Simplify Hybrid Cloud Deployments with Overlay Networking
IT networks have reached a juncture where they must transition from static, host-centric, vLAN centric infrastructures, to modern, efficient programmable network fabrics that allow enterprises to leverage capacity on demand. They must also have the ability to move virtual machine (VM) workloads within the data center, between data centers, and into the external cloud. However, this VM mobility places new requirements on data center networks to efficiently support multi-tenant environments.
As organizations make the shift from a virtualization-driven data center toward an infrastructure designed for cloud computing, they must shift their focus to application consolidation at scale for multiple customers in multi-tenant data centers. While virtualization has reduced the cost and time required to deploy a new application from weeks to minutes, driving costs down from thousands of dollars to a few hundred, reconfiguring the network for a new or migrated virtual workload still takes approximately a week and can cost thousands of dollars.
dbShards to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that CodeFutures Corporation, the company behind dbShards, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 11th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 5–8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
CodeFutures Corporation, the company behind dbShards, is a leading supplier of database performance tools that reduce the time and effort required to develop database applications and dramatically increase deployed database scalability and performance.
dbShards economically scales Big Data, high transaction volume databases using database sharding, the database scalability architecture used by Internet leaders such as Flickr, YouTube, and Google. Going beyond traditional Data Warehouse Appliances, dbShards dramatically improves the response times and scalability of OLTP databases, online services and Software as a Service applications, and any database application with many concurrent users – both in cloud environments or running on cost-effective commodity hardware.
AppNeta Enhances Web Application Performance Monitoring
AppNeta today announced the launch of PathView Cloud with AppView Web for insight into Web application performance for end users. PathView Cloud automatically delivers Web performance visibility from the perspective of remote enterprise users, and also delivers network performance insight.
“When the Electronic Health Record (EHR) applications don’t perform well, end users get frustrated, adoption decreases, and the value of the application is never realized,” said Bob Dupuis, Director, Technical Services, Arcadia Solutions. “By using PathView Cloud with AppView Web as part of our EHR optimization services we can quickly determine root cause and resolution to performance problems. AppView Web also enables our managed services team to proactively manage EHR infrastructures, increasing physician satisfaction and adoption. This results in more meaningful use of the critical application.”
As more and more organizations transition to Web-based technology for business critical applications, it is necessary for IT teams to have 24/7 visibility from the end user’s perspective, and be able to understand and troubleshoot performance issues wherever they are occurring in the network or the application. When critical business applications such as CRM systems, hosted email, collaboration tools or healthcare and financial record services stop working, so do the employees.
“Poor end-user performance of critical Web applications like Netsuite, Salesforce.com, Google Apps and hosted email seriously disrupts business operations,” said Jim Melvin, CEO of AppNeta. “Unlike traditional Web performance tools available today, PathView Cloud with AppView Web enables you to see the performance of these applications within your own network and how they are impacting service delivery to your end users.”
With the newest AppView Web enhancements, PathView Cloud now provides a continuous view of the actual application performance with unprecedented network performance insight. This integrated performance visibility enables IT operations teams to monitor and troubleshoot performance of Web applications more quickly and easily than ever before. With a simple click within the PathView Cloud reporting interface, users can drill down from the overall performance of their Web application into the specific application steps and a detailed view of the Web pages involved to understand the cause of poor performance. AppView Web is compatible with Web applications that require authentication and performs multi-step scripted actions to accurately assess the application performance experienced by the user.
Amplidata to Exhibit at Cloud Expo Silicon Valley
SYS-CON Events announced today that Amplidata, a provider of Optimized Object Storage systems for Big Data, will exhibit at SYS-CON’s 11th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 5–8, 2012, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Amplidata provides Optimized Object Storage systems for Big Data. It enables customers to deploy turnkey large-storage infrastructures that meet the highest reliability and availability requirements at the lowest possible cost.
Amplidata responds to the market’s need by solving the problems traditional technologies face and guarantees ultimate availability on all storage tiers. Leveraging their BitSpread technology, Amplidata enables customers to build highly available storage infrastructures at significantly reduced cost. The company is addressing some of the inherent weaknesses of high capacity disk systems, such as performance, bit error rates, mean time between failures and RAID rebuild times which have not improved sufficiently to keep up with the explosion of digital storage needs.
storeView Offers Free Cross Platform App Store Analytics Service for HTML5, PhoneGap Developers
appMobi today announced storeView, a new, free, cloud-based reporting service for PhoneGap and hybrid HTML5 app developers that aggregates and displays detailed app analytics across all the most popular app stores in a single dashboard.“As game and app developers have begun to leverage HTML5’s ‘write once, deploy everywhere’ power, the issue of app store fragmentation has emerged as these apps have become successful across multiple stores and platforms”
With the explosion of new cross platform app development, developers are increasingly posting their apps to multiple app stores. Each of the app stores uses a different method to report sales and activity, creating massive fragmentation. This “App Store Fragmentation” issue prevents developers from understanding app performance and trends information that every developer needs to achieve maximum profitability. With the release of storeView, appMobi has stepped up to provide a completely free service that solves this issue for PhoneGap and HTML5 hybrid app developers.
“As game and app developers have begun to leverage HTML5’s ‘write once, deploy everywhere’ power, the issue of app store fragmentation has emerged as these apps have become successful across multiple stores and platforms,” said Sam Abadir, appMobi CTO. “We experienced this issue ourselves with Boom Town, the first massively cross platform HTML5 game, currently available in 7 different app stores. We also realized just how little information is provided by many of the app stores. For example, the only analytic provided by Apple’s App Store and Google Play is download count – that’s all they can tell you about your app! We created storeView for internal use and found it to be an invaluable tool. Now we’re giving it away for anyone who’s using HTML5 to create apps.”
storeView is a completely free cloud service. There will never be any charge for setting up an account, for adding apps to the system, nor for the number of users a particular app has. Adding storeView analytics to any HTML5-based app is extremely easy, with the addition of a single include file and just one line of JavaScript code. storeView provides deep, granular insight into the performance and activity of developers’ apps in each of today’s leading app stores, including Apple, Android (Google Play), Facebook, Amazon, Chrome, Mozilla and Barnes & Noble.
To view storeView analytics, developers simply log into their account and select from a variety of reports. The available reports include monthly uniques on all platforms, iOS starts by device, Android starts by device, app starts by platform, and 30 day uniques vs. app starts. Armed with this important data, developers can make informed decisions on allocating development and marketing resources, uncover unseen relationships between devices and platforms, and most importantly, optimize app store profits.
PhoneGap and HTML5 Developers can sign up for storeView free at http://www.appmobi.com/storeView.
RealPage Acquires Rent Mine Online
RealPage, Inc., a provider of on demand software and software-enabled services to the rental housing industry, today announced that it has acquired RentMineOnline Inc. (“RMO”), a software-as-a-service provider of social network marketing solutions for the multifamily rental housing industry (www.rentmineonline.com). The acquisition will extend the Company’s LeaseStar™ multichannel managed marketing solution which enables property owners and managers to originate, syndicate, manage and capture leads more effectively and at less overall cost.
RentMineOnline helps property owners and managers generate leads by combining the success of online resident referral programs with the power of social networks, such as Facebook™, Twitter™ and LinkedIn™, as well as email. Since the average social media user has over 150 Facebook™ friends and Twitter™ followers, social network resident referral campaigns are quickly becoming an extremely important source of leads for the rental housing industry.
“Adding a social network referral channel to our LeaseStar™ solution is expected to help increase the percentage of overall leads that a property can generate organically, reducing dependency on more expensive traditional listing services,” said Steve Winn, Chairman and CEO of RealPage. “Social influence in the rental decision is proving to increase conversion rates, so property owners and managers are now using this type of tool to improve both the quantity and quality of leads that they receive. In addition, we expect social network recommendations to help improve search engine optimization of our LeaseStar™ websites.”
“We are excited to become part of the RealPage team,” said Ed Spiegel, CEO of Rent Mine Online. “We have revolutionized the way property owners and managers utilize social media to drive demand reaching over 10 million unique friends since our inception. We are delighted that our vision and dedication on this front will enable us to become part of the LeaseStar™ multichannel marketing solution which should transform the way property owners and managers solve the total rental housing demand equation.”
Hybrid Cloud Solutions Offer Enhanced Cloud Protection & Data Security
Despite widespread concerns about cloud data security and control, there’s been a lot of recent news on the healthcare industry’s steady, but cautious foray into cloud computing. In early July, research firm MarketsandMarkets issued a report stating that the healthcare cloud computing market will grow from $1.7 billion in 2011 to $5.4 billion by 2017, an encouraging 20.5% compounded annual growth rate. However, the report points to some key restraints, such as patient data security and cloud compliance that could slow down the market unless mitigated.
In a unique twist, a recent article identifies cloud data security as a primary driver, not an obstacle in the cloud adoption trend. In “Money in a mattress: Why patient records should move to a private cloud”, the author expounds on the security weaknesses of traditional hospital client-server systems in which protected data can be easily compromised, and he points to private or hybrid clouds as better solutions.
Cloud Computing: Integration in the Cloud
“We are a cloud integrator. We help companies bring their internal IT infrastructure into the Cloud,” stated Jason Silverglate, President and CEO of FortressITX, talks to SYS-CON.tv at Cloud Expo New York, in this SYS-CON.tv interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 10th International Cloud Expo, held June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City.
Cloud Expo 2012 Silicon Valley, November 5–8, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.
Don’t expect big changes from VMware’s new CEO
By Tim Stammers, Senior Analyst, Infrastructure, Ovum.
Paul Maritz, CEO of EMC subsidiary VMware, is to be replaced by Pat Gelsinger, who is currently president and COO of all of EMC’s business other than VMware. The swap will happen in September, when Maritz will move in the opposite direction to become EMC chief strategist.
The move does not signal immediate or major changes at VMware. While the company faces increasing competition, its dominant position in the server virtualization market is not under immediate threat, and its revenue is still growing quickly.
EMC has also dismissed rumors that VMware plans to spin out its Cloud Foundry operation, at least for now. Although Maritz offered to step down during board discussions of VMware’s strategy, he has not been sidelined, as shown by his new role, his continued presence on VMware’s board of directors, and his high profile this week …