Caringo, the object storage software folks, has announced the seamless integration of their CAStor core technology as an enterprise-ready object store for Apache CloudStack 4.0, the OpenStack-competitive project now in incubation with the Apache Software Foundation.
The integration means CAStor can provide secure multi-tenant storage that scales from terabytes to petabytes with a robust customizable level of some nines data durability without backup or RAID.
The integration has been submitted to Apache as part of the CloudStack 4.0 release and is available for immediate download.
Citrix’ CloudPlatform, powered by CloudStack, provides an open source platform for highly scalable and reliable cloud computing environments and is supposed to be deployed in some of the world’s largest enterprises.
Preventing data leakage: Proactive security from the cloud
In business, data is currency. It is the oil that keeps the commercial engine in motion and databases are the digital banks that store and retrieve this valuable information. And, according to IDC, data is doubling every two years. But as the overall amount of data grows, so does the amount of sensitive and regulated data. All this data stored by enterprises requires high levels of security. Presently (again, according to IDC) only about a quarter of that data is being properly protected now. Like all currency, data must be protected.
And herein lays a key issue. Too many executives see security as a cost center and are often reticent to invest beyond the bare minimum–whatever keeps the nasty viruses out; whatever is absolutely necessary for compliance. Their thought process is akin to “we haven’t been attacked before…or we don’t have a high enough profile for …
Chaotic Countries Have ICT Potential
A friend of mine is visiting Cairo, Egypt at the moment. As he descended into the chaos of the street in front of his hotel, he said he felt as if he was back in India, or Jamaica.
There are many chaotic, deafening streets in the world. I spent time on many of them during a recent three-year stay in Southeast Asia. Many streets in New York and London are also enough to drive one right back inside. Everyone who’s had the opportunity to travel extensively will have their own “favorites.”
At our Tau Institute, we’ve conducted research on many of the most chaotic places in the world. There are now 102 countries on our list, and we’ve found that chaos often echoes dynamism. Of course, other times, chaos is just chaos.
For example, among our Top 20 countries are a number of bustling Asian destinations – South Korea (actually ranked #1 in our research), Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. Among our Top 20 countries with the greatest potential are the chaotic countries of Eastern Africa, Morocco, Senegal, the Philippines, and yes, Egypt.
It’s easy enough to see that Asia and Africa are the most dynamic places on earth right now, when it comes to developing their ICT infrastructures. Eastern Europe is the other major region that tops our research – countries that may not appear as chaotic on the streets but may appear quite chaotic in how they conduct business. This list includes Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, and Serbia.
There are several calmer places in our global Top 20 – New Zealand, the Netherlands (the world’s best-organized beehive), Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, and Canada. The often befudding UK is also on this list. But among the places with the greatest potential, there is no country that a person with American or Western European eyes would call calm.
I don’t mean to make light of or diminish the serious problems facing Egypt today. The potential for widespread violence seems to be just a spark away. Perhaps my friend really has no business being there right now.
Big problems and potential violence also face many of the other highly dynamic countries that top our rankings. That said, each of these places, including Egypt, has benefited from the presence of enough dedicated people throughout their societies to create viable ICT infrastructures that can form the foundation for their future growth and prosperity. In a way, I wish I was in Cairo right now, although I’d be just as happy to be back in Manila, or perhaps in Dar es Salaam.
Send me a message on Twitter if you’d like to know more about our research in the 102 countries now covered by the Tau Institute.
Adaptive Revs Moab Cloud Suite
Adaptive Computing, the folks that manage the world’s largest computing installations with their Moab self-optimizing cloud management and HPC workload management solutions, have revved their Moab Cloud Suite.
The widgetry now improves the time to cloud deployment by means of out-of-the-box integration with existing infrastructure. It also enables IT to provision different organizational groups more easily by streamlining the tasks required with a new dashboard portal and automated budget allocation.
The 7.2 update integrates with virtualization, management and other cloud platforms, such as VMware Center and HP Cloud Services, via connectors, which is supposed to extend the value of the customer’s existing investments and help them avoid vendor lock-in since the widgetry is extensible or will be.
VMware begins a new phase in its evolution
By Roy Illsley, Principal Analyst, IT Software
VMware has been the force behind many of the server infrastructure virtualisation transformations that have taken place in the data centre over the last decade.
The infrastructure virtualization market is now reaching maturity, with about 50% of x86 data centres now virtualised, and VMware needed to extend its solutions to expand beyond server virtualization.
At VMWorld 2012 Europe, more than 8,000 delegates witnessed the shift in emphasis as VMware’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, announced the company’s move to become a heterogeneous data centre and cloud management vendor.
The other key announcement, following on from VMWorld US where VMware released the tools needed to build the software-defined data center (SDDC), was the move to provide the management tools needed to operationalize the SDDC. VMware also signaled a change in approach to end-user computing, focusing on the management and governance of applications …
SuccessFactors, NorthgateArinso Partner for Integrated Cloud HCM, Payroll Services
NorthgateArinso (NGA), a human resources services provider, and SuccessFactors today announced a partnership that will enable SuccessFactors Employee Central customers to take advantage of NGA’s global payroll services.
The partnership will provide Employee Central customers with a pre-built integration to euHReka, NGA’s global HR & payroll platform, which offers cloud-based payroll services in more than 100 countries.
For customers that wish to manage payroll in-house, SuccessFactors launched its own cloud-based payroll solution for Employee Central customers in July 2012. This offering will now be complemented with a range of BPaaS (Business Process as a Service) payroll options from NorthgateArinso, via its euHReka Inclusion Framework and supported by its global service centers. This allows Employee Central customers to choose between various options for global payroll, depending on their business requirements and service delivery preferences in various geographies.
As a result of the partnership, Employee Central customers will be able to outsource payroll to an additional specialist provider, and rapidly deploy managed payroll services globally, leveraging a fully localized and preconfigured payroll platform. NGA’s global payroll solution will seamlessly integrate with SuccessFactors using an out-of-the-box payroll solution. The connector will be generally available in early 2013.
SOASTA Launches Mobile Services Division
Cloud and mobile testing provider SOASTA today announced the launch of its Mobile Services Division (MSD) to help companies deliver quality user experience for their mobile and web apps. SOASTA’s MSD, headed by mobile testing and big-data industry veteran Mahesh Gidwani, focuses on helping its customers build and manage mobile test labs by combining SOASTA’s best practices and proven test methodologies to ensure successful mobile application delivery using the company’s CloudTest, TouchTest, and mPulse products.
In addition to SOASTA’s own MSD, SOASTA is also introducing a Mobile Test Automation Network made up of mobile test professionals from around the world that will be accredited to deliver SOASTA’s mobile test methodologies. Joining this network today are partners focused on Mobile Test Automation including ProtoTest, Total Performance Consulting and Utopia Solutions, that extend SOASTA’s services reach to clients across geographies and industry verticals.
“The explosion of mobile development has created a capability gap in the services market that SOASTA uniquely fills with our elite team of experts and partners who have pioneered mobile test automation and cloud testing,” said Tom Lounibos, SOASTA CEO. “We launched the SOASTA Mobile Services Division after our customers told us that they often lacked the expertise to implement and execute effective mobile and cloud-based testing strategies.”
“As enterprises struggle to match the pace of consumer demand via mobile and web properties, they are finding it hard to adapt their quality processes,” said Tom Murphy, Gartner Research Director. “Gartner sees the growth and expansion of specialized professional services as a natural response to the market need.”
The new Mobile Services offered by SOASTA span strategy, methodology, accreditation, implementation and ad-hoc services focused on:
- Mobile Test Automation Architects (On-Demand, On-Premise)
- Mobile Test Automation Experts (On-Demand, On-Premise)
- Mobile Performance Engineers (On-Demand, On-Premise)
- Continuous Integration Test Methodologies
- Building and Management Services for Internal and External Mobile
Application Test Labs - Mobile App Testing Accreditation
“The demand for mobile testing expertise, coupled with the compression of delivery cycles, drives growth for our specialized services,” said Lee Barnes, the founder and CTO of Utopia Solutions. “With this expansion, joint SOASTA and Utopia customers will experience rapid return and expert guidance of seasoned mobile testing experts resulting in the highest quality mobile apps to their end-users.”
“I’m excited to be leading the charge into mobile test services for SOASTA,” said Mahesh Gidwani, SOASTA’s new VP, Professional Services. “SOASTA is excited match our product innovations with equally innovative services that help our customers with mobile automation.”
Carahsoft to Resell Splunk to Government Customers
SSplunk Inc. and Carahsoft Technology Corp. today announced an alliance under which Carahsoft will market, sell and distribute Splunk software to federal, state and local government agencies and the Splunk reseller partner ecosystem.
“Splunk software will enable Carahsoft and our reseller network to better equip agencies with big data management and security solutions needed for highly sensitive, mission critical environments,” said Craig P. Abod, Carahsoft president. “Splunk’s ability to make machine data accessible, usable and valuable makes it a core technology in our big data portfolio and a critical solution for our customers.”
With Splunk software, government entities can index, monitor, analyze and visualize massive volumes of valuable machine data generated by complex physical, virtual and cloud-based environments. Splunk helps agencies create real-time visibility across all agency servers and network devices by enabling agencies to create a single viewpoint to help investigate security incidents and address critical operations and application management functions.
“The government faces a paradox today with massive streams of data, real-time mission requirements and shrinking budgets,” said Bill Cull, vice president of public sector, Splunk. “Splunk software helps agencies to effectively analyze machine-generated big data, meet security and compliance standards and drastically cut operational costs. Our strategic alliance with Carahsoft will give agencies easier access to our products, allowing them to uncover data and improve operational intelligence to achieve mission success.”
For more information on Splunk, visit the intelligence solutions section of Carahsoft’s website or join Carahsoft and Splunk at the FedCyber.com Cyber Security Summit on Thursday, November 15, 2012 in Washington, D.C. Go to Splunk’s website to learn how Splunk works with government agencies and click here to download a free version of Splunk Enterprise.
Quest, Pivotal Technologies Partner to Deliver Desktops as a Cloud Service
Desktone, Inc., today announced a partnership between Quest, a cloud service provider, and Pivotal Technologies Group, a managed service provider. Based on the relationship, Pivotal will now offer Desktone-powered hosted Windows desktops provided by Quest as a managed service to businesses. The relationship represents an effective new way for service providers of all sizes to benefit from increasing demand for desktops as a cloud service. By providing the Desktone-powered DaaS offering to channel partners, Quest is able to expand their market opportunity while enabling managed service providers such as Pivotal the ability to offer virtual desktops without having to invest in costly infrastructure.
“We built the Desktone Platform from day one for service providers like Quest and Pivotal that are tasked with helping end user organizations increase IT efficiencies while keeping their budgets in check,” said David Grant, Vice President of Strategy, Desktone. “We have seen an explosion of interest from managed service providers (MSPs) that want to deliver DaaS but cannot build their own data centers. With DaaS, Quest is able to host and deploy virtual desktops from their data centers, making it easy for Pivotal to provision new desktops for end users whenever they’re needed without investing in costly hardware and software.”
“Quest is committed to its partners to capitalize on cloud computing opportunities like DaaS that are in the greatest demand among customers today,” said Adam Burke, Director of Quest’s Technology Partner Program. “Our partnership with Pivotal is a testament to the unique value proposition that Quest delivers as a partner of choice to accelerate their time to market and provide the greatest value of cloud services to their end customers.”
Small and mid-sized service providers often don’t have the capacity for hosted offerings. By leveraging Desktone’s multi-tenant DaaS solution, Quest can provide MSPs like Pivotal a simple, affordable way to offer virtual desktops to end user organizations. The multi-tenant architecture makes it easy to deliver secure, scalable virtual desktops as a cloud service without the expense and hassle of infrastructure integration and maintenance.
“Our customers look to Pivotal to solve their IT pain points. One of the biggest challenges we see is organizations looking to support mobile and remote workers,” said Jim Law, President, Pivotal Technologies Group. “We previously offered our customers desktops from a traditional VDI provider but found the service expensive and difficult to manage because of issues with speed and availability. By transitioning to the Quest DaaS model powered by Desktone we are able to streamline desktop management and improve reliability while reducing the price per desktop by half.”
Cloud Computing Aided Resiliency in Wake of Sandy
Hurricane Sandy brought with it a heavy dose of disaster, but utilizing the cloud helped mitigate what could have been even more difficulties faced by businesses.
“Overall, I think cloud does help,” said Stephanie Balaouras, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Tier one cloud and SaaS providers such as Google and Amazon operate their cloud services from multiple data centers and can simply shift workloads to other locations as needed. They are also able to deliver a level of availability that many organizations could never achieve themselves. This includes the resiliency of the data center infrastructure itself to the resources that they invest in high availability and disaster recovery capabilities,” Balaouras said, according to an article on SearchCloudSecurity.com.
“Cloud computing can absolutely help in BC/DR operations,” said Kevin O’Shea, information security practice lead at engineering, construction and technical services firm URS Corporation. “For example, we saw several large webhost providers switch to alternate locations when their primary data centers went offline in New York City. However, businesses must be organized in such a way as to be able to offload critical applications and data to a cloud provider,” he said.