We’ll learn why a cloud-of-clouds approach is providing new types of IT services to Thomas Duryea’s many Asia-Pacific region customers.
We’ve been talking about cloud computing for years now, and I think it’s pretty well established that we can do cloud computing quite well technically. The question that many organizations keep coming back with is whether they should do cloud computing. If there are certain risks, how do they know what risks are important? How do they get through that? What are you in learning so far at TD about risk and how your customers face that?
Cloud Encryption Deployment for VMware-Based Application Services
As the infrastructure cloud market (IaaS and PaaS) continues to grow rapidly, we are seeing quite a few customers who are delivering an application – whether it is a mission-critical or SaaS application – and basing their solution on VMware.
VMware Security Cloud Encryption cloud keyboard Cloud Encryption deployment for VMware based application servicesSome of these are deploying VMware in their private data center, while others are leveraging the cloud model and “renting” capacity from a public VMware-based cloud provider. In a way, both of these scenarios are public: in many of the cases the “private cloud” scenario serves users who belong to different organizations, so from the user point of view the scenario is “public”. As a result, these customers have many of the same security concerns (see here for a deeper discussion of that point).
GigaSpaces Launches Cloudify Player Service on HP OpenStack
GigaSpaces Technologies announced today the launch of the Cloudify Player, a new patent-based service that makes testing and deploying complex, multi-tier big data applications like playing a video on YouTube. The new service currently supports OpenStack-based clouds and is available as a free online service from HP Cloud Services and GigaSpaces’ Cloudify. The source code for the service is also available as an open source project on Github. The Player was developed in collaboration with HP Cloud Services, GigaSpaces’ cloud partner and leading provider of OpenStack-based public cloud services.
Unlike many of the current online deployment tools, the Cloudify Player was designed as a lightweight widget that can be easily embedded in any external website using JavaScript embed code, similar to the way one would embed a YouTube video.
The lightweight design makes the Cloudify Player a classic tool for open source projects and ISV’s such as NoSQL database providers, (e.g. Couchbase, ElasticSearch, MongoDB and Cassandra), as well as web framework owners such as the Play Framework, NodeJS, or even complete web platforms like Redmine or Drupal. These providers can use the Player as a tool for launching their product on the cloud from within their own website, personalizing the Player with their own logo and brand. The Player allows vendors to offer a single-click, hassle-free deployment experience for users who want to test drive their product. As the widget is based on Cloudify and Chef, users will have a streamlined experience from a simple trial to a full production environment on a public or private cloud of their choice, all using the same tool.
“With the Cloudify player, Couchbase users can instantly launch a full-blown Couchbase instance on the cloud and give it a test drive, without going through the usual download-configure-install cycle”, said Dipti Borkar, Couchbase Director of Product Management. “This can lower the barrier for new users as they evaluate our technology, and can help existing users to evaluate new Couchbase releases without needing to upgrade their already existing installation”.
Prior to the joint development of the Player, GigaSpaces worked with HP using Cloudify to enable on-boarding of enterprise applications to HPCS.
Cloudify users can also use the new Player to easily experiment with and test new tools online without downloading or installing Cloudify.
“One of the biggest challenges in managing applications in the cloud is keeping the right balance between control and convenience,” said Uri Cohen, VP Product Management at GigaSpaces. “We have focused on making Cloudify the most open framework for deploying any application on any cloud, while also keeping the user in control over the environment, the stack and the cloud of choice. With the new Cloudify Player we provide both full control and convenience at a level that was previously unattainable, through a streamlined experience from a simple trial to full production deployment.”
5 triggers for closing cloud computing deals
One of the most frequent questions we get on cloud computing is “When should a company move to the cloud?” While there are numerous reasons to make the move, there are also certain events that minimize obstacles and objections. These are ” triggers” which greatly reduce the sales cycle for prospects considering cloud offerings. In no particular order:
1. Change in business size
As an elastic, utility-based service, cloud computing is ideal not just for growing companies, but ones that may be downsizing as well. The on-demand nature of cloud services ensures that one can scale quickly and without additional investment.
Companies in uncertain economic times are reluctant to make capital purchases or commit to large projects or financial obligations. Through cloud computing, you can help these prospects leverage every advantage of newer technology without the downside of purchasing hardware and software that may sit idle in a business downturn.
As …
2013 ERP market share update: SAP solidifies market leadership
SAP Headquarters, Building 1 Source: Wikipedia
During 2012 the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market experienced sluggish growth of just 2.2%, yet Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), financial management and Human Capital Management (HCM) applications showed potential for breakout growth.
Through the challenging times of the previous year however, SAP still retained worldwide market share leadership. These and other insights were recently published in the recent report, Market Share Analysis: ERP Software Worldwide, 2012 authored by Chris Pang, Yanna Dharmasthira, Chad Eschinger, Koji Motoyoshi and Kenneth F. Brant.
Key Take-Aways
- Overall market growth of just 2.2% and the top ten vendors owning 64% of the worldwide ERP market is leading Gartner to predict further consolidation of the industry.
- SAP had just over $6B in total ERP software revenue in 2012, leading the worldwide market with 24.6% market share. Oracle had $3.12B and Sage, $1.5B in software revenues for 2012 …
Step-by-Step: Extend Your Network to the Cloud with Windows Azure Virtual Networks
Windows Azure Virtual Networks offers the power to open up several cross-premises use case scenarios, including Active Directory Disaster Recovery, SQL Database Replication, Windows Server 2012 DFS-R File Replication, Accelerated Cloud File Services with BranchCache, Hybrid Web Applications and MORE! But … we need to configure the Virtual Network FIRST … which is what this Step-by-Step article is all about!
This month, my fellow IT Pro Technical Evangelists and I are authoring a new articles series on 20 Key Scenarios with Windows Azure Infrastructure Services. You can catch the full series at http://aka.ms/CloudTop20. In today’s article in this series, we’ll discuss extending our On-premises Datacenter into a Hybrid Network Infrastructure with Windows Server 2012, Windows Azure Virtual Networks and Site-to-Site VPN Tunnels.
Windows Azure Virtual Networks allow us to securely extend our Private Cloud with a hybrid network infrastructure that leverages the best of two worlds: the low-latency and high-bandwidth available with our on-premise datacenter networks with the elastic, pay-as-you-go cloud model of Windows Azure Virtual Networks and Virtual Machines.
Day 2 Keynote at Cloud Expo New York | Ignite Innovation
In the old world of IT, if you didn’t have hardware capacity or the budget to buy more, your project was dead in the water. Budget constraints can leave some of the best, most creative and most ingenious innovations on the cutting room floor. It’s a true dilemma for developers and innovators – why spend the time creating, when a project could be abandoned in a blink? That was the old world. In the new world of IT, developers rule. They have access to resources they can spin up instantly.
A hybrid cloud ignites innovation and empowers developers to focus on what they need. A hybrid cloud blends the best of all worlds, public cloud, private cloud and dedicated servers to fit the needs of developers and offer the ideal environment for each app and workload without the constraints of a one-size-fits-all cloud.
BigData-Startups Named “Association Sponsor” of Cloud Expo & Big Data Expo
SYS-CON Events announced today that the BigData-Startups, the online Big Data knowledge platform, has been named “Association Sponsor” of SYS-CON’s 12th International Cloud Expo and 3rd International Big Data Expo, which will take place on June 10–13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, and the 13th International Cloud Expo and 4th International Big Data Expo, which will take place on November 4–7, 2013, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
BigData-Startups is the ultimate Big Data platform, giving advice to organizations who want to develop a Big Data strategy.
Forecasting the Cloud Market: How the Sausage Is Made
Cloud Computing is not really a market or set of markets at all. It’s part of a paradigm-shifting trend that is reinventing how organizations large and small purchase, provision, utilize, pay for, and think about IT resources. Eventually, everything will be the Cloud, which from the market sizing perspective means that nothing will be the Cloud.
Group vendors into separate, distinct markets (or do so for individual products, when vendors compete in multiple markets). Assign each of your analysts to interview each vendor once a year in the analyst’s assigned market, in the hopes that the vendor will reveal their true revenues for the year in question. Put the resulting numbers in the spreadsheet, add them all up, and you are able to calculate a reasonable estimate for the size of the given market.
Author Thomas Erl to Attend Launch of New Cloud Book at Cloud Expo NY
One of the top-selling IT authors of the past decade will be making a special appearance on June 11 at the 12th International Cloud Expo at the Javits Center in New York City. Thomas Erl, author and co-author of eight books and series editor of the Prentice Hall Service Technology Series from Thomas Erl, will be participating with fellow author Ricardo Puttini in the official launch ceremony for their new title Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture.
This hardcover textbook, that was also co-authored by Zaigham Mahmood and received significant contributions from Amin Naserpour, will be these first to document cloud computing from a purely academic perspective, focusing on well-defined concepts, models, technology mechanisms, and technology architectures, all from an industry-centric and vendor-neutral point of view. The book includes over 260 figures and covers 29 cloud architectures, 20 cloud technology mechanisms, and has already been endorsed by members of Cisco, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, HP, Layer 7, Cognizant, Red Hat, Capgemini, Accenture, Wipro and several other organizations.