SiliconANGLE » Unified Communications

ScaleXtreme Adds CloudStack Support, Thinks Mobile

Kristen Nicole — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:32:37 +0000

Cloud-based systems management provider ScaleXtreme has launched support for Citrix CloudStack, expanding its core offering to include yet another stack service. CloudStack is an open source platform, the result of Citrix’s acquisition of Cloud.com earlier this year. In broadening the number of stacks that can be managed from ScaleXtreme’s central platform, the company offers one of the richest systems management services on the market.

“CloudStack is driving emerging cloud standards and bringing order to chaos of multiple hypervisors and APIs. It has had impressive success because it helps companies get quickly into the cloud by simplifying it,” said Nand Mulchandani, co-founder and CEO of ScaleXtreme. “We look forward to working with Citrix to benefit our joint customers, nurture our growing relationship and help users manage the entire server lifecycle.”

The idea is to simplify cloud management, extending a single, unified view to provision and manage servers throughougt their entire lifecycle. Clients can access and control all their servers across local, hosted, public or private clouds. And ScaleXtreme itself is cloud-based, so no software deployment is needed. ScaleXtreme’s latest inclusion of CloudStack support follows the recent addition of OpenStack, joining others like Amazon and VMware for its centralized management system.

ScaleXtreme’s focus on web-based management solutions is proactive in a world of on-demand client needs, creating a cross-platform dashboard of sorts to monitor your servers across providers. The future Mulchandani sees is one where companies utilize multiple stacks to serve their varied needs, and just as there’s a growing trend around cross-platform services for managing apps on Android and iOS, ScaleXtreme anticipates the benefits of offering a single service for managing multiple clouds.

As ScaleXtreme scales its own business, mobility becomes an increasingly important area of interest. As we’ve seen from Amazon, Rackspace and VMware, mobile management is a keen perk for IT administrators. The key players’ dispersed app offerings also present another opportunity for ScaleXtreme. While the company doesn’t yet have a dedicated mobile app for any of the major OS’s (stay tuned), ScaleXtreme has always ensured web access for its systems management offerings, and that includes the mobile web.

“The way we’re thinking about mobile really depends on the client,” Mulchandani explains. “Do you need connectivity all the time or can you do some actions offline on your phone? Believe it or now, we’re looking into SMS and other systems as a way to deliver alerts. IT administrators have typically used SMS and phone calls for alerts. We’re looking at a combination of all this technology to give customers what they want, and for mobile browsing, we’re also looking at HTML5.”

ScaleXtreme Adds CloudStack Support, Thinks Mobile is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

The Government Goes Internally Social with IBM’s SmartCloud

Mellisa Tolentino — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:03:21 +0000

IBM is pushing for unification through the cloud. They just announced the Intelligent Operations Center for Smarter Cities which aims to provide a general view of information across city departments and agencies through real-time communication and collaboration. Also, IBM is unleashing the full potential of their SmartCloud, an enterprise-class, secure managed cloud services platform that brings the best of public and private cloud models together to meet customer needs, as they now have infiltrated the government.

IBM merged social networking features and cloud features to make the SmartCloud Social Collaboration for Government. This offers Software as a Service (SaaS) options for email and collaboration solutions that are designed to meet federal government guidelines and requirements. With these services, you can move from premise-based hardware and software solutions to a service that allows for a usage-based model without upfront investments.

The social aspect features:

IBM SmartCloud eMail – Government
IBM SmartCloud Sametime® – Government
IBM SmartCloud Connections – Government
IBM SmartCloud eMail Suite – Government
IBM SmartCloud Office Automation Suite – Government

The social aspect of the service allows government employees to save files in the cloud and tag people in saved documents. The government is looking into making things more social for people on the inside.

“At the highest level, [government agencies] are looking for better collaboration for both inside and outside their firewalls,” said Chip Emmet, manager of social collaboration for IBM government and public sector.

The security levels associated with IBM SmartCloud eMail Suite – Government, IBM SmartCloud eMail Suite – Government Blackberry Service, and IBM SmartCloud Office Automation Suite – Government may be increased via the following options:

IBM SmartCloud eMail Suite – Government with Private Cloud
IBM SmartCloud eMail Suite – Government with Secret Enclave
IBM SmartCloud eMail Suite – Government Blackberry Service with Private Cloud
IBM SmartCloud Office Automation Suite – Government with Private Cloud
IBM SmartCloud Office Automation Suite – Government with Secret Enclave

The service is Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) compliant. Simply put, no one outside the government will have access to any information or data stored in the service.

“To a certain extent, [IBM] is packaging and offering a set of solutions they already had,” said Shawn McCarthy, director of research at IDC Government Insights. “And there’s plenty of competition in that realm right now. So it allows them to continue to be a player.”

This collaboration for a cloud-based social network came from the government’s need for a service like this. There’s a high demand in this type of service because this would allow government agencies to share private data among government employees or among specific agencies. But just like any social platform, users can choose who to share certain files with because privacy is still the number priority as not all government files are for everyone to see.

The service is only available via Passport Advantage, and requires a customer-signed IBM International Passport Agreement and IBM SaaS Terms of Use Agreement.‎

The Government Goes Internally Social with IBM’s SmartCloud is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

Pano Logic Strengthened as VDI Deployments Increase

Cherr Aira — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:00:45 +0000

In this day and age, when enterprises cloud solutions are becoming a great deal and cost savings are what chiefly constitute IT economics policies, a virtualized environment is tantamount to an ideal workplace set-up.

With different offerings and seemingly endless upgrades from key players like VMware, Citrix and Pano Logic, IT departments and managers are faced with a difficult task to pick the ultimate solution or provider for their business requirements. Since, there is no one-size-fits-all package available in the market today, hybrid solutions are what will fuel an organization’s drive to having VDI benefits.

Easier said than done, transitioning to a virtualized environment is perhaps a puzzling point that remains for enterprises to this very day. But the promise that VDI has towards addressing storage, cloud, space and cost predicaments pushes more and more companies prioritize virtualization in the coming 12 months or so. Forrester Consulting published a study on how most enterprises view virtualization as a segment of their businesses. One of the key findings of the study talks about the present challenges on desktop virtual transformation:

“IT leaders must realise that neither the data centre nor the desktop team alone has sufficient experience or visibility to make the decisions required in the planning and deployment process, nor the tools to manage the resulting hybrid environment effectively.

“Isolated planning leads to inappropriate and impractical decisions about hardware, software, and tools. The results are always disappointing if they ultimately deliver reduced availability and performance, higher operational costs or poor end-user satisfaction.”

Pano Logic

Pano Logic has tried to reach out to SMB’s by scaling down their VDI offerings via the launch of two powerful solutions: Pano Express SMB and Pano Express HA. This is in line with the company’s goal to ease management burdens by radically reducing the cost ownership. Before the second quarter of 2011 ended, Pano Logic tapped the cloud, leveraging the power of Zonics to resell their services worldwide. They have also gained the trust of the state of Virginia to virtualize the award-winning library at the city of Staunton.

But when it comes to new technology and solutions, there’s the issue of raising awareness in an increasingly competitive market. Pano Logic relies on its innovation to stand out amongst the crowd.

“Pano Logic is seeing exponential growth in our innovative technology, as customers look toward cloud computing, or centralizing compute power for either security reasons, or ease of management and better control, Pano’s radical centralization works to eliminate both at the endpoint,” says Dana Loof, EVP of Worldwide Marketing.

“As larger customers make the move to either VMWare View or XenDesktop, Pano zero clients appeal to them due to the ability to move and support either infrastructure without lock-in. As smaller companies move to VDI, they take advantage of the Pano manager/broker (packaged with Pano zero clients) which can do the work of VMware View or XenDesktop on either vendor’s hypervisor platform, or HyperV, without additional cost.”

For Pano Logic’s own clients, the company is seeing an equally impressive push for virtualization, especially as VMware continues to make strides in its enterprise offering, building out an ecosystem that Pano Logic readily supports. It’s the ability to circumvent vendor lock-in that makes Pano Logic appealing, turning to VDI services in an effort to better allocate resources around virtualization.

With traction gaining in industries like government and education, Pano Logic hopes to further its success by building out its products and partnerbase. Teaming up with the likes of Fujitsu gives Pano Logic the exposure it needs to land larger OEM clients, strengthening its offerings and its market presence as well.

Pano Logic Strengthened as VDI Deployments Increase is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

Piston Cloud Brings First OpenStack Solution: Ready for Prime Time?

Kristen Nicole — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 07:03:42 +0000

OpenStack has been around for over a year now, racking up some pretty high profile partners especially in the past few months. And as the ecosystem continues to mature, we begin to see some product launches around RackSpace’s open source initiative. Piston Cloud is officially launching today, introducing pentOS for the enterprise. It’s an open cloud operating system for managing enterprise private cloud environments, looking to offer the best of both worlds to its users.

The brainchild of co-founder and CEO Joshua McKenty, Piston is a cherished project with a deep-seated understanding of the OpenStack platform. McKenty is a former RackSpacer, and was also the technical lead and cloud architect of NASA’s Nebula Cloud Computing Platform, upon which the OpenStack project was built. Along with other Rackspace alum including Christopher MacGown (Piston co-founder and CTO), the Piston team is well-versed in open source cloud technology, but more specifically the OpenStack platform.

Growing a worldwide community with over 1,450 contributors and over 100 participating companies, OpenStack is certainly a supported initiative that’s recognized for its velocity. And with that comes a demand to see the proof in the pudding, with Piston emerging as an early OpenStack product out to demonstrate it’s ready for prime time. Piston’s got a head start in this regard, and is in a good position to become a leader in this sector. It’s first product is pentOS.

Piston Enterprise OSTM (pentOS) is the first enterprise OpenStack cloud operating system focused on security and private cloud operations. Using Piston’s patent-pending Mull-Tier Architecture, clients receive storage, compute and networking on every node for massive scalability. It’s custom built to address regulatory requirements and other concerns many enterprises have with cloud solutions. Enabling companies to better manage big data, pentOS is the first enterprise implementation of CloudAudit, a cross-industry standard that came out in 2010 to automate auditing cloud processes.

The Null-Tier Architecture is really the point of interest with pentOS, addressing the complexity of hardware while optimizing on the software side, through automation for integration to maintain security as well. It aims to get rid of the middle tier all together, taking advantage of the cloud without this new breed of systems operations. It gives pentOS a nice little bundle called the Cloud Key, a USB stick that configures everything for you once you plug it into the stack. “We call it the insider attack,” McKenty says. “Most security breaches come from folks that work inside of the company. The fewer that have administrative credentials on hardware, the more secure it is. That’s just a starting point.”

Piston Cloud has a lot it’s looking to do moving forward, helping to bring OpenStack solutions to the enterprise while addressing their security concerns as well. In doing so, Piston marks an effort to validate the OpenStack platform, which is just now building a market around its initial offering.

“There are so many people involved in [OpenStack] that any individual perspective is going to be wrong,” McKenty says. “And I still have no grasp of what’s happening–OpenStack is unbelievably global…the timing is so serendipitous. It’s the right thing at the right time, pointing in the right direction. This will be one of those things like the Internet. No one knows who invented it.”

Piston Cloud Brings First OpenStack Solution: Ready for Prime Time? is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

What’s Facebook’s Mobile Strategy for Media-Rich Timeline?

Kristina Farrah — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:14:08 +0000

During the f8 Developers Conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Timeline to replace Profile and Wall. The new functionality will enable users to have more control over what they have published on their account from inception to date. “Timeline is a completely new aesthetic for Facebook,” says Zuckerberg. And it will also be available on mobile devices.

For instance, you want to find a particular post you’ve typed back in 2005, you’ll be able to find it without clicking the ‘Older Posts’ hyperlink over and over for God knows how long. With Timeline, you can simply filter your search to instantly scroll down. It’s going to be very fast, by the way.

Which raises an important question for mobile users, as Facebook boasts 350 million in its network. How will this media-intensive Timeline feature work on data-hungry mobile devices? Facebook was smart enough to think about a mobile interface right from the beginning. And it looks like they were smart enough to consider the burden of data as well. According to Joey Flynn, one of Facebook’s product designers, the challenge about Timeline is to show users interesting content without overloading data subscriptions.

“What we do with mobile is that we put as much on the page as possible, but collapse most of the things on the back end,” Flynn said. “So you can look at someone’s timeline on mobile and it’s pretty cool.”

During f8, Facebook proudly announced the traction for the its mobile app, reaching a major milestone of 350 million monthly active mobile users from a total of 800 monthly active users. This can also be translated to 43.75 percent of its total users. It’s likely to pass the 50 percent mark before it hits the billion mark.

And that’s quite a feat as far as the mobile social networking scene goes. Expected to reach 550 million users by the end of 2011, mobile social networking activity is becoming more active than PC activity. Analysts predict that mobile social networking will reach nearly 2 billion by 2016, indicating a lot of mobile interest for the future.

Despite revealing some awesome features at f8, its steady belief in the importance of mobile, and further plans of encouraging people to use Facebook to consume media, the social network didn’t provide any specific mobile strategy during the conference, despite its big talk and boastful stats.

What’s Facebook’s Mobile Strategy for Media-Rich Timeline? is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

TappIn Is The New HomePipe, Taps Into Salesforce

Kristen Nicole — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:35:42 +0000

HomePipe is undergoing a transformation, with a major update and a new name–TappIn. An innovator in digital content access and file sharing, TappIn is also launching new features that cater to the needs of professionals. For starters, there’s Salesforce.com integration, cloud caching, enhanced secure sharing and multi-lingual support to meet the increasing demand for a solution that streamlines the convergence of personal and professional lives in a mobile device.

“Since launching HomePipe in early 2010, we’ve received a number of inquiries from customers who want to leverage our solution into their business environments” said Chris Hopen, president and CEO of TappIn.

“We’re not just for the home anymore. This is what triggered us to rename the company to TappIn, and add a new set of business-ready capabilities. People want to ‘tap in’ to their digital content, be it work or personal, anywhere, anytime, on the device of their choice but they don’t want to risk the security of any proprietary information. TappIn securely connects people to their content and content to people.”

TappIn still has its original HomePipe features, such as SecureShare and Text Share. New features include Multi-lingual Support with six languages available, namely French, Italian, German, Spanish, Standard Chinese and Simplified Chinese. And there’s also the TappIn Partner Program that enables channel partners, including storage providers, to provide customers with secure, streaming, anywhere/anytime access to rich media content.

CloudCaching allows users to “pin” content to TappIn’s secure cloud and set conditions under which content will stay or be automatically removed from the cache, and Saleforce.com Integration enables road warriors to access information stored in Salesforce as well as content stored on a home or office computer. The enhanced cloud-caching tools build on TappIn’s existing, proprietary technology, which is a driving force for the company’s strategy and areas of differentiation. The integration with Salesforce indicates the growing importance of the CRM as an integrated hub for the booming social enterprise sector, and indicates TappIn’s desire to delve deeper into the enterprise market. It’s a strategy we’re seeing from several companies taking over this space, including Syncplicity.

“Designed for mobile workers, Salesforce.com integration enables road warriors to access information stored in Salesforce as well as content stored on a home or office computer,” Hopen explains. “With Salesforce Integration, professionals can instantly and securely share important files stored within Salesforce using just the tap of a finger.

Although we originally launched HomePipe with the consumer in mind, we’ve had tremendous interested from professionals and businesses in using the service. With the proliferation of mobile devices, work and personal life are increasingly converging, and people want to have access to all of their content – personal and professional – no matter where it’s stored.”

TappIn is available in two versions: the Lite version delivers unlimited access to one computer from any mobile device and the Standard Edition that offers advanced features like Salesforce integration, cloud-based caching, multi-lingual support, unlimited large file transfers and the ability to link multiple computers and devices at the same time for just $19.99 per year but users who sign up for the Standard Edition within 60 days will get a year of the Standard service for just $9.99.

The TappIn app is available for all Apple, Android and Windows 7 devices and compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux operating systems. Broad access across devices as well as enterprise and consumer segments is a growing priority for the re-branded TappIn. Moving forward, the company’s looking to expand its reach through a series of partnerships, another important tactic for startups building cloud solutions for file-sharing with hopes of moving into enterprise markets.

While TappIn’s service remains easy to use for consumers and professionals alike, the company has significant plans to expand its partnership initiatives in the next few years,” Hopen says. ”In October, TappIn will announce a partnership with a major storage provider, and is working with other cloud-storage and NAS providers, telecommunications companies, and app developers to integrate TappIn’s white-label access solution into their existing and future product offerings. With comprehensive APIs, TappIn’s technology can be easily integrated into a wide array of platforms and services.

Contributors: Mellisa Tolentino

TappIn Is The New HomePipe, Taps Into Salesforce is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

The Disruptive Nature of VMware’s Ecosystem: VMworld 2011 Wrap Session

Kristen Nicole — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 22:58:17 +0000

It’s been a whirlwind week for the SiliconAngle and Wikibon team, as we wrap up another great broadcast from VMworld 2011. Before we pack up, our show hosts John Furrier, Dave Vellante and Alex Williams took a few moments to recap the highlights of this week’s event, and sharing thoughts on what we can expect to see in the coming year (full video below). With over 70 guests including several high profile industry CEOs, 19 spotlights, and several in-depth segments from top VMware partners, theCube has been the heartbeat of VMworld, picking up on all the trends, all the concerns and all the hopes for VMware’s growing ecosystem.

Starting with the newest editor on staff, the wrap up discussion turns to Williams to see his thoughts as a first time attendee to VMworld. And for him, it was one of the most interesting tech events he’s been to. “Virtualization is having this vaporizing effect,” Williams enthuses.

For Furrier, the big theme he picked up on was disruption. “The mega-trend we’re seeing with cloud, social and mobile is about hardware — all the hardware that powers the network and storage is being forced down and commoditized,” he says. “Take it up a notch and you’re talking about the application market for the enterprise and the consumer. Finally, there’s the user. The user experience is tying it all together. In each of these theaters and at the center is startups, innovation. It’s causing the big guys to rethink how they sell and do services.”

What impressed Vellante is the vision of the software mainframe. It’s a concept that may bore a lot of people, but it’s one VMware is re-working in order to better support growing demand around applications and their integration. “VMware has executed on that vision extremely well,” Vellante points out.

“Last year they rolled out the concept and this year is about implemenation,” Furrier adds. “Ultimately what I heard is the disruption of the ecosystem, validated by all this buzz. Their ecosystem is growing. As VMware starts to mature their ecosystem, next year we’re going to see power points move to case studies. It’s still early, and people are making changes.”

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

Speaking to that maturing ecosystem, Williams notes some things he picked up on roving the show floor. “You see a lot of collaboration going on out there. The people I listen to and follow–where do they show up? They were here. Why? Because there’s interesting developments in the space. We’re seeing this battle go up the stack. And we look at what’s happening with VMware and Salesforce–they’re going head to head.”

Certainly, as VMware builds on its initial products and gains more partners within its ecosystem, it steps on some toes spanning other areas of the broader cloud industry. During one of Williams’ panels, the matter of VMware competing with Salesforce and Microsoft was brought p, as SaaS becomes a more prevelant aspect of integrated cloud services for the enterprise.

And as VMware looks to expand its ecosystem, there are a few areas that demand attention. With VMware working its way into the majority of servers across the industry, they’re really sitting in the driver’s seat, which brings up the issue of lock in. Vellante notes that he’s already hearing some grumbling about pricing and end user licensing, a concern that was raised over the summer with the launch of vSphere 5. VMware has a fine line to walk, and the build out of their platform will only continue to present a challenge for VMware’s business model moving forward.

The other area VMware will need to pay attention to is security. Being so prominant in this space, VMware will need to be a leader, and build security into its products. This means moving past compliance, and finding real solutions.

So what’s the outlook for VMware moving forward? “Performance and availability, and mobility,” says Vellante. “What a difference between last year and this year with VDI do-over. Security is the big area for me. The ecosystem is over-stating capabilities and VMware has a lot more work to do. This is VMware’s problem and they need to solve this. Yes, they need help from the ecosystem, but they need to build it into their architecture.”

Williams looks at VMware from a business perspective, noting the company’s goals hitting $10 billion in revenue. “They want to virtualize everything,” he says. “They have to start thinking about, ‘what does virtualization enable?’ It’s an enabler to join lots of things. The post-PC era ties into this. End user computing is more critical. Mobile virtualization is a big topic and you’ll see lots of competition in this space. Citrix and Microsoft are competing here.”

Furrier follows up Williams’ statement by emphasizing the consumer experience. “We’re going to see a massive competitive landscape for VMware integration and differentiation,” he says. “With the emphasis on delivering solutions, the demand for cloud is so massive, and it will keep vendors in check to deliver real solutions.” Let the shake-out begin.

The Disruptive Nature of VMware’s Ecosystem: VMworld 2011 Wrap Session is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

Syncplicity on iPad Solidifies “Anywhere” Cloud Access

Kristen Nicole — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:49:02 +0000

Syncplicity Inc., the provider of file management solutions in the cloud that offers instant synchronization, backup, file sharing and collaboration in one integrated solution, rolled out an iPad app today. Users can now browse, share and manage files and folders stored on their PC, Mac, SharePoint servers, on the corporate network or in popular cloud-based services such as Google Docs using the Syncplicity app in their iPads. It’s a centralized solution, and with the iPad app, we’re really seeing Syncplicity’s idea of an all-access app come to fruition.

This universal file access includes shared Syncplicity folders set up for collaboration in businesses or sharing for personal use. Users can gain secure access to any file and folder anytime while mobile, eliminating the need to email file attachments, use VPNs, or upload files to a new place in order to access them from a mobile device. It’s another step towards a unified social enterprise solution, and takes current trends and emerging business demands into consideration.

The release of Syncplicity’s iPad app closely follows on the heels of the new Syncplicity for iPhone app, further extending the company’s footprint in the cloud and mobile file management arena. Going through the demo app prior to launch, it’s clear that Syncplicity put a great deal of thought and planning into the app, from design to security. It works well as a native iPad app, and looking back at Syncplicity’s extended mobile reach, this is an important aspect of its mobile strategy. But such dedication doesn’t come without its challenges.

“When we were first looking into this, we noticed there’s a lot of services that provide a hybrid experience, and even though that space is evolving, they’re not native apps,” Leonard Chung, Syncplicity CEO explains.

“It can load slowly or encounter glitches. So we really wanted a full native app experience…there’s things we wanted to do differently with a native app and on the security front–you have to code correctly. We found that passwords are stored in plain text in some areas, so we had to encrypt personal data there, as well as on the backend, in addition to file downloads. We go out of our way to make sure the consumer and company is protected.”

According to a recent Gartner study, by 2013, 80% of businesses will support a workforce using tablets. Companies are seeing the benefits of using tablets in the office and out on the field, from instant access capabilities to its use for document and video delivery, sales, field service and business analytics. While there are many workers who are opting to use their tablets to deliver presentations, collect and share data, Gartner also identified that workers are still doing the majority of labor-intensive tasks on their desktops or laptops, making the need for an automatic file management solution even more important.

“We have a saying, ‘the vendor with the most connections wins.’ Syncplicity’s ability to create private clouds with Google Apps, SharePoint, VMware Zimbra, and now Salesforce, shows they have taken this strategy to heart and are on a winning path. Taking the cloud to where the users are – on their desktops, mobile devices and tablets – is the right strategy,” commented David Coleman, founder and managing director of Collaborative Strategies.

Syncplicity is used by businesses and customers who want to create their own virtual private cloud to store, manage, backup and share important data, and as as a couple of panelists at VMworld noted earlier this week, companies are going to want their own cloud solutions for internal and external use. Leveraging Syncplicity’s unique approach, companies can give their employees secure anytime, anywhere access to documents and files – regardless of whether the data is stored across multiple computers, mobile devices, corporate servers or cloud applications like Google Docs. Unlike others, Syncplicity is easy and convenient to use, and does not require users to change how they work. Instead, it works wherever and however users currently keep their files and folders across multiple devices.

“We designed the new Syncplicity iPad app to give companies the most flexibility in supporting their mobile workforce,” stated Chung. “In today’s always-on, always-connected business environment, Syncplicity eliminates the need for emailing documents or uploading them to a new place in order to gain mobile access. If you save a file on your desktop, SharePoint or anywhere you work, you should be able to simply access or share it anytime from your iPad with no special effort required. Syncplicity makes that easy and painless.”

And Syncplicity’s been on a tear lately, in an effort to provide true anywhere access. The company launched a new product on Salesforce to provide businesses with a new way to improve sales productivity by giving teams easy, universal access that enables them to sync, share, collaborate and backup all their files from within Salesforce, or anywhere they work, without the need to move, upload, attach or email files. Syncplicity’s foothold in the cloud is getting firmer as the cloud era progresses. They are making the transition into the cloud easier while making it available not only to businesses but also for everyone’s personal use.

Contributors: Mellisa Tolentino

Syncplicity on iPad Solidifies “Anywhere” Cloud Access is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

Hurricane’s Biggest Protection: Connectivity and Data

Kristina Farrah — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 22:17:35 +0000

Pending disasters are a call for people to get together and share ideas and information, just in case the blows get bad. This is not the first time there’s been a hurricane hitting the US, but what separates it from those that came before it is the level of connectivity among citizens. Information collaboration of the government and the people has spawned the internet with more than enough accurate and useful information during calamities, in this case Hurricane Irene, and marked the intensification of data journalism amidst it all.

Aside from the popular social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, we also have Drew Olanoff of Get Satisfaction doing his share for Hurricane Irene by initiating a community-powered support network. Get Satisfaction is a white label community platform that powers the world’s best brands to solve problems, give a voice to champions, bring out the best ideas and drive better business. The new network is only one of the arrays of support communities offered by the company. It has some notable features, such as additional support links to a Disaster Prevention Guide, and CNN updates. Though it only has a handful members and 17 posted topics, it’s the thought that matters. Here’s the link to the network.

Next, we’ve got Nirvanix offering free cloud storage to customers affected by the Hurricane Irene. Through a new program, Nirvanix enables its customers storing data in its Node 4 data center in Jew Jersey to transfer them to other locations in the Nirvanix Cloud Network Storage. Aside from Jersey, they have 4 other data centers: one in Los Angeles, one in Dallas, one in Frankfurt, Germany and one in Tokyo, Japan.

“We are standing by ready to assist our customers as they face an unprecedented natural disaster which President Obama referred to as a ‘historic hurricane’,” said Scott Genereux, President & CEO of Nirvanix.

“By storing their data in the Nirvanix cloud, customers benefit from the transparent movement of data from one region to another with no impact to their business operations. By making the shift from the physical machine to the virtual cloud, our customers have embraced a more agile and adaptable business continuity strategy.”

Moreover, here’s Alex Howard of O’Reilly Radar offering a list of nifty tracking links from the government, media and crowdsource sources.

• New York City government datamine with lots of Irene-related geographic data.
• Google Earth kmz files for New York City hurricane evacuation zones.
• Maryland state government Google Earth-based iReport for hurricane damage reporting.
• New York Times hurricane tracking map feeding off National Weather Service data.
• Hurricane Irene cleanup map using Ushahidi interface.
• Geographic information system (GIS) and tweet mashup Florida GATOR with lots of downloadable files.
• Google’s hurricane GIS/weather data aggregator.

The Department of Defense and the interagency community have been studying people’s reliance on information and communication technology in the event of calamities for a while now. The National Security and Technology Policy has Dr. Linton Well II spearheading the study on developing government capabilities for crowdsourcing and testing other ICT resources in case of calamities. The results of the exercise on crowdsourcing and collaborative tools back in April reveals the importance of Well IIs Crowd, Bridge, Transaction, and Feedback model, which sift and analyze information from crowds using various tools and filters, and then passes on the results to decision makers for execution purposes. The government utilization of crowdsourcing tools for the past 48 hours echoes this standard.

Hurricane’s Biggest Protection: Connectivity and Data is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.

In the same vein:

Is VMware after Microsoft or Salesforce? VMworld 2011 Blogger Panel

Kristen Nicole — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:46:37 +0000

We had some notable bloggers stop by theCube at VMworld today, all anxious to discuss their perspective on this year’s event, where VMware is headed and what’s going on in the virtualization industry. Gary Orenstein and Derrick Harris of GigaOm, and George Reese of O’Reilly Media sat down for a panel moderated by our own Alex Williams, for a lively look at VMworld 2011 (video recap below).

Looking back at VMware’s milestones this year, there was some good mixed with the bad. From a product standpoint, VMware launched an all new vSphere 5, then killed the excitement with a price hike. It was a prime opportunity for Microsoft to swoop in and try to lure some customers away. And in fact, Microsoft’s been pretty snarky about its rivals events today, pulling publicity stunts of its own in light of VMworld and Dreamforce, both going on this week. With competition on the rise, one important question Williams raises during the panel is whether or not VMware can own virtualization, and if it’s playing in a time of disruption or another evolution of IT?

Virtualization in the midst of IT evolution

It’s a touch question to answer, especially when you begin to break down VMware’s product offerings. As Harris notes, VMware puts clients in the cloud data center. It’s a different play, and it’s not likely to compete outside of virtualization, such as in areas Amazon has a stronghold. But where VMware does well is in its legacy applications, “and around doing stuff around what you’ve got, and making it a little bit cloudy,” Reese says. He goes on to cite the recent Verizon cloud acquisition as an example of companies still needing certain types of applications that fit in with their existing needs, pointing out VMware’s next challenge as addressing this at the infrastructure level–being able to do things like auto-scale rapidly.

Orenstein, who’s a regular guest on theCube, is quick to point out that VMware’s Cloud Foundry, which is gaining traction in the open source sector, is in fact designed to help with things like application integration and auto-scaling. At the platform level, sure. But not at the infrastructure level, Reese goes on. Where vCloud is lacking is at the self-healing and auto-scaling level, where these characteristics don’t yet exist.

Watch live video from SiliconANGLE.com on Justin.tv

SaaS and IaaS: VMware’s next targets?

But there’s a trend building here, as Orenstein points out, as the industry shifts away from infrastructure demands. There’s multiple ways to address this, from a platform or an orchestration layer to take care of the underlying infrastructure, Reese notes. And each solution has its time and place.

So what does the future hold for VMware and the virtualization industry of tomorrow? Williams thinks it will still be a discussion of data. “I think you’ll see that as more platforms emerge,” he says. “Tim O’Reilly said that the app store was the killer app. And what are all those apps made of? Data. This is going to continue in their realms, beyond our mobile apps.”

“We forget how many applications VMware has already bought,” Harris reminds the panel. There’s Zimbra and SocialCast to name just two. So is VMware looking to become the next Salesforce, competing in the SaaS space for the enterprise? “No,” Reese says. “They’re going after owning SaaS and IaaS but at this point, if they have any level of humility, they wouldn’t go after the king of SaaS as their first target.”

“But they are getting stronger in this area,” Williams interjects. Orenstein then goes on to say that VMworld’s indicating a potential big push here, as they reach for some of these higher level applications. Reese then admits that the focus on the application is already present, and so it’s not a question of the application itself, but how it’s deployed.

With indications pointing at IaaS and SaaS, is VMware looking to compete with Microsoft or Salesforce? There’s no telling, in this era of inclusive cloud services, especially when virtualization seeks to address so many issues around centralizing management, minimizing integration work and solving the issue of server management. In many regards, VMware will have to compete with both Microsoft and Salesforce in order to offer a comprehensive solution, and it also relies on its network of partners to extend its base products across varied enterprise needs.

VMware vs Microsoft or Salesforce?

All this talk of applications led Williams to note some important trends developing in the enterprise mobile app space, which is a topic we cover regularly, and even offer a weekly roundup of tablet applications for business use. The movement is definitely shifting towards enterprise-level solutions that are accessible on personal devices, and this is changing the way IT has to operate, as Citrix pointed out in its “bring your own device” study.

One change introduced by the consumer mobile era is performance, and how bottlenecks are hindering the enterprise. As Harris brings up, there’s a great deal of progress being made in SSD and Flash storage to address bottleneck issues. And that’s certainly a trend we’ve noticed in our coverage here at siliconAngle as well. The SSD space has seen several products for virtualized machines lately, from FlashSoft to Xiotech.

Is VMware after Microsoft or Salesforce? VMworld 2011 Blogger Panel is a post from: SiliconANGLE
We're now available on the Kindle! Subscribe today.