Private clouds are a great way to provide real-time service delivery of IT resources with a single-tenant, customized, secure environment. However, the challenge of scaling and managing physical resources still exists. The solution may be to leverage an Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider to build an off-premise Private Cloud to add scalability to your current private cloud.
In his General Session at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley, Duke Skarda, CTO of SoftLayer, discusses:
How to achieve scalability at Internet speed
Why it makes technical and business sense to host the cloud off-premises
What hosting options are available
ManageEngine Adds Android Mobile Device Management
ManageEngine today announced it now manages Android devices in the latest version of its desktop and mobile device management (MDM) software, Desktop Central. The move extends the mobile device management support in Desktop Central to include smartphones and tablets running Google’s popular mobile OS as well as devices running Apple iOS.
“The mobile usage trends will eventually drive sharp increases in demand for enterprise MDM solutions that embrace BYOD while ensuring enterprise data security,” said Mathivanan Venkatachalam, director of product management at ManageEngine. “The growing Android market and increasing demand for Android support among our customer base encouraged us to add Android support to Desktop Central as quickly as possible.”
Android MDM in Desktop Central provides data wipe, mobile application management, configuring profile/policy and default option to run mandatory background applications
Desktop Central 8 is available immediately. Prices start at $10 per computer annually for the Professional Edition. The MDM add-on module support is available on all the editions, and prices start at $15 per device annually. The Free Edition of Desktop Central manages up to 25 computers and two mobile devices. A free, fully-functional trial version is available at http://www.manageengine.com/products/desktop-central/download.html.
FlixMaster Gets $1.125 Million for Enterprise Video
FlixMaster, the platform for Enterprise Online Video, today announced it has secured $1.125 million in additional funding from a syndicate of investors led by New York-based investment firm Golden Seeds.
The company said the investment would be used principally to expand sales and marketing efforts, particularly in the corporate enterprise markets. The company also announced it was launching new industry modules for its video editing and deployment platform designed for online retailing, corporate customer service and media markets.
FlixMaster is addressing the growing need for more creative uses of video by corporations and media properties alike. To date, Enterprise Video technology has been primarily focused on video distribution and content management, but as those technology challenges fade, creative professionals are looking for platforms that improve content quality and increase viewer engagement.
“The promise of Enterprise Video has been high engagement that converts interaction into action,” said Erika Trautman, co-founder and CEO of FlixMaster, a Boulder, CO-based graduate of the prestigious TechStars program. “The problem is, most videos simply transfer a conventional TV-like experience to the web, and even though most viewers go to the video first, they’re gone in a matter of seconds.”
“Brands need to produce interactive video experiences that draw viewers in and keep them there. And companies need to be able to produce those experiences at scale and at a reasonable cost. That’s what FlixMaster offers,” she continued.
The company was recently engaged by HBO to develop an interactive online experience for the newly launched Cinemax series, “Banshee”, that incorporates FlixMaster video technology and makes heavy use of the Player API. The online destination, Banshee Origins, provides audiences with an enhanced viewing experience, driven through interaction with the video player itself, and gives them an opportunity to explore the show and interact with its characters and themes. Last summer, FlixMaster’s technology powered an acclaimed web experience for the USA Network show, “Covert Affairs.”
SingleHop Debuts Hosted Cloud Apps Built on Standing Cloud’s Platform
SingleHop on Wednesday announced the launch of Hosted Cloud Apps, a new hosted application solution that gives SingleHop customers a simplified way to discover, deploy and manage applications on virtual machines in the cloud.
According to SingleHop CEO Zak Boca the company was able “to integrate the marketplace seamlessly into our console and infrastructure, and customize it with our own look-and-feel to provide a user experience that is point-click simple.»
Built on technology from Standing Cloud, a provider of cloud marketplace and management solutions for IaaS, cloud and hosting providers, Hosted Cloud Apps is an easy-to-use marketplace of 100+ applications, software, development tools and deployment options,fully pre-configured to run instantly and reliably on the SingleHop infrastructure. Once an application is deployed, automated application lifecycle management features give SingleHop customers an easy way to manage their servers and applications on a continuing basis, including monitoring, scaling, back-ups, upgrades, auto-restore and more.
Adaptive Claims Edge on Private Cloud Patents
Adaptive Computing, which just got a dozen new cloud patents from the US
Patent and Trademark Office, figures it’s got one of the largest private cloud
patent portfolios around.
It also says it’s seeing rapid cloud growth due to its product ınnovation, up
244% last year.
Big data: What’s hot, what’s not according to the Twitter stream
By Tony Baer, Principal Analyst, Ovum IT Enterprise Solutions
Because (or in spite) of the hype, sentiment about Big Data vendors was generally bullish in 2012. The attention spilled over from IT to the business media. These were among the findings reported by DataSift, which conducted a retrospective analysis of vendor mentions on Twitter during 2012 for Ovum.
To some extent, the results were surprising: while Hadoop garners much of the spotlight as a Big Data platform, the vendor 10gen, which develops MongoDB, came in second in mentions to Apache, which hosts the Hadoop project. Although only peripherally a Big Data story, HP and Autonomy was the biggest negative story of the year.
The data provided by DataSift provides a good example of how social media mining provides a useful snapshot of popular thinking that supplements – or replaces – the traditional role of marketing focus groups.
Mining Twitter for insights
Traditionally …
EESC questions EU cloud computing initiative figures
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has published an opinion piece detailing opposition to the well documented European Union (EU) computing initiative.
The EU’s cloud strategy, ‘Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe’, announced in September featured two main takeaways; a yearly 160bn Euro (£127.6bn) boost to the European GDP by 2010, and a net gain of 2.5m jobs.
Sounds good on first glance, but the EESC’s opinion – carried by 158 votes to two in a plenary held on January 16 and 17 – disagrees.
It’s not that the EESC is opposed to cloud computing in general – the committee agrees that it is “an opportunity for European growth and competitiveness” – more it suggests an alternative complementary vision to the European Commission’s original plan.
Nor is it that EESC is at odds with everything EU digital agenda VP Neelie Kroes lined out. The committee …
Offering Cloud Services, practice what you preach
by, Gerrit-Jan van Wieren, Vice President Business Development
As an IT service provider you probably started years ago with the idea you would do a better job than the rest. With a lot of enthusiasm and energy you have built a company of reasonable size and offer all kinds of different services. With the rise of Cloud you have the ideal position to tell your customers not to buy and own things, or have IT staff as a core business. You ask them the question; is this bringing you money? Or can we take it off your back? You used to invest in hardware which looked cheaper long-term, but you end up with IT staff that you don’t want on your payroll.
Did you ask that question to yourself? As an IT service provider providing services is in your DNA. But is investing also in your DNA? Or is it about making money? Owning stuff is not your core business. When you choose a solution, whether it is hosted backup or hosted e-mail the question should always be if you could do a better job. Look at all the aspects which come with hosting it yourself. It might look cheaper; buy some disks, forget to calculate the costs for staff, electricity and bring in the money.
Is it that easy? There is some risk involved. Disks can break, 24×7 availability is actually costing money and your staff can (accidentally) mismanage the platform into serious downtime. When we take a closer look at the business case we also see the calculation is missing reality. You always start with 0 GB and it takes time to reach the 100% coverage for all invested Terabytes. And when you reach 80% you know you’re up for new cash out.
Will you do a better job than the manufacturer? Will it bring you more money?
Always go for pay as you grow, without investments. Add value to the proposition with your knowledge and well educated staff. Start making money from day one. And remember what you tell your end customer about investing in IT. Practice what you preach.
Kids Say the Darndest Things…About the Cloud
“The Cloud, Explained by Kids” is Rackspace’s version of that old Art Linkletter standby:
What’s in Store for Technology in 2013
As we get into the full swing of the new year and put another CES behind us, it’s time to take a look at the current trends in technology and get a feel for some of the developments we can expect in 2013. There are a lot of interesting products just around the corner – some of them will seem revolutionary while others will be a big update to current technology – and many of them are well worth a look.
The release of Windows 8, which was optimized for touchscreens, is encouraging a lot of companies to really innovate with their laptops. Last year we saw the trend toward ultrabook computers – all sleek design and impressive form factor – and now the new operating system is giving them a chance to develop even more. Touchscreen ultrabooks are going to provide the simple convenience of a tablet while offering the power and capabilities of a compete computer.