Articles

 Despite my shaky prediction performance in 2011, I'm going to try again.

 "In another five years the cloud will be so ubiquitous we'll be focusing on certain pieces of technology within the cloud, whether it's the applications, the infrastructure or the communities," notes Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource, in this SYS-CON.TV interview with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan at the 9th International Cloud Expo, held Nov 7-10, 2011, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Ryan also discusses security in the cloud, best practices and more.

 If you think cloud computing is a disruptive force within the enterprise, just imagine what the cloud is doing to the vendor landscape.

 OpSource earlier this year was acquired by global solution provider power Dimension Data, which is integrating OpSource into its Cloud Solutions Business Unit in a stab at becoming a global cloud superpower. OpSource’s maestro is Ryan, who through everything from OpSource’s Validated Cloud Solutions Program to its robust offerings for ISVs, carriers and cloud providers, is one of the cloud channel’s go-to guys, thought leaders and prime movers.  

 Jon has held positions of increasing responsibility with companies such as Critical Path, Netcom (acquired by EarthLink), Global Center (acquired by Exodus), and Genuity (acquired by Level 3 Communications) and most recently as Chief Operating Officer at Pandora Networks, a leading VoIP messaging company where he managed marketing, sales and field support in the U.S. and U.K. Prior to joining Pandora Networks, he founded the consulting firm Top Bunk Consulting, providing sales, marketing and operations consulting services to, among others, Click Commerce and Aurema. Jon earned his BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.

 OpSource is giving customers a way to avoid hefty software licensing fees with its launch of OpSource Cloud Software, which packages popular Microsoft and Oracle products in a pay-per-drink model. 

 NEW YORK -- Ethernet Expo Americas 2011 -- For service providers thinking about getting into the cloud services market, Keao Caindec, chief marketing officer at OpSource Ltd. has a message: "It's really hard to do this." 

 This Week in Cloud, November 10, 2011: NIST releases ‘Bible of cloud implementation,’ BestBuy acquires mindShift, Rackspace extends support services for OpenStack clouds, RSA & McAfree cloud security announcements, Are I&O pros from Venus and developers f

 Summary: OpSource has take the utility billing model and applied it to the proprietary software that runs on cloud infrastructure.

 OpSource, now part of the larger Dimension Data, has cut a deal with Oracle and Microsoft to offer Oracle's vaunted Database and Microsoft's equally prized SQL Server and SharePoint software at what looks like cheap pay-for-use hourly and monthly pricing.

 One of the more confounding aspects of cloud computing is that software pricing is frequently out of sync with the way hardware is acquired. IT organizations can easily pay for hardware on an hourly, monthly or yearly basis. Software pricing, on the other hand, has generally remained tied to the number of processors being used on a yearly basis.

 Current change and configuration management tools lack the intelligent analytics required to translate change and configuration data into critical support information. Evolven is set to alter this with the introduction of a new SaaS (News - Alert) based Change Monitoring service that claims to have dramatically altered change and configuration management for the modern data center and the cloud.

 THINKstrategies, the Cloud Computing Showplace and Rising Tide Media today announced that Amy Anderson of IBM's Cloud Computing Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and Developer Relations Partner Program has joined the list of Cloud Channel Summit keynote speakers, which already includes executives from Google Enterprise, Salesforce.com and Dell (News - Alert) Boomi. The conference will focus on the emerging channel opportunities in the Cloud Computing market and will take place on Monday, Nov. 7, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.