Single sign-on is essential to driving engagement and usage of SaaS applications in large and mid-sized customer organizations. SAML is often promoted as an industry standard in the area, but is it really the de facto standard a SaaS vendor needs to drive growth?
No.
SAML is a protocol, a language. Languages are great for communicating, but a certain language is only useful when communicating with other speakers of the same language.
In business, the value of a language is dependent on how big a share of your current and potential customers speak it. Your choice of language(s) can greatly affect what kind of business you can expect: doing business only in Finnish limits your market to 5 Million people, whereas English lets you address more than a Billion people. You have three options.
Scyld Cloud Management Platform Moves HPC Applications to the Cloud
Penguin Computing today announced the availability of the Scyld Cloud Management Platform (SCMP) on its public HPC cloud Penguin Computing on Demand (POD). SCMP is a comprehensive software suite that makes it easy to implement service-based on-demand access for HPC applications. SCMP provides services for:
- web-based user sign-up and account management
- generating detailed resource usage reports
- provisioning and managing of virtual servers
- instantly allocating storage
- managing users and user groups
SCMP’s storage system is based on the distributed open-source storage system Ceph, which supports file-based, block-based and object-based storage. The management of virtual servers leverages OpenStack, an open-source solution for creating and managing large groups of virtual servers in a cloud computing environment. All SCMP components are accessible through an intuitive web-based interface, as well as a web-service API.
“As the first organization to offer commercial cluster management solutions for HPC and as one of the first to offer a public HPC cloud, we have a solid foundation on which we built SCMP,” says Tom Coull, Senior VP of Software and Services at Penguin Computing.
SCMP is also the foundation of Penguin Computing’s upcoming Scyld Cloud Manager (SCM), a packaged software suite that will enable customers to build their own public and private HPC clouds.
An early adopter of SCMP is the global biotechnology company Life Technologies. The Scyld Cloud Management Platform has enabled Life Technologies to offer cloud-based genomic sequencing analysis services through its Torrent Suite Cloud offering.
“SCMP is the core component of our Torrent Suite Cloud infrastructure,” says Matt Dyer, associate director of Bioinformatics at Life Technologies. “It enables us to offer a flexible solution for processing and managing genomic sequencing data to our customers. Typical use cases include software development and testing, as well as data sharing in collaborative projects.”
The API: From Hypertext to Hyperdata
The web has gone from integration via hypertext to integration via hyperdata.
A friend shared a recent C|Net article discussing the use of 404 error pages to feature missing children notices. Following links leads to a European effort to integrate information about missing children into 404 pages (and others, there’s no restriction that it be on a 404). By signing up, you’re offered some fairly standard HTML code to embed in the page. It’s very similar to advertising integration.
So I jumped on over to the US’ National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) hoping to find something similar or even better, an API. I was disappointed to find no real way to integrate the same data – not even simple dynamic HTML. All that data – all those children – are missing out on opportunities for exposure. Exposure that might mean being found.
Cloud Expo Silicon Valley: Executing Enterprise Clouds
Traditionally, IT departments have organized their processes, employees, and business relationships around owning and operating the core IT assets. The introduction of cloud services can offer significant cost savings and operational efficiencies but to recognize these benefits, IT departments will have to integrate new ways of thinking about how IT resources are delivered.
In his General Session at the 11th International Cloud Expo, Jim Anthony, Vice-President of the Tier II Solution Architecture Team at Terremark, will discuss the major factors driving cloud adoption for the enterprise, relate how the adoption of cloud technologies is changing the way IT departments will operate, and review case studies about businesses that have successfully used cloud services to meet their business goals.
RAMP Gets Patent on Automated Content Tagging
RAMP announced today that it has been issued its 19th patent as part of its ongoing development of intellectual property. USPN 8,280,719 covers RAMP’s unique ability to automatically tag large catalogs of audio, video, text, and image content using natural language processing combined with human guidance to create self-learning algorithms.
This technology enables RAMP to build highly scalable and cost-effective solutions for automatic content tagging – one of the most difficult and important challenges facing content producers across media and enterprise. Inadequate or incomplete tagging of content negatively impacts the performance of content management systems, adservers, and recommendation engines, and results in content that fails to generate its maximum value. USPN 8,280,719 nicely complements RAMP’s unique, patented ability to generate automated transcripts on audio and video content delivering a complete metadata solution for publishers of all content types.
“This recent patent issuance is a real testament to the deep talent and skill of the RAMP team,” said Tom Wilde, RAMP CEO. “We work hard to develop innovative ways for content producers to maximize the value of their content, and this patent is another great example of RAMP’s capabilities.”
OpenNebula 3.8 Beta Cloud Management Platform Is Out
The OpenNebula Project has just announced a new release, OpenNebula 3.8 Beta (Twin Jet), of its fully open-source, widely-used cloud platform for managing a data center’s virtual infrastructure. As in previous releases, the software brings countless valuable contributions from many industry, research and academia members of its large user community. Twin Jet brings many new features cloud management and stabilizes features that were introduced in previous versions.
OpenNebula is fully open-source software distributed and licensed for use under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0. An important effort has been made to synchronize the packaging format used by the OpenNebula project and those used by the Linux distributions. This will make even more easier to get and set OpenNebula up and running. Binary packages are available for the main Linux distributions.
Cerner, Nuance Collaborate to Embed Cloud-Based Voice Techn in Mobile EHR Solutions
Cerner and Nuance Communications today announced that the companies have expanded their relationship to accelerate the adoption of simpler, faster and smarter healthcare solutions for clinicians worldwide. The expanded partnership reflects both companies’ commitment to providing innovative, proven solutions that keep patient care a top priority by leveraging voice and mobile technologies to optimize clinician workflow and maximize the benefits of electronic health records (EHRs).
Under a new worldwide agreement, Cerner will embed Nuance’s cloud-based medical voice recognition into its full portfolio of mobile EHR solutions – including PowerChart Touch™ that was announced at the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in February. This integration will create a new class of mobile healthcare solutions on phones and tablets that enable clinicians to capture more complete patient notes, navigate applications and search for information while on-the-go – simply by using their voice.
In addition, Cerner and Nuance announced the availability and integration of Nuance’s radiology reporting suite, PowerScribe 360, with Cerner’s RadNet® Radiology Information System (RIS). This solution is an example of both companies’ ongoing innovation and will allow radiologists to dictate, in real-time, reports that are integrated directly and instantly with the patient record.
“The expansion of our partnership with Nuance, a company that offers voice and clinical understanding solutions used by 450,000 clinicians worldwide, exemplifies our commitment to provide state-of-the-art solutions to customers across the globe,” said Don Bisbee, senior vice president of DeviceWorks at Cerner. “By incorporating Nuance’s voice recognition capabilities into our core clinical applications including our latest mobile solution, PowerChart Touch, we are able to provide the healthcare industry with a simple, fast method of capturing complex medical information within the patient record at the point-of-care.”
PowerChart Touch is a mobile, cloud-based solution that is part of the Millennium+ portfolio. PowerChart Touch offers role and venue-based mobile workflows which allow physicians to perform their job duties straight from a mobile device. PowerChart Touch will provide a true native application experience across an array of platforms. Nuance’s 360 | SpeechAnywhere medical voice recognition solution, the technology that is embedded within PowerChart Touch, is also cloud-based. Together, Cerner and Nuance solutions will help simplify the large scale deployment of these integrated technologies, while also reducing the overall cost of ownership for customers.
“For more than 30 years, Cerner has proven its ability to create digital technologies that solve problems and positively impact patient care. Its most recent mobile innovations are a prime example of how these solutions are transforming the EHR experience today, and a key reason why now is the right time to expand our partnership. Cerner’s solutions are enabling clinicians to experience a fully functional EHR – anytime and anywhere – and voice is playing an important role in making this a reality,” said Janet Dillione, executive vice president and general manager of Nuance Healthcare. “We are excited to expand our partnership and confident that intuitive, voice-enabled technologies with deep Cerner integration will spur further industry innovation, improve the clinician experience and help focus efforts on the core mission – providing quality patient care.”
Nubefy Disrupts How Companies Consume Cloud Services
Nubefy launched of its IT service management platform, addressing the challenges faced when adopting cloud services such as reliability, scalability and manageability. Nubefy’s integrative platform provides a wide array of offerings including support for building, deploying, managing and monitoring servers, databases, data stores and virtualization components for building your cloud computing environment. We talked to Nubefy’s CEO at Fall Demo 2012.
Exelis Visual Information Solutions: When a Cloud Benefits Airborne, Satellite Imagery
ITT Exelis a subsidiary Exelis Visual Information Solutions, a developer of geospatial image and data analysis software, announced a new, cloud-based implementation of ENVI image analysis software to be released early in 2013.
ENVI Services Engine will make information from airborne and satellite imagery available to forward-deployed military and intelligence personnel via mobile devices. This new product will allow them to gain situational awareness, better assess terrain conditions and identify potential targets and threats. By delivering technology to create, publish and deploy advanced, ENVI-based image and data analytics as Web services, the new capability will allow geographically diverse individuals the ability to make more informed decisions on critical tasks.
“Today’s defense, intelligence and disaster relief personnel rely on readily available geospatial imagery and data to assess important geographic conditions,” said Jaye Lampe, president of Exelis Visual Information Solutions. “But they do not always have access to the desktop software traditionally used to perform the required analytics. The cloud implementation of ENVI Services Engine will provide ready-now access to the critical information they need to make accurate decisions quickly and efficiently.”
ENVI image analysis products are already widely used in military and intelligence in tactical and strategic operations. It is widely known in the industry for its advanced analytical capabilities and for delivering highly accurate results. ENVI Services Engine has been successfully field tested in custom implementations by key customers. With an extremely flexible architecture, it can be easily deployed into nearly any existing enterprise, making it a cost effective solution that requires little additional training for users.
Exelis is previewing ENVI Services Engine at the GEOINT 2012 Symposium, Oct. 8-11, in Orlando, Fla. GEOINT is hosted by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation and is the nation’s largest intelligence event of the year. In-booth presentations on the new capability are available daily during show hours.
SoftLayer’s Nathan Day Talks Bare Metal & Virtual Compute
I met up with SoftLayer Chief Scientist Nathan Day a few weeks ago, while attending VMworld in San Francisco. The Dallas-based company was founded in 2005 and provides hosted and cloud-computing services to a wide variety of 25,000+ customers. It employs Citrix CloudPlatform (powered by Apache CloudStack) as part of its services.
SoftLayer wasn’t exhibiting at VMworld, which was no surprise and which made for an obvious question…
Roger: What do you think of the event?
Nathan: “VMworld is a great event. It includes more than just the VMware community, but also is applicable to the IT delivery ecosystem. I found it a great place to meet vendors, partners, and customers.”
Roger: So give us an update on SoftLayer’s activities.
Nathan: “SoftLayer continues to innovate by releasing new products each month. This year we introduced Object Storage, which is a redundant and highly scalable cloud storage service that allows users to easily store, search and retrieve data. Another example is our new Message Queue Service to give our customers the a scalable and reliable message queue and notification service.”
“Perhaps the most significant is our turnkey Private Clouds offering. This is a breakthrough offering allows users to easily deploy fully configured, single tenant private clouds based on Citrix CloudPlatform.”
Roger: So what has SoftLayer already found to be advantageous about integrating (Citrix) XenServer rather than VMware. Is there an open-source philosophy behind how you build your infrastructure to serve your clients?
Nathan: “We use XenServer for our public, virtual machine cloud offering. Its attraction was as a affordable, enterprise-grade hypervisor with a great API that we could integrate to our own orchestration engine.”
Roger: How has your customer base changed over the past year or so, specifically, are customers asking different questions now? On the other hand, are you still looking at vast untapped opportunities from customers who are only now thinking about cloud computing?
Nathan: “We still see plenty of untapped opportunities. Some customers are still looking for raw infrastructure, but the vast majority are looking to run more complex solutions. We are seeing more examples of scalable architectures being built out that take advantage of our ability to rapidly provision both bare metal and virtual compute capability.”
“On the international front, we opened up two major data centers late last year – one in Amsterdam and another in Singapore. Both are fully staffed and offer customers our complete portfolio of services. We’re also seeing customers manage larger, more complex and distributed environments. They are turning to SoftLayer to help support their Internet-scale applications and architectures.”