VMware to acquire Shavlik.  VMware (VMW) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Shavlik Technologies, a leading provider of easy-to-use, effective cloud-based IT management solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs). “VMware continues to make investments to extend its leadership within the SMB market,” said Raghu Raghuram, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Infrastructure and Management, VMware. “With the Shavlik acquisition, VMware will be able to provide simple to use and affordable management services developed to address the specific demands of SMBs.”  Together the two companies will offer centralized IT management services, simplified deployment and automation, and automated IT management. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Iron Mountain sells Digital Solutions.  Iron Mountain (IRM) announced that it has have entered into a definitive agreement with Autonomy Corporation plc  under which Autonomy will acquire Iron Mountain’s online backup and recovery, digital archiving and eDiscovery solutions for $380 million in cash. The acquisition will boost Autonomy’s software portfolio and is  part of Iron Mountain’s strategic review of their digital business unit.  “Autonomy is a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise assuring that our customers will be well serviced and our employees will have greater opportunities.” said Richard Reese, Iron Mountain’s Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “This was the right transaction at the right time for our customers, our employees and our shareholders.  As we move forward, Iron Mountain will continue to deliver technology services to solve our customers’ digital information management challenges through partnerships.”

Juniper Unveils Junosphere Classroom. Juniper Networks (JNPR) announced Junosphere Classroom, a new cloud-based service designed to enable educational institutions, partners and customers to efficiently and cost-effectively educate networking students and professionals. Junosphere Classroom eliminates the need for a physical classroom and provides the ability to create and operate virtual Junos-based networks. “In Princeton University’s Network Systems Group, whether we are teaching students or researching next-generation network systems, we rely on networking labs to provide practical applications,” said Jennifer Rexford, Princeton University. “I am excited to see Juniper’s Junosphere Classroom product, because it allows research and education with commercial networking technology in an on-demand, virtual environment without the expense and complexity of physical network labs.”  In a separate release they announced that Queen Mary, University of London is using Juniper Junosphere Classroom to provide a cost-effective and scalable virtual network lab solution. Junosphere Classroom is available immediately.

The new multi-tenant service solution unifies the Nimsoft Monitoring Solution, now known as Nimsoft Monitor with its Nimsoft Service Desk technology. The company says the product can be offered as either on-demand (SaaS) or on-premise and will provide intuitive, out-of-the-box logic and integration between monitoring and service management.

Nimsoft Unified Manager will include comprehensive monitoring of infrastructure elements, response-time monitoring of applications and services, policy-driven alerting, collaboration tools for operations, dashboards and extensive APIs, Nimsoft said.

“We’ve been searching for a unified solution that pulls together monitoring for our multi-vendor private cloud infrastructure with our ITIL service delivery model and a centralized multi-tenant client portal,” said Dan Dayanim, Director, Client Services Delivery at IPR International, LLC. “We’re excited that the Nimsoft platform fits our strategic direction and will help drive growth.”

Salesforce.com to acquire Radian6.  Salesforce.com (CRM) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Radian6, a social media monitoring platform, for approximately $276 million in cash and $50 million in stock, net of cash acquired.  Salesforce.com will use the acquisition to build and accelerate the enterprise shift to the next version of cloud technologies and better manage social interactions taking place both inside and outside of the company.  Radian6 claims over 2,400 customers such as Dell, Kodak, Pepsi and UPS. By combining Radian6’s social media monitoring and engagement platform with Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, companies will be able to keep customer success at the center of their business with real-time social intelligence.

Citrix advances NetScaler. Citrix announced a breakthrough new DataStream technology in its popular NetScaler service delivery networking product line. Addressing the explosive growth in data the new NetScaler DataStream inspects data traffic in real time and applies optimization and security policies. It is the first networking solution of its kind to apply native data protocol and transaction intelligence to both structured and unstructured data. “The intersection of customer enterprise data, social data and web analytics will drive at IDC what we call big data,” said Cindy Borovick, Vice President, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure and Datacenter Networks at IDC. “This explosion in content is not only shaping changes in IT infrastructure but is creating demand for network intelligence. By expanding its NetScaler offering to include the data tier Citrix is demonstrating how network intelligence can evolve and adopt to provide scalability, availability and security to next generation public and private cloud requirements.” The new DataStream technology is available immediately on NetScaler 9.3 and is supported on all NetScaler editions at no additional cost.

Platform Computing supports big data.  Platform Computing announced that they are bringing enterprise-class distributed computing to business analytics applications that process “big data” using the Apache Hadoop MapReduce programming model. This allows the ability to scale to thousands of commodity server cores for shared applications and extends enterprise-class capabilities to MapReduce distributed workloads. “Platform is perfectly positioned to run enterprise-class distributed workload for MapReduce applications. Our products are architected from the outset to service large-scale parallel processing on commodity infrastructures. The solutions are also designed to work specifically with multiple distributed file systems, avoiding customer lock-in and offering a single, compatible, distributed computing workload solution throughout the enterprise,” said Ken Hertzler, Vice President, Product Management at Platform Computing.

APC expands InRow Cooling. APC by Schneider Electric announced the InRow OA and Refrigerant Distribution Unit (RDU) pumped refrigerant cooling system. Meant for medium and high density applications in the data center the APC InRow OA provides an overhead, energy efficient, refrigerant based cooling solution that captures up to 27 kilowatts of hot exhaust air at the source, neutralizes it and discharges cool, ambient air to the IT space.  “The new APC InRow OA and RDU provide data center managers with increased flexibility by eliminating the need to remove or break-up racks to implement a row-based cooling architecture to meet the needs of higher density loads,” said Dave Guidette, senior vice president, Enterprise Systems, Services and Software at APC. The new APC InRow OA and Refrigerant Distribution Unit are currently available worldwide.

Emerson introduces new AC-DC power supply. Emerson Network Power (EMR) introduced the DS460S-3 bulk front end AC-DC power supply, which the company describes as a breakthrough in efficiency and density for applications that use distributed power architectures, such as computing, storage, networking, datacom and test and measurement systems. The 1U DS460S-3 can achieve a high typical conversion efficiency of 92 percent at 50 percent full load, which meets the Climate Savers Computing Gold standard.  The units are digitally programmable and DSP controlled.  The DS460S is available for $189 per unit in production quantities.

Cyberlink unveils Virtual Desktop. Managed hosting provider CyberlinkASP announced that it will begin offering fully managed virtual desktops utilizing Citrix XenDesktop technologies on the SoftLayer infrastructure-as-a-service platform. “Desktop virtualization and Citrix XenDesktop is being adopted by enterprises worldwide in order to transform the traditional form of desktop computing” said Sumit Dhawan, vice president of product marketing, XenDesktop product group at Citrix. “Businesses such as CyberlinkASP along with their collaboration with SoftLayer bring the power of desktop virtualization to enterprises who may not have the expertise to build their own virtual desktop infrastructure.” CyberlinkASP provides virtual desktops and back office applications for numerous small to medium sized businesses from its Dallas InfoMart datacenter.  The provisioning and cutover times for CyberlinkASP have now been reduced from weeks to a few hours with the partnership with SoftLayer.  CyberlinkASP and SoftLayer will also be linked via redundant 10 gigabit fiber, using SoftLayer’s network-within-a-network topology. SoftLayer and The Planet recently outlined merger plans.

RightScale announces Windows support for management platform. RightScale announced that the RightScale Cloud Management Platform now supports Microsoft Windows-based applications running in the cloud. “Windows applications, which are often developed with custom stacks, can present unique challenges when deployed in the cloud. With our latest release, Windows users can now leverage RightScale’s hallmark cloud automation and portability, address common Windows cloud issues, and manage user access and costs,” said RightScale CTO Thorsten von Eicken.  With the latest release of the management platform the processes for Windows server deployment, automation, management and portability can be orchestrated. RightScale has pre-configured numerous Server Templates and RightImages so users can get started in minutes instead of days or weeks. Thorsten von Eicken explains in a blog post Tuesday the arduous process of setting up these features and server templates for general availability.

Savvis (SVVS) also announced a major SaaS contract with Availity, an electronic health exchange that handles more than 500 million transactions a year between health care professionals and providers.

The new platform is designed for ISVs entering the SaaS market and existing providers who want to outsource their IT infrastructure. Savvis will partner with virtualization specialist Parallels to make it easier for software companies to port their existing products to a hosted, multi-tenant SaaS offerings on Savvis’ new platform. 

The result is an SaaS “enablement platform” in which Savvis provides infrastructure, services and partnership opportunities to software companies.

“We are significantly enhancing our existing global IT infrastructure services to enable ISVs to move quickly and cost-effectively to the SaaS model, as well as to provide support to those ISVs who want to outsource their existing SaaS infrastructure,” said Larry Steele, SAVVIS’ Vice President of SaaS. “Through our SaaS enablement services, we are leveraging our managed hosting expertise and adding development capabilities, changing operational features, and providing better integration to SaaS markets. At the same time, we are also providing our customers a platform to help them deliver SaaS to their customers in a much faster, broader way.”

The offering is structured in three categories:

• Core Infrastructure Services– SAVVIS’ core managed hosting and security elements tailored to SaaS vendor needs. New services include multi-tenancy enablement, application fire-walling, and  application-centered service level agreements.
• Lifecycle Services– These services assists ISVs through all the tasks involved in development, integration, delivery and operation of their applications.
• SAVVIS Marketplace – These services will “create connectivity and commercial opportunities between SAVVIS customers by lowering integration barriers.”  Additionally SAVVIS will be creating marketplace awareness tools for use within SAVVIS’ customer base.

By designing an “infrastructure plus services” offering, Savvis hopes to win customers among ISVs who are currently struggling to sort out the best path to online delivery.  

“ISVs looking to adopt a SaaS delivery model have to address a number of key challenges to ensure their application is scalable, secure and multi-tenant,” said Bill McNee, Founder & CEO, Saugatuck Technology, a leading industry research firm covering the SaaS marketplace. “The reality is that successful ISVs and enterprise buyers not only need world-class managed hosting support, but an end-to-end software development ecosystem and cloud-based platform as they ‘SaaS-ify’ their offerings, and create new value for end-users.”

“Many ISVs want to meet customer demand for software offered as a service, but for those that don’t have existing multi-tenant capabilities this can be an expensive and time-intensive process, requiring significant rewrites of application code,” said Michael Gold, Senior Vice President at Parallels. “As a result, these ISVs cannot capitalize on SaaS to expand their business or grow their revenue. However, with the SAVVIS-Parallels alliance, thousands of ISVs are now able to deploy a completely managed hosting solution … to rapidly meet the demands of a growing customer base looking to benefit from software as a service.”

• Build Your own Cloud With Cisco VFrame: Greg Ferro looks at how early components of Cisco’s Data Center 3.0 initiative can help (link via Doug Gourlay)
• Private Clouds, Before & After: Hypothetical discussion among your IT staff.
• Private Cloud Links: A list of resources from the OnSaaS aggregator.

• Live Coverage of Structure 08: Conference organizer GigaOm has done an exceptional job live blogging the major presentations, including keynotes by Werner Vogels of Amazon, VMware co-founder Mendel Rosenblum and Salesforce.com CTO Parker Harris.
• Google Urged to Make a More Loving Cloud: Google senior engineer Christophe Bisciglia participated in a panel on cloud computing platforms, and came under fire from other panelists (including Google’s competitors) on the issue of vendor lock-in. A spirited discussion ensued.
• The New Geek Chic: Data Centers: Dan Farber of ZDNet noted the turnout of media and Internet luminaries as a reflection of the data center’s new hotness.

Here at DCK we’ve always known data centers are exciting. Much more coverage to come from Structure 08. ]]> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/06/25/structure-08-roundup/feed/ 0 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/04/17/new-cloud-platforms-proliferating/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/04/17/new-cloud-platforms-proliferating/#comments Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:13:00 +0000 Rich Miller http://dev.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/04/17/new-cloud-platforms-proliferating/ It seems the floodgates have opened. New cloud computing platforms and services are coming fast and furious. Here’s a roundup, with links, of cloud computing news from this week:

• Financial software publisher Intuit is opening its Quickbase platform to developers. Quickbase features an online database that developers can use to create and sell add-on Web apps atop QuickBooks. Smoothspan and Webware have reviews and screenshots.
• On Tuesday 10gen Inc. announced it has begun the alpha testing phase of its new cloud computing platform, which has been running the Silicon Alley Insider blog. 10gen was developed by DoubleClick alumni Kevin P. Ryan, Dwight Merriman and Eliot Horowitz, and is an object-oriented application server designed to help developers more easily build and deploy scalable Web applications hosted on large grid computing environments. “We offer a turnkey solution that provides all the building blocks needed to create complex, high-volume sites at drastically reduced costs with considerably less time and effort,” said Kevin Ryan, 10gen’s CEO.

• Platform-as-a-service provider Coghead introduced the Coghead Gallery, an open-market exchange for developers to publish applications created with Coghead. Mashable has an overview.
• InfoWorld reports that Sun Microsystems (JAVA) executives have begun speaking publicly about Project Caroline, the company’s a platform-as-a-service model. Project Caroline currently exists in a grid in a data center in Burlington, Mass., McClain said. There is no set date on when or if Sun would make a product out of Caroline technology.
• TechCrunch noted the appearance of two more cloud-based backup services, Syncplicity and AllMyData, as part of a broader look at the increasingly crowded online backup market.

The question was answered in the comments, as developer Chris Anderson posted a link to AppDrop, a service that allows users to deploy applications created in AppEngine on Amazon’s EC2 platform.

Here’s more from Andy Baio at Waxy.org:

AppDrop is a container for applications developed with the Google App Engine SDK, running entirely on Amazon’s EC2 infrastructure. Just like Google’s Appspot, anyone can use a modified SDK to deploy their App Engine apps directly to Amazon EC2 instead of Google, and they work without modification. This proof-of-concept was built in only four days and can be deployed in virtually any Linux/Unix hosting environment, showing that moving applications off Google’s servers isn’t as hard as everyone thought.

Vendor lock-in will be an issue as more cloud computing platforms emerge. In demonstrating portability between two major platforms, AppDrop’s proof-of-concept introduces apps that can jump from cloud to cloud.

UPDATE: James Urquhart has offered additional analysis on How AppDrop Does and Does Not Affect Lock-In.

Phil Wainewright reports that being “Oprah’d” is a web traffic event on the equivalent of the Slashdot Effect or a TechCrunch-led blogstorm or front-page Digging. Phil says he’s heard several independent accounts of consumer web sites getting slowed or knocked offline after being mentioned on Oprah. Shaklee reports that one mention generated up to “ten months’ worth of average daily volume in one day.”

Sounds like an opportunity for someone selling scalability. From Wainewright’s ZDNet blog:

It turns out that the ability to handle the peak traffic loads that hit when a consumer brand gets Oprah’d is a big selling point for cloud computing and on-demand application providers, because they have the infrastructure in place to cope with the peaks. Rod Boothby, VP of platform evangelism for cloud computing vendor Joyent told me later in the week that one of its customers had come on board just to be ready for the expected traffic surge after an upcoming feature on CNN and in the New York Times.

For consumer product web sites, those Oprah visitors represent prospective buyers responding to an endorsement from a trusted source, a particularly high-conversion scenario. Thus, getting Oprah’d is costlier downtime than a blog getting KO’d by Slashdot.