Virtualization Strategies News, Analysis, White Papers and Case Studies on Virtualization Software and Hardware Strategies

IBM introduces its cloud computing portfolio this week and showcased a few partners and customers. Big Blue’s cloud strategy remains focused on the enterprise; so you can’t pay by the minute with credit cards, like you can with Amazon Web Services and other general purpose cloud offerings.

For enterprise IT, cloud computing promises dramatically better ease of use, economies of scale and much greater flexibility in sourcing and adapting to change. The technologies comprising cloud computing - virtualization, SOA, Software as a Service, are technologies that IBM claims to have invented or are least, well-known for excelling in. IBM intends to help its clients and partners realize their cloud computing goals in three principle ways:

• Build their own cloud environments for internal and external use
• Deliver cloud services and software to be consumed by clients and partners directly
• Build an ecosystem of developers, partners, vendors and universities to further cloud computing and standards adoption

The partnership and strategy include: Read More…

Posted under Cloud Computing, Virtualization News, Virtualization Products / Reviews

There has been a lot said this year about cloud computing. One could say the the whole subject is “a little cloudy.” This video from rPath does a great job of explaining cloud computing in plain english. It’s only 5 minutes long and worth your time if your trying to understand the connection between cloud computing and virtulaization. It also does a great job contrasting cloud computing with Software as a Service or SaaS.

I like the analogy of SaaS being like buying a car, where Virtualization is more like leasing a car and Cloud Computing is like having a taxi at your service. If you see other useful video’s like this please comment below or send me a link. Thanks!

Posted under Cloud Computing, Data Center Virtualization, SaaS, Virtualization Video

North Carolina State University and IBM today announced plans to provide every student in North Carolina access to advanced educational resources through NC State’s Virtual Computing Lab (VCL), a cloud computing-based technology. Through this cloud - which is a set of Internet-based resources - students at K-12 schools, colleges around the state and the University of North Carolina system campuses themselves will have access to the most advanced educational materials, select software applications and computing and storage resources. NC State also announced that the code for its VCL technology is available through the Apache open source community for free, and is in discussions with a number of universities across the globe that wish to replicate this cloud computing model.

In support of this effort, the NC State Department of Computer Science and Office of Information Technology announced the creation of a Center of Excellence in Cloud Computing, an applied research and development facility on the NC State campus that that will spearhead collaboration projects between NC State and the IBM “Blue Cloud” development team, helping improve the quality of education provided through the VCL platform and ensure reliability.

Read More…

Posted under Cloud Computing, Virtualization Case Studies, Virtualization News

Growth in virtualization has increased adoption of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, with “three-quarters of organizations” believing that “server virtualization will drive adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)” in the future. This according to survey of 100 IT directors commissioned from Vanson Bourne by web hosting firm Hostway.

The study found that the lack of available virtualization technologies had held back the uptake of SaaS products. Prior to the emergence of virtualization technologies, service providers faced a number of difficulties around offering SaaS affordably and reliably as an outsourced business service. Read More…

Posted under Cloud Computing, SaaS, Virtualization Strategies