A little over a week after releasing its App Player for Windows software that lets computer users run Android apps, BlueStacks now says that it has raised a strategic investment from AMD and Citrix Systems along with funding from existing investors. Read more »
Last quarter we highlighted the fast maturation of the Platform-as-a-Service and big data spaces. Those two trends only picked up speed during the third quarter of 2011. Joining them on the cusp of IT greatness, though, are the OpenStack project and flash storage. The former gathered serious validation from big-name companies, while the latter saw less funding than last quarter but a significant number of product launches. Of course, the third quarter wasn’t all lollipops and rose petals. We saw new computing technologies and delivery models such as tablets wreak havoc on both HP and Cisco, and there are concerns (aren’t there always?) about how the Internet will handle our increased use of streaming video and cloud computing. Unfortunately for HP and Cisco, the latter problem might be an easier fix than the strategic woes facing them. Additional companies mentioned in this report include CloudBees, Rackspace, Engine Yard and Joyent. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the OpenStack project moves into its second year and more companies evaluate the open-source cloud technology, prospective users have some requests. Documentation, for one. A longer-term roadmap, for another. A more formal process for submitting and receiving feedback, for yet another. Read more »
Despite OpenStack’s continued growth, a combination of product updates and acquisitions from Citrix, Eucalyptus, Red Hat and VMware over the past week demonstrate that the race to become the dominant private cloud provider, as well as win over the enterprise, is far from over. Is one of ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In our cloudy times, VMware is a barometer for IT, and VMworld is what CES is to the consumer electronics industry. So check out what this week’s hoopla in Las Vegas is telling us about enterprise IT and the cloud. Read more »
Former NASA CTO Chris Kemp left his post in the spring to pursue a startup venture, and on Wednesday morning he introduced his new company, Nebula. It’s selling an OpenStack-based appliance for managing scale-out cloud deployments, and is backed by premier talent and investors. Read more »
On Tuesday Dell announced a reference architecture, open-source software and services offering designed to make deploying an OpenStack-based cloud as easy as following directions. Called the Dell OpenStack Cloud solution, the collection of tools shows that OpenStack will be a driving force in the private-cloud space. Read more »
[OpenStack] looks not only like an open-source alternative to Amazon Web Services and VMware vCloud in the public Infrastructure as a Service space, but also a democratizing force in the private-cloud software space. As my colleague Derrick Harris suggests, the open-source cloud-computing project OpenStack has come a […] Read more »
Big data and Platform-as-a-Service offerings highlighted the second quarter, suggesting that we can expect to see a shift in enterprise IT practices around application development and analytics very soon. On the PaaS front, we saw new projects like DotCloud and Cloud Foundry gain incredible momentum in just a few short months. The big-data activity ranged from major new Hadoop vendors to heavy investment in flash storage that will speed the serving of data to processing engines. In other areas, we saw an uptick in cloud-computing plans from large vendors, OpenStack continued to mature and pick up both contributors and users, and Facebook caught our eye by launching an open-source project around the designs for its specialized servers and data centers. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Salesforce.com, IBM, Heroku and Calxeda. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
OpenStack, the open-source cloud-computing software project founded by Rackspace and NASA, launched a year ago today. It has been a busy year for the project, which appears to have grown much faster than even its founders expected it would, and it’s only picking up steam. Read more »
The sport of mixed martial arts combines the multiple disciplines of wrestling, boxing, and jiu jitsu into one combat sport. The cloud battle between VMware and Citrix is a metaphor for two highly trained MMA fighters stepping into the ring after a two-year training camp. Read more »
There’s little doubt that VMware will continue to maintain its lead as a virtualization supplier in the short run, but doing so over the long run is tricky business. So says Art Wittmann at InformationWeek about VMware’s vSphere 5 offering, updated this week. Despite the bolstering […] Read more »
Citrix CTO, Simon Crosby, today explained how enterprise workers will use the public cloud even if it breaks the rules. And the “cloud in your pocket” on a smartphone is changing the I.T. segment faster than anything else. He has a solution for the security though. Read more »
Cloud computing has grown from a pie-in-the-sky vision to a major IT movement over the past few years. As its promise has grown, though, so too has its scope. This report covers six key sectors in cloud computing: commodity Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), enterprise IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud storage and private clouds. We highlight the current state of each and provide informed insights into where they — and cloud computing in general — are headed. Much like any market in a still-evolving state, the infrastructure of the cloud-computing transition is still being built by startups, practitioners and even a big-name company or two. Companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Amazon, Nasuni, Terremark and Heroku. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Simon Crosby is leaving his post as data center and virtualization CTO at Citrix Systems to launch a new company called Bromium that will utilize virtualization technology to tackle cloud computing security. The company raised $9.2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Read more »
Tablets have gone mainstream, and now those devices — from the iPad to Research in Motion’s new PlayBook — are headed to the enterprise. This trend is largely driven by end users who prefer to bring their own devices to work, which is creating a fruitful marketplace for both hardware manufacturers and app developers. This report examines the current state of tablets in the enterprise, from use cases to market drivers, and analyzes which players will be worth watching in the coming months. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Apple, Google, Samsung and Nokia. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
VirtualWorks, a Boca-Raton, Fla.-based startup from Citrix Systems founder Ed Iacobucci, has raised $8.5 million from Florida’s New World Angels investment group to tackle the problem of corporate data dispersed across servers, devices and clouds. It could also help with data portability between clouds. Read more »
Citrix today announced the first commercial distribution of the open source OpenStack cloud-computing software, which Citrix ix calling Project Olympus. It’s a bold move to announce an OpenStack distribution so early into the project’s existence, but Citrix must to something to combat bitter rival VMware. Read more »
Rackspace has added virtual desktops to its collection of cloud services, a move that could prove very lucrative as the worlds of cloud computing and next-generation mobile devices converge. The new offering, called Hosted Virtual Desktop, pairs Citrix’s XenApp and XenDesktop products with Rackspace infrastructure. Read more »
In five short years, cloud computing has gone from being a quaint technology to a major catchphrase. Amazon and others are now moving at Internet speed, trying to offer better security, faster networking, more compliance and a host of other products that are attempting to meet the demands of startups, consumers and enterprises alike. On GigaOM’s Structure channel, we cover the gear and software that comprises the cloud, the services and the people who are changing the industry. Now for the first time, we’ve decided to condense that knowledge into the Structure 50, a list of the 50 companies that are influencing how the cloud and infrastructure evolves. All of these players, big or small, have people, technology or strategies that will help shape the way the cloud market is developing and where it will eventually end up. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Rackspace, Cloudera, China Telecom and SeaMicro. For a full list of companies, and to see the Structure 50 as one full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Two markets stand out above all else when looking at the first quarter of 2011: infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — the epitome of cloud computing — and big data. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the IaaS space in terms of customers and innovation, while Rackspace, buoyed by momentum around OpenStack, will be its primary competitor for mainstream customers. In the big data space, there are so many players and terms floating about it’s difficult for outsiders to get a handle on who’s who and what’s what, though such activity validates the technologies. Other developments this quarter included HP’s impending presence in the cloud computing and big data spaces and the realization that Intel won’t be left to die if low-power servers based on x86 processors catch on like the buzz late last year suggests they will. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Microsoft, Cloudera, SeaMicro and Facebook. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Thanks to a partnership that’s been announced today with Citrix Online, Skype users will later this year get web conferencing functionality. By making use of Citrix’s popular GoToMeeting conferencing product, Skype users will be able to easily quickly set up online meetings. Read more »
Citrix’s popular remote access tool GoToMyPC is now available for the iPad , with a new app that lets users access files, programs and network resources on desktop Macs or PCs from their tablets, and can can remotely connect via 3G or Wi-Fi networks. Read more »
Some might call this past quarter in the infrastructure space transformative. The rise of ARM-based processing suggests the days of x86 dominance might be coming to an end, while the Amazon Web Services-WikiLeaks controversy cast new light on the legal aspects of cloud computing. Big data got bigger, meanwhile, as the Hadoop ecosystem expanded, and amid all these cutting-edge technologies, two archaic topics — Novell and Java — proved they aren’t going anywhere soon. Companies mentioned in this report include Intel, AMD, Amazon Web Services, IBM, Yahoo, Appistry, VMware, Joyent and Microsoft. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Today’s links focus on the importance of infrastructure in building reliable services. We have Tumblr investing in a new data center, KT building a cost-efficient cloud and Citrix’s Simon Crosby telling why private clouds could have helped prevent the Wikileaks debacle on all fronts. Read more »
As the world transitions through a “work shift” with remote workers increasingly collaborating online, success will be defined by the companies that can adapt to the new realities, according to Brett Caine, president of Citrix Online at the GigaOM Net:Work conference. Read more »
Any way you slice it, cloud providers and vendors are doing alright. Microsoft won its big NYC deal, rPath got $7 million, IBM is selling customers on mainframe clouds, pharma firms are snatching up cloud resources and Citrix’s cloud business is growing by the quarter. Read more »
As broadband erases the boundaries between places and time zones, companies can take advantage of remote workers and virtual teams, but two new surveys show that many organizations aren’t, and generally it’s not because they don’t have the tools, but because they don’t have the mindset. Read more »
Citrix’s web conferencing products (GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar and GoToTraining) will have integrated HD conferencing, the company announced at its Citrix Synergy conference today. The HD technology, allows up to six simultaneous conferencing streams at a resolution with a total maximum resolution of 1920 x 960. Read more »
VMware is pushing an aggressive cloud computing strategy, but questions remain as to how successful the vendor can be in its quest to become the dominant player at every layer of the cloud stack. The challenge will be repeating its early hypervisor dominance by getting a first-mover advantage in advanced virtualization and cloud deployments. Other vendors, such as Microsoft, Citrix, and Red Hat, now provide additional cloud capabilities, and cloud-management solutions mean organizations need not even choose a virtualization vendor to complete their cloud transitions. These report examines VMware’s advantages in the cloud computing sector, its competitors, and why, in the end, the company may be a leader, but should not expect to dominate. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
There is a resurgence of activity around virtual desktops — where enterprises take desktop compute environments and make them configurable, deployable and manageable from a central location. Since it’s so hot, we look at companies that will challenge Citrix and VMware in this emerging sector. Read more »
The second quarter of 2010 belonged to the little guys and the new guys. Almost across the board, from processors to virtualization to cloud services, relatively small vendors and startups had the market cornered on innovation and mindshare. And where there’s tinder in the forms of customer demand, products, funding and a greater societal movement toward environmentalism, something is bound to catch fire. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Internal clouds are real and they’re here, but many efforts are still in their early days. The problem is that transitioning to a cloud-enabled environment can involve large degrees of technical, cultural and budgetary evolution, and it is of utmost importance that organizations deploy the right solution.
With this in mind, customers need to consider many things, and we profiled numerous solutions and companies to create a guide for deploying the right cloud solution to the right enterprise. We examined cloud application platforms, hypervisor-based clouds, internal infrastructure-as-a-service clouds, and high-performance computing clouds, in addition to looking at hybrid cloud solutions and underlying server architecture. Companies profiled include Appistry, Red Hat, Microsoft, VMware and CA Technologies, among others. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With technology changing so fast and mobile enterprises often moving slow, it’s easy to be a revision or two behind. Here we examine current and on-the-horizon solutions you might want to watch for, so your mobile workforce so can do more with less in a wider ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It’s taken a full year and upward of $700 million in acquisitions, but CA Technologies (yes, it’s a new moniker) finally delivered on its cloud-computing strategy with several major product announcements. The Cloud-Connected Management Suite — the centerpiece of CA’s announcements — leverages pieces of technology ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Every 15 years or so, the IT world undergoes a tectonic shift. Technological forces collide and grind against one another, creating an upheaval that leaves the landscape irrevocably changed. The latest such shift is currently underway: the transition to computing as a service, also known as ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As much as we hear about virtualization, it can be surprising to get actual numbers on deployments and realize how low they remain — just 18-19 percent of workloads on enterprise x86 servers have actually been virtualized, according to new data released by Lazard Capital Markets. Read more »
Zoho today announced support for Facebook Connect, which means you can now access its entire suite of applications using your Facebook account. If you don’t already have a Zoho account, then you can sign up with your Facebook ID. Read more »
In the weekly iPhone roundup there’s actually a good reason to reconsider the iPad if it looks like a meager performer upon first glance. Virtualization software on a large display could meet the needs of those wanting a full-fledged operating system. Read more »
Citrix’s announcement that its Receiver software will allow iPad users to run Windows 7 sessions via virtualization has caused predictions that the iPad may have much promise as a business tool. But why stop at Windows? The iPad will reach beyond Apple’s iPhone OS and Windows. Read more »
