Cloud Decision Framework Tool, IDC, International Data Corporation, Research

IDC Debuts Cloud Decision Framework Tool at the Cloud Leadership Forum

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Worldwide public IT cloud services spending is forecast to surpass $55 billion in 2014. Yet IT leaders continue to struggle with quantifying the operational, organizational, and financial implications of their application hosting and platform decisions. To help IT decision makers to better understand their options and the associated implications as they move various enterprise workloads to the cloud, International Data Corporation (IDC) has developed a new Cloud Decision Framework Tool.

A robust tool for any IT organization wishing to more precisely evaluate its cloud computing strategy, IDC’s Cloud Decision Framework Tool officially debuted during a comprehensive, three-hour IDC analyst workshop that took place in conjunction with the IDC/IDG Cloud Leadership Forum in Santa Clara, California.

“This tool was carefully designed to help guide IT managers in their decisions around on-premise, private and public cloud computing options,” said Joe Pucciarelli, vice president, Technology Financial & Executive Strategies at IDC. “The painstaking evaluation struggles that once plagued the cloud decision-making process have been all but eliminated as the Cloud Decision Framework Tool does all the heavy lifting.”

IDC’s Cloud Decision Framework Tool Helps IT Managers:

  • Become more agile in the cloud decision making process
  • Understand and take advantage of the profound technology, platform,
    staffing, and economic opportunities that will shape IT strategies in
    the coming years
  • Identify customer priorities for IT cloud system management software
    investments
  • Align business/IT governance around a specific cloud vision
  • Restructure IT purchasing and sourcing approaches
  • Evaluate overall cloud goals

“The Cloud Decision Framework Tool allows you to decompose a very complex business decision by breaking it down into its key components. A CIO can use the tool to collaborate with the rest of the executive team and get them on board with moving to a cloud,” commented Allyn McGillicaddy, Principal, Office of the CIO.com.

Click here to access IDC’s Cloud Decision Framework Tool. For more information, please contact Joe Pucciarelli at jpucciarelli@idc.com or Randy Perry at rperry@idc.com.


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Dell enterprise cloud to hit Europe by end of August

The specifics of Dell’s major cloud expansion have been revealed, with their infrastructure as a service (IaaS) enterprise cloud to arrive in Europe by August 31.

The platform is currently undergoing a trial in the US and Canada, with Dell Cloud aligning to VMWare’s vCloud Datacenter Service for the platform.

As reported by CloudTech last year, the service will help provide hosted infrastructure and data platforms, alongside managing and securing data, and will be available in both public and hybrid cloud systems.

Dell claims that their public cloud will be completely secure, citing the active monitoring from SecureWorks, data encryption services from TrendMicro and “multiple layers” of security in Dell centres.

The Texas-based company is adding their considerable weight to the IaaS platform after many big companies are trying to influence the expansion.

Oracle was the latest company to announce a public cloud offering just last week.

Ricky …

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Are Your Software Licenses Cloud-Friendly?

Any software licensing scheme that counts the number of processors, servers, or virtual instances is fundamentally Cloud-unfriendly. In the pre-Cloud days, servers were expensive and difficult to install and configure, so we operated in the context of scarcity: add a server, pay a lot of money. The Cloud changes this equation to one of abundance: instances are cheap, plentiful, and easy to configure, so nothing we put on a particular instance should cost us very much or have much importance in and of itself.
ZapThink likes nothing better than to poke a stick at a hornets’ nest, and our last ZapFlash did not disappoint. We discussed how private Clouds weakened the enterprise value proposition for Cloud Computing, eliciting consternation far and wide, not from enterprises implementing such Clouds, but from consultants and vendors in the business of building and outfitting them. To which we say: well, duh! Cloud Computing is a paradigm shift precisely because we won’t need to hire pricey consultants or buy a lot of gear to use them!

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SoftLayer Announces Turnkey Private Clouds

SoftLayer, a provider of global, Internet-scale cloud infrastructure, has unveiled its new SoftLayer Private Clouds solution that provisions and configures full private cloud deployments on demand. These scalable, secure and high-performance deployments leverage the company’s automated architecture, worldwide data center locations and private network, and customer-controlled infrastructure management system.
“For some time our customers have used our portfolio of dedicated servers, network resources, and virtualization options to build their own private clouds. Now, with SoftLayer Private Clouds, instead of starting at square one, you begin with a pre-configured cloud ready for whatever you want to do with it,” said Duke Skarda, Chief Technology Officer for SoftLayer. “We’ve built our Private Clouds solution out of our experience creating and managing our own cloud, and our unique capabilities in automating sophisticated deployments. At the push of a button you have a dedicated cloud at your command, with full access and control over every aspect, and the ability to scale infinitely, on demand.”

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Amazon Web Services Expands Free Support and Lowers Prices on Premium Tiers

Amazon Web Services LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com Company (NASDAQ: AMZN), on Thursday announced expanded free support for all AWS customers, reduced pricing on premium support plans and multiple new features to help customers better interact with and improve their use of AWS, including chat functionality and proactive alerts when opportunities exist to save money, improve system performance, or close security gaps. AWS Support is a fast-response support channel that is staffed around the clock with experienced and technical support engineers. For more information on the pricing and the new options, visit http://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/.
As part of Thursday’s announcement of the new support features, the broad selection of support offerings offered by AWS have been renamed to better align with the customer’s need or use case. All plans include support for an unlimited number of cases, are available worldwide, have no long term contracts, and can be cancelled at any time.

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appzero Announces Cloud Migration Partner Program for Cloud Providers and SIs

appzero has announced a cloud migration partner program designed specifically for Cloud providers and the System Integrators (SI) who have practices specializing in moving enterprise applications to those clouds. With its recently released zapp migration capability at the core of the program, appzero slashes the time, labor, and costs associated with migrating production applications to any cloud.
Patent-pending zapp migration automates on-boarding of complex server-side applications to any cloud destination, with no changes to the application. SIs in the program receive training and product on which to build and accelerate cloud migration practices. Cloud providers in this program have access to skilled SIs to move customer applications to the cloud. Enterprise customers find a cost-effective channel for cloud migration.

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Porticor Joins VMware Technology Alliance Partner Program

Porticor, a cloud data security company delivering a cloud-based data encryption solution that infuses trust into the cloud and keeps cloud data confidential by ensuring customer keys are kept private, today announced that it has joined the VMware Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program. Members of the TAP program collaborate with VMware to deliver innovative solutions for virtualization and cloud computing. The diversity and depth of the TAP ecosystem provides customers with the flexibility to choose a partner with the right expertise to satisfy their unique needs.

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CloudTest, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mobile, Mobile operating system, SOASTA, Tools

SOASTA Releases CloudTest Mobile Test Automation Platform for iOS

SOASTA today released CloudTest Mobile, to deliver complete performance and functional test automation of mobile apps across distributed mobile devices. The CloudTest Mobile platform provides precise capture and playback of all continuous touch gestures including pan, pinch, zoom and scroll on iPhones, iPads, and iPods. See the CloudTest Mobile demonstration here.

Today, mobile developers can easily automate the testing of their mobile apps on iOS 6. CloudTest’s unique approach of residing inside the app allows developers to precisely test their apps when new mobile operating systems are released.

“Starting today, developers are working on iOS 6 versions of their Apps and automated functional testing is a real problem for these developers,” stated Tal Broda, VP, Engineering, at SOASTA. “Today, CloudTest provides full support for capture and playback of any App running on iOS 6 including any gesture or any UI element.”

SOASTA also announced today support for Appcelerator Titanium 2.0 platform, which gives Appcelerator’s 300,000 mobile developers seamless access to CloudTest Mobile’s test automation capabilities. See release here.

“The explosion of web and mobile applications along with the proliferation of mobile devices, makes manual testing obsolete. With today’s rapid development cycles, time to market requirements and technology changes, developers require a new set of automation solutions to support multi-touch gestures and 3D gaming,” comments Tom Lounibos, CEO SOASTA. “Now, with CloudTest Mobile, developers can quickly develop, test and deliver their mobile applications with the quality their users expect. Our support for Titanium 2.0 will make this especially seamless for Appcelerator’s mobile developer community.”

CloudTest Mobile delivers affordable, accurate, and complete mobile app testing using real mobile devices. Traditional testing solutions have employed device emulators and optical recognition approaches that are not precise or reliable enough to test this generation of mobile apps. CloudTest Mobile captures the start and end points of each gesture, the journey between, and the speed with which the gesture is performed. It uniquely conducts testing from within the mobile app, replacing brittle optical recognition approaches and enabling validations based on variable values and internal app state changes. Distributed mobile devices are accessed over the air, eliminating the need for tethering or “jail breaking” and allowing mobile devices – anywhere – to be used in a test.

CloudTest Mobile is available today. Download your free version of CloudTest Lite here. SOASTA will be hosting a webinar titled, “Are Your Mobile Apps Rock Star Ready?” on Tuesday, June 19 at 10:00am PST. For more information or to register, please click here.


Video, Videoconferencing, Voice over Internet Protocol

SPIRIT DSP Announces VideoMost.com 2.0 for White-Label Web Videoconferencing

SPIRIT DSP today announced the next version of its multipoint videoconferencing software for telecom operators, hosted service providers and enterprises, VideoMost.com 2.0. VideoMost is an HD quality, massively multipoint web videoconferencing software-only product, enabling service providers and enterprises to deliver a self-branded videoconferencing service from the cloud or with on-premise installation. The product combines state-of-the-art videoconferencing technology with business collaboration tools, such as conference moderation and management, screen and file sharing, broadcasting, ability to connect SIP endpoints (such as legacy Polycom VC hardware) and many more. VideoMost conferences can be accessed using any standard browser, although the product also has desktop and iPad downloadable clients featuring additional functionality.

“The need for new value-added services is the main topic in today’s telecom world. With the decline of traditional voice service usage due to strong over-the-top and cloud offerings from VoIP and other internet companies, telecom and hosted service providers are looking for services that allow them to compete better.” said SPIRIT’s head of telcos relationships Alex Zakharov. “If a service provider wants to roll-out fast WebEx-like, high-margin, enterprise-focused web videoconferencing service, under its own brand and billing, in a secure and controlled way, from its own data center, VideoMost software licensing is the answer.”

New key features and benefits in VideoMost.com 2.0 include:

  • Videoconferencing on the go with support for Apple’s iPad (the
    VideoMost client is downloadable in the App Store).
  • Enhanced video quality with TeamSpirit®
    Voice&Video Engine 3.2 inside, supporting connections from 512
    Kbps and providing up to 30 fps (frames per second) and 720p
    HD-quality for each participant.
  • Broadcasting/Recording API, allowing the conference speaker to record
    and broadcast to an unlimited number of viewers/participants.
  • SIP integration to support legacy videoconferencing SIP hardware
    endpoints (i.e., Tandberg and Polycom), including SIP-in/SIP-out calls
    from mobile and fixed phones to/from a conference.
  • Support for LDAP and corporate controls with single authorization and
    corporate contact list support.
  • Additional features: file sharing, recording, integration with emails
    and calendars, text chat.
  • Support for all popular browsers, including the most recent versions
    of Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.
  • Debian 6, CentOS 5 and 6, RHEL 5 and 6 and Ubuntu support for the
    VideoMost server.

VideoMost is powered by SPIRIT’s TeamSpirit Conferencing Platform, delivering HD-quality scalable audio and scalable H.264SVC video of up to an unprecedented 1,000 concurrent video channels on a single standard $4000 PC server. VideoMost is uniquely universal, requiring no special hardware equipment to participate (just Internet access, a webcam, a mic and speakers or a headset) and no registration, allowing participants anywhere to start conferencing instantly.

Zakharov continued, “The corporate acceptance of mass-market desktop and mobile videoconferencing is phenomenal. This is partially the inevitable consequence of Moore’s Law, decreased bandwidth costs, the BYOD office trend and evident cost/time saving benefits, along with a large penetration of consumer video calling. What we offer is a sophisticated technology that accumulates more than 10 years of our expertise in scalable, HD and error-resilient VVoIP that ensures truly high audio/video quality, even in best-effort networks that have no QoS. Whether it’s a quad core machine, or iPad, users always get the best quality, with no need for the infrastructure to support heavy and costly servers for media transcoding.”

 

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