The desire to implement private cloud infrastructure is among the top priorities for large companies in North America that expect to expand data centers this year or next year. Read more »
The last quarter of 2012 saw the rise of cloud-based databases, the cloud awakening of software giants such as HP, and many cloud outages that have left question marks. Enterprises found more IT dollars, and they will focus on the cloud for much of that spending. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The way the industry will use cloud-computing technology in 2013 will require following the existing adoption patterns and trends into the New Year. Those trends include the rise of standards, big data’s role in the cloud, industry-specific clouds, security, and more. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Europe’s Helix Nebula project is addressing the technical, legal, and procedural issues that today make it difficult to seamlessly move jobs from one cloud to another at scale. Lessons learned from it could provide a window through which we can see Europe’s cloud provision taking shape. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the PaaS market transitions from nascent to mature, a new opportunity is emerging: cloud services curation. Peter Sonsini, general partner at NEA, predicts that cloud services curation will help PaaS players broaden their reach and amplify their strategic impact within the technology landscape. Read more »
According to 451 Research, the enterprise PaaS market will grow to be worth more than $3 billion by 2015. For businesses, it’s important to know the developments that are critical to properly deploying a PaaS solution that save time and development costs. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cloud computing and big data are in the enterprise to stay, but making the most of them presents challenges for IT decision makers. The future belongs to those companies who can work through legacy tools, ongoing security issues and the data scientist shortage. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
Big data now touches everything from enterprises to smart-meter startups, while Hadoop is fast becoming the leading tool to analyze that data, and debates around privacy abound. GigaOM Pro analysts offer insights on what to consider when it comes to big data decisions for your business. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Amazon, the market leader, plays at the infrastructure level. But there was a lot of talk at Cloud Connect about Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings, where cloud folks think the real action will ultimately lie. The company will soon have to address these shifts as well as trends ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If a recent blog post by Gartner analyst Lydia Leong is telling, it looks as if cultural hurdles are impeding private cloud adoption as well as public cloud adoption — at least when it comes to doing it right. It takes sacrifice to operate like Google. Read more »
Minneapolis-based cloud computing startup enStratus has raised $3.5 million in Series A funding to grow its business of managing all types of clouds across a common interface. EnStratus’ technology provides a secure platform for managing and monitoring numerous cloud offerings through a single interface. Read more »
IBM on Tuesday acquired Platform Computing, a company that made a name for itself in high-performance computing but recently made a splash in the cloud computing and big data spaces. It’s likely these areas that had IBM in a buying mood. Read more »
Birst is taking the cloud out of its SaaS BI offering with a new deployment option that lets customers run the product in their own data centers. The company says its virtual appliance delivers all the benefits of traditional cloud-hosted SaaS without, well, the cloud part. Read more »
At the end of last month Verizon acquired CloudSwitch, adding value to Verizon’s January acquisition of cloud data center provider Terremark. Around the world, big telecommunications providers such as AT&T, BT, Telstra and Verizon have been hard at work, diversifying and seeking new business opportunities as ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
VMware has addressed customer concerns over its new vSphere 5 platform by overhauling the pricing model. When VMware launched its vSphere 5 platform last month, most of the talk was about the new features, but a few customers raised concerns over higher prices. Read more »
Appistry, a St. Louis–based software company, has closed a $12 million Series D round for its family of distributed computing products. The company also appears to have changed its corporate messaging — from that of a cloud-computing vendor to that of a big-data vendor. Read more »
Cloud computing startup CumuLogic is making its Platform-as-a-Service software available for beta users that want to deploy it on their own infrastructure. Until now, CumuLogic’s Jave-only PaaS software had only been available for beta users running it atop the Amazon Web Services 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, 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 »
At its Cisco Live event today in Las Vegas, Cisco rolled out a range of new features and products designed to convince companies that Cisco is all they need for their cloud network and server needs. But will customers actually buy into Cisco’s vision? Read more »
VMware on Tuesday morning launched the latest version of its vSphere virtualization management software, as well as a suite of integrated products for managing cloud computing environments. There isn’t much new aside from the capabilities in vSphere 5, but VMware’s timing was ideal. Read more »
Citrix Systems has bought hot private-cloud startup Cloud.com, a move that immediately makes Citrix a leader in the quest to help companies build on-premise Infrastructure-as-a-Service clouds à la Amazon EC2. Cloud.com brings an impressive list of customers that includes Bechtel, GoDaddy and Zynga. Read more »
When done right, cloud computing actually can be a source of significant competitive advantage. So says Zynga, at least, which highlighted its unique cloud infrastructure, as well as its advanced analytics efforts, as part of its core strengths in the S-1 statement it filed this morning. 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 »
Zynga has been releasing details about its innovative hybrid cloud deployment, called Z Cloud, over the past year, and it has finally revealed the final piece of the puzzle. Namely, that the private cloud component of its infrastructure was built using Cloud.com’s CloudStack software. Read more »
Apple’s iCloud and other consumer-focused cloud efforts represent a golden opportunity for startups to raise venture capital, but it might not be from jumping on the bandwagon. According to NEA’s Peter Sonsini, the key to getting VC investment is selling the infrastructure that underlies popular clouds. Read more »
Cloud-management platform provider RightScale is launching a service to help customers manage private and hybrid clouds similar to what RightScale customer Zynga does with its vaunted Z Cloud infrastructure. Hybrid cloud computing is hot, and MyCloud might represent a better way of thinking about the model. Read more »
Since the concept of “private cloud” was introduced, there have been efforts by certain people to prove it “wrong” or show that it doesn’t make sense when compared with the public cloud. This seems like a silly crusade — both provide tremendous value. Read more »
Analyst firm Forrester published an assessment report on private cloud software this week, and Platform Computing, with its ISF software, appears to have the most-complete offering based on Forrester’s criteria. For now. Read more »
Despite a lot of speculation lately about who’s winning the private-cloud race and what companies might be on the way out, it’s far too early to call the game in anyone’s favor. Adoption is picking up, but it’s nowhere near ubiquitous, so there’s plenty of time. Read more »
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 »
Overlooked in the buzz following a Reuters report that acquisition talks between HP and enterprise software vendor Tibco have fizzled out is the possibility that the loss represents a setback in HP CEO Leo Apotheker’s grand cloud computing vision, as well as HP’s big data strategy. Read more »
Private cloud software startup Cloud.com announced that both Tata Communications and Logicworks have selected Cloud.com’s CloudStack software as the foundation of their IaaS offerings, suggesting that it’s still service providers that seem to be buying the most cloud computing software. Read more »
Hot private-cloud startup Nimbula is getting in on the ecosystem act, announcing this morning a partner program currently comprised of Opscode, Puppet Labs, Scalr, enStratus and Cloud Cruiser. It’s more proof that it’s very difficult to go it alone in the cloud computing software space. Read more »
Athletic apparel brand Puma is running Puma.com and related sites on a Eucalyptus-powered private cloud. Puma is another well-known customer win for Eucalyptus, and that it’s running a web site on Eucalyptus infrastructure might also help suggest what the first round of private-cloud-hosted applications will be. Read more »
2010 has been dubbed the “Year of the Cloud” — and from an adoption perspective, this assertion holds true. But when it comes to realizing the benefits of cloud computing and truly running “IT as a business,” things are just beginning to heat up. Read more »
Nimbula Director is now available as a public beta release. Nimbula has received lots of attention since emerging from stealth mode in late June, primarily because of its founders’ pedigrees as the creators and builders of Amazon EC2, but now Nimbula’s product has to prove itself. Read more »
