After an initial sluggish start, where Microsoft Windows Azure was the only player, we started to see increased support for Platform as a Service from major vendors starting with VMware vFabric and Red Hat OpenShift.
However, there was still a void in the PaaS space as the major players IBM and Oracle initially did not announce any PaaS offering. Now the recent announcements from both Oracle and IBM have shown complete support for PaaS as the way to go for future enterprise application development. This is great news for enterprises to move forward. Let’s analyze the developer-friendly features of both the IBM and Oracle PaaS offerings.
Open Source, the Fuel for Cloud Disruption
Open source has proven to be a good option for building, managing, and delivering scalable infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) clouds. Typically, most open source cloud platforms support multiple virtualization technologies, giving enterprises a range of choices from multiple vendors of closed as well as open source technologies. Some examples are Eucalyptus, OpenStack, Cloud Foundry, OpenNebula, Red Hat OpenShift, Xen Cloud Platform Project (XCP), and the newest kid on the block, Citrix Cloudstack 3. While some apprehension still exists around open source use, there is a shift in attitude as enterprises look to capitalize on efficiency and technologies like virtualization and cloud computing as these become highly essential components in IT architecture.
OpenStack is a massively scalable cloud operating system that helps in the delivery and management of infrastructure. OpenStack is initiated by Rackspace and NASA, and is supported by almost 180 organizations, including Intel, Dell, Canonical, AMD, Cisco, HP, SUSE Linux, Red Hat, and IBM. It is a collaborative effort by thousands of developers and technologists globally aimed at helping SMBs, service providers, data centers, corporations and researchers roll out and leverage industry-grade public and private clouds.
AppNeta Acquires Tracelytics
AppNeta, provider of end-user-centric performance management solutions for business critical applications, today announced the acquisition of Tracelytics, an provider of full-stack, SaaS-delivered Application Performance Management (APM) solutions. With the addition of Tracelytics, AppNeta will deliver a SaaS portfolio that includes a broad suite of End-User Experience monitoring capabilities, innovative APM services built on full-stack application tracing technology, and unprecedented application-aware network performance insight.
“Tracelytics’ APM technology brings the next critical piece of the puzzle to our cloud SaaS environment and is setting a new standard for application performance management,” said Jim Melvin, CEO of AppNeta. “Their technology is a perfect companion to our network performance management solutions. Together we are providing unmatched insight to application and network operations teams that they do not have today. By coupling Tracelytics’ technology with our existing cloud services platform, we are accelerating time to value for our ever-increasing customer base.”
The acquisition of Tracelytics strengthens AppNeta’s breakthrough approach to application and network performance management as it is the only solution to offer a 360o view into the network and the key applications running on it. AppNeta’s award-winning, cloud-delivered PathView Cloud service offers integrated insight from every element of the network performance stack: path, packet, flow and device. This complete, integrated suite delivered from the cloud offers thousands of global customers the fastest time to resolution in the industry and superior End- User Experience monitoring.
“With the steadily increasing use of highly distributed Web-based applications, network performance insight is critical to assuring successful application delivery and a quality end-user experience,” said Jim Frey, managing research director at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). “Few APM solutions today offer the depth of visibility from the network perspective that is required for this level of end-user experience monitoring.”
Founded in 2010, Tracelytics has developed the next generation of APM technology. The innovative SaaS solution provides deep, detailed visibility into Web applications, identifying where issues and bottlenecks are occurring and providing actionable data for quick problem resolution. Tracelytics delivers a unique combination of immediate time-to-value with full-stack application tracing, providing real time visibility and management into Web applications with any level of complexity.
“We are excited to bring our customers full-stack performance insight to both the core application performance and the end-user’s experience for today’s distributed application architectures.” said John Vigeant, CEO of Tracelytics. “But without the corresponding deep network performance visibility, they can’t fully understand and solve problems in the complete application delivery chain. Together with AppNeta, we can now answer these questions.”
1010data Named “Silver Sponsor” of Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that 1010data, Inc., a market leader in enabling the analysis, sharing and monetizing of Big Data, has been named “Silver Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 11th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 5–8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
1010data provides a unique, cloud-based platform that unifies Big Data and analytics. It is used by hundreds of the world’s largest retail, manufacturing, telecom, and financial services enterprises because of its proven ability to deliver actionable insight from very large amounts of data more quickly, easily and inexpensively than any other solution. The company combines ultra-fast database technology, a broad array of built-in functions for advanced analytics, and an intuitive spreadsheet user interface, and delivers them as a managed service. There is no hardware or software to buy, no technical skills are required, and setup is fast and easy.
Video Guidance, Connecting Point Partner for Video Conferencing in the Dakotas
Bloomington, Minn.-based Video Guidance, a visual communications company, has formed a strategic partnership with Watertown, S.D.-based Connecting Point Computer Center, which provides IT solutions to businesses, schools and government agencies throughout the Dakotas. The partnership will help Video Guidance grow by increasing its sales presence in its current markets and expanding its geographic reach across North and South Dakota.
“Our joint partnerships utilize and maximize resources to offer more comprehensive collaboration and visual services to businesses and organizations,” said Michael Werch, president of Video Guidance. “The program is designed to help value-added resellers (VARs) succeed in the highly lucrative video conferencing market, enabling them to take advantage of high-margin sales opportunities with our best-in-class video conferencing solutions.”
Since 1979, Connecting Point (www.ConnectingPoint.biz) has helped organizations of all sizes deploy and manage servers, desktops and notebooks from a centralized location. With off-site backup and cloud computing, the company is regarded for its proactive, preventative approach to IT management that stops problems before they affect a network. Connecting Point also offers Cisco Unified Communications solutions, which connect people, information and teams to help them collaborate more effectively.
“We are excited to partner with Video Guidance to expand our collaboration portfolio,” said Bryan Waege, president of Connecting Point. “Together with Video Guidance, we will maximize our customers’ technology investments to help them meet their business objectives rather than react to IT problems.”
Strategic partners help Video Guidance – through its cloud-based services — create a more visually collaborative workspace for its customers. In the last decade, Internet, mobile and broadband technologies have redefined our way of life, and visual communication tools have become critical to a business’ efficiencies. And in an era of dispersed teams and reduced travel budgets, enhanced, strategic collaboration and applications are essential to maximizing the benefits of today’s sophisticated technology.
Founded in 1999, Video Guidance is privately held and headquartered in Bloomington, Minn. Video Guidance is an independent partner of Cisco, Polycom and LifeSize, and maintains strategic alliances with Conference Plus, On Stream Media Corporation, VQ Communications, VBrick, and Accordent. For five consecutive years, Video Guidance has been named to the “Inc. 5,000″ list of the nation’s fastest growing private companies, and is one of the top privately held companies in Minnesota and one of the top 150 telecommunications companies in the nation. In addition, Video Guidance has been named by The Business Journal as one of the “50 Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies” in the Twin Cities, and by Minnesota Business magazine as “One of the Best Companies to Work For.”
Five Opportunities to Use Mobile Devices in Your SaaS Solution
In a previous posting I talked about some questions to ask yourself about your customers use of your SaaS application on mobile devices as a way to help understand how mobile fits into your SaaS business.
It is clear that extending your application with mobile devices is a trend not only in SMB applications but also in Enterprise applications. At this point all of the major SaaS CRM providers have mobile devices as part of their solution. Many vertical industry solutions also have mobile as a key part of their solution particularly when it involves mobile workers.
Which Cloud Service Provider Should Host Your Oracle Databases?
The big shift towards Cloud environments has started. It is now clear that this change is similar in magnitude to the shift from mainframe to client-server computing two decades ago. Amazon Web Services is the pioneer and market leader in Cloud computing space.
Companies gaining more trust in the cloud, says survey
The annual North Bridge Venture Partners survey into cloud computing trends has revealed that more and more companies are starting to get their heads around cloud as a concept, among other findings.
The survey, entitled ‘2012 Future of Cloud Computing’, utilised supporting evidence from major players such as VMWare and Microsoft and is in collaboration with the 451 Group.
Now in its second year, the survey also noted that whilst software-as-a-service (SaaS) is still the leading service used, platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) will gain significantly in the next five years.
North Bridge asked 785 cloud professionals – including vendors and industry experts – about a wide range of issues impacting cloud computing, with certain trends noticeable.
Most importantly, 50% of respondents said they were “confident” that “cloud solutions are viable for mission critical business applications” – in other words, they don’t think the cloud will fail them for their business, despite …
Are SLAs Like Wedding Vows?
It seems like every time a major cloud provider runs into an outage (like yesterday), the topic of cloud SLAs rises to the surface. But in many cases the benefit of an SLA may be limited to using it as a paper handkerchief to dry the tears of frustration of the user, while he waits for his provider to come back online?
Oracle Database Backups to the Amazon Cloud
The traditional way of performing backups includes using Oracle RMAN in combination with media management layer software ( typically Netbackup, Tivoli or similar ), which writes backup data to remote robotic tape unit. Tapes are then stored offsite to a secure location. It is well known fact that tape media poses certain challenges in reliability […]