One of the key, driving changes to IT infrastructure today is the exponential growth in the areas of data, storage, processing power and bandwidth utilization. New data creation is stirring across the industry, and big data leaders are coming out with new ideas and solutions to cater to the demands of the customer and the entire industry.

DataStax, one of the leaders in providing products and services to customers on cloud applications and data services, has brought some new executives on board to take its company to the next level.  Daisy Itty is the new VP of Engineering, and Robin Schumacher is now the VP of Product Management, building out its executive team.

“Robin and Daisy have great experience leading high-performance teams at rapid-growth companies, and deep open source expertise,” said Billy Bosworth, CEO of DataStax. “We are thrilled to have these executives on board as we continue to develop and improve our product offering to meet the growing demand for Big Data solutions for elastic and cloud-optimized applications and services.”

DataStax also announces the release of 1.2 versions of ‘DataStax OpsCenter for Apache Cassandra and Hadoop’, a top operations and management solution for the open cloud. Robin and Daisy together bring over more than 20 years of industry experience in building and leading engineering teams working with databases and big data platforms.

DataStax OpsCenter is used to manage, monitor and control enterprise Cassandra environments. The latest version 1.2 release brings more enhancements to Cassandra configurations, and is bundled with DataStax expert support.

On the social enterprise side, Cisco’s marketplace for connected devices grows with a new app from Lexmark.  The printer maker launched the Mobile Print Application for the Cisco Cius, an enterprise-level tablet that’s part of Cisco’s ongoing restructure.  It is designed for mobile and tablet solution platforms, and will be used in the mobile devices marketplace to cater to dynamic workplace demands.

Lexmark’s Mobile Print Application lets users print documents from network-connected printers. It works closely with the Android-powered Cisco Cius business tablet to enable mobile printing of documents without the hassle of adding extra servers across the enterprise.

“Lexmark has been providing world-class enterprise services and solutions for the past 20 years, and with our expertise in managing distributed fleets of printers and MFPs, we are well equipped to handle the increasing demand of mobile devices in the workplace,” said Marty Canning, Lexmark executive vice president and president of Imaging Solutions and Services.

The flourish of big data, connected devices and cloud-based distribution is also inspiring a number of forums and events.  Yankee Group, one of the leading global connectivity specialists, is organizing a one day summit called ‘Mobile Cloud Means Business’ on Tuesday, Oct.11, which will focus on the role of cloud computing within the mobile enterprise. The summit is aimed at enterprise IT, cloud vendors and services providers, and will be focused on some of the current and future trends happening in mobile industry, like mobile cloud integration, tactics for service providers towards supporting the mobile cloud, tools and technologies in the mobile cloud.  There’s a distinct goal to discuss how to apply these technologies.

“Consumerization and cloud computing are giving workers an unprecedented ability to provision their own technology and mobility solutions for work,” said George Hamilton, Yankee Group principal analyst and a featured presenter. “Enterprise IT must embrace the change and command the power of mobile cloud or risk becoming obsolete.”

But our rapid uptake of cloud technology also gives rise to several ecosystem concerns.  Kerry Bailey, president of Verizon Terremark, emphasized the importance of cloud security issues, the cloud ecosystem and the use of hybrid clouds, as the movement of enterprises to cloud-based solutions and services commences. There has been a large amount of ERP and CRM applications moved to cloud in recent times, and Bailey thinks that more websites, e-commerce retailers and others in the industry will soon follow. He further highlighted the importance of the hybrid cloud in delivering solutions that address these rising concerns, enabling companies and individuals to essentially hedge their bets.

Continued competition across the industry and across economies is making IT organization more flexible and responsive, with the use of big data solutions and cloud-based solutions as a step in the right direction. The changes would continue across IT infrastructure, social media, mobile platforms, data and storage, all for better connections and collaboration, as well as improved productivity across the board.