Monday, 06 September 2010 08:14

CloudSigma AG, a leading European provider of cloud servers is pleased to announce the launch of the world's first in-browser VNC client. By combining a number of technological innovations such as HTML5 with its own priorietary processes, the company has been able to deploy in-browser VNC access making management and control of its cloud servers significantly more convenient. Previously remote access and screen sharing had required customers to install a dedicated VNC client on their own machine which remains the case with other cloud computing vendors.

Boyan Hristov, head of the VNC development team commented "Our company continues to use technology to make our clients' computing more accessible and intuitive. One of the results of this focus is this unique in-browser VNC feature. Now our customers have instant secure access to their servers from anywhere in the world; all they need is a modern web browser."

Monday, 06 September 2010 08:14

Today at VMworld 2010, VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, expanded its vision for modern IT infrastructures and announced six new products and services that help enterprises and service providers achieve the benefits of cloud computing  while maintaining the control and freedom of choice they require.

IT as a Service is the transformation of IT to a more business-centric approach, focusing on outcomes such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response.  This means IT shifts from producing IT services to optimizing production and consumption of those services in ways consistent with business requirements.  This changes the role of IT from a cost center to a center of strategic value.

“Enterprises are embracing a new model of infrastructure to deliver IT as a Service through hybrid cloud computing,” said Raghu Raghuram, senior vice president and general manager, virtualization and cloud platforms, VMware. “The products and services we are launching today provide a comprehensive enterprise architecture that will deliver the agility and economics of the cloud with the security and quality of service our enterprise customers need.”

"We are excited about our new state-of-the-art cloud, based on open standards and robust, manageable software," said Professor Greg Ganger of Carnegie Mellon University. "VMware cloud infrastructure solutions are helping us to transition to a new computing paradigm that provides greater agility, while also allowing us to study data intensive computing and security in a cloud environment."

Building on the VMware vSphere™ foundation, VMware’s new cloud infrastructure products and services introduce a hybrid cloud model that seamlessly bridges private and public clouds.

VMware vCloud™ Director: A new model for delivering and consuming infrastructure services

VMware vCloud Director changes the way IT delivers infrastructure services and the way users access and consume them. By extending the resource pooling capabilities of VMware vSphere, VMware vCloud Director enables IT to create “virtual data centers” (VDCs) – logical pools of compute, network and storage resources with defined management policies, SLAs and pricing.  IT organizations can offer these VDCs – along with catalogs of other infrastructure and application services such as virtual appliances, VMs, and OS images – to users through fully automated self-service access.

Through VMware’s broad ecosystem of technology partners and service providers, customers can extend their datacenter capacity to include secure and compatible public clouds and manage them as easily as their own private clouds. Through this hybrid model, IT organizations can act as service providers to the business, achieving the benefits of cloud computing without sacrificing security or control.

The VMware vShield™ product family: Better-than-physical security for VMware-virtualized and cloud environments

Today, VMware is introducing three new products that deliver a security model designed specifically for virtual and cloud environments. Traditional enterprise security depends on agents, dedicated hardware and brittle configurations. The dynamic nature of cloud environments, where applications and services are mobile and leverage shared infrastructure, requires a new approach.

VMware vShield Edge, VMware vShield App, and VMware vShield Endpoint virtualize security and edge services, including firewall, VPN and load balancing, freeing them from the constraints of physical infrastructure and providing a single, adaptive and programmable security infrastructure. This eliminates the complexity and rigidity of traditional approaches, giving IT teams more visibility and control. When coupled with VMware’s partner solutions, VMware vShield delivers VMware-virtualized and cloud environments that are more secure than traditional, physical deployment models at a fraction of the cost.

VMware vCloud™ Datacenter Services: Secure, interoperable enterprise-class hybrid clouds delivered by leading service providers

While public cloud services have created an alternative for delivering compute capacity in a self-service, pay-per-use model, security concerns, uncertain SLAs, lack of compliance and fears of lock-in have limited enterprise adoption. VMware vCloud Datacenter Services provide a way for enterprises to extend their datacenters to external clouds, while preserving security, compliance and quality of service. Delivered by some of the world’s leading service providers, including Bluelock, Colt, SingTel, Terremark and Verizon, VMware vCloud Datacenter Services will use globally consistent infrastructure, management and security models to make it possible for enterprise customers to move computing workloads from internal virtualized infrastructure to an external cloud and back. 

VMware vCloud Datacenter Services offer VMware-certified compatibility and portability, auditable security controls, SAS-70-Type-II or ISO-27001 certifications, and virtual application security including stateful firewall and layer two network isolation, as well as role-based access control and LDAP directory authentication.

VMware vCloud™ Consulting Services

To help customers accelerate their journeys to the cloud, VMware’s vCloud Consulting Services include a complete portfolio of professional service offerings. Based on VMware’s experience helping enterprises and service providers build cloud architectures, VMware vCloud Consulting Services provide assessment, planning, design, and deployment services for IT infrastructure transformation. Leveraged by enterprises and vCloud service providers, vCloud Consulting Services provide a common blueprint for next-generation infrastructure.
Learn more about VMware’s vCloud Consulting Services

Monday, 06 September 2010 08:14

Trendpoint Systems, a leader in data center energy management solutions, today announced the availability of a new whitepaper that will help companies better comply with the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards required to gain the coveted Energy Star label for data center efficiency. 

The new EPA requirements are based on a metric called PUE (Power Utilization Efficiency), originally developed by The Green Grid, and adopted by the EPA as the new standard for calculating the overall energy efficiency of data centers.   Many companies on the leading edge of the energy efficiency movement have begun to publish their PUE numbers, demonstrating the wide-spread acceptance of this metric.  The need to conserve energy in data centers is acute as these facilities are projected to surpass the airline industry as the world's biggest polluters by 2020 according to a McKinsey study.

While PUE has gained wide-spread acceptance as a single reporting metric, it has also received criticism for its lack of granularity and its usefulness as a day-to-day management tool.  In a new whitepaper by Trendpoint, called "Micro PUE: The Key to Data Center Energy Savings," TrendPoint proposes a major supplement to that metric—Micro PUE.   Micro PUE is a calculation of PUE from the perspective of each cooling unit and provides a key management tool to help users understand where their inefficiencies lie.

Monday, 06 September 2010 08:14

Ixia, a leading, global provider of converged IP network test solutions, today announced that they are working with Emulex to demonstrate an advanced virtualized data center, processing converged IP and storage traffic over a multi-vendor unified network. This demonstration, taking place at VMworld 2010 in booth #1636, features Ixia’s IxVMvirtualization test solution and Emulex’s OneConnect™ Universal Converged Network Adapters over a unified, next-generation data center architecture.

Large enterprises, system integrators, and operators are rapidly transforming data centers using new virtualization technologies. Thorough assessment of virtual infrastructure performance and capacity, and isolation of network functions and bottlenecks in virtual data centers is an extremely challenging task. Pre-deployment testing is mandatory in order to ensure user quality of experience (QoE), and correctly provision virtualized network resources.

Monday, 06 September 2010 08:14

Voltaire Ltd., a leading provider of scale-out data center fabrics, today introduced the Voltaire Vantage™ 6048, a low-latency, high-performance Layer 2/3 top-of-rack switch optimized for cloud computing.

The switch features 48 ports of 10GbE line rate connectivity in a space-saving 1U device.  It provides non-blocking switching throughput of 960 Gbps, low latency and the industry’s lowest power consumption of 6.3 watts/port to deliver superior application performance as well as data center efficiency.  The Vantage 6048 offers more CEE-compliant features than any other switch available in the industry, including Congestion Notification (IEEE 802.1Qau) to assure end to end congestion management and isolation between applications that co-exist in the data center.

Monday, 06 September 2010 08:14

Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, today announced plans to build its second International Business Exchange (IBX) data center, HK2, in Hong Kong. The new $63 million HK2 IBX data center will provide total capacity for more than 1,450 cabinet equivalents. Targeted for opening in the third quarter of 2011, the $20 million first phase of the HK2 IBX center will offer an initial 450 cabinet equivalents. The expansion enables Equinix to continue serving the Hong Kong market with business exchange services for global enterprises, banking and financial companies, and cloud and IT service providers.

The Hong Kong market is one of the largest concentrations of banking and financial companies in the region. Located near the existing HK1 IBX data center in the western part of the New Territories region, the HK2 facility will have direct fiber connection with the HK1 IBX data center. This connectivity enables prospective customers at HK2 to enjoy close proximity and direct access to the financial ecosystems, including trading venues, buy and sell side firms, market data providers, technology providers and financial networks, at the HK1 IBX data center. The new IBX data center will also feature highly reliable data center services and operations, offering availability, scalability and low latency connectivity to a wide range of networks available at the HK1 IBX data center. These services are especially important to cloud and IT service providers looking to optimize business exchange and increase end-user satisfaction.