Once you get all that cool cloud stuff into your enterprise, you have to manage it. This is no doubt the thinking behind EMC’s acquisition of Watch4Net, a 12-year-old Montreal-based company that provides “enterprise and carrier-class” performance management software.
EMC made a spate of announcements at its own show last week (some which I reported here). The Watch4net buy continues that push, even if it seems to be a relatively small acquisition (cash-based and said by EMC not to have material impact on its fiscal year earnings).
Two big bullet points accent this buy: a need for availability management, to determine if components are functioning; and performance management, “to track any system or component degradation, plot trending, and (to) intervene as needed,” according to EMC.
The company says Watch4Net will complement its existing IT Operations Intelligence Suite. The company also notes that Watch4Net has worked closely with EMC over the past seven years, and is “already tightly integrated” with the suite.
Jay Mastaj, Senior Vice President and General Manager, spoke for EMC about the acquisition, noting that “regardless of where customers are along their journey to cloud computing, insight into every aspect of IT performance and the ability to manage it without growing staff and with increasing granularity, are no longer optional.”
“Buy” Rating on Oracle Is Maintained Ahead of CloudExpo
According to Dividend.com, “Oracle Corporation on Thursday caught some continued bullish support from analysts at Nomura Securities. The firm backed its “Buy” rating on ORCL as well as its $32 price target, which suggests a 22% upside to the stock’s Wednesday closing price of $26.17.”
Oracle is a Platinum Plus Sponsor of Cloud Expo 2012 New York, June 11–14, at the Javits Center in New York City, and will be showcasing Oracle’s Cloud Management solutions on the Expo Floor. Oracle will also be presenting a Lunchtime Keynote, a General Session, and several breakout sessions.
GoGrid Coupon Code ▸ gogridVIPgold Special Offer as Cloud Expo Sponsor
As a Silver Sponsor of Cloud Expo New York, GoGrid is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
GoGrid is the #1 pure-play Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider specializing in Public Cloud and Private Cloud Infrastructure solutions. Currently powering thousands of customers globally, GoGrid makes complex infrastructure easy by enabling businesses to revolutionize their IT environments with the Cloud. In just minutes, GoGrid customers can deploy and begin managing applications and workloads on our proven, secure and reliable public cloud platform. With GoGrid’s Public Cloud and Hosted Private Cloud offerings, sysadmins, developers, and IT professionals create, deploy, and control cloud environments and complex virtual and physical server networks with full administrative control; with GoGrid’s Hosted Private Cloud customers utilize a private, hosted and managed, single-tenant environment with zero capital expenditure.
Cloud Computing: Panzura to Exhibit at Cloud Expo 2012 New York
SYS-CON Events announced today that Panzura, a leading provider of global cloud storage solutions, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Panzura optimizes enterprise data storage management and distribution in the cloud, making cloud storage simple and secure. Panzura’s revolutionary global cloud storage solution seamlessly combines the flexibility, performance and productivity benefits of distributed storage with the manageability, security and cost benefits of centralized storage, overcoming fundamental “administrator vs. user” and “budget vs. performance” conflicts. With Panzura, data location no longer affects usage.
Cloud Computing: Hosted Private Clouds at Cloud Expo New York
You’re ready to transition some or all of your IT workloads over to the cloud. Don’t compromise! Architect a solution that can be deployed in minutes while having the ability to scale, in real-time, based on demand. How? Through hosted private clouds, which offer users the ability to easily take advantage of on-demand, easily scalable infrastructure with control and consumptive billing through dedicated resources.
In their session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Duke Skarda, CTO of SoftLayer, and Marc Jones, VP of Product Innovation for SoftLayer, will discuss the opportunities and benefits of hosted private clouds.
US Intelligence, Big Data, and Cloud Computing at Cloud Expo New York
How can organizations use enterprise/private cloud capabilities and Big Data analytics to improve information-sharing?
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Ira A. (Gus) Hunt, Chief Technology Officer for the Chief Information Officer in the CIA, will discuss how the Intelligence Community has been using enterprise/private cloud capabilities and Big Data analytics to improve information-sharing across the entire community.
Ira A. (Gus) Hunt currently serves as the Chief Technology Officer for the Chief Information Officer in CIA. In this capacity he is responsible for setting the strategic technology direction to enable CIA’s missions, actively engage across the IC to share and communicate IT solutions, and drive solutions for the rapid insertion and adoption of new capabilities to keep pace with technology change in the commercial sector
Consider Cloud Computing Services Before Your Users Do
The longer you put off providing features and services offered in the cloud, the worse off you’ll be, according to an article in Network Computing.
The post by Define the Cloud’s Joe Onisick offers a stark take on falling behind cloud adoption:
“Every day that goes by that IT isn’t meeting the features and services offered in the cloud, users are moving there on their own. No office collaboration environment? They’re on Google Docs. No file-sharing option? They’re using Dropbox. No solid backup or recovery options for their laptops? Carbonite is handling it. Now your data is outside your corporate walls, outside your control and outside of compliance.”
Every day that users turn to an unsanctioned IT service, it becomes harder to get them back. You can’t close Pandora’s box once it’s opened, Onisick said. His advice on getting a handle on the situation: Don’t stall on new services and the benefits of the cloud. Build the services in-house, and standardize on public cloud offerings.
Cloud Computing: Securing Big Data Input at Cloud Expo New York
One of the most widely asked questions about Big Data today is, “How do we get valuable analytics from Big Data?” Or, how do we get the prize? As data continues to grow exponentially, so does the variety of data (structured and unstructured) coming from humans, machines and applications. In order to pull valuable information from it all, proper data gathering is critical, and the output of that data needs to be timely and accurate, with a flexible method of delivery. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to maintain quality and security of data input and feeds on such a grand scale, and the result is less valuable output. Security and proper movement of data are key to ensuring accurate, valuable analytics.
Cloud Computing: Executing Enterprise Clouds at Cloud Expo New York
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 session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Scott Thomas, Vice President, Sales Engagement at Terremark, a Verizon Company, will discuss the major factors driving cloud adoption for the enterprise, relate how the adoption of cloud technologies is changing the way IT departments will operate, and review case studies showing how businesses have used cloud services to achieve these benefits.
DRFortress Pay-As-You-Use Cloud Computing Service for Hawaii, Pacific Rim
DRFortress, a Hawain colocation and cloud services provider, today announced that it has launched DRFcloud, a local, pay-as-you-use, cloud computing services based in the State and available throughout the Pacific Rim. This new service, offered in partnership with IaaS pioneer, Appcore, follows the successful start of the Nirvanix cloud storage service. Continuing to demonstrate leadership in the shift to the cloud in Hawaii, both the DRFcloud and the Nirvanix cloud storage hybrid node are maintained at the DRFortress datacenter in Hawaii with redundant mainland nodes for disaster recovery purposes.
“DRFortress has demonstrated extraordinary vision in delivering the first ‘On-Demand, Pay-by-the-Drink’ Cloud Storage and now the same for Cloud Computing Services to Hawaii,” said Marc Staimer, president of Dragon Slayer Consulting. “Hawaii IT organizations are now able to cost effectively take advantage of the cloud services revolution knowing their data and applications will be always be available regardless of local conditions.”
“Previously, Hawaii organizations interested in pay-as-you-use cloud computing were forced to use a Mainland provider, buy hardware boxes and pay maintenance fees or commit to a long term contract with a local virtualization firm,” said Fred Rodi, President, DRFortress. “With our new DRFcloud computing service, we have revolutionized Hawaii’s cloud market by introducing no contract, pay-as-you-need, on-demand utility computing. Clients only pay for the computing power they actually use. In this time of tight budgets businesses and government agencies are increasingly turning to cloud computing as a means of providing flexible computing resources while lowering capital expenses.”
Cloud computing is the most significant advancement in information technology today. According to leading industry analysts, the size of the cloud computing market is expected to be $150 billion by 2013. To gain significant share in this market, DRFortress is employing industry-leading technologies in the new DRFcloud service. With this service, entities of all sizes can implement their own private networks using virtual servers with nothing more than a few mouse-clicks. Companies can self-provision this new service instantaneously online through the DRFortress secure management portal at www.drfcloud.com.
“We are pleased to partner with DRFortress to bring local speed, turn-key cloud solutions to Hawaii and the Pacific Rim,” commented Brian Donaghy, Appcore CEO. “Now service providers and IT departments will be able to use Appcore Onsite™ to launch applications and cloud servers on demand with the click of a single button.”
While security is often mentioned as the number one issue holding businesses back from moving to the cloud, DRFortress addresses this concern by selecting technologies and partners who are able to deliver enterprise-class security and reliability proven in real-world production environments. In addition to DRFortress’ world-class secured datacenter, the company’s partners—Nirvanix and Appcore—have extensive processes and architectures in place to meet customers’ regulatory and business needs.
