Eucalyptus Gets $30 Million C Round

Eucalyptus Systems, the open source private and hybrid cloud merchant that just tied up with Amazon, has gotten a $30 million C round on top of the $25.5 million it’s already gotten. It says the C round was oversubscribed.
The funding was led by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). Existing investors, including Benchmark Capital, BV Capital and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) pitched in too.
Eucalyptus claims to be the most widely deployed on-premise IaaS cloud platform, but, according to Marten Mickos, who runs the joint, at $55.5 million, Eucalyptus is the “least funded” of the current crop of players like VMware, OpenStack and now CloudStack, which have got hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal.

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Rackspace Starts the Great OpenStack Migration

Rackspace, which wants to be the “Linux of the cloud” mimicking the now billion-dollar-a-year Red Hat, said Monday that it’s “drawing a line in the sand against cloud providers.”
Everyone agrees it has Amazon, particularly, and VMware, to a certain extent, in mind. However, what’ll probably end up happening is that Red Hat, which has a prominent part in the open source OpenStack project that Rackspace started, becomes the “Linux of the cloud” because it’s got all the pieces, or thinks it does, but that’s another story.
Anyway, Rackspace is inching out with a production-ready OpenStack cloud based on Essex, the fifth and best-yet release of the open source cloud platform put in train by Rackspace and NASA in the summer of 2010.

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Rackspace Starts the Great OpenStack Migration

Rackspace, which wants to be the “Linux of the cloud” mimicking the now billion-dollar-a-year Red Hat, said Monday that it’s “drawing a line in the sand against cloud providers.”
Everyone agrees it has Amazon, particularly, and VMware, to a certain extent, in mind. However, what’ll probably end up happening is that Red Hat, which has a prominent part in the open source OpenStack project that Rackspace started, becomes the “Linux of the cloud” because it’s got all the pieces, or thinks it does, but that’s another story.
Anyway, Rackspace is inching out with a production-ready OpenStack cloud based on Essex, the fifth and best-yet release of the open source cloud platform put in train by Rackspace and NASA in the summer of 2010.

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Cloud Expo New York: Truth and Lies About Latency in the Cloud

When it comes to measuring applications’ performance across our local enterprise network, we think we know what network latency is and how to calculate it. But when it comes to the cloud there are a lot of subtleties that can impact latency in ways that we don’t immediately realize.
In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Jelle Frank van der Zwet, Manager of Cloud Segment at Interxion, will more closely examine what latency means for deploying cloud applications, how you can keep track of it and reduce it for your particular purposes and cloud-based applications.

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AWS Revamps Partner Program

Amazon is overhauling its partner program.
It’s starting a public beta of a new global AWS Partner Network (APN) that’ll provide members of its ecosystem with technical information as well as sales and marketing support to accelerate their Amazon cloud business.
Membership is divided into technology-based partners (ISVs, SaaS, tools providers and platform providers) and consulting-based partners (SIs, agencies, consultancies and MSPs). And there are tiers in each (Advanced, Standard and Registered) based on a set of requirements.
Partners that qualify for the Standard and Advanced tiers will get a logo, a listing in a new directory, $1,000 in AWS Services credits and $1,000 in AWS Premium Support credits. The credits are good for a year.

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AWS Revamps Partner Program

Amazon is overhauling its partner program.
It’s starting a public beta of a new global AWS Partner Network (APN) that’ll provide members of its ecosystem with technical information as well as sales and marketing support to accelerate their Amazon cloud business.
Membership is divided into technology-based partners (ISVs, SaaS, tools providers and platform providers) and consulting-based partners (SIs, agencies, consultancies and MSPs). And there are tiers in each (Advanced, Standard and Registered) based on a set of requirements.
Partners that qualify for the Standard and Advanced tiers will get a logo, a listing in a new directory, $1,000 in AWS Services credits and $1,000 in AWS Premium Support credits. The credits are good for a year.

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Cloud Expo New York: Intel IT’s Approach to an Open Private Cloud

Cloud technologies are moving at a rapid pace. The compelling drivers are the need for on-demand business solutions, lower cost for IT and the ability to deliver the rich experience that users need and expect. Enterprises are wrestling with private vs. public vs. hybrid cloud solutions. The need for high levels of customizability, flexibility, and agility will drive many enterprises to the public cloud. The foundation for this vision will be defined by an open approach that delivers best of breed technologies + flexibility + choice from data center to client. Intel is bringing together a broad network of leading hardware and solution providers to build and enhance cloud solutions that are interoperable, multi-vendor and embrace standards. This addresses the initial limiters such as security, standards, governance and legacy apps which are increasingly less of an issue.

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Cloud Expo New York Speaker Profile: Dave Asprey – Trend Micro

With Cloud Expo 2012 New York (10th Cloud Expo) now just seven weeks 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…?

We have technical and strategy sessions for you every day from Nov 7 through Nov 10 dealing with every nook and cranny of Cloud Computing, 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?

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SHI Sees Rapid Growth in Cloud Demand

“The ability to flexibly and quickly adjust infrastructure allows IT to respond to line-of-business requirements in a way that was impossible prior to the advent of cloud computing,” noted Henry Fastert, Chief Technologist & Managing Partner, SHI Enterprise Solutions Services Group, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan.
Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? – «While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility.»
Henry Fastert: Agree. The ability to flexibly and quickly adjust infrastructure allows IT to respond to line-of-business requirements in a way that was impossible prior to the advent of cloud computing.

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Cloud IaaS: Converged Infrastructure vs Reference Architectures

This last fortnight there’s been a cacophony of hyperbole and at times marketing fluff from vendors and analysts with regards to Reference Architectures and Converged Infrastructures. As IBM launched PureSystems, NetApp & Cisco decided it was also a good time to reiterate their strong partnership with FlexPod. In the midst of this, EMC decided to release their new and rather salaciously titled VSPEX. From the remnants and ashes of all these new product names and fancy launch conferences, the resultant war blogs and Twitterati battles ensued. As I poignantly watched on from the trenches in an almost Siegfried Sassoon moment, it was quickly becoming evident that there was now an even more ambiguous understanding of what distinguishes a Converged Infrastructure from a Reference Architecture, what it’s relation was with the Private Cloud and more importantly whether you, the end user should even care.

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