Iomega v.Clone

Anyone who has to work in multiple locations or visit clients is familiar with the road-warrior ritual of lugging along a laptop containing your files and programs. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have a clone of your PC on a portable hard drive that you could just slip into your pocket or briefcase and take with you? That’s the value proposition offered by Iomega v.Clone software. Developed by EMC utilizing VMware technologies, v.Clone enables you to create a clone of your PC onto an Iomega USB hard drive.  It lets you take your operating system, files, settings and applications with you.  Plug the hard drive into any available PC and use all your applications, including office software, email programs and browser favorites. The v.Clone software will save any changes you make and sync all your data when you return to your primary computer. It takes the hassle out of traveling with a laptop.

Features:

• Create a virtual image of your computer’s primary hard drive
• Includes all the operating system, all applications, text files, images, videos and personal settings
• Plug and play with an Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7 computer
• Capable of creating multiple clones on one hard drive, space permitting
• Automatically synchronizes files and folders between clone and primary computer
• Ideal for users with multiple computers

Watch v.Clone in action:

HP-Microsoft Merger Promises Upgrades in Cloud Computing

By James Zipadelli

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series regarding issues relating to cloud-based services. First up: How will this partnership increase dependability for cloud-based services?

Hewlett-Packard and  Microsoft agreed on a three-year, $250 million pact to increase cloud-based services to their consumers. The question is, how will this partnership improve the dependability of cloud-based services?

In a paper, “Benefits of HP-Microsoft deal,” Gartner Research analysts Donna Scott and Andrew Butler say both companies have the technology to make this work - but “truly integrated solutions that drive elasticity will take months or years to deliver.”

“Though HP has long touted its Adaptive Infrastructure vision (now called Converged Infrastructure), most IT infrastructures are not very dynamic or optimized in runtime execution outside of mainframe environments. However, UDCFs [unified data center fabric] such as HP’s Matrix and its Flex-Fabric infrastructure enable flexible connectivity among servers, storage and networks. This, combined with virtualization, can achieve real-time infrastructure (RTI), the foundation of cloud infrastructure,” Scott and Butler write.

Both companies are on board with this venture. In this video announcing the partnership, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says, “Over the next three years, we intend to make it simple, fast and cost-effective for our customers to build IT systems that scale quickly as business conditions change and opportunities emerge.” Ballmer also says a deal with HP has been in the works since last April.

Jeff Carlat, director of marketing for blade servers and infrastructure software for HP Enterprise Business adds, “Private and public cloud computing will benefit from this agreement and the forthcoming solutions through the ability to procure complete infrastructure compute solutions from HP that converge the compute, storage and networking infrastructure with the management and application layer of the solution stack. This will provide customers with highly modular and optimized compute platforms that will reduce deployment times and increase service levels for delivering the application to the customer.

“Through this new agreement, HP and Microsoft will deliver integrated virtualization and management across heterogeneous data center and cloud environments,” Carlat says. “Integrated, interoperable management solutions for both physical and virtualized environments enable IT environments to be automatically provisioned, managed and continuously self-tuned. Customers can automate application deployment, system monitoring, power management and server performance while ensuring interoperability in a mixed data center environment. This will result in substantial reductions in management resource requirements and deliver greater ROI.”

Jeffrey Bolden, a partner with Princeton Junction, N.J.-based Blue LotusSIDC, says the partnership “makes sense” because the cloud-based service allows both Microsoft and HP to save money on an internal data center and 24/7 staffing.

“These Microsoft/HP server solutions are not an overwhelming change; what it does is allow a cloud center to roll out the apps and very quickly estimate what it’s going to cost to provide these services,” Bolden says. “They offer Microsoft server-based applications in an appliance platform, which means many more SaaS vendors, ISP and Colo are going to be able to provide them as a SaaS,” Bolden says.

“Microsoft apps tend to be less dependable than many of the competitive applications that cloud-based providers current provide,” Bolden continues.  “However, cloud vendors are vastly more reliable than internal IT departments for small business. So you might see an increase in dependability for a business, which was already going to choose a Microsoft app. But less reliability/dependability than they would have if they went to a cloud-based solution based on Unix applications.”

For more information on Microsoft’s cloud strategy, click here. For more information on HP’s Cloud Assure and consulting services click here and click here.

Google Steps Up White Space Chase

By John Greaves

Google recently made a significant move in the battle over white space by proposing to the FCC to be one of several administrators of a TV bandwith’s geo-location database. This is in response to FCC filings requiring such a database to minimize signal interference between white space devices and broadcast signals.

This is a key component of the fight to make unused white space available for bandwidth expansion, as signal interference is one of the key arguments made against such a move by white space opponents like the National Association of Broadcasters.

According to the proposal, Google would build and oversee the database as well as provide data repository, registration and determination of available channels/query process.

Having Google, a major industry player, be one of the administrators begs the question of whether letting Google keep track of what channels are available for bandwidth as well as the location and identification of all white space devices might not run counter to an open and competitive marketplace.

However, Rick Rotondo, CMO for Spectrum Bridge, which deployed the world’s first TV white spaces network and also applied to be a database manager, says Google’s proposal does not surprise him.

It’s a competitive environment,” Rotondo says. “But I think Google is actually trying to make the playing field more level.”

In a Jan. 8 blog on the Spectrum Bridge site, Rotondo had previously explained that the FCC is not granting unlimited authority in authorizing white space database managers.

“Specifically, in the case of TV white spaces database managers, the FCC is authorizing companies to represent themselves as being able to meet the minimum requirements the FCC has set out in its previous ‘Report and Order,’ as well as some new requirements spelled out in the recent Public Notice,” the blog states.

Rotondo’s comments echo Google’s official position on this issue. “I see myself here, in D.C., as playing kind of a defensive role, in terms of maintaining open platforms where they exist today, and more offensively, trying to be constructive in terms of creating new platforms and particularly ensuring that those new platforms also remain open to innovation and consumer choice,” says Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, in a January 2009 interview for CircleID.com.

That view has not changed. A Google spokesperson who asked not to be identified tells DMB, “We strongly supported the FCC’s decision to adopt an open, unlicensed model for white spaces, similar to what exists for Wi-Fi. Much as open, unlicensed access to the Wi-Fi spectrum has led to its widespread use, open, unlicensed access is also crucial to fulfilling the potential of white spaces.”

Whitt further supports the argument. “From the Google perspective, the C-Block, to us, was a successful story. We came into it with the hopes of triggering the openness conditions, by making the bid that would enable that to happen, which we did.”

Some may wonder if Google’s move signals the impending doom of 3G and 4G technology. However, such fears are unfounded, according to Digital Society analyst George Ou, a former network engineer who built and designed wired network, wireless network, Internet, storage, security and server infrastructure for various fortune 100 companies.

“The idea that you’re going to take unmanned white space and replace 3G and 4G is wrong. The guys that like white space always talk about propagation, and how Wi-Fi doesn’t have enough propagation,” Ou says. “What they don’t understand is propagation sounds like a good thing but it’s a bad thing. The more you can propagate the less you can use. The lower the power, the more the signal dies as it gets further away, the more you can use the same spectrum channels. That’s why Wi-Fi has such pathetically low signal strength, so you can reuse the same signals.”

Google tends to take the opposite view. A Google spokesperson says, “This spectrum is extremely valuable and has the potential to transform the way we connect to the Internet. As Larry Page has put it, ‘white spaces’ are like ‘Wi-Fi on steroids’ - wireless Internet with much faster speeds, stronger signals and more affordable costs.”

As far as the database is concerned, Spectrum Bridge’s Rotondo points out that the vague nature of the FCC’s ruling has left the door wide open for interpretation. “There is nothing saying you have to tell a device the best channel, you just have to give a list of available channels,” he said.

Google says it has yet to hear from the FCC regarding its proposal, which is understandable due to the enormity of creating a national broadband plan and presenting it to Congress in time for the new March 17 deadline.

Web Security: Are You Part Of The Problem?

By: smashingmagazine.com

Website security is an interesting topic and should be high on the radar of anyone who has a Web presence under their control. Ineffective Web security leads to all of the things that make us hate the Web: spam, viruses, identity theft, to name a few.

[Read More and Discuss]

Converting To SaaS: An Enterprising Notion

By Rebecca Henely

While the layperson would consider providing computing infrastructure a natural progression for companies like Microsoft and IBM, Amazon.com has a significant career providing the same service for hundreds of thousands of companies, including The New York Times and NASDAQ.

It’s evidence that software as a service, or SaaS, is only going to get bigger.

“Why bother having an exchange server that you have to feed and capitalize and maintain and back up and make sure you have plenty of storage space available when you can have the whole thing hosted by a reputable and attainable exchange hosting service?” asks Bob Stevens, owner of SaaS provider Blended Systems.

In SaaS, software applications and servers can be hosted by third-party providers and accessed online by a company via the Internet, usually on a subscription basis. This trend has the benefit of greatly reducing costs a company needs to make on not only server hardware, but also the maintenance of it.

“[SaaS] aligns the cost of IT with the operational benefits produced; and it shifts scarce, in-house IT talent away from the time-consuming but low-value tasks of acquiring, maintaining and administering commodity technology to let those resources be applied to high-value tasks creating competitive advantages for the business,” says Peter Coffee, director of platform research at cloud-computing company Salesforce.com.

But what should a company keep in mind when trying to convert to SaaS?

In an article published on MSDN titled “Software as a Service (SaaS): An Enterprise Perspective,” authors Gianpaolo Carraro and Fred Chong state that before conversion, companies should consider the process on political, technical, financial and legal levels. In other words:

• the company should be sure that the function is not considered too important to be done externally,
• the customization or technical knowledge required to run the function is not too complicated to be done externally,
• the third party can handle the data that will be needed for use on a regular basis,
• converting to SaaS is not more expensive on a long-term basis, and
• converting to SaaS does not interfere with any book/recordkeeping laws of the country in which the company is housed or interfere with any legal obligations toward the company’s customers.

Stevens says prime applications for conversion to SaaS include email hosting, email security, Web security and email archiving. “I posit in the vast majority of times, it’s going to be less expensive to the company to put it in SaaS,” he says.

Salesforce.com’s Coffee states his company also provides for its own smaller needs through SaaS, including payroll, travel, expense reporting, employee performance review and other applications. However, Coffee states these processes were not so much converted to SaaS as had new applications created for them to be used in SaaS.
“That’s often, and by far, the most valuable impact of introducing Force.com into an enterprise application environment,” he states. “We hear similar stories from customers: that they are not migrating existing applications so much as they are building business processes with unified, efficient integration and data re-use.”

For those looking for straight conversions, however, it is largely a data transfer process to convert from on-site applications to SaaS. Carraro and Chong state this can be done through outfitting the SaaS application with the data from the on-site applications, configuring the SaaS application to use part of its data from on-site to function or vice versa.

Stevens says conversions to SaaS tend to be simple to do. The longest part of the process is archiving or doing backups, especially for something like an email archive or a database, but setting up SaaS itself is a quick process. “We can set that up literally in hours,” he said.

Coffee adds that above all, when trying to convert an enterprise application to SaaS, it is best to use sources that can be provided for by other companies when possible, but also look toward being innovative and improving the processes it has, instead of just doing a straight conversion to SaaS. “Don’t think that this is something you should only use for experiments and pilot projects,” Coffee states. “Real systems should be built on this model today so they’ll be ready to scale up rapidly as the next business cycle gathers momentum.”

The Time Is Ripe for Private Clouds in the Public Sector

By: ecommercetimes.com

As standards for privacy and security mature in the cloud, cloud computing will only expand in the public sector. Success will depend on the technology being used. Cloud computing providers and the current administration hope to change the late-adopter dynamic and prove that the government can change with the times and provide a more efficient, scalable, and reliable solution.

[Read More and Discuss]

Next Page »