For the past several years as virtualization and cloud computing adoption has expanded, we have seen endless proof points in regards to the value these technologies and solutions bring to Opex and Capex savings. However, Cloud has yet to bring to life the agility and efficiency promised to the application teams.
In their General Session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Richa Dhanda, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VMware, and Murthy Mathiprakasam, Senior Product Marketing Manager at VMware, will provide concepts and solutions to allow leveraging the investment in the cloud technologies while offering up capabilities to the application teams that allow them to take advantage of the constructs of the cloud, hence empowering them to deliver more business value on top of IaaS. They will examine the different type of cloud applications, and new approaches to deploy applications, embed policies, monitor the applications and leverage the cloud elasticity.
Information Builders and 1010data Partner to Provide Big Data Analytics
Information Builders on Tuesday announced a new partnership with 1010data, Inc.. This partnership links Information Builders’ popular WebFOCUS BI and analytics platform to 1010data’s Big Data platform environment, improving customer analytics performance and reducing costs.
Many organizations are struggling to manage large sets of structured and unstructured data and to access this information in near real time regardless of its size or form. To help minimize these complexities and accelerate time to value of big data analytics, Information Builders and 1010data have joined forces to deliver a 1010data-exploitive version of WebFOCUS that takes advantage of 1010data’s unique analytic capabilities. Using WebFOCUS, customers are able to write queries, build analytical dashboards, and produce reports that perform at near native speeds and bypass the need for intermediate table setup or summarization, as required by other SQL-based business analytics tools.
Cloud9 Simplifies, Secures Sales Reporting
Cloud9 today announced Cloud9 Sales Reports and Dashboards.
Either scheduled and delivered automatically, or accessed on-line, Cloud9’s Sales Reports and Dashboards delivers a broad range of sales reports – including those reports that are difficult to get from the CRM system. Cloud9 delivers a library of pre-defined reports, or users can create any type of customized sales report or dashboard. Reports include a complete history of every bit of sales data a customer cares to track.
As part of the Cloud9 Sales Performance Suite, Sales Reports and Dashboards leverages the single data warehouse Cloud9 pulls from corporate CRM, financial and incentive compensation systems, as well as other data records to provide secure historical and operational reporting with frequent refreshes and snapshots.
“Reporting is regarded as a necessary evil by many sales teams,” said Jim Burleigh, chief executive officer of Cloud9. “It’s a cumbersome process of knitting together data from separate corporate systems, which requires hours of administrative and management time better spent on focusing on future deals. Cloud9 Sales Reports and Dashboards simplifies the reporting process to put the historical information sales leaders need to make the right decisions to identify risk in the pipeline and to deliver on the forecast.”
Cloud9 Sales Reports and Dashboards is built on the Cloud9 analytics platform and takes full advantage of Cloud9’s patent-pending technology for storing and analyzing the full history of data from multiple sources. Cloud9 Sales Reports and Dashboards incorporates Cloud9’s unique tools for seeing historical trends in sales data into a reporting product that provides the following capabilities:
- Pre-defined and customized sales reports: Saves time with a
comprehensive library of pre-defined reports and templates – leverage
Cloud9 to create any type of customized sales report and dashboard,
automatically. Distributes reports and dashboard to provide unified
sales intelligence and keep all stakeholders aligned. - Custom layouts and design: Provides simple but powerful design
capabilities including a rich component library and rule-based
formatting, so you can easily feature tables, charts, pivot tables,
graphics and custom formulas in sales reports and dashboards. Single
and multi-page dashboard reports offer unlimited custom layout
possibilities. - Visualization of historical and operational data: Illustrates
history, trends and patterns of success and failure to sales teams to
drive performance at all levels of the organization. Brings
information to life and turns it into actionable insight for business
decision-making with vivid data visualization, including a wide array
of graphical representations including column, line, pie, bar, area,
scatter, contour, doughnut, bubble, radar and embedded sparc lines in
both 2D and 3D. - Secure access to sales intelligence: Gives administrators
fine-grain control over security and sharing of sales reports and
dashboards to provide regulated, auditable cross-functional access for
anyone in the organization. Leverage powerful subscription management
capabilities for unlimited reports, users and schedules. Automatically
monitor report availability and adoption patterns.
Cloud9 will be demonstrating its Cloud9 Sales Reports and Dashboards as well as its full Sales Performance Suite at this year’s Dreamforce 2012 conference, being held Sept. 18 – 21 at Moscone Center North, South and West 747 Howard St., San Francisco, Booth No. 500.
For more information about the Cloud9 Sales Reports and Dashboards, please visit http://www.cloud9analytics.com/products/sales-reports-and-dashboards.
Evolve IP Acquires Managed Communications Provider IPiphany
Evolve IP today announced that it has acquired the assets of IPiphany, a managed communications provider headquartered outside of Chicago, in Rolling Meadows, Ill.
Since 2001, IPiphany has been delivering managed IT, voice, and data services to the Midwest marketplace, and the company’s complementary products will allow for seamless customer integration without service interruption. After migrating to Evolve IP’s award-winning virtual private cloud, IPiphany customers will gain access to new cloud services such as virtual private cloud infrastructure, hosted VDI, data back-up, and cloud-based unified communications.
“We’re pleased to acquire an organization that shares our vision of delivering integrated cloud services via a single provider,” says Thomas Gravina, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Co-Founder of Evolve IP. “We are actively looking to acquire companies like IPiphany, and will move quickly as opportunities present themselves.”
“Acquiring IPiphany will expand Evolve IP’s footprint by adding a local presence and heavy concentration of customers in the Midwest,” says Guy Fardone, COO and General Manager of Evolve IP. “We look to immediately and extensively grow this region with our award-winning cloud platform and product set.”
“We see this next step with Evolve IP as a major milestone in the company’s evolution,” says Pete Langas, President of IPiphany. “It will strengthen our ability to offer customers a best-in-class solution, while still allowing them to work with the same IPiphany team members they have come to trust. After migrating our services to Evolve IP’s award-winning virtual private cloud, customers will be on a platform that is directly owned and controlled by Evolve IP, providing them with greater stability, flexibility, and more services than ever before.”
For more information about Evolve IP’s suite of cloud services, visit www.EvolveIP.net. For more discussion about how cloud services can improve business, visit Cloud IQ.
APIs Interface With Cloud Expo Program
What are the major issues facing enterprise IT as they help propel cloud computing forward? I’ll make the assumption that cloud is not going to collapse in a heap some day as everyone returns to non-virtualized silo applications attached to dedicated resources. I’ll also assume that the uniform Big Switch to a third-party grid is not going to happen for 50 years.
With that in mind, I’m looking over the upcoming Cloud Expo program, and see a few things jump out at me: APIs, Big Data, security, and scaling, for starters. I’ll examine all these topics in the remaining weeks before the show. For now, here are three looks at the API issue:
Adam DuVander of ProgrammableWeb.com says “APIs are no longer a technical nice-to-have. Now APIs are a necessary business tool for startups to scale, much as Twitter and Facebook used theirs reach more users. With an API, business relationships become easier, because there’s a defined process waiting for a connection.”
Alistair Farquharson, CTO of SOA Software, says “We are in the midst of an API revolution. Countless major enterprises are opening up access to their core information systems, allowing innovative third party developers to build new business opportunities through collaboration and community. However, this remarkable movement puts pressure on IT to manage APIs.”
* Corey Scobie, VP Technology of SOA Software says, “The API Economy is here. Enterprises are making business applications available through APIs to drive business growth and expose new opportunities. APIs are becoming the primary way that businesses interact with their customers, reach new markets, and provide the global app development community with the tools to deliver innovative new business capabilities to customers.”
Autodesk, Jitterbit Partner for Cloud Access to Product Lifecycle Data
Autodesk, Inc. and Jitterbit have partnered to provide Autodesk PLM 360 the ability to integrate with on premise and cloud business applications. The relationship further strengthens Autodesk PLM 360’s position as the next generation cloud-based alternative for product lifecycle management.
Jitterbit’s cloud integration platform is a key component of a new suite of integration tools called Autodesk PLM 360 Connect, which helps customers to integrate their PLM and other cloud and enterprise business applications into one, seamless environment. The ability to easily move data across multiple systems further strengthens the value of Autodesk PLM 360, making the benefits of PLM available to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
“The combination of Autodesk PLM 360 and Jitterbit’s next generation cloud integration solutions allows companies of all sizes to realize a greater return on their technology investments in ERP, CRM or other proprietary business applications,” said George Gallegos, CEO at Jitterbit. “Companies will now have the ability to gather, analyze and utilize product or project data in a far more efficient manner than previously possible.”
“Autodesk PLM 360 Connect is a straightforward and cost-effective way to keep Autodesk PLM 360 tightly connected with data from other critical business systems,” said Buzz Kross, senior vice president, Design, Lifecycle and Simulation at Autodesk. “Jitterbit is a natural partner to match our nimble cloud-based approach. Our customers require integration that is powerful, quick, easy-to-use, and affordable.”
The combination of cloud-based PLM with a cloud-based enterprise application interface platform makes it easy for customers to map, build and manage an elegant integration solution in any application environment. Jitterbit’s intuitive graphical user interface means no software coding is required for integration. This “no coding” approach makes connections simple and easy to build and maintain for business analysts and administrators alike.
For additional information about the new suite of integration tools, Autodesk PLM 360 Connect, visit www.autodeskplm360.com.
Cloud Computing: Lenovo’s First Software Buy Is Cloud Of Course
Lenovo, the world’s second-largest PC vendor these days and pushing into tablets and phones, has made its very first software acquisition, picking an Indiana company called Stoneware that develops cloud solutions.
Lenovo has been reselling Stoneware’s widgetry for the last couple of years.
Terms weren’t disclosed but Lenovo said they weren’t material to its earnings.
Founded in 2000, Stoneware is supposed to be profitable and growing and should give Lenovo the ability to provide secure content across multiple devices in education and government.
Cloud-Based Font Solution Lets You Rent Your Typefaces
Monotype, a provider of typefaces, technology and expertise for creative applications and consumer devices, has introduced in beta its SkyFonts™ service, a revolutionary solution that expands creative freedom through cloud-based, rental access to fully functional fonts. Users are able to try thousands of fonts for free within any desktop application and rent selected fonts for as long as they’re needed.
“We believe customers will find SkyFonts to be very flexible, fluid and economical, with the ability to try fonts within actual jobs and then rent them for however long is necessary,” said Chris Roberts, vice president and general manager of Monotype’s e-commerce group. “Instead of the traditional approach of buying a perpetual license for a font that might be used only once for a single project, users now have the freedom to use any font for as long as they determine. SkyFonts has the potential to completely change the way people buy and use fonts.”
A video introduction of the SkyFonts service is available at www.skyfonts.com.
Based on patent-pending technology, SkyFonts consists of a system extension, which runs in the background of Macintosh® or Windows® machines to activate and deactivate OpenType® fonts downloaded from the SkyFonts portal. Users are able to see and select from thousands of Monotype® typefaces listed on the portal. More than 1,500 fonts from the company’s Monotype, Linotype®, ITC® and Bitstream® libraries are available during beta, with more fonts to be added over time. Rented fonts can sync automatically to up to five machines registered to a single SkyFonts account.
The SkyFonts service operates on a credit-based system, whereby credits are used to rent fonts on a daily or monthly basis. Users can also try fonts for free for five minutes. When the trial or rental period expires or if the fonts are not renewed, they’re removed automatically from the user’s system. Beta participants will receive credits free of charge that will expire at the conclusion of the beta, at which point SkyFonts credits will be available for purchase. Pricing information will be released in the coming months.
Gmail Support: When You Don’t Have Chat in Gmail
This is perhaps off topic but I wanted to post it for others to find when they have the same problem I did.
Problem: you can’t get chat to open in Gmail.
Even if the icon for it is showing, clicking it does nothing.
The icon, usually in the lower left of the page:
Google the problem and the best you will come up with is this page, which was no help to me.
Solution: close and reopen gmail. Then click the icon. BTW that can fix a lot of problems in gmail or calendar. I find both can responding after a few days of being open in Chrome for OS X.
Hybrid – The New Normal
Most of us are hybrids. I’m Hawaiian and Portuguese with a bit of English and old time Shogun. The mix is me. I bet you probably have some mix from your parents which makes you a hybrid. The U.S. has been called the melting pot due to all the different ethnicities that live here. I’ve got hybrid seeds for planting – my grass is a hybrid that contains 90% of the fescue and 10% bluegrass so bare spots grow back and also got some hybrid corn growing. With the drought this year, some farmers are using more drought resistant hybrid crops. There are hybrid cats, hybrid bicycles and of course, hybrid cars which has a 3% market share according to hybridcars.com. My favorite has always been SNL’s Shimmer Floor Wax – A Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping! Hybrid is the new normal.
Hybrid has even made it’s way into our IT terminology with hybrid cloud and hybrid infrastructures. There are Public Clouds, those cloud services that are available to the general public over the internet; Private (Internal or Corporate) Clouds, which provides cloud hosted services to an authorized group of people in a secure environment; Hybrid Clouds, which is a combo of at least one public cloud and one private cloud; and, what I think will become the norm, a Hybrid Infrastructure or Hybrid IT, where there is a full mix of in-house corporate resources, dedicated servers, virtual servers, cloud services and possibly leased raised floor – resources are located anywhere data can live, but not necessarily all-cloud.