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Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization pressed into action – Wed, 18 Jan 2012
Red Hat has released the third version of its RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization) software package, which includes improvements that would make it suitable for larger deployments, and a new console for self-provisioning.
RHEV 3.0 represents a significant step forward for the readiness of KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) within the enterprise, and should be considered as a viable virtualization alternative to more widely used products from companies such as VMware and Microsoft, noted IDC cloud and virtualization analyst Gary Chen.
Has Cloud Computing Changed IT for the Better? – Sat, 21 Jan 2012
fast-moving industry discussion panel at the 9th International Cloud Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, November 7-10, Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan was joined by Dr. Rich Wolski, CTO and Co-founder of Eucalyptus Systems Inc.; Sheng Liang, CTO Cloud Platforms Group, Citrix Systems; Rick Nucci, Co-Founder and CTO of Dell Boomi; Paulo Rosado, Founder & CEO of OutSystems; Jeff Hobbs, VP Engineering, ActiveState; Brian Lillie, CIO at Equinix; and Vineet Tyagi, Head of Impetus Labs at Impetus Technologies. Some of the questions discussed were: are truly secure public clouds feasible, for example, or only private ones? and how exactly does a company or organization go about deciding whether to migrate only specific applications to the cloud – such as storage or security – or their overall IT infrastructure?
Measuring IT’s Impact by Region – Sat, 21 Jan 2012
Which of these things do you like best – motorcycles, race cars, or big ol’ jet airliners? This question is relevant when you’re considering new markets or sources, an acquisition or subsidiary office, or an investment. Information about population size and wealth can be accessed in seconds, and there are many absolute measures of size, wealth, and national development. But none of this basic information provides a relative comparison. The Usual Suspects Look at, say, the World Economic Forum’s Competitive Index. There they are, the developed countries at the top, the developing ones at the bottom. Here in the Philippines, many people sweat out whether the country will finish 69th or 79th on the list. Wrong focus. People in the Philippines should be focusing on its regional neighbors, fellow members of the “Big Six” economies among the nations of the Associatino of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. People in the United States should no doubt strive to lead the world by any measure – but should also see how its immediate neighbor Canada is doing. (It’s doing quite well by many measures.) And when it’s time for you to consider the countries and regions of the world, you no doubt take a practical approach doesn’t directly compare the apples of Germany with the oranges of Brazil – or a motorcyle with a car or plane. How Does It Feel? The research I’ve been conducting and writing about for the past several months addresses this problem by providing a relative, “pound-for-pound” (or “apples-to-apples”) look at the IT expenditures of 80+ nations of the world. As I wrote yesterday, my work also seeks to find “torque” within societies, on the premise that IT is disruptive and furthermore that a highly aggressive commitment to it may be aggressively disruptive. My Tau Index – being developed with the support of Cloud Computing Journal and Computerworld Philippines – integrates several technological and social dimensions to derive a single, rational measurement. I embarked on the Tau Index to answer questions I’ve had about the “look and feel” of places I’ve visited. People who’ve had the fortune to travel internationally will tell you that you get an immediate feeling for a country the instant you step off the plane, for better or worse. The visceral experience of breathing and doing business in any place transcends simple statistics that can lead one to believe that all of the countries of, say, Latin America or Southeast Asia are essentially the same. Certainly when it comes to their IT deployments, they’re not; my research is focused on finding those places that are the most dynamic today and therefore have the better chances of improving themselves tomorrow. Yesterday, I provided a list of the leading nations in my research, by income level. Today, I’ve provided a brief list of the leading countries by region. For more information on the data and how I derived it, email me or Tweet me up. Americas Canada Honduras United States Mexico Chile Western Europe Sweden UK Netherlands Germany Finland Central/Eastern Europe Bulgaria Ukraine Lithuania Romania Hungary Asia South Korea Vietnam Hong Kong Bangladesh Malaysia N Africa/Middle East Morocco Egypt Israel Saudi Arabia Turkey Sub-Saharan Africa Senegal South Africa Kenya Cameroon Nigeria
Scribe Boosts Cloud Offering with GUI Synchronization Services – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
Scribe Software, a customer relationship management (CRM) data integration provider, will launch next week Scribe Online Synchronization Services (SYS). According to the Manchester, NH-based company, Scribe Online provides a cloud-based alternative to integration middleware, and simplifies the integration experience without sacrificing performance or functionality. The goal is to allow companies to reap the benefits of integrated CRM data from a variety of sources and technologies in days, rather than months.
Virtually Clearing Cloud Initiatives Through WAN Optimization – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
There is a storm rising in the midst of enterprise networks today. It builds quickly and overtakes unsuspecting companies as the popularity of virtual initiatives causes data volumes on their networks to swell to proportions too large to access efficiently over existing bandwidth. The challenge then becomes one of optimizing underlying network infrastructure in order to support the increased flow of traffic caused by the data surge. Application virtualization, cloud computing and Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDIs) deliver enormous management and costs savings, but these benefits are offset when application performance hampers end user productivity. This often happens when virtual applications and desktops are delivered across a Wide Area Network (WAN). Optimizing the WAN and improving network stability is therefore paramount to ensuring companies meet their business objectives and take full advantage of the technology in which they have invested large amounts of money.
The Security Trope from a Best-Practices Perspective – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
The ever-present raven of Cloud Computing called “security” cannot be ignored. In this Lunchtime Power Panel at the 9th International Cloud Expo, five prominent members of the Cloud Network of Women (CloudNOW) – Jocelyn DeGance Graham, Founder and President of Cloud Network Of Women (CloudNOW); Jill Tummler Singer, CIO for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO); Jamie Dos Santos is President & CEO, Terremark Federal Group; Kristin Lovejoy is the Vice President of Information Technology Risk for IBM; and Melissa Siems, Sr. Director, Cloud Security at McAfee – explored the security trope from a best practices perspective.
Cloud Transaction Synchronicity – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
High-Frequency Trading (HFT) and secret algorithms have become the new competitive strategy in today’s global financial industry. The faster traders can turn around trades, the faster they can get in and out of quick markets and short time pockets of opportunity. Having accurate records of when a transaction occurs is critical as to processing the trade and valuating the transaction. There are many articles and white papers discussing cloud computing and shared services. New services that are being touted are things like SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). What is missing is the ability to sync up transactions coming from various outbound originations. What is necessary is the ability to provide Timing as a Service (TaaS).
The Benefits of Moving to the Cloud – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
Just how big is Cloud Computing going to get, and by what date? What, five years on, are already the main drivers? What are the most profitable cloud implementations that are already in use “under the hood” of businesses, agencies, and organizations? In which new areas are we seeing most attention being given to the benefits of moving to the Cloud? These and other key cloud questions were asked and answered in this very special “Power Panel” at the 9th International Cloud Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, November 7-10. Moderated by Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, parpticipants in this Power Panel included Treb Ryan, Co-Founder & CEO atOpSource; Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems; Dave Roberts, VP, Strategy & Marketing at ServiceMesh; Rodney Rogers, Chairman & CEO of Virtustream; and Warren Heffelfinger, CEO of GoGrid.
Measuring Cloud Storage Performance – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
There are many excellent reasons to use cloud storage, but fast and efficient transfer of large amounts of data isn’t usually listed as a benefit. That’s one of the reasons why people use cloud storage gateways: to speed up cloud storage access. Recently, I realized we’ve never published any details on the performance gains that one should expect when using the CloudArray storage gateway, so I decided to create a simple illustrative test. In this article, I describe the results and explain some cloud storage implementation details that contribute to performance differences. I came up with a quick test: copy one gigabyte of fully random data to the cloud, broken up into 32768 32k files. The questions are, how long would it take for a user to copy that much data to a CloudArray volume, and how soon before all of that data is safely stored in the cloud?
Why Poor Data Classification in Government Will Impact BYOD – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
In recent discussions with IT leaders from both federal and Department of Defense sides of US government, representatives stated that they are having a heck of a time accommodating expansive growth in mobile computing. This is critical given that today, in most cases, agencies and departments still have control over which mobile devices can be used. In the future, these executives realize that the changing demographics of contractors and employees means they will not only need to support continually growing traffic, multiple presentations and increased asset management, but will also have to deal with a wide spectrum of mobile devices due to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). This idea that these executives will one day soon have to loosen their grip over endpoints is a major concern. Contrary to belief it is not about power and supremacy over their domain. Most users have no concept of the level of complexity for managing access and availability of data and applications when there is no control over the endpoint; nor should they. While network security solutions have improved dramatically over the past decade, improper use of the tools and ever increasing abilities of hackers means that “locking the front door” isn’t good enough to solve this problem by itself.
Piston Delivers First OpenStack-Based Cloud OS – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
The first OpenStack-based cloud operating system came out Wednesday. The start-up Piston Cloud Computing Inc delivered the thing, which makes sense since Piston’s founders were instrumental in OpenStack, which is a framework, not a product. The widgetry is called Piston Enterprise OS or pentOS for short and it will sell for $3,500 a server a year, a price that includes 24/7 telephone support. Piston co-founder and CEO Joshua McKenty said Piston sold maybe 10 of the things ahead of general availability and the code was destined for big iron $250,000 hardware installations. People apparently just bought it after seeing the demo at Cloud Expo. Nothing is in production yet.
Anonymous Avenges Megaupload Shutdown With Attacks on FBI, Hollywood Websites – Fri, 20 Jan 2012
Hours after the Department of Justice announced it had shut down file-sharing site Megaupload, the Anonymous hacker collective launched extensive retaliatory DDoS attacks against federal and entertainment industry Websites. – Almost immediately after federal prosecutors shut down Megaupload.com on charges of violating piracy laws, Twitter and online forums exploded with chatter about revenge and retaliation. Federal prosecutors shut down file-sharing service Megaupload.com on Jan. 19 for distributing illegal conte…
FBI Shuts Down Megaupload File-Sharing Site With Online Piracy Indictments – Thu, 19 Jan 2012
Megaupload, one of the largest file-sharing services on the Internet, has been shut down by federal prosecutors on charges that it systematically abetted widespread piracy of copyrighted music, movies, video and other intellectual property. – Just a day after a 24-hour blackout of popular Websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing, which were protesting a pair of controversial anti-piracy bills making their way through Congress, federal law enforcement stepped in and shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites. T…
SOPA, PIPA Protest Boosted Awareness, Forced Congress to Shift Support – Thu, 19 Jan 2012
The online blackout by Wikipedia, Reddit and other sites drew so much public comment and criticisms of the SOPA and PIPA legislation that several members of Congress publicly abandoned the bills. – The voluntary Internet blackout, in which approximately 7,000 sites, including online encyclopedia Wikipedia, made their sites inaccessible to protest Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act generated a lot of discussion online and convinced several lawmakers to reconsider their support for the co…
Yahoo Co-Founder Jerry Yang Departs With More Whimper Than Bang – Wed, 18 Jan 2012
Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang Jan. 17 resigned from the company’s board of directors, severing his final tie with the Internet company he helped build when he was a Stanford University student 17 years ago. His departure may bring some satisfaction to financial analysts who believe Yang is largely responsible for Yahoo’s downward spiral, particularly since he replaced Terry Semel as Yahoo CEO in 2007. Yahoo’s downfall amounts to a failure to keep pace with the financial and user-engagement growth enjoyed by Internet rivals Google and Facebook. New Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson hopes to breathe some fresh life into the struggling Internet power, which still has a staggering 700 million visitors worldwide each month. This eWEEK slide show provides a brief retrospective of how Yahoo evolved under Yang’s watch. – …
Google Search, Plus Your World: What Is It and How to Stop It – Wed, 18 Jan 2012
Google’s Search, plus your world (also known as SPYW) technology, a social approach to search that injects content from users’ Google+ posts and Picasa photos into users’ search results, has ruffled feathers in the Internet sector like no product since Google Buzz. While Buzz, Googles failed social search effort, rubbed people the wrong way for exposing their Gmail contacts to other people, this personal search initiative is controversial for different reasons. On the privacy front, the service is not opt-in, which is a problem for privacy groups even though search results are tailored to each individual. However, not only are results HTTPS encrypted but Google has also made sure to mark personal results with specific designations used on Google+, including brandings for Public, Limited or Only you. More seriously, SPYW fails to aggregate content from Facebook and Twitter in the search results. This is proving to be a huge problem for Google critics who have accused the company of engaging in antitrust practices. Of course, this approach isn’t without some rationale and its own back story, which eWEEK gladly supplies here in this slide show. – …
Don’t Build Your Own Private Cloud in 2012: 10 Reasons Why – Wed, 18 Jan 2012
There are usually two or more sides to every story. There’s the angle that comes from the originator of the story, and then there can be multiple additional perspectives. The world of cloud computing is no exception. While enterprises continue to build hybrid and private clouds that still require buying and implementing hardware and software, there are a number of reasons for some companies not to “roll their own” clouds. It all depends upon the IT requirements of the enterprise, to be sure. In this eWEEK slide show we provide a contrarian position with reasons NOT to build a cloud system. In the interest of full disclosure, these reasons are being provided by a cloud-service provider, InfoStreet . Realizing that InfoStreet’s view can certainly be viewed as self-serving, we present them here as a foundation for possible discussion. Our information provider is Marcy Hoffman, vice president of demand generation at InfoStreet, which provides such cloud applications as virus-protected and spam-free email, email archiving, shared calendars, tasks, customer relationship management, file sharing, knowledge base, and portals. – …
SOPA Legislative Debate Needs Leadership and Fresh Ideas – Tue, 17 Jan 2012
NEWS ANALYSIS: The current contentious debate over legislation to outlaw online piracy seems to be defined mostly by the refusal of the parties involved to move away from their all-or-nothing approach. – There’s no question that the current situation surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently foundering in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the similarly stalled Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate, is a mess. While both bills seem to have little chance of passage in the cu…
Microsoft Unveils Simplified Licensing Scheme for System Center 2012 – Tue, 17 Jan 2012
With a new, simplified licensing plan for its System Center 2012, Microsoft is looking to spur the adoption of its private cloud offerings. – If there is one data center problem that cloud computing has obscured more than any other issue, it is licensing. IT managers are finding the licensing surrounding cloud technologies, especially virtualization, have become near impossible to manage. Microsoft, in an effort to spur adoption of i…
Microsoft Takes a New Approach to the Cloud – Tue, 17 Jan 2012
Microsoft is leveraging existing products and revamping others to bring multiple flavors of the cloud to businesses seeking an IT paradigm shift. – REDMOND, Wash. ?Cloud? was the big word at Microsofts recent Private Cloud Reviewers Workshop here. There were many other words uttered, such as System Center 2012, Windows Azure, Hyper-V and so forth, but ?cloud? seemed to be spoken the most. However, whenever presenters during the event which ra…
Cisco, EMC, SAP Back Cloud Portability Standards Initiative – Tue, 17 Jan 2012
The inititative will enable the interoperable description of application and infrastructure cloud services. – The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, a non-profit international consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information space, launched an open standards initiative to enhance the portability of cloud applicat…
NetApp’s Tom Georgens: How we got big, stayed nimble, and view storage today – Thu, 19 Jan 2012
Those of us with a bit of institutional memory recall a brash upstart named Network Appliance that burst onto the storage scene to challenge EMC — itself once a brash newcomer — and other storage royalty like IBM. But that was 20 years ago, as difficult as that seems to believe, and the company, now named NetApp, is $5 billion-plus storage leader in its own right.
Smarter hypervisor use can lead to a ‘big, big change’ in security – Thu, 19 Jan 2012
To gain insight on the months ahead as they relate to IT attacks, malware, cloud security, and the impact of virtualization on security, we recently chatted with Simon Crosby, former CTO of Citrix Systems’ data center and cloud business.
Atlantis diskless appliance cuts VDI costs – Wed, 18 Jan 2012
Virtual Desktop storage provider Altantis Computing has announced a new product that runs nonpersistent virtual desktop environments using only server memory.
Need an agile infrastructure? Do your homework – Tue, 17 Jan 2012
Companies looking for more agile data centers are increasingly turning to public (external) or private (internal) clouds with virtualized servers, storage and networks. Getting the lowest cost and the best speed and flexibility from those systems requires assessing everything from performance to control and interoperability. And the larger your organization is, the more planning it takes to create an “enterprise grade” cloud that meets your performance, security and compliance needs.
Google adds VMware co-founder to its board of directors – Tue, 17 Jan 2012
Last week Google surprised many in the virtualization world by naming Diane Greene to its board of directors, filling the 10th seat vacated more than two years ago when Arthur Levinson resigned. In addition to the new board member position, Greene will serve on Google’s audit committee.
Red Bend aims to bring mobile virtualization and BYOD to the masses – Mon, 09 Jan 2012
The idea behind mobile virtualization technology is quite simple: Platform developers take a smartphone and add some type of a virtualization layer to it to provide users with a personal/corporate all-in-one device, which will help with corporate BYOD initiatives. Corporate data can be protected from personal applications, and users can keep their personal information private and free from corporate management and company policies.
The year’s best hardware, software, and cloud services – Mon, 09 Jan 2012
Was it the philosopher George Santayana who said, “Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it?” Did he offer any hints for those of us who want to repeat the past, especially the successes? We’re beyond the teary elegies of 2011 and deep into making resolutions for 2012. If we’re going to stand half a chance of creating something great this year, it only makes sense to pause and celebrate what went right in 2011.
Picking the top technologies in a wild year – Mon, 09 Jan 2012
Whenever someone asks me how InfoWorld differs from other IT publications, I cite two facts off the bat: Most of our articles are written by experienced, working IT people — and we’re one of the few publications that still does real enterprise product reviews.
How to handle virtual desktops, wireless, network performance issues – Wed, 04 Jan 2012
Schools are for learning, and the information technology and security professionals who support networks and applications in the nation’s K-12 and university systems are discovering new tactics in what can be challenging IT environments. Here we talk to four professionals in the education realm to get a sense for their top IT issues and what they do to handle them.
Netflix also reorganizes as CMO heads to the board – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Netflix will be looking for a new chief marketing officer outside of the company in the coming months.
Zynga online gambling plan: One dangerous cash cow – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Zynga and gambling will be like crack to those who can’t control the urge to wager. Combine the addictive nature of Facebook and you have a double whammy. It’s a sweet business though.
Intel reshuffles executive deck, names new COO – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Intel’s senior vice president of worldwide manufacturing gets bumped up to chief operating officer amid a slew of other appointments and adjustments in Intel’s leadership.
SOPA, PIPA debate ranks higher than most big events in 2011 – Fri, 20 Jan 201
The online fervor about SOPA and PIPA was discussed more than the 2011 Super Bowl and the Oprah finale.
SOPA, PIPA postponed: Nice work, everyone – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Both SOPA and PIPA have been shelved, and “no further action” will be taken until a general consensus has been made, and compromises sought.
New Google accounts automatically register users for Gmail, Google+ – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Google is showing just how committed it is to promoting its social networking platform.
Windows Phone jumping to No. 2 in smartphone market by 2015? – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Analysts predict that new Nokia products designed for North America specifically, including the Lumia 900, will help boost Windows Phone to rank second the mobile OS market within three years.
Wintel’s great China divide: Intel’s gain, Microsoft’s pain – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Intel could become a huge smartphone player and benefit from PC sales only if it dominates China somehow. Piracy hampers Microsoft.
Amazon’s Kindle Fire profitable: You bet – Fri, 20 Jan 201
Even if Amazon started out underwater on the Kindle Fire’s manufacturing costs, the company is already in the black on my account. Not bad for a month’s work.
Anonymous hacks DOJ, RIAA, MPAA and Universal Music websites – Thu, 19 Jan 201
Anonymous is going after the music and entertainment industries as well as the Department of Justice in retaliation to several arrests made on Thursday morning.