Cloud doyen Salesforce.com Tuesday fielded Desk.com, a new on-demand social and mobile help desk platform that’s supposed to let businesses deliver personal customer service by unifying support channels including Twitter, Facebook, e-mail, the phone and the web via a Desk.com Agent Desktop. Basic pricing starts at $49 a month per full-time agent for unlimited usage. Flex pricing runs $1 an hour per part-time agent. Users can reportedly respond to cases themselves on the go, re-assign, change groups, change status, change priority for cases and modify customer information associated with cases.

read more

Some companies get it. Others wander around in the fog and think that it's a "Cloud". In case you've missed it, 2012 has been the year of some amazing strategic moves by Dell. If you think Dell isn't a software vendor, you're dead wrong. Dell "gets it" - SaaS, Software & Cloud. Dell is making some exciting waves in the "solutions" business. Building on the momentum as a result of the acquisition of Perot Systems some years ago and a buying spree where they acquired a host of best-of-breed software solutions such as Boomi (Cloud-based Integration Platform),Dell has just announced a newly created Software Division and has appointed veteran John Swainson as president, reporting to Michael Dell.

read more

Tilera, the wannabe many-core Intel server replacement, said Monday that it’s delivering the expected 16- and 36-core versions of its new 64-bit low-power proprietary TILE-GX processors along with evaluation systems it hopes will give Intel something to worry about. The things should be in volume by mid-March. They’re Tilera’s first 64-bit chips capable of using more memory than its original 32-bit widgets – like 512GB or 1TB. They’ve been shipping in limited quantities – alphas – since September. The start-up claims to have 20 design-wins and 80 “deep” engagements for the GX family that it expects will turn into design-wins – probably this year – because they’re do-or-die mission-critical projects. Forty-seven are in the US, 13 in Europe, and 20 in APAC, mostly China.

read more

Every company should plan regular architecture capability maturity assessments using a model. These should provide a framework that represents the key components of a productive enterprise architecture process. A model provides an evolutionary way to improve the overall process that starts out in an ad hoc state, transforms into an immature process, and then finally becomes a well-defined, disciplined, managed and mature process. The goal is to enhance the overall odds for success of the enterprise architecture by identifying weak areas and providing a defined path towards improvement. As the architecture matures, it should increase the benefits it offers the organization. Architecture maturity assessments help to determine how companies can maximise competitive advantage, identify ways of cutting costs, improve quality of services and reduce time to market. These assessments are undertaken as part of the Enterprise Architecture management.

read more

This article introduces the concepts of Component Oriented Development and Assembly (CODA) using the OSGi Service platform with an example application. The article starts with an introduction to software components, elaborates with an example application, followed by an overview of the OSGi Service platform, and an implementation of the example application using this platform. Components are parts that can be assembled to form a larger system. Electronic components such as ICs (Integrated Circuits) are assembled together to build an electronic system; similarly software components are assembled together to build a software system. Software systems have a static form as well as a dynamic runtime form. Software components can be assembled either in static form or dynamic form. In either case, the software component is an independent unit of development, deployment, and assembly. Using components to build software systems will provide many architectural advantages apart from promoting ease of reuse.

read more

These past few weeks, I published several blogs pointing out problems with static rule based correlation, their current limitations, their high TCO, etc. Because these solutions have been sold for many years as the end all be all to security problems, it has created false expectations in the industry and among clients. But SIEM as a general discipline holds plenty of promises, let’s not throw the baby with the bathwater.

read more

cVidya Networks, a provider of Revenue Intelligence solutions for Telecom, Media and Entertainment service providers, has announced the release of DRMap, a complete data retention solution that enables CSPs to comply with current regulations and swiftly fulfill law enforcement requests. With its current positioning in the revenue assurance and fraud management spaces, cVidya was able to leverage its capabilities to create a solution which by nature collects richer sets of information as part of existing applications deployed at CSPs. With the necessity to ensure compliance with increasing regulations, such as the EU Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC requiring CSPs to store data for up to 24 months, it is imperative that CSPs have fast, secure, and compliant data retention systems. According to a leading research firm white paper, the majority of CSPs are spending a lot of time and money trying to adapt their current systems to meet the regulations. cVidya is leveraging Oracle Exadata Database Machine, allowing CSPs to benefit from the extreme performance, speed and scalability offered by Oracle. cVidya's DRMap V1.0 has also achieved Oracle Exadata Ready status through Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN). This demonstrates that cVidya has fully tested and supports DRMap V1.0 on Oracle Exadata Database Machine.

read more

DS Data Systems UK Ltd. is pleased to announce the release of KonaKart v6.0.0.0, a Java-based eCommerce shopping cart application that provides an extensive set of features to enable retailers to successfully sell their products over the internet. KonaKart is a Java / JSP / XML based solution with comprehensive easy to use java, SOAP, RMI and JSON APIs that allow you to quickly integrate eCommerce functionality into your existing systems. The customizable parts of KonaKart are Open Source and available under the GNU LGPL.

read more

As more enterprises are adopting clouds, the nature of cloud computing is changing. Previously, clouds were used to test applications or for non-mission critical applications. Today, enterprises are using clouds for cost-saving advantages and launching more mission critical applications that have defined performance needs. In his session at the 10th International Cloud Expo, Eric Shepcaro, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Telx, will discuss how distributed computing has many advantages. It would allow organizations to have a cloud at various data centers instead of one cloud at one datacenter. Costs are reduced significantly since one big Internet pipe is not needed.

read more

Joyent’s SmartDataCenter IaaS platform is going to be sold to Italian VARs and service providers by ICOS, an Italian value-added distributor, for private cloud infrastructure or value-added private cloud services. SmartDataCenter’s local storage is supposed to reduce the TCO of cloud data centers. It’s designed to manage tens of thousands of virtual machines, a k a SmartMachines, and supports a multi-tenant PaaS. ICOS means to develop its own cloud infrastructure for channel partners too so they don’t have to build their own cloud data center. JoyentCloud.com delivers public cloud services to LinkedIn, Gilt Groupe and Kabam and licenses its cloud software to service providers that include Dell, FirstServer, XYBase, ClusterTech and Uniserve. Its offerings include a Platform-as-a-Service based on Node.js, the open source server-side JavaScript development environment that’s been embraced by Microsoft.

read more

When it comes to procurement, any technology or service should be evaluated with a good set of criteria. Executive decisions should not be weighted solely on a single selection criterion such as price. This applies to any cloud computing service as well. The twelve criteria listed below (see Chart 1) forces executives to take a broader review of the many elements of the total cloud computing service, and not just price. Each criteria starts with an R, F, or P which makes it easy to remember the total framework for the Yardstick for Technology Procurement (RFP).

read more

SYS-CON Events announced today that CodeFutures Corporation, the company behind dbShards, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 10th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 11–14, 2012, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York. CodeFutures Corporation, the company behind dbShards, is a leading supplier of database performance and reliability tools that reduce the time and effort required to dramatically increase database scalability and performance. With dbShards, production environments gain scalability, high-availability and easy management of multi-terabyte databases through its Continuous Replication technology, providing an ideal foundation for fast-growing, 24X7 applications.

read more

Amazon’s cloud, which, let’s face it, is still pretty much developer turf, broadened its push into the enterprise Wednesday with the introduction of AWS Storage Gateway, a beta virtual appliance nominally meant to automate enterprise data backup to S3 while creating a comfort level with the cloud among the leery. It’s the first time Amazon has proposed putting its own software on the ground inside a corporate data center. And the stuff’s targeted at large corporations. Amazon says some customers asked for such a solution. It also expects resellers to offer the service. It is of course proprietary and a competitive problem for other cloud storage and gateway suppliers. Come to think of it, Amazon as repository of corporate data is a problem for a lot of people.

read more

The focus of Java EE 7 is on the cloud, and specifically it aims to bring Platform-as-a-Service providers and application developers together so that portable applications can be deployed on any cloud infrastructure and reap all its benefits in terms of scalability, elasticity, multitenancy, etc. The existing specifications in the platform such as JPA, Servlets, EJB, and others will be updated to meet these requirements. Java EE 7 continues the ease of development push that characterized prior releases by bringing further simplification to enterprise development. It also adds new, important APIs such as the REST client API in JAX-RS 2.0 and the long awaited Concurrency Utilities for Java EE API. Expression Language 3.0 and Java Message Service 2.0 will undergo an extreme makeover to align with the improvements in the Java language. There are plenty of improvements to several other components. Newer web standards like HTML 5 and Web Sockets will be embraced to build modern web applications.

read more

Project Insight allows the dispersed project team at Armada's prevention, preparedness, response and recovery solutions to access their projects from any location. Project and portfolio management software, Project Insight helps the project team at Armada Ltd. manage its projects more effectively. Armada Ltd. is a world class provider of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery solutions for both public and private sector clients. Project Insight's online project software allows the dispersed project team at Armada to access their projects from any location. Before Project Insight, the project team at Armada used an in-house project management system; however, as the company expanded, they outgrew that solution. As a significant portion of their employees work from remote home offices, it was mission critical for all project information to be accessible online. The organization also needed a good way to track and report on time at a very detailed level. The Chief Operating Officer (COO) decided to find a more robust project and portfolio solution.

read more

Gartner says, in three years, mobile application development projects will outnumber PC projects by 4-1 ratio and in four years, 50% of the people will primarily access their emails from a mobile device. So, the necessity of establishing a mobile channel for your customer is – well a no-brainer. However, should you just build a mobile website or should you also invest in building native application is not easy to decide. There can be no doubt that you need to have a website optimized for mobile devices. What is the best way to build and maintain that website is not a simple decision.

read more

HP has named Bill Veghte its chief strategy officer, replacing CTO Shane Robison who was ousted three months ago. Veghte, who used to run the $15 billion Windows unit at Microsoft, joined HP in 2010 as head of software, a job he will keep. He is also supposed to head HP’s cloud and webOS open source initiatives. HP said that as chief strategy officer, Veghte’s supposed to “help define the IT industry’s future and make certain HP continues to lead the way,” adding that his “new role reaffirms HP’s commitment to providing customers with the latest platforms, products and services needed for success in a rapidly changing world.”

read more

A rare, if not unheard of, confluence of stars Thursday meant that IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Google all reported their calendar Q4 numbers after the market closed. Of the lot only Google came a cropper, losing $57 after-hours, down 8.9% when last we looked to $582.58, on a scary drop in its search advertising. Paid clicks were down 8% while costs were up 35%. Earnings were up 6.3% but that still counted as a miss by Wall Street’s lights. Google was supposed to return $10.49 a share on revenues of $8.41 billion. Instead it did $8.22 on record-breaking $10.58 billion, up 25%, which worked out to $8.13 billion after paying commissions. The reaction may, in part, be a way to punish Google for buying Motorola Mobility, which delivered a disappointing quarter on January 6 on depressed device sales. The purchase, if regulators wave it through, will likely play havoc with Google’s income statement.

read more

Amazon has started offering Windows Server instances on its Free Usage Tier. AWS positions the move as helping new customers get started in the cloud. They can run, test or develop Windows apps, host a web site or do all of those things and not be locked into a particular operating system. Amazon’s free widgetry has previously been limited to Linux instances. Now it says it’s “fine-tuned the micro instances to make them even better at running Microsoft Windows Server.” Presumably Microsoft would prefer the exposure happen on its Windows Azure PaaS, which is incredibly supposed to add Linux sometime this year.

read more

The first OpenStack-based cloud operating system came out Wednesday. The start-up Piston Cloud Computing Inc delivered the thing, which makes sense since Piston’s founders were instrumental in OpenStack, which is a framework, not a product. The widgetry is called Piston Enterprise OS or pentOS for short and it will sell for $3,500 a server a year, a price that includes 24/7 telephone support. Piston co-founder and CEO Joshua McKenty said Piston sold maybe 10 of the things ahead of general availability and the code was destined for big iron $250,000 hardware installations. People apparently just bought it after seeing the demo at Cloud Expo. Nothing is in production yet.

read more