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This Week in Cloud, November 17, 2011: CA Cloud 360, Cloud Commons Developer Studio & Marketplace, Oracle releases Solaris 11. Is cloud security better than we think? And more…

Cloud News

  • CA Technologies announced new cloud solutions to help businesses be more agile and to accelerate the adoption of cloud services. CA Cloud 360 helps companies validate and select which applications and business services are best suited for private, public and hybrid clouds. Read this Silicon.com article for more detail. The company also introduced a new release of CA Automation Suite for Clouds, adding support for additional cloud platforms, and introduced two new identity and access management cloud solutions to its CA CloudMinder™family of IAM-as-a-service offerings. This article in Network World provides more insight on the new CA CloudMinder offerings.
  • CA Technologies also introduced enhancements to the Cloud Commons® ecosystem this week, including the Cloud Commons Marketplace for comparing, procuring and selling subscription-based cloud services. The new Cloud Commons Developer Studio provides developers and independent software vendors free access to CA AppLogic® grids so they can plan, build and test cloud-based software projects. Read more about what’s new in this blog on CA.com and be sure to check out these new enhancements at www.cloudcommons.com.
  • Oracle announced the release of Solaris 11, which it calls the first cloud operating system. The operating system represents the foundation of the future Sparc systems business that Oracle hopes to rebuild. For more detail, read this article in The Register.
  • Symantec introduced Instant Messaging Security.cloud, a SaaS offering that supports Microsoft Lync users and helps address security and compliance issues related to instant messaging platforms. Read this eWeek Europe article for more.
  • RightScale is adding OpenStack and SoftLayer to the list of cloud services that can be managed from its RightScale cloud management platform, according to this Network World article.
  • HP privately introduced a cloud service based on the VMware Cloud Foundry platform to some testers earlier this fall, according to this Wired article. Wired points out that a year and a half ago, HP had announced plans to offer a cloud service based on Microsoft’s Windows Azure, and that that service offering is not yet available. HP plans to officially unveil its cloud services in the spring.
  • Enterprise IT spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa will grow by just 2.3% according to Gartner, after a drop in spending of 1.4% in 2011, according to Gartner research cited in this Computer Weekly article.

Feature article

Emptor Scire (Buyer Aware)

By George Watt, CA Technologies

As I prepared for an upcoming CA World panel discussion on consumer-driven IT, my thoughts took a 90 degree turn. While I had primarily been thinking about the implications of consumer-driven IT, I had paused to consider that it is also a challenge IT teams have had to address "forever". So I began to think about what might be different about the current change wave we are calling "consumerization" or "consumer-driven IT" and similar demands consumers made to their IT groups many years ago. Certainly there must be some differences. If not, would we not have addressed it many years ago? And if we understand those differences can we better respond to today's consumer-driven IT challenges?

So, as the plane I was on while contemplating this began its descent, here are a few of the differences I was able to think of. Read the full article.

Cloud Views

  • Is cloud security better than we think? J. Nicholas Hoover explores this question in this Information Week article, citing many senior technology officials in government who believe that clouds are actually more secure than conventional IT environments.
  • This Channelnomics article titled ‘Former US CIO: Cloud will disrupt pro services’ describes the point of view Vivek Kundra shared in a keynote at CA World this week.
  • Federated cloud strategies: what CIOs need to know. This Network World article identifies some cloud trends (for example, that IT organizations are responding to unexpected competition from public cloud providers by web-enabling their own internal infrastructure) and then discusses federation issues between private clouds, between public clouds and between private and public clouds.
  • In this Wired article, Jon Stokes writes about why the cloud will bring the app store revolution to enterprise IT.

MSP Corner

  • This CRN article titled ‘Cloud channel opportunities abound, if you take them,’ summarizes guidance shared at a recent COMDEXvirtual session titled ‘Cashing in on the cloud’ that featured panelists from THINKstrategies and Market Probe.
  • This CRN article describes changes that CA Technologies is making to its partner program and shares reaction from MSPs that attended CA World this week.
  • Symantec announced that it has updated its backup and security products as well as introduced a new subscription-based software licensing program to help support its Managed Service Provider partner program. This MSPMentor article has more detail.

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Cloud Commons is an independent online community of IT professionals, analysts, technology providers, and industry experts. Members can ask questions, learn from experts, and find the latest cloud-related news. Cloud Commons offers a forum to contribute and discuss best practices and successes, as well as research vendor solutions. Sponsored by CA Technologies, Cloud Commons has been growing steadily since its launch in May of 2010.

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