tools, cloud made Big Data accessible to customers of all sizes, with all different budgets.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn’t about saving money, it is about saving time. – Agree or disagree?
Jason Deck: The move to cloud is not specifically about money or time. The real value of cloud computing is in giving a business the platform to create real operational agility, so an organization can focus economic and human resources on the most valuable parts of its business. Cloud does save time and it does save money but, above all, it provides a company with agility to respond to its competitors and test out new ideas with minimal risk, all while being certain sensitive data are secure and compliant.
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.
AWS GovCloud Meets FedRAMP Standard
Amazon Web Services said Tuesday that its GovCloud (US) in all US AWS regions has gotten an Agency Authority to Operate (ATO) from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) requirements at the moderate-impact level.
FedRAMP is a US government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services.
Since AWS has demonstrated it can meet FedRAMP’s security requirements, a wider range of government customers can use it to store, process and protect a diverse array of sensitive government data.
Cloud Expo New York: Is Your Organization ‘Cloud-Ready’?
Organizations across the world are increasingly starting to see the benefits of moving more and more services to the cloud. The focus on the cost-saving potential of cloud is rapidly shifting to completely transforming the business with cloud. As organizations are investing enormous sums on technology they are starting to realize that in order to maximize the return on investment and accelerate the business transformation process the first area of focus should be people. By ensuring the organization is ‘cloud-ready’ the organizational adoption will be much faster and much better. A workforce ready and eager to maximize the potential value and benefit will more readily embrace a cloud strategy.
How Cloud-Based Collaboration Boosts Performance
Online collaboration has evolved during the last decade, delivering even greater value — thanks to a new generation of business technology applications. Forbes Insights released “Collaborating in the Cloud,” a Cisco-sponsored study examining the ways business leaders increasingly look at cloud collaboration as a way to increase productivity, accelerate business results and enhance innovation across borders and functions.
The research combines a global survey of more than 500 executives with 15 executive interviews.
“The ability to collaborate in the cloud is becoming a key driver of competitive advantage,” says Bruce Rogers, Chief Insights Officer of Forbes Media. “Leading companies are doing more to foster cloud-based collaboration — not only internally, but also with an ever-wider swath of external groups including customers, suppliers, partners, and even regulators.” The benefits of cloud-based collaboration, Rogers continues, include “greater efficiency, organizational dexterity, and innovation,” to name only a few.
OpenStack New York Meetup Group Syncs Up with Cloud Expo New York
“Since Cloud Expo is running the week of June 10, we thought it’d be a great idea to schedule our Meetup this week. That way, if you have colleagues, friends, or family in town that week for the Expo, you can invite them to join you!” With those words, the OpenStack New York Meetup Group’s organizer’s launched a landing page this week where anyone interested can register for the June 12 evening event.
Adobe’s Out of Box Thinking and Into the Cloud
By Rob O’Shaughnessy, Software Licensing Specialist
I attended Adobe’s MAX conference in rainy, LA, California last week and I felt bad, as a local, that a lot of travelers had to witness our once a quarter rainfall, however with all the forest fires ranging around SoCal it was an unexpected relief. Adobe put some fires out on their own by providing some great insight as to what they are doing to the software community.
It was the first time that partners and Adobe sales team members were invited to this mostly technical event. The room was divided between the cool hipster “Creatives” and the button-up suit with no tie looking sales people. It was a 7th grade dance before the first slow song was played, but we were all there for the same purpose; to find out what’s going on with Creative Cloud.
So let’s backup if you haven’t heard of Creative Cloud. Several months ago Adobe began offering a subscription-based licensing model for their creative products. The Creative Cloud is essentially everything that’s included in the Creative Suite Master Collection. It’s a subscription-based licensing model which gives you all the Adobe creative products for a monthly fee. Like Creative Suite, it’s also an on-premise product so ultimately the big difference between the two boils down to how you want to purchase it – to subscribe to it or own it.
The biggest announcement at MAX was that moving forward Adobe will no longer provide future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products. Like Rocky, Creative Suite has ended at version 6, so moving forward if you wanted to obtain the latest and greatest technology and features you will need to move to the Creative Cloud. Also if you like box product, Adobe will no longer be offering shrink-wrap as well. Customer will now need to purchase a volume license or jump into the Cloud.
In my opinion this is a good thing, because as a Creative it’s important to be up to date with all the latest enhancements that Adobe provides as it will allow access to all the cutting edge technology instantly as it comes out, instead of waiting every 18 months for Adobe to compile a list of enhancements and release an upgrade. Plus the promo price till August 31st ($39.99 per month) is less than what I spend at the local pub, err I mean coffee shop.
If you’re interested in Creative Cloud and want to learn more about subscribing new users and co-terming future users, please fill out this form.
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.”
Dell Keeps a Toe in the OpenStack Camp
After trashing its public OpenStack cloud efforts Monday in favor of
reselling third-party widgetry – and reportedly canning workers in the 300-
man group according to TechCrunch – Dell folk who are left were anxious
to say that Dell is still in the private OpenStack game, pointing to another
press release put out Monday saying that Dell will enable Microsoft’s
Windows Server Hyper-V as a viable hypervisor on the OpenStack cloud
platform.
Disaster Recovery as a Service for VMware Users from TwinStrata
“Our cloud disaster recovery service enables VMware users to recovery data and applications seamlessly at a fraction of the cost, making disaster recovery, business continuity and compliance with recovery objectives and regulations attainable for nearly any organization,” said Nicos Vekiarides, CEO of TwinStrata, as TwinStrata today announced CloudArray Disaster Recovery as a Service (CloudArray DRaaS) for VMware users on-demand.