Weidlinger Launches PZFlexCloud 3D Virtual-Prototyping SaaS Using CliQr Technologies CloudCenter, HP Cloud

Weidlinger Associates, Inc., the developer of PZFlex, a 3D virtual-prototyping and wave-propagation analysis software, and CliQr Technologies announced the launch of PZFlexCloud on CliQr’s CloudCenter platform. PZFlexCloud extends the market reach and performance of PZFlex’s engineering software by exploiting the power, elasticity, and ubiquity of the cloud. Running on HP Cloud Services, HP’s public cloud, PZFlexCloud is offered as a professional service as well as an additional feature of the full PZFlex solution suite.

“Cloud computing’s almost infinite on-demand resources, with its utility billing model, combined with our PZFlex finite element analysis [FEA] software as a service, is a game changer for the scientific and engineering communities,” said Dr. Robert Banks, PZFlex director and senior associate at the Mountain View, California, office of global engineering firm Weidlinger Associates. “PZFlexCloud represents a step change in the way high-fidelity FEA solutions can be accessed by a broad set of users, from large enterprises to innovative departments and individuals.”

By taking advantage of the power and elasticity of cloud computing, PZFlexCloud will permit experienced users to realize unprecedented performance and flexibility of use. An accurate multi-run 3D simulation for piezoelectric and wave propagation analysis that traditionally took 32 days was recently completed with the CliQr platform and PZFlexCloud in just 14 hours, allowing for more test iterations and shorter analysis times. PZFlexCloud also makes advanced FEA available to a broader market. With CliQr and PZFlexCloud, new users who have had to compromise on functionality can now use the PZFlex suite on a pay-as-you-go basis without the costs and complexities of building and maintaining capital-intensive physical computing resources.

Dr. Banks added, “PZFlexCloud eliminates the longstanding trade-offs between advanced speed, functionality, and approachable economics. Customers can get simplified access and high-performance use of the PZFlex solution without having to design, build, or maintain their own information-technology infrastructure.”

Contributing to PZFlexCloud’s success, the CliQr Technologies CloudCenter platform simplifies the migration and runtime management of the PZFlex software suite without requiring any modification of the leading FEA software. With CliQr’s CloudCenter, PZFlex was able to benchmark the price and performance of their application across all possible cloud environments and determine where their offering could deliver the best value for their customers. Running on HP Cloud Services, PZFlexCloud makes it easy, powerful, and secure to perform complex FEA on the cloud.

“CliQr shares Weidlinger’s value and vision to make the most sophisticated cloud solutions approachable and manageable by the broadest user base,” said Gaurav Manglik, CEO and co-founder of CliQr Technologies. “CliQr understands that software vendors want to take advantage of the cloud while protecting the time and investments they have already made in their core offerings. CliQr provides a complete platform for businesses like Weidlinger and their PZFlex offering, looking for an integrated approach to commercially use the cloud and maintain the ability to flexibly adapt to future changes in the cloud-computing landscape.”

“Scientific and engineering communities are looking for ways to access 3D virtual-prototyping solutions without having to build and maintain their own physical infrastructure,” said Dan Baigent, senior director, Business Development, Cloud Services, HP. “Running on HP Cloud Services, PZFlexCloud provides users with the ability to access PZFlex in the cloud in one click, which leads to much shorter analysis time at much lower cost.”

Dell Keeps a Toe in the OpenStack Camp

After trashing its public OpenStack cloud efforts Monday in favor of

reselling third-party widgetry – and reportedly canning workers in the 300-

man group according to TechCrunch – Dell folk who are left were anxious

to say that Dell is still in the private OpenStack game, pointing to another

press release put out Monday saying that Dell will enable Microsoft’s

Windows Server Hyper-V as a viable hypervisor on the OpenStack cloud

platform.

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Disaster Recovery as a Service for VMware Users from TwinStrata

“Our cloud disaster recovery service enables VMware users to recovery data and applications seamlessly at a fraction of the cost, making disaster recovery, business continuity and compliance with recovery objectives and regulations attainable for nearly any organization,” said Nicos Vekiarides, CEO of TwinStrata, as TwinStrata today announced CloudArray Disaster Recovery as a Service (CloudArray DRaaS) for VMware users on-demand.

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LogMeIn’s PaaS solution Xively ready to connect Internet of Things

LogMeIn’s Xively is ready to connect “The Internet of Things” as a brand new PaaS (platform as a service) offering APIs for interacting with real world objects, along with real-time messaging thrown into the mix for good measure.

The cloud-based service originates from Cosm, the IoT (Internet of Things) platform by Pachube, which LogMeIn purchased back in July 2011.

LogMeIn secured another huge partner for this venture, ARM, whose technology forms the basis of many popular devices including the iPhone. Offering the first development kit for Xively, known as the “Xively Jumpstart Kit,” this will get any budding developer on the platform going.

Included in the kit is a Cortex-M3 processor, USB connector, Ethernet port, flash storage, and application board. Interest from ARM is quite a clear sign of the potential Xively has, and the future of the “Internet of Things” it provisions.

The Internet of Things is an …

Dell Can’t Make Out Icahn’s Proposal

Dell’s board has again asked billionaire Carl Icahn and his buddy Southeastern Asset Management for more information about their proposal to take over the company.

Icahn asked Dell for more information after Dell posted its quarterly results last week and Dell flatly said “no.” It wants to scope out Icahn’s intentions and see if they’re better than founder Michael Dell’s.

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How cloud-based collaboration boosts performance

Online collaboration has evolved during the last decade, delivering even greater value – thanks to a new generation of business technology applications.

Forbes Insights released «Collaborating in the Cloud,» a Cisco-sponsored study examining the ways business leaders increasingly look at cloud collaboration as a way to increase productivity, accelerate business results and enhance innovation across borders and functions.

The research combines a global survey of more than 500 executives with 15 executive interviews.

«The ability to collaborate in the cloud is becoming a key driver of competitive advantage,» says Bruce Rogers, Chief Insights Officer of Forbes Media. «Leading companies are doing more to foster cloud-based collaboration – not only internally, but also with an ever-wider swath of external groups including customers, suppliers, partners, and even regulators.»

The benefits of cloud-based collaboration, Rogers continues, include «greater efficiency, organizational dexterity, and innovation,» to name only a few.

Key findings from the market study include …

Google plays its IaaS hand with Compute Engine general release

Among the hive of activity at Google I/O, one of the search giant’s more interesting announcements has come in the form of a general release of Google Compute Engine (GCE), giving developers increased access to Google infrastructure.

Google’s latest push is a further move into the infrastructure as a service (IaaS) space, and culminates in the Silicon Valley company finding itself jockeying for position in a three horse race alongside Amazon and Microsoft.

Last month Microsoft ramped up its IaaS portfolio with the release of Infrastructure Services, enabling Windows Azure customers to migrate apps into the cloud, pricing it in direct competition with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon, in comparison, announced later that week that its S3 cloud had broken the two trillion object mark – in other words, 20 objects for every person ever born on planet Earth.

So Google’s announcement was hotly anticipated. Yet anyone …

Compuware Extends APMaaS Platform

Compuware Corporation has announced the convergence of dynaTrace PurePath® Technology and the Gomez Performance Network, creating a powerful User Experience Management (UEM) solution. Compuware now offers a APMaaS solution that provides a complete UEM offering, including real-user, synthetic, third-party service monitoring and business impact analysis. Compuware’s APMaaS delivery model, auto-instrumentation and single-click to root cause diagnostics for both real user and synthetic transactions provides a deep and broad insight into application performance with a fast time-to-value.
Compuware APMaaS enables organizations to optimize user experience, manage performance, availability and service levels from a unified real-user and synthetic perspective, all within a single on-demand platform.

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Dell Discontinues IaaS Cloud to Sell Third Parties

Fancy that. Dell said Monday that its “current in-house multi-tenant public cloud IaaS will be discontinued in the US in favor of best-in-class partner offerings” that it’ll deliver as a single-source supplier.
While it’s preaching the gospel of customer choice, it’s saving badly needed money in the guise of freedom from vendor lock-in and a single point of control.
It calls the concept the Cloud Partners Program. Joyent, ScaleMatrix and ZeroLag have signed up. Dell expects to add more clouds and go beyond IaaS depending on customer reaction.

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Cloud Is All About Security

“Open source has always provided a number of benefits, including easing adoption costs, propagating a better understanding of the technology, and allowing for faster evolution and commercialization of products and services based on it,” noted Terry Woloszyn, Founder & CEO, Leeward Security Ltd., in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “This is clearly evident with the OpenStack and CloudStack,” Woloszyn continued, “and others that have been quickly commercialized as offerings such as Rackspace.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn’t about saving money, it is about saving time. – Agree or disagree?
Terry Woloszyn: It’s actually both. Depending on the type of cloud – SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS, and whether it is private or public – the metrics that are used to determine the savings vary in weighting and importance. For example, the total cost of ownership in selecting, installing, configuring, managing, and ultimately replacing enterprise applications is quite large when compared to utilizing a public cloud SaaS equivalent. In this case, it’s about saving time and money. On the other hand, utilizing a private cloud infrastructure as a host platform for enterprise applications is much more about saving time in provisioning, as the money difference is small, realized only in hardware utilization and platform management cost savings.

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