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Tag: cloud

  • Storage Predictions for 2012: Infiltration of ‘Small Data’ and a New Kind of Cloud

    Drobo has released storage industry predictions for the coming year. These predictions are based on the company’s interactions with thousands of customers, analysts and industry luminaries.

    "The pace of change in the storage industry is going to accelerate in 2012," said Tom Buiocchi, CEO of Drobo. "Cloud strategies are evolving rapidly, solid-state media will have its day, and Big Data technologies will find their way to 'Small Data' customers. Any vendor with an old school product line is going to learn some new lessons the hard way in 2012."

    Among Drobo's predictions:

    • It’s the end of cloud storage as we know it today.  Pure cloud adoption will become less common than a hybrid approach that tightly integrates public and private cloud architectures with modern on-premise storage systems. This trend will hold true for both home users and small-medium businesses (SMBs). According to recent cloud usage research conducted by Drobo, 96 percent of SMBs (up to 500 employees) report they will store at least 50 percent of their data on-site for a minimum of the next three years. Factors cited included cloud performance, security and reliability concerns. Both businesses and individuals did state that they wanted tighter and more automated integration between their on-site data and their cloud provider. As stated by Buiocchi, "The cloud is going to have one foot on the ground for some time to come."
    • 'Small Data' eclipses Big Data in importance.  Today there is big buzz around Big Data, but the fact of the matter is Big Data is relevant to only the largest of companies and data hoarders—similar to the perspective that only one percent of the population owns 99 percent of the nation’s wealth. It’s the one person, family or business having to navigate the protection and management of their own data that affects the largest group of people: 100 million individuals and small businesses nationwide alone. This is the more pervasive problem (when compared to Big Data), and it highlights a persistent oversight of the entrenched, legacy storage system vendors that focus on the one percent while under-serving the "little guy." The numbers are too big to ignore—while Big Data will continue as a top issue in 2012, it’s the 'Small Data' opportunity that will explode.
    • Consumerization of IT continues as enterprise storage features hit the SMB and home user market.  It happened with PCs years ago and now it’s happening with tablets. In 2012 it will happen with personal and small business storage. Automated data protection, advanced thin provisioning, and powerful data-tiering with solid-state drives (SSD) are among the innovative technologies that entered the enterprise market first, but in 2012 they will further permeate home and small business offices. Will most new home or small office users know how to describe these cool, geeky storage features? Probably not, but they will know that storage has never been so easy to use, reliable and fast. 2012 will be the year that the idea of storage for the rest of us takes on a larger role in our lives, better protecting our rapidly growing digital universe.

  • Gladinet Launches Cloud Gateway for Cloud-Hosted Desktop

    After pioneering the concept of integrating a wide range of cloud services on a PC desktop with its introduction of Cloud Desktop earlier this year, Gladinet, the ubiquitous cloud storage client, rolled out Gladinet Cloud Gateway v1.0 and Cloud Desktop v1.3.

    The company says both new products are designed to meet the cloud computing needs of small and medium-sized businesses – a category that until now was underserved by cloud service providers.

    If Cloud Desktop turns the Internet into a virtual PC, Cloud Gateway is its file server. Built on the same open platform as Cloud Desktop, teh Gateway connects individual desktops to cloud storage through one access point.

    "Cloud Gateway acts as a liaison between Cloud Desktop and cloud storage," explained Gladinet co-founder Jerry Huang.

    "Before, if a company had 100 employees using Cloud Desktop, they needed 100 connections to Amazon S3, Google Docs or whatever services their employees were using. With the Gateway, that’s all changed. Now SMBs only need Cloud Gateway to connect to cloud services, regardless of how many different interfaces or accounts they may have. The Gateway acts as a file server to the Desktops, which simply connect to it over their LAN."

    According to Huang, allowing one server to support many individual desktops, the application gives SMBs the freedom to scale back their own data storage capacity while providing centralized administration and backup capability.

    “Files stored at various offsite data centers are as easy to access as if they resided on the user’s hard drive. Thanks to Cloud Gateway’s use of smart caching, copies of files stored with cloud services are quickly accessible on local desktops – eliminating the problem of lost data in the event of cloud service business closures,” he said.

    Gladinet assures that once configured by an administrator, Cloud Gateway is available to every Cloud Desktop user in a company and requires no account information to be entered by individual users, no matter how many different cloud services they’re using.

  • Barracuda Launches Integrated Local and Cloud-based Backup Solution in Europe


    Barracuda Networks announced the European launch of its Barracuda Backup Service, a local and cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery solution.

    It combines the Barracuda Backup Server for restoration on the local network with the Barracuda Backup Service, a cloud-based backup service hosted by two data centres in Europe.

    This new service provides a SME/SMB data backup solution from a single vendor, can back up data directly from nearly all operating systems and comes included with backup software to natively provide application backups of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server and Windows System State.

    The company claims they had designed an advanced data de-duplication technology: their backup service reduces the storage and transfer requirements for backups by analyzing each file at the bit level and only copying, transferring and archiving new bit sequences. This technology is applied within a single file’s revision history as well as across the entire backup volume.

    “Customers in Europe, particularly those in the midmarket, have trended toward on-site solutions for data backup and recovery primarily due to security and privacy concerns,” said Carla Arend, program manager, IDC European Storage Software and Services Research.

    “Barracuda Networks’ approach in combining a server on site for fast restore of data locally as well as replicating data offsite should serve this market, as well as larger enterprise customers, very well because it has a very reasonable pricepoint and is backed by strong security for data protection.”

    According to Michael Hughes, Barracuda vice president of channels, their backup service offers Europe’s SMBs and SMEs access to enterprise-class data protection and disaster recovery at a “fraction of the traditional cost.”

    “Simple to use and occupying up to 1/50th of the normal backup storage footprint, customers are welcoming the Barracuda Backup Service for its convenience as much as for its exceptional value,” he said.

    Barracuda Backup Server pricing starts at £899 depending on model and Barracuda Backup Service plans start at £59 for 100GB of storage per month.

  • DataPipe Rolls Out 3PAR Cloud-Agile Services

    3PAR, a provider of utility storage, announced that managed global IT service provider and 3PAR Cloud-Agile partner DataPipe now offers differentiated virtual private array (VPA) and disaster recovery (DR) services as part of their Stratosphere cloud services, which are powered by 3PAR Utility Storage.

    DataPipe is the first member of the 3PAR Cloud-Agile program to offer its customers 3PAR Cloud-Agile ASSURED and 3PAR Cloud-Agile SECURED services through this program.

    As the company claims, 3PAR Cloud-Agile ASSURED powers DataPipe’s delivery of highly available and flexible business continuance solutions which are easy to use, quick to implement, and require minimal effort to maintain. 3PAR Cloud-Agile ASSURED leverages 3PAR Remote Copy and gives DataPipe the ability to offer cost-effective, flexible, and robust remote data replication, DR, and autonomic data backup to end users.

    “With 3PAR and VMware powering Stratosphere, we have been able to extend the value we deliver to our customers and enhance the security, agility, and cost-efficiency of the services we offer,” said Michael Parks, Chief Technology Officer for DataPipe.

    He assures that with the new 3PAR cloud service his company offers isolated, secure virtual private array services for performance and security levels previously only available with dedicated hardware, but with a cost structure approaching that of a shared service offering.

    DataPipe delivers VPA services as a value-added “shared” hosting option with the security of a dedicated environment. 3PAR Cloud-Agile: SECURED employs the combination of 3PAR Utility Storage and 3PAR Virtual Domains to give DataPipe the ability to deliver high performance levels while providing secure segregation within a shared, virtualized hardware platform that is protected from unauthorized access, monitoring, and control.

    “As cloud computing has gained momentum, we’ve seen the spotlight mainly cast on virtual private servers and security concerns at the virtual server level,” said Jeff Boles, Senior Analyst and Director at Taneja Group.

    “However, virtual private server deployments are only as secure as the storage foundation upon which they are built. 3PAR Cloud-Agile SECURE enables providers like DataPipe to offer VPA services that ensure security, segregation, and data integrity from the ground up, to complement the security that VMware delivers at the virtual server level,” he added.

    According to Parag Patel, vice president of VMware, combining VMware vSphere 4 with private and resilient 3PAR Utility Storage, service providers like DataPipe are able to meet the demand for security and high availability from their customers who utilize services delivered via the cloud.

    DataPipe provides custom solutions for complex internet-facing infrastructures, proactively managing security, monitoring, storage, datacenter operations, servers, and applications including database administration and software stack.

  • JAJAH Brings SIP Trunking Services to the Enterprise

    JAJAH, the IP communications company, is working with Microsoft to provide SIP Trunking services to Microsoft enterprise customers globally. According to the firm this will allow companies to make high quality voice calls over JAJAH’s IP Platform in the cloud, without requiring an infrastructure upgrade.

    Enterprises using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 can now connect directly with JAJAH’s global carrier-grade IP network to make high quality voice calls.

    The company says that in addition to the ‘significant’ cost-benefits, JAJAH’s extensive range of calling solutions integrate seamlessly into the enterprise, so voice calls can be made from computers and landlines.

    JAJAH’s SIP Trunking services connect phone calls from computers, IP-phones and mobile phones to virtually any device in the world.

    SIP Trunking is the delivery mechanism that underpins unified communications, providing the function of connecting an organization’s PBX(s) to the necessary service providers. In doing so, it ensures phone calls and other IP-based communications originating from an employees’ phone or computer are connected to the destination.

    "The combination of JAJAH and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 gives enterprises a powerful and rich external telephony solution," said Warren Barkley, Microsoft Senior Director Unified Communications.

    "Enterprises across the world can implement VoIP and unified communication easily and cost effectively with Microsoft and JAJAH," added JAJAH CEO Trevor Healy.

  • Sipgate Launches Cloud-Based Business VoIP Service


    sipgate has launched a new and entirely web-based service version of its US telephony service that replaces both phone systems and phone lines.

    The VoIP company said that its "Team Edition" will allow small and mid-size companies to move their corporate phone service to the cloud.

    It provides each employee with online access to their inbox containing phone logs, faxes, recordings and voicemail messages.

    Thilo Salmon, CEO of sipgate, said collaboration features like forwards, labels and comments allow coworkers to be more productive.

    It also allows employees to return calls at the click of a button, or sign and send faxes through a WYSIWYG interface on the company letterhead.

    Most functions such as call forwarding, call recording, and 3-way calling can be activated with a single click on the interface.

    Salmon said this makes features previously hidden in phone systems accessible for employees and, consequently, businesses more productive.

    He said the aim is to make telephone service as easy to use as email.

    sipgate team starts at USD $2 per user per month, and a 30-day free trial is available.

    "If you can use email, you now know enough to run your company’s corporate telephony system," he said.

    "We think this service will resonate particularly well with entrepreneurial companies and firms that have already realized the benefits from other cloud-based services like hosted CRM or email."

    In June, sipgate launched a free VoIP service in the US aimed at capturing a share of the 100 million users that make up the landline market.

    Salmon said the new Team service allows each employee to stay in control over where to answer calls and even have their VoIP, landline and mobile phones ring in parallel – the call is routed through to whichever handset is picked up first.

    He said that during a call, it is simple to bridge-in other callers, transfer the call or even record it.

    Employees given administrative privileges can add new users, office locations and blocks of phone numbers at the click of a button, with new additions available to use from the moment ordered.

    The system has been designed to be simple for administrators to set up and maintain, cutting down the time, effort and cost of traditional telephony systems.

    sipgate is running an introductory offer for companies with up to one hundred users, and costs from just USD $2 per user per month and is offered as a one month rolling contract.

  • OnRelay Releases Open Source Mobile PBX


    OnRelay has released its mobile PBX solution following successful trials in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

    Unified MBX is a software-only IP business communication system built for mobile phones.

    The Cellular Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) provider said the solution provides Unified Communications (UC) without the expense of proprietary telephony hardware or IP PBX licenses.

    It does so by pre-integrating cellular FMC software with an open source IP PBX.

    The result is that Unified MBX can be deployed on-premises, or hosted in the cloud to provide mobile business communications as Software as a Service (SaaS).

    OnRelay said customers across ten countries have so far self-installed the solution with only remote OnRelay support.

    It is built around OnRelay’s Telephony Internetworking Protocol (TINP).

    TINP uses voice and data signalling to bring full IP PBX functionality to the mobile phone, over any cellular network – 3G/GSM, EVDO and Low Power GSM.

    In an interview with smartphone.biz-news earlier this year, Ivar Plahte, CEO and co-founder of OnRelay, said he had no doubt that mobile PBX is the future – with smartphones increasingly replacing desktop phones to become the sole business phone.

  • Vembu Launches Online Backup on Amazon Web Services


    Vembu Technologies has made available for production StoreGrid Cloud AMI, an online backup "virtual appliance" on Amazon Web Services.

    The company says that with the StoreGrid Cloud AMI and the Amazon Web Services infrastructure, it is now possible for service providers to offer a scalable, secure and highly redundant online backup service to their small and medium business (SMB) customers without any upfront capital investment in a data center.

    Online backup service providers can now configure the StoreGrid Cloud AMI virtual appliance to run as a backup server in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).

    StoreGrid Cloud AMI will use the Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to store backup data from client machines at remote locations.

    The StoreGrid Cloud AMI virtual appliance also leverages Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) to store meta-data information in the MySQL relational database.

    Steve Rabuchin, director of Developer Relations and Business Development for Amazon Web Services, said AWS is designed to help alleviate for its customers, the cost and effort associated with building, operating and scaling technology infrastructure.

    "We are pleased that the StoreGrid Cloud AMI is able to leverage Amazon Web Services to extend this service to their customers," he said.

    Even service providers who want to keep backup data in their own data centers can use the StoreGrid Cloud AMI virtual appliance as a replication server. This deployment would enable them to replicate the backup data into the Amazon S3 storage cloud, thus offering more redundancy to the data.

    Sekar Vembu, CEO, Vembu Technologies

    Sekar Vembu, CEO, Vembu Technologies, said that investing, managing and scaling server and storage infrastructure is one of the most complex tasks for any online backup service provider.

    "StoreGrid Cloud AMI for Amazon Web Services eliminates this complexity by virtualizing the computing and storage infrastructure in a cloud," he said.

    Vembu released the Beta version of StoreGrid Cloud AMI in December 2008, and since then more than 50 service providers have been testing it.

    This production release incorporates feedback from these Beta partners, including the enhancement to use Amazon EBS as a temporary cache before uploading backup data to Amazon S3.

    StoreGrid Cloud AMI is available for purchase now and is priced as an annual subscription per StoreGrid backup client, with USD $30 for desktops and USD $60 for servers.

  • Skype and IBM collaborate on LotusLive


    Skype has announced that it is to integrate Skype functionality with IBM’s LotusLive.

    The new cloud services from IBM are designed to help individuals build communities to work more effectively and efficiently across and beyond their own companies.

    Effectively, Skype’s voice and video calling adds real-time communications capabilities to LotusLive.

    Employees of companies using LotusLive will be able to use Skype to initiate voice and video calls by clicking on their contacts’ Skype names or phone numbers within LotusLive.

    Future possibilities include the ability to import Skype contact information into IBM cloud services to enhance online collaboration.

    Scott Durchslag, Skype’s chief operating officer, said the collaboration showed how serious Skype is about bringing the benefits of ‘anytime, anywhere, any mode’ Internet communications to the enterprise environment.