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Cloud Backup Or Sync?

Whether your data is stored in the cloud, on your desktop or on your server, you should be backing it up at least daily.

There are a myriad of backup options available on the desktop, from Windows NT Backup to Symantec and other more advanced options.

Some are mirror image backups, some are file by file. As well as backing up we should also be testing our restore processes to make sure our backup files are not corrupt and that we know how to restore if and when that disaster does strike!

These days, thanks to the cloud, backing up has become more simplified and in some cases, more secure and accessible than ever.

By signing up to a Cloud based backup agency such as Livebackup.com.au or Cloudbackup.net.au, or some desktop providers such as McAfee, Western Digital or Symantec, you can be backing up to your …

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Why Use OpenNebula on Your Existing VMware Infrastructure?

VMware hypervisors of the ESX family (3.x, 4.x and 5.0) are fully, out-of-the box supported by the latest versions of OpenNebula(3.0+). If you have a server farm based on any of the ESX versions, then you can make use of OpenNebula to better manage your physical (and virtual) resources in order to build a private cloud and provide virtualized environments. OpenNebula is the most powerful open-source alternative to VMware datacenter and cloud suite, delivering enterprise-class functionality, stability and scalability with broader platform support and integration capabilities.

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Computer Hardware, Data center, Hardware, InfiniBand, Mellanox, Mellanox Technologies, Virtualization, VMware, VMware vSphere

Mellanox Releases InfiniBand Driver for VMware vSphere

Image representing Mellanox Technologies as de...Mellanox Technologies, Ltd., a supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced the availability of InfiniBand driver support for VMware vSphere® 5, providing IT end-users the compelling choice of deploying field proven InfiniBand-based interconnect in virtualized data center and cloud environments. Running with Mellanox’s industry-leading ConnectX®-3 FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapter cards and SwitchX® FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand switches, the InfiniBand software driver for VMware vSphere 5 helps bring high throughput and low latency to virtualized IT deployments.

The InfiniBand driver for VMware vSphere 5 along with features like VMware VMDirect Path I/O, vMotion® and VMware High Availability (HA), leverage InfiniBand’s advanced built-in reliability and performance capabilities to help bring high performance and cost-effective solutions to IT end-users.

“Virtualization is proven to be the most effective technology to drive lower data center total cost of ownership and improve the cost-effectiveness of cloud computing SLA,” said David Barzilai, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s InfiniBand driver leverages the advanced data center virtualization and high availability features of VMware vSphere 5 to help bring new cost-effective system architectures for the next generation of flexible, reliable IT services.”

 


Aquantia, Computer Hardware, Ethernet, Hardware, Hosting, Internet Technology, Telecommunications Equipment, Venture Funding

Aquantia Gets $35 Million for High-speed Datacenter Ethernet

Image representing Aquantia as depicted in Cru...

Aquantia, a developer of High Speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for cloud computing and large scale data center deployments, announced today it has completed a Series F financing of $35 million, with new investor RUSNANO leading the round, joined by current investors. RUSNANO will invest $25 million, and current and new investors will contribute $10 million to the financing round.

Aquantia successfully launched its industry-leading 40nm 10GBASE-T PHY chipset in 2011, as a critical ingredient to emerging LAN-on-Motherboard (LOM) platforms for new data center servers and switches. With Intel’s March 2012 launch of its Romley generation LOM server platforms, the 10GBASE-T interconnect market is now seeing an explosive uptick. According to Crehan Research, shipments of 10GBASE-T in Data Center switching and servers will see more than a seven-fold increase from 2011 to 2012, reaching a total of approximately 6.5 million ports in 2013, and almost 20 million the following year.

Aquantia will establish a new design center in Russia. The Russian R&D center will support the headquarter Silicon Valley R&D group in chip design and software development, as well as product testing.

“Aquantia is the only 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) silicon provider to meet our investment criteria in the high-speed data center interconnect space,” said RUSNANO managing director Sergey Polikarpov. “We believe big data and global data center traffic are going to see a tremendous swell in the next several years, and Aquantia’s technology is essential to improving server performance while realizing greater cost efficiencies. This is a premium opportunity for us to participate in the market growth and its rewards.”

“NEA is excited to continue to support Aquantia as the company expands operations to meet the ever-increasing demand for its superior technology,” added NEA partner Rohini Chakravarthy. “We see network capacity build-up expected to support 15 billion connected devices by 2015. This represents a tremendous opportunity for Aquantia.”

“This past year has been tremendously gratifying, as it has been the culmination of hard work, innovation and powerful partnering in the 10GE and LOM space,” explained Aquantia’s president and CEO Faraj Aalaei. “We are truly ecstatic about the takeoff of Intel’s Romley platform and what it means as a watershed event for the near-term ubiquity of 10GBASE-T in the data center as well as future opportunity across the Enterprise space. This is what we have been working toward, and our funding partners in this and all previous rounds have positioned us for tremendous delivery success.”

Go to http://www.aquantia.com/news-and-media/ for footage of recent discussions on 10GBASE-T, and follow Aquantia on Twitter for ongoing updates on 10Gigabit Ethernet connectivity in the data center and cloud computing environments.

About Aquantia

Aquantia’s 10Gigabit Ethernet ICs are at the heart of cloud computing and large-scale data center deployments taking place today. This market segment is going through a very fast transition, with astounding growth in the total amount of compute power and the move to faster connectivity. This has in turn led to a new paradigm for 10Gigabit Ethernet all across the ecosystem. With its 10GBASE-T silicon products, Aquantia delivers to its OEM customers the most versatile and highest performance 10Gigabit Ethernet connectivity solution while providing lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Located in Silicon Valley, Aquantia is a venture-backed company, with strong tier-1 VCs and strategic investor support. For more information, visit www.aquantia.com.

About RUSNANO

RUSNANO was founded in March 2011 as an open joint stock company through reorganization of state corporation Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies. RUSNANO’s mission is to develop the Russian nanotechnology industry through co-investment in nanotechnology projects with substantial economic potential or social benefit. The Government of the Russian Federation owns 100 percent of the shares in RUSNANO. Anatoly Chubais is CEO and chairman of the Executive Board of RUSNANO.

Work to establish nanotechnology infrastructure and training for nanotechnology specialists, formerly conducted by the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies, has been entrusted to the Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs, a non-commercial fund also established through reorganization of the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies.


Accounts payable, Business Processes, Invoice, Invoice processing, Iron Mountain Incorporated, Purchase order, Workflow

Iron Mountain Takes Paper Out of Accounts Payable with New Electronic Invoicing Solution

Image representing Iron Mountain as depicted i...

Iron Mountain Incorporated today announced a new service for streamlining the way organizations receive, process and manage their accounts payable (AP) invoices. The Iron Mountain Electronic Invoice solution digitizes paper invoices and allows customers to manage these bills via an online tool that automates basic AP tasks like matching invoices to purchase orders and routing them for approval. By digitizing a traditionally paper-heavy process in accounts payable, Iron Mountain’s invoice-processing offering frees up AP departments to focus on higher-level activities and enables organizations to run their AP process faster and with fewer mistakes.

Most companies still receive mostly paper invoices. With paper, accounts payable teams must manually check invoices against purchase orders and receipts, and they must manually seek payment approvals, passing invoices from reviewer to reviewer. In this model, the process moves as fast – or as slow – as the person who currently holds the invoice. This wastes time, leads to errors and, worse, doesn’t allow the organization a holistic view into its cash flow or spending levels. Moving to electronic invoice receipt and automated workflow accelerates approvals, improves accounts payable process visibility and increases customers’ ability to control spend and manage their cash flow.

“Waste Pro has grown rapidly since our creation in 2001, expanding both organically and by acquisition throughout seven southeastern states,” said Don Phillips, CFO of Waste Pro USA, Inc. “That growth has greatly expanded our network of suppliers and business partners and increased the volume of paper flowing through our accounts payable department. Our processes were becoming increasingly more complex, and we required enhanced ability to work with suppliers and vendors, manage our payment cycle, and support our next decade of growth. We required a solution that would help us streamline electronic invoicing, remove paper from the process for quicker reviews and approvals and ultimately enable faster payments. Iron Mountain delivered on that need with the added benefit of making the solution flexible enough to support a gradual rollout to the entire company.”

The Iron Mountain Electronic Invoice solution is powered by Corcentric’s COR360™ cloud-based accounts payable workflow automation platform. The online workflow tool makes it easier for organizations to access, identify and share invoices that require further review. By automating this part of the accounts payable workflow, organizations gain greater visibility to better capture supplier discounts, drive cost savings and meet compliance requirements for accounts payable. Organizations can further speed invoice processing times by using their mobile devices to access the solution. And, as a cloud-based offering, the solution integrates into ERP and payment-processing solutions, and can scale throughout the organization as needed.

“The sheer amount of information moving through accounts payable departments – much of it on paper – is slowing down payments and endangering supplier relationships,” said Chris Churchill, senior vice president and general manager, Document Management Solutions for Iron Mountain. “Because it is so paper-intensive, accounts payable is an excellent example of a new wave of information management focused on outsourcing and automating manual processes for cost savings and improved compliance. Our expertise in helping companies better manage paper and digital information, as well as supporting the transitional period when an organization uses both, made accounts payable a natural addition to our services, and we’re thrilled to help our customers improve this vital business process.”

The four components of Iron Mountain’s Electronic Invoice include:

  • Virtual Shared-Service Center – Customers can set up a secure
    P.O. box, managed by Iron Mountain, for their vendors and suppliers to
    send paper invoices for digitization. Options for fax and email
    transmittal are available as well. Organizations can also eliminate
    paper invoices by having their suppliers submit electronic invoices
    and purchase orders to Iron Mountain’s free self-service portal, in
    any file format (XML, ASCII, etc.);
  • Cloud-Based Workflow Automation – This feature automatically
    matches invoices to purchase orders, routes invoices for review and
    approval, and streamlines the overall process before advancing to
    payment;
  • Archiving and Destruction – Iron Mountain can store paper and
    electronic invoices or securely dispose of them depending on the
    organization’s business or compliance requirements;
  • Reporting & Dashboard Functionality – Reporting
    capabilities, coupled with real-time dashboards, provide greater
    visibility into spending and payment-cycle times, showing audit trails
    and workflow history to monitor discounts, identify cost-savings
    opportunities and support compliance requirements.

Iron Mountain will demonstrate the Iron Mountain Electronic Invoice solution at the Fusion 2012 conference in booth #225. For more on the new solution, visit www.storeaccessmanage.com/content/accountspayable.


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Startup Mania Comes to Cebu City

Enthusiastic startup communities continue to emerge in the Philippines. Last fall, I reported on an event known as “Startup Weekend Manila.” Now a vibrant event has concluded in Cebu City, the country’s second-largest metro area.
Startup Weekend Cebu produced some 20 software ideas over the course of 54 hours, at an event hosted by the University of the Philippines Cebu. The first-place team demonstrated a mobile app called “WaitKnowMore,” which addresses the problem of insanely long waiting lines in the Philippines; no doubt the idea could be useful in many other places as well.
A mobile cooking app from a team called Luto.co, Codetoki, a web app that helps IT students make themselves attractive to employers, and an app called Digital Lifeline were other high finishers at the event.
Judges included technologists, executives, and entrepreneurs from the Philippines and beyond.
The guileless enthusiasm shown by participants at these events are a refreshing change from the hardboiled cynicism that has crept into Silicon Valley. There’s no talk of monetizing eyeballs, invasion of privacy as a benefit, or of massive IPOs.
Just rooms-full of mostly young people, with a few greyhairs thrown in to season the menudo. One of the challenges these fledgling entrepreneurs face is learning how to present their ideas forcefully and succinctly in a culture that tilts strongly toward showing humility and talking things through thoroughly.

When’s the Harvest?
Will any of these ideas bear fruit? Is The Next Big Thing lurking in this developing tropical ecosystem? Not for a mere writer to judge, but it’s important to note that two prominent Philippine entrepreneurs, Dado Banatao and Winston Damarillo held a follow-up event known as the Entrepreneurship Camp, the first of its kind in the Philippines.
Dado is currently with Tallwood Venture Capital, and is best-known for as a co-founder of Chips & Technologies and S3 Graphics. Winston is founder of Morphlabs and Exist, companies he founded after selling Gluecode to IBM in 2005.
Dado is also Chair of PhilDev and Winston founder of DevCon, two organizations that promote technological entrepreneurship and leadership in the Philippines. “We believe that truly sustainable economic development can only be realized when we have achieved a critical mass of Entrepreneurs in the country,” Dado said at the Cebu event. Winston echoed those remarks, noting, “It is important that we provide a pathway for our technologists and engineers to become entrepreneurs,”
Dado and Winston are now working on a larger event, called “Silicon Valley Comes to the Philippines,” scheduled for October of this year. I’ll stay in touch with them about this – my hope is that the local development communities can continue to grow, and even take its place among the major technology regions of the world, while retaining its infectious enthusiasm and charm.

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Technology Marketing "Done Right"

Most technology companies – especially Software companies do marketing all wrong. They make marketing all about “them”. I call it “me-me-me” marketing.
Marketing for technology should be about “the customer” – and how to make the customer successful.
There are a few examples of software technology marketing done right – and one of them is Zendesk with their “Customer Hero Tour”. Zuora is also high on my list.
Zendesk has set the bar for technology companies on the most critical marketing “best practice” of all.

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How CIOs Migrate Their IT Applications to the Cloud

As the role of cloud computing is growing around the globe, many CIOs and other senior IT decision makers are facing challenges with their existing network infrastructure — to support the migration of their business applications to the cloud. A new international study by Cisco Systems revealed the ongoing challenges associated with public or private cloud deployments.
These latest research findings provide insight into the current state of cloud service adoption and the chasm between IT expectations and network realities. The survey also examines the experiences of IT professionals regarding the level of difficulty and time required to update their networks and migrate their applications to the cloud.

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Modernizing the Network

Major changes have taken place in the network in the past 15 years. The type of data that users are passing across the pipes is significantly different in size and composition. And, the coming “data explosion” promises to put even the most robust networks to the test.
When you add in technologies like virtualization and the need to access cloud computing solutions reliably, it’s no wonder that the network sometimes falls behind the times.
If you want to modernize your data center’s network, here are some guiding facts and principles you need to consider.

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HP brings out public beta cloud on pay-as-you-go

Hewlett Packard has released its first public beta cloud services with over 40 companies publicly supporting the move.

The company announced that its three services – HP Cloud Compute, HP Cloud Object Storage and HP Cloud Content Delivery Network – were to be made available through a pay-as-you-go system after the free beta ended last week.

HP stated that their goal was to “enable developers, independent software vendors and enterprises of all sizes to build the next generation of web applications.”

Among those rousingly proclaiming their support were storage companies StorSimple and TwinStrata, and cloud testers SOASTA and Spirent, with companies ranging from database and management to Platform as a System (PaaS) providers on board.

SOASTA roared that the partnership will “add…thousands of additional servers to our global test environment to further ensure optimal performance testing for our customers”, whilst Spirent beamed that “being able to test from within HP Cloud …