For years, IT departments have organized their processes, employees, and business relationships around owning and operating the core IT assets in an enterprise. The current wave of cloud services can have a powerful effect on enterprise IT, with the potential for significant cost savings and operational efficiencies. To achieve these benefits, IT departments will have to integrate new ways of thinking about how IT resources are delivered.
In his General Session at Cloud Expo New York, Scott Thomas, Vice President, Sales Engagement at Terremark, a Verizon Company, discusses the major factors driving cloud adoption for the enterprise, relating how the adoption of cloud technologies is changing the way IT departments will operate, and reviewing case studies showing how businesses have used cloud services to achieve these benefits.
2011: $6.9 Billion Invested in Cloud Startups
Venture capitalists are currently enamored with cloud-based startups, and are investing heavily in the cloud computing industry, according to a post on Cloudtimes.org.
According to statistics shared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, venture capitalists invested as much as $6.9 billion on “Internet-specific” startups in 2011 alone, with “Internet-specific” being a proxy term for “cloud” because that’s what most of them are doing. The $6.9 billion investment is a 68% increase from last year.
In Q4 alone, investments related to cloud amounted to $1.8 billion, which is above the $1.3 billion invested on biotech, and the $883 million invested into cleantech in the same year. It’s more than just the amount, anyway. The amount of deals is also increasing – VCs funded as many as 1,004 software startups related to the cloud last 2011.
Macheen Inc. Gets $10 Million for Connected Devices
Macheen Inc., a service provider for connected devices, has closed an additional $10 million in financing to build on its leadership position as an enabler of flexible cloud-based connectivity solutions. Philippe Vallée, representing GemVentures, will join Macheen’s Board of Directors as the company continues its drive to deliver greater choice for end-users and new monetization opportunities for device manufacturers, value-added resellers, network operators, and content and cloud service providers.
Macheen’s existing investors also participated in this new financing. Existing investors include North Bridge Venture Capital, which led last year’s Series B financing; and DFJ Mercury (a partner in the DFJ Global Network of venture funds, with over $7 billion in capital under management), which led Macheen’s Series A financing in 2010. Also among Macheen’s investment group are prominent angels and industry figures Tom Meredith, Mike Maples Sr. and Yechiam Yemini.
Richard Schwartz, Macheen’s President and CEO, commented, “We are thrilled to welcome GemVentures as an investor and Philippe Vallée as a board member. Philippe’s vast knowledge, experience, and relationships will be invaluable to Macheen as we continue to expand our cloud-based connectivity services platform.”
Philippe Vallée added, “Macheen is exemplary of the kind of company in which GemVentures tends to invest: at the forefront of an exciting new opportunity, management with a track record of success, and early momentum that underscores and validates its approach. Richard and his team are building the future connectivity model for devices and we are happy to support innovation in the mobile industry.”
Securadyne Systems Acquires Surveillance Specialties
Securadyne Systems, LLC and Pamlico Capital announced today that they have completed the acquisition of Surveillance Specialties, Ltd., a New England-based security systems integrator. The SURV acquisition is the second for Securadyne, which was founded in February 2012 in partnership with Pamlico.
“The acquisition of SURV, which enjoys a commanding market presence in New England, ideally complements our build-up strategy focusing on best-in-breed operating platforms,” explained Carey Boethel, President and CEO of Securadyne Systems. “The addition of SURV considerably expands our geographic reach and our ability to deliver high-end, fully integrated solutions in a number of key vertical markets,” Boethel added.
SURV was founded in 1986 as a covert surveillance company by Arthur and Joan Bourque. The company changed its business model to a full-service systems integrator in 1999. Since then, the company has achieved considerable and consistent growth, and has emerged as the top independently-owned and operated security systems integrator in New England. SURV currently has branch offices in Wilmington, MA and Portland, ME.
Arthur Bourque, President and CEO of SURV, stated “We were fortunate to have a number of viable strategic alternatives for our business, but it was clear that Securadyne represents the future of our industry and is the best possible fit for SURV’s employees, customers and shareholders. We’re very excited about joining the Securadyne team and the opportunities for growth that will be created by this partnership.”
Mr. Bourque will join Securadyne’s Board of Directors and be active in setting the business’s strategic direction and helping with future M&A activities. Justin Davis, Chief Operating Officer for SURV, will join the Securadyne Systems executive team and will be responsible for leading the company’s Northeast Region.
Stuart Christhilf, Principal at Pamlico, noted “We are excited to be partnering with Arthur, Justin and the SURV team, as their passion for integrity, quality service, and industry-leading technologies represent exactly what we are trying to build with Securadyne. We expect them to be valuable contributors as we look to expand the combined business going forward.”
Cloud Computing: Here Comes Microsoft’s Cloud OS & Trouble for VMware
Microsoft said it would push Windows Server 2012 out the door in early September and it did on Tuesday, after a year of public test builds. It positioned it as the “cornerstone” of its cloud strategy, its “Cloud OS” for private and hosted clouds and a building block for Windows Azure.
It said “the Cloud OS does what operating systems have always done: manage hardware and provide a platform for applications. But it also expands to include services and technologies that have not previously been considered part of an operating system.”
In the case of Windows Server, the 2012 model works independently and connects to 200 or so online services available through Azure, stuff like bursting or analytics.
Microsoft says the widgetry is “built from the cloud up.”
appMobi Offers Free Remote Debugging Tool for HTML5
Today appMobi added to its lineup of free and open source HTML5 development tools with the immediate availability of debugMobi, a free remote JavaScript debugging tool.
Until now, HTML and JavaScript have been difficult for developers to debug on mobile devices because of the closed environments of smartphone hardware and Web browser software. An open source tool called “Web Inspector Remote” (WEINRE) provides remote Web debugging for mobile devices, but it requires developers to configure and run their own servers in order to work.
debugMobi dramatically reduces the complexity of remote debugging on mobile devices with a configuration-free, hosted version of WEINRE that developers and mobile devices can tap into from anywhere on the Internet. Like all appMobi cloud services, debugMobi is hosted on the global Amazon AWS “cloud,” which offers dependable high performance all over the world.
debugMobi provides Web developers with a remote window into the target mobile device while the hybrid app or site is actually running. JavaScript and CSS variables can be examined, and JavaScript code can be viewed and modified on the desktop viewer in real time. Because debugMobi is hosted on the open Internet (as opposed to the more typical WiFi or Intranet hosting), debugMobi can be used to debug devices that are physically anywhere in the world – making it the first truly worldwide “remote” debugging tool for mobile HTML5.
This new HTML5 developer tool can be used by anyone who is developing Web-based code for mobile devices, including Web app developers, and hybrid app developers using appMobi or PhoneGap. debugMobi is available immediately at www.debugmobi.com. For developers who use the Google Chrome browser, it is also available as a Chrome extension.
Tenable Network Security Gets $50 Million for Vulnerability Management
Tenable Network Security, Inc., whose software identifies network security gaps before they are exploited by attackers, today announced $50 million in first-round funding from Accel Partners.
Tenable will use the funds to expand its innovative security offerings and accelerate global growth – while deepening its research into evolving threats that are becoming a critical trust issue for CEOs, regulators and customers worldwide.
“Security is a mainstream issue – especially with the explosion of mobile, cloud and virtual computing,” said Ron Gula, CEO of Tenable. “Serious network attacks are far more common than anyone wants to publicly admit – and our customers count on us to keep their networks safe.”
Tenable is the top choice for businesses of all sizes, governments and universities to manage network threats. The company’s flagship vulnerability management products, Nessus and SecurityCenter, are used by the most demanding security professionals and compliance auditors at 15,000 organizations worldwide, including:
- The entire U.S. Department of Defense, where Tenable has become the
vulnerability management standard - 12 of the 14 U.S. Federal Civilian Departments
- Top Financial Services Companies: Barclays, Deloitte, RBS, Morgan
Stanley, T. Rowe Price, Visa - Technology Leaders: Spotify, Dell, Etsy, Google, Intel, Microsoft,
Skype, Apple, Yahoo - Top Universities: Brown, Dartmouth, Michigan, Ohio State, Purdue
- Healthcare Leaders: Coventry, HealthSouth, Johnson & Johnson,
Merck, Scripps, Sutter Health - Key Energy Players: Chevron, Chesapeake Energy, ConocoPhillips,
ConEdison, Duke Energy, TXU - Retailer Innovators: Chipotle, GSI, Meijer, Diapers.com, Zappos.com
- Media Visionaries: British Sky Broadcasting, CBS, Comcast, Time
Warner, 20th Century Fox - Telecom Providers: Alcatel Lucent, Bell Canada, British Telecom,
Softbank Mobile, Verizon
Tenable’s user community has 1 million people who have learned the benefits of automated vulnerability scanning through their viral adoption of Nessus.
“Tenable is the thought leader in the rapidly growing and critical area of vulnerability assessment,” said Ping Li, General Partner at Accel, who will join Tenable’s board of directors. “IT security practitioners fight the constant battle to stay ahead of network attacks, and it’s only getting harder. Many of these practitioners globally rely on Tenable for their vulnerability management platform.”
Tenable’s SecurityCenter is the only security platform combining essential active and innovative passive vulnerability scanning, real-time network monitoring, and configuration and compliance management. Tenable’s Nessus, the industry’s most widely deployed vulnerability scanner, provides the deepest database of known vulnerabilities and compliance risks on the market today.
Netflix Open Sources its Eureka Load Balancing Tool for AWS
Netflix has moved its Eureka mid-tier load-balancing tool, formerly known as the Netflix Discovery Service, to open source.
From the Netflix announcement of the move:
Eureka is a REST based service that is primarily used in the AWS cloud for locating services for the purpose of load balancing and failover of middle-tier servers. We call this service, the Eureka Server. Eureka also comes with a java-based client component, the Eureka Client, which makes interactions with the service much easier. The client also has a built-in load balancer that does basic round-robin load balancing. At Netflix, a much more sophisticated load balancer wraps Eureka to provide weighted load balancing based on several factors like traffic, resource usage, error conditions etc to provide superior resiliency. We have previously referred to Eureka as the Netflix discovery service.
Racemi Announces Software-as-a-Service to Migrate Servers to Public Clouds
Racemi, the moving company for the cloud, announced that its Cloud Path software as a service is now generally available for migrating Windows and Linux server images to public clouds with no infrastructure to buy or maintain and no upfront costs or fees.
The fully-automated migration can be controlled from a web browser, with cost savings on average of $800 per server versus a manual migration to a public cloud provider, like Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Rackspace or Terremark.
In addition, Racemi Cloud Path’s zero-risk, pay-as-you-go licensing plan ensures that customers are only billed for successful migrations. There is no faster or lower risk way to migrate to the cloud.
“We’re taking ease of use to a new level for any administrator that wants to migrate existing physical or virtual workloads to a public cloud resource,” said James Strayer, vice president of product management at Racemi. “There is no need to rebuild from scratch or use templates and scripts, which saves administrators time and translates to significant cost savings versus migrating a server manually.”
Nebula Gets $25 Million for OpenStack Cloud Enabling
Nebula, the cloud systems company, has closed its Series B financing round, involving over $25M of additional equity and debt financing. The new round was led by Comcast Ventures, the venture capital arm of Comcast and NBCUniversal, with significant participation from Highland Capital Partners and included Kleiner Perkins, Innovation Endeavors and industry luminaries Andy Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton and Ram Shriram. Investors that participated include Harris Barton, William Hearst III, Scott McNealy and Maynard Webb. Additionally, Silicon Valley Bank is providing additional debt and credit facilities to the company.
“We’re delighted to have the support of investors who have such remarkable track records of success as we continue on our path to make on-premise private cloud computing a reality for all businesses,” said Chris C. Kemp, Nebula CEO and co-founder.
Nebula is now powering next-generation cloud infrastructures in market-leading biotech, financial services and media companies in a private beta program that began in March. This investment will allow Nebula to expand the number of companies that will be able to participate in the beta, continue to expand its product and engineering teams, build a petascale test system, and accelerate development and testing of its product.
“We invest in companies that innovate with open source projects and teams that are focused on creating game-changing disruption,” said Louis Toth, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures. “After spending several years looking at this market, we are confident that Nebula is the company that will bring private cloud infrastructure to the enterprise.”
Nebula, co-founded by former NASA CTO and OpenStack co-founder Chris C. Kemp, has assembled a team of more than 50 engineers inspired by the opportunity to pioneer a new era of enterprise computing. In addition to Dave Withers, former Dell Executive and Senior Vice President of Field Operations, and Jon Mittelhauser, Netscape co-founder and VP of Engineering, Nebula now employs four OpenStack project technical leads, and the engineers responsible for a large percentage of the code in OpenStack.
