Thursday 11 March 2010
The deal, in which IBM will sell products from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Juniper under its own name, builds on similar relationships IBM has with other networking companies. The Armonk, N.Y.-based technology giant already resells networking equipment from Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the world’s largest networking equipment company and Brocade Communication Systems Inc. (BRCD), another networking product maker. Cisco, Juniper and Brocade all make routers and switches, used to “network” computers together, as well as direct information and data over the Internet. IBM’s deal comes amid growing interest in “cloud computing,” the concept of selling computing services that are accessed online and paid for on a metered basis. Cloud computing is shaking up the technology sector - Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT) and Google Inc. (GOOG) have launched products to establish themselves in the field - and several big technology vendors are seeking to augment their portfolios with products which can better serve the cloud computing platform.
IBM has traditionally resold some networking equipment made by companies such as Juniper and Cisco, through its massive technology services unit. In particular, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), IBM’s biggest rival in the hardware and IT services market, has been beefing up its ProCurve networking division and is starting to compete more aggressively with Cisco and others. Cisco, for its part, recently announced its intention to start making servers, bringing it ultimately into more direct competition with IBM, while Oracle Corp. (ORCL), the database and software giant, also recently moved into the hardware business through its acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc.
With the technology still in its adolescence, it is hard to say precisely when cloud technology will provide significant upside to investors. It is useful, however, to first make a distinction between the different types of clouds that are available basically “private” vs. “public.” A private cloud could be used, for example, by a company looking to access IT resources across its own data centers, most likely through virtualized servers. A public cloud, on the other hand, would mean using the Internet to access applications and data hosted on someone else’s gear. number of technology companies are touting the hardware and software to build both types of cloud. Notable among these are Cisco(CSCO Quote), with its UCS device, H-P, with its Matrix offering, and IBM, which recently launched a slew of new cloud products.
Founded in 2000, IBrix, in Billerica, Mass., has 53 employees and more than 175 corporate customers spanning the communications, media, entertainment, Internet, oil and gas, healthcare, life sciences and financial services industries. HP uses the company’s technology in several products, including StorageWorks storage area networks, ProLiant servers, BladeSystems and ProCurve Ethernet switches and management software. IBrix provides HP with another piece of technology to grab a slice of the growing cloud-computing market. The computing architecture provides dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet. Examples include Salesforce.com’s software-as-a-service offering, and Amazon’s infrastructure-as-a-service business.
Cloud computing involves massive scale-out of servers, which present challenges in software development, deployment, management, security and more. IBrix’s key product Fusion includes a “highly scalable parallel file system with data protection, high availability features and a comprehensive management interface,” according to IBrix. The technology can handle data-intensive application environments involving 10s of petabytes of data. HP did not disclose financial details. The deal is expected to be completed within 30 days. HP plans to integrate IBrix into the StorageWorks division of HP’s Technology Solutions Group. HP announced the agreement about a week after storage rival EMC agreed to buy Data Domain, a maker of technology that reduces the amount of duplicated data stored. EMC agreed to pay $2.4 billion for the deduplication specialist.
CLOUD user ‘09
CLOUD user ‘09
An End-User Driven Conversation for Leaders Looking to Leverage the Knowledge of the Cloud’s Early Adopters
August 27-28, 2009 | San Diego, CA
Conference Focus:
Cloud Computing can be a great equalizer, putting powerful competing tools that were once available to only large institutions in the hands of individuals and small businesses. It can promote competition, accelerate innovation, enhance productivity, deliver cost savings, strengthen data security, and maybe even help the environment.
With all of these benefits in cloud computing’s arsenal, it is no wonder that, as recently reported, over sixty-five percent of North American enterprises are looking to migrate to a more cloud intensive IT model. This anticipated shift in the way companies obtain software and computing capacity by tapping into web-based applications does carry with it some substantial concerns that must be addressed by every executive formulating their value proposition for a migration to a cloud intensive information technology business model.
This first time discussion will bring together end-users, developers, and cloud providers to address their common concerns in a shared language, beginning a discussion that will allow participants to gain the knowledge and perspective necessary to build not only successful cloud architectures but the value propositions and ease of use mentality that will ensure success as their organizations migrate to the cloud.
First Class Speaker Line-up: End-User Case Studies & Panel Discussions presented by an unrivaled speaker line-up including:
• Keynote Speaker Prentice Dees, Senior Vice President, Information Technology, Bank of America
• Alan Boehme, SVP & Head of IT Strategy & Enterprise Architecture, ING US Financial Services, ING
• Raymond Zhang, Chief Network Architect/Director Advance Technology, BT Group
• Vishal Khera, Chief Architect, Federal Reserve Information Technology, Federal Reserve
• Surendra Reddy, Vice President, Cloud Computing, Yahoo! Inc.
Focused End-User Sessions: With over 65% of North American enterprises looking to migrate to more cloud intensive IT business models learn more about what CLOUD Computing can do for your business, and how it is being integrated by following themes such as:
• Creating a culture that embraces the potential of the CLOUD
• Expressing the value proposition of CLOUD computing
• Deploying secure architecture for the CLOUD enterprise and Embedding governmental mandates, standards and privacy provisions into the CLOUD architecture
For a full program, pricing and registration information please contact:
Warren Wm. Gollop
T: 246 417 5328
E: conferences@marcusevansbb.com
W: www.marcusevansbb.com/CloudUser09
Previous Event Delegate Testimonials:
“Great conference. I generated a dozen ideas to evaluate for my organization – terrific networking opportunity as well.” – JG Wentworth
“New insights on traditional communication challenges mixed with clever case studies and best practice for new communication frontier.” – Hewlett-Packard
“Inspiring, accomplished speakers; engaging presentations with real world examples and principles that could be applied to any business…Worth the trip!” – Bliss World
“I am happy I was a part of this event. I learned a great deal and was exposed to a variety of perspectives. Definite growing experience.” – Motorola
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.
Through a partnership with HP, HP’s LoadRunner testing tool can now be used to build test scenarios that will tax an application’s limits. The tests can be set up, managed and torn down through HP’s Quality Center, which is able to launch them in a Skytap cloud. The tests run as virtual workloads under VMware’s ESX Server. Cloud vendor Skytap this week said it has joined forces with Hewlett-Packard to make it easier to stress test your new software with hundreds or thousands of simulated end users in the cloud, without taxing your data center.
Another way to use Virtual Lab and Quality Center is for developers at a U.S. company to produce code that’s tested by a team in Mumbai, India. By storing the tests and their results, Virtual Lab can show where the application fails by letting the developers call up the stored tests and run them again to the break point. Skytap users can also use HP Cloud Assure, an HP offering that helps customers safely implement cloud services. Cloud Assure lets an application be evaluated through software-as-a-service services for security and performance, before it goes into production.
HP Quality Center is software that imposes standard procedures on each round of software testing. It maintains testing and release cycles for software under development, and builds testing around risk factors to the business. It can deploy test environments in the cloud when in-house resources are already fully committed, removing a test and development bottleneck, said Tim Van Ash, director of products for HP Software as a Service.
Nelson recommends an “Open Cloud” scenario, which would link thousands of organizations from all over the world into one global Cloud, but he notes there is the opposition to that scenario. Nelson suggests that, just as they did in the mid-1990s, the research and library communities will play a key role in the development of this Cloud. This new Internet platform is expected to connect millions of users and computers simultaneously, utilizing data and software that resides in Cyberspace (such as Google Apps and Second Life), to quickly perform routine computing tasks as well as computationally intensive research problems.
Russ Daniels, the cloud services CTO at Hewlett-Packard, said this week: Cloud computing will allow people to bring technology to bear in the real activities that drive business and personal life, which are collaboration and information-sharing among people, according to an article in PCWorld. The Cloud will make data “programmatically accessible” so applications and services can tap into the information, rather than just having it be browsed by people. In this week’s issue of the journal Science, Michael Nelson of Georgetown University writes about this already growing phenomenon of “Cloud computing,” and compares this critical moment in its evolution to the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1993, which changed the way that human beings communicate.
Nelson warns that there are many challenges that need to be addressed, such as how to handle open standards, security and privacy, online copyright, liability, law enforcement, and national security.
Become a top scorer and Google will give you a “Year in the Cloud,” complete with Hewlett-Packard netbook and 1 terabyte of Google Account Storage for photos and mail. All will come in handy when you fly free for a year on Virgin America with complimentary WiFi. The hunt, “Day in the Cloud Challenge,” allows players to sign up and play on June 24, wherever they are on that day. “Simply sign up, arm yourself with a powerful array of Google Apps, and you can point and click your way towards glory — and an enticing prize pack.” Participants will need a Google Account to play. Those with a Gmail account might have a leg up because some of the questions involve knowledge of the mail app.
The game will last an hour, but Google has posted a practice game lasting about 10 minutes. Questions include “How many of these devices can be found on a typical Virgin America A320 aircraft?” or “This 5-letter word can mean a sequence of steps that demonstrate a valid conclusion or an action required for making bread. It’s also the name of an award winning play, which was then turned into a movie. What’s this word?”
It appears the campaign is Google’s way to push the concept of computing in the clouds to millions. Earlier this week, the Mountain View, Calif., company introduced Google Fusion Tables on Labs, an experiment for data management in the clouds. It draws on the expertise of Googlers within Google Research who have been studying collaboration, data integration, and user requirements from a variety of domains.
Hewlett-Packard (HP) computer buyers will soon be offered a free one-month trial for Norton Online Backup service. As the name suggests, the service offers online backing up of data in a secure manner. HP and online security solutions provider Symantec have collaborated to offer this service anticipating the growing trend of cloud computing.
Following the one month of free usage, users can opt to continue using the service for an annual $50 subscription. Symantec has introduced several other cloud computing products in the past year to boost its sales. Cloud Computing, that too when one has to pay for it, still catching up to the masses. Techtree hears from Symantec India that its Norton Online Backup service offer along with HP is expected to come to India. However, it is not known when and for how much. Stay tuned for updates!
Key Norton Online Backup features:
5GB of online storage.
Users can remotely manage and restore lost files from any computer with a Web browser when connected to the Internet.
Uploaded files can be accessed anytime, anywhere when online and can be controlled for up to five PCs through one central account.
Automatic or user-defined backup schedule, while advanced data compression and a technology for “block-level” incremental backups enables faster data transmission.
Norton Online Backup is supported by a high-level of encryption, both before the files leave the computer and during transmission to Symantec’s data centers. The files remain encrypted in Symantec’s professionally managed, highly-secured data center facilities.
“Cloud” has proliferated as the term for Internet-based computing resources because “everyone can draw one,” according to Russ Daniels, the cloud services CTO at Hewlett-Packard, who just added CTO responsibilities at the company’s Electronic Data Systems division. But the usage is fitting because white-board users have drawn the Internet as a cloud from the beginning, Daniels said at GigaOm’s Structure conference Thursday in San Francisco. The cloud is the next generation of the Internet, making it more than an infrastructure for automating business processes or letting humans view information, he said. The Internet so far has helped to carry out established business processes within an organization, Daniels said. Cloud computing will allow people to bring technology to bear in the real activities that drive business and personal life, which are collaboration and information-sharing among people, he said. “That’s what almost all of us do almost all the time,” Daniels said.
Cloud infrastructures make data “programmatically accessible” so that a variety of applications and services can tap into that information, rather than just humans browsing it. This will allow the Internet to solve new kinds of problems, he said. P is looking at the roles of the various participants in publishing, including creators, sellers, and readers, and aims to use cloud infrastructure to connect them through data rather than through process functionality, he said. This approach takes computing beyond the constraints of specific software applications, taking data outside application silos and eliminating the need for application integration work, Daniels said.
The advent of scalable, flexible computing resources has allowed many new Internet services to bloom, said Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer and president, cloud, at Rackspace Hosting. The panelists named solid-state drives, scalable data stores and emerging programming languages such as Rails as the biggest technologies that will keep driving this forward. “We are at a very steep point in the innovation curve because the infrastructure is so readily available,” Moorman said.
