Friday 03 September 2010
OpSource, Inc., the leader in Cloud operations, today introduced OpSource Cloud(TM), the first Cloud to bring together the flexibility, availability and community of the public Cloud with the security, performance and controls the enterprise demands. Emphasizing security, OpSource Cloud provides every user with a Virtual Private Cloud within the public Cloud, allowing them to determine their own degree of Internet connectivity. Now in private Beta, OpSource Cloud will be unveiled at VMworld next week and will be publicly available on October 2, 2009.
“Although cloud computing promises many business benefits for enterprises, today’s consumer-oriented Cloud services lack many of the requirements to reliably, securely and cost-effectively support enterprise-class applications,” said Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Managing Director, THINKstrategies, Inc. “OpSource’s new Cloud solution offers the security, performance and management control enterprises need to move from simple development to serious application deployment and production via the Cloud.”
Recognizing that security is critical to Enterprise adoption of Cloud computing, OpSource Cloud is designed to allow IT departments to manage their security as they would within their internal IT infrastructure. Upon sign-up, each customer receives a Virtual Private Network and sets the degree of public Internet connectivity they wish to grant, from totally private to fully available. OpSource Cloud also provides user customizable security with a compliant, high-performance multi-tier Cloud architecture and full user control over firewall settings. In addition, other enterprise quality controls include user level login and passwords, operational permissions and departmental and sub-department reporting, all backed by a 100% SLA.
OpSource Cloud is built on the same standard technology already being employed by enterprise IT. This ensures out-of-the-box trust, compatibility and productivity. With virtualization playing such a key role in Cloud computing, OpSource has selected VMware for virtualization and application portability between the Cloud and enterprise.
At the same time, for users weaned on the public Cloud experience, OpSource Cloud offers online sign-up, pay by the hour usage, and rich online communities. Immediate availability and flexibility ensure that developers and enterprise IT alike have access to enterprise quality computing capability when they need it, paying for it only when it is being used. This is the promise of Cloud computing and OpSource Cloud delivers it.
“A Web-savvy generation is moving into IT and drastically changing how the enterprise consumes technology,” said Treb Ryan, CEO, OpSource. “This demographic shift — plus downturn driven demand for cost savings — has accelerated interest in Cloud computing. Companies want to take advantage of the Cloud’s pay-only-for-what-you-consume and collaborative nature but they have been held back by the lack of security, performance and control. With OpSource Cloud we are offering the first true, enterprise-ready Cloud solution, enabling companies to take advantage of all the flexibility and collaboration the public Cloud has to offer but in a manner that is consistent with how the Enterprise approaches IT.”
For more information or to apply for the OpSource Cloud private Beta, please visit http://opsourcecloud.net/. To see a live demonstration, visit OpSource Booth #1233 at VMworld 2009, which takes place at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, from August 31 to September 3, 2009.
About OpSource Cloud
OpSource Cloud offers companies the true Cloud, combining the availability, flexibility and community of the public Cloud with the security, performance and controls that the Enterprise demands. Its features include:
Best of the Public Cloud
– Easy online sign-up with infrastructure provisioning in minutes
– Pay by the hour and only for what you use, with no commitment (unless
so desired)
– Community resources for sharing and collaboration, third party add-ins
and configurations
– Web interface plus complete set of APIs
Enterprise Security & Compliance
– Virtual Private Clouds with user-specified public Internet
connectivity
– Unique customizable security for firewalls
– User-level login/password and access control
– SAS 70 Type II Audited Cloud
– One hundred percent uptime SLA
Enterprise Performance
– Multi-tier architecture
– Guaranteed latency in-between systems
– Sub-millisecond access time
– Industry standard technology including VMware and Cisco
Enterprise Controls
– Centralized control and billing
– Master and departmental management and controls
– Sub-account permissions and budgeting
– Complete reporting
– 24X7 phone support plus online community support and ticketing/status
tracking
About OpSource
OpSource(TM) provides complete Cloud operations, infrastructure and services for companies of all sizes, from Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ISVs to the Enterprise, with hundreds of applications, millions of users and billions of transactions supported daily.
OpSource Cloud(TM) is the first Cloud to bring together the flexibility, availability and community of the public Cloud with the security, performance and controls the enterprise demands. Emphasizing security, OpSource Cloud provides enterprise users with a virtual private Cloud within the public Cloud, allowing them to determine their own degree of Internet connectivity. For more information, visit www.opsourcecloud.net.
OpSource On-Demand(TM) empowers SaaS ISVs to bring the Cloud to the enterprise by quickly and securely delivering their applications and services over the Web. Going far beyond full-featured managed hosting, the comprehensive, award-winning Cloud operations solution includes the application management, compliance and business services that are necessary for on-demand business success.
Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., OpSource has Cloud and Web application delivery centers in Virginia, London and Bangalore. For more information about OpSource, visit www.opsource.net.
OpSource, OpSource Cloud, OpSource On-Demand, and the OpSource logo are trademarks of OpSource, Inc. All other trademarks and company names mentioned are protected by their respective owners.
For additional information, please contact:
Eileen Conway
OpSource, Inc.
650-245-9015
econway@opsource.net
It is amorphous and very loosely structured. A Cloud has no specific strength, organization or output. A hurricane on the other hand is “a storm system characterized by a low pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and flooding rain”. A hurricane is organized, has form, purpose and an outcome. The center or eye of the hurricane is where the system is the most powerful and at the same time the calmest portion of the system. Cloud Computing is interestingly fraught with the same issues of its vapor filled synonym. It is amorphous and lacks specific direction from a business perspective. It promises a world of flexibility and responsiveness, but little is said about its’ from, organization, power and ability to generate an outcome, namely productivity and efficiency for revenue generation.
Citrix is addressing the entire spectrum of the Cloud. From Infrastructure as a Service (XenServer) to Desktop as a Service (XenDesktop) through application delivery providing Software as a Service (XenApp). This approach goes beyond theory to the basic elements of revenue generation. The very core technology of XenApp, for instance, is based on the concept that software should be ‘delivered’ as a service, not deployed. As the market continues to evolve, Citrix will emerge as a leader in this space because we had it in mind twenty years ago when we began to evolve server based computing.
Despite its possible security and privacy risks, Cloud Computing - according to a magazine article due to be published later this Fall - has six main benefits that the public sector and government IT organizations are certain to want to take advantage of. Cloud technology is paid incrementally, saving organizations money. Organizations can store more data than on private computer systems. No longer do IT personnel need to worry about keeping software up to date. Cloud computing offers much more flexibility than past computing methods. Employees can access information wherever they are, rather than having to remain at their desks. No longer having to worry about constant server updates and other computing issues, government organizations will be free to concentrate on innovation.
Through the open, standards-based API, Rackspace Cloud customers can now manage their cloud infrastructure with greater control and flexibility. The API, for example, enables elastic scenarios as users can write code that programmatically detects load and scales the number of server instances up and down. The
Rackspace Cloud solicited feedback and conducted intensive testing with its partners and cloud developers to help ensure that the community shaped the API.
Users now have control panel and programmatic access to the company’s cloud infrastructure services: Cloud Servers, Cloud Files and Slicehost. The Cloud Servers API is implemented using a RESTful web service interface. Aiming to build a cohesive approach to all products in the Rackspace Cloud suite, Cloud Servers shares a common token authentication system that allows seamless access between products and services.
Launched earlier this year, Cloud Servers is a compute service that provides server capacity in the cloud to businesses of all sizes and leverages key technology developed by Slicehost, LLC, a Rackspace wholly-owned subsidiary. Until today, interactions with Cloud Servers only occurred via the Rackspace Cloud Control Panel (GUI) and now programmatically via the Cloud Servers API.
Yellowfin, with it 100% browser based interface, has always been able to be deployed via the cloud; however, Yellowfin 4.1 offers enhanced scalability with improved clustering administration allowing for far larger and complex deployments. For example by using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud web service as the backbone. Glen rabie, CEO of Yellowfin says “Popular applications for cloud deployment include software-as-a-service applications such as CRM, expense management, human resources, and Web analytics. But now we’re seeing a sudden burst of activity around business intelligence. This makes sense, since BI software shares characteristics with the aforementioned apps that make it right for cloud computing.”
The benefits of deploying Yellowfin in the cloud have been proven by Base2, who use Yellowfin to track real time performance metrics for field management services. “In the past you had to buy and manage physical servers to deploy Yellowfin, but now you can have Yellowfin running within 15 minutes,” said Arthur Marinis of Base2 a Yellowfin partner. Ron Dovich, a Yellowfin partner based in Austin Texas noted that “We choose to run Yellowfin inside of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud platform because our client does not own any hardware or have any in-house expertise for building out and managing the required infrastructure.Yellowfin has no plans to offer a SAAS BI application directly to end users. “What we offer is the capability for our partners and OEM partners to develop their own products and services in the cloud using Yellowfin,” says Rabie. The value in Yellowfin is that clients and partners have the flexibility to choose either cloud or traditional in house deployments.
The job of standing up and managing the network, awarded in 2000, has proved to be challenging for both parties, and the Navy Department chose not to renew the contract when it expires in 2010, opting for more in-house control. Ann Livermore is executive vice president of HP’s Technology Solutions Group, which oversees EDS and HP’s storage, servers, software and services. We spoke with her about lessons about NMCI and Oracle’s recent purchase of HP competitor Sun Microsystems.
Any time you have a very large outsourcing relationship and any time you have a customer where you have a very, very broad set of things you are doing for [that customer], there are a handful of things that are really important [to keep in mind]. They apply to NMCI, as well as other relationships. The second lesson is the need to balance security and the operations. You have to ensure that you can have the flexibility in your operations and yet ensure you have the very tight security that you need. You have to be pushing on those enhancements and improvements. One of the things we do with NMCI is always evaluate new technologies.
LotusLive Connections helps individuals, departments and small businesses tap into the intellectual resources and capabilities that previously have only been accessible to large enterprises. Using core elements of IBM’s proven on-premise Lotus Connections social software, LotusLive Connections connects colleagues, partners, suppliers and customers from within and beyond firewalls. As part of the unveiling, LotusLive was voted the winner of The Enterprise 2.0 Cloud Computing Technology Buyers’ Choice Award. IBM’s cloud services won in a side-by-side comparison with Google Apps, EMC and other vendors’ cloud technologies, as voted by the Enterprise 2.0 conference attendees. BM is an established leader in two major trends: cloud computing and social networking for business. At the nexus of these trends is LotusLive Connections,” said Bob Picciano, general manager, IBM Lotus Software. “LotusLive Connections brings companies of all sizes the ability to build, share information and easily work with their extended business network over the Web.”
LotusLive Connections simplifies working together, making it easy to identify and work with experts from any company online with the flexibility, convenience and affordable pricing associated with multi-tenant cloud services. Instant messaging, file sharing and activities are all instantly accessible for use with LotusLive networks. For example, a team planning a project can create a group around the project, including vendors from outside their company. Together they can build a project plan using Activities and post and share associated files. Comments can be made and tasks tracked in the same service. All participants are kept up-to-date without having to hunt through email for the latest documents. Networking, sharing and collaborating are all integrated in LotusLive Connections.
Instead of making an upfront investment for perpetual licenses, the new monthly licensing model allows SaaS ISVs to scale their investment in Oracle technology with their company growth and end-user demand. Committed to providing the leading technology platform for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud Computing partners, Oracle today launched a new commercial licensing model that enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to purchase license and support for components of the Oracle Platform for SaaS on a monthly basis.
The new monthly option, called SaaS for ISVs, is available to any ISV interested in delivering a SaaS application in a one-to-many commercial deployment on Oracle Database, Oracle WebLogic Server and Oracle Application Server. The Leading Platform for SaaS and Cloud-Based Services The Oracle Platform for SaaS includes Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Oracle Enterprise Manager, and Oracle VM, and is a comprehensive, open and integrated set of technologies that allows ISVs to build, deploy and manage SaaS and cloud-based applications. This software platform uses Oracle Grid Computing technologies to enable ISVs to deliver SaaS and cloud-based services to multiple enterprise customers, while fully delivering on their requirements of scalability, high performance, high availability, integration, security and customization. ISVs, hosting service providers and system integrators also receive business and technology support via a designated Oracle SaaS Program for partners.
“Oracle has been active in the SaaS market for several years, selling our own SaaS offerings and working closely with an extensive ecosystem of SaaS partners - including ISVs, SIs and Managed Hosting Partners,” said Judson Althoff, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Alliances & Channels at Oracle. “With the new monthly licensing model, not only can ISVs leverage the leading platform for SaaS, they can also scale their investment to meet the evolving demands of their business. The combined Oracle Platform for SaaS and licensing options deliver the power and flexibility ISVs need to compete and win in today’s global SaaS marketplace.”
