Before embarking on using open source cloud technology for your web property, a basic understanding of cloud, as it’s used in the industry, is essential. While there might be exceptions, here are the definitions.
A software application delivered on the web instead of installing standalone software on a particular OS requiring some environment qualifies as Software as a Service. This makes applications available anywhere on a browser in any OS, device, and also makes latest updates available asynchronously, e.g., email on the web, banking on the web.
PaaS
A web application requires software in turn to be built like the environment, application server, and web server and the configuration of these should be adequate for the applications deployed on this platform. For a Java-based application, one may require a JBoss server to deploy code. With Platform as a Service, instead of trying to manage the JBoss server deployment and configuration, it can be made available as a service and integrated right within your IDE, e.g., openshift.redhat.com, cloudfoundry.org.
Eucalyptus Is Open for (Cloud) Business
Eucalyptus Systems provides IT organizations and technology businesses with the most widely deployed cloud software platform for on-premise Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Eucalyptus is built as an open source cloud product and is uniquely suited for enterprise-class private cloud or hybrid cloud computing.
Eucalyptus is the world’s most widely deployed private cloud software platform. Our software enables companies to turn their own hardware into so called private clouds. With Eucalyptus installed on your servers and your storage system, you have a cloud of your own with the benefits that you are used to from the public cloud such as Amazon Web Services.
Some examples: Puma runs all their consumer-facing websites on Eucalyptus. This allows them to move workloads around and provide compute power to the website or campaign that needs it most. The US Department of Agriculture built a modern mobile application for farmers. The application runs on a Eucalyptus cloud installed on USDA’s existing servers. Plinga runs massive social games on both the public cloud and on Eucalyptus. They can move the games back and forth without change.
Racemi Software Automates Migration of Windows Servers to Public Clouds
Like a moving company for the cloud, Racemi provides the ability to easily migrate Windows server images to public clouds. The company is a sponsor at the upcoming Cloud Expo where visitors can see Racemi demonstrate server migrations.
Racemi announced on Wednesday its DynaCenter software can now quickly and easily migrate Windows server images to public cloud providers including Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Rackspace and Terremark. It also provides flexibility to move workloads from one cloud computing provider to another, as well as to a physical or virtual server – in any combination or direction.
Oracle Coupon Code ▸ oracleVIPgold Special Offer as Cloud Expo Sponsor
As a Platinum Plus Sponsor of Cloud Expo New York, Oracle is offering special passes to SYS-CON’s 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
With more than 380,000 customers – including 100 of the Fortune 100 – and with deployments across a wide variety of industries in more than 145 countries around the globe, Oracle offers an optimized and fully integrated stack of business hardware and software systems that helps organizations overcome complexity and unleash innovation.
DocuSign, bluLink Solutions Enhance Enterprise Workflow with DocuSign for Microsoft SharePoint
DocuSign today announced its collaboration with bluLink Solutions, a provider of custom enterprise solutions with Microsoft SharePoint. bluLink will use the DocuSign eSignature Transaction Management Platform to fully automate signature processes for its SharePoint clients.
“By integrating with DocuSign, we will enable our SharePoint clients to keep their document processes including approvals requiring signatures entirely electronic,” said John Bech, vice president of sales at bluLink Solutions. “Our joint solutions will deliver tremendous value to our clients by reducing transaction times from days to minutes.”
“bluLink’s deep expertise with business processes, SharePoint, and DocuSign allow it to deliver significant value to its clients extremely quickly,” said Dustin Grosse, chief marketing officer at DocuSign. “With DocuSign, bluLink can dramatically shorten signature cycle times, eliminate the need for paper and eradicate data rekeying errors. Together we make it much easier for employees to do their jobs by delivering substantial, nearly immediate ROI that also improves employee satisfaction.”
Companies interested in integrating DocuSign’s electronic signature solution with Microsoft SharePoint may visit www.docusign.com or www.blulinksolutions.com for more information.
SAP to Acquire Ariba for $4.3 Billion
SAP on Tuesday announced its intention to buy Ariba for $4.3 billion, a 19 percent premium on Ariba’s market capitalization.
The move comes soon after SAP’s SuccessFactors February buy and shows that SAP is quickly and aggressively acquiring its way to a full cloud business services capability. The announcement caps SAP’s user conference last week and the cloud and data services news from it, including cloud suite offerings like SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One.
New Release of Mendix App Platform Brings Mobile to the Enterprise
Mendix, the app platform company for the enterprise, announced today the availability of the Spring 2012 release of its App Platform, further extending its capabilities, and advancing the way companies build, integrate and deploy web and mobile enterprise apps.
“Our goal with this release was to further advance the state of the market with the most socially collaborative and productive app platform that truly empowers the mobile enterprise user,” said Derek Roos, CEO of Mendix. “We wanted to enable companies to build, integrate and deploy enterprise scale apps faster and easier than ever, regardless of device.”
With this new release companies are able to more quickly and efficiently launch mobile enterprise apps and take advantage of the newly updated app platform that now combines visual business modeling, social productivity, enterprise integration, an app store, and secure cloud deployment. This helps organizations build apps with less effort, automate inefficient processes, and extend existing systems with new apps, while accelerating time-to-market and reducing traditional IT costs.
Rob Boomsma, Division Manager at Capgemini, participated in the beta program of this release and noted: “Mendix set the bar higher yet again with this release and has delivered highly productive social collaboration, mobile and enterprise integration features. I couldn’t believe how easy it now is with the Mendix App Platform to extend an existing system with a mobile app. This is IT and business innovation at its best, providing immediate value to any company.”
The Spring 2012 Release Highlights:
- Enterprise Mobile – Companies are now
able to quickly and efficiently launch mobile enterprise apps
providing the best experience for their users while ensuring the
necessary back-end system and process integration. - One Complete App Platform for the Enterprise
– This release brings together all app platform components under one
roof and user interface. As a result, companies are able to seamlessly
plan projects, design and build apps, collaborate, integrate with
existing systems and instantly deploy them in the cloud. - Enterprise Integration and App Mash-Up –
Companies now have additional integration options and can quickly
incorporate other enterprise applications via Enterprise Mash-Ups.
This results in improved performance and simplifies integration with
external systems. - Social Productivity – The Mendix App
Platform now includes built-in social collaboration features such as
activity streams, online chat, groups, and project planning that make
it easier to fully engage all stakeholders throughout an app
development project. This produces better results and happier users as
it includes stakeholders from the IT and business side but also
captures feedback from end users. Users are now more than consumers of
an application, they are part of the project team and an integral part
of a successful project.
Cloud Computing: Oracle Buys Vitrue
Oracle Wednesday said it’s buying privately held Vitrue for some unsung amount of money.
Vitrue operates a cloud-based social marketing and engagement platform that lets marketers centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns and activities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.
The six-year-old concern has picked up $33 million in funding over the years including investments from Comcast and Turner Broadcasting.
The acquisition should close this summer. Oracle said it will then add Vitrue’s products to the Oracle Cloud in the name of a unified social experience across customer interactions.
Stratodesk Unveils New Version of NoTouch Desktop
Stratodesk today announced the latest version of NoTouch Desktop, offering customers and resellers a versatile and easy to use endpoint VDI and cloud OS and client management solutions.
Stratodesk’s NoTouch Desktop allows businesses to simplify and unify their desktops. The PC and thin-client re-purposing and management solution consists of two-parts: the NoTouch Receiver OS, a thin OS that runs on PCs or Thin Clients and provides instant connectivity to all popular server-side technology and connection brokers, and the NoTouch Center, an innovative, browser-based client-management tool that gives system administrators the ability to manage and secure any and all PCs and OEM thin clients from one virtual management console. NoTouch Desktop is completely hardware, vendor and platform agnostic and has minimal hardware requirements.
The latest version of NoTouch Desktop inter alia includes:
- Integration with the native Citrix VDI-in-a-Box Client to connect to a
Citrix VDI-in-a-Box Server in three different ways (Citrix Receiver,
Java Client, Web browser). NoTouch Desktop now enables users to
repurpose existing endpoints and to establish a connection to a
VDI-in-a-Box infrastructure in under five minutes. - Citrix Receiver 12.1 with flash redirection and USB support
- Firefox 12 with Flash Plug-in 11.2
- The remote tool Team Viewer to give fast and hassle free support
“Stratodesk’s latest version of NoTouch Desktop provides businesses with a best-of-breed endpoint OS and management solution that is even more versatile, easy to connect and cost effective,” explains Emanuel Pirker, Founder and CEO of Stratodesk. “We’re excited to provide a smart and effective, hassle-free, hardware independent solution for businesses moving to VDI. We are also very proud to present a rapid way for VDI-in-a-Box users to repurpose all their endpoints and connect to VDI-in-a-Box environment. “
Pricing for NoTouch Desktop begins at $31.49 for 1-10 clients, $29.92 for 11-100 clients, $28.34 for 101-500 clients and $27.00 for 501-1000 clients. For more information, please visit www.stratodesk.com or call (415) 946-4029. To evaluate NoTouch Desktop for free please register at: http://www.stratodesk.com/download.
Stratodesk will host a free webinar on how to repurpose and manage your existing hardware with NoTouch Desktop on Wednesday, May 30 at 09:30 a.m. PST. For registration please click here: http://www.stratodesk.com/calendarevents/20/webinar-30-may-2012
Cloud Expo New York: No Cloud Is an Island
How do we connect clouds? Since the Internet has no SLA, many organizations are concerned about being exposed to the vagaries of the Internet. There are only a few options for concrete quality of service (QoS) when accessing public clouds.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jelle Frank van der Zwet, Manager Cloud Segment at Interxion, has identified a need for a connectivity solution that enables clouds to be connected and will show how to enable cloud providers to extend their coverage and offer hybrid cloud solutions.