Latest [issjlatest] from Virtualization Journal

Eucalyptus’ Cloud Platform Hits First Update

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:30:00 EST

The new widgetry features multi-cluster support and enhanced concurrency management to improve scaling so users can seamlessly overlay their Eucalyptus cloud on top of virtually any existing IT infrastructure, regardless of size or configuration. Eucalyptus is meant for implementing an on-premise cloud using an organization’s own IT infrastructure. It supports the same APIs as public clouds, and with the release of version 1.6.1, claims to be the only on-premise cloud platform that’s fully compatible with the Amazon AWS public cloud infrastructure.

Yahoo Open Sources Traffic Server Code

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

It says Traffic Server enables the session management, authentication, configuration management, load balancing and routing of an entire cloud computing stack. It’s supposed to offer fast, reliable and scalable access to cached online content and speed responses to requests for stored web objects, such as files, news articles or images, reducing bandwidth usage and costs.

Red Hat Virtualization for Servers Goes GA

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

The company says “extensive collaboration with large enterprise beta customers, such as Comviva, Host Europe, NTT Communications, Qualcomm and Swisscom, resulted in enhanced product capabilities designed to meet enterprise requirements for deploying and managing heterogeneous virtualization and cloud environments.” It didn’t say what exactly. The widgetry includes a standalone, lightweight, secure, high-performance KVM hypervisor designed to host Linux and Windows virtual servers and desktops whose memory-sharing technology reportedly permits more efficient guest consolidation and enterprise features such as live migration.

Parallels Makes It Harder To Tell a Windows from a Mac App

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST

It claims the widgetry, which lets Mac users run Windows and Linux alongside Mac OS X, is faster, smarter, easier and more powerful than previous generations. Unlike Apple’s own Boot Camp, which forces people to reboot between operating systems, Parallels users can switch between Mac and Windows seamlessly because of virtualization.

Smearing Cloud Lipstick on a Legacy Tech Pig

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

The Cloud Computing Conference and Expo in Santa Clara has come to an end, leaving a fair share of opinion, skepticism, and robust discussion for the period of incubation leading up to the next conference. Many companies have adopted “Cloud-something or other” as their new name, and are aggressively bringing their products to market. We observed exhibitors displaying cloud network management software, cloud email and SMS messaging, cloud security - basically cloud everything.

The Real Time Infrastructure Ultimatum

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:30:00 EST

As virtualization entered the data center it became an accidental standard bearer for network automation. The power of virtualization helped to drive a cultural (including x as a service) shift in expectations, just as Nicholas Carr was declaring war on traditional “old world” IT with the help of Google, Amazon and a host of other cloud (and not so cloud) players.

Investment Opportunities in Cloud Computing

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST

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Reality Check at the Cloud Expo

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

The talk at the Cloud Computing Expo this week in Santa Clara was all about enterprise cloud adoption. Is it real? Is it already happening? If so, who’s doing it, which applications are they running and which clouds are being tested? To a large extent, cloud computing is a victim of its own somewhat out-of-control hype cycle. Since so much has been written and discussed about the cloud in 2009, there is now a growing impatience for actual results. The fact that 2000 people showed up at the Cloud Expo in Santa Clara this week (double the number from last year’s show) suggests that at the very least, interest in enterprise cloud computing remains very real, and the need for practical solutions and use cases is growing more urgent.

RASS, 6fusion Partner to Deliver Apps in the Cloud

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:45:00 EST

RASS and 6fusion USA, Inc. announced a partnership to co-deliver cloud hosted desktop and server applications on demand. The joint offering promises to improve existing performance and cost limitations for customers moving away from a traditional on-site application delivery model. RASS features state-of-the-art technology to allow companies of all sizes to serve business applications to remote users. RASS is delivered from the 6fusion platform, which provides scalable, pay-per-use utility computing resources for customers around the world as a form of cloud computing.

Cloud Computing: Transformative Technology With Financial Benefits

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:15:00 EST

A majority of executives polled by Deloitte (60.9 percent) believe cloud computing will be a transformative technology in the industry and can drive financial benefits, or at least be useful for certain kinds of enterprise services. The executives were polled recently during the Deloitte webcast, "Cloud Computing in the Enterprise: Not If, But When and How?"

Google Open Sources its JavaScript Tools

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST

Google Thursday open sourced its Closure JavaScript tools – a compiler, a cross-browser, server-agnostic library and a bunch of precompiled templates – in the name of making web apps easier to build. Recall that Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps are JavaScript-intensive applications. Well, Google says the Closure widgetry is a key part of the JavaScript infrastructure behind its web apps. And the more web apps, the more of a headache for Microsoft and its ilk.

The Virtual Computing Environment Coalition

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

Worldwide spending on data center technology infrastructure and services exceeds $350 billion annually, according to McKinsey and Company estimates, with half of that spent on capital expenses and half on operating expenses.

Further, an estimated 70 percent or more of those costs are expended to maintain existing infrastructures, leaving 30 percent or less for new technology initiatives and applications that can provide breakthrough differentiation for businesses.

It is also estimated that approximately $85 billion, or 20 percent of this total market, can be addressed with data center virtualization and private cloud technology by 2015.

Cisco and EMC, together with VMware, have introduced the Virtual Computing Environment coalition, an unprecedented collaboration of three information technology (IT) industry leaders.

Virtual Computing Environment Coalition Charter
The coalition has been created to accelerate customers' ability to increase business agility through greater IT infrastructure flexibility, and lower IT, energy and real estate costs through pervasive data center virtualization and a transition to private cloud infrastructures.

Cisco, EMC and VMware have worked closely over the past year on a shared vision for the future of enterprise IT infrastructure -- private cloud computing. A private cloud is a virtual IT infrastructure that is securely controlled and operated solely for one organization.

It can be managed either by that organization or a third party, and it can exist on- or off-premise -- or in combination. Private cloud computing offers the controls and security of today's data center with the agility required for business innovation at substantially lower costs.

The Virtual Computing Environment coalition offers organizations of all sizes an accelerated approach to data center transformation with dramatic efficiencies that promise significant reductions in both capital and operating expenses. As a result, organizations will no longer have to choose between best-of-breed technologies and end-to-end vendor accountability.

Ecosystem Collaboration and Open Innovation
The Virtual Computing Environment coalition already has partners committed to the coalition. This includes representation from the entire partner ecosystem, including systems integrators, value added resellers, service providers, and independent software vendors.

IBM Introduces New Offerings for Software Development in the Cloud

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

IBM Rational Software Delivery Services for Cloud Computing include a set of ready-to-use application lifecycle management tools for developing and testing in the IBM Cloud, and use infrastructure management capabilities, to help organizations build software applications in the cloud. With these new services, clients can lower costs and respond quicker to organizational demands. For example, organizations can reduce the time it takes to provision a test environment from weeks to hours, and in some cases even minutes.

New Value in the Computing System Industry

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

Cisco's foray into the server market, the merger between Oracle and Sun Microsystem, the acquisition of Fujitsu Siemens Computers by Fujitsu, and the acquisition of Silicon Graphics International by Rackable Systems have stirred the equilibrium in the worldwide computer system industry in 2009. The industry is expected to see more companies engage in horizontal and vertical cooperation. Looking ahead to 2010, as the effects of the global financial crisis continue to be felt, the industry is expected to face changes within the next two to five years resulting from Moore's Law, virtualization, and cloud computing. The computing centralization effect stemming from cloud computing will intensify the competition in the green data center segment. Virtualization, energy-saving, and cloud computing are to lead to more acquisitions and mergers in future.

International Product Communication at SMA Solar Technology AG

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:15:00 EST

SMA Solar Technology AG, listed in the TecDAX of the Frankfurt stock exchange since last year, is the world market leader in photovoltaic inverters, a central component of every solar system. With subsidiaries in eleven countries on four continents, the product and company communication volume, too, has grown considerably. SMA Solar Technology AG has been using the Across Language Server as the central platform for all language resources and translation processes since 2008. It is seamlessly connected to the SCHEMA ST4 editorial system and other interacting systems.

Vordel Appoints Spike Reply as Partner

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Vordel’s products provide governance, acceleration, integration, and security for SOA and Cloud Computing. Spike Reply has established a SOA Center of Excellence division to assist its Customers exploit the opportunities presented by adopting a SOA-based approach to their business processes. Built on a bedrock of products from leading vendors, Spike Reply is delivering on its goal of enabling its customers build agile enterprises responsive to increasingly competitive and arduous trading conditions.

Trust and Reliability in Cloud Computing

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:15:00 EST

Organizations who wish to use Cloud services in conjunction with their own SOA and those of their partners face major issues related to reliability and trustworthiness. One significant challenge is aggregating services from multiple domains including Public, Private and Community Clouds - into coherent composite services and applying policies to them. The Vordel Cloud Service Broker solves this multi-domain problem by registering services from all three domains into a single repository – the multi-domain registry repository - enabling monitoring, management and policy enforcement. Additionally, the Vordel Cloud Service Broker offers value-added services such as caching, acceleration, and transformation saving enterprises time and money while creating a trusted and reliable environment.

Apps.gov Cloud Computing Site Now Offers PHASE 2 Products

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

Apps.gov is an online store for government agencies that are required to use the GSA schedule. The site was designed to help them to find, purchase and use SaaS and other cloud computing services with the knowledge that they have already been screened, and government prices negotiated. All applications available on the site, including the full PHASE 2 portfolio, are GSA approved for use by federal agencies.

Virtual Computing, Archiving and IDM at Educause 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:15:00 EST

Versatile's broad expertise in architecting and deploying large scale virtual systems in both the data center and at the desktop are on display at this event. Event attendees will be able to have hands on experience with these technologies including key Versatile technology and engage with Versatile's management. In addition, Versatile will participate in the presentation of Fedora Commons, a solution for storing, managing, and accessing digital content in the form of digital objects. Versatile will also be supporting Duquesne University's presentation of their MultiPass 2.0 application. Developed with the support of Versatile's solution architects, MultiPass 2.0 is built on Sun's IDM solution and provides a "seamless, safe, and secure" end user experience for the creation and/or de-provisioning of accounts across multiple systems and applications. More information is available at: http://www.educause.edu/E09+Hybrid/EDUCAUSE2009FacetoFaceConferen/Identi...

Cloud Computing Expo Floor Opens to Large Crowds in Santa Clara

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:00:00 EST

SYS-CON's 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, held on November 2 – 4, 2009, in Santa Clara, attracted more than 40 sponsors with over 2,000 delegates, a record attendance. The three content-packed days emphasized value with a rich array of sessions led by exceptional speakers about the business and technical value of cloud computing. Enjoy the photo album of the show, which is updated daily.

Security and Compliance in the Cloud

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:30:00 EST

Terry Woloszyn, Founder of PerspecSys, emphasized security and compliance in his session at the 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Nov. 2 – 4. In his session – “Addressing Data Privacy, Residency, and Security when Adopting Cloud Applications” - focused on new technologies and techniques that allow sensitive data to appear to be in the cloud, but really remain behind the enterprise firewall. Woloszyn emphasized that “there should be a segregation of the data and the functionality. All the business sensitive date should be behind the firewall.”

New York Sues Intel for Antitrust

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:45:00 EST

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel Wednesday charging it with engaging in a “worldwide, systematic campaign of illegal conduct – revealed in e-mails – to maintain its monopoly power and prices on its microprocessors.” The colorful suit accuses Intel of using “bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market.”

Cisco Reports First Quarter Earnings

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

Commenting on the quarter, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers noted, "Building off what we saw as a clear tipping point in Q4, our Q1 results continued to reflect strong sequential growth trends that meet or exceed expectations during normal economic times. We view the improving economic outlook, combined with solid execution on our growth strategy, as creating unparalleled opportunity to drive more value into the core of the network. Simply said, we believe that key market transitions across collaboration, virtualization and video will drive productivity and growth in network loads for the next decade, and are evolving even faster than expected."

Bridging the Gap Between Public and Private Clouds

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:15:00 EST

"On the supply side, interviews with cloud-enabled providers reveal that there are a lot of activities already underway to support enterprises of all kinds," noted Agatha Poon, speaking at the 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

CIA Falls for Cloud Computing in a Big Way

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

The most anticipated talk of the day, at the Cloud Computing Conference and Expo yesterday, was by the deputy CIO of the CIA, Jill Singer. Her talk was entitled, Enterprise Cloud Computing, the Infrastructure’s Final Revenge. She acknowledged the problem with defining Cloud Computing, and then went on to give her paragraph-length definition of “the cloud”. Her talk focused on the part of the Cloud behind the firewall.

Best Practices in the Cloud

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST

Authors of the RSA Security Brief include many of the industry's foremost security and virtualization experts from EMC and VMware, including Bret Hartman, Chief Technology Officer of EMC's RSA security division, Dr. Stephen Herrod, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of R&D for VMware and other senior EMC technologists. In the new Brief, the authors collectively contend that cloud security has vast potential to surpass the levels of information security that are possible today. In the cloud, security protocols can be built into the virtualization layer, not just imposed at the application level where they are typically enforced. By embedding security policies deeper in the technology stack and diffusing them throughout the virtual infrastructure of the cloud, enterprises can establish stronger, smarter security to protect their users and their data.

Savvis Selects The Vitality Group to Help Improve Employee Health

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:15:00 EST

The Vitality Group announced that Savvis, Inc. has selected its incentive-based wellness program to motivate and support Savvis associates as they take ownership of their personal health. Savvis, one of the largest IP network and hosting providers in the world employs more than 2,200 employees. The Vitality program will be made available to its U.S. employees.

Oracle's Rex Wang Outlines Customer Choice with Cloud Computing

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:15:00 EST

The reality is that technology CEOs--least of all flamboyant ones--aren't in the trenches getting things to work for customers, and Wang's nuts-and-bolts presentation was meant to re-assure anyone who was listening that the company will support all types of cloud initiatives. Meanwhile, Ellison updated his remarks a bit at the company's recent OracleWorld in San Francisco, discussing Fusion and how having a single cloud provider (such as Oracle) has its advantages.

Keep Your Executive Assistant Happy if Moving to the Cloud

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Google held a small event in London late last month, at which senior executives from a wide range of organisations gathered to discuss the impact of the Cloud. Presenters included luminaries such as Marc Benioff, Werner Vogels, Geoffrey Moore and Nick Carr, as well as CIOs at the coalface in adopting various Cloud (mainly SaaS) [...]

COMMCO Switches From SAP R/3 Cloud to NetSuite OneWorld

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

In an effort to modernize its business operations and eliminate the high cost of maintaining and upgrading SAP's complex, on-premise software, COMMCO transitioned to NetSuite and now relies on NetSuite's cloud computing platform for its core operational needs, including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) functionality such as inventory management, ordering, fulfillment, EDI communications, corporate financials, and reporting; and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) functionality such as sales and customer service management.

3Leaf Makes x86 Boxes into SMP Cloudware

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:30:00 EST

3Leaf Systems, the well-funded start-up, dropped its fig leaf Tuesday and took a running jump into the pools of memory, I/O and cache that it can construct and deconstruct at will based on the application, creating scale-up shared-memory SMP systems the likes of mainframes, proprietary mid-range machines and pricey RISC-based Unix boxes out of racks of cheap and dirty two-socket scale-out x64 systems.

Oracle VP Maps Oracle's Cloud Computing During Cloud Expo Keynote

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:00:00 EST

"We've been fairly quiet," said Rex Wang, VP of Infrastructure and Management at Oracle, this morning as he gave the Morning Keynote at the third and last day of the 4th Cloud Computing International Conference Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Wang was referring to Oracle's relative silence to date vis-a-vis Cloud Computing. His intention, he said, was to share with the assembled delegates Oracle's thoughts on the space...

Platform Computing Advances Cloud Computing for HPC

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:45:00 EST

Platform Computing is expanding cloud computing capabilities for high performance computing (HPC) with two new offerings. The company today announced the release of Platform ISF Adaptive Cluster, a product that dynamically changes the operating systems and personalities of compute nodes managed by Platform LSF and Platform Symphony. It effectively increases application capacity and resource utilization by consolidating heterogeneous application clusters and allows organizations to build an internal cloud for HPC. Platform Computing also announced new cloud bursting capabilities that will permit Platform HPC customers to seamlessly redirect peak workloads from their internal HPC infrastructure to external cloud resources on a pay-per-use basis in order to optimally meet service levels. Together, these offerings let HPC users take advantage of cloud computing by utilizing both internal private resources and external public cloud offerings.

Cisco, EMC, VMware & Intel Form Acadia JV

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:15:00 EST

Cisco and EMC Tuesday kicked off a cloud-chasing joint venture called Acadia that includes VMware and Intel as minority investors. Presumably they took the name from the ancient Greeks who used the word to mean a refuge or idyllic place and not the uprooted and deported North American Acadia captured in Longfellow's magnificent tear-jerker "Evangeline," although Cisco's new enemies IBM and HP may try to persuade users that it is.

Red Hat Rolls Out Virtualization Platform for Clouds

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:30:00 EST

Red Hat announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers, the newest product set in the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization portfolio. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers is designed to enable pervasive adoption of virtualization, with a comprehensive end-to-end solution combining a standalone hypervisor and powerful virtualization management.

Yahoo!'s Shugar Announces Traffic Server, Outlines Open-Source, Cloud Strategy

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:15:00 EST

Yahoo! is, of course, has one of the larger IT installations you will find: 600 million unique website visitors each month worldwide, 300 million email addresses, and "hundreds of petabytes of data," Shugar said. So now, "we are building a private cloud to be used within Yahoo!, have developed services and deployed them in data centers all over the world. There are hundreds of applications and products that we've migrated to exist on top of the cloud."

Shelton Shugar Says Yahoo! Already a Major Cloud Computing User

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:15:00 EST

"This is a long-term activity. started a few years ago," Shugar said. "And prior to cloud we might have had to literally forklift machines and move them when we want to move capacity. With cloud serving we are building a flat network and can basically point and click and move capacity from one place to another."

Is it a Perfect Storm for Cloud Federation?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST

"On the supply side, interviews with cloud-enabled providers reveal that there are a lot of activities already underway to support enterprises of all kinds," notes Agatha Poon, who this coming week will be speaking at the 4th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

Cloud Computing Expo 2010 East to Attract More Than 5,000 Delegates in New York City

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:30:00 EST

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 5th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo will take place April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. The three-day event will offer a rich array of sessions led by exceptional speakers about the business and technical value of cloud computing with more than 80 sponsors and exhibitors on the 70,000 sq. ft. show floor and over 5,000 estimated delegates from well over 48 different countries.

Cisco, EMC, VMware in Cloud Venture

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:15:00 EST

Sometime before 4:30 Wednesday afternoon New York time Cisco and EMC, two companies that are already tight and were expected to get tighter, are supposed to announce a joint venture to sell a cloud or cloud products called vBlock. VMware's involved because virtualization is relatively standard cloud fare, it's majority owned by EMC and it's already Cisco's BFF but its level of participation in the venture is unclear despite all the whispering going on. It could be a full member. Based on broad hints from the companies, the Wall Street Journal got wind of the joint venture in September and said it was code named Alpine.