Over the past few years, enterprises have been moving to the cloud to streamline processes and operations. A study last year by TheInfoPro indicated that there is no sign of cloud investment slowing down – predicting an average growth rate of cloud spending of 36 percent from this year until 2016. As the Internet of Things continues its march to the mainstream, organizations have more opportunities to expand relationships with customers and partners by building and offering new services. These services have the potential to exponentially drive revenue and create business value.
The question is, what do CIOs need to do to make sure that their companies can take advantage of this potential? The first step is to look at their existing technical infrastructure to ensure that it can truly enable companies to drive change. One crucial component: security, including identity and access management.
How profitable is Cloud for the vendors?
The cost benefits that cloud computing offers to its users is something that has been discussed ad nauseam.
In a study conducted by researchers from UC Berkeley and INRIA, France showed that cloud computing can offer savings of anywhere between 40-95% depending on resource usage.
This potential for cloud based systems to bring about huge savings in their annual expenditure is what has been driving the massive migration from in-house server based technology sytems to cloud based alternatives. According to Mary Ellen Power, the VP of marketing at Silanis, a major client for cloud vendors like Amazon AWS, the cloud based services could be seeing as much as 50% growth rate annually in the near future.
However, what impact is this causing to the cloud vendor companies? While the mass migration to cloud helps customers avoid upfront technology investments and thus save money, vendor companies are now in a bind …
What Cloud Startups Need to Know About Hunting Elephants
“Cloud computing” is more than just a buzzword – it has transformed the tech industry. Having been in the business of building enterprise infrastructure for over 15 years, I’ve had the opportunity to witness how cloud has altered the landscape, including most recently at my company, Nexgate. It has not only ushered in a radical wave of innovation, but has also created new business models. The easily accessible and inexpensive nature of its on-demand structure has both paved the way for the rapid launch of new technologies and enabled the growth of businesses.
Yet, as with any technology, it also has its limits and risks, especially for cloud startups. If not configured well, cloud doesn’t necessarily fit hand-in-hand with the needs of large enterprises. While the benefits of gaining a big customer are certainly obvious, the demands of doing so are not talked about nearly as frequently, despite that both are important. Hunting elephants is a dangerous game if you’re a mouse.
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Asigra Named a Coolest Cloud Vendor by CRN Magazine
Asigra Inc., on Thursday announced it has been named as one of the Top 20 Coolest Cloud Vendors of 2014 by CRN. The annual list recognizes the most innovative cloud storage vendors and solutions tailored to address the channel industry’s unique needs. Asigra was honored for its cloud-based data recovery solution and the company’s unique recovery-based pricing model.
Each year, CRN honors the 20 Coolest Cloud Storage Vendors in an effort to help solution providers navigate the growing cloud marketplace and identify the best solutions to support the IT channel. Winners are named across the category for platforms and tools, infrastructure, hardware and software, based on data and information gathered from both solution provider nominations and the CRN editorial team.
IceWEB Enters into Consulting Agreement with Open Data Centers
IceWEB has signed a consulting agreement along with a separate Joint Marketing and Sales Agreement with Open Data Centers, LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company («ODC») and 1stPoint Communications, LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company (“FP”). ODC will provide operational and sales expertise to enhance the capabilities and operations of IceWEB’s Computers & Tele-com, Inc. and KCNAP, LLC subsidiaries (“collectively “CTC”) in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition, CTC, KCNAP, FP and ODC will jointly market and sell their services.
“We are very pleased to welcome Mr. Levitt to our team, and look forward to his participation in furthering IceWEB’s operational objectives,” stated Hal Compton, Sr., IceWEB’s Chairman and Interim CEO. “He contributes his experience and expertise in many areas of the information technology, telecommunications and data center fields, and brings a valuable perspective on the issues and opportunities facing the Company. In addition, we believe that the ODC sales agreement will be able to generate sales momentum in our data center and wireless businesses.”
Coraid and ATA-Over-Ethernet Technology
Data server admins are always on the lookout for changes in the industry that will help do their job better, keep their data safer, and speed up file access. The old standbys in recent years have been iSCSI and Fibre Channel. These high-speed technologies have been good matches for storage applications like database use and management where use can be intense. They can, however, be quite costly to keep up and running properly and they require a lot of care and maintenance. A new alternative to iSCSI and Fibre Channel is ATA-Over-Ethernet (AoE).
This open-source connectionless storage networking protocol was originally developed in 2003 by California company, Coraid. It connects servers and storage in a less complex fashion than iSCSI and Fibre Channel. The AoE Layer 2 design works to find the most efficient way to transmit raw disk I/O commands over raw Ethernet. The more connects that are added, the more bandwidth that is made available, the more resilient the pathways. It is important to note that AoE is not iSCSI. The only commonality between AoE and iSCSI is that they both use Ethernet for transport. iSCSI uses TCP/IP at Layer 4 and AoE Layer 2.
Cloud management and analytics – finally the IaaS market heats up
While it is fun to watch the 800 lb Gorilla squash every one, Amazon has to face competition at some point.
Even just for the sake of something to write about! While AWS is fundamentally amazing, it’s now quite a well established and therefore boring facet of the market. It’s far more interesting to explore who might rise to give them serious threat, and how.
My bet is on Google, who else. They’re eating the whole world so why not Cloud hosting, and who does large-scale data centres better? These guys are the ‘Titans of Cloud’, they’re fighting it out on a playing field far above any one else and once they go at it, this will be like a boxing match between Zeus and Odin!
One key point I’ve highlighted to folks about Google IaaS is that in contrast to its other products, like …
SUSE Channel Program Provides Tools to Deploy SAP Business One
Last spring SUSE announced the addition of a new channel program that provides further assistance to SAP channel partners. Since then SUSE has signed up more than 400 members in 57 countries that are SAP channel partners delivering the version of the SAP Business One application that works with and is powered by the SAP HANA platform.
The SUSE channel program, in conjunction with the overall SUSE partner program operated by PartnerNet, provides members direct access to free SUSE technical training, pre-sales support and installation software. This provides them with the tools they need to deploy SAP Business One version for SAP HANA, running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Linux technical training through the SUSE Certified Linux Administrator Academy, a 10-week online program, has been the most requested service. In addition, channel partners authorized to resell the version of SAP Business One designed for use with SAP HANA receive access to the SUSE Installation Wizard, a powerful automation tool that streamlines deployment of SAP Business One running on SAP HANA with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Esri to Exhibit at Cloud Expo New York
SYS-CON Events announced today that Esri will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 14th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 10–12, 2014, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Esri inspires and enables people to positively impact the future through a deeper, geographic understanding of the changing world around them.
Cloud Expo® 2014 New York, June 10–12, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.