The need for enterprise architecture was spurred by the need to gain control over an increasingly complex computing environment, and an increasingly large backlog of data and feature needs. But those needs are changing with cloud computing, and so is the job of the enterprise architect. Read more »
If you parse Amazon’s first quarter earnings, you could be forgiven for thinking that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now a $2 billion-a-year business. Revenue from Amazon’s “other” category was $500 million for the quarter, although “other” does include revenue from other things. Read more »
Internap bought Voxel early this year to boost its dedicated hosting and public cloud portfolios and to extend its reach into smaller companies. Now its new Voxel.net Agile Hosting services will let even tiny businesses configure and deploy IT infrastructure from an online configurator. Read more »
There are now more than half a dozen commercial Hadoop distributions in the market, and almost every enterprise with big data challenges is tinkering with the Apache Foundation-licensed software. A new report examines the key disruptive trends shaping the Hadoop platform market. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Intel paid $140 million to buy the interconnect business of Cray, the original manufacturer of supercomputers. From here it looks like there’s little left of Cray moving forward, but the interesting bit about this deal is how it could define the next generation of servers. Read more »
In a cloud computing market dominated by large, well-known companies such as Amazon Web Services and Rackspace, it’s difficult to find much upside investing in the competition. However, Battery Ventures has done just that, leading a $27.5 million round in SingleHop, a Chicago-based infrastructure-as-a-service provider. Read more »
VMware has acquired Cetas, a startup that provides analytics atop the Hadoop platform. Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but Cetas is an 18-month-old company with tens of paying customers that didn’t need to rush into an acquisition. So, why did VMware buy it? Read more »
The marketplace concept does a good job of bringing the simplicity of the Apple App Store model to server applications. It has the potential to revolutionize IT consumption. And if no one else steps up, Amazon is going to own this part of the cloud, too. Read more »
If you think about it, Netflix’s metamorphosis into a company that runs its infrastructure completely atop cloud-based resources is truly remarkable. For many companies, such as site-optimization and CDN provider Yottaa, the bigger they get, the harder it is to justify the cloud’s cost and performance. Read more »
Everyone knows Amazon’s cloud is huge but many want to know exactly how huge it is. The latest to try is Deepfield Networks worked with unnamed partners to find that 1/3 of all Internet users touch on AWS at least once a day. Read more »
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels to IT customers: “If we’re not delivering the right services you should walk away.” While one would disagree with that, many question exactly how easy it will be for customers to walk away if they use high-end Amazon services. Read more »
Working with Schrödinger, which specializes in computational drug design, Cycle Computing built a 50k-core AWS cluster that screened 21 million compounds in less than three hours. The cluster enabled the company to use a much more accurate screening process than other technology. Read more »
This quarter saw Amazon Web Services finally relaxing its public-cloud-only stance and launching services to support hybrid-cloud deployments. Meanwhile, Hadoop players moved to make their platforms more accessible to mainstream BI analysts and database administrators. A new quarterly report analyzes these trends and provides a near-term outlook. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amid all the OpenStack news this week, there is a feeling in some quarters that two years after Rackspace and NASA launched this attempt to counter Amazon Web Services and VMware, it may be too late for the effort to take hold. Read more »
The new AWS Partner Network targets ISVs, SaaS companies, tool and platform providers as well as consultative partners like systems integrators and agencies. The goal is to provide them with the technology information they need, according to a post to the AWS blog. Read more »
Cloud platform provider Eucalyptus will use $30 million in new Series C funding to build its engineering and sales staffs, said CEO Marten Mickos.
The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners with contributions from Benchmark Capital, BV Capital and New Enterprise Associates. Read more »
iFixit, the popular DIY repair site, will parlay its Amazon Web Services, Rightscale foundation — and its own secret sauce — to take on the problem of product support and documentation for businesses. It’s new Dozuki business division targets large retailers and manufacturers. Read more »
Newvem, the startup that aims to help companies make the most out of their Amazon Web Services instances, has some new data that might shock the Amazon faithful. A high percentage of AWS users are paying for way more compute power than they need. Read more »
The rapidly changing world of networking has surfaced another startup. This one, a four-year-old company called LineRate Systems, has built software the helps deliver services on top of virtualized networks. It has raised $5.4 million so far to bring more commodity gear to networking. Read more »
A new visual dashboard by Cedexis provides a glimpse into what clouds and content delivery networks are performing best at a given point in time. Cedexis’ aims to help content owners pick the best infrastructure for their cloud workload on an ongoing basis. Read more »
Few industries are better suited to the cloud computing model than film and TV production. Show business is heavily project-oriented with myriad production shops and contractors collaborating on relatively short-term, compute-intensive projects. That’s why the cloud-computing giants are converging at NAB this week. Read more »
Customers can now get early access to Rackspace’s OpenStack-based public cloud, slated to come online May 1. The news comes as the OpenStack Spring Conference kicks off in San Francisco. The company also unveiled OpenStack-based Cloud Block Storage and MySQL-based database services. Read more »
With its new BOSH management process, VMware keeps pushing CloudFoundry as a good multi-cloud PaaS option by making it easier to deploy and manage across clouds and on the biggest clouds. That’s important as more companies hedge their bets when it comes to cloud deployment. Read more »
OpenStack filled in some important checkmarks this week by adding IBM and Red Hat to its roster of corporate backers. Eighteen companies are slated to become members of the evolving OpenStack Foundation which is expected to come online in the third quarter. Read more »
The headline might sound like buzzword stew, but it couldn’t be any truer. For companies willing to make the leap to cloud services, there will be a lot of companies willing to make big data as easy as paying your bill every month. Read more »
We’ve all heard the saying, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” It’s a simple, but profound message that many of us forget on a daily basis. When it comes to the cloud the same idea prevails, but using multiple clouds can have advantages. Read more »
Whatever you do, don’t compare IBM’s new PureSystems to Oracle Exadata or Cisco’s Unified Compute System. The company said it’s spent three years and $2 billion to get these systems just right for cloud computing and other workloads. Read more »
You might have heard of SoftLayer, but if you’re like me, you probably didn’t know the cloud provider is hosting operations for some of the web’s hottest apps. Among them are Tumblr, OMGPOP, SendGrid and even Heroku. You learn something new every day. Read more »
Amazon Web Services Storage Gateway is the company’s first foray into the on-premises cloud-storage space. But a number of vendors are attacking the on-premises cloud-storage gateway market too. Do these offerings signal the death of the cloud gateway as an appliance or simply validation of the market? Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Hewlett-Packard is putting more of its chips on OpenStack as a key foundation for its upcoming public, private and hybrid cloud implementations. HP says its Converged Cloud will amalgamate existing HP technologies and OpenStack so applications can be managed uniformly across cloud types. Read more »
Instagram is pretty proud of the infrastructure it built atop the Amazon Web Services cloud, but does an acquisition by Facebook mean goodbye to Amazon? If I were a betting man, I’d say there are already some engineers working really hard to make that happen. Read more »
If your organization doesn’t have a strategy for big data now, you will need one in the future. Here we discuss the difference between big data and traditional business intelligence, as well as the considerations executives should take into account as they plan their big data strategies. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
According to analysts at Morgan Stanley, Amazon’s cloud computing division could be a shining star (even if not too bright) on the company’s long road toward increased profit margins. While margins are flat, there’s opportunity for growth as Amazon Web Services keeps evolving. Read more »
If you have a lot of unstructured data, don’t have (or want) a Hadoop cluster and can write Python jobs, Mortar Data has got the service for you. The New York-based startup is jumping into the fray with possibly the most lightweight Hadoop service yet. Read more »
Cloud computing is at the top of virtually every CIO’s interest list and is expected to grow 126.5 percent over the next two years. A new report on GigaOM Pro details each sector of cloud computing and forecasts a shift toward hybrid models in the enterprise community. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Now that at least some of the smoke has cleared from the blockbuster news that Citrix is putting its CloudStack technology into the Apache process to compete with former partner OpenStack, here are 5 takeaways emerging from the latest cloud kerfuffle. Read more »
Managed hosting provider Sungard is getting into the big data space with a new Hadoop service that gives users on-demand access to the popular data-storage and processing platform. Called Unified Analytics Service, Sungard’s new offering joins the growing ranks of cloud-based Hadoop offerings. Read more »
It looks like OpenStack won’t have the open-source cloud spotlight to itself anymore. Citrix has released the CloudStack software it acquired along with Cloud.com to the Apache Software Foundation, creating a competitive option to the OpenStack project of which Citrix was an early member. Read more »
Three fast-moving trends are altering the landscape for business IT: cloud computing, mobile computing and the consumerization of IT. This report presents actionable strategies to respond to the new realities of corporate computing, including a redesign of the IT organization. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The fact that perennial PC power Dell is buying Wyse Technologies for its thin client and desktop virtualization smarts shows just how much the power equation has shifted from low-margin PCs to cloud computing and other services in recent years. Read more »
