I didn’t know whether I should chuckle cynically or slow clap the recent hubris of an Amazon executive, quoted in InformationWeek, with a tech prediction set to be fulfilled in a mere ten years: Amazon: Era Of Data Centers Ending: The era in which most big companies operate their own data centers is coming to […]
Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Paul Rubell – Meltzer Lippe
With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now just under six away, what better time to introduce you in greater detail to the distinguished individuals in our incredible Speaker Faculty for the technical and strategy sessions at the conference…
We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from June 11 through June 14 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing and Big Data, but what of those who are presenting? Who are they, where do they work, what else have they written and/or said about the Cloud that is transforming the world of Enterprise IT, side by side with the exploding use of enterprise Big Data – processed in the Cloud – to drive value for businesses…?
The Key to Private Cloud Is Removing IT Stratification
One of the leading problems plaguing IT organizations is the high costs of operations and maintenance. The industry average is roughly 70% with some organizations going as high as 90%. Picking apart these costs one often finds a stratified organization focused on narrow bands of computing with little crossover between the bands. Moreover, the weighting […]
Cincinnati Bell Launches Cloud Services With Apptix and Parallels
Cincinnati Bell (NYSE: CBB) today announced in a press release the expansion of its portfolio of telecommunications and IT services for businesses with the addition of cloud-based Microsoft® Communication and Collaboration Solutions powered by hosted business services provider Apptix® (OSE: APP) and Parallels, the leading provider of cloud service delivery software. These new solutions will allow Cincinnati Bell to more effectively serve small & medium businesses, as well as key industries including healthcare, government, and education.
According to the 2012 Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ report, businesses are increasingly turning to cloud solutions such as hosted communications and collaboration services. In the past year, it is estimated that more than one million SMBs in the United States have started using some form of cloud services.
“Purchasing and maintaining software and hardware can be daunting and expensive for many SMB customers,” said Stuart Levinsky, General Manager of Cloud Computing at Cincinnati Bell. “Cloud Solutions from Cincinnati Bell allow businesses to focus on what’s important to them – their customers – while letting us do the heavy lifting to provide a proven, reliable communications network and the top cloud-based services available anywhere.”
Cincinnati Bell’s new Cloud Solutions – including hosted Microsoft Exchange email with mobile synchronization and hosted Microsoft SharePoint – keep employees connected on the go, enhance productivity, and reduce the cost of IT services. Optional archiving and compliance features help businesses meet stringent regulatory requirements, such as HIPAA, PCI, FRCP, and SOX.
“We’re pleased that Cincinnati Bell selected Apptix to support their strategic move into the cloud,” said David Ehrhardt, president and chief executive officer of Apptix. “Our partner program reflects Apptix’s extensive experience in the hosted services market, providing everything our partners need to successfully transition into the cloud market. Apptix offers our channel partners flexible business models, diversified solution offerings, and dedicated sales, marketing, and support resources and staff to fast-track their revenue growth from cloud-based solutions. ”
“Cloud services represent a significant growth opportunity for communication service providers such as Cincinnati Bell,” said Birger Steen, CEO of Parallels. “We are pleased to join with our valued partners Cincinnati Bell and Apptix and as they use Parallels Automation to rapidly syndicate and deliver cloud services.”
For more information about Cincinnati Bell’s new Cloud Solutions for business customers, visit www.cincinnatibell.com/cloud.
Cloud Expo New York: Executing Enterprise Clouds
For years, IT departments have organized their processes, employees, and business relationships around owning and operating the core IT assets in an enterprise. The current wave of cloud services can have a powerful effect on enterprise IT, with the potential for significant cost savings and operational efficiencies. To achieve these benefits, IT departments will have to integrate new ways of thinking about how IT resources are delivered.
In his general session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Bill Lowry, Vice President, Cloud Services 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 showing how businesses have used cloud services to achieve these benefits.
Cloud Transition – Assess Then Fly into the Clouds
There is great excitement about the cloud; however, it is important to conduct a full assessment as part of the Cloud Transition. It is very important to decide which applications will be moving to the cloud based on factors such as alignment with business requirements, cost savings, level of effort, available resources, benefits of the new solution, risks etc to determine business and functional benefits. Architecture and security aspects need to be thoroughly assessed, and factors such as interoperability, reliability, portability, storage, data transfer, sensitivity of data have to be evaluated. The initial and projected cost implications for services have to be monitored regularly since services that are cost effective initially may end up being more expensive down the road as more users are brought on board. As part of the assessment of cloud vendors, technology and cost aspects need to be looked into carefully and expectations should be documented in the service level agreements.
cVidya Announces New Big Data Capabilities
cVidya Networks on Monday announced the addition of new capabilities for its IRIS and cVidyaCloud suites which enable CSPs to monitor and analyze data on a massive scale over distributed architecture for parallel processing to help maximize the value of telecoms big data. The announcement was made at cVidya’s 2012 user conference in Athens earlier this month.
Using these new capabilities, cVidya brings the power of Big Data to its pricing analytics application for Next-Best-Offer recommendation. OfferAdvisor, which is already deployed at leading operators, enables marketing managers and retention teams to offer the optimal offer or price plan to help decrease the retention costs of existing subscribers as well as identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. With these new capabilities, cVidya’s OfferAdvisor is a unique Next-Best-Offer application that analyzes structured data (such as actual subscriber usage) and unstructured or semi-structured data types (such as log files, clickstreams and text from e-mails) with new data sources to be added to the application capabilities in the coming months. Consequently, OfferAdvisor has an even more powerful and accurate recommendation engine, taking into account churn risk, ability to match price plans, and add-ons based on customer preferences and behavior (e.g. sport add-on for sports fans and one month of free audio books for commuters).
A Fistful of Fears: Our Top Five Security Issues
If you work in information technology and you passed through the city of London over the last week it would have been hard not to notice the InfoSec IT security conference being held at the Earl’s Court exhibition center.
Logically, of course, certain themes and trends came out of this event, which (at a macroeconomic level at least) may provide some insight for chief information officers trying to analyse the state of their current security operation as they try to quantify the vulnerabilities that they may be harboring within their firm’s operational structure.
Looking for the Right Answers in the Clouds at Cloud Expo New York
The age of Big Data is here. Organizations are no longer challenged to find enough data to answer the pertinent questions required for success in today’s dynamic business environment. Rather, companies are struggling to keep pace with the enormous volumes of data invading their organizations – leaving some wondering what can we do to “connect the dots” from the data that is buried in our IT systems.
Cloud Computing offers federal agencies, companies, and communities new solutions for consuming, storing, processing, and analyzing Big Data to find the right answers needed to accomplish the mission, gain competitive advantage, and collaborate in more meaningful ways.
In their session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jill Tummler Singer, CIO for the National Reconnaissance Office, and Jamie Dos Santos, President & CEO, Terremark Federal Group, will share perspectives on the Big Data challenge and how organizations can look in the clouds to discover the right answers. This session will feature collective results from a recent AFCEA International Cyber Committee white paper.
Infinitely Virtual Announces VMWare vCloud Director Capability, Giving IT Pros Greater Control and Flexibility in Managing Applications
Infinitely Virtual, a provider of virtual server cloud computing services for businesses, today announced it has added VMWare’s vCloud Director to its hosting platform, giving IT managers more “self-service” options when needing to quickly reconfigure networking resources, move data between different clouds, or change virtual applications.
Integrated with Infinitely Virtual’s upgrade to VMWare’s vSphere5, VMware vCloud Director saves IT managers time and money by giving them more autonomy and control over important aspects of their virtual infrastructure.
“We recognize that IT managers want the scalability and relative low investment cost of employing cloud-hosted services,” said Adam Stern, Infinitely Virtual founder and CEO. “At the same time, we know they sometimes want the ability to make quick changes to applications or to migrate workloads between different clouds without having to go to the cloud service provider.
“Adding VMWare’s vCloud Director continues Infinitely Virtual’s mission to deliver the most flexible, cost-effective cloud-hosting services to our customers,” Stern said. “We host and manage the secure, cloud platform while our IT customers have increased autonomy to make application and networking changes as they wish. It’s a smart division of labor that advances our goal of enabling clients to use their virtual infrastructure as a growth engine.”
Customers deploying vCloud Director benefit from an exceptionally user-friendly interface that provides end-users with the tools to foster a self-service networking and creative cloud environment. The product saves IT professionals precious time, which they can then devote to other business-critical tasks.
Infinitely Virtual’s vCloud Director integration offers these advantages:
- Gives IT professionals the ability to self-manage virtual applications
(vApps) without the assistance of the cloud service provider,
facilitating quick changes, or changes on short notice due to current
business needs - Allows IT to upload vApps into a catalog which can be used at a later
date, without involving the cloud service provider - Enables greater control in moving and distributing workloads between
different clouds - Cuts network configuration time down to a matter of minutes, using
automated features - Provides the ability to power up or power down at will – without the
need to contact the cloud service provider every time - Manages the end-user’s own firewalls and allows them to change ports
without requiring any workload from the cloud service provider - Facilitates changes in security due to changing department needs –
changes that can be made on the fly.
“Businesses that move resources and retool network configurations on a regular basis will find vCloud Director to be exceptionally well designed for that purpose,” said Stern.
