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OwnCloud: Build your own or manage your public cloud storage services

October 12, 2012 | Author: admin

Summary: If you want a cloud of your own, ownCloud makes it easier than ever to build a private cloud of your own and you can also use it to manage your use of public cloud storage services, such as Amazon S3, Box, and DropBox.

Want a do-it-youself private, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud? Want a way to unify all your corporate cloud storage services? Then ownCloud has new open-source software for both your business and personal use.

In the newly released version, ownCloud 4.50, the company claims that this release comes with "significantly faster upload, download and sync of files even very large files -- a re-factored sharing engine, greater and more granular administrative control, and greater integration with popular business tools, ownCloud 2012 Business and ownCloud 2012 Enterprise give companies the security and control they need while providing end users the flexibility and ease of use they demand."

The key difference between ownCloud and such popular cloud storage serves as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box, which store your data at remote third-party data centers is that you get to pick where ownCloud stores your data. You can deploy it by itself on your own servers or you can seamlessly integrate it with other cloud-storage services such as the aforementioned services or others such as Amazon. S3 Thus, you can use ownCloud with its security, storage, monitoring and reporting tools to manage not only your own private cloud storage, but those from multiple other cloud storage services as well.

Specifically, "Administrators can now mount external cloud storage (Dropbox, Google, Swift, S3, etc.) and decide whether it is to be accessible by the entire user population, a group, or a specific user. Users can now do the same, providing the first ever file sync and share capability across multiple cloud services, using ownCloud as the single point of access." I don't know about you, but that alone sounds like a really handy feature to me.

The program also comes with new additional new features, The start with sub-admins for groups. This gives administrators "the ability to assign a sub-administrator to a group to handle account management." The program also now boasts fast desktop syncing, which is said to "reduce server load and enhances the sync algorithm for a faster, quicker, better sync with far less load on the server." It also now includes more granular permissions so end users can determine who can do what with shared data. The new user-management back ends also enable you to authenticate against remote WebDAV, IMAP, Samba and FTP servers. You can also use ownCloud with LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and AD (Active Directory). Finally, the program now comes with enhanced logging. This gives you a complete and auditable history for each file on the server. On the purely fun side, ownCloud also provides HTML5 compatible video streaming.

As before, ownCloud is offered under an AGPL (Affero General Public License) open-source program. AGPL is a version of the GPL designed for network server software.

OwnCloud is a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) program. Besides MySQL, you can also use SQLite or PostgreSQ for the database management system. The commercial versions of ownCloud, the Business, Enterprise and Education Editions, can also use Oracle as the back-end database. These versions also includes a logging module for logging of file-related actions, logs, who accessed what, when and from where and dynamic user storage: With this, your users get the storage they need without any "one-size-fits-all storage."

Companies world-wide are beginning to realize that in order to better control the data that employees are sending in and out of their enterprise, they need more than an iPad app and third-party storage, said Markus Rex, ownCloud's CEO in a statement. ownCloud provides companies the software they need to retain control while giving end users a user-friendly, device-independent way to get their job done.

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CenturyLink Unveils Cloud Product

October 12, 2012 | Author: admin

One of the leading telecom service providers, CenturyLink, Inc. (CTL) introduced its new cloud computing product, Savvisdirect. The new launch is designed for the enterprise class and offers affordable and simplified cloud solutions. The product will be commercially available by the end of this year.

The key advantage of this product is that it can be used by any small medium or large enterprise. Users can quickly access the Savvisdirect services through paying via credit card. A host of cloud solutions are being offered through Savvisdirect, which the clients can choose as per their requirements. To compliment the product offer, CenturyLink is providing service-level agreements along with round- the clock support.

We believe that the CenturyLink is gaining significant momentum in the enterprise market with the introduction of Savvis product lines. The acquisition of Savvis has not only resulted in revenue accretion but also expanded CenturyLinks reach beyond conventional market of core local phone business.

Over the past years, CenturyLinks phone business has registered a constant decline. This is evident from the consistent decline in its access lines on an organic basis. The reason behind this is the displacement of traditional wireline telephone services by wireless and other competitive offerings. Further, soft economic conditions in the companys service territory also continue to contribute to the cascading effect.

Although the company is working on a number of initiatives to curtail the access line losses, it remains far from realizing much of the benefits that would support its business growth. Meanwhile, the company has gained from industry consolidation of profitable acquisitions Qwest and Savvis.

Coming back to Savvis, the acquisition of this company is well marked in CenturyLinks entry into the cloud computing business, which is growing by leaps and bounds. CenturyLink currently, has expanded its footprint in the hosting managed cloud services business to 50 data centers in North America, Europe and Asia.

The company continues to expand data centers this year with a view to generating higher revenue growth in managed hosting and cloud services. These acquisitions bequeathed several additional benefits like greater scale of operations and increasing productivity, and providing the company with a competitive edge over larger peers like AT&T, Inc. (T) and Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ).

However, stiff competition from other low cost telecom operators like LEAP Wireless International Inc. (LEAP) and increased operating expenses resulting from the acquisitions may impede the companys growth trajectory.

We maintain our long-term Neutral recommendation on CenturyLink. The stock has a Zacks#2 Rank, implying a short-term (1-3 months) Buy rating.

Read the Full Research Report on VZ

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C2C Maximizes eMail Archiving Flexibility and Control With Support for the Hybrid Cloud

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

WESTBOROUGH, MA--(Marketwire - Oct 11, 2012) - C2C, a leading provider of email, file and messaging management solutions, today announced that its ArchiveOne Enterprise email archiving and management platform now provides centralized support for private and hybrid cloud storage services. As a result, companies focused on optimized eDiscovery, data preservation, and disposition can benefit from a comprehensive email archiving solution that features dynamic and consistent policy enforcement for data that's live, residing in Exchange or archived on premise as well as archived data stored in the cloud.

"Archiving is an ideal application to benefit from the advantages of the hybrid cloud, especially if policies can be uniformly enforced across all data sources, including live data, locally retained data and data that has been deployed to the cloud for lower cost management," said Sheila Childs, managing vice president, Gartner. "When consistent policies and eDiscovery processes can be run across all data sources, then you achieve optimum benefits in flexibility, cost savings and control."

ArchiveOne Enterprise uniquely centralizes the management and control of all email data, regardless of whether it is retained on premise or in the cloud. This enables IT to continue to manage data at the source to enforce retention and compliance without having to move it all to the cloud to perform policy enforcement. The ArchiveOne Enterprise model minimizes cloud security concerns by giving IT control over the software implementation and access.Most importantly, ArchiveOne Enterprise enables comprehensive searches across all data sources and provides rapid response to discovery requests on live and archived data.This eliminates the need to discover across disparate environments, reducing both time and cost.

When Chris D'Orazi of Central Garden and Pet needed to alleviate a storage burden on Exchange without sacrificing historical data, ArchiveOne Enterprise was able to solve his problem.Lacking the physical space to implement an on-premise email archiving solution, he considered a cloud solution but did not want to be locked in.

"ArchiveOne Enterprise Cloud provides us with the best of both worlds -- the elasticity of the cloud with the freedom and flexibility of an on-premise solution," said D'Orazi. "The on-premise server provides policy control of live and archive data, while the cloud storage options provide unlimited archive storage." D'Orazi also notes that C2C has "a proven track record of success" where many of the cloud providers are new and do not have the years of experience that C2C offers.

C2C's ArchiveOne has been designed for the "real world" where email data may reside on Exchange servers as well as network file servers and end user systems, and, where it is not feasible to archive all email data before enforcing retention or searching messages. This "real world" approach separates ArchiveOne Enterprise from the competition because it aligns with IT organizations and drives efficiency into their daily activities -- rather than change them.

With its support for hybrid cloud environments, ArchiveOne Enterprise allows users to maintain control of their email archive while leveraging their own cloud accounts, such as Amazon's S3, as their cloud storage infrastructure without feature restrictions.

"Hybrid cloud environments can deliver impressive advantages for achieving high scalability and reliability at a low cost," said Dave Hunt, CEO, C2C. "ArchiveOne provides customers with the optimum set-up for on-premise data management that encompasses security, flexibility and ease-of-use all behind the firewall and enables them to benefit from hybrid cloud storage to achieve lower cost of storage. It's 'real world' archiving using 'new world' technology in the cloud."

A live online demonstration, references from ArchiveOne users, and a 30-day trial are available at: http://us.c2c.com/resources.

About C2C C2C Systems has earned the trust of its four million software users since 1992 by consistently delivering high-value, dependable core messaging system enhancements. Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Windows File Server form the heart of C2C's commercial and governmental customers' businesses worldwide. C2C's ArchiveOne product family is the trusted choice for email and file archiving, eDiscovery, compliance management, legal forensics and storage management tools to enhance these platforms. For more information about the Company, visit http://www.c2c.com.

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Online-Storage.com is Now SIO.CO

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) October 11, 2012

Enterprise online storage software and hardware provider, Online-Storage.com has officially rebranded to SIO.CO. Intending to improve brand memorability and its internet presence, the company has moved from the domain Online-Storage.com to the more memorable SIO.CO. The companys offerings, vision and growth prospects remain intact, but the business intends to run a much more strategic web presence as witnessed by the latest adjustment.

We feel that having a five character domain will be much easier for branding, top-of-mind recognition and overall search engine effectiveness, says online storage sales engineer Stein Chu. Its a strategic move which we feel is congruent with a more long-term vision for the company, says Chu. Its much easier to direct some of our most tech-savvy customers to a short domain, than having them attempt to remember our previous web address.

SIO.COs software is a leap forward in cloud infrastructure and design. It seeks to eliminate many of the headaches involved in current cloud and magnetic tape backup solutions. The software allows for intense media rendering, online-based video encoding, big data backup solutions, thin provisioning and full scalability of pooled resources. Most importantly, its built with the generalist in mind, meaning most lower-level IT personnel are able to operate the system without extensive lower-level understanding and intense training. Its an out-of-the-box turnkey solution for the SMB, says Chu.

In addition, the companys software is able to operate on almost any commodity hardware, making the entry price point a bit more palpable for small business owners who may already have invested in server hardware. The software supports iSCSI for 1 and 10GbE for Linux, Windows XP,7, 2003 Server, 2008 Server, Hyper-V, VMWare ESX/ESXi, XenServer and Mac OSX. The software even supports server virtualization further expanding the use and maximization of limited resources.

Finally, cloud and hosted versions are also available, allowing even smaller operations to expand and pay on an as-needed basis without needing to invest in expensive hardware and potentially limited and eventually out-of-date software. Weve tried to think of just about every cloud computing need which may arise so the features match the needs our customers have and will continue to demand, says Chu. Weve created a robust solution for a growing market.

For more information, please visit http://sio.co/

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Cloud storage outage strikes Macquarie Telecom

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

Macquarie Telecom customers suffered a cloud storage outage and some are still experiencing problems, the company has confirmed. Macquarie plans to give rebates to affected customers.

Over the last 48 hours, 65 customers have experienced network outages that have left them unable to access cloud storage, Macquarie managing director of hosting, Aidan Tudehope, said in a statement.

Our technicians have been working around the clock to identify and fix the issue, and the majority of customers were back online within 12 hours.

Macquarie expects to restore service to the remaining eight customers today, Tudehope said.

We are still working on a detailed analysis of the cause of the outage but can confirm that it relates to a Storage Area Network at our Intellicentre 1, Tudehope said.

We deeply regret the disruption caused to our customers, he said. All affected customers will receive a rebate on their bill for the period of the outage. Our service managers, CEO and myself have proactively communicated throughout with all affected customers, and we will continue to update them on the progress of remediation works.

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Chinese Want to Put Computer 'Brains' in the Cloud

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

Millions of people use cloud computing without knowing it, by watching videos, sharing photos or using social media online services such as YouTube, Gmail, Flickr and Facebook all depend on it. But could a cloud operating system become the brains for a new generation of mobile gadgets and household devices?

A cloud-based operating system being developed in Beijing would be the equivalent of running Windows or Mac OS online rather than booting it up from a computer's hard drive. That means just an online connection would be needed to turn any "dumb" device with a very basic computer system into a smart computing device whether that device is a tablet, a smartphone, a refrigerator, a washing machine or a factory robot.

The Chinese "TransOS" system is being developed by Yaoxue Zhang and Yuezhi Zhou of Tsinghua University. A device using TransOS would need a minimal amount of computer code to start up and connect to the Internet. More details are expected in an upcoming special issue of the International Journal of Cloud Computing.

"The TransOS manages all the networked and virtualized hardware and software resources, including traditional OS, physical and virtualized underlying hardware resources, and enables users [to] select and run any service on demand," Zhang and Zhou said in a statement.

Google has attempted to create a simple operating system for the cloud through its Chrome OS an online operating system that mostly looks like an Internet browser but also could run a no-frills computer. The Chinese effort is much more ambitious; it would essentially create a virtual version of a fully functional operating system.

A cloud operating system would come with new security concerns. Hackers already have demonstrated that practically anything online can be compromised, whether it's an individual iTunes user account or Sony's PlayStation Network. A second danger is that storing a computer's brains and data online can leave users dependent on the whims of the hosting company ? even of a hypothetical "nanny state" government.

Either way, the idea isn't likely to take off until users can rest assured that their mobile computing devices and smart gadgets won't lose their high-speed Internet connections.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. You can follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.

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Will the cloud be the end of the IT department?

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

October 11, 2012, 6:00 AM PDT

Takeaway: Thoran Rodrigues looks at the ways that the cloud is likely to change the nature of the IT department and the roles that it serves.

One of the great promises that cloud vendors make is that the adoption of cloud computing greatly reduces IT costs for any company. A crucial part of this promise, that you can find on most cloud cost calculators available on the web, is the reduction in manpower costs. If you host a server internally, you need a System Administrator to manage that server; if you hire a virtual server with the same specifications from a public cloud provider, you dont need anyone, and whatever you were going to pay that person becomes cost savings. This naturally leads us to the following question: Will cloud computing be the end of the conventional IT department?

If we follow the vendors logic to its final conclusion, we would end up in a situation where the only place where one could find infrastructure (server, networking, even operating systems) management jobs would be with the cloud infrastructure providers themselves. These crucial areas of IT would essentially disappear over time, as jobs became more and more scarce. The idea of not needing IT is a double-edged sword: on one hand, business users, especially those that have a poor relationship with IT, find this very appealing, and use it as a big reason to promote the cloud; on the other hand, it generates resistance from IT departments, who understand that the whole idea of not needing anyone is just a myth.

Several of the assumptions people make about cloud servers are simply not true, and some are actually being actively denied by cloud vendors. Backup is one such assumption. Many people still assume that cloud servers are automatically backed up, dont set up any kind of backup scheme, and end up losing a lot of data. The fact is that cloud providers dont perform any kind of automated backup unless you explicitly ask them to do so, which is something most users forget to do.

Security management is another issue. Its easy to think that, since your server is hosted on someone elses infrastructure, theyll worry about all the security matters for you, but nothing could be further from the truth. When you hire a cloud server, most cloud providers will deliver a virtual server with some sort of remote connection enabled. This means that, unless you set your server up behind some sort of firewall or with protection rules, it is basically open to attack from outside as soon as it goes up. While I dont have any stats on this point, Ive seen some servers I set up with FTP access being attacked less than five minutes after going on-line.

This means that having someone from IT managing your servers, even the hosted ones, can be very important. Sure, you can do it yourself, but then youre in the same position as if youd been trying to manage an internal data center yourself. The fact is that, for most people, a cloud server is just like an internal server, only it gets stored somewhere else. This means you need a systems administrator just as you would on any other server.

Cloud apps are, in a sense, even more problematic. With whom does responsibility for the environment reside? What happens if a user accidentally deletes important data or a user account gets broken into? Proper management of passwords, backup policies, access control strategies, and other issues is even more important. Solution providers limit their responsibility to making your data available at the predefined SLA; they say absolutely nothing about backing your data up, or being able to restore it later. The same goes for managing users and passwords: the responsibility is entirely on the hands of the user. If all your accounts are configured with default or weak passwords, youre running a real risk of someone invading them and stealing sensitive data.

As more and more data moves to cloud apps, they are becoming interesting targets, and attacks will take an upward trend. This means that, more than ever, you need IT people to manage your cloud application environment, just as you needed people to manage your infrastructure.

The cloud, then, does not threaten IT jobs, nor does it reduce the importance of IT departments. If anything, the short-term trend is an increase in importance as users realize that they need the help of IT to manage the complex server and application environments that are being created ad-hoc in their rush to move to the cloud.

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Edgewebhosting’s CloudPlus Service Attains VMware vCloud® Powered Validation

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

Edgewebhosting Inc., announces its CloudPlus managed cloud hosting service has achieved VMware vCloud Powered status

Baltimore, MD (PRWEB) October 11, 2012

We are excited to join the VMware vCloud Powered program and are committed to providing our customers the performance, security and application portability they require to maximize the effectiveness of cloud computing, said Michael Altman, Chief Operating Officer.

The VMware vCloud Powered program was developed to enable our service provider partners to differentiate themselves and help them bring their enterprise-class cloud services to market in this competitive landscape, said Michael McDonough, Vice President of North America Service Provider Program, VMware. We look forward to supporting Edge Web Hosting further as it delivers on the agility and performance customers are looking for in the cloud computing landscape.

Customers of Edgewebhosting have the ability to move workloads from their VMware vSphere-based virtualized or private cloud environment to the VMware vCloud Powered service and back again. This application portability is a key differentiator allowing customers to achieve the flexibility and security they need while enabling increased IT agility.

About Edge Web Hosting

An innovative provider specializing managed hosting solutions, Edge Web Hosting delivers customers 100% uptime with a staff dedicated to 24/7 monitoring. Among the companys services are cloud, dedicated and cluster hosting, colocation and more. Edge Web Hosting exceeds customer expectations by providing no surprise pricing, ensuring that monthly bills stay free of unexpected charges. Hosting from the company is compliant with industry standards in the areas of PCI, SAS70, HIPAA, FISMA and SSAE16. For more information on Edge Web Hosting, please visit: http://www.edgewebhosting.net/

VMware, VMware vCloud, VMware vCloud Director and VMware vSphere are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word partner or partnership does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

Marketing Department feedback@edgewebhosting.net 410-246-8800 Email Information

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Dedicated Server or Cloud Hosting Solution? Veber Talks About Making the Best Business Choice

October 11, 2012 | Author: admin

With the wrangle between Dedicated Server and Cloud Hosting changing the landscape of UK business hosting, how are businesses to choose which is right for them? As discussed in Computer Weekly's recent article, where are the confidence killers? UK ISP Veber shares expert opinion from the Veber Knowledge Base on what to consider when making a business hosting decision.

Watford, UK (PRWEB UK) 11 October 2012

The theme of whether a Dedicated Server or Cloud hosting solution is a business best choice is an interesting one not least because many of the technical elements that make up a cloud environment are actually in fact made up of dedicated servers. Vebers Knowledge Base, set up to address just such issues as this, informs that a dedicated server is supplied and installed precisely to the customer's specification with all the power of that piece of equipment dedicated to that customer; with a cloud infrastructure the resources are shared out, but the benefits come with the scalability and features such as high availability (HA) and distributed resource management (Veber use VMWare DRS).

James Robinson is Vebers Operations Manager. He supports the benefits of Cloud hosting by stating that a Cloud hosting infrastructure has many, many benefits to business. Features such as high availability, scalability and snapshots mean that system administrators dont even have to get up from their seats to upgrade systems. Compare this to a traditional dedicated server environment where any hardware changes require a visit to the data centre by an engineer. Such an overview supports the fact that both Dedicated Server and Cloud Hosting environments have technical advantages and disadvantages.

James addresses another interesting question: We get asked why anyone would use dedicated servers nowadays if the cloud is theoretically so much better on so many levels? Just like cloud hosting has its fortes, dedicated servers have theirs. They are what they say they are dedicated which means you get everything that the server can provide. If your dedicated server has 8 GB of RAM, you get it all. Dual 6 core Intel CPUs with hyper threading? You get that too, with no restrictions on usage like you may do with a cloud hosting solution.

The team at Veber also point out that there are scenarios in which certain types of server are preferable. For example, a high performance database in a cloud environment is not ideal because cloud servers use shared storage which is often transmitted over a storage network. This is where the limitations of finite resources and speed come into play and where a Dedicated Server environment with high performance disks would come into its own. On the other hand, a scalable Cloud hosting solution will guarantee uptime for a web application with spikes and troughs of usage.

To conclude, when wanting to make the best business choice between a Dedicated Server and a Cloud Hosting scenario the bottom line is that its really down to the application. Researching information such as that available on Veber's Knowledge Base will provide the starting point of definitions, concerns, benefits and costs of different solutions but ultimately what really matters is achieving the customer's selected business objectives. Entering into a conversation with a hosting provider will reveal answers to concerns such as specification,security, credibility and data ownership. The label given to the potential hosting solution required is perhaps less important.

Veber

Unit 13 Shakespeare Industrial Estate

Watford

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