News

• When it comes to security, keep your head in the clouds

  Australian enterprises may be rushing to embrace cloud computing, but those making the transition must take a proactive approach to infrastructure security that lets them provide consistent information assurance across public, private and hybrid cloud models.

• Dell simplifies the blade server

  Part of Dell's server business is building custom machines for very large customers who want fewer bells and whistles but higher computing density and lower power consumption. The Dell PowerEdge C6220 is a server the company has brought out of this custom arena and into its regular sales channels. It is the second in a new series of servers that combines internal storage and two or four two-socket "nodes" (aka sleds or blades) wrapped up in a highly efficient 2RU package.

• SMEs making leap to private Cloud

  Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are jumping on board private Cloud, according to Pieter DeGunst, director of ICT consultancy Tecala.

• Terremark launches private cloud edition

  Some enterprise customers just aren't comfortable throwing their data into a public cloud environment, says Ellen Rubin, vice president of cloud products for Terremark, which is owned by Verizon.

• Latisys: Customers want off-premises private clouds

  The public cloud doesn't work for everyone, says Pete Stevenson, CEO of Latisys, a cloud, managed hosting and colocation service provider that announced an expansion of its offerings and facilities today.

• Piston Cloud has made the tough private cloud decisions for you

  Joshua McKenty, co-founder and chief executive officer of Piston Cloud, what he calls The Enterprise OpenStack Company, was in on the ground floor of OpenStack's creation, working as he was on the Anso Labs team at NASA to build a compute cloud on top of open source platform Eucalyptus. The team eventually gave up on that and wrote Nova, which NASA uses today to power its Nebula Cloud environment, and Nova was ultimately contributed to the OpenStack project, which it formed with Rackspace. McKenty left NASA after Anso was acquired by Rackspace in 2010, and formed Piston Cloud in 2011 with co-founders Gretchen Curtis (also of NASA) and Christopher MacGown of Rackspace. Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently caught up with McKenty for a deep dive on why OpenStack matters and where Piston Cloud fits in.

• Siemens launches new VoIP/UC platform, says it has earned another look

  Siemens Enterprise Communications, which has been rebuilding itself here in the U.S. for the past several years, will punctuate the idea that it deserves another look with the announcement Monday of Version 7.0 of its OpenScape UC suite that enables the VoIP platform to support up to 500,000 users.

• Choose the right chargeback solution for greater cloud cost savings

  This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

• NetApp's Tom Georgens: How we got big, stayed nimble, and view storage today

  Those of us with a bit of institutional memory recall a brash upstart named Network Appliance that burst onto the storage scene to challenge EMC -- itself once a brash newcomer -- and other storage royalty like IBM. But that was 20 years ago, as difficult as that seems to believe, and the company, now named NetApp, is $5 billion-plus storage leader in its own right.

• 2011: When cloud computing shook the data center

  If I had to sum up in one word the most exciting thing that happened to cloud computing in 2011, I'd have to say it's OpenStack. This open source project, launched by Rackspace and NASA in late 2010, is assembling a private cloud "operating system" for the data center that promises vast increases in operational efficiency. The momentum behind it is phenomenal; at last count, 144 companies back the project, including Cisco, Citrix, Dell, HP, and Intel.

• EMC works to boost acceptance of public and private clouds

  EMC has tied its fortunes to the future of cloud computing and is working hard to change the hearts and minds of IT executives so they will embrace the same vision, according to the firm's chief marketing officer.

• IT investment up in 2011: IDC

  Investing in new hardware and software has been the number one priority for IT managers and chief information officers in 2011 for the first time in five years, according to a new IDC Australia report.

• First look: VMware vSphere 5 looms large

  As we rapidly approach yet another VMworld conference and the general release of VMware vSphere 5, it's clear that VMware hasn't been resting on its laurels. The newest version of vSphere builds on the strong foundations of vSphere 4.1, showcasing new management and automation features and levels of scalability.

• Aussie Cloud adoption can be accelerated with BizCloud

  Australian businesses looking to move to the Cloud may experience shorter implementation times following the launch of BizCloud, an on-premise private Cloud service from business technology provider, CSC.

• Hyundai goes all virtual, desktops next target

  Virtualisation is still growing strong among IT departments, but at the Australian operations of Hyundai cars, the company is running a 100 per cent virtual infrastructure and the IT head is liking the lack of support calls.